What makes you think competence is an issue now, like it was for Brownie?
It’s sort of interestingly self-referential that an extreme partisan blogger is talking publicly about how politicians sometimes privately doubt their chances - but not this time! How lucky for him.
But if you read articles by actual journalists there’s pretty widespread anxiety from Republican politicians and campaign staffers, etc. as long as they’re being quoted anonymously or on deep background.
For instance, shortly after Ryan was announced Politico ran a story citing a half dozen GOP insiders as being extremely worried or doubtful about the choice. They said the private mood was between worried and dread.
So of course some blogger is going to say that the GOP is privately optimistic, but actual GOP candidates and operatives privately tell actual journalists a different story.
It doesn’t take a very high level of competence to avoid a repeat of a preventable disaster that we have seen before, it takes acknowledgement and determination.
I punched in a scenario at 270towin.com today. A scenario where I give Romney a “best-case scenario.”
This was my formula: If Nate Silver’s Nov. 6 forecast gives Obama a 75% chance or better of taking the state (rounding to the nearest percentage point), I give it to Obama. Anything less than a 75% chance of victory for Obama, then I give the state to Romney. Plus, despite the fact Silver gives Obama a 77% chance of winning Ohio, I give that state to Romney, too. Just because.
Basically, I give every state to Romney that he has at least a 25% chance of winning PLUS I give him Ohio (where Silver doesn’t even give him a 23% chance).
After all of that, Romney still only comes up with 266 EVs to Obama’s 272.
With less than eight weeks to go, I really do not see a path for Romney to win this. There just isn’t that much movement in the polls these days. Even if the GOP has better GOTV on election day, plus successful voter suppression in certain states targeting Democratic voters-- even if you give Romney two out of three debates-- even if you give Romney all of the margins of error in the polls-- I *still *don’t see how he can win the presidency if he has to be given states that are currently leaning fairly strongly toward Obama, just to make it to 266 EVs.
Obviously the path for Romney to win is by doing better than he is now, and as unlikely as it seems it could still happen.
A more obvious statement I can not imagine.
If the previous four years are any indication of Mitt’s ability to successfully run for president, I’m not convinced he’ll be able to actually turn anything around in the next eight weeks. Game, set match Obama.
Happy, I’ve been using basically the same parameters you have for several weeks and I agree it doesn’t look good at all for Romney. Having said that, I have also been resisting the urge to get overly optimistic or cocky like some other folks on here have. However, given how regularly Romney keeps stepping on his own dick, like he did concerning the tragedy in Libya, I am finally starting to relax and think this is wrapping up.
Barring some major disaster in the debates I have to say Romney looks to be nearly ready to have a fork stuck in him.
Even Haley Barbour pointed out “You can step on your own dick. You just can’t jump and down on it.”
There’s a problem with your methodology. State probabilities are correlated with one another. So if there’s a big national swing in the polls, those odds could collapse quickly.
That said, foreign policy crises tend to make the President look more Presidential. And Romney’s team doesn’t understand basic diplomacy, in a way that’s even somewhat apparent on the television. Now Romney is an objectively strong debater. But he’s not good at working outside of the box: he’s best when he stays cocooned inside his script. [1] Still, we’re talking about a 4 percentage point spread that has to be closed: it shouldn’t be insurmountable.
[1] http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-election/slugfest-sizing-up-the-obama-romney-debates-20120823
It’s gonna be close; the numbers are going to tighten up, they always do.
I’m scared that it’s going to come down to Election Day shenanigans in swing states. 
This latest disaster from Romney could be a game changer. We’ll see on October 3.
You’re right, and that’s why I gave everything south and east of Michigan to Romney. If things start to collapse, Ohio and Florida will most likely be the first to leave Obama’s column. Followed by the delicate flowers that are Virginia and North Carolina. I don’t see anything big enough (nationally) to cause the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania on north to ultimately benefit Romney. I also think the battlegrounds out west are isolated from any national swings, unless Obama really, really, really fouls something up.
