News Nuggets 1102

DAYLEE PICTURE: Obama at a one of his final rallies.  From the Washington Post

UP-FRONT OBAMA VIDEO NUGGET!!
President Obama: "I'm Really Proud of All of You." from YouTube
Obama, the community organizer/president, acknowledges his campaign staff in Chicago in a deeply effecting and inspiring tribute!

UP-FRONT OBAMA SECOND TERM NUGGET!!
Obama's Holding the Cards on "Fiscal Cliff" (Joshua Green) from the Bloomberg News Service
"At first glance, the results of the 2012 election look like a return to the status quo: President Obama was reelected, Democrats retained the Senate, and Republicans held on to the House. But don’t be fooled. The political dynamic of the next four years will be almost exactly the opposite of the last four. ... In Obama’s second term, leverage will shift to the Democrats on almost every issue of importance. And that shift has already begun."

UP-FRONT GOP NUGGET!!
Romneyworld Reckoning Begins from Politico
"“The anger is that they were entrusted to do certain things. It’s not like they were paid a $5,000 retainer to get a few dozen articles in an inside-the-Beltway paper. This is the major leagues.” ... Romney supporters point to a series of brash statements made by advisers that seem out of touch with reality in retrospect. Inside the Beltway, Republicans trained their fire on senior Romney advisers like Ed Gillespie and political director Rich Beeson for appearances on last weekend’s Sunday shows."
On the one hand, Romney's political spin-meisters deserve every degree of heat they are receiving today both for misleading their fat-cat donors but even more for pervasive lying across the board starting at the first debate and going downhill from there.  ON THE OTHER HAND, GOP donors and voters alike have no one to blame but themselves for the delusional right-wing non-sense they have been selling (and apparently buying) for the last five years.  Jed Lewison at Daily Kos has a SPOT-ON critique of these folks HERE.  Lewison's commentary is worth quoting at length: "What a perfect encapsulation of the utter cluelessness and loathsome sense of entitlement of Romney's big money backers. It's not just that they were stupid enough to believe Romneyland's confidence (did they really expect to be told that Mitt was toast and that their money would be better spent elsewhere?), it's that they seem to believe they were hiring staff whose job was to win the election much like they might hire a pool boy to clean out the pool. And now they are really pissed off because even though they spent all this money, they see a big turd floating in the middle of the water and now they want their money back."

In case you missed it from yesterday, Conor Friedersdorf takes aim at the equally culpable right-wing media machine.  

Several other related stories:
Republican Reckoning Begins After Revealing Defeat (Jon Ward) from the Huffington Post
"Republican Party leaders on Wednesday began picking up the pieces of their movement, trying to figure how to put them back together. The GOP was blindsided Tuesday, but also revealed. The Democrats' ground organization was beyond anything they'd imagined, pulling in new voters with stunning effectiveness. It exposed a major weakness in the Republican approach to winning elections, practically and intellectually. ... The real lightning bolts being thrown on Wednesday were by the party's super donors, who played a historic role in this election after a 2010 Supreme Court decision allowed them to give unlimited amounts to outside groups."

Karl Rove, American Crossroads Spin GOP Election Losses from the Huffington Post
"Although he wasn't running for office, his Crossroads organizations spent more than $300 million on Republican candidates in the 2012 election, with some of the biggest spenders in the conservative movement putting their hopes -- and dollars -- in the care of Rove. Combined, his groups were the largest single outside force of the 2012 election. The results were bleak. According to the Sunlight Foundation, American Crossroads, Rove's super PAC, saw just a 1 percent return on its investments. Crossroads GPS, the political nonprofit arm, saw a 14 percent return."

Adviser: Romney "Shellshocked" by Loss from CBS News
A powerful heartfelt description of a campaign that had deluded itself! 
"... it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President. After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it. "We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming.""

How the Secret Service Said Goodbye to Mitt Romney (Marc Ambinder) from GQ 
"At some point, early Wednesday morning, when Gov. Mitt Romney and family were tucked into bed, a quiet call went out on the radio channel used by his Secret Service agents: "Javelin, Jockey details, all posts, discontinue." Of all the indignities involved in losing a presidential race, none is more stark than the sudden emptiness of your entourage."

Republicans Start Review to Find Out What Went Wrong (Peter Wallsten) from the Washington Post
"Officials told The Washington Post that they’re planning a series of voter-based polls and focus groups, meetings with constituency group leaders, and in-depth discussions with their volunteers, donors and staff members to find ways to broaden their appeal."

Voter Suppression Backfires (Ta-Nehisi Coates) from the Atlantic
"Barack Obama knew who he was talking to when he called voting the best revenge. We don't need no high-faluting reasons to stand in those long lines. We'll stand there just for the privilege of putting that stutter in Karl Rove's speech, and that panicked look on his face."

As Nation and Parties Change, Republicans Are at an Electoral College Disadvantage (Nate Silver) from the New York Times
"Two more presidential elections, 2016 and 2020, will be contested under the current Electoral College configuration, which gave Barack Obama a second term on Tuesday. This year’s results suggest that this could put Republicans at a structural disadvantage."

Obama Claims Victory in Fla.; Romney Won't Concede from News 13
"Obama's campaign issued a statement late Thursday afternoon saying they had won Florida. The Associated Press has not called the race said it is still too close. Obama led Romney 49.9 percent to 49.3 percent or by about 52,000 votes."

How Republicans Saved Senate Democrats In 2014 from Talking Points Memo 
"Two years from now, the Senate Democrats who rode the 2008 wave into office will face re-election. In theory, this provides the GOP with large pick-up opportunities. Democrats will be defending seats everywhere they’d rather not fight: in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, and West Virginia — just to name a few. ...  Their new, unexpected five seat buffer, and the GOP’s penchant for nominating unelectable Senate
candidates, means they’re not destined to lose power two years from now."

Will The Right's Fever Break? (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast 
"These performers had no argument as such; they just had contempt. Yes, I watched for Schadenfreude purposes. These charlatans and money-grubbers have turned the broad tradition of Anglo-American conservatism into Southern Fried Fanaticism - and I wanted to see them crackle in their batter. They have replaced empirical doubt with unerring faith in an ideology that had its moment over thirty years ago and is barely relevant to the world we now live in."

