Pundits always say the race is tightening

By Frank Moraes

Yesterday, I read the following campaign intel from James Pethokoukis, "I just talked to one of my best Team Romney sources who told me that heading into today all the key battleground polls were moving hard and fast in their direction. The source, hardly a perma-optimist, thinks it will be a long night, but that Romney is going to win."

Actually, that's not what it said. If that's what it said, I wouldn't be quoting it here. This is because such information is everywhere right now. Steve Schmidt was promoting this same bullshit line over at MSNBC the other night. George Will predicted that Romney would win with 321 electoral votes. As best I can tell, he means that Romney will win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Virginia. And Minnesota. And Oregon, Nevada, and New Mexico. This would be a surprise, to say the least. But the point of all these confident proclamations is that the election is somehow moving in Romney's direction.

That's why the quote above is so telling. It was written on 4 November 2008 about John McCain. I just changed "McCain" to "Romney." Here's the actual quote:

I just talked to one of my best Team McCain sources who told me that heading into today all the key battleground polls were moving hard and fast in their direction. The source, hardly a perma-optimist, thinks it will be a long night, but that McCain is going to win.

You may recall, that even though Pethokoukis's source may not be a perma-optimist, he was a that-day-optimist. McCain lost big. Obama got 365 electoral votes to McCain's 173.

I think it is interesting that all the liberals I read are predicting modest Obama victories. David Atkins over at Hullabaloo predicts an Obama win 294-244. But he does note that Obama could win Colorado and bring the total up to 303-235. Ezra Klein is predicting only 290 electoral votes for Obama (which means he also thinks that Obama will lose New Hampshire). This contrasts starkly with the Republican landslide fantasies. Romney may well win, but he will eke out a narrow victory if he does.

My only thought is that the only way that Republicans can argue that Romney will win is to assume that the polls are systematically wrong or that undecideds will break heavily for Romney. One can't assume voters are going to break hard for Romney in Ohio but not in Oregon. Thus you end up with something like the Unskewed Polls prediction of a Romney 359-179 victory. The liberal approach is to assume the polls are basically right, the undecideds will break the way they always do, and that Republican voter suppression (and just bad luck because liberals are pessimists) will lead Obama to lose the close ones: Florida, Colorado, and New Hampshire.

My best guess is still that Obama will win 332-206. However, that does not mean I think that is the most likely outcome. That is just the most likely single outcome. I think it is slightly more likely than 303-235. But I would lay even odds that Obama will win 294, 303, or 332 electoral votes. Nate Silver gives the odds of that happening at roughly 35%. But he also gives the odds of a 345 vote Obama victory an 11% chance. That would require Obama winning North Carolina. I just don't see this happening, but maybe 11% is about right.

The main thing is that it is pretty hard to see how Romney wins this race unless the polls are completely wrong. Check out this great interactive battleground state tool over at the LA Times. Start by giving Obama Ohio. If that happens, it is almost impossible for Romney to win. So tomorrow night, it really does all come down to Ohio. If Florida goes for Obama, it will be a blowout. Otherwise, it will be relatively close regardless of who wins. 

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Is it time to get back to Romney's tax returns?

By Richard K. Barry

Just what I need. Another photo next to this horse's ass.

When something of national significance, like the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, happens in the middle of a presidential election campaign, you wonder what impact it will have. Will story lines that were front page lose profile never to be significant again? Will other issues that may not have otherwise had a profile, like gun control, become prominent? Maybe in the short-term the "you didn't build that" meme against President Obama will go away because there was nothing behind it but an intentional misquote. I don't think, however, that Romney's failure to disclose more than a couple years of tax return will ever go away unless he changes his mind.

Now we hear from Steve Schmidt, top advisor to the McCain presidential campaign, that there is nothing in Romney's returns, all 23 years of the ones he provided during the 2008 VP vetting process, that would be "disqualifying" for a presidential run.

This is what Schmidt had to say on Meet the Press yesterday:

Mitt Romney went through this process and what I can tell you is that he's a person of decency with the highest ethical character and background. There was nothing that was disqualifying. That pick in 2008 was not about any deficiency with Mitt Romney. It was a political decision that we made in a very bad political circumstance.

He added that Mitt Romney is an "extremely wealthy man" and that his tax returns "do not look anything like the average American's."

But I'm not sure precisely what Schmidt meant when he said that nothing in the returns is disqualifying. I don't think many people are running around suggesting Romney did anything illegal. My guess is that his lawyers are far too good for that and he is far too smart. So, this clearly has to do with political optics, and that is, after all, Steve Schmidt's specialty. Still, if Schmidt says the optics are okay, I'm not sure I agree.