National swings will hurt Obama in the ones Obama has to really scrap for-- Ohio, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. I gave all of those to Romney anyway assuming something bad to happen.
Pennsylvania, removing the outliers, shows to be Obama’s by more than 7 points in an average of polls right now. Skulduggery is probably the only chance Romney has there, and I don’t think they could count on enough skulduggery to overcome the deficit they face in that state.
Colorado has (L) candidate Johnson polling between 10 and 12 percent. I think that’s going to hurt Romney more than Obama, because I think people will would be more likely to defect from the (R) to the (L) at this point if something were to go wrong for Romney, whereas if Obama were to stumble nationally, those lost Obama supporters would probably just stay home.
Which leaves Iowa. Personally, if all of that “worst case scenario” for Obama pans out as I put it on that map, it would all come down to Iowa. Which right now Silver predicts Obama will take with 74.9% certainty. But I think that state *would *be affected with a big national swing, however. It’s the delicate flower of the Midwest.
Still, I don’t see Romney having much of a path to victory. That being said, I take nothing for granted and will be on the road for the final 3-4 weeks stumping for the O man.
Happy, if you trust Silver enough to base your figures on his odds for each state, then why don’t you trust his entire model? If you’re at 538 anyway, just take a look over at the right column to where he’s done the work for you, and finds a 20% chance of a Romney victory.
Actually Obama’s lead over McCain grew without bounds right up to the election.
I can’t quite tell if you’re making a joke or if we’re on completely different pages, but I think this latest disaster does illustrate a key point to conservatives who are praying some some seismic event capable of shifting the race to Romney’s favor.
Namely, that even if something major does happen that’s capable of shifting the race it’s not fair to conclude it’ll be in Romney’s favor or that he’ll manage to not ruin it.
If Obama blew it or Romney managed to respond very Presidentially, these horrible embassy attacks could’ve been helpful - at least it was a chance to change the campaign - but instead he’s just stomping up and down on his own dick.
McCain had Sarah Palin helping him. 
Who says I don’t. I was just looking at a worst-case scenario, state by state, for Obama based on Silver’s numbers. I mean, this thread asked “How can Romney possibly win,” right? I was looking to see how he possibly could. He can’t, in my opinion.
As of today Silver has the odds in Colorado 75.7-24.3. But you gave that state to Obama. That would put Romney over the top.
As others have pointed out a Romney victory requires a broad national swing, not targeted efforts, so a Romney victory is hinged on a major national swing that could carry away Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico, all of which are possible Romney wins and all of which your scenario gives to Obama. Based on Romney’s astounding stupidity in this embassy attack thing, it’s hard to believe that could happen but weirder things have happened. Nobody thought Reagan would stomp Carter.
If we dig deeper in Silver’s numbers, although he feels Obama has a 3-to-1 shot at winning Colorado, he currently projects a vote difference of 4%, which ain’t much. It’s a significant barrier, a hurdle to overcome, but it is not insurmountable by any means.
Let’s suppose Romney can stop shooting his own feet and Obama screws up, or there’s a really surprising debacle, or the debate goes well for Romney, and you see a 2+ percentage point swing in the polls (giving Romney 2 points at Obama’s expense of 2 points.) According to Silver, that flips not only Colorado, but Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Silver already has Romney winning North Carolina.
Romney wins that scenario 275-263.
Is it likely? Well, no. This week demonstrates that the conventions suggested, which is that Romney and his team are not political wizards. But funnier things have happened.
No joke. I mean Game Changer as in the sense of an erstwhile close election now suddenly past the tipping point and Romney is on the downside of losing and losing badly. It will all depend, I think on how the media reports this and if they think the story has legs for the next few days of news cycles.
The key term is “news cycles” – even if this or that dick-stomp by Romney blows over, it uses up time he can’t afford to lose if he hopes to turn the situation around.
She was on O’Reilly advising Romney 