posted at 5:27 pm on November 5, 2012 by Allahpundit

The skeptical view of leaking these is that it smacks of what desperate campaigns do when they know they’re losing. Remember Tom Barrett? He wanted the world to believe, contra nearly all of the independent polling, that he and Scott Walker were dead even two weeks out from the recall election this summer. That made perfect sense in his case: He was behind, everyone knew it, and he needed a morale booster to keep his base from giving up. How is that analogous to Romney’s situation? Is there any Republican anywhere who’s given up and thinks O’s slight lead in Ohio in the independent polls is immune to huge GOP turnout tomorrow? The final Gallup and Rasmussen national tracking polls each have Romney ahead by a point, a fact Drudge is trumpeting as I write this. There are no Romney voters at this point who need rosy internal polls to nudge them out the door tomorrow.

Mitt Romney is ahead by a single percentage point in Ohio, according to internal polling data provided to MailOnline by a Republican party source.

Internal campaign polling completed last night by campaign pollster Neil Newhouse has Romney three points up in New Hampshire, two points up in Iowa and dead level in Wisconsin and – most startlingly – Pennsylvania.

Internal poll show Romney trailing in Nevada, reflected in a consensus among senior advisers that Obama will probably win the state. Early voting in Nevada has shown very heavy turnout in the Democratic stronghold of Clark County and union organisation in the state is strong.

Yeah, at this point I’m treating Nevada for O the way I’m treating North Carolina for Mitt – technically still in play, but easily the hardest “get” for the opposition. The good news is, there are few scenarios realistically in which the election would come down to Nevada. One is if O wins the big four in the Rust Belt and midwest – Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – and needs one more state to push him over the line. If that happens, though, then he’ll probably be riding enough of a wave that he can grab one of the more competitive battleground states – Colorado, New Hampshire, or Iowa – to give him the election. Ditto for Mitt: If he wins Colorado, then he can get to 270 either with Ohio alone or with Wisconsin plus Iowa or New Hampshire, both of which look like genuine toss-ups vis-a-vis Nevada. The only way that Nevada is decisive is if there’s some truly odd scramble among the battleground states where, say, Romney wins Ohio but loses Colorado and Wisconsin and Iowa and New Hampshire. Not worth worrying about, especially if Romney’s internal polls are accurate. But just in case, our loyal readers in Nevada will be turning out tomorrow, right? No excuses, especially with Dean Heller in a tight race. Even if Nevada slips away from Romney, it might be the difference in whether he gets to work with a Republican or Democratic Senate.

Exit question: Seriously, are we going to know who won this election tomorrow night? Quote:

[I]n the wee hours Wednesday morning, [Ohio] counties will begin their count of the provisional ballots. These are votes that have been challenged for a wide variety of legitimate reasons. They include: Ohioans who are not registered; registered voters who moved but failed to update their addresses; people who showed up at the right polling place but were directed to the wrong precinct; voters who did not bring proper identification to the polls; and those who requested an absentee ballot but decided to vote in person…

The rough Republican rule of thumb is that Romney requires a statewide lead of, at least, 50,000 votes to survive the provisional ballot phase of the Ohio long count. The requisite election night margin for Romney may, in fact, need to be higher. It all depends on the number of provisional ballots plus valid absentee ballots (postmarked Monday or earlier), which are still in the mail. And despite the best efforts of the secretary of state’s office to release an accurate count of disputed and missing ballots Wednesday morning, the final numbers will probably trickle in from Ohio’s 88 counties over the following few days.

Accepted provisional ballots won’t be added to the state’s vote totals until November 17-21. Legal challenges could drag things out weeks longer, a la Florida 2000. Consider this another motivator for 100 percent Republican turnout tomorrow: If we can’t stop Ohio from being very, very close, maybe we can stop it from mattering at all.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

One overlooked influence on Barack Obama’s political philosophy and governing style (if those are the terms I’m groping for) involves the Islamosocialist dictator typical of Islamic states during the mid-20th century.

This class of ruler was washed up in the wake of the colonial period, as the Western imperial states retreated with no serious efforts to assure stable governments left behind them.  Strongmen then stepped into the vacuum.

Superficially, these leaders resembled Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the legendary figure who, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, took Turkey by the scruff of the neck and dragged it into the modern age.  But Kemal was sui generis.  None of his successors had his ability or his vision, or were able to obtain the same results.          

The prototype of the post-colonial Islamosocialist tyrant was Gamel Abdel Nasser, an Egyptian army officer who rose from lower-middle-class origins (he was the son of a postman) to mastery of Egypt.  Nasser joined the army at a young age.  During WWII, he was involve d in a number of questionable escapades, among them a scheme to turn Egypt over to Rommel.  After the war, he founded the Association of Free Officers, a group of disgruntled junior officers who after several false tries succeeded in overthrowing the almost sublimely corrupt King Farouk.  Nasser in short order edged aside General Muhhamed Naguib, the new regime’s figurehead, and, after consolidating his position, made himself president for life.  Theatrically handsome and with considerable personal charisma, Nasser enthralled the Egyptian populace and the Arab world beyond.  

Unfortunately, Nasser’s accomplishments failed to match his image.  In hopes of creating a pan-Arab state with himself as leader, he attempted to set up a political condominium with Syria in the form of the United Arab Republic (UAR), which foundered after only three years.  He fomented several failed wars with Israel, ending up with his own personal version of Vietnam in the Yemen War (1962-1967), and initiated a number of economic schemes which succeeded only in squandering Egypt’s potential.

His one major success was facing off the combined forces of Great Britain and France after his seizure of the Suez Canal in 1956.  A planned October invasion by British and French forces was cut short by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who threatened to ruin the British pound if the invasion proceeded.  (Patton, on the other hand, would have gone all in.)  Although the city of Alexandria took a beating from British bombers, and Egypt’s army was once again whipped by the Israelis (who were in on the operation), Nasser came out still in possession of the canal, and smelling like a rose.