For Republicans, Less Purity and More Reality (Alan Charles Raul) from the Washington Post
"It’s clear that drinking too much tea has left us jittery. Some lower-octane ideological purity has to be part of a new Republican movement."

Republicans: Don’t Trust Fox News! (Allison Benedikt) from Slate
"For liberals like me, Fox News was the channel to watch last night. As it became clear early on that Obama was going to take this thing, my household quickly switched the channel from CNN to Fox, eager to see the network’s massive breakdown play out in real time."

Who’s Skewed Now? Beaten GOP Wakes Up to the Real America (Andrew Romano) from the Daily Beast
"Ultraconservatives were sure the polls were wrong—and the America they knew would reject Obama the socialist Muslim. But the election proves the Real America is something quite different, says Andrew Romano."

Obama, the Fortunate One (Daniel Klaidman) from Newsweek
"Sure, Obama’s lucky. He also relentlessly seizes his chances and makes every one of them count."
Newsweek's "cover" story for this week.

2016 Election: Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush? from Politico
"American politics may be headed back to the future. Four years after the country elected a 40-something African-American newcomer named Barack to the presidency, a more familiar political order is poised to reassert itself: the House of Clinton representing Democrats and the House of Bush atop the GOP."

Election 2016: Chris Cillizza’s 13 Front-Runners (Chris Cillizza) from the Washington Post
"For political junkies, President Obama’s reelection means one thing for 2016: An open race, with candidates contesting for both major party nominations. Here’s the early line from The Fix’s Chris Cillizza on the 2016 candidates, in no particular order. So, dear readers, if it’s not too early for you, here goes:..."

Among the Top Election Quants, Nate Silver Reigns Supreme (Daniel Terdiman) from C-Net
"Not only did FiveThirtyEight's Silver pick all 50 state winners in the presidential race, he also beat out his polling aggregator rivals for sheer margin of accuracy."

MOVIE REVIEW NUGGET!!
"Lincoln" is Magnificent (Daniel O'Hehir) from Salon
"Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and an amazing cast bring history alive in Spielberg's moral masterpiece."

ICE AGE NUGGET!!
“Impeccably Preserved” Woolly Mammoth Excavated in France from Salon 
"Archaeologists near Paris Thursday excavated a nearly complete woolly mammoth skeleton. The long-dead mammoth, named “Helmut,” is considered remarkable not simply because it is “impeccably preserved” but also because neanderthal-made spearheads were discovered among the bones."

News Nuggets 1101

DAYLEE PICTURE: A baby praying mantis on a snail in Borneo.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

UP-FRONT CAMPAIGN CASH NUGGET!!
Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors from the New York Times 
"The biggest single donor in political history, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, mingled with other Romney backers at a postelection breakfast, fresh off a large gamble gone bad. Of the eight candidates he supported with tens of millions of dollars in contributions to “super PACs,” none were victorious on Tuesday."
NONE!  NONE!  Isn't that a wonderful word!!  Read the whole piece!

How a Race in the Balance Went to Obama from the New York Times
"The Oct. 3 debate sharply exposed Mr. Obama’s vulnerabilities and forced the president and his advisers to work to reclaim the campaign over a grueling 30 days, ending with his triumph on Tuesday. After a summer of growing confidence, Mr. Obama suddenly confronted the possibility of a loss that would diminish his legacy and threaten his signature
achievement, the health care law."

Obama’s Second-Term Surprise: Politics Not As Usual (James Warren) from the Daily Beast
"Expect the unexpected, say people who know the president well. James Warren on what’s in store for the next four years."

With New Senate Picture, Reid Looking at Filibuster Reform (Joan McCarter) from Daily Kos
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is getting a big batch of new senators into his caucus in January, new Democratic senators who have made the pledge to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to join the filibuster reformers already in the Democratic caucus. It sounds like Reid's going to enlist them immediately."

Many Iranians See Nuke Talks, No Military Attack With Obama Reelection (Omid Memarian) from the Daily Beast
Iranian citizens and authorities alike think Obama will put more pressure on Tehran for its nuclear program, but most believe he’s more likely to opt for talks and sanctions than the military action they expected from Romney."

For Obama, a Bigger Win Than for Kennedy, Nixon, Carter or Bush (John Nichols) from the Nation
"It wasn’t even close. That’s the unexpected result of the November 6 election. And President Obama and his supporters must wrap their heads around this new reality—just as their Republican rivals are going to have to adjust to it."

How Obama Won Four More Years (John Dickerson) from Slate
"He became a street fighter. And he had a better team that ran a
first-rate campaign."

Analysis: Why Romney Lost (Peter Hamby) from CNN
"...the signs of desperation inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on Tuesday night were symptomatic of a Republican Party now standing at a crossroads, with not much track in sight."

A GOP that’s Off-Track (Michael Gerson) from the Washington Post
"In considering that future, Republicans will need to deal with a number of large issues — from appealing to suburban women to dealing with generational cultural shifts. There will be plenty of opportunities to reflect on these topics. But let me highlight two specific moments from Romney’s campaign that symbolized a party badly off-track. "

Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win (Michael Scherer) from Time Magazine
"In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama’s campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49. The women were far and away the single demographic group most likely to hand over cash, for a chance to dine in Hollywood with Clooney — and Obama. So as they did with all the other data collected, stored and analyzed in the two-year drive for re-election, Obama’s top campaign aides decided to put this insight to use."

The 2012 Polling Hall of Shame (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"...there was a class of pollster that was so patently bad, they made me assume the whatever their results said, the opposite was actually true. So follow me below for a tour of this year's polling suck."

Poll: Latino Vote Devastated GOP Even Worse Than Exits Showed from Talking Points Memo
"An election eve poll of 5,600 voters across all 50 states by the group, which has researched the Latino vote throughout the campaign, concluded Obama won by an eye-popping 75-23 margin."

A Vast Left-Wing Competency (Sasha Issenberg) from Slate
"How Democrats became the party of effective campaigning—and why the GOP isn’t catching up anytime soon."

Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington Bring Joy to Supporters of Marriage Equality (Meteor Blades) from Daily Kos
"Four states from coast to coast delivered a body slam to the advocates of bigotry Tuesday, legalizing marriage equality in two states, making it likely in third and, in a fourth, knocking down another attempt to make marriage a matter only between a man and a woman."

They Had It Coming! (Joan Walsh) from Salon
"Obama was right: The GOP got the electoral rebuke it needed, and that's good for the country, and the party."

