Honestly, it's way too early to be calling the 2012 presidential race, in my opinion. Yeah, the polling shows at least an Electoral College victory for Obama, but that's still contingent on some swing stats, voter turn-out, voter suppression concerns, etc.
It ain't over until it's over.
The GOP, though, seems to be already laying the groundwork to explain why all their pundit calls for a Big Romney Victory will turn out to be busts. And the reason: Hurricane Sandy blunted the "Ro-mentum". Never mind that any post-Denver debate surge by Romney had flattened well before — that's their story and they're sticking to it.
Except it's spun even more than just that. Sandy became an excuse for a "blackout" of campaign news by the (liberal) media, thus Romney's campaigning about the economy, jobs, etc., etc., was all hidden away from the public. Plus, Obama, rather than having to face charges about what a failure he's been, was able to play the role of "Comforter-in-Chief" and get sympathy for, um, all the sympathy he was giving.
(Side note here on irony if a hurricane that may well have been made worse through global climate change played an role in the defeat of the party that's led the rhetorical fight on denying there's any global climate change.)
The GOP isn't officially conceding defeat, of course. But that some of them are already making a lot of excuses in advance for Romney not winning is … interesting, to say the least.
Reshared post from +Talking Points Memo
In the event Obama wins on Tuesday, Republicans have already found their scapegoat: Hurricane Sandy.
Embedded Link
Republicans Lay The Groundwork To Blame Hurricane Sandy If Romney Loses
In the event that President Obama wins reelection on Tuesday, Republicans have already found their scapegoat: Hurricane Sandy.
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Indeed I particularly love your side note.
So… did God send Sandy to stop a satanist (mormon) from straddling the white house?
Could it be? Or could it be that tropical storms tend to happen in tropical storm zones?
Either way, funny.
Bookies latest odds –
100 bet on
Obama wins 22 (priced at 2/9)
Romney wins 333 (priced at 100/30)
(plus return of stake, of course)
So, if the money is evenly split then an
Obama win nets the bookies 39 for every 100 staked
Romney win loses them 115 for every 100 staked
(rounded horrendously because I can’t be bothered with proper maths in my head – also odd differ between bookmakers)
In fact its not until the Obama bets are 4.5 x the amount on that there is equality between income/payout, no matter who wins
So either.
5x as much money is going onto Obama than Romney, and the bookies are pricing for a Romney win
or
They think Obama is going to win.
Who cares more about getting it right- TV pundit or Bookmaker? Who is out of pocket if they get it wrong?
Apologies – slight mistake. Bookies ‘win’ (based on above odds) if money placed on Obama is between 3.3 to 4.5 times the amount placed on Romney, no matter who wins. I’m guessing that they are pricing because of that – bets on Obama are 4x that on Romney.
And, if Obama loses, we'll only hear one excuse….. Racism!!!!!!!!11111oneleventy
O.k, maybe two… Bush's fault!!! 😛
Actually if Obama looses I think we will hear. "Mitt lied to win"
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mitt-romney/ true and mostly true 31%
vs
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/ true and mostly true 45%
I would have liked to see a higher number from Obama but if we are comparing the two, it is no contest.
Nate Silver weighs in on the hurricane excuse: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/nov-4-did-hurricane-sandy-blow-romney-off-course/
To be fair, +Mark Means, I'm sure we'll also hear (are already hearing) accusations of voter suppression, too.
I'm also sure, +Andreas Geisler, that if Sandy had impacted the election against Obama, we'd be hearing certain folks claiming that it was definitely God's will trying to fight for His Righteous Candidate. Since that's not the outcome, they remain strangely silent.
And, on the other hand, we still have people like Will, Morris, and Barone predicting Romney landslides
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/04/george-will-predicts-321-217-romney-landslide
The only folks I've seen arguing that have been drawing numbers from unskewedpolls.com, which, so far as I can tell, is "we don't like these numbers so we're going to shade them".com.
But we'll find out (roughly) tomorrow. (Thank heavens.)
("Roughly" because it would not at all surprise me to find the electoral vote in some key states — Ohio and Florida among them — held up or contested for a variety of reasons.)
I'm certainly not claiming, btw, that the GOP is universally finding someone to blame over their loss. But the number of not-unprominent folks who are already making excuses for it should be disturbing in some quarters. I don't think I've seen anything like that from the Dem side.
And that raises the issue of the tactical nature of "we're ahead" vs "we're behind" (beyond what it means as an honest assessment). Claiming you're behind might encourage the faithful to rally, or might suppress the vote. Claiming you're ahead might discourage your opponents, but also make your partisans more likely to skip the voting. And all of that has an effect not just on the presidential vote, but all the downstream contests, ballot propositions, etc.