Cheaptalk:
Romentum: The most scarce resource is candidate time so we can infer a lot from the candidate recent travel and their travel plans…. I don’t see any Romney pans to visit MI, MN or PA…
That last is wrong--Romney is going to make one stop in Pennsylvania this weekend. But none in Michigan or Minnesota. And if MI, MN, and PA really were "ripe for turning red" he would be in MI and MN as well as holding more than one event in PA.
So why are Dan Balz, Jerry Markon and Paul Kane of the Washington Post misleading their readers so much?
Romney forces see Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota ripe for turning red: After a season dominated by talk of Ohio, Virginia and Florida, Campaign 2012 suddenly shifted focus to a new trio of states… Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota, three states that have backed Democrats… but which Republicans say are ripe for GOP nominee Mitt Romney….
Without losing any of the states in which he currently leads in the state-level polls, in order to win the election next Tuesday Mitt Romney needs to nail down Florida and North Carolina, take Virginia and Ohio, and then win something else--Colorado or Iowa or New Hampshire are the best possibilities. That's why Romney has been criss-crossing between Colorado and Iowa and New Hampshire.
The pointless and mendacious Washington Post bloviating continues:
Romney advisers said the action in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Michigan showed that Republicans are expanding the electoral map and have more options to get to 270 electoral votes. “I think we’re in a great position to win,” Romney senior adviser Russ Schriefer told reporters during a conference call, citing Republican enthusiasm and the fact that the president is not above 50 percent in recent polls of those states. “Can we win all of them? Probably not,” he added. “Can we win some of them? I think probably so.”…
Polls have tightened in Pennsylvania and Michigan…. [S]tates such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and even Minnesota will be relatively close contests…. Christopher Nicholas, a former GOP consultant who is now political director for the Pennsylvania Business Council, said of Romney: “He’s doing less poorly in Philadelphia suburbs than a basic Republican has, and the president is collapsing in the southwest.”…
In the past three elections, Democratic nominees have gotten a higher percentage of the vote in those states than nationally. But if the national polls are showing a dead heat, as most of them do right now, it’s expected that such states as Pennsylvania, Michigan and even Minnesota will show relatively closer contests than four years ago…. If Romney were to win a big victory in the popular vote, he could carry one or more of these states.
Balz, Markon, and Kane appear to suffer from extraordinary conceptual and arithmetic confusion--they simply do not understand that pretty much anything that could happen to give Romney Michigan or Minnesota would give him Virginia, Ohio, and at least one of Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire first and so make Michigan irrelevant.
How have they lived in this country and covered elections without learning this?
