Romney campaign claims "We have won". The claim is the October surprise. He is a post from the conservative The Telegraph. It is an illusion that the Romney gang is creating. It is Omentum not Mitt-mentum in the final days. Even the 10% figure being thrown around as folks who could change in the last minute is a Romney campaign's figment of imagination. A propaganda to tell people you need to change your mind in case the job numbers on Friday are not as expected. History shows that people have made up their minds and many have already voted.
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Nate Silver, the geeky statistician who is singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum
By Dan Hodges US politics Last updated: October 26th, 2012
Ideally Mitt Romney would be wearing a jock-jacket with "Massachusetts U" on it
When Charles Foster Kane takes one final look back at his tumultuous life, he encapsulates it in a single, immortal word: “Rosebud”. In years to come, when Mitt Romney takes a look back at this tumultuous election campaign, I suspect he may very well do the same. Except he will not speak of a cherished object, but a person: “Poblano”.
Poblano is the pseudonym of Nate Silver, the sabermetrician and political psephologist who has done more to influence the 2012 presidential election than other political analysts and commentator. Silver is behind The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog, which conducts a complex statistical analysis of the state of the race, and boils it down to daily estimate of the two candidates chances in the form of a mathematical percentage. Where most political commentators output is the product of briefings, gossip and personal perception, Silver deals in cold, hard facts. And at the moment, Silver’s facts are being fired like bullets into the heart of the Romney campaign.
Over the past week Romney has had a clear strategy; give the impression of momentum. Demonstrate the post-debate surge is continuing. Get people talking about how the race is his to lose.
This strategy has taken various forms. In the wake of the final presidential debate – which Obama won by a country mile – an army of Romney strategists were dispatched to spread the word that the debate didn’t matter, it was all too late, and Romney’s “momentum” was carrying him to victory. “President Obama regained some lost ground,” said CNN contributor William Bennett, a former official in the George H W Bush administration, “but the damage had already been done. Mitt Romney now carries the momentum into the home stretch.”
Friendly media outlets were primed to push the same message: “Brand new polls are proving Governor Romney continues to gain momentum,” Fox New’s independently minded analyst Sean Hannity gushed breathlessly yesterday, citing a Gallup poll that actually showed Romney’s lead contracting.
We’ve even had the spectacle of Romney campaign officials starting to brief reporters on their transition plans and possible cabinet appointments. Picking members of your new administration; you don’t get much bigger mo than that.
And then, slap bang in the middle of all this surging and sprinting, up pops that geeky killjoy Silver. “In polls, Romney’s momentum seems to have stopped,” he announced in a blog yesterday. Coolly and calmly, Silver set about dismantling the Romney bandwagon. According to his model's “Nowcast” – the chance of either candidate prevailing if the election was held on that particular day – the trend was slightly favourable to Obama:
Mr. Romney’s position peaked in the 'now-cast' on Friday, Oct. 12, at which point it estimated a virtual tie in the popular vote (Mr. Obama was the projected “winner” by 0.3 percentage points). As of Wednesday, however, Mr. Obama was 1.4 percentage points ahead in the “now-cast,” meaning that he may have regained about 1 percentage point of the 4 points or so that he lost after Denver. Mr Obama’s chances of winning the Electoral College were up in the FiveThirtyEight forecast to 71 per cent on Wednesday from 68.1 per cent on Tuesday.
Nate Silver is Mitt Romney’s nemesis. Not intentionally; although he admits to being an Obama supporter, his whole career is predicated on getting his predictions right. Like he did in 2008, when "Poblano" accurately predicted the result of 49 of the 50 states, and all 35 senate races.
And it is that reputation for accuracy that is so damaging to the Romney campaign’s attempt to sustain their precious “momentum” narrative. People listen to Silver. And over the past 48 hours, the narrative is starting to shift. “Mitt-mentum? Not so fast” – US News & World report. “Romney’s Momentum Seems To Have Stopped” – Political Wire. “The momentum myth” – Washington Post.
In fact, Silver is proving so damaging to their chances that Republican’s are drawing up a strategy for countering him. “Nate Silver continues to lead the Democrat Graveyard whistling choir”, Republican blogger Robert Stacy McCain wrote on Tuesday. National Review decried “Nate Silver’s Flawed Model”. “Everyone but Nate Silver thinks Obama’s lead is evaporating fast”, said Business Insider.
But the truth is we don’t. And the Romney camp knows it.
Here’s a prediction. As the election clock continues to tick down, and the momentum narrative continues to melt away, the attacks on Silver will intensify. We should expect a Fox News feature. More negative blogs. Maybe even a smear or two.
But the numbers don’t lie. At the start of this week, Barack Obama’s chances of winning Ohio were 70 per cent. Today they’re at 75. Wisconsin has moved up to 86 per cent, Nevada 78, Iowa 68, New Hampshire 69, Colorado 57, Virginia 54. Overall, his chance of winning is now put at 73 per cent, his highest for 18 days. That's not momentum: that's Omentum.
Barack Obama is holding a steady course to the presidency. But don’t take my word for it. Ask Poblano.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk
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