Erstellt am: 5. 11. 2012 - 10:43 Uhr
Mitt & Pennsylvania
Does Mitt Romney know something we don't?
If Romney pulls off an election victory then he has turned the pollsters' game on its head. Romney has the greater difficulty in seeking an overall win come tomorrow night. Both candidates are looking at the so called "swing states" that could go either to the Democrats or to the Republicans. The conventional wisdom of the latest polling gives Obama the edge, but is that enough to land the President another victory or is Mitt Romney going to perform a very unusual conjuring trick?
Pennsylvania
On election night, everyone looks at Ohio, but in the last few days, Pennsylvania is the one that's got election watchers talking. In theory it could go either way, although until a few days ago, it seemed as though Obama would win Pennsylvania safely. So why is Mitt Romney pouring tons of resources into this state and sending the big guns of the Republican party there. If he were to win Pennsylvania, and if he were to take Florida as well, he would have won two big states and would have a reasonably good chance of reaching the 270 electoral college votes needs to become President. The Democrats are scorning the Republicans late keen interest in Pennsylvania. In the populous city of Philadelphia, Democrats are traditionally well organised to get their supporters out to vote. Still, does Mitt sense that he can overturn a state that has gone solidly to the Democrats for the last 20 years? What has he been reading in his tea-leaves?
The Ads
The television ads have been relentless. Washington DC is solidly behind Obama and the Democrats, so there's no point in either side wasting their dollars on commercials in the nation's capital. Instead, the poltical ads I see over and over again here are mainly aimed at viewers in Virginia, another of the swing states, and the ads are mind-numbing. One will criticize a local candidate up for re-election because he supposedly voted to cut an education budget. This is directly followed by an ad from the other side claiming that the candidate voted repeatedly to extend the same education budget. My best guess is these things cancel each other out.
The Poll of Polls
In a few hours, I'm off to see Scott Keeter from the Pew Research Group. They have produced their final poll before the election, and it essentially tells us that Obama is maintaining a slight overall lead, and the bounce in the polls that Romney enjoyed after the first debate is over. Pew's final polls have predicted winners at this stage for decades so I leave you to make up your own mind about the way this is going. I'm also looking forward to a chat with Matthew Continetti: he's a well-known conservative writer here in Washington. Maybe he'll be give me a clue about why Mitt is smiling, and perhaps he'll tell me that the polls are all wrong. But there was some insightful comment on Fox News in the last few hours which told us their interpretation of what's going on. Either the polls are all wrong and Mitt Romney's plans will work their magic somehow, or Mitt Romney will lose.