National Democrats

This election’s winners include not only data nerds like Nate Silver, but also the Obama campaign’s numbers-crunchers. Wasn’t data analysis supposed to be Romney’s strength at Bain and the Olympics?   The Obama staff – parodied as a bunch of soft-headed, socialist community organizers – were precise and efficient in their targeting and resource allocation.…

Last Tuesday, nationally, was a pretty fine day for Democrats: President Obama not only won, Democrats gained Senate seats, House seats, four states voted for gay marriage and two states voted for legalizing medical marijuana.   Since the morning after the election the TV and newspaper pundits have been gesticulating furiously over who’s to blame…

Albert, arguing, said, You’re wrong. Folks don’t care if politicians lie and steal – they expect them to do that. What’s more, they’ll vote for a crook who can fix the potholes in their street over a bungling saint every time.   I chalked that up to an otherwise garrulous man’s streak of skepticism but…

I woke up yesterday feeling Romney would win but after a dozen calls from people asking about polls in Ohio (not one of which shows Romney leading) I went to bed thinking, Every single poll can’t be wrong.   This morning, at the crack of dawn, I got Dick Morris’ predictions saying all the polls…

The baffling question is how Mitt Romney lost. If ever this was a challenger’s race to win, this was it.   The economy is bad. Obama is an activist in an anti-government age. He has never done a good job of selling his record. He was not a great candidate this year. He bombed in the…

Worst rationale for voting for Romney: maybe Democrats will cooperate with him, unlike Republicans who refused to work with Obama.   D.G. Martin asked about that argument when he interviewed Carter, Tom Drew and me on WCHL last week.   That rewards obstructionism. It rewards Washington Republicans who set out from the beginning of President…

Confused by the polling superstorm? Confounded by contradictory pundits? Then get a dose of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog. a deep, dense statistical analysis of the presidential race.   This week he plumbed the national and battleground-state polls. His conclusion: “Obama remains the favorite in the Electoral College.”   More:   “Mr. Obama is not a…

Last spring an old friend, a pollster, came to Raleigh and predicted without blinking Romney was going to win and I said, Why’s that? and he said, It’s simple. A lot of people who voted for Obama last time won’t vote for him again but I don’t know anyone who voted for McCain who is…

Sandy is about to blow away – literally – everything we think we know about this presidential election. Soon it will all be up in the air – or under water.   There is no way to exaggerate the impact of a storm that covers 500 miles, hits 50 million people and lasts for days.…