It's been beat over the head by the national media that this race is fluid, close, and going down to the wire. While national polls may tell one story, I simply don't believe that's the case.
Call it another failure of our increasingly clueless media that the Electoral College hardly gets mentioned until a week from election day. It's apparently fun to quote Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls, but anyone who knows anything about politics knows that 80% of these states have already been decided. And at least right now, Romney is on life-support.
Conventional wisdom holds that there are about 12 swing states in this election. OH, VA, FL, IA, NC, CO, NV, MO, WI, MI, PA, and NH. But a few of these states are no longer competitive. No one (including the Obama campaign) thinks they have a prayer of winning MO, and Republicans have pretty much pulled all money out of PA. Which leaves us with 10 states. Of which Obama leads in 9 of them. 9/10. And in a few it's approaching non toss-up category.
Obama is up by six in Michigan and Wisconsin, and neither has much of a chance of swinging to Romney. He's up 5 in both Nevada and Ohio. And.....you know what, we don't really need to do anymore after that. That's the election.
Even if you're willing to give Romney NC (which he is leading by less than a point), IA, FL and VA (he's trailing in all 3 by at least 1, but can certainly win those states), there is just no realistic electoral path for Romney if these polls hold. And that's throwing out Obama's fairly solid 3 point leads in CO and NH, both of which he will almost certainly win.
The perceptions of the economy are set. The only thing that can change anything now is a major crisis or the debates. And while Romney surrogates may be able to point to daily national tracking polls to get some media leverage, anyone who knows anything can tell you that his path to election is perilous at best.