This success gave him enormous cachet in the third world.  Nasser became the model for leaders of developing countries in every corner of the planet, Islamic or otherwise.

But Suez was Nasser’s last hurrah.  He spent the ’60s creating senseless uproars (and being whipped once again by Israel in 1967) while Egypt stagnated.  Upon his death in September 1970, his place was taken by his close collaborator Anwar Sadat, much less colorful but unquestionably more pragmatic and capable.

Among others in the Islamic world influenced by Nasser was Sukarno of Indonesia.  (He never used his first name, Achmed.)  Indonesia was a colony of the Dutch, and Sukarno was involved in the independence movement from the late 1920s.  During WWII, he served as a somewhat recalcitrant puppet ruler for the Japanese.  When the war ended, he embarked on a four-year war of independence against the returning Dutch.

After throwing out the Dutch, Sukarno established standard one-man rule under the rubric „guided democracy” – as pretty a name for a tyranny as anyone has even come up with.  He became more autocratic and erratic as time passed.  He was deeply influenced by traditional Islam.  He had attempted to establish sharia under the Japanese and accepted such practices as polygamy (he ended up with four or five wives, depending on how you count the divorces).

Like Nasser, Sukarno instigated several wars, seizing West Irian and threatening the Sultanates of both Brunei and Malaysia (both attempts were ended by British intervention).  In the ’60s, his rhetoric grew more strident and his actions more extreme.  He rejected aid from the U.S., and he pulled Indonesia out of the U.N.

The communists, in the form of the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), had always been a part of Sukarno’s movement.  They gained power and influence as Sukarno isolated himself from the West.  Along with Sukarno’s alliances with North Vietnam and China, this raised the very real possibility of a communist state smack between Australia and the Philippines.

With internal tensions rising, the communists in 1965 carried out a confused and strange attempt at a coup.  A group of disaffected junior army officers, evidently under the influence of the PKI, assassinated a half-dozen generals and seized several bases.  General Suharto, chief of reserves, took overall command and with a series of swift moves isolated the rebels.  There followed a countrywide crackdown of incredible violence and thoroughness.  A minimum of 100,000 communists, sympathizers, and the odd bystander were shot by government troops and rural vigilantes.

After several months of maneuvering and negotiations, Suharto in March 1966 forced Sukarno to step aside.  Sukarno was placed under house arrest and died in June 1970.  The quiet but extremely able Suharto ruled the country until 1998.

Witnessing the aftermath of these events were an American expatriate, Stanley Ann Dunham, and her young son, Barry, who had traveled to Indonesia in 1967 to join Ann’s husband, Lolo Soetero, a geographer and oil company employee.  She may have had other agendas in mind as well.  Angelo Codevilla, nobody’s idea of a crank, has pointed out considerable circumstantial evidence that the entire Dunham family was, at one time or another, active in the CIA.  This would explain a lot of things, including the otherwise puzzling fact of a young woman barely out of her teens trotting around a country recovering from one of the most vicious massacres in modern history with a small child in tow.

It was in Indonesia that Ann’s son Barry began his primary education in the Indonesian school system, where he encountered Islam and the cult of Sukarno.

Sukarno remained very much a folk hero In Indonesia, in much the same way that Stalin is still admired by many Russians.  A large number of Indonesians believed that he would return from internal exile, like some eastern Barbarossa, to straighten things out.  The cult of Sukarno was particularly pronounced among the educated, as apt to fall for bogus messiahs and their programs in Indonesia as they are anywhere else.  Included in this group were many members of the teaching profession.

It was under these circumstances that Barack Obama formed his first impressions of leadership, politics, civil society, and the relationship between governors and the governed.  It left its mark.  Look at Obama’s method of governing:

• Like Nasser and Sukarno, Obama is the adherent of no single ideology, but instead of a grab-bag of Marxism, liberalism, technocracy, Chicago, and for all anybody knows the secret oaths of the Mugwumps.  While such a mélange is nothing unusual among contemporary Democrats, its more exotic elements call to mind nothing other than the belief system of the typical third-world autodidact.
• Gigantic, demented social schemes with no chance of success.
• Charismatic politics – both Nasser and Sukarno, along with third-world tyrants by the basketful, basked in and encouraged intense and universal personality cults – though none, to my knowledge, ever compared himelf to God Almighty.
• Government by decree – Obama typically deals with disagreement and opposition by means of „executive orders.”  If that isn’t „guided democracy,” then what is it?
• Strange and disturbing outside alliances – Nasser at various times had contacts with the Nazis, the Italian fascists, and the Soviets, along with a menagerie of Islamic groups.  Sukarno had his connection with the PKI and its mindboggling array of offshoots.  With Obama, we have seen ACORN, the Soros network, and whatever glorified version of street gang Van Jones is running this week.  This is something new in American politics – no previous president has ever operated this way (despite fringe rantings about the Bilderbergs or the CFR).
•  Personal cadres – no smart, sophisticated tyrant is ever without his entourage, from whom he accepts advice and praise in equal measure while listening to no one else.  With Nasser, it was his old army buddies.  With Sukarno, his comrades from the anti-Dutch underground, including the PKI.  With Obama, it’s Bill Ayers, Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, Eric Holder, Anita Dunn, and an endless parade of czars.

And, as in all these cases, there’s that ambiguous connection with Islam.

Clearly, what we have had in the past four years is a mutant variety of third-world rule in the United States.  It is not something we have benefited from, and not something we’d want to repeat.

This is the real danger of electing someone who does not have an actual American background, whose character and ideas were formed in utterly different social and political milieus.  It’s not that he may turn out to be a Manchurian candidate, or a mullah in disguise, but simply that, in the nature of things, he will have picked up concepts and practices that are alien, if not – as I believe to be the case here – utterly unacceptable in the United States.

