In his New York Times column he counts four ways in which Romney is losing it:
1) The economy continues to improve. - This undercuts Romney's argument that his business experience is necessary to turn things around. Consider - unemployment below 8% (171,000 net jobs last month), housing starts up 15% for largets increase in 4 years
As Blow writes:
Romney needed gloom and doom on the economy, but Obama got some rays of sunlight.
2) Romney’s momentum is maxing out. Blow notes that Romney did jump after the 1st debate, but then stalled.
Momentum begot momentum. But it peaked a couple of weeks ago, and evidence amassed that the momentum has evaporated.
Even so, the Romney campaign seemed to believe it could stick with the momentum meme even after that momentum had stalled because it had been effective at rallying the troops.
Our own favorite Nate Silver's reasoning is cited by Blow in support of this point.
Please keep reading.
3) Hurricane Sandy. - We saw Obama being Presidential, we saw him being bi-Partisan, and we saw Romney's staged "Storm Relief Event" in Ohio
4) Truth and lies. Let me note that for those of use who have pointing out the essential dishonesty of much of the Romney Campaign and the outright dishonesty of advertising beginning with Romney's first national ad in which he selectively edited video to make it seem as if Obama were advocating something when he was quoting John McCain, we find it appropriate Karma to see Romney getting slammed on honesty now.
Blow offers a new example. We now know that Romney son Matt visited Russia and communicated with Vladimir Putin, and according to this NY Times story on the trip
“Mr. Romney told a Russian known to be able to deliver messages to Mr. Putin that despite the campaign rhetoric, his father wants good relations if he becomes president, according to a person informed about the conversation.”
It sounds as though he was signaling that Mitt would do exactly what he had castigated Obama for: operate with “more flexibility” after the election.
This is the kind of hypocrisy that just makes you shake your head in disbelief.
Blow concludes his column by noting the figures from Gallup released Wednesday on people's expectations for the outcome of the election, 54-34 believing it will be Obama, including most independents and almost 1/5 of Republicans, then offering
I cast my lot with those folks unless there is a seismic shift in the next few days.
It is too late for a seismic shift, IMHO. It takes a couple of days for news to filter through to affect public opinion. Most people have already made up their minds. For key areas the lies over the auto industry were the final straw. That is not just Ohio and Michigan. Some of the Ohio coverage bleeds into Pennsylvania. National coverage also affects Wisconsin.
It seems to me that there is no longer a path to 270 electoral votes for Romney, and as I wrote in this piece yesterday morning, posted after the job numbers but before the flood of poll data, I expect Obama to win by substantially more than 300 electoral votes.
The Blow column is well written.
It is worth reading.
Which is why I took the time to post this diary.
Peace.