You Know It's Over When

Even Fantasy Polling Doesn't 

Give Obama A Greater Than

A One Point Lead At This Stage

Plenty of pollsters are still using a 2008 turnout model in their weighting of their poll results of D+7.

The results the DMC is now getting to their D+7 fantasy polling must be terrifying them.  

Here's what today's Real Clear Politics National polling of the Presidential race looks like today on Oct 29:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

First, let's ignore all the polls that give Romney the lead for now and just look at the polls saying Obama has a 1 point lead or a tie at this stage with about 9 days to go.  All the post-third Presidential debate polls are from the 21st onward, so let's look at those.  

First up: the   IBD/TIPP poll taken from Oct 22nd to the 27th that found a 1 point lead for Obama: 

http://news.investors.com/special-report/508415-ibdtipp-poll.aspx

IBD/TIPP doesn't play games like many pollsters do and force you to do the math to figure out what their partisan split was.  CBS does that all the time.  IBD/TIPP shows they polled 7% more Democrats than Republicans for this poll and got a one point Obama lead, well within their margin of error of +/- 3.5%.

So. D+7 turnout predicted, a slim one point Obama lead.  On we go! 

Next is the Politico/GWU/Battleground poll taken from Oct. 22nd to the 25th that also found a one point lead for Barack Obama. 

http://images.politico.com/global/2012/10/politico_gwbgp_oct29_questionnaire.html

Politico/GWU/BG  is a Reg. Voter survey that plays the cute game of never telling you exactly how their sample was weighted, they just give you the results.  Here it's 35% Democrat [43% with leaners] and 31% Republican [41% with leaners].  So that's a D+4 without leaners and a D+2 with.  Not too bad and pretty damn far from the D+7 or > fantasy polling we've seen for much of this year.  

So D+4 here gets Obama a 1 point lead.  

Next up is ABC News/Washington Post, a poll which was done from Oct. 25 to Oct. 28.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_20121028.html

UPDATE!!!! While I was making this post, from the time I took the screenshot of the RCP national poll results an hour ago, ABC News/WaPo has been changed from a one point Romney lead to a TIE.  It now looks like this: 

Here's the partisan split for that poll: 

Among likely voters that's a D+7 advantage.  And as I noted above, a while ago this poll claimed a one point Romney lead and now has changed that to a tie.  They must have adjusted the results. 

And finally: Pew Research's poll taken from Oct. 24-28, which also claims the race is currently a tie: 

http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/10-29-12%20FINAL%20Political%20Release.pdf

Since they got caught putting out a D+19 poll in early August, Pew has changed how they reveal their sample and how they weight it.  In this latest poll they show you their unweighted sample size and composition, and then simply never get around to telling you if they weighted the results and if so, how.  570 R's and 560 D's is an almost 50/50 partisan split, but WITHOUT knowing how they weighted this poll, claiming a tie doesn't really tell us anything.  

OK those are the polls claiming Obama has a lead or a tie with Romney at the moment. 

All based on either a weighting of D+7 or hiding their weighting from the readers.  

Takeaway point: Even with D+7 fantasy polling they can't drag Obama higher than a tie or a 1 point lead.  

And their BS fantasy polling was always that: BS fantasy polling.  

With Republican voter ID now leading Democrats by one point 36/35 according to Gallup, and Republican voter enthusiasm higher than that of Democrats by over 10 pts, we're looking at a R+ turnout this election. 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158399/2012-electorate-looks-like-2008.aspx

http://www.mediaite.com/online/gallup-rasmussen-forecast-more-republican-voters-in-2012-than-2004/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/09/29/poll-obama-romney-gallup/1601125/

The poll of 1,446 adults, taken Monday through Thursday, has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
Republicans have opened a big enthusiasm gap: 64% say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared to 48% of Democrats. 

So what about all those polls out there still plaintively trying to sell their 2008 turnout model of D+7?  

I feel sorry for them.  Almost.  