During his term, Barack Obama has governed not as a president in the way that we understand it – a chief executive loaned vast powers for a brief period as representative of the people – but as a caudillo, a charismatic figure, the leader of a movement.  He has ruled as a third-world chieftain.  While this is understandable, if less than admirable, in developing nations such as Egypt or Indonesia or any of the rest, it is not even close to understandable in the United States of America.  Those nations began under, and most are still mired in, conditions that have never touched the U.S. at any stage of its existence. The U.S. has never required tanks in the streets to guarantee a succession.  It has never witnessed the massacre of hundreds of thousands of members of a political opposition.  We have never settled solely political disputes with roaring machine guns or blazing pistols.  The fact that this country has been run for four years by a man whose thoughts and ideas were formed in such conditions is, over and above anything else, an absurdity to the highest degree.  It is a historical mistake that demands correction.

The U.S., unlike Egypt, or Indonesia, or Malawi, or Sri Lanka, or Argentina, is a functioning democracy.  We can correct our political mistakes.  This week, we will have an opportunity to do so.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

That the election of November 6, 2012, has the potential to be a definitive moment in American history is now almost a truism.   This conception may sound overblown to the ignorant and disengaged, but in fact it is a great understatement.  As America is the only nation left in which freedom is still on the ballot, this definitive U.S. election means even more, in truth, than most voters may realize.  It is a referendum on the survival of modern civilization.

A recent blog post at the Weekly Standard displays the results of a BBC election poll taken in various countries around the world.  The results demonstrate that if the rest of the world were allowed to vote, Barack Obama would win in a Saddam-like landslide. 

Throughout what is left of the civilized world, Obama’s superiority to Mitt Romney, and in general Democrats’ superiority to Republicans, is the default assumption, regarded as beyond question.  One who objects to that opinion has a lot of explaining to do.  And one who dares to admit thinking the United States of America a very agreeable proposition is regarded as either an infidel or a dope. 

These two presuppositions – that the Democrats are the good guys, and that America is essentially a bad thing – should always be understood as a pair.  Together, they reveal exactly what the modern Democratic Party and the American media have spent decades trying to hide from their fellow citizens – namely, that to prefer the Democrats is to dislike America. 

That international landslide of support for Obama is a clue to what this U.S. election represents to that minority of us among foreigners who understand what anti-Americanism really means.  Other nations have their advantages – Korea’s low tax rates have helped her to grow from third-world to top-tier economy in little more than a generation; Canada’s banking system weathered the 2008 recession better than America’s – but there is only one nation in which individual freedom is regarded not as a „system” or a „policy,” but as a pre-political principle, a true foundation.  If you share this principle, then America is, at present, your only practical hope for the future of mankind.

But what is „America” to such a foreigner?  The classic comprehensive answer to that question is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.  The worthiest recent attempt at an answer is probably Mark Steyn’s After America.  Tocqueville surveyed the American scene during the flawed, faltering glory of the nation’s rise.  Steyn’s analysis, by contrast, is a (barely) premature autopsy.

What these two books, and other contributions to the tradition Tocqueville began, have in common is their shared theme: freedom. 

Great nations cannot be understood independently of the defining spiritual impulse that creates and propels them.  Any worthwhile analysis of ancient Greek civilization, for example, must contribute to our understanding of the central theme of Greece: the flowering of the human soul.  The long history of the Greek world, seen from the outside, embodies the process whereby humanity came into its own.  At last, representation became art – man’s attempt to understand his relationship to the divine, to other men, and to himself; and knowledge evolved from an acceptance of ancient rules and customs into a submission of nature’s and man’s rules to the rigors of rational inquiry.

Comparable themes will be found in the examination of any of history’s great nations.  An outsider, either historically or geopolitically, can sometimes perceive the arc of a nation’s grand theme – and the risks that endanger the development of the theme – more easily than men presently traveling that arc.  Thus, the foreigner’s perspective on the nation’s problems is sometimes more „global” – not in Obama’s sense of reducing a great nation to just another tick on the U.N. roster, but rather in the sense of seeing what the world stands to lose should this nation fall.

In America’s case, once again, the theme is freedom – the purposeful application of the notion of the inviolability of the individual to the establishment of a civil society.

The foreigner’s perspective on this is peculiar – privileged precisely as it is deficient.  Citizens are positioned to see more clearly the „small war,” the growth pains inherent in the development – and the death pangs inherent in the downfall – of their society.  An outsider, if he is thoughtful, open, and respectful of his subject, can sometimes catch sight of a crystal that perhaps is seen more easily from beyond.  (This is not to say that serious citizens cannot make the intellectual leap to that bird’s-eye view, too.  The enormous popularity of Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny is a testament to that.)

But in the case of America, the outsider (or new arrival) has another practical advantage – namely, an insight into the subtleties of decayed or extinguished liberty which may be overlooked by those still at an earlier stage of decline.  Tocqueville, a Frenchman, saw firsthand how a revolution in the name of liberty and equality can produce an outcome far murkier than the promise implied in its noblest declarations.  Thus, even in the obscurest minutiae of his travelogue of the American spirit, one senses the deep, satisfied inhalations of a man finding the fresh air he had spent his young life seeking without avail at home.

Regarding today’s America, the foreigner has lived and can warn of the practical manifestations of Tocqueville’s chillingly accurate speculation about how a constitutional republic might give way to tyranny – to what Tocqueville famously calls „soft despotism.” 

It is no accident, for example, that Steyn, a Canadian, has been perhaps the strongest, most relentless voice over these past few years on the dangers of ObamaCare.  I, too, have returned to health care again and again.  To have lived in a socialized medical system is to have witnessed the heart of the stealthy darkness Tocqueville foresaw.  Socialized medicine is the demise of individual liberty in the guise of „equal access,” a gluttonous economic shark masked as „affordability,” and a final denial of the dignity of all human life, euphemized as „universal care.”

