Nate Silver, New York Times
For months, the political world has focused attention on some key 2012 battleground states, which seem likely to dictate the outcome of the presidential election. Most notably, the campaigns and their allies have invested heavily in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia.
This week, however, there was a twist. The Romney campaign and its allies -- Karl Rove's attack operation, the Koch brothers, etc. -- announced a new, 11th-hour push into three states where President Obama is favored: Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan. And as Republicans shift attention and resources to these states, Team Obama is doing the same.
There are basically three ways to evaluate the strategy. The first and more generous interpretation is that Romney/Ryan and their friends are feeling so confident about their standing in the other swing states, they've decided to expand the map, hoping to take create new opportunities while pushing Democrats on their heels.
The second is that Romney/Ryan is in trouble, they're struggling in Ohio, and they're scrambling to find new ways to compensate for losing states they need to win.
And third, it's possible that this push into Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan is little more than a half-hearted ruse -- they're not really trying to compete in these states -- and the Republican focus hasn't really changed at all.
Which is the most credible interpretation? Let's take them one at a time.
The first option is awfully hard to believe. Before one can expand the map, one must lock up other swing states, and there's simply no evidence that Romney is a sure thing in Ohio, Florida, and Virginia. Indeed, if Romney felt as if Florida is already a lock, he wouldn't have scheduled three events in the state today.
The second is more plausible. If Obama wins Ohio, Romney will have to make up ground somewhere, and Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan are probably the next best options. But they remain uphill climbs for the GOP candidate -- a Republican hasn't won any of these states since 1988, and despite assurances every cycle since that this time they'll turn these states red, every attempt has come up short.
It's the third that looks the most credible to me. I don't doubt Romney/Ryan would love to win Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan, but there's little evidence they're serious about competing in these states. Republicans have invested in Minnesota, but the sums are small, and seem focused on the state's neighbors -- Wisconsin and Iowa -- than Minnesotans themselves.
Keep an eye on where the ad money is going, but also watch where the candidates are going. For example, has Romney scheduled any events in Minnesota? No. Has Paul Ryan? Yes, but he'll be in the state for about an hour, in between events in Wisconsin. This is not evidence of a real commitment.
I imagine Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan will all be much more competitive than they were four years -- Obama won each of these states by double digits in 2008 -- but with less than a week to go, the map hasn't actually expanded, and the race is still being fought out in the same battlegrounds as last week.
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I'm voting next week, but I haven't been volunteering to go door-to-door. I've donated to Obama, but not to Sen. Stabenow, because she doesn't need the money.
Michigan is not competitive at the presidential or senate level. There are some interesting ballot proposals, and judgeships are on the line. Possibly we can swing the state house and state senate somewhat, and curb the GOP power grab. But this is all down-ballot stuff.
Mitt Romney will not win the state of his birth.
I actually think this is a case of trying to be SEEN as "expanding the map." It's the "logical" thing to do if they believe their own spin that they still have momentum.
Or to re-create some last-minute momentum by tipping the nationwide polls a little more in their favor by advertising to less-saturated media markets.
It's the Republican "Potemkin Presidential Campaign." A facade of strength and purpose, from behind which the stench of flop sweat now approaches that found in a catbox left uncleaned so long the cat comes and dumps in your shoes in protest.
They have too much money to spend in just a few days in just OH, FL, and VA. Won't help them, though.
I'm going with option 3, Mittens knows that he probably won't "win" in those states, but forcing the "other guy" to spend money unnecessarily will at least make Mittens feel a bit more smug about losing!!
Mittens really is a loser and a poor sport!
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012!!
I am going to go out on a limb and say it's number 4 All of the above
If you look at the rolling dysfunction that has been the Romney campaign I think that there are most likely elements of all three strategies running around loose and making up things as they go along.
His campaign people are a loose collection of Party Apparatchiks, kool-aid drinkers, and professional political mercenaries who all see things differently. Which is why they can't seem to stay on message for more than 15 minutes.
That said we may be overestimating their strategy. The problem however is that we may have underestimated a lot of peoples willingness to go along with it.
I read Nate Silver religiously. I've watched every second of every debate. I cling to every nuance in every poll. I pour over the electoral map like it's a bi-colored 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.
When this thing is over, no matter the outcome, the polling post-mortem, what it said at each stage in this contest, will be one of the most analyzed, or over-analyzed, things about this election.
I say this, because what I see is an election cycle with way too much information, no way to make sense of it, creating a polling- and media-driven feeding frenzy for votes.
Internal polling certainly makes sense.
