Friday, November 2, 2012

Another One For The Future Fire

Sure, picking on PJ Media's Bryan Preston is hitting low-hanging fruit with an orbital ion cannon, but the guy prefaces his election pick 5 days out with the tagline "reality check".

Nothing of course could be further from the truth.

More than any poll, it’s wise to watch the campaigns. Watch their body language and their travel and spending patterns. Looking at both campaigns from that point of view, it’s very clear that five days from the election the Obama campaign is in retreat. This morning, Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter accidentally admitted that they’re no longer competing in North Carolina, which Obama won four years ago.

That admission parallels David Axelrod’s mustache bet: He only wagered a shave if Obama lost all of three states that just a couple of weeks ago were supposedly in the bag for Obama. That’s hardly a courageous bet. At the same time, Romney is going up with ads in Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in addition to the swing states that he is already advertising in and campaigning in either directly or via surrogates. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two states Obama must have in order to win, are definitely in play.

Poll data (objective) is useless.  "Campaign body language" which is subjective, is all that matters.  Really?  Now I know why Nate Silver's dispassionate spreadsheets are such an existential threat to the eternal horse race/both sides do it crowd. 

Preston sums it up:

Five days out, the race for president is far from over, but once you get past the oversampling of Democrats in swing state polls, the fundamentals and the campaigns’ body language point toward a Romney victory on Tuesday. Tomorrow’s jobs numbers may be the president’s last chance to change the trajectory of the race.

Those jobs numbers were pretty good, Bryan.  And no, the "fundamentals" point towards a 4 in 5 chance or so of an Obama win.  Your wishful thinking doesn't change reality, wingnuts.

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