Government health care is a perfect microcosm of what real oppression will look like on a daily basis, an important and constantly needed reminder for people still hoping to preserve the idea of freedom in their own country.  Those whose air has at least been perfumed with the (dissipating) vapors of genuine liberty all their lives can easily regard oppression as more foreign and strange than it really is.  The natural tendency among citizens of „the land of the free” to identify tyranny primarily with the nightmare world of Kristallnacht or the Ukrainian forced famine has facilitated the efforts of freedom’s enemies to push America onto its current collision course with the more quotidian brutalities of „soft” oppression. 

Inhumanity always seems more distant from us than it really is, which is why a still-humane nation can be caught so flat-footed by its arrival, as America was by the rise of a mellifluous-toned, well-dressed son of communist revolutionaries and their fellow-travelers in the global caliphate movement.

The lesson Americans most need to digest, and that many have had to learn the hard way, is one made plain and practical in the debate over government-run health care.  As we who have lived it can attest, modern socialist oppression does not bring the secret police to your door.  The old folks will not be rounded up.  Rather, the tax collectors and regulators are at your door – all the time, intractably, until their omnipresence in your payslips and personal decisions feels so normal that you no longer question the loss of property rights and self-determination, and would even suspect or hate the man who would propose to remove that smothering security blanket. 

As for the old folks, they become the subject of a neat and tidy cost-benefit analysis, cared for just as long as budgetary considerations permit, while their families are provided with a clean, guilt-free break from one of family life’s chief raisons d’être and responsibilities, in the form of „palliative care” – i.e., the death panel’s debt collector.  (I explain this here.)

As Tocqueville predicted to grim perfection, modern man will not easily submit to a yoke under the threat of harm, but he will do so all too easily under the promise of a life without anxiety or inconvenience. 

Liberty is too great a good to be relinquished knowingly.  Americans will always be prepared to defend against direct threats to their freedom.  But through its great gifts of material prosperity, peaceful coexistence, and the near-universalization of the luxury of leisure – in the Aristotelian sense of the practical opportunity to pursue happiness – liberty tends to promote a character of optimism and good faith that leaves a free people prey to those who, frustrated with the limits of self-development, seek to realize their wills through coercion.  

Old-style violent uprisings would never work in a free nation.  Modern enemies of freedom have had to devise more cunning means to their ends.  (Witness Bill Ayers.)  And so they have: producing a morally and intellectually corrupting lexicon that bears a superficial resemblance to the language of freedom (progress, individuality, positive „rights”); instituting vast property-annihilating programs in the name of creating „opportunity” and „justice”; and tarting up the class warfare methods of the Bolsheviks with the soothing vocabulary of „the middle class,” thus slowly enticing liberty down the white-picket-fenced path to death by regulatory bureaucracy. 

This last point is the vital warning from America’s foreign friends, from Tocqueville to the present.  Yes, defeating Barack Obama is necessary; he and his backers are the most highly-placed „enemy within” that America has ever faced.  On the other hand, the climate that made Obama possible was more than a momentary case of white guilt, media complicity, Bush-fatigue, or Muslim Brotherhood subterfuge.  A very substantial percentage of Americans have been tranquilized by the soporific spell of „left vs. right” party politics, which induces a belief in the legitimacy of all views that do not directly deny your right to vote, as though freedom were reducible to the maintenance of periodic elections.  (Every nation has periodic elections.)

Why did supposed conservatives, such as David Brooks and Peggy Noonan, support Barack Obama in 2008?  Brooks’ famous rumination on Obama’s well-creased pant leg speaks volumes.  For Brooks, seeming „presidential” was enough.  Being presidential, in the American sense of that term – preserving the Constitution, espousing the principle of limited government, and believing that the defense of America as a land of liberty is his defining role – is no longer even part of the equation for Brooks, for his readers, or, apparently, for tens of millions of Americans on „both sides of the aisle.” 

Treating leftist authoritarianism as one side of the nation’s healthy political debate is by definition a violation of the American founding.  Socialism cannot be put into practice to any degree without violating the Declaration’s primary rights and the Constitution’s delineations of the role of government.  By allowing leftist policy to metastasize through all branches of the federal government for generations, a large portion of the population – including, sadly, many who see themselves as conservatives – have unwittingly forsaken most of what America, as a philosophical idea, stands for.

The leftist regulatory apparatus is already woven so thoroughly into American life – redefining and delimiting America beyond the reach of the Founding Fathers, let alone of any elected official – that the sturdiest, most clear-eyed Americans of this moment have come to see the election of a new president as merely one small victory in what must be a long, almost unwinnable war.  Their perception is accurate.

The idea which we now call „individualism” was not born in America.  Nor was the goal of political liberty.  Nevertheless, these two principles have died in every other country on Earth.  There is no other nation in which these grand ideas have remained an essential part of either the political system or the moral code.  It may be difficult for an American to see what this means to those of us abroad who share these ideas. 

It means this: America is the last practical refuge of our hopes.  In every other nation, to advocate for individual liberty, to plead for property rights, or to speak out against socialism’s inherent violation of the foundations of civilization is increasingly to brand oneself an unenlightened crank at best, and perhaps a sociopath.  If American society completes its slow shift into that same perspective, then we are all doomed.  If the American majority finally comes to absorb the view, already accepted as policy by the Department of Homeland Security, that „reverence of individual liberty” and „suspicion of centralized federal authority” are indicators of an antisocial threat, then there will literally be nowhere left on Earth where one is allowed to love freedom without ostracism, or worse.  There will be nowhere left on Earth where Jefferson, Madison, or Washington may speak or be spoken of without ridicule.

Thoughtful non-Americans know from experience and reasoning that livable conditions in their own nations will be sustained, if at all, only as long as America refrains from following the West’s oppressive path to regulatory oblivion and resists late modernity’s craving for the false comforts of „soft despotism.”  Those comforts are false on two levels: first, they are gained by means of a gun aimed at you and everyone else; second, they will be short-lived.  The last gasp of freedom means the loss of all the goods that only freedom can provide – prosperity, peace, leisure. 

A man is hanging from a cliff, with only his fingers still gripping solid rock.  The prevailing impetus is all downward, but the man continues to dangle in one place as long as that grip holds out.  If he lets go, however, his fall will be short and decisive. 

