But Nate Silver's look--or anybody else's look--at all the polls says that there has been no Mittmentum since October 12. That's almost three weeks ago. Before October 12, every day brought a few more voters thinking about the first debate or about what those they talked to said and shifting to Romney. Since October 12, not.
Mike Allen:
POLITICO Playbook: Many of the top Republicans who called and wrote us yesterday fear Mitt Romney’s momentum has stalled. They hope a victory is “baked in” -- that some tectonic shift in the country hasn’t been fully detected by pollsters or explained by the press. But no one’s sure. And today’s Quinnipiac/NYT/CBS polls could be the death knell of Mittmentum stories -- Ohio: Obama +5 (50-45; unchanged from Oct. 22) … Virginia: Obama +2 (49-47; Obama was up 5 on Oct. 11) … Florida: Obama +1 (48-47; Obama was +9 on Sept. 26).
It's not that Allen is--like his Politico peers Byers and Martin--opposed to that new-fangled "arithmetic" stuff: he quotes poll numbers and even (inadequately) tries to put them in context. But he does seem opposed to using them in a sensible way to constrain the narratives that he will reprint when politicians and their acolytes--usually Republican politicians--spin him.
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
