2012 Race for the White House II: The Two Towers

I generally agree with your comments, but given that we're talking about unlikely scenarios, I can imagine low post-hurricane turnout causing an unexpected result in PA.

Though if the polls have over-estimated Obama's support in Ohio, then they've probably over-estimated his support in other states, too.

It wouldn't shock me if Obama got a small but decisive post-hurricane bounce in Florida. I can't imagine that many folks there appreciate Romney/Ryan's contempt for FEMA.

 

Obama's Electoral College Firewall Holding in Polls - N.Y. Times

 

What do you expect with a Kenyan president?

 

It's always nice to have a sports fan summarizing the race:

Mr. Obama is not a sure thing, by any means. It is a close race. His chances of holding onto his Electoral College lead and converting it into another term are equivalent to the chances of an N.F.L. team winning when it leads by a field goal with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, and sometimes they will.​

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But it turns out that an N.F.L. team that leads by a field goal with three minutes left to go winds up winning the game 79 percent of the time. Those were Mr. Obama’s chances in the FiveThirtyEight forecast as of Wednesday: 79 percent.​

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Not coincidentally, these are also about Mr. Obama’s chances of winning Ohio, according to the forecast.​

 

"Battleground state" seems to mean "Obama state that the Romney camp says is a battleground, because otherwise the election would be over."

Colorado, Florida, and Virginia excepted.

 

Suppose it's obvious, but Sandy has been a gift to Obama. Romney had 10 days left to make something happen, and Sandy sidelined him for 5 days. While giving Obama a modest bounce.

 

The key here is that Obama is up by 3 with 3 minutes left but with possession and Romney is out of time outs.

 

Well, with the way his campaign has been gaffe-prone lately, those five lost days might be a blessing to Romney.

Sandy is not a gift to Obama but it was a benefit. First, it highlights what those of us who like the President already know. He is an excellent administrator of our massive government. In a national sense, he makes the trains run on time. This storm and the aftermath highlights one of his strengths. Second, it takes the wind out of the sails of Romney's big closing argument. He has been going on and on before the storm about how he got things done in MA with a democratic legislature. That HE is the one that can work across party lines unlike the promise of Obama. Not a bad argument to make, even though it is largely false as demonstrated by his unpopularity in MA. But Sandy has allowed Obama and Christie to walk hand in hand as partners in a larger narrative. Hell, I half expected the theme song from Courtship of Eddie's Father to start playing every time I saw the two of them on TV. The imagery of the last few days simply destroyed one of Mitt's closing arguments. Again, in reality, Obama has made a career out of working with the other side as an absolute moderate. He is blamed for not doing that as president even though the blame can clearly be placed with those in congress who vowed to cut his legs out from the inauguration. Obama worked with Boehner behind closed doors to make a significant deal but Boehner was never going to get the tea partiers in line to do the deal.

Anyway, major closing argument for Mittens crushed by two guys doing their jobs.

 

I'm sad and chastened to learn that the aforementioned Twitter is not the actual Governor's office feed.

 

In retrospect, I would have liked it if Obama, throughout this campaign, would have made a clearer distinction between how he and Romney view "government". Romney, and the Republican Party over the past 20 years, have stated that government is the problem. Obama could easily state that government isn't the problem, bad government is.

What we're seeing in the response to Sandy is good government. What we saw under Bush with Hurricane Katrina was abysmal government. Romney seems to be promising no government wherever possible, which, when related to event like Sandy, would be truly tragic.

 

By the way, the notion that a 79% projected chance of victory is like being up 3 points with 3 minutes left in an NFL game translates to this specific situation -

Presumably, Team Romney is not quarterbacked by Joe Montana ...

 

Even so, this isn't a bad situation to be in, if you want to carry the football metaphor through to its obvious conclusion. Fortunately, Team Obama doesn't appear to be playing prevent defense. Still, NFL teams routinely get into field goal position in such instances, putting the game into overtime.

Sports metaphors suck.

I'd like to think Romney's in a somewhat worse situation than that. Namely, they're down by 4. No time outs. Bad field position. That field goal won't do them squat.

 

And Tebow's under center...

 

I'm positive they'd go with Tim Tebow instead if given the choice

 

Glad you mentioned this ... because per at least one sports site, the odds are actually better for a team that is down 6 points in this situation than one that is down 3 points!

IMHO this is because -

1) Limited sample size/these football metaphors are indeed not very accurate and sucky
2) The team down by 6 always throws the ball, which is better than mixed run and throw
3) The team up by 6 screws things up by playing stupid prevent defense

Yes #2 and #3 imply that football is an inefficient market.

 

Which means Romney can't throw a spiral and can't competently perform other tasks expected of quarterbacks, but has the ability to keep a game close and win with a series of big plays.

 

Best of luck marching down the field when you can't throw the ball and the opposing defense knows that.

 

Nah it just means that God takes care of him.

 

I feel like the biggest problem with the football metaphor is that in an election, we don't actually know the score.

In our current situation, Romney simply isn't going to launch a comeback. It's too late for that. But if the polls are a little bit off, he might already be winning. It's akin to a boxing match with only a few seconds left in the final round. Most of us have Obama ahead on points, but no one will know for sure until we see the judges' scorecards.

 

Umm-- actually its simpler than that.

The team down 6 has to go for the touchdown, which usually wins the game outright if they get it (barring a missed PAT.)

The team down three usually is happy to settle for the field goal, which ties the game, but often leaves the other team a little time for an answering field goal-- plus overtime if they can't get in range.

 

The difference with the football metaphor is that Romney is actually down 3 points in at least 2 to 3 key swing states that he needs for the overall win.

What are the odds of 3 simultaneous football games to have a 3 point comeback with 3 minutes to go. By the way the clock is ticking ... We're already down to 2:50 since we started talking about this.

 

More like Joe the Plumber.