Modern civilization is that man.  America is his final, desperate grip.  On November 6, 2012, that man will either be left alone to continue his brave, heartbreaking struggle for another day, or a boot will come down on his fingers.

I described America’s prospect as an „almost unwinnable war.”  Dire as this may sound, there is actually something liberating in that little word, „almost.”  The Tea Party is a testament to that feeling of liberation.   Near-defeat brings priorities into focus.   It sweeps away the smoke of the inessential, so that the path to the primary goal becomes clear.

The first, nearly completed, step is to prevent that „almost” from becoming an „absolutely.”

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

posted at 7:28 pm on November 5, 2012 by Allahpundit

What follows will be old hat to most readers, who’ve been wargaming paths to 270 for six months now, but I’m thinking it might be useful to casual readers who are stopping by tonight and tomorrow because their interest in the election is peaking. Simple question: Which states does Romney need to win to clinch the presidency? BuzzFeed tried to answer this earlier today with a flow chart, but it doesn’t give you any sense of whether individual battlegrounds are likely right now to break red or blue. So here’s how I’m approaching it. Right off, to simplify things, I’m assuming Romney wins North Carolina (15 EVs) and Obama wins Nevada (6). Neither one is a lock but they seem to be the surest bets among swing states. Needless to say, if you live in either of those states (or any other state), you should hustle on down to the polls tomorrow and vote anyway. An upset for O in NC would all but guarantee that he wins the election, and low GOP turnout in Nevada would imperil Dean Heller, whom the party desperately needs to win to have a shot at retaking the Senate. No excuses. Vote, vote, vote.

If you assume NC and NV break red and blue, respectively, then the election starts with Obama at 207 EVs and Romney at 206, with seven states effectively left to decide things. Which brings us to…

The prerequisites: Florida (29), Virginia (13)

Romney leads by 1.5 points in the RCP average in Florida, his best showing in any battleground state. He’s led there for weeks and is widely expected to take the state. He’d better: 29 EVs would be next to impossible to replace. Virginia is more tenuous, with Obama actually holding a very slight lead in the poll of polls right now. Romney could replace those 13 EVs by winning one or more states listed below, but he’s led in multiple polls in Virginia over the past month and seems to be favored there by most analysts. If he loses a squeaker to O, there’d be little margin for error with the remaining five states and it’d likely augur a bad, bad trend for the evening. The good news is that Obama is off his 2008 pace in early voting and Romney aides feel confident that the combo of coal interests plus military voters will nudge him over the line.

If Romney wins both prerequisites, he’s at 248 and within striking distance of the White House. He then needs 22 electoral votes from any combination of these five:

The deciders: Ohio (18), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), New Hampshire (4)

Two obvious possibilities here.

Path One: Ohio + any other state. Even little New Hampshire would be enough to hand Romney the presidency if he locks down the Buckeye state and nothing else. (270-268!) The bad news is that Romney hasn’t led in a state poll in NH for nearly two weeks. The good news is that there’s no early voting there, so if you expect a nationwide trend of Republicans swamping Democrats at the polls tomorrow, then things look promising. In Ohio, Romney hasn’t led in any state poll since October 10 with the lone exception of Rasmussen, which had him up two points last week. Democratic early voting appears to be down, though, and Republicans traditionally outperform their national numbers slightly in Ohio. Tomorrow will be the ultimate test of Obama’s GOTV machine: Ohio Republicans know that the election will likely turn on their turnout, so it’s up to Team O to somehow blunt their numbers by dragging just enough half-hearted, disillusioned Hopenchange fans to the polls. Tall order.

Path Two: Wisconsin + Colorado + any other state. This is trickier, obviously, not only because it involves winning more states but because Romney actually trails by a wider margin in the Wisconsin RCP average than in Ohio. Colorado is within two points, though, and the GOP leads in early voting there(!). If CO comes through and Ryan/Walker magic leads to an upset in WI, then Romney can ignore Ohio and hope for Iowa to come through and win him the election. He trails there by less than 2.5 points and three different polls taken over the last two weeks or so have had him ahead by a point. If a red wave breaks tomorrow, it’ll probably carry Iowa with it.

So, what happens if Romney locks up the prerequisites in Florida and Virginia and then wins Colorado, say – but ends up losing narrowly in both Ohio and Wisconsin? Now he’s stuck at 257 and not even winning both Iowa and New Hampshire will get him to 270. Either he needs a huge upset in Nevada, which is unlikely if OH and WI are trending blue, or he needs…

The longshots: Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10).

Actually, neither PA nor MI is a true longshot. Romney’s closer to Obama in the RCP average for each state (3.8 points in both Pennsylvania and Michigan) than he is in Wisconsin (4.2 points). He trails a bit more distantly in Minnesota (5.2 points), but even there, some polls have him either slightly ahead or within three. I’m listing these states here because they’re reliably blue in presidential elections and because the GOP has spent less time and money contesting them than it has in, say, Wisconsin. But if Romney runs into problems in the “decider” states, or if Virginia somehow falls through and he needs to find 13 EVs somewhere, obviously these will be crucially important. My hunch, though, is that if he’s losing narrowly in the more competitive midwestern states, like Ohio, then it’s unlikely he’ll reverse that trend in the less competitive ones. If any of the “longshot” states are turning red, it’s probably because there’s a huge Republican wave and Romney’s cruising to a landslide win. Here’s hoping.

***

If all of the above is too complicated, here’s a much simpler way to understand Romney’s task. Assuming Obama wins Nevada, all he has to do to win the election is take the big four in the Rust Belt and midwest – i.e., Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That would put him at 271. Romney must win at least one of those four states to have any chance of victory. If he doesn’t, then he’d have to win every other battleground state – Nevada included – or else.

Via Christian Heinze of GOP12, here’s the Rove map.

