Under the heading "This could get weird," Marshall writes:
Listening to a story from a friend this evening. Guy in a social setting talking to a group of Wall Street heavyweights. Every single one in the room certain Romney wins. Has Ohio locked. Has the whole thing tied up. No doubt.
And that's it. But it's enough to unnerve, is it not?
Most of the final polling shows Obama opening up or expanding upon a lead, and yet some conservative bloggers are sounding a triumphalist "got it in the bag" theme. Their lack of worry has me worried.
I'm also bugged by the outlier polls from GOP-friendly firms which show Romney ahead or even-steven in places like Pennsylvania and Minnesota, even though all other polls show a comfortable Obama lead. Biased polling is a factor in American politics, but such reports usually show up earlier in the cycle. In the final stretch of the final stretch, polling firms usually try to get real.
Incidentally, one of the above links goes to WizBang, where Doug Johnson argues that Romney will win because 59% of Independents will vote Republican. Johnson ignores one of the odder aspects of this election -- many conservatives have shed the "R" identifier. Registered Republicans are down to only 24-25 percent of the electorate, while Dems are at 32 percent and Independents are at 38, an all-time high.
The interesting question is this: Have the non-R conservatives escaped the confines of the party because they think modern Republicans politicians are too extreme? Or has the GOP label lost its allure because the candidates are not extreme enough?
At any rate, the difference between 32% D and 24% R explains why there are more right-leaning Indys. It also explains why the polls allegedly "skewed" in favor of Team D aren't really skewed at all.
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