Last polls of the Evening

++It will take a few days before we know whether the debate was a one off Black Swan event which upends the whole election. Tomorrow NBC releases its swing state polls as does Quinnipiac. Even at Pollster, Obama still leads with 286 Electoral votes but tomorrow the polls may show steady erosion in the President's position. The Obama campaign shared with the National Journal their internal polls which showed the President up within a margin of error in the swing states. But their sudden openness about this shows how tight the race has become.

++What makes it more frustrating is that the proliferation of polls makes it hard to distinguish the good from the bad and mediocre. You should be aware that Gallup, besides putting on its LV filter, which was faulty last election, has adopted a 50-50 methodology of landlines and cellphones, which should fine-tune their results. Pollsters themselves are dumbfounded by Suffolk University pollster saying they weren't going to poll Florida, Virginia and North Carolina because Obama didn't have a chance to win. Others suggest they ran out of money.

++What baffles me is the acquiescence on behalf of the media to accept Romney's endless lying and evasions on virtually every issue. The subtext of this election campaign is "the Black Man cleaned up the white boys' mess now they want back into the sandbox." The recent unemployment numbers--both federal and Gallup indicates the economy is just beginning to recover from the most awesome drop since the Great Depression. I don't need to say what different achievements President Obama has done to merit re-election. But there is an undertone to this campaign that the four-year barrage of the Republicans against him is paying some dividends now. For all this period they have denigrated him and anything he has done or tried to do. And now the Romney campaign even goes further to blame him for things like not getting the farm bill done which was the fault of the House Republicans. If the Republicans had allowed a vote on the Jobs Bill and the Veterans Jobs Bill,we would be down to 6.3-6.8 unemployment and the Obama Administration would have to be seen as an unvarnished success. This could not be allowed to happen. 

++What Romney's victory in the debate accomplished was allow voters the luxury of believing his misrepresentations of Obama's positions and his own and to unleash the hidden resentment that a black man is President. It is OK to now vote against Obama even though you didn't want to last time. 

++The consequences of that ,in my opinion, will be awful. Both Romney and Obama know that the economy is set to take off and whoever is President then will get full credit. That is why American corporations with trillions in the bank have withheld investment through the Obama years. If you have read my blog in the past I noted when Mitch McConnell and John Boehner visited Wall Street during the time of the stimulus and pleaded American corporations not to invest and aid the President. But what is most pernicious will be the continued and long-term military involvement of the United States in the Middle East. What will come back for the United States will be the old economy, not a new one, and America will be sorely diminished as a Great Power, while the rest of the world moves forward.

++So let's look at the mishmash of polls tonight:
Fox News Romney 46- Obama 45
IBD/TIPP  Romney 48.7-Obama 43.7

Zogby: Ohio Obama 46 to Romney 42.
Rasmussen: Wisconsin: Obama 51 to Romney 49.
                  New Hampshire: Obama 48 to Romney 48
                    Nevada: Obama 51 to Romney 47
Survey USA  Nevada: Obama 47 to Romney 46
University of North Florida: Obama 49 to 45
Siena: Pennsylvania:  Obama 43 to Romney 40.

++Tomorrow's debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Biden is an expert debater but also someone who can argue the populist line. He has to enlarge his arguments on behalf of the President to go beyond the auto industry and killing bin Laden to argue for the other achievements of the administration. But he has to lay out the case against Romney and Ryan and their habit of lying. He has to blast Ryan for his budget and its implications. He has to lay the defense cuts on Ryan and tell the audience that the Romney campaign has been lying they were Obama's fault when Paul Ryan himself wrote them into the budget. He also has to fend off the new line that the Democrats rammed through healthcare reform and avoided the Wyden proposal because they accepted over 200 amendments by Republicans, who did not vote for the bill. He also has to go after Romney and Ryan over reproductive health issues, which Obama sadly neglected in the first debate. And he also has to go after Romney and Ryan on foreign policy. The administration can not play defense. Everytime they did that during the last four years it hasn't worked. 

Who Has The Big Mo?

++Easy question--No one. Rumors are that both camps are keeping their big guns for later when the electorate pays attention. 


++A few developments which escape the news. The RNC and the Romney people are creating separate organizations to counter the state Republican parties in Nevada and Iowa, which have been taken over by Ron Paul people. Both states are vital for Romney and he is behind in both.


++Officially the RNC laughed off the Obama campaign's suggestions that Arizona would be in play this cycle. But they have since beefed up operations in that state just in case.


++The Obama campaign has revved up their plans against the recent ID voter laws passed by Republican state houses.


Now for polling, Obama still shows strength in his state polling numbers but North Carolina and Wisconsin are reasons for some concern. PPP has Obama 48 to Romney 47 in North Carolina, while Rasmussen has Romney at 51 and Obama at 43. In Wisconsin, the Marquette Law School has the presidential race tied at 46. 


A New Jersey poll has Obama with a 49 to 39 lead over Romney and with Christie as Vice President Obama wins 50 to 42.


Horse race polls are all over the map. Fox News has Obama at 46 over Romney's 39. The plurality of those voting for Romney are because he is not Barack Obama. 


YouGov has Romney winning with 46 and Obama at 42.
IBD/Christian Science Monitor poll has Obama at 43 and Romney at 40.
Gallup Tracking has it even at 45-45.
PPP has it Obama 48 and Romney 46.
Rasmussen Tracking has it Romney 47, Obama 46.
JZ Analytics has it Romney 44 and Obama 43. The real number is 43.6 Romney to 43.2 Obama.


So far Romney's favorables have picked up as a consequence of his winning the GOP nomination. I sense Obama's standing has gotten sluggish. I think he should be concerned about Wisconsin because the GOP is highly motivated to come out in the recall elections and that might spill over in November. Also North Carolina and Oregon (the poll was closer than expected). 


But to date it is like both candidates are just revving their engines.