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FAIRFAX, Va.-The persistent chant from the crowd at one of Mitt Romney’s final rallies just about says it all: “One more day,” an estimated 8,500 supporters cheered at a Monday afternoon event in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

It was the last event in the critical battleground state of Virginia for Romney before Election Day and part of a grueling day of campaign stops that included rallies in Florida and Manchester, N.H.

At George Mason University’s Patriot Center, Romney issued a final GOTV call in a bid to energize supporters in Northern Virginia and any remaining fence-sitters ahead of Tuesday.

„We’ve known some long days and some short nights,” Romney told the cheering crowd. „I need your vote, and I need your work.”

Setting the stage for Romney, Virginia’s Republican ticket hammered President Obama on a range of issues. The rally featured Gov. Bob McDonnell and former Sen. George Allen, who’s facing Democrat Tim Kaine in one of the country’s tightest Senate contests on Tuesday.

For his part, Romney thanked campaign volunteers for their GOTV efforts and stressed the need for those present to get themselves and their friends to the polls on Tuesday and to work on convincing those late deciders.

„Ask them to look beyond the speeches, the attacks and the ads and look at the record,” Romney said of undecided voters.

Playing on President Obama’s recent “revenge” quip, Romney continued his “vote for love of country” theme at Monday’s Fairfax event, telling the crowd the nation is only one day away from a fresh start.

From Virginia, Romney headed to an evening event in Manchester, N.H., but his campaign has now added two Election Day stops-one in Ohio and another in Pennsylvania.

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What is your American dream?  That is the question I think you should ask yourself before you cast your ballot tomorrow.

Tonight as I worked from my DC office, preparing for election day tomorrow, I happened to scroll through Facebook and I ran across a post that put it all in perspective for me.  The post is from a personal friend and Oregon business owner Kevin Simpson:

Closing down my American dream business today. We began in March of 1999 with money we received from our tax return. We worked hard and by 2007 we had seven full and part time employees with retirement plans and health insurance. 2007 was our peak and every year since has been like walking on a greased slope. We laid off all our employees, spent all our reserve savings, sold off most of our equipment, shut down our shop (broke our lease) and moved it to our home. We set up in a corner of the garage. For the last two years I’ve been collecting unemployment but that has run out.  As a condition of unemployment I have been have been applying for jobs. I have responded to over twenty five ads for electrical supervisors, and I received one letter saying basically, ‘thanks but no thanks.’ For those of you who are my friends and you voted for Obama I forgive you, because you clearly dont know what you are doing. Obama has never ran a business and yet we the people positioned him to run our country, out of money and into the ground. Talk about setting someone up for failure. That’s insanity! I dont think this is a democrat/republican thing, it’s about spending money we dont have. My business ceases to exist because it costs more to operate than it takes in. 

Sadly, I can say that as I’ve traveled the country the past two years, I’ve seen this story play out over and over again. In fact, the Obama economy and its devastating effect on small business is the reason I am no longer working in our family small business today.

Many decent, hardworking American entrepreneurs have had to shut their doors and cease to exist. It saddens me to know that these are the same people who are demonized for wanting to create wealth, to employ people and to create a better life; not by taking from others, but by creating something of value and bringing it to market. For them and the people they once employed, their American dream is currently a nightmare. Even though Kevin is a skilled laborer, he struggles in this economy to find a job and provide for his family.

It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to win elections. At times we forget about the human element of bad policy. But tomorrow, when you vote I’d ask you’d do me a favor; think about the Simpson family. Also think about the tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of small business owners who have met a similar fate.

Our economy and our nation will not rebound from government spending. An additional $5 Trillion in debt over the last four years has proven as much. We have dug a hole that will take much sacrifice and many years to emerge from. We must choose a different path. We must decide whether or not we’re going to still be a nation of dreamers and doers or a nation who simply has seen its best days.

Thomas Jefferson summed it up quite nicely in 1816 „To preserve … independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.”

Which will you choose? Debt and servitude or economic liberty?

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Under the guise of analyzing the final stages of the 2012 Presidential race, ABC News Political Director Amy Walter has furthered the spin of the Democratic National Committee and Obama campaign.

Expressing confidence in their status in the states that had formed the battleground in the campaign thus far, the Romney team decided to „expand the map„, putting money and staff into new states in order to widen their anticipated margin of victory. The campaign may also have had an unusual problem: an excess of money to spend at the end of the campaign.

When Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Ed Rendell warned that his state could see an upset, the two campaigns began competing in the state. As the Romney blog put it:

What a difference a few days makes.  Not only has Minnesota been moved to “Lean Dem” and the Obama Campaign is up in that state with a significant television buy, but the Chicago gurus have heeded Governor Rendell’s plea and are buying television in Pennsylvania and sending the Vice-President in to help prop up their fledgling campaign.

Romney is not the kind of politician who would be content with a 50.1% win if he has the resources to pursue a wider margin.

The Obama campaign declared Romney’s move to compete in more areas to be a sign of desperation. Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama 2012 Stephanie Cutter:

As The Fix said last week (6:30 am October 31, 2012):

In addition, at some point, the law of diminishing returns takes effect. Rather than spend that extra $1 million in expensive areas like Northern Virginia or Columbus only to have it lost in a bevy of campaign ads, why not take a flyer in Minnesota, where polls suggest an upset is possible – if not likely?

Beyond the bravado and bluster of campaign operatives, most observers believe Romney is likely to win Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, once considered battlegrounds.

Enter ABC’s Walter, who theorized, in a post (Oct 31, 2012 9:14 am) entitled „Mitt Romney’s Expanding Map: Desperation or Realization?„

Ohio is a lost cause so Team Romney needs another path to 270: Despite the plethora of media polls showing Obama ahead in the Buckeye state, GOPers not affiliated with the Romney campaign say they have polling showing a dead heat or Romney slightly ahead. In that vein, we are left to wonder whether Romney’s decision to run a blatantly false ad in Toledo – re: Jeep factory moving to China – is a hail Mary or a way to try and tip this very tight contest?