Republicans Stung by Loss Begin Debate Over Future (Mike Dorning and John McCormick) from the Bloomberg News Service
"The political trauma over Republican Mitt Romney’s defeat by President Barack Obama was compounded by the party losing ground in the U.S. Senate. “If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn’t conservative enough, I’m going to go nuts,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a Nov. 5 interview with Politico."

The Malia Generation (Amy Davidson) from the New Yorker
"Four years ago, when Barack Obama was first elected President, the girls were small children—they are still just eleven and fourteen—and now Malia is about as tall as her mother. If the quarrels and deliberations associated with politics are, as Obama said in his speech, “a mark of our liberty,” then his daughters were a mark of the passage of time."

Why the Youth Vote Mattered in Obama Reelection (Lizzie Crocker) from the Daily Beast
"Headlines suggested the 18- to 29-year-old vote was no longer relevant in the 2012 election, but they were wrong. Comprising a record 19 percent of the electorate, young people were a key demographic. Here’s why they didn’t pick Romney."

Is China Envious of American Democracy? (Benjamin Carlson) from Salon 
"Chinese netizens acknowledge the stark contrast between US elections and their own government's transfer of power."

Whites-only GOP Meets its Demographic Destiny (Rich Benjamin) from Salon 
"The creaking noise you hear? It's the sound of conservative white men trying to fight off change -- and failing."

Why Mitt Lost: He Couldn’t Separate Himself from the Republican Party’s Growing Extremism (Jacob Weisberg) from Slate
"The Republican nominee made any number of horrendous gaffes. He ran a disastrous GOP convention. He never found a way to talk about himself or his agenda in a way that middle class voters could relate to. But even a clumsy candidate might have beaten Obama if not for a simple factor that could not be overcome: the GOP’s growing extremism."

G.O.P. Factions Grapple Over Meaning of Loss from the New York Times 
"“While some will want to blame one wing of the party over the other,” Mr. Cornyn said in a statement, “the reality is candidates from all corners of our G.O.P. lost tonight. Clearly we have work to do in the weeks and months ahead.” There was no shortage of theories — sometimes contradictory — from inside and outside party in the first hours after the 2012 elections."

The Five Stages of Fox News Grief (Will Oremus) from Slate
"In Fox News' election coverage Tuesday night, there was little pretense of fairness or balance. What there was, from the start, was a glum tone that turned downright funereal by the time Mitt Romney finally conceded, near 1 a.m. To watch the network's anchors and guests work through the dawning realization that their candidate was doomed was to witness a textbook case of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief."

Punditz: 34 Blown Election Predictions (Jed Lewison) from Daily Kos 
A laundry list of way-off-base predictions and analysis!!

News Nuggets 1100

DAYEE PICTURE: A cold fall day in County Durham in the UK.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

ELECTION DAY A DAY OF RECKONING FOR THE GOP!!

UP-FRONT ELECTION ANALYSIS NUGGET!!
How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"Nate Silver was right. His ideological antagonists were wrong. And that's just the beginning of the right's self-created information disadvantage."

The World on Obama from the New York Times
"The Editors of the International Herald Tribune invited analysts from around the world to share their reactions to the re-election of President Obama."

The Real Real America (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"... it’s also the election that lets us ask, finally, “Who cares what’s the matter with Kansas?” For a long time, right-wingers — and some pundits — have peddled the notion that the “real America”, all that really counted, was the land of non-urban white people, to which both parties must abase themselves."

The Obama Realignment (Ross Douthat) from the New York Times
"When you do it once, it's just a victory. When you do it twice, it's a realignment. The coalition that Barack Obama put together to win the presidency handily in 2008 looked a lot like the emerging Democratic majority that optimistic liberals had been discerning on the political horizon since the 1990s."

Big Bet Six Months Ago Paved Way for President from the Wall Street Journal
"Jim Messina wanted to bet the bank—six months before Election Day. One Sunday in May, Mr. Messina, the manager of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, went to the president along with other top advisers and proposed an unorthodox strategy. The campaign, he said, wanted to spend heavily, starting immediately, on ads blasting away at Republican nominee Mitt Romney."

The Republicans Bet Everything, and Obama Won It All (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"Those white voters would vote their pocketbooks, which is to say, overwhelmingly against Obama. And then henceforth Obama, like Carter, would be the symbol of failure and big government overreach, a political bogeyman for future Democratic candidates. The great gamble failed. It failed for many reasons:..."

Welcome To Liberal America (Smith and Miller) from BuzzFeed
"Barack Obama, gay marriage, weed, and a new focus on climate change. This is the country, and the Republican Party has to adapt."

Election Thoughts (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"Some random bullet points as I begin processing the results:..."

Obama's Big Night (Molly Ball) from the Atlantic
"From landmark victories for marijuana and same-sex marriage to picking up seats in the Senate, the left gained much more than the presidency Tuesday."

Yes, Obama Won a Mandate (Jonathan Cohn) from the New Republic
"Romney and the Republicans had turned the election into a referendum on liberalism—not just the liberalism of Obama, but also the liberalism of Johnson and Kennedy, of Truman and Roosevelt. They proposed massive, fundamental changes to the welfare state and wholesale rollbacks of women’s rights, and challenged the philosophy behind such policies—the whole idea that governments should act to protect vulnerable groups and to guarantee economic security. It was a huge gambit. And it failed."

Mitt Romney Election Results 2012: Stinging Loss, And Party At A Crossroads (Jon Ward) from the Huffington Post
"...the Grand Old Party has perhaps never looked so old, and it faces deep questions about how it will fix its inability to attract support from younger voters and from minorities, particularly Hispanics."

Election Aftermath: GOP Soul-Searching: 'Too Old, Too White, Too Male'? (Jonathan Martin) from Politico
"Republicans face a crisis: The country is growing less white, and their coalition has become more white in recent years. ... But the GOP’s problem is more fundamental than one bloc of voters."

In Boston, Stunned Romney Supporters Struggle to Explain Defeat (Byron York) from the Washington Examiner
"... what was striking after Fox News called the race for Obama, at about 11:15 p.m., was how stunned so many of Romney’s supporters were.  Many said they were influenced by the prominent conservatives who predicted a big Romney win, and they fully expected Tuesday night to be a victory celebration."