All of the others have an alternative motive of some sort. One of which is to make money for the polling company, and another is to give the MSM something to talk about. Without a perpetual "Close Race", there will be fewer eyeballs to sell to advertisers.
Remember the First Rule: It's all about the Money!
Nate Silver is terrific and fair. Now, there are some right-wingers and pundits at Politico who are attacking him, because he is one of those statisticians who debunked the Mitt-memtum that Mitt Rmoney's campaign, Faux Noise, CNN, Politico and others in the media tried to sell us.
You can also visit the website of Dr. Sam Wang here:
http://election.princeton.edu/
Or that of Dr. Drew Linzer here:
http://votamatic.org/
They are both also terrific.
Next Tuesday, we all MUST go vote to finish up the most deceitful person to ever run for public office in the history of this country, or probably the world. Mitt Rmoney is unfit to lead.
DAY - internal polling certainly makes sense to the campaigns it's done for, but it's not very useful to any outside observer. The problem is that campaigns only release internal polls when it helps their cause, so they have even more of an "alternative motive" than public polls.
>Without a perpetual "Close Race", there will be fewer eyeballs to sell to advertisers.
DING DING DING!
Most important insight into media and elections.
I just read this headline from americablog.com, and would like to know if someone here could confirm the validity of this stuff.
If this true,then i think it'll be fair to compare Romney to Nixon.
Washington Monthly has the story.
This is not fair to Nixon, who may have been a corrupt @!$%#, but who was also wicked smart, and came up out of hardscrabble roots by his own efforts. Romney has the dishonesty down, but he never had to work hard for what he has.
Yes, and Nixon was the last Republican endorsed by The Des Moines Register! How did that work out for them? The story is correct and the comparison is accurate:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/message-i-care.html
Another comparison: Reagan, an actor, heavily promoted by his long time partners in the FBI: See Seth Rosenfeld's new book, Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals and Reagan's Rise to Power.
Comparing Romney to Nixon is like comparing a a 2-bit con artist running a 3-card monte game (Romney) with a long-con artist planning to bring down the entire town (Nixon). Although Romney is so excruciatingly STUPID that he makes me long for the days when I was on Tricky Dick's Enemies List with my 200-page COINTELPRO file (199 of which were redacted when they were forced to show it to me).
Romney pushing for the 'popular vote'?? On another note, Obama campaign shouldn't let itself be led into these traps...
Things are close enough they really can't let the b.s. pass unnoticed.
The people of Ohio know the real Romney and Bain. He is like the grim-reeper. When he arrives he arrives with a big smile and a laugh, but you know it's not going to end well. When he leaves, he leaves with the wealth of a town.
Flopsweat and the stench of desperation are two of Mitt's most endearing characteristics..His dry-cleaner must be thrilled.
Nate Silver puts the President's reelection chances at 77.4%, up from 72.9% yesterday. Rove is repeating his awesome pre-election California victory lap from 2000. Hopefully we won't see the Supreme Court jumping in to save his bacon this time.
As my mom used to say: Rove is a pimple on the ass of progress.
I think he is more like a sebaceous cyst or an inflamed boil actually...
As much as a presidential election, November 6th will be a clear measure whether the rational outweights the irrational in America today.
The Statue of Liberty stood against Sandy. Here's to our bruised electoral system standing against Mitt.
Option #4: tons of dollars in Mitt's campaign and the outside GOP groups have maxed out their advertising buys in the normally targeted areas. Nothing more can be done there. So they're overflowing into the "we might get lucky" states. Money in the bank on Nov. 7th is wasted.
Sazba'a popular vote idea might also be part of it.
I think that's a strong possibility there, Bob. And I hope that the all-out blitz of TV ads works against them. It's reached epic proportions here, to the point where I just hit mute every time a show breaks for ads. I also think that most everyone has decided by now and that hearing 30 more ads 100 times each is not going to change anyone's mind at this point.
In a way, I almost hope Romney wins the popular vote but Obama wins reelection with the electoral vote. That would be a nice payback for 2000.
I'm glad you said "almost hope". That kind of payback we don't need to get because there would be a common cry for amending the constitution, which in this respect creates an equal opportunity for presidential elections. If you want payback, go after Republicans for passing state laws effectively disenfranchising elderly, miniority and poor voters.
Joss Whedon (of Firefly fame) endorses Romney. My daughter will be thrilled.
Who else can really bring the zombie apocalypse?
Not Dave,
I saw the endorsement. Romney is the best suited candidate to bring the zombie apocalypse.
