As we move towards November, Romney and Obama appear tied, or nearly so, in the polls. Some of the polls are very questionable—oversampling dems vs. ‘pubs by as much as 12%. Others, like Rasmussen, have the difference only 2% in Obama’s favour. That’s well within the margin of error. The battleground states appear to be tightening as well.
The margin of error for 1,000 interviews among registered voters is 3.1 percentage points, and the margin is 3.4 percentage points among 832 likely voters. The poll was conducted from Sept. 26 to 30.
Meanwhile, in the all-important swing states of Florida and Virginia, Mr. Romney has seen his standing tick up from mid-September in new NBC News/Marist/Wall Street Journal polls. Mr. Obama holds statistically insignificant leads of 1 point and 2 points, respectively: 47 percent to 46 percent in Florida and 48 percent to 46 percent in Virginia. In the previous polls, he held identical 5-point leads, 49 percent to 44 percent, in both states.
Ohio, though — at least in public polling — continues to appear as a potential firewall for Mr. Obama. He holds an 8-point lead, 51 percent to 43 percent in the Buckeye State — essentially unchanged from a 7-point lead in mid-Septmber at 50 percent to 43 percent. — By David Sherfinski – The Washington Times,October 3, 2012, 09:38AM.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of likely voters has the national spread between Obama and Romney as 3%. That matches last week’s Rasmussen poll. At the state level, the poll used “registered” voters and those polls had a wider spread. That begs the question, “Why use likely voters for the national coverage but registered voters at the state level?”
It’s as if the pollsters are hedging their bets. A sense of lowered expectations is a keystone in the dem agenda—four years isn’t enough to ruin fix the country so we need another four years to finish the job.
Lowered expectations extend to tonight’s debate between Obama and Romney.
(CNN) — The Obama and Romney campaigns are seeking to manage — and in some cases lower — expectations for their candidate’s performance in the first presidential debate.
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Obama advisers threw out the first pitch in the expectations game on Sunday, with Robert Gibbs saying that Romney is primed for success following a string of debates during the rigorous campaign for the Republican nomination.
“Mitt Romney, I think, has an advantage, because he’s been through 20 of these debates in the primaries over the last year,” Gibbs said on Fox News. “He even bragged that he was declared the winner in 16 of those debates. So I think, in that sense, having been through this much more recently than President Obama, I think he starts with an advantage.” — CNN, updated 5:47 PM EDT, Fri September 28, 2012.
For many of us on the right, Romney wasn’t our primary choice…nor secondary in many cases. But…he’s what we have. Romney, for the most part, has been making a low-keyed campaign. We continue to wait for him to campaign as he did against Gingrich and Santorum. It worked in the primaries. Why should it not work against Obama? I can’t answer that question.
We’re getting closer to the election and contrary to some pundits, Romney isn’t gaining support. I’m beginning to believe some establishment ‘pubs prefer to be the underdog yapping around Obama than to be pushed into the position of actually leading us out of this mess.
We need a fighter in this election. Romney can be that fighter—he’s been one before as we’ve seen in the primaries. It’s time, no, past time, to take off the gloves. There’s no future in being a gentlemen. The dems aren’t.