Republicans Face Murky Political Future in Increasingly Diverse U.S. (Peter Wallsten) from the Washington Post
"Republican leaders awoke Wednesday to witness their grim future. Without a makeover, a party that skews toward older, white and male voters faces political peril in an increasingly diverse and complex America. President Obama’s decisive victory over Mitt Romney served as a clinic in
21st-century politics..."

The Tea Party's National Ambitions Are Finished (Elspeth Reeve) from the Atlantic
" While the Tea Party won Republicans a majority in the House in 2010, election night 2012 showed the party's message is toxic at the national and statewide levels. While house races are local in character, Senate and presidential races are held statewide."

The 3 Biggest Day-After Mea Culpas (Garance Franke-Ruta) from the Atlantic 
"These men got it wrong. And they're not afraid to say so."

A more expansive analysis:
How Pundits Are Explaining Their Totally Wrong Election Predictions (Rebecca Greenfield) from the Atlantic
"Now that we've outed them as poor tea leaf readers, it's time for the justification phase of pundit predictions. While some of our political talking heads are bashful, admitting that they were plain wrong, not all of these pundits want to accept the truth. Guys, take it from Romney, a noble concession speech is the way to go in these situations. "

An example of the apocalyptic hair-pulling that is occurring on the hard right:
Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption (Robert Stacy McCain) from the American Spectator
"If four years of endless failure have not rid them of this madness, the disease may well be terminal. Perhaps others will still see some cause for hope, and in another few weeks my friends may persuade me to see it, too. But today I will hear no such talk, and I doubt I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. At the moment, I am convinced America is doomed beyond all hope of redemption, and any talk of the future fills me with dread and horror."

Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says from the Bloomberg News Service
"Barack Obama may consider introducing a tax on carbon emissions to help cut the U.S. budget deficit after winning a second term as president, according to HSBC Holdings Plc. A tax starting at $20 a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent and rising at about 6 percent a year could raise $154 billion by 2021, Nick Robins, an analyst at the bank in London, said today in an e-mailed research note, citing Congressional Research Service estimates. “Applied to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2012 baseline, this would halve the fiscal deficit by 2022,” Robins said."

News Nuggets 1099

DAYLEE PICTURE: A close-up of a polar bear in Hudson Bay near Churchill Island.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

China's Economic Destiny in Doubt After Leadership Shock from the Daily Telegraph [of the UK]
"The forces of reaction and economic folly threaten to prevail in China. The long political arm of Jiang Zemin has reached out from the shadows to thwart reform, with huge implications for Asia and the world."

IMF Warning Adds to French Economy Fears (Hugh Carnegy) from the Financial Times [of the UK]
"France risks falling behind crisis-hit Italy and Spain if it does not reform its economy, the International Monetary Fund has warned, adding to pressure on President François Hollande to stem the country’s industrial decline."

Sandy Versus Katrina (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"Sorry, guys: polls show overwhelming approval for Mr. Obama’s handling of the storm, and a significant rise in his overall favorability ratings. And he deserves the bump."

Obama is Good for Israel from the Editorial Board of Al Haaretz [of Israel in English]
"The outcome of the elections will be determined by the voters' decision as to which of the two candidates is good for America. But if any of them are vacillating in their vote over over whether Obama has been a good president for Israel, the answer is yes."

Why Obama Is Better at Getting Out the Vote; Lots of Door-Knocking—and Years of Statistical Analysis (Sasha Issenberg) from Slate
"Darley-Emerson’s rounds—and those of hundreds of thousands of other canvassers and callers in the closing hours of the election—may look like the basic work of campaigns, the slog of door knocks and repetitive phone calls. But as is the case with much of Obama’s campaign, the dutiful fieldwork is undergirded by sophisticated analytics unmatched by his Republican opponents."

The Last Pew Poll: Obama Holds Edge On Eve Of Election from NPR's All Things Considered 
"... we continue to get a three-point 50 to 47 edge for Obama. And that would be our projection of the popular vote as best we can do it here two days before the election. ... We were exactly right in 2008. We were exactly right in 2004. And in terms of the popular vote for Congress, we were right in '06 and '10. So we have a pretty good record."

Projection: Obama Will Likely Win Second Term (Larry Sabato) from the University of Virginia Center for Politics
"With a slight, unexpected lift provided by Hurricane Sandy, Mother Nature’s October surprise, President Barack Obama appears poised to win his second term tomorrow. Our final Electoral College projection has the president winning the key swing states of Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin and topping Mitt Romney, with 290 electoral votes."

Early Voting Chaos Ensues In Swing States from the Huffington Post 
"Despite the long lines, The Huffington Post's Jennifer Bendery reported, few voters, if any, left a two-hour long line in Cleveland out of discouragement. "If I die tomorrow, at least my vote counts today," one voter said."
As the GOP's suppression strategy directed at minorities becomes more transparently political, minorities across the country are treating it more and more as an old-style CIVIL RIGHTS issue!

Polls Suggest Undecideds Won’t Help Romney (If They Show Up) from Talking Points Memo
"The latest WSJ/NBC national poll puts Obama up over Romney by the narrowest margin, 48 percent to 47 percent. But it’s the poll’s breakdown of respondents who are either undecided or still willing to consider switching that stands out. According to NBC, the 9 percent of voters who fit the bill are overwhelmingly warmer to Obama."

Much of the Media Is Calling the Presidential Race for Barack Obama (Howard Kurtz) from the Daily Beast
"The press is heading into Election Day increasingly confident that the president will beat Romney. Howard Kurtz on the polling and the predictions—and what will happen if they’re wrong."

Why Mitt Romney Loss Would Yield Deeper Recriminations in GOP (Peter Beinart) from the Daily Beast
"If Obama loses, Democrats will not despair about the party, but a Romney loss would likely mean an ideological insurrection in the GOP, Republican backbiting about alienating Hispanics, and conservatives asserting they never loved Mitt anyway."

What It Feels Like to Lose a Presidential Election (David Freedlander) from the Daily Beast
"Someone will be unhappy on Wednesday. Presidential losers Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bob Dole on getting over the sting of second—and advice for this year’s runner-up."

The Gilded Age vs. the 21st Century (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post 
"Romney may have flipped and flopped and flipped again on issues he didn’t care about, but his view of American capitalism and American government never wavered. If Teddy Roosevelt fought against the policies of the Gilded Age, Obama is fighting a Republican Party determined to bring the Gilded Age back and undo the achievements of a century."