What many people have said, and I'll just repeat it here, is that Romney or his campaign has made a decision that releasing more returns will do worse political damage than not releasing them. Given that the current level of secrecy will make Romney a punching bag until election day and that 53 percent of independent voters think he should release more returns, there is obviously something in there that he thinks is a big problem, with all due respect to Mr. Schmidt.

Sure, Romney told National Review that releasing more returns would give the Obama campaign more ammunition for attack ads, which is true, but surely this confirms that there is something in them to attack.

But perhaps the important point is in Steve Schmidt's comment that Mitt Romney's finances don't look anything like the average American's, which will, in fact, mean that the Obama campaign will rip through them to expose the obvious point that the Romney's inhabit a different planet than the other 99.9999 percent. Point taken.

Most people will say that a candidate's extreme wealth does not concern them as an abstract concept, but specific details about exactly how much money the Romneys have, how much or little tax they pay, what they spend their money on, might remind people that Mitt Romney cannot possibly relate to the hopes and challenges of the vast majority.

Could the Romney campaign's calculation be that week after week of discussions about "this tax break," "that tax rate," "this tax shelter," "those foreign bank accounts," "the value of multiple vacation properties," "something or other to do with horses,' etc., etc., etc., would, on balance, be worse than not releasing more returns? Maybe.

The fact is that not releasing the returns is just one negative narrative, one that voters might grow tired of over time. But more returns will, as Romney fears, provide countless opportunities to keep his wealth in the news in ways that are potentially new and exciting with the turn of every page.

That would seem to be his point. Maybe he's right.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Will gays and lesbians turn Republican out of frustration with Obama?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Oh, please. I get that Obama hasn't done nearly enough for gay rights, and I've been deeply critical of him for not doing enough and for not being progressive enough (specifically on DADT and same-sex marriage), but there isn't about to be a mass migration of gays to the Republican Party just because a couple of somewhat high-profile Republicans, McCainiac Steve Schmidt and Bushie Ken Mehlman, the latter recently uncloseted, along with the independent-minded and barely Republican Meghan McCain, are publicly defending same-sex marriage, or because other Republicans with little profile at all are either softening their views on gay rights or daring to come out against their party's long-standing opposition not just to gay rights but to homosexuality generally.

At HuffPo, Sam Stein quotes an anonymous "prominent Democratic consultant" as saying that Obama should feel "uncomfortable" with all these Republicans to the left of him on gay rights. But what are we really talking about here? Schmidt, Mehlman, and McCain aren't exactly the movers and shakers of the GOP, nor do they really have that much public profile. McCain has greater media presence than the other two, but she doesn't have much influence, if any, on the party. "We get the bad rap as Republicans being against gay marriage," she told Fox News recently. "[Obama] isn't doing anything for the gay community." Republicans deserve the rap. This is a party, after all, that proposes putting a ban on same-sex marriage in the Constitution and that has a theocratic-oriented base that is deeply anti-gay, a party that from top to bottom espouses bigotry and that is moving further and further to the right. And while Obama hasn't done enough, it's just not true that he hasn't done anything. Earlier this year, for example, he banned visitation discrimination against gays and lesbians at any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding.

As Stein notes, "LBGT voters are not, of course, monolithic," and, while I am not gay myself, I certainly think it's fair to say that on most issues a significant majority of gays and lesbians are much closer to Obama and the Democrats than to the Republicans. Will frustration with Obama drive some of them to the GOP? Well, sure, but some heteros are turning away from Obama, too. What of it?

It seems to me that the anonymous consultant is fearmongering and that very few people are paying attention to what Schmidt, Mehlman, and a tiny minority of Republicans are up to. In contrast, the Republican position on gay rights, including same-sex marriage, is pretty clear, and there's no indication it's going to change anytime soon.

If some gays or lesbians prefer to back a party that hates them and that seeks to treat them like non- or unequal citizens, or as some hell-bound domestic enemy, well, that's their problem (and ours, to the extent that Democrats lose votes), but I suspect that most of them would rather register their displeasure and disappointment with the party that actually has a history of fighting for their rights, and seek to change that party's policy positions, than do that. With the Democrats, after all, in a party that respects difference and diversity, they can make a difference and actually secure equal rights. With the Republicans, ruled by a far-right fringe that has become the party's new mainstream, all they'll find is fear and loathing, welcomed by a few but detested by the rest. Is the choice not clear?