The Romney Jeep ad says nothing about a factory, and after studying published reports does not appear to me even to be false.

The Walter post uses the false-choice fallacy, asking which of two negatives apply, when it’s possible neither does.

DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse tweeted on Friday:

ABC News’ Walter echoed the DNC. In a show of apparent solidarity with Democrats, she wrote (Nov 4, 2012 6:47pm):

Obama and Biden are making 18 stops across seven states – Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Florida. Romney and Ryan, meanwhile, are making 24 stops across 10 states – New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

The fact that Team Romney is making forays into Pennsylvania and Minnesota suggests that they are not particularly confident that they can get to 270 electoral votes if the playing field is restricted to the eight battleground states where this campaign has been waged for the last six months.

The Romney and RNC explanation that they can compete in areas thought safe for Democrats seems to hold more water, given Walter’s concluding paragraph, which contradicts her conclusions:

Overall, the Romney/Ryan schedule suggests that they are more focused on wooing independent voters than simply firing up the base.

If Romney is not trying to fire up his base, it must mean that he already has done so. Clearly, Romney is on offense. Whether that is because he is indeed stymied in the states once thought to be the keys to his victory or is trying to achieve a larger margin will made clear by voters on Tuesday. 

Walter’s bias is not as striking as some, and it may very well be that she is only guilty of having an Democrat frame of reference: believing that success in this election is only limited to winning by the barest of margins, she cannot see that one side has a good chance to win by significantly more.

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On Sunday night, a full 54 days after the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, CBS finally posted a critically important segment of the 60 Minutes interview with President Obama conducted on September 12.

Unbelievably, it was left on the cutting room floor even as 60 Minutes aired a long segment with President Obama criticizing presidential challenger Mitt Romney over his remarks on protests in Egypt. Given the substance of what was left out, this editorial decision shows CBS as either shamelessly biased in favor of the President or hopelessly incompetent as a news organization.

Central to the newly released segment is President Obama’s failure to describe the Benghazi attack as terrorism in his Rose Garden statement made earlier the same day. It will be recalled that he was pressed hard by Mitt Romney on this point in the second presidential debate.

This is how the exchange went:

CBS’S STEVE KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?

OBAMA: Well, it’s too early to tell exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.

KROFT: It’s been described as a mob action, but there are reports that they were very heavily armed with grenades. That doesn’t sound like your normal demonstration.

OBAMA: As I said, we’re still investigating exactly what happened. I don’t want to jump the gun on this. But you’re right that this is not a situation that was exactly the same as what happened in Egypt. And my suspicion is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start. So we’re gonna make sure that our first priority is to get our folks out safe, make sure that our embassies are secured around the world, and then we are going to go after those folks who carried this out.

KROFT: There have been reports, obviously this isn’t the first time…there have been attacks on the consulate before. There was an attack against the British ambassador. Do you … this occurred on September 11. Can you tell me why the ambassador was in Benghazi yesterday? Was it to evaluate security at the consulate?

OBAMA: Well, keep in mind Chris Stevens is somebody who was one of the first Americans on the ground when we were in the process of saving Benghazi and providing the opportunity for Libyans to create their own democracy. So this is somebody who had been courageous, had been on the ground, had helped to advise me and Secretary Clinton when we were taking our actions against Muammar Qadhafi, and is somebody who is very familiar with the terrain. He was doing the work that he does as a diplomat, helping to shape our policies in the region at a time when things are still fairly fragile. But I think it’s important to note that we have a Libyan government in place that is fully cooperative, that sees the United States as a friend, that recognizes we played an important role in liberating Libya and providing the Libyan people an opportunity to forge their own destiny. And in fact we had Libyans who helped protect our diplomats when they were under attack. But this is a country that is still rebuilding in the aftermath of Qadhafi. They don’t necessarily always have the same capabilities that countries with more established governments might have in helping to provide protection to our folks. But beyond that, what I want to do is make sure that we know exactly what happened, how it happened, who perpetrated this action, then we’ll act accordingly.

***

Kroft asks reasonable and informed questions, which the CBS audience would undoubtedly like to have answered. Why did the President choose not to call the attack an act of terrorism? Given the lack of security, was there a plan to evacuate the Benghazi consulate? Was that why Stevens went there in the first place?

Equally interestingly, President Obama’s answer is totally misleading. Stevens had been pleading for months for additional security in Benghazi and believed his life was in danger. He had also informed the Administration that Libyan forces were insufficient and unreliable as protection.

Why CBS chose not to post the above portion on the Internet until November 4 is a mystery. It was done entirely without fanfare and was revealed by Fox News’s Bret Baier.

American mainstream media coverage of the Benghazi terrorist attack is a scandal in its own right. The “fourth estate” is supposedly an additional check on the powers of the federal government. Yet in this case, when four Americans-including an ambassador-lost their lives, most of the media have shamefully abdicated responsibility.

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CNN released a poll this morning taken between 11/2 and 11/4. Among likely voters, it projects that the election is tied 49 percent Obama/49 percent Romney (page 2). Looking at the poll by party affiliation, it also projected that 93 percent of Democrats, 1 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of Independents would vote for Obama. On the other hand, it projects that 99 percent of Republicans, 5 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Independents will vote for Romney (page 30).

So, if Romney has 99 percent of the Republican vote, 5 percent of the Democratic vote (Obama comparably having only 1 percent of the Republican vote) and is ahead of Obama by a very impressive 22 percent among Independents, how can the race be tied?

Well, to quote CNN: “Among those likely voters, 41 percent describe themselves as Democrats, 29 percent describe themselves as Independents and 30 percent describe themselves as Republicans.

So, let’s say we had a total of 1,000 voters, 410 Democrats, 290 Independents and 300 Republicans. Voting for President Obama, we would have 381 Democrats (93 percent of 410), 107 Independents (37 percent of 290), and 3 Republicans (1 percent of 300), for a total of 491 votes. Voting for Gov. Romney, we would have 297 Republicans (99 percent of 300), 162 Independents (56 percent of 290), and 21 Democrats (5 percent of 410) for a total of 480 votes. Both candidates’ totals would be around 49 percent as CNN projects.