More on the Money Dump (Josh Marshall) from Talking Points Memo
"I mentioned earlier today that there were lots of anecdotal reports about pro-GOP SuperPACs dumping money in places where there don’t seem to be seriously contested elections. Dallas, Chicago, just places where it’s really hard to figure there’s any real bang for the buck, to put it mildly. The overall take I had this morning still seems basically right to me — more money left than they have things to spend it on and you don’t want any left over on Wednesday, plus the people running the PACs usually bag nice commissions on the spends."

Final Senate Snapshot, and My Predictions (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
"If the numbers above determined the election, Democrats would lose the Democratic seat in Nebraska, while Democrats would pick up Indiana, Maine and Massachusetts for a net gain of two seats. That tie in North Dakota would give the GOP a chance to limit their losses to one seat. Losses. For the GOP. When they were defending 10 seats, and the Democrats 21."

The Obama Landslide Scenario (Steve Kornacki) from Salon
"Yes, he could still lose. But he could also end up with almost as many electoral votes as he won in his 2008 rout."

News Nuggets 1098

DAYLEE PICTURE: An ice halo caused by hurricane Sandy in Alabama.  From the Daily Mail of the UK.

The U.S. Presidential Debates and the Glory of American Democracy (Ali Jassem) from Al Sabaah [of Iraq in English]
"At the end of each U.S. presidential term, we watch with amazement - we being the millions of Arabs and Asians deprived of any form of democracy, even the fictional kind. We watch the competition between the outgoing president (Obama now) and his opponent (now Mitt Romney) through glamorous and well-produced video clips. ... The final stage of the U.S. presidential competition consists of televised debates with live audiences, in which the two candidates sit facing one another on an open platform, i.e.: it can be watched by Americans, Chinese, Indians and even Saudis in the Arabian Peninsula, assuming they aren't too busy camel racing!"

The Choice from the Editors of the New Yorker
"The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney—a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity. A two-term Obama Administration will leave an enduringly positive imprint on political life."

The Case for Barack Obama: Why Voters Should Choose the Democratic Ticket from The Week
"So far, 35 of the 72 largest newspapers by circulation have endorsed President Obama's re-election. All but one also endorsed him in 2008. Here are some of the arguments they are making for why voters should choose the Democratic ticket: ..."

Upholding Democracy, Ballot by Ballot from the Editorial Board of the New York Times
"This year, voting is more than just the core responsibility of citizenship; it is an act of defiance against malicious political forces determined to reduce access to democracy. Millions of ballots on Tuesday — along with those already turned in — will be cast despite the best efforts of Republican officials around the country to prevent them from playing a role in the 2012 election."

The Moral Case For Obama (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"I've supported Democrats and Republicans in my adult life, for different prudential reasons at different moments in time. In politics, I'm a conservative; not an ideologue. But there is another dimension to politics and it's about morality. Some issues are not subject to prudential or utilitarian reasoning, but are fundamental a priori moral questions."

UPI Poll: Obama Gets Bounce from Sandy from United Press International 
"The UPI/C-Voter survey released Saturday said 65 percent of adults agreed the destructive storm and its aftermath gave the president a chance to connect better with voters in the critical closing days of the U.S. presidential campaign."

Obama, Bill Clinton Electrify Virginia Crowd Ahead Of Presidential Election (Julie Pace) from the Associated Press via the Huffington Post 
"With the White House race in its final days, President Barack Obama and Bill Clinton hit the campaign trail together Saturday night. Clinton, his voice hoarse from a flurry of campaign events, said he had given "my voice in the service of my president." The former president vouched for Obama's economic agenda, saying he had done a good job with a bad hand."
Note how Bill Clinton is in demand everywhere.  Where's the demand for W? One of the deep-in-the-book reasons why I think Romney and the GOP will lose on Tuesday.

Sunday Update: Nate Silver Makes Obama 85 Percent Favorite (David Daley) from Salon
"The president nears his high-water mark in the influential survey, rebounding almost to pre-Denver debate levels."

PRES-PA: Rendell On Pennsylvania Dems: 'They're Pissed' At Obama's Treatment (Sam Stein) from the Huffington Post
"Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who has, on occasion, been
circumspect about Obama's chances in Pennsylvania, told The Huffington Post on Sunday that he thought the president was in great shape in his home state heading into Election Day."

What We Know Before Election Day: Countdown Day 2 (Howard Fineman) from the Huffington Post
"Regional, racial and demographic divisions are, if anything, getting deeper, it seems clear. Almost 150 years after the end of the Civil War, the "Solid South" remains pretty much just that. President Barack Obama and the Democrats still think they can win Virginia, at least, but everything else from Columbia, South Carolina over to Columbia, Missouri is a sea of one-party Republican Red. Nothing is forever in politics, but the endurance of that regional split, rooted in slavery and war, is nothing short of remarkable."

GOP Already Putting Out “Why Romney Lost” Spin (John Aravosis) from Americablog
"As a sign of how bad things are looking for Romney, GOP strategist Ana Navarro was just on CNN, “defending” Romney, and when asked by the host for a one word answer as to who would win on Tuesday, the Democrat on the panel said “Obama,” while the Republican replied that she was only going to say that Romney would win Florida. Ouch."

Romney Camp Talks Losing, Because They're Losing (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos
""We're the challengers. We always knew we could lose," one aide told me here in Dubuque. "They [the Obama camp] never contemplated they could lose." ... What's delicious is that this loser talk is happening days before the election. They're beat, they know it, and after weeks of pretending otherwise, they're too exhausted to keep up the pretenses."

How the Christian Right Is Preparing for an Obama Win (Kevin Roose) from New York Magazine
"But if all that fails, and Obama is re-elected despite their efforts, you can be sure that millions of Christians will once again use Biblical arguments very similar to Erickson's to console themselves over the prospect of a second Obama term."

On the Coming Post-Election GOP Freak Out (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"If Romney loses on Tuesday, watch for the right’s outrage machine to kick into high gear."

Lessons Learned from 2012 from Politico
"... for top leaders and strategists in both parties, the race has yielded immediate, tangible lessons that will shape the nation’s politics in the months and years ahead, regardless of who wins on Tuesday. Here are a few of the conclusions top tacticians are already drawing:..."

