What Hasn’t Changed
* Obama’s electoral vote edge: Let’s assume that the national poll bump for Romney starts to trickle down into some critical swing states. (It should.) For the sake of argument, say that Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia all move toward Romney — and he winds up winning them as well as all of the more reliably Republican states leaning or solidly in his camp today. He still loses the electoral vote to Obama. We’ve written extensively about this often-overlooked reality in recent months but it’s worth reiterating again: Even if Romney surges in a handful of swing states, his path to 270 electoral votes remains tough. For Romney to win at this point — assuming he can’t put Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin play — he needs to all but sweep the remaining toss-up states.
* The Obama team isn’t dumb: When times are good, the candidate and his/her campaign are geniuses. When times are bad, they are idiots. Neither characterization is accurate. What we know about Obama and his team is that they have ousted Hillary Clinton in a primary, won a sweeping electoral landslide in 2008 and, until last Wednesday, run an effective campaign that had put the incumbent very clearly in the driver’s seat. All of the smart strategy that went into those accomplishments hasn’t disappeared suddenly. Yes, Obama laid a major egg at the debate. But to assume that the campaign has somehow forgotten what got them to where they are because of one bad debate performance is a major mistake.
* Money, money, money: Lost amid the post-debate coverage was the fact that Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised $181 million in September, an eye-popping total that will almost certainly eclipse what Romney and the Republican National Committee collected over that same time period. What Obama’s massive haul means is that the expectation that he will be badly outspent by Romney and his allies over the final days of the campaign could well be wrong. While we still expect the combination of Romney, RNC and outside conservative groups to outspend Obama, DNC and outside liberal groups on TV in the final 60 days, it won’t be by a three- or even four-to-one margin. And that matters. Money talks, after all. |
