I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

Ryan's slash and burn views on Medicare & will scare enough senior citizens to secure a win for Obama in FLA & the possibility of R/R picking up enough other swing states to compensate for that is highly unlikely.

er Medicare & Social Security

Lol at NASCAR anecdote

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/sept-8-conventions-may-put-obama-in-front-runners-position/

Mittens has to be sweating at this point. Countdown til some ill-starred "shakeup" of his campaign team/strategy...

fwiw clemenza, i find your horserace junkiedom endearing and only settled on those particular adjectives to describe u bc iirc u used them to describe yourself first

Fair enough. I do have a habit of trying to preempt potential criticsm by levelling it at myself first.

you are canadian after all

and a teacher

Obama up to 80.7% this morning on 538.

haha okay now that seems ridiculous to me

That's his "chance of winning," not his polling, note.

His polling is at 237.8%

I know it's his chance of winning, I just remain semi-skeptical that he's overcoming the kneejerk racist backlash by THAT wide a margin

like, mid-70s I could be more confident in

yeah that is insane

5% racism miscalculation

He's leading Ohio by 5. If he wins there his chance of winning is near 100%.

if obama win ohio or florida its over say good night

it's a tricky thing to calculate, racism

ppl often forget to carry the 2/5

lawl

http://dsdtglobal.com/images/nodding_head_1_.gif

if obama win ohio or florida its over say good night

imagining Madonna joining Obama on stage election night to duet on "Take a Bow."

You've just given me a reason to vote for Romney.

I'd probably wait a couple of days till that last jobs report registers in the polling. Obama definitely seems to be ahead; I still see it more like 65/35, but then I spent most of '08 waiting for the roof to cave in. There's still the debates, still the various September economic reports, and I bet one more unexpected development. Canada severed all diplomatic ties with Iran yesterday, and now Netanyahu has called us "The leaders of the Western World." (Take that, America!) So the we've-fallen-behind-Canada-as-a-world-power issue will obviously loom large.

I honestly think Obama's going to beat Romney like a tied-up goat in the debates.

I doubt debates will change anyone's mind.

Maybe they'll change Romney's mind? Certainly I think they'll hurt Ryan, which will affect Republican future.

"anyone" seems a little broad.

I still see it more like 65/35

i don't mean to nitpick, but the reason i like 538 is that nate actually deploys his model to come up w/ his numbers. he doesn't make them up based on anecdotal evidence or his gut feeling. not that he's necessarily right and you're wrong, but i trust him more

Maybe they'll change Romney's mind?

maybe he'll drop out after the first one! ("Eh, fuck this").

not that he's necessarily right and you're wrong, but i trust him more

Wise move. Whenever I got discouraged in '08, Silver was a beacon of sanity, for the exact reasons you mention.

I have a lot of belief in the 538 statistical model; I'm mostly boggling at how high that percentage chance of winning is and think it will correct back down over the next week.

i don't understand why the nowcast thing turned around so abruptly. is that all the dnc convention?

Watching Ryan try to bluster his way through the whole 'I voted for sequestration, but I didn't really, and besides it's Obama's fault' thing yesterday I envision him coming out of the debates looking more weaselly, not less.

watching Alaskan reactions to the Biden/Palin debate really made me realize that most ppl who actually watch the debates have already made up their minds who will win them before they even start

yeah it's like rooting for your team

It's an 80/20 split in favour of a 51%-49% rousing sweep against a 49%-51% humbling defeat.

Yeah, that's why I downplay the odds. I realize Silver's model is partly based on realistic routes to victory, and that Romney's are few. It's just that so many of the alleged swing-state margins are very small.

All it would take is footage of Obama, when no-one's not looking, pouring a beer into a plant pot...

when no-one's not looking

I actually think the racist vote will be smaller this year than it was in '08, for the simple reason that the black guy already won once, and the world didn't end. They're demoralized.

Plus: more racists have died in the last four years.

Romney's team working overtime on the "Look it's okay to have voted for him, lots of exciting historical reasons for voting for him, but it's okay to feel that maybe he wasn't right for the job. Right? Riiight? *cough*affirmativeaction" though.

^That's the vibe I'm getting from the crap I hear from my mum. "He's a very nice man, I'm sure, but he *just isn't up to the job*" but srsly al these buzzwords and dog-whistles remind me of watching waves hitting a beach with less and less force as the tide goes out. Have been applying scorched-earth policy to family members by just calling them on the crypto-racism or just plain presenting them with how the three viewpoints they simultaneously hold are incompatible and maybe they better not repeat that shit outside the family lest they be taken as COMPLETELY FUCKING STUPID.

Sigh.

Just ask them how much their life saving were down in 2008 vs. now.

is "He's a very nice man, I'm sure, but he *just isn't up to the job* a dog whistle? I've been hearing variants since Reagan.

Obama's going to beat Romney like a tied-up goat

I have no idea who's gonna win but this is my new favorite phrase

xp When it's my mom saying it, YES. She has never pulled this shit when talking about another president, and it is as if Obama has to be three times as good at presidentin' as the incredibly meatheaded white candidates for her to decide he was competent. Plus, creative Michelle Obama dissing, how else am I gonna get the angry white person's latest remix of what they say when they really mean 'uppity' :-(.

debates don't really change anyone's mind (Alfred OTM - the people who tune in and pay attention are already partisans) but they are usually pretty entertaining and duh Obama is gonna murder Romney how can there be any doubt

oh yah def, suzy