SANDY STORM PHOTO NUGGET!!
When Manhattan Went Dark: Historic Photograph from the Air Captures New York City Left Powerless by Hurricane Sandy from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Hurricane Sandy left thousands without electricity when it struck on Monday evening, and the confronting, yet beautiful, photo encapsulates how one of the world's most powerful cities was rendered powerless in an instant by mother nature."

CATHEDRAL PHOTO NUGGET!!
Heaven's Gates: Stunning 180 Degree Pictures Capture Architecture of New York's Most Magnificent Churches to Make the Soul Soar from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Stunning shots of New York's ornate churches could rival even King Solomon's carefully crafted temple. New York City based photographer Richard Silver captured the majestic architecture of churches across Manhattan in 180 panoramic shots that give spectators a top to bottom view of these houses of worship."

News Nuggets 1097

DAYEE PICTURE: Dusk in Mustang province in Nepal.  From National Geographic.

Chinese No Longer Bow to Autocratic Rule from Der Spiegel [of Germany in English]
"The time of autocratic rule has passed for China's Communist Party. At one time it was understood that the people would obey, and everyone would get rich in return. But economic success will no longer suffice. Now the Chinese are demanding freedom and security too."


The World is Safer. But No One in Washington Can Talk About it (Greg Jaffe) from the Washington Post
"There’s one foreign policy fact that President Obama and Mitt Romney dare not mention this election season. No American general will speak of it. Nor will it displace the usual hot topics at Washington’s myriad foreign policy think tanks. Measured by most relevant statistics, the United States — and the world — have never been safer."


Chinese Netizens Like Obama and His Gangnam Style (Adam Minter) from Bloomberg News Service
"If the Chinese could vote in the U.S. election, President Barack Obama would likely win in a landslide. That win, however, would have almost nothing to do with his policies toward China (the Chinese aren’t fans)."

Virginia Voter Fraud Case Expands to Focus on GOP Firm from the Washington Post
This story further demonstrates the enormity of GOP cynicism.  Voter fraud, that bête noire of rightwing fantasists for years now, turns out to be an area Republicans have been nurturing for some time.  INCREDIBLE! 
"The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case."

“O-H?” “I-O!!” (Mark Halperin) from Time Magazine
"I’ve been back on the ground about 24 hours in the Buckeye State and here are my first impressions of the end game: ... Don’t kill me for the obvious, but the near absence of racial diversity in the Romney crowds is teased out further by the contrast with the rainbow the President draws. It is more striking than I have ever experienced it in any presidential campaign I have covered."

Thanks To Hurricane Sandy, Obama Supporters Feel Better About Odds (Jon Ward) from the Huffington Post
"Republicans like Karl Rove and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman aren't the only ones who think that Hurricane Sandy has helped President Barack Obama politically."

Why Do White People Think Mitt Romney Should Be President? (Tom Scocca) from Slate
"Parsing the narrow, tribal appeal of the Republican nominee."

Barack Obama and the Paradox Behind his African American Support Base (Gary Younge) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The ascent of the first black president has coincided with a steep descent in the economic fortunes of black Americans. But that hasn't impeded their outward optimism about Obama."

Obama Camp Claims 1.8 Million New Swing State Voter Registrations from Talking Points Memo
"President Obama’s campaign released numbers Saturday that illustrate the robust ground operation Democrats say will secure him a second term Tuesday night. In a memo sent to reporters, the Obama campaign said it opened more than 5,000 get-out-the-vote “staging locations” Saturday morning in advance of the big push for votes Tuesday."

Presidential Polls 2012: Obama's Battleground Advantage Holds (Mark Blumenthal) from the Huffington Post
"The veritable fire hose of data turned on in the final days of the 2012 campaign leaves little doubt that while the national popular vote remains too close to call, President Barack Obama holds slim but meaningful leads over Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the battleground states that will likely decide the presidential election."

Polls Show Obama Maintaining Lead In Ohio, Advancing In Colorado (Nate Cohn) from the New Republic
[Along with the solidly blue states,] "the combination of Wisconsin, Nevada, and Ohio provides Obama with 271 electoral votes. As of today, there is not a single non-partisan survey showing Romney ahead in any of these three states."

Lincoln's Lessons for Obama (Andrew Ohirhir) from Salon
"In Spielberg's "Lincoln," a vilified president outfoxes his hateful opponents in a bitterly divided America."

The 10 Most Outrageous Completely Made-Up Obama Scandals from National Memo
"Republicans often claim that we know less about this president than any other in history. They like to pretend that somehow during the most heated primary challenge in decades, the Clinton camp simply failed to vet Barack Obama. Then the press let him dance into the White House without ever questioning a word he said. The fact is that since Bill Clinton left office, Barack Obama is the most investigated man on the planet. And since all this hounding hasn’t resulted in one significant scandal, the right continually invents or recycles stories to feed the narrative that he is somehow un-American or unworthy of the presidency."

IN-SEN: Mourdock Collapses In Polls In Indiana Senate Race (Henry Decker) from National Memo
"According to a new Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground poll, Republican Richard Mourdock’s infamous remarks about rape have doomed his chances of winning Indiana’s Senate election."

ANCIENT EGYPT NUGGET!!
Egyptian Princess' Tomb Dating from 2500 BC is Discovered Near Cairo from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"A princess' tomb dating from about 2500 BC has been discovered near Cairo, the Egyptian government revealed today. The discovery was made in the Abu Sir region south of Cairo by a team of archeologists from Czechoslovakia. We have discovered the antechamber to Princess Shert Nebti's tomb which contains four limestone pillars,' Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt's antiquities minister, said."

TECHNOLOGY NUGGET!!
Stanford Scientists Build the First All-carbon Solar Cell from the Palo Alto Patch
"Researchers have developed a solar cell made entirely of carbon, an inexpensive substitute for the pricey materials used in conventional solar panels."

HOLLYWOOD NUGGET!!
The Man Who Made Star Wars from the Atlantic
"The idea was to make a high adventure film for children. The result was the box-office hit of all time. The man responsible was George Lucas."

CLASSIC GAME NUGGET!!
How the Monopoly Board Could have Looked: Patents Reveal the Original Ideas Behind Some of Our Most Popular Games and Toys from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Beloved of households everywhere, these childhood favourites are a well-known addition to any play room. But these patents show just how different the creator's original idea for their toy were, and how they evolved into the much-loved game they are today. Monopoly began life in 1903 as 'The Landlord's Game'."

