Sorry about the short diary, am at work.
If anyone tells you this race could go either way, you now have permission to laugh in their face.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/...
Of the 19 candidates who led in the polls at this stage since 1936, 18 won the popular vote (Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 is the exception), and 17 won the Electoral College (Al Gore lost it in 2000, along with Mr. Dewey).
Of course, if Mr. Obama led in the race by 30 percentage points — as Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1964 — there wouldn’t be much need for such detailed analysis, and FiveThirtyEight might be free to blog about the baseball playoffs.
If you eliminate the candidates with double-digit leads, the front-runner’s record is eight Electoral College wins in 10 tries, or a batting average of 80 percent.