Remember Pablano? Here's the Drunken Irishman

Nate Silver aka Pablano made his mark as a political analyst by blogging his numbers for the Daily Kos. After a distinguished career as a baseball statistician,he now has his www.fivethirtyeight.com blog at the New York Times. Now the democratic underground has the Drunken Irishman's article Path to 270. The piece is worth a read at www.democraticunderground.com. Let's see whether he will pick up the mantle.

The Irishman averages every poll, even some taken last year, and awards a state. He doesn't do toss-ups unless there really is tie. In his first outing this year, he awards Indiana to Romney based on the conventional wisdom that the state will revert to its basic Republican status. The assumption still is that Romney is the nominee.

The good news is that Swing States have abundant polling already so it makes his methodology plausible right now.

Here are his results:

Arizona--Romney

Colorado--Obama

Florida--Romney by .10%

Iowa--Obama

Michigan--Obama

Minnesota--Obama

Missouri--Romney by 1.5%

Nevada--Obama

New Hampshire--Romney by 1.5%

New Mexico--Obama

Ohio--Obama

Virginia--Obama

Wisconsin--Obama

Pennsylvania--Obama

North Carolina--tied

The final tally would be 299 electoral votes for Obama, 224 for Romney and 15 undecided.

But,I have a hunch that Florida and Arizona would not go for Romney. They would add 40 votes to Obama's total. And North Carolina is going to be razor-thin.

The Republicans are back at muttering about a replacement for Romney. We know already it is late in the day. But Nate Silver entertained a brokered convention before as a hypothetical and the GOP establishment thought Willard would have wrapped this up by now. The fact he hasn't has raised the anxiety level of the party through the roof.

I am sure there are Republicans who have done the same type of exercise as the Drunken Irishman and come to the conclusion that Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen did that if nothing catastrophic happens for the next couple of months, Obama will wins re-election.

Remember nothing is real until May.