Here's what happens to their D+7 fantasy weighting of their polls if this is indeed a R+1 or greater turnout this election.  

That IBD/TIPP poll that finds Obama holding a 1 pt lead? Here's what that would look like with R+1 turnout on Nov. 6: 

D+7 = 1 pt Obama lead

D+6 = TIE

D+5 = 1 pt Romney lead

D+4 = 2 pt Romney lead

D+3 = 3 pt Romney lead

D+2 = 4 pt Romney lead

D+1 = 5 pt Romney lead

D+0/R+0 = 6 pt Romney lead

R+1 = 7 pt Romney lead. 

Oh hey look, I'm where Gallup has had Romney for more than 2 weeks, with a +/- 3.5 pt margin of error:  Somewhere between a 4 pt and a 7 pt lead over Obama.  

The DMC knows if this turnout on Nov. 6 isn't AT LEAST D+5 Obama is toast.  Their OWN POLLS ARE TELLING THEM THIS.  A D+5 or greater turnout for Democrats predicted and they STILL can't get Obama above a 1 pt lead or a tie with Romney.  

But watch Liberals across the fruited plain sail on in blissful unawareness, still thinking Obama's got this in the bag somehow when he's actually trailing right now by 4 points or more.  

Obama must have it in the bag somehow because NATE SILVER SAYS SO! 

My prediction for months has been a turnout on Nov. 6 between R+1 and R+3 and I'm sticking with it.  

Tyrone Woods & Glenn Doherty 

Refused To Stand Down.

Now We Need To Know 

Who Ordered Them To & 

Then Refused To Send Them Help

Turns out Tyrone Woods & Glenn Doherty were even bigger heroes than we knew.

Yeah sure, they rushed from the CIA safe house to the Consulate and evacuated a buncha trapped Americans and led them to safety. Sure. Everybody knew that part for the past month and a half.

But now it turns out they had to DISOBEY A DIRECT ORDER to do that.

They were told to stand down and stay right where they were. And as they continued to hear the consulate come under fire, they finally said F**k this! and went came to the aid of those trapped in our consulate anyway.

Who knows how many more Americans would have died if they hadn't disobeyed their order to stand down?

During the second half of this 7 hour attack, after they escorted the people they rescued to the safe house, when the CIA safe house came under fire, they requested help. And were turned down again. Doherty and Woods were manning a machine gun on the roof of the safe house when a mortar round took their lives roughly 7 hours after the first shots were fired. Everyone in the building then fled and raced for Tripoli. They all made it.

Thanks to the heroes that gave their lives.

Here's Obama yesterday TWICE dodging the question when directly asked: why during this 7 hour long ordeal was no help sent to these trapped Americans? You had forces that could have been there in an hour. Why was nothing sent?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/president-obama-begs-off-answering-whether-americans-in-benghazi-were-denied-requests-for-help/

In light of the fact it's now common knowledge the last 4 hours or so of the attack on the consulate and the annex were watched LIVE via an overhead drone, the question why no help was sent is only growing.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_LIBYA_SURVEILLANCE_VIDEO?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-26-20-18-22

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-33816_162-57536611/could-u.s-military-have-helped-during-libya-attack/

CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.

This goes beyond the 'We said it was a terror act on day 1! No wait, now we'll say for 2 weeks it was a YouTube video! Hold on! Terror attack after all!' sideshow circus the White House played the last month.

The issue is boiling down to:

1) What possible reason was there for stripping security from these isolated personnel deep in the heart of Al-Qaeda land in the face of a deteriorating security situation and

2) What possible reason was there for leaving our own people trapped and isolated out there once a full scale assault on them began? An assault that lasts over 7 hours where they had a live video feed showing them exactly how bad it was? 


Watergate was about a conspiracy to bug a phone at the DNC and Nixon likely didn't even know about it beforehand. But he joined a conspiracy to cover it up. 


