Rich Lowry, of the conservative National Review, quotes the Romney campaign saying ‘Horses*t’ in reaction to reports that it knows it is losing based on the most recent PPP poll showing the state of Ohio is slipping away from their reach.
I asked a top Romney adviser what he makes of reports that the Romney campaign knows it’s losing and that Ohio is slipping out of reach (PPP has a new poll with Obama at 50 in the state):
It’s horses*t. Nobody in Boston thinks we’re going to lose. We’re in a tight race. We had a 4-5 point bounce after our convention and it evaporated when they had theirs. Now they have a 4-5 bounce. It’s going to evaporate in September. We feel good about the map. We’re up with advertising in Wisconsin and I think North Carolina is going to come off the board. On Ohio, they’ve been spinning for months now that it’s out of reach.
There was a Columbus Dispatch poll last week that had it 45-45. ... That’s a more accurate picture of the state of the play there than any of the spin. PPP has these polls that just put chum in the water for the media. Sometimes I think there’s a conscious effort between the media and Chicago to get Republicans depressed. And I hope our friends realize that all these media analysts out there are Democrats WHO WANT US TO LOSE. ...
I actually think the other side is in a panic. You look at New Mexico closing up. And they’re not above 50 in any of their target states. Look, we’re raising money, they’re raising money, and it’s tight. This is a dogfight. But the numbers actually point to a romney win barring something unforeseen.
Yes, my friends, it is actually us Democrats that are in panic, because one poll suggests we are only up 5% in New Mexico. Bwa, ha, ha, ha!
By the way, the Columbus Dispatch poll he refers to is from 2 weeks ago. And, we are up 1% in North Carolina, a traditionally Republican state that was not even on our original list of battleground states. If we win North Carolina it will most likely mean we've already won CO, IA, OH, VA, and FL, and will be going beyond 332 in the electoral college. But, yes, I confess, I'm overcome with despair that it's a battleground state.
In Obama Poll Bounce Dismissed By Mitt Romney Campaign, Mark Blumenthal reports:
The Mitt Romney campaign circulated a statement Monday from its pollster, Neil Newhouse, conceding that President Barack Obama "has seen a bounce from his convention" in daily tracking polls but urging readers not to "get too worked up about the latest polling."
All Signs Point to a Tight Race: Those watching the daily tracking polls know that, while the President has seen a bounce from his convention, his approval has already begun to slip, indicating it is likely to recede further. In eight states, Pollster.com's reporting of the most recent statewide polls puts the margin between the two candidates at less than three points, virtually guaranteeing a tight race. ...
A poll tracking model created for HuffPost Pollster by political scientist Simon Jackman, based on all polling at the national and state levels, shows that the conventions have helped boost Obama's share of the vote to his highest levels since early March. The model currently has Obama leading Romney by 3 percentage points.
Oh noes! They've figured out that we Democrats are in a conspiracy with traditional media to distort how well things are going for Republicans, to depress them! Our secret agenda is discovered!
By, the way, his statement about President Obama's approval falling is totally....."horses**t." As you all know, Gallup has our President's approval up 5% just in the last few days. It's now over 50% and my understanding is, historically, the closer we get to election day, the more Presidential approval rate is the best predictor of vote share.
Ever notice how whenever something really bad comes up, that Republicans don't know how to respond to, they just say the exact opposite, or claim its actually happening to Democrats?
I think psychologists call this "projective identification," and is due to an inability to process the degree of cognitive dissonance, so our minds externalize the threat. Last week, when the waive of reports of Mitt Romney's lies about welfare waivers, Medicare vouchers, etc, came out just before the RNC convention, Erick Erickson hysterically, claimed Democrats were in such "hysterical desperation" that we were willing to lie, and "say or do anything" to stay in the race.
But, I think in this case, the Republicans are conflating projective identification, with their "pivot" technique which comes off sounding like Baghdad Bob. "What? There are not American soldiers in Iraq! Iraqi soldiers have actually invaded Manhatten!"
Republicans are dazed and confused, and even Mitt Romney can not keep track of the many flip-flops he's taken in the last 72 hours on health care. I guess now he is against the ACA, after he was for it, then against it, except for the parts that he would keep, which is actually nothing, because the free market is going to take care of all the people who can't get insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Romney can't figure out why all these people with pre-existing conditions just don't get out their magic etch a sketches, and retroactively give themselves low cost policies based on their imagined health histories before they got sick.
I'd love to hang around and make fun of this but I've just received my secret daily marching orders from Wolf Blitzer, and our traditional media overlords. What a taskmaster, that Blitzer is -- now he wants me to try to make up false reports that things are going badly for the Republicans! Who's going to believe that?