Under the heading "This could get weird," Marshall writes:
Listening to a story from a friend this evening. Guy in a social setting talking to a group of Wall Street heavyweights. Every single one in the room certain Romney wins. Has Ohio locked. Has the whole thing tied up. No doubt.
And that's it. But it's enough to unnerve, is it not?
Most of the final polling shows Obama opening up or expanding upon a lead, and yet some conservative bloggers are sounding a triumphalist "got it in the bag" theme. Their lack of worry has me worried.
I'm also bugged by the outlier polls from GOP-friendly firms which show Romney ahead or even-steven in places like Pennsylvania and Minnesota, even though all other polls show a comfortable Obama lead. Biased polling is a factor in American politics, but such reports usually show up earlier in the cycle. In the final stretch of the final stretch, polling firms usually try to get real.
Incidentally, one of the above links goes to WizBang, where Doug Johnson argues that Romney will win because 59% of Independents will vote Republican. Johnson ignores one of the odder aspects of this election -- many conservatives have shed the "R" identifier. Registered Republicans are down to only 24-25 percent of the electorate, while Dems are at 32 percent and Independents are at 38, an all-time high.
The interesting question is this: Have the non-R conservatives escaped the confines of the party because they think modern Republicans politicians are too extreme? Or has the GOP label lost its allure because the candidates are not extreme enough?
At any rate, the difference between 32% D and 24% R explains why there are more right-leaning Indys. It also explains why the polls allegedly "skewed" in favor of Team D aren't really skewed at all.
13 comments:
I will wait until Wednesday to make such a determination. The fact is the GOP doesn't need to commit fraud anymore; they own Obama.
Hoping that's just confirmation bias at work, from an insulated media environment they live in.
XI
All this rah-rah at the end from the GOP could, in fact, be about the humongous amount of money thrown at this election. How do you explain a loss after the Wall Street boys and major CEOs threw in big bucks for a Romney win? How does Rove et al defend their ad buys against a candidate [Obama] who was suppose to rollover for 'any' Republican candidate, the Anyone But Obama crowd.
Interesting that the 'Sandy' excuse is getting more and more play, how the storm broke the Romentum [which I thought was overblown to begin with].
I can understand people distrusting polls, individual polls that appear all over the place. That's why I give particular credence to someone like Nate Silver and others who take all the polls into consideration, crunch the numbers and then formulate probability figures. The Republicans have brushed it all off as snake oil, as they do with math and science in general. Doesn't mean Silver and his cohorts are guaranteed to be correct. But if I were a betting woman, my money would be on cumulative stats, not wishful thinking.
Peggysue
Susan, if they own Obama, they sure complain about him a lot.
On the other hand, I own an ATI graphics card that I'm pretty damned mad at right now...
I remember watching the returns in 2000 when the networks were calling Florida for Gore, there was a live interview of the Bush family. When the interviewer passed along this news, the whole pack of them just smiled.
It all comes down to turnout at this point. Democrats usually turn out for early voting to a much greater degree than Republicans. In most states, I think they're leading this year but I don't if they're ahead of or behind 2008. Here in Colorado, significantly more Republicans than Democrats have voted early. Turnout assumptions are built into most poll samples. Whether those assumptions were valid or not is something we'll find out tomorrow.
Susan, if they own Obama, they sure complain about him a lot
Of course they do - it's a fundraising tactic. It's kind of like Democrats complaining about Republican SCOTUS appointments while voting to confirm each and every one of them (with the exception of Bork and Carswell back in the late Paleolithic). It gets people to open their wallets without the enormous inconvenience of having to do anything.
I should have said the elites rather than the GOP, since they own them, too. In any case, Obama does the GOP's dirty work for them anyway because the Democrats don't put up a stink the way they do with a Republican president.
Bain Capital took seed-money from Iran-contra-linked company owned by Bain director Ricardo Poma.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2012/11/mitt_romneys_tie_to_iran_contr.php
"A Bain spokeswoman said the firm was preparing a statement but later said, 'There has been a change of thinking, and the firm isn't going to provide a statement.'"
Greg Palast has a great piece out about Romney benefiting from the GM bailout.
If the Repubs can guarantee themselves control of the Senate, then they have nothing to fear from another four years of Obama (as if they ever really did have anything to fear from him). So it would make sense that they would steal the necessary Senate races electronically, and let Obama win the WH, let the libs convince themselves that the vote must have been honest because Obama won, and they'd spread confusion by alleging that the Dems tampered with the machines to defeat Romney and that the mainstream polls are rigged.
Romney is an elite, he's one of them, they don't have to own him....Obama -on the other hand, has a mind of his own.
Romney shares their hive mind- so to speak
In any case, they better be careful with any manipulations of the vote, the Senate races will be telling of the votes for President.
Honestly- if Romney is elected, I can't really predict what I will do next- who knows, maybe I will sell my home and leave the country.
Or work with a more organized effort than Occupy Wall Street, but after that failed effort, I am more inclined to leave or get aggressive. Screw them- Bush was a nightmare, but nothing compared to this ass.
kc
Larry Lindsay apparently switched. Backing Obama all the way and switched in the last few days.
Harry
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