This was a terrorist attack on US soil that killed 4 Americans and we're goddamn lucky it wasn't a full scale massacre with victims in the upper 20's/low 30's. It defies reason these guys didn't ask for help during a 7 hour attack. So NOBODY dares go on the record & say "We didn't send them any help because they never asked for any." That's why CIA, State Dept., White House are currently playing the denial game: "Hey, WE didn't turn down any requests for help. Must've been somebody else."

But it's on the record: nobody sent anything to them when it mattered, when they were in mortal danger. The Marine FAST team didn't arrive until the next morning, 12 hours after the attack started and about 5 hours too late. 

Who decided to sit on their ass and just watch it unfold? Better question: Who made EVERYBODY ELSE sit on their ass and just watch it unfold?  Eventually we're going to find out.   People are going to talk.  

It's November 7th &

Progressives In America

Are Walking Around Going

"WHAT THE F**K 

JUST HAPPENED??!!"

Allow me to explain it all for you.  

Starting in March when it was clear Romney was going to be the Republican nominee, Democratic-Media Complex pollsters [DMC] started weighting their polls to fit a 2008 Presidential election turnout model.  This was a HUGE mistake, and allow me to explain why.  

As I have explained before, 2008 was a very historic election.  With Democratic voting enthusiasm very high [over 60%, in fact] and Republican enthusiasm extremely low [around 35% according to Gallup] the Democratic party managed a huge turnout advantage of a whopping 7 points.  Often shorthanded to 'D+7'.  

The Democrats turned out for that election - including many new 1st time voters, while millions of Republicans stayed home.  The usual turnout advantage is around 3-4 pts, so +7 was pretty damn high.  

John McCain ran a terrible campaign.  The only breath of life it ever got was when he picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and then he quickly squandered that by suspending his campaign to return to Washington when the financial crisis hit.  McCain was a long-time Washington insider trying to get voters to buy the idea he could reform the way Washington does business.  Many Republicans simply didn't buy this, and so on the day of the election didn't bother to go vote.  

This is why Barack Obama's margin of victory over McCain also exactly matches the Democrats turnout advantage - 7 points.  

But now that Barack Obama & the Democratic Party were completely in control of Washington, American voters got a real, long, GOOD look at what the Democrats would do with that kind of unchecked power, where they wanted to take the country.  

In the 2010 mid-term elections, the American voting public returned it's verdict on the Democrats agenda and the way they had governed for the previous 2 year period: a gargantuan landslide victory for the Republican Party.  The message to Democrats SHOULD have been clear:  we don't like what you are doing, so here's a sh*tload of new Republicans in Congress to put the brakes on your agenda.  

The most important point about that 2010 mid-term election though, is that NEITHER side had a turnout advantage that time.  Instead of the +7 turnout advantage they enjoyed in 2008, in 2010 Democrats ended up TIED with Republicans in the turnout for the election: an exactly even 35% to 35%.  Advantage = +0

What did a TIED turnout election deliver?  Anyone remember?  Liberals/Progressives/Whatever The F**k They're Calling Themselves This Week so quickly flushed 2010 down the memory hole, it'll be good to remember: 

Note how you see almost no light blue on those maps. The Democratic Party lost A LOT of ground in 2010.  

So.......did they learn anything from the stinging rebuke the voters delivered? 

Not at all.  

Obama & Co. didn't change course at all. They kept right on doing the same stuff they were doing the 1st two years of his term.  

So here we are, just 2 years on from that huge bitch-slap of a 2010 mid-term, and MSM pollsters have insisted all year on using a 2008 turnout model for their polls.  Heck, some of them took flights of fancy into deep outer space and actually posited DOUBLE DIGIT Democratic turnout advantages this year.  

Remember, D+7 was HISTORIC.  Pollsters have been claiming all year that the Democratic Party will not just MATCH it's 2008 turnout....they've been claiming they are going to EXCEED it. 

As I've said before, they are just fooling themselves if they think the Tea Party and the millions of Americans that sent an unmistakably strong message to Washington in 2010 just up and changed their minds or something.   

