Romney Says He’s Winning — It’s a Bluf

[RandySF]

Karl Rove employed exactly this strategy in 2000. As we now know, the race was excruciatingly close, and Al Gore won the national vote by half a percentage point. But at the time, Bush projected a jaunty air of confidence. Rove publicly predicted Bush would win 320 electoral votes. Bush even spent the final days stumping in California, supposedly because he was so sure of victory he wanted an icing-on-the-cake win in a deep blue state. Campaign reporters generally fell for Bush’s spin, portraying him as riding the winds of momentum and likewise presenting Al Gore as desperate.

The current landscape is slightly different. The race is also very close, but Obama enjoys a clear electoral college lead. He is ahead by at least a couple points in enough states to make him president. Adding to his base of uncontested states, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin would give Obama 271 electoral votes. According to the current polling averages compiled at fivethirtyeight.com, Obama leads by 3.5 percent, Ohio by 2.9 percent, and Wisconsin by 4 percent. Should any of those fail, Virginia and Colorado are nearly dead even. (Obama leads by 0.7 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.) If you don’t want to rely on Nate Silver — and you should rely on him! — the polling averages at realclearpolitics, the conservative-leaning site, don’t differ much, either.

If you look closely at the boasts emanating from Romney’s allies, you can detect a lot of hedging and weasel-words. Rob Portman calls Ohio a “dead heat,” which is a way of calling a race close without saying it’s tied. A Romney source tells Mike Allen that Wisconsin leans their way owing to Governor Scott Walker’s “turnout operation.” That is campaign speak for “we’re not winning, but we hope to make it up through turnout.”

Obama’s lead is narrow — narrow enough that the polling might well be wrong and Romney could win. But he is leading, his lead is not declining, and the widespread perception that Romney is pulling ahead is Romney’s campaign suckering the press corps with a confidence game.


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/romney-says-hes-winning-its-a-bluff.html

[Rambis]

1. Oh yeah

[Johonny]

2. I agree that was the GOP insider spin last night

They claimed Romney lost on purpose because he is ahead and didn't want to make any mistakes. All the polls are tracking for them to win easy come two weeks. They claim the election is tracking their way based almost totally on Gallup. They aren't even talking about their internal polling.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Scott Walker’s “turnout operation.”

which will be pure, unadulterated, election fraud.

[michello]

4. Great article, Thanks..

I wonder why the Obama team doesn't leak stuff to the press like this? I mean, you would think that Romney is winning a landslide if you listen to the mainstream media...Crazy!

[mzmolly]

5. Excellent article. It seems John King is taking the

bait.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Best evah description of the typical Romney voter in comments

jfromnj
@BobbyVan...I don't know how you don't consider it an insult that Mitt Romney really thinks you're too stupid to see through his shape-shifting. If there is an insult, it is his lowly view of the American people and his view that they (we) are incapable of seeing him and his constant re-statements for what they are. Dude...you should be insulted because he thinks your a twit. Is he right?

Really, Mitt's counting on people to disregard his conviction-less campaign and vote against their best economic/social interests. The same folks who gave us Bush...twice.