Pretty clear now it is all about Ohio. Obama has a solid lead and that nearly seals it.

[yellowcanine]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/sept-25-romneys-narrow-path-without-ohio/

Romney literally has to pull the equivalent of an inside straight in poker - he would have to win Virginia, NH, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina. Right now Romney is clearly trailing in all of these except North Carolina. This assumes that Obama will win Wisconsin, which seems at least as safe an assumption as Obama winning Ohio at this point. Personally I think that Obama is going to win all of these states, including North Carolina ending up with close to 350 electoral votes.

Debates are not going to turn it around for Romney. Neither will a little voter suppression here or there. The only thing which could possibly turn it around would be a true October surprise in the economic arena or a major scandal which implicates Obama and it is hard to see what that could be at this point. A foreign policy October surprise would almost certainly help Obama. And the potential for a Romney financial scandal is greater than any Obama scandal imo.

I don't want to get over confident or complacent but the facts are that this race is, for the most part, over.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. What you said!

[Cosmocat]

2. It is going to take

either a major BO gaffe (not likely) or some signficant security or economic event - possible.

Just have to hold our breath that they can keep the positive momentum for another month.

[yellowcanine]

5. A "security event" is most likely but would probably help Obama, not Romney.

Probably too late for economic bad news to have any bearing. Economic news tends to be more trends than single events and the trends are benefiting Obama at this point. Gaffes, in debates or otherwise, rarely sway elections, unless it is a really tight election AND the gaffe reinforces an existing negative perception. At this point that is much more likely to happen with Romney.

[Wounded Bear]

22. Well, we just had the embassy murders on 9/11......

Romney botched that one big time, while President Obama appeared, well, presidential.

Any crises in the next 35 days is likely to pan out the same.

[tularetom]

3. It would simplify our entire electoral process if we restricted voting to residents of Ohio

Your post is on target and I agree with it but it seems like it's always about Ohio. So why put the rest of us through all this bullshit every four years? Let's just amend the constitution to limit voting in presidential elections to Ohio voters.

[yellowcanine]

4. Well the other states are important but Ohio is a true "swing" state.

Few others are. Florida is another one, and maybe now Virginia.

[GallopingGhost]

6. According to electoral-vote this AM, Obama has the lead

in NC as well ( I didn't meticulously analyze the pollster )

Ohio is gone for Romney, so let's hope NC is trending that way as well.

Just a reminder, continue to GOTV!

[ProfessionalLeftist]

7. If it comes down to OH, then expect that is where

the GOP will pull out all the stops to keep people from voting, or to keep votes from being properly counted. These traitorous turds will do ANYTHING (legal or not) to "win" - because who is going to stop them from pulling all sorts of illegal, unAmerican crap to manipulate the vote in their favor? No one has stopped them yet and they've stolen how many elections? (at LEAST 2)

[yellowcanine]

10. The point is it probably won't come down to Ohio though, because Ohio won't be in play.

So if Romney is going to win it he has to do it without Ohio. It won't be close enough to steal. Not that they won't try every trick, including voter purges and suppression in Ohio.

[AverageJoe90]

13. They couldn't in '08, though.

Thankfully, Obama did the smart thing and had teams of lawyers to oversee the process. I fully expect it to be true this year, too.

[Downtown Hound]

8. If Obama wins Ohio, he wins the election

If he doesn't, he can still win it. But if he takes Ohio, it's over for Romney.

[Tarheel_Dem]

9. K&R

[wt1531]

11. Rush is just basically breathless

I listen to that wind bag for a few minutes every day just to see what his latest bullshit is. I distinctly remember him quoting Gallup poll every time Obama's approval rating was down or when Romney seemed close to Obama. That gas bag never had a problem with the sampling methods of Gallup when it fit his imagination that Obama will lose. Not that all the polls are showing Mitt is sinking slowly but surely, he is dismissing all polls, including Gallup, at "the mainstream media's polls". What an utter useless gas bag!! I can't believe people actually think this guy says anything of value. Everyday he proves to me that he lives in an imaginary world detached from reality and I can't wait to listen to him the day after election day. He probably will find a conspiracy or something to justify Mitt's loss as he always does.

[GallopingGhost]

12. After Nov. 6th,

he's going to be apoplectic. LOL

[MzShellG]

15. Touche.......

And its ironic how claims his world is the only reality. Whenever I turn to his show, he's spewing BS that is the exact opposite of all the facts. He is laughable. Right now he's in panic mode and I'm so enjoying it. Lol

[NCLefty]

17. It almost doesn't matter what he says.

He will still get paid big money for being LOUD and "entertaining" (to rightes). That's his gig. I still don't even know if he believes half of what he says :p

[begin_within]

14. Or just reprogram the vote counting machines.

[Sirveri]

16. watching how he botched the Ambassador Stevens killing in Libya, he'd botch a Oct surprise.

I mean all the guy had to do was sit and say NOTHING and he could have seen a small bump in the polls, he instead opened his mouth and did the one and only thing that could actually have reversed the potential for a bump. He politicized a tragedy and looked like a scheming opportunist for it. Short of a nuclear weapon attack on a major US city, this guy would botch any 'October surprise' and likely lose any bump he might have gained, he is that incompetent at diplomacy.

[DCBob]

18. I agree. I dont see how Romney wins it without OH.

There are just no feasible scenarios.

[Skee]

19. The race isn't over

Until the blackbox central tabulators rig the results.

Ohio has some serious problems with electronic 'voting' systems.

So do the other states.

[RBInMaine]

20. But, KEEP CAMPAIGNING LIKE HELL SO WE CAN BURY THE MITT-TWIT!! Don't get complacent.

[fujiyama]

21. If Obama takes all the states we're assuming (PA, MI, NM)

as well as OH, he just needs 15 more EVs. And he has a huge pool to get that from. Basically, just a combo of VA and NH will do it at that point. And he can still afford to lose WI, IA, NV, CO, FL, NC which is very unlikely. WI and IA shift slightly to the left of OH typically anyways. And considering the last few elections and NV's seeming under polling of Dems in the state, I'm confident Obama will win there. CO was one of the few states where Dems actually did alright in 2010, one of the worst years for Dems in over a decade. FL is just a mess and elections held there make it look like a banana republic. The registration problems make the state unreliable. I'm glad Dems have a large enough set of battlegrounds to contest to not make this about the "big two" (OH and FL). The expanded battlegrounds are a huge advantage for Dems. Obama has a chance in states that Gore and Kerry never could have dreamed of (largely demographic changes population shifts). What's really great is Obama and his campaign have put in place a registration base for many elections to come.

Basically Romney's cornered. If OH is truly gone, there is no realistic recovery for him. I knew four years ago when they called OH for Obama it would be over. I was at a bar and basically I was probably more excited at that point than when they called the election (by the time the election was called though I was also fairly inebriated ). Actually it was fairly obvious when PA was called immediately (as opposed to it being "too close to call&quot that McCain was done.