When the election is over and I have time, it'll be fun to go back through the Real Clear Politics Poll history page and see just how many MSM pollsters claimed  to see a D+10 or > in their national polls.  

This chart was made in mid-September to show what the pollsters were doing.  How many of them were saying they were seeing numbers that indicated Democrats would match or exceed their D+7 turnout in 2008?  6 of them were: 

Pew D+7 = 8 pts Obama lead
Reason D+8 = 7 pt Obama lead
Hartford D+8 = 3 pt Obama lead
Ipsos/Reuters D+10 = 5 pt Obama lead
ABC News/WaPo D+10 = 1 pt Obama lead
Dem. Corps D+11 = 5 pt Obama lead

That's just a snapshot of a 2 week polling period in September.  Half the pollsters  claimed to see a 'match 2008 or exceed it' result in their numbers.  

Now back in the spring/summer, consistently polling with a 2008 turnout model was getting Obama big leads.  DMC pollsters wanted to establish early that this wouldn't be any sort of a contest at all. Weighting their polls by a 2008 turnout model and then figuring in the extra 3-4 point advantage an incumbent President has, many of them were seeing Obama leads at 7 pts or greater.  

The narrative they wanted to set by the end of the DNC/RNC conventions was that Romney was so far behind, he would NEVER catch up, so most Americans would tune out the race.  Obama was supposed to be launched out of that DNC like a V-2 Rocket, build his lead, and by the time the debates were over, he was to have clinched the deal and left Romney behind in his dust.  

That's not how it happened.  

Much to the DMC's horror, as summer turned into fall, instead of BUILDING the big lead they started him out with in their polls, OBAMA STARTED SLIDING BACKWARDS. 

Instead of leaving Mitt Romney behind, Obama stalled and Romney started catching him.  

Think of a faulty plane altimeter.  It's 500 feet off, so when you are flying at only 500 feet, you think you are 1,000 feet off the ground.  This is the kind of advantage the DMC pollsters gave Obama right off the bat.  They simply threw out the 2010 election as some kinda anomaly and are trying to recreate 2008.  The actual turnout isn't going to be anywhere NEAR the D+7 or > they've been claiming all year. 

By the time they had to ease back the poll weighting to something approaching reality, Obama was supposed to be so far ahead, it wouldn't matter.  But Obama couldn't seal the deal. He's run a terrible campaign and he can't gain any new support to replace the voters who abandoned him long ago.  

10% of Republicans crossed over to vote for Obama in 2008.  He also got the Independent vote by a 55% margin.  He won't get anywhere near that this time around.  Maybe 2% of the Republican vote IF he's lucky, and he currently trails Mitt with Indies by double digits.  That's around 20 points he had to make up just to get back where he was in 2008.  

So here we are in the final 2 weeks before the election, and now the pollsters are being forced to re-weight their polls and drop the absurd D+7 or greater weighting they've been using.  Their credibility as pollsters hinges on getting that LAST POLL just before the election is held as close as possible to the actual results.  

Which is why the next two weeks any of the pollsters that haven't abandoned D+7 turnout models already will start to do so.  

Let's take a look at today's IBD/TIPP poll, a good example of a pollster still sticking to a D+7 at this late date: 

http://news.investors.com/special-report/508415-ibdtipp-poll.aspx

This poll finds Obama up by 3 pts.  With a D+7 turnout advantage.  

That's pretty much where all the pollsters sticking with a D+7 or > are at right now, Obama either tied or leading by 1-3 pts, inside the Margin of Error [MOE]

But as I've noted before, this ISN'T going to be a D+ turnout election.  It's going to be a R+ turnout election.  What if you take a D+7 poll giving Obama a +3 pt lead on Romney and re-weight it to a R+1? 