News Nuggets 1096

DAYLEE PICTURE: Emperor penguins in Antarctica.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT OBAMA VIDEO NUGGET!!
Wondering why people so overwhelmingly approve of Obama's handling of the hurricane?  Check out this video of him touring a devastated marina.   

The U.S. Navy is Arming Drone Boats (John Reed) from Foreign Policy Magazine
"While the U.S. Air Force's drones have been firing all sorts of air-to-surface missiles and bombs for roughly a decade now, the Navy took a big step toward getting in on the action last Friday when it launched six Israeli-made Spike missiles from an unmanned 36-foot motorboat. The Navy pretty much admits that the project -- called the unmanned surface vehicle precision engagement module (USV PEM) -- is aimed at defeating threats that are straight out of Iran's war plans for the Persian Gulf region."

Coming to America: China Wants to Buy its Way Onto Your TV Screen. Will it Work? from Foreign Policy Magazine
Answer: No.
""The idea is for this to be not a Chinese mouthpiece, not a Chinese propaganda tool, but a global channel produced with a Chinese flair.'" Nearly a year later, that vision is coming into focus, and it offers a curious indication of China's search for soft power. Despite the promise of wider editorial latitude, CCTV America's coverage of China is largely scrubbed of controversy and upbeat in tone, with a heavy emphasis on business and cultural stories in places where Beijing hopes to gain influence."

Nine 2012 Electoral College Predictions Have Obama Ahead from the Denver Post
"With the clock ticking down to Election Day, most political prognosticators see President Obama winning re-election, though his Electoral College count varies from 281 — just 11 votes over the 270 needed to win — to 332, below his 2008 win but still a healthy margin."

The Long Con: Mail-Order Conservatism (Rick Perlstein) from The Baffler 
A longread look at recent GOP history -- with a clear partisan slant.  
"... both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them? A look inside the deep tangle of political fictions and financial scams that make up movement conservatism."

Paul Krugman's comment on Perlstein's analysis:
Karl Rove’s Mission Accomplished (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times 
"The estimable Rick Perlstein has a fascinating essay about the seamless continuum from direct-mail marketing scams to direct-mail right-wing fundraising, and from there to the whole character of modern movement conservatism. ... I suspect that his analysis explains one of the great mysteries of 2012: the failure of the great Rove/Citizens United juggernaut to materialize."

The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President. Yes, Great. (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
Yes -- a great president!
"... unlike so many of his supporters, I never experienced a kind of emotional response to his candidacy. I never felt his election would change everything about American politics or government, that it would lead us out of the darkness. Nothing Obama did or said ever made me well up with tears. ...  For anybody who voted for Obama in 2008 and had even the vaguest sense of his platform, the notion that he has fallen short of some plausible performance threshold seems to me unfathomable. Obama’s résumé of accomplishments is broad and deep, running the gamut from economic to social to foreign policy."

Chait's companion piece:
The Case Against Romney: At Heart, He’s a Delusional One-Percenter (Jonathan Chait) from the New York Magazine
"Undoubtedly, what Romney believes in above all is himself. As a friend of his told Politico last month, at a moment when his campaign appeared hopeless, Romney approaches politics like a business deal: “Just do and say what you need to do to get the deal done, and then when it’s done, do what you know actually needs to be done to make the company a success.” ... He meant this not in the spirit of exposing Romney’s fraudulence, but in an elegiac way — a lament for a great man who would do good if only given a chance. "

Democrats Crushing Republicans on Sporadic Fla Voters in Early Voting from the Tampa Bay Times
"A trusted Democratic operative sent us some data on the early and absentee ballot vote in Florida so far to make the point that Barack Obama is crushing Mitt Romney when it comes to banking the votes of sporadic and infrequent voters before election day"

Pollsters Often Swing And Miss On The Growing Latino Vote from Talking Points Memo
"Sometimes that means that they simply underrepresented Latino voters, which made up roughly 9 to 10 percent of the total 2008 electorate. ... In a conference call with reporters, Barreto said any of these could potentially lead to big mistakes in the polls."

Mitt Romney’s Campaign Insults Voters from the Editorial Board of the Washington Post
"THROUGH ALL THE flip-flops, there has been one consistency in the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: a contempt for the electorate."

Is Romney Unraveling? (Charles Blow) from the New York Times
"According to the latest polls, the most likely outcome of Tuesday’s election is that Romney will lose. ... How is Romney losing it? Let us count the ways:"

Mitt Romney’s Delusions of Victory (Matt Latimer) from the Daily Beast 
From a conservative pundit.
"Sorry Mitt, the electoral map shows it’s all over but the shouting. Ex-Bush aide Matt Latimer on what the GOP needs to do to rebuild."

R.I.P., Mitt Romney (Robert Shrum) from the Daily Beast
"Mitt made multiple mistakes that will lead to his defeat on Tuesday. Some of them date all the way back to 2008."

On Wis. Campus, Obama Support Bubbles Below Surface (Scott Conroy) from Real Clear Politics
"At first glance, the apparent dearth of campaign-related activity would be deeply concerning to the re-election hopes of Barack Obama. The president is counting on a robust turnout in this liberal college town to help propel him to victory in a state that increasingly appears critical to both his and Mitt Romney’s electoral calculus. (Obama has a five-point lead in the RCP Average.) But a closer looked revealed activity happening in less visible ways."

TWO "RATS-JUMPING-SHIP-EARLY" NUGGETS!!
1.  Ryan Camp Leaks Post-election Plans that Don’t Involve Being VP (John Aravosis) from Americablog
"... all of Ryan’s confidants are talking to the AP about all of Ryan’s options post-loss, which is something you wouldn’t do if you thought he had a chance at winning. It’s not just a matter of jinxing things, you would not want to assist any article, five days before the election, that suggest he might lose. You only do that if you think he’s going to lose."

2.  Gingrich Email: Obama’s Gonna Win from Americablog
"Yesterday, an email was sent out to the Gingrich email list informing people that Obama was going to win and that it was time to start looking at 2016."

News Nuggets 1095

DAYLEE PICTURE:  Dragons Blood trees on the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean.  From National Geographic.

UP-FRONT POLLING NUGGET!!

