Whichever way Ohio goes this time, so goes the election.

It's the electoral college that picks our President as per the Constitution. If your boy wins Ohio, then he has a chance of getting in the White House. Everything else is trivial, though I suppose you could take some solice in the fact that Obama wouldn't have a mandate to pass sweeping legislation like Obamacare in his second term if Romney won the popular vote.
Not that lack of a mandate would stop Obama anyway.

Actually, what I know for sure, is that if Ohio is called for Obama before the polls close on the West Coast, the Romney window will have already been closed, and there will be no point in you guys staying up any later.  You may want to start stocking up on booze my friends, it could be a rough night...  Especially since the President won the second debate and exposed Romney for who he really is.  I think the Romney bump is about to fizzle.

-- Edited by PowerStroker on Wednesday 17th of October 2012 09:05:42 AM

Independent and accurate University of Colorado prediction model also predicts that Romney will win popular vote

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4435

The video of his Rose Garden speech from the day after the attack clearly shows Obama calling it a terrorist act.

I have stocked up on champagne and hard liquor so all of my bases are covered, I would suggest you do the same.

Second Debate Sets Up Romney Win
by Dick Morris
October 17, 2012

Romney emerges from the second debate well positioned to win it all. The post-debate polling reflects that he solidly won on the key issues: economy, energy prices, and China. Obama scores well in his overall ratings in these surveys simply because he benefits by comparison with his sleep-walking performance in the first debate.

Fundamentally, Romneys smooth, polished, dignified, articulate, sincere, and compassionate manner in the debate puts to rest eight months of Obama negative attacks on his character. Barack Obama is about to learn the lesson Jimmy Carter learned in 1980 when he lost to Reagan and found his lead collapsing after the debates. When a president with a failed record tries to win by attacking and demonizing his opponent, he can succeed only if there are no debates. Since neither Goldwater (1964) nor McGovern (1972) had the chance to show themselves to America in debates, the negative characterization of them by first Johnson and then Nixon stuck. But Ronald Reagans debate performance nullified Carters attacks and showed him not to be the war-mongering madman the president had accused him of being. Similarly, Obamas portrayal of Romney as insensitive, elitist, incapable of understanding the problems of the average person, a tax cheat, and a cold blooded capitalist all fell before Romneys real persona as it came through on television.

And once Obama is stripped of his negative messaging, he has nothing to say. His defense of his economic record and his energy drilling essentially boiled down to asking people what they wanted to believe their own eyes or Obamas speeches.

Stylistically, Romneys dignity played very well. He struck just the right balance between letting Obama walk over him (as Ryan let Biden do) and being obnoxious and petty (as Obama appeared to be).

The Romney campaign has exactly the right ads on the air to exploit their debate edge. The sixty second ad they now are running in swing states, featuring Romneys first debate narrative on the economy played over faces of Americans suffering from economic distress is just the right move.

Specifically, Romney:

1) Explained his tax plan very well. His suggestion that he would allow up to a flat $25,000 in deductions was excellent.

2) Recited the statistics of economic decline so well and so frequently that they will be repeated again and again by voters as they contemplate their decision.

3) Clearly pinned the blame for high gas prices on Obama by enumerating the presidents anti-oil, anti-coal policies.

4) Put the China issue in play big time by explaining Chinese currency manipulation. In the next debate, Romney should drill down and explain how much Chinese chicanery and hacking costs us jobs and how passive Obama has been in the face of their conduct.

5) Demonstrated his compassion and heart in his personal stories of his ministry. He should continue just this kind of argumentation.

And then theres Libya. The intervention of Candy Crowley saved Obama on the ropes. But as inappropriate as it was, her statement that Obama said at the outset that it was a terror attack was technically correct, but, ultimately wrong. We all know that Obama tried to play the attack as a rally gone awry, impelled by passion generated by a film about Islam. WE heard him say so on The View, on Letterman, at the United Nations and all over the nation for two weeks.

Romney should explain that the presidents goal was not to interfere with his narrative that by killing bin Laden, he had ended al Qaeda as a terrorist organization. He did not want an attack and an assassination on his record in the last two months before the election. So he pretended that it was all because of an intemperate movie. He should cite the statements of the State Department that they never considered it a terrorist attack.

Then he should go on to show how Obamas foreign policy based on naïveté has failed and is going up in flames. The evidence is there: the Libya attack, the increasing likelihood that Egypt will reject the Camp David accords, the turn of the Arab Spring into a jihadist coup, the unrelenting progress of Iran toward a bomb, the failure of any effort to rein in North Korea, the growing power of Chavez in Latin America and.the brazenness of Chinas trade and currency policies.

Romney has this election in hand. Obama is left with nothing to stand on. No record to cite. No proposals to convey. Stripped of his negative campaign, he has nothing really left to say.

You know Gerry, I too noticed that Obama is awfully quiet in this election now that he has no one else to blame but himself.

Are things better today than they were 4 years ago? The sad part is people are learning to do more with less and the illusion that things are "better" only comes because anything "pressing" is kept under the rug during this election. Take for example this Libya situation whereas we had a DIPLOMAT killed. The current administration is all but sweeping this under the rug in an effort to keep the boat from rocking, makes you wonder what else is under that rug. Scary thing is we know whats under that rug - record unemployment, record amounts of people collecting food stamps, record deficits, and a flawed heathcare law that would see the government control our healthcare options (if you can even call a mandate an option).

No... Any sane human being would be electing Romney if ONLY because at least we (the people) have a carrot on the end of a stick should he (Romney) fail to perform in 4 years. If Obama were re-elected he would not be one bit worried about pleasing the people because his term limits dictate he will not seek re-election. Given Obama's past performance we could all pretty much count on endless tax payer vacations for his Administration along with Obama trying to hand over control of our government to the UN.

I am sure Democrats around the nation are tired of taking shit for their boy. That may be enough to keep a lot of past Obama voters at home on election night. You know all them dumb kids who bought Obama's drama hook line and sinker? Well they have all had almost 4 years of taking crap for the current Administrations short commings.

I guess we will all just have to wait until Nov.

 

SELLC:

Best summary of the Obama presidency I've yet seen.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/330505/presidency-squandered-victor-davis-hanson

Here's what the Detroit newspaper says:

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121025/OPINION01/210250332/1008/opinion01/Editorial-Mitt-Romney-President

Now this is just typical....

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/10/27/vandal-keys-obama-into-2-cars-in-alta-loma/

In an effort to not jinx things by saying something arrogant and causing the universe to turn against him, PowerStroker will be unavailable for comment until after the election. Please leave a message after the beep.