D+7 = 3pt Obama
D+6 = 2 pt Obama
D+5 = 1 pt Obama
D+4 = TIE 
D+3 = 1 pt Romney
D+2 = 2 pt Romney
D+1 = 3 pt Romney
0     =  4 pt Romney
R+1 = 5 pt Romney

Oh hey, you'd end up with a Romney lead greater than the MOE.  WHICH IS EXACTLY WHERE GALLUP AND RASMUSSEN ARE NOW.  A Romney lead between 4-7 pts the past week and a half.  

According to THEIR OWN POLLS, the DMC knows if this election isn't D+4 or >, Obama is gonna LOSE.  All the movement is to Romney; they can still use their fantasy weighting of their polls to keep Obama in the lead, but they CAN'T hide the direction the election is moving in.  

Their own polling says Democrats could still 'win' the turnout advantage by +3 and it's still not going to get Obama re-elected.  They have to have D+4 or greater to get Obama a shot.  

It won't happen.  November 7th the numbers will be crunched and Progressives across the fruited plain are going to want to know why after being confidently told for months they were going to bury the Republicans at the ballot box, HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY HAPPEN? 

Because the people you trust for your news serve you ill.  Whether it be the Old DMC of ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBCNYT or the new DMC of HuffPo, Daily Kos, DU, Politico, etc.  Their own hubris in declaring the Tea Party dead and then having a total media blackout like that would somehow keep it from having any effect on this election, and then engaging in fantasy polling for more than half a year is just going to end up biting them on the ass. 

Hard.  

Gonna be fun to watch the aftermath.  

Worse Than Watergate

Turns out the White House & the State Department had evidence the attack on the Benghazi consulate was a planned terrorist strike WHILE IT WAS STILL UNDERWAY: 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57538689/emails-detail-unfolding-benghazi-attack-on-sept-11/?tag=AverageMixRelated

These new revelations led to an epic Twitter rant this morning about how this administration will go down in infamy.  

[Yeah, it's Twitter. Start at the bottom, read your way up!]

UPDATE:  Been nothing short of hilarious since the 2nd Presidential debate to watch Liberals shift their ground as quickly as they can to fit whatever new story the administration is telling.  

1. It was all about the video!  It wasn't a planned attack! 
2. He said it was a planned terrorist attack on day 1! Get it right, wingnutz!
3. Of course the administration went on for 2 weeks to sell 'it was all over a video' like a mofo to the American public! There was no evidence it was a terror attack!
4.  How many times do we have to tell you the administration has always said it was a terrorist attack!
5.  It was all about the video!

Yet what do they keep saying to the other side?  "Quit changing your story, stick to the facts!"  Yes, you could not ask for a better case of projection that this.  They are having to shift what they are saying almost on a daily basis but it's the OTHER SIDE that's doing it, not them.  

Going to be interesting to see just how many times the White House can change it's story and they play along before they finally have the "WTF??!!" moment and snap out of it.

Why You Can't Take 

FiveThirty-Eight's 

Nate Silver Seriously

"Mitt Romney's bad, terrible, rotten, no good week.

That's what my awesome system says."

So how's Romney been doing the past week?  He surged to a 7 pt lead in Gallup and North Carolina and Florida have been moved from tossup into his column.  He leads in swing state polling as Obama struggles to find a firewall that will hold.  He moved into the lead over Obama in RCP's Electoral College Map for the first time: 

Real Clear Politic's Electoral Map on Oct. 12

Real Clear Politic's Electoral Map on Oct. 17

So, pretty damn good stretch of time for ol' Mitt from Oct. 12 to today, Oct 20th, wouldn't you say? 

NOT ACCORDING TO NATE SILVER. 

Here's the charts on Nate's webpage at FiveThirty-Eight where he's supposedly keeping his finger firmly applied to the pulse of this Presidential race: 

[You can see Silver updated these charts on Oct. 19]

Only in an alternate universe could you calculate what happened to this race from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19 and end up with the conclusion Romney LOST ground.  

But this EXACTLY what Silver does.  

