Don’t underestimate the brilliance of this man. Today Mittens eloquently declared that jobs would be “job one” under his administration.
Zingers? And, here, I thought this video was just a Bad Lip Reading; I had no idea it was really Mitt!
“Now, if you live in America, you know this next song…” 
A game with a lead of only one touchdown early in the forth quarter is a game very much at issue. Many posters on this thread have said the Obama’s lead is all but insurmountable, barring some catastrophe. Either Nate Silver’s analogy is wrong, or the people on this board have wildly overstated Obama’s lead.
Since a majority is calling it for Obama on this thread, let me be on record in calling it for Romney. Much as I don’t want him to win because of his social policies, I think he will win simply because this election is all about the economy. And no amount of hand-waving can change the fact that people are dissatisfied with how Obama handled the economy.
Watching the video, I don’t know what the excitement is all about. Obama will lose this.
Subjective experience of probabilities regarding relatively common or rare universes of events. There have been only 10 to 15 presidential elections in the adult memory of anyone alive, and those tend to be close contests. An election this one-sided this late in the season has probably happened only three or four times, and the favorite won all of those contests. By contrast, there are over five hundred NFL games every single season. Say a hundred of them are about this close, and in fifteen of those the trailing team mounts a successful comeback. Well, then, if I’m paying attention, I’ll be able to count hundreds of instances in my lifetime of NFL teams coming back from a single-touchdown fourth-quarter deficit. Even though the statistics show the chances of either comeback is around fifteen percent, the election one feels ridiculously unlikely, while the football one doesn’t.
That’s the point of this analogy. People looking at the poll numbers and thinking that Romney is effectively out of the running are letting that subjective experience (and, for those of a liberal persuasion, possibly their hopes and dreams) cloud their assessment. The Donkeys have a solid lead in this game, but they need to keep playing solid defense and hopefully score some insurance points if they want to hold onto it and send the Elephants to the locker room with a loss when the final horn sounds. Likewise, the Elephants should be aware they’re in a hole, but they should focus on solid play & be ready to capitalize on any Donkey mistakes. It’s way too early for them to start flinging Hail Mary passes.
(That analogy was way too fun. I’m trying to think of ways to abuse it further.)
Well, for starters, I would not expect a Mormon to do Hail Marys…
Ok, I grant you that Steve Young made a few… 
You are out of touch with how people are currently feeling more confidentabout the economy.
You’ve also neglected to take into account that Romney really, really needs Ohio. And Ohio has done very well the past 4 years, and now has a jobless rate that is 1% less than the national average. So the folks in Ohio do not share your perception that Obama has not handled the economy well.
Nate’s analogy is based on football statistics. A team that is down a touchdown with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter wins 16% of the time. Nate’s 538 model shows Romney’s probability right now of winning 14.3% (they went down slightly since that article.) His analogy is statistically correct.
ETA: Now, I agree. I don’t think Obama winning is a done deal, and I find this board to be a bit overconfident in their appraisal of this election. We elected Bush twice, so anything is possible. I’m cautiously optimistic, but still pretty nervous.
Ninja’d by pulykamell.
That was the Romney plan. However there are two problems with it. First, people seem to be more aware of the direction of the economy as opposed to its absolute position. Housing prices are rising, people are less afraid of being laid off, and that seems to trump the absolute unemployment rate. Second, Romney needs a convincing plan to improve things. He and Ryan seem unwilling to give full details on one. Improving the economy by cutting taxes on the rich has become a punch line, not a policy. So, as Euphonious Polemic says, Obama is now more trusted on the economy than Romney. I think the only area Romney leads in is cutting the deficit, but the average person cares a lot less about that than about jobs.
Romney could still turn things around if he came up with a convincing plan - but if he moves to the left he’d risk alienating his right.
I keep in mind the chances of rolling doubles in Monopoly or another board game. Happens all the time. Odds: 1/6 = 16.7%.
Mitt isn’t out yet.
SCSimmons: That last post was very lucid. Kudos.
Voyager: “Second, Romney needs a convincing plan to improve things. He and Ryan seem unwilling to give full details on one. Improving the economy by cutting taxes on the rich has become a punch line, not a policy.”
The models that say “It’s the economy”, tend to stress election year economic growth. So yeah, economic improvement matters. As it happens, economy-plus-incumbancy models predict about 49.5% of the popular vote going to Obama. So while this election can be won by a party with a strong message and a strong candidate, the Republicans have neither.
Holy crap…
Looking at Mitt’s position on torture, I sure as hell hope he loses…
While I agree that Mittens isn’t quite toast yet, the problem with so many of these analogies is that elections aren’t football games or dice. In this particular case, it’s not that Mitt is losing the national election because there isn’t one. Going to back to football, Mitt is playing 5 games simultaneously and he’s losing in 4 of them by amounts from 1 pt to a full touchdown and tied in 1. Unfortunately for him, he has to win all 5.
To be fair, the swing state elections are not isolated events. If Romney was to pull ahead in the national polling, he would likely take some of the swing states with him. His problems are that he can’t make himself personally likeable and his policies are interchangeable with every other Republican candidate- cut taxes on the rich, gut regulations, rattle sabers- and these policies have been tried, failed, and rejected.
Well, not according to 538. In aggregate, Mitt’s overall chances are around 15%. This takes into account all the swing states. Right this second, according to the Now Cast, your analogy would be somewhat more correct (around 2% for him). However, the model takes other factors into account for predicting what can happen by the time November rolls around. If the election were to happen today, yes, I’d say Romney is toast. But we still have a few weeks to go, anything can happen, and the American electorate is fickle. I’m not saying it’s likely, but I don’t think it’s that much a longshot, either.
Initially, I felt it was too early.
Today on the news, I heard that Mitt is actually polling less popular than…
wait for it…
George W Bush! (That’s right!)
So, it may not be too early, after all!
It’s worse than that: he’d have to bring back into play some other state, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, that’s been out of play. Without that, Florida brings Obama’s EV count up to 276 - even if he loses every other state that’s currently being contested.
The reason why I focus on Ohio is simple: Obama’s lead there has been steady for months, and has been growing lately. The likelihood that Ohio’s leaving the D column is getting increasingly small. That’s not so much the case with Florida, where Obama’s lead has been both smaller and more volatile.
Ohio ‘only’ gets Obama up to 265, but it’s a pretty solid 265. And that puts Romney in a position of having to win everywhere else at once, except NH. Florida’s crucial to Romney, but the election’s just as gone from him if he loses Nevada or Iowa, let alone Colorado, Virginia, or North Carolina, if he can’t bring Ohio back from its near-death experience (from the Romney POV).
Thirty-four days to go… :eek:
The Republican vote-grab is also probably going to be more successful in Florida than Ohio.
On Sunday the Bills and Patriots were tied at the end of the third quarter, 21-21. The Patriots won 52-28. Ask yourself whether Romney has been more like the Bills or the Patriots and plug that into your polling.
(If anybody had told us before the game that Ryan Fitzpatrick would throw for 350 yards - more than Tom Brady - and four touchdowns, every buffalo wing upstate would jump out of its sauce and start dancing. And yet…)
The now-cast is at 97.8 - 2.2.