Battleground Snapshot: Romney Losing Big Ground (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos

"Obama isn't just winning, the trendlines are moving in his direction. Rather than tighten the final week, the opposite is happening."

A related story:

In Election’s Last Weekend, Obama Gains Moderate Momentum As Romney Flails (John Avlon) from the Daily Beast

"After key endorsements by Bloomberg, Powell and others, and a cool-headed response to the Sandy disaster, the president may be peaking at the right time."

Wary of Future, Professionals Leave China in Record Numbers from the New York Times

This fascinating item showcases the multiple ways China's system is failing in the emerging global economy.

"As China’s Communist Party prepares a momentous leadership change in early November, it is losing skilled professionals like Ms. Chen in record numbers. In 2010, the last year for which complete statistics are available, 508,000 Chinese left for the 34 developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is a 45 percent increase over 2000."

After Bailout, Giants Allowed to Dominate the Mortgage Business from Propublica via the New York Times

"Given that housing prices are beaten up and borrowers must put down bigger cushions than in recent years, it is “the most profitable, safest time ever to be a mortgage bank,” says Scott Simon, who is the head of mortgage investing at Pimco."

U.S. Jobs Growth Quickens, Giving Obama Some Relief from Reuters

"U.S. employers stepped up hiring in October and a small increase in the jobless rate was due to more workers restarting their job hunts, a hopeful sign for a lackluster economy that has been a drag on President Barack Obama's re-election bid."

Why the October Jobs Report Is Even Better Than It Looks (Derek Thompson) from the Atlantic

"Bottom line: Whoever wins on Tuesday inherits an economy that is still awfully weak and a jobs recovery that's clearly gaining momentum." 

The Other 2012 Election Contest: Which Pollster and Polling Method Will Win? (Harry Enten) from the Guardian [of the UK]

"In such a tight race, competition in the forecasting business is fiercer than ever. Coveted reputations are riding on the outcome. ... I learned a powerful lesson eight years ago: polling averages work. The averages have correctly predicted all state presidential contests except for five since 2000. They have accurately projected every Senate winner, save a few, over the last few years. The state polling averages say Obama is going to win." 

The Case for Barack Obama (E.J. Dionne Jr.) from Time Magazine

"The sweep of the Obama coalition represented in that snaking line led my son and me to conclude something else: The President Obama of 2012 may no longer stir the jubilation called forth by the Barack Obama of 2008. But the hope and resolve he spoke of then have not vanished."

High Marks for President Obama on Hurricane Sandy Response from the Washington Post

"President Obama gets sky-high marks for his response to Hurricane Sandy, which cut a brutal path along the country’s East Coast on Monday, according to the latest release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll."

The Simple Case for Saying Obama Is the Favorite (Nate Silver) from the New York Times

"If you are following some of the same people that I do on Twitter, you may have noticed some pushback about our contention that Barack Obama is a favorite (and certainly not a lock) to be re-elected. I haven’t come across too many analyses suggesting that Mitt Romney is the favorite. (There are exceptions.) But there are plenty of people who say that the race is a “tossup.” What I find confounding about this is that the argument we’re making is exceedingly simple. Here it is:"

A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change (Michael Bloomberg) from the Bloomberg News Service

"When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America. [...] One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics."

Team Romney Thought Obama's Strategy Was Flawed; It Wasn't (Noam Scheiber) from the New Republic

"The RealClearPolitics polling average, the choice barometer of Republicans, shows Obama coughing up 5.2 percentage points in Virginia since his September peak and 4.4 points in Florida, but only 3.3 in Ohio. Ohio is the only one of the three where RCP shows Obama ahead as of this writing. What explains this? It would seem to be that most exotic of political specimens, the working-class Ohio voter."

Obama Reacts to Romney’s Risky Late Ad Buys (James Warren) from the Daily Beast

"Romney is throwing long in states thought to be out of his reach. James Warren reports on Team Obama’s reaction—and their ad-buy edge."

Obama Can Thank Early Negative Ads for His Advantage: The President has a Clearer Path to Victory than Mitt Romney (Charlie Cook) from National Journal

"... after the debates, particularly the first one, many undecideds moved his way. But the ranks of new Romney supporters are smaller and more hesitant in the swing states than in the other states, where viewers didn’t witness the hits on his image inflicted by President Obama’s campaign and Priorities USA, the leading Democratic super PAC."

Florida GOPer Operative Frets About Early Vote (Markos Moulitsas) from Daily Kos

"Conclusion: the Democrat turnout machine in the county has been very effective and they are cleaning our clock. Even if Romney wins the state (likely based on polls), the turnout deficit in PBC will affect our local races."

The Final Reckoning (David Brooks) from the New York Times

"No one is fair to President Obama. People grade him against tougher standards than any other politician. But his innate ability justifies that high standard. These are the standards he properly set for himself. If re-elected, he’d be free from politics. It’d be interesting to see if he returns to his earlier largeness. President Obama began big but is ending small. If he’s re-elected, would he reach the high standards he once set for himself?"

Romney's Window In Ohio Is Closing (Nate Cohn) from the New Republic 

"...the polls suggest that Obama holds the votes necessary to win the Buckeye State and the presidency. If the polls look the same heading into Election Day, undecided voters wouldn't be enough to sway the outcome of the state and Romney’s chances would hinge on low Democratic turnout or his ability to peel away Obama supporters. If there was more time between now and November 6, perhaps Romney would stand a chance of mounting a comeback. But the space between Obama's share of the vote and 49 percent isn't the only window that's closing; Romney is nearly out of time."

2012 Polls And The Long-Dormant 'Incumbent Rule' (Mark Blumenthal) from the Huffington Post

"The arguments are based on what campaign pollsters used to call the "incumbent rule," the idea that when an officeholder seeks reelection, undecided voters would break decisively to challengers in the final days of the campaign. The problem is that such late shifts have become increasingly rare. They may never have been much of a factor in close presidential races and show few empirical signs of occurring among the undecided voters of 2012."

IN-SEN: Joe Donnelly Building Lead In Indiana, Polls Show from the Huffington Post

"Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly shows signs of pulling ahead of Richard Mourdock in the closely fought race to replace Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.). Donnelly leads, 47 percent to 36 percent, according to a Howey/DePauw University Battleground Poll released Friday morning." 

Very few predicted that the Democrat would have ANY chance in heavily Republican Indiana.  Good news!