Of course, this assumes that Democrats vote 11 percent more than Republicans. That’s a bigger advantage than Democrats had in the 2008 in the midst of “ObamaMania”. Even the CNN poll found 42 percent of Republicans “Extremely Enthusiastic” (as opposed to 28 percent in 2008) versus 37 percent of Democrats (as opposed to 45 percent in 2008) (pages 6-7). An 11 percent Democratic edge seems particularly optimistic in a year when the most dangerous place to be on Election Day may be between a Republican and the voting booth.

On Oct. 26, Gallup issued an analysis of the demographics of likely voters based on its October 1-24 daily election tracking. Gallup estimated that this year’s turnout would be 36 percent Republicans, 35 percent Democrats and 29 percent Independents. Let’s apply Gallup’s voting percentages to CNN’s polling results assuming 1,000 voters made up of 350 Democrats, 290 Independents and 360 Republicans. Voting for President Obama, we would have 326 Democrats (93 percent of 350), 107 Independents (37 percent of 290), and 4 Republicans (1 percent of 360), for a total of 437 votes. Voting for Governor Romney, we would have 356 Republicans (99 percent of 360), 162 Independents (56 percent of 290), and 18 Democrats (5 percent of 350) for a total of 536 votes. So, President Obama would get 44 percent of the vote and Gov. Romney would get 55 percent, a huge Romney victory.

Rasmussen projects that 39 percent of voters will be Democrats and 37 percent Republicans, leaving 24 percent Independent.

Let’s apply Rasmussen’s voting percentages to CNN’s polling results assuming 1,000 voters made up of 390 Democrats, 240 Independents and 370 Republicans. Voting for President Obama, we would have 363 Democrats (93 percent of 390), 89 Independents (37 percent of 240), and 4 Republicans (1 percent of 370), for a total of 456 votes. Voting for Gov. Romney, we would have 366 Republicans (99 percent of 370), 134 Independents (56 percent of 240), and 20 Democrats (5 percent of 390) for a total of 520 votes. So, President Obama would get 46 percent of the vote and Governor Romney would get 52 percent, again, a huge Romney victory.

This CNN poll is truly great news for Republicans unless you believe that Democrats will vote 11 percent more than Republican this year and very few people do (outside of CNN apparently). The reality is that, using CNN’s own numbers, anything under an 11 percent voting advantage for Democrats results in a popular vote victory for Gov. Romney. You have to wonder why they chose 11 percent.

While there’s speculation over which federally supported green energy company may be the next to declare bankruptcy, plenty have already gone belly up. In one of the most extensive compilations to date, Heritage has identified 19 bankrupt green energy companies-unable to make it even with the $2.6 billion in financial assistance and incentives the government promised.

This blog is part of the “Green Graveyard” series, which will profile each of the 19 now-bankrupt companies and detail all the types of government assistance offered. These companies were all part of President Obama’s attempt to stimulate the economy by developing and expanding the “green” energy industry.

The problem is that these taxpayer-funded handouts never achieve the intended objective. Rather, they artificially support politically preferred companies and industries, like green energy, while shifting jobs and resources from another sector of the economy.

As the following examples demonstrate, the government’s proclivity to offer financial assistance and incentives to the green energy industry is a bad policy that’s been plaguing Washington since long before President Obama took office.

News of federally backed bankrupt energy companies is infuriating, but failed companies are not the only problem. The fundamental problem is that the federal government is risking taxpayer dollars to bet on companies in the first place. Regardless of their fate, the government should not be “investing” in private-sector companies, especially for an industry in which there is already ample demand and diverse supply.

The fact is, we should be equally infuriated about the successful companies. These are companies that have good products to offer and do not need taxpayer support. There is a phrase for subsidizing successful companies: corporate welfare. As Heritage’s Nick Loris has explained many times before, “Two kinds of companies seek subsidies: economically uncompetitive companies, which need the subsidy to survive, and potentially competitive companies, which use subsidies to pad their bottom lines. Neither case can be justified.”

Nonetheless, pointing out the failed companies is important, as it reveals the contortions politicians will go through to support private companies when their political narrative is at stake. While government intervention in the private economy didn’t start and will likely not stop with President Obama, the growing list of failed companies demonstrates the futility of central economic planning.

Before taking a closer look at the individual bankrupt companies and the financial assistance and incentives the government offered to them, a few caveats. These numbers do not reflect the amount of government funding the company necessarily received or used-these are amounts the government was willing to risk. These figures do offer estimations of assistance provided by local, state and/or federal governments. This assistance could have been promised to the companies in a variety of ways, including tax credits, loans, loan guarantees, grants, and other forms of financial incentives and support. The numbers below are the best calculations possible given the incomplete, at times even inconsistent, information from the government and other sources.

Additionally, during bankruptcy proceedings, these companies could very well be purchased by another company and be brought back to life. However, their tombstone in the Green Graveyard will remain as a reminder of the darker days.

Total of Government’s Bad Bets: Approximately $2.6 billion

1. Abound Solar – Government’s Bad Bet: $ 790.3 million
2. Solyndra – Government’s Bad Bet: $570 million
3. A123 Systems – Government’s Bad Bet: $377.1 million
4. Ener1 (EnerDel, subsidiary) – Government’s Bad Bet: $182.8 million
5. Range Fuels – Government’s Bad Bet: $162.3 million
6. Azure Dynamics – Government’s Bad Bet: $119.1 million
7. Energy Conversion Devices (subsidiary, United Solar Ovanic) – Government’s Bad Bet: $110.3 million
8. Evergreen Solar, Inc. – Government’s Bad Bet: $84.9 million
9. Beacon Power – Government’s Bad Bet: $77.4 million
10. Raser Technologies – Government’s Bad Bet