-4.7 in the electoral vote, contrasted with a commensurable gain for Obama. 

A big DROP in Romney's chances of winning the race of of -6.8, while Obama's chances of winning INCREASED by that same number.  

And a tiny drop in the Popular Vote of 0.2 in the past week.  

Oh hey, what's the headline of Silver's column today at Five Thirty Eight, anyway? After Romney lost all this ground and Obama had this great week?  

How about this?  

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/oct-19-after-romney-gains-should-obama-concede-florida/?smid=tw-share

WTF??!!! Romney GAINS?! What f**king Romney gains are you talking about here, Nate?  The ones from 2 weeks ago?  Because I just looked at your handy charts over here on the right side of your site.  I thought Romney had a bad week?  Doesn't your handy chart tell me his chances of winning actually DROPPED by a whopping 6.8 points?  What's up with that?  

Concede Florida? Why should Obama do that? According to you, Romney sunk further back from Oct. 12 to the 19th.  What's wrong with this picture?

It's becoming increasingly obvious that Silver can't be taken seriously.  He had to admit his 2008 projections were so accurate because he was getting a look at internal polling from Team Obama.  

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/obama-campaign-shared-08-polling-with-silver

His work also, it turns out, drew the attention of the Obama campaign. Sasha Issenberg's new book on the science of politics, The Victory Lab reports that Silver's data-centric approach and skepticism of other media's — as the Obama campaign saw it — unsophisticated take on state polls won him an "obsessive following" in Obama's Chicago headquarters. 

Obama's polling analysts, Issenberg writes, wanted to test their internal polls against Silver's model. And so — in an unusual step for the closely-held campaign, and for the analyst, who was then running his own website, FiveThirtyEight.com — the Obama campaign offered Silver access to thousands of its own internal polls, on the condition Silver sign a confidentiality agreement, which he did. (Silver, who now writes a widely-read blog for the New York Times declined to comment on the arrangement.) 

"We wanted a little external validation that what we were seeing is what was actually going on," Michael Simon, a former Obama aide, told Issenberg.

In 2010 he was virtually the last holdout trying to claim a big Republican wave wasn't coming.  And now he's gone full-blown moonbat trying to reassure Progressives that read him that everything is peachy keen - hey look, Mitt slid BACKWARDS  this past week! Don't believe a thing those wingnutz tell you!  

Keep up the awesome job, Nate.  Don't change a thing.  

UPDATE: Silver lets the cat out of the bag: 

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/oct-21-uncertainty-clouds-polling-but-obama-remains-electoral-college-favorite/

There remains an outside chance that the race will break clearly toward one or the other candidate, after the third debate on Monday or because of some intervening news event, but the odds are strong that we will wake up on Nov. 6 with a reasonable degree of doubt about the winner. For that matter, we may wake up on Nov. 7 still uncertain about who won.

Nonetheless, stipulating that the race is clearly very close is not an adequate substitute for placing any kinds of odds on it at all. And the central premise behind why we see Mr. Obama as the modest favorite is very simple: he seems to hold a slight advantage right now in enough states to carry 270 electoral votes.

Now writing 'we may not know who won on election day' columns at the same time his awesome predictive model is telling him Obama's chances of winning right now is.....67.6% to Mitt's 32.4%. 

So.  Try to square this circle.  "We might not know who won on election day" with "Mitt would have to gain over 30 points just to make this a contest. "

Any of the trolls want to give this a try?  

So How DO You End Up

With A 'Surprise!' Romney

Landslide, Anyway?

Well, if you're a MSM pollster totally in the tank for Obama, here's how you do it:

Back in January 2012 when nobody is really watching your poll internals, just lock in numbers in your weighting that assumes the 2012 election is gonna go pretty much like the 2008 one did.

2008 was an election where Democratic voter enthusiasm was sky-high - over 60%, while Republican enthusiasm had cratered to 35%.  This led to a historic 7 pt turnout advantage for the Democrats, which in no small way led to Obama winning the election by 7% of the vote.