Joss is one of those Hollywood liberals we all read about. Very smart, very clever, and in this case, down right funny.
I think it's pretty clearly option #3. I've been on the ground here in MI for the last 5 months, and the only time I even felt a quiver of movement for Romney is just after the 1st debate. By the next weekend, it was as if the debate had never happened. People here have not forgotten the "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" op-ed - and it's been our most effective tool in persuading AND for GOTV.
The Obama ground game is in full swing and, despite a bunch of Romney signs (signs don't vote!), I have seen no evidence of a Romney ground game, and I'm in a town where if they were serious, there should be one.
I think that the large sums of money that arrived late (post-debates) has limited utility now - so they are spending it on an elaborate head fake.
Same thing here in Iowa - we've got ground game, and I haven't seen a single Romney canvasser. I heard that Romney had canvassers out nearby but had to pay them like $14/hr to do it. No unconditional love there...
I live in S.Wi, Ryan's district,I have seen 5 Obama canvasser's, And NOT once have I seen anything of a Romney canvasser, Lot's of sign's, But a heck of alot more without.
And the fourth explanation is that the Republicans have so much money they can't possibly spend it all in the swing states, so why not spend it where the Democrats will have to respond? And of course, the MSM is glad to take all their money.
If Obama were white, the election would be a landslide, like 1984. It's been well-documented that over 35% over Republicans polled believe Obama to be of the Muslim faith. Guess what percentage of those are the racists among us?
The country is still filled with racism- but also getting dumber.
My 2 cents is they see they ain't moving the polls in Ohio after throwing everything they've got at it.
So why not try a few other states? It's only money and they have plenty of it.
This post calls to mind a tendency I've noticed in my obsessive searching for election news & prognostication. In the comments for even pretty even-handed sites like 538 or PEC or Pollster, you'll see lots and lots of pro-Romney folks showing a bit of over-confidence: "Obama is toast! Romney's getting 320 electoral votes, 100% certainty! Unstoppable momentum!" and stuff like that. I even saw one which described Romney "riding a hell-storm to the White House".
Of course this is mostly bluster and silly psych-out tactics, which I don't really get. As a good liberal of course my thoughts tend to be more like: Oh my God, I'm so nervous and worried, what if Obama loses? ..and most liberal comments seem to fall along those lines. But, whatever gets you through the day, I guess. If it makes these right-wing commenters feel better about the state of the election, so be it.
And isn't it true that Republicans tend to govern this way when they are in power, as well? No need to take a sober, rational assessment of the data; no need for calm reflection and studied responses; no need to consider the possibility of things not going your way or of random events affecting outcomes. Just spout "terrorism" and "9-11" and "God" a lot, and never admit to doubt or uncertainty in any way, deny reality even when it's throwing a massive hurricane in your face. What is that all about? How much effort must it require to sustain such bluster in the real world? Being a right-winger must be really exhausting these days. No wonder they're so cranky all the time.
yeah, I hear ya E.hat- swank. good analysis. " No need to [for repubs]take a sober, rational assessment of the data; no need for calm reflection and studied responses; no need to consider the possibility of things not going your way or of random events affecting outcomes." rightwinger panting : pant PANT! where emoticon? where?
All we need are a couple of the most gruesome pics from the disaster porn that is the east coast and crawling dialogue with voice overs regarding Mitts (and GOP's for down ballot support) idea that NOA, FEMA and NASA are not worth paying for. Let his own words be used against him. His surrogate still standing by Mitt's claim to give states the responsibility to handle their own disasters.
NASA warned NYC 6 years ago of hurricane (roughly about the time I left FL to return to PNW where we have mountains to run up when the water comes for us) and yet our tax dollars will be spent to rebuild homes exactly as they are instead of on stilts with drive unders and further inland, at least.
Maybe if we used this subject (yes politicize the disaster since it is POLICY on how to recover/prevent/prepare for them) to beat the GOP with "enough working digits to sign" Nordquist's and other GOP kingmakers legislation, we can finally get action and stimulus to build up our coastal infrastructure and jumpstart the economy. A real "New Newdeal", in the last term for Obama but hopefully, a long term with Dems holding the power in this country.
Leave it to us Dems, women of all ages, rich and poor, black and brown people and those of all faiths including no faith (atheists) to instruct the country on integrity, morality and managing a budget.
We all know we need to cut medical expenses and the next phase is legislating controls to medical care like we do other monopolies in essential service, i.e., utilities, and the only people who can be trusted to do it rationally, justly and with honor are in the democratic party.
With campaign reform, some of them might even begin to sprout up in the GOP?