National Republicans
Obama Up by a Field Goal With Three to Go
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…
Read MoreIt’s Not Complex. It’s Simple.
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…
Read MoreThe Ultimate X Factor
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.…
Read MoreThird Graders
It made all the newspapers: Last week Mitt Romney announced he’s pulling staffers out of North Carolina, where he now has a lead, to send them to Ohio where the race is closer. It was perfectly rational. Romney has a little breathing room in North Carolina so he’s moving few people to another state he…
Read MoreAn Example of the Unexpected
The other day Gary and I spoke at a luncheon and when Gary finished speaking he opened the floor for questions and, right off, a fellow stood up and asked, ‘So who’s going to win the election?’ It’s the question everyone’s asking and Gary gave him a great answer. He explained how in politics…
Read MoreObama Won, But…
Mitt Romney let an inexplicable obsession with Benghazi get him slapped down by Candy Crowley and slam-dunked by President Obama, but last night’s debate also showed why Democrats should still worry. Let’s get this straight first: Ignore anybody who tells you these debates don’t matter. They matter big-time. This was America’s first reality-show…
Read MoreOdd Facts
The Associated Press reported a pair of odd facts the other day. In a headline the AP reported, “Obama using voter registration to stay close in NC” – then told how President Obama’s massive voter registration drive is helping him win North Carolina – by registering 250,000 new Obama voters. So far, that…
Read MoreTurnaround
Could one debate turn the presidential race upside down and give Mitt Romney a comeback win over President Obama? Yes, and there are 67.2 million reasons why. Nielsen says that’s how many people watched last Wednesday’s debate. It was “the highest-rated first election-season debate since 1980.” Of the viewers, 12 million were age 18-34…
Read MoreLet ’em Debate
Jim Lehrer deserves a break. If he made a mistake moderating the presidential debate, it wasn’t that he should have done more to rein in Romney and Obama. He should have done less. The presidential debate, with its free-flowing format, was much more informative than the gubernatorial debate, which stuck to the stiff and…
Read MoreRomney’s Risk
A country lawyer – and conservative Democrat – says Mitt Romney may have made a big mistake in the first debate, despite the quick boost he got. “Whatever you say in your opening argument, you’d better back it up when you present your case,” the lawyer said. To wit: Did Romney lie when…
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