Pollsters simply ignore any evidence that 2012 won't go like 2008.  Tea Party? That's dead and gone.  Republican enthusiasm way up? Doesn't matter etc. etc.

Now, most voters aren't really starting to pay attention until the primaries are over and it gets to be around July.  That means pollsters can do all kinds of funky things in the early months to set a narrative.

And the narrative the MSM pollsters wanted to set was that Obama's reelection was inevitable.  This is why since January they weighted their polls to give Democrats a D+7 advantage or greater in the partisan splits, while also under counting Republicans and Independents.  This gives Obama the big 8/9 pt lead you want him to have.

But as more and more voters start paying attention to the race, and listening to what the candidates are saying and making their choices, too many voters decide Obama isn't doing a good job and decide to go with Romney.

By August so many voters being polled have picked Romney you've now got a problem.  You're still weighting your polls to match a 2008 turnout........but Obama's lead is SHRINKING.

Traditionally, an incumbent President has at least a 4 pt advantage on a challenger.  Keep that in mind.  

By September some of these pollsters, desperate to keep Obama in the lead, were actually giving Democrats DOUBLE DIGIT ADVANTAGES in their polls.

Now wait a minute, some of you are likely saying here.  That 7 point turnout advantage in 2008 for Democrats was historic.  You mean to tell me many of these pollsters have been claiming they see numbers in their polls that leads them to conclude Democrats are going to TOP that turnout in 2012? 

Why, yes.  I am telling you that.  Because that's what they did.  

In September,  6 major pollsters claimed to see a D+7 advantage for Democrats.  3 of them  - Reuters, ABC/WaPo and Dem. Corps - claimed to see a Democrat advantage of 10 points or more.  

This was beyond ridiculous, but yes, they did it.  But note WHY they had to do it: to keep Obama with a commanding lead.  By inflating Democratic advantage to a whopping 11 pts, Democracy Corps' polling could only get Obama to a 5 pt lead over Romney.  

In October the MSM pollsters have been REALLY caught short. There they are, still weighting their polls based on a 2008 turnout with at least a +7 adv. for Democrats......and ROMNEY SURGED INTO THE LEAD.  

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret here: The actual turnout in this election is NOT going to be D+7 like it was in 2008.  It's certainly not going to be the D+9 fantasy like most of the MSM polls were assuming for early October.  

No, the actual turnout for the 2012 election is going to be somewhere above R+3.  

So some MSM poll that still claims to see a D+7 but says Obama is only up by 1 pt is actually off by over 10 pts on the turnout advantage and therefore Obama isn't really up by one, he's actually trailing Romney by around 8. 

Which is exactly what Gallup is discovering as they adjust their weighting slowly to show the real R+ electorate.  That's why they have Romney up 7 points today over Obama.   

Remember I said earlier on this blog the pollsters would start 'tightening' the race the final weeks as they started showing people what the real numbers look like.  When they do the final poll just before the election, even the most partisan MSM polling group will have to admit it's going to be a R+ electorate.  

AND THEY'VE KNOWN THIS FOR MONTHS.  That's why they tried this 'Obama's reelection is inevitable' narrative in the first place.  They've been aware for months Obama's in deep, serious trouble and they desperately want him to win this race.  They tried to use their polls as game-changers and failed.  The voters kept consistently moving to Romney no matter how loudly the MSM yelled that the race was already over.  

So here they are, mid-October, many of them still putting out polls with locked-in 2008 turnout weighting....and Obama's sinking 'neath the waves anyway.  If Obama can't win a D+7 poll made in fantasy land, what does that tell you?  

THAT'S how you end up with a 'Surprise!' Romney landslide. 

France's Socialist President

About To Discover Just

How Much Exciting New Tax

Revenue He Can Expect From

Jacking Up The Rates

French businesses facing bankruptcy or having to shed jobs over these new taxes are revolting:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9610717/French-business-erupts-in-fury-against-disastrous-Francois-Hollande.html

But God forbid somebody try to convince a socialist jacking up the tax rates almost NEVER leads to the State collecting more revenue.

Hollande is about to learn the very same painful lesson that Jerry Brown and Democrats in California learned last year.

http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-just-in-progressives-shocked.html

Oh wait. NO, they didn't learn anything.  My bad.  Hollande likely won't either.  I just remembered these are Liberal Socialists we're talking about here.  How many times this actually fails in the real world doesn't matter because THE THEORY IS SOUND. 

Why Obama Loses The Second

Debate Too

1. In 2008 Obama wasn't a governing incumbent with a lousy record. 

He could wax rhapsodic about his amazing potential. But now in 2012 after being the in-power incumbent for four years, he can't spend major time talking about what an awesome, special person he is. His SELF-NARRATIVE was key to his easy victory over a weak John McCain.

Obama won in 2008 based on this AMAZING NARRATIVE he had about himself, about what an AMAZING SPECIAL PERSON he is.

Of course, some people still haven't figured out this scam yet

In the first debate, Romney forced Obama to play defense on his record on jobs & economy.

Romney will do it again tonight.

Obama is at his best when he's MAKING PROMISES & TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF.

When free to talk about what an amazing guy he is, and all the awesome things he can POTENTIALLY do, Obama can wax rhapsodic

At the 2012 debates, Romney has ensured Obama ISN'T free to talk about his amazing self-narrative.  Liberals don't realize what a HUGE handicap this is to Obama.

Instead, Obama will keep having to talk about what he's actually DONE as President - and also what he HASN'T done. Romney - and some of the questions he'll likely get from the audience - will force him to talk about this. 

Obama had no experience making executive decisions in 2008.  That's why he HAD to make his campaign about himself, not his experience.  Romney will talk about his experience  running the state of Mass., and his agenda in office if he's elected.  That ALSO forced Obama off his game.  He's running against someone with actual executive experience this time and trying the whole personality cult thing  of "But look at how AMAZING I am!" won't work.

Now lots of people think that Obama will do much, much better in the townhall format here because he'll talk about how much he CARES.

But in fact, Romney will show if he CARES so much about people, why didn't he show leadership & really tackle this country's problems?

Romney will point out - again - "You've been President for 4 years. You've had plenty of time to show how much you CARE by acting."  People aren't looking for someone who talks all the time about how much they CARE and then can't fix the problems.

2. If Obama tries the more forceful, aggressive strategy tonight, saying the same losing arguments that way = LOSER

Obama never had to defend a record of failure before, and it showed in that first debate. He didn't know what to say. He rambled, got lost, rambled some more.

Obama can try to bluster and spend a lot of time at the debate trying to attack Romney, making the case 'you don't want this scary guy over there; stick with me! You know what to expect from me!'

He tried that at the 1st debate and Romney just totally blew up all his strawman arguments. For this 2nd debate, Obama could try saying the same things, but saying it ANGRY this time.  A lot of people on the Left feel that Biden not only won his debate with Ryan, he CLOBBERED him with that smirking, chortling, interrupting act.  So they'll positively love it tonight if Obama tries it against Romney. 

It may be who Joe Biden is, but it's not who Obama is. If he tries it, he'll look fake.

That brings up the next point: what new arguments can Obama bring up to say in this new angry tone?  Obama making the SAME LOSING ARGUMENTS in a more FORCEFUL, AGGRESSIVE manner will not help him. Romney will be ready.  He'll end up making Obama look even more clueless and lost.  Obama will have to have new arguments, or just adopting a new tone won't help.  

Whatever new stuff Obama has, it better be good.  If he doesn't at least force a clear tie tonight, we're going to see another slew of 'Does Obama Really WANT To Win?' fawning editorials from the Left, with the assumption that the only reason The Smartest Man In The Room is getting his ass kicked is because he's somehow lost interest in this whole thing.