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“It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.”
GOP strategist Karl Rove, in the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31.
New York Times polling blogger “Nate Silver says there’s a 73.6 percent chance that the president’s going to win. Anybody that thinks this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue [that] they should be kept away from typewriters . . . because they’re jokes.”
Joe Scarborough, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Oct. 29.
“By my reckoning, Gov. Romney will win . . . Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, plus either New Hampshire and/or Iowa for 270 to 276 electoral votes.”
University of Maryland professor Peter Morici, Tuesday morning, to e-mail subscribers (Romney won only North Carolina).
“I believe the minimum result will be 53-47 [percent] Romney, over 300 electoral votes, and the Republicans will pick up the Senate. I base that just on just years and years of experience.”
Newt Gingrich on Fox News, Oct. 25
“Mitt Romney will win big tonight. . . . Despite intense efforts, Obama will lose both Ohio and Pennsylvania. . . . One of the big Wednesday morning stories will be why most of the polls didn’t have this right.”
Former GOP candidate Steve Forbes, on Forbes.com, Tuesday.
“But frankly, my view, Greta, is that Romney is going to win this election by more than five points and that he’s going to get north of 320 electoral votes.”
Former Bill Clinton pollster Dick Morris, to Fox News’s Greta van Susteren, Oct. 26.
“I’m predicting a 5 to 7 point popular vote victory [for Romney]. Electorally it won’t even be that close. Romney will win many states that went to Obama in 2008. I’m predicting Romney victories in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Indiana. I predict a Romney victory by 100 to 120 electoral votes.”
Las Vegas oddsmaker Wayne Allyn Root, in a Foxnews.com column, Oct. 9 (of the states listed, Romney won only North Carolina and Indiana and was losing in Florida).
“Furthermore, in battleground states, the edge in early and absentee vote turnout that propelled Democrats to victory in 2008 has clearly been eroded, cut in half according to a Republican National Committee summary.”
Rove, WSJ, Oct. 31.
“In addition to the data, the anecdotal and intangible evidence — from crowd sizes to each side’s closing arguments — give the sense that the odds favor Mr. Romney. They do. My prediction: Sometime after the cock crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America’s 45th president. Let’s call it 51 percent-48 percent, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.”
Rove, WSJ, Oct. 31.
“George Will’s Electoral [vote] Pick: Obama 217. Romney: 321.” Added Will: “I’m projecting Minnesota to go for Romney.” (It didn’t.)
Washington Post columnist Will, on ABC’s “This Week,” Sunday.
“I think this is premature. We’ve got a quarter of the vote. Now remember, here is the thing about Ohio. A third of the vote or more is cast early and is won overwhelmingly by the Democrats. It’s counted first and then you count the Election Day, and the question is, by the time you finish counting the Election Day, does it overcome that early advantage that Democrats have built up in early voting, particularly in Cuyahoga County? . . . Even if they have made [the call] on the basis of select precincts, I’d be very cautious about intruding in this process.”
Rove, on election night, disputing Fox News’s decision to call Ohio, and the election, for Obama.
“You know, after the election, either I’m going to have to go through a big reckoning or [people who think I’m wrong] are. And you know what? They are.”
Morris, on Fox News, Sunday.
Over the next two years, we will probably see a very nasty civil war within the Republican party. One imagines that the plutocrats and oligarchs that tossed hundreds of millions (more like billions) into the election to buy it for the GOP are not very happy campers at the moment. Of course, that all the money could have probably been better spent actually doing something such as creating employment opportunities through investments and so forth for the betterment of the nation never crosses their minds. They will find ways to continue their fight to place their puppets into the political process and by so doing continue to undermine their efforts the American democracy. Likewise, wishing away the problem of the oligarchs will not work. At some point the corrosive influence of money upon the American political process will have to be faced. I would not hold my breath for that to happen at any moment soon, there being a near-total lack of backbone and character among the vast majority of those engaged in national politics, Democrats and Republicans, to clean out the sewer that has become the American political system and process. However, at some point it seems that people will finally get disgusted enough to become angry enough to force this sort of change. It could make the Tea Party pale by comparison. Indeed, the Tea Party demonstrates the path that should not be taken: it gave way to its delusions and denied realities, so intent on the universe it created its narrow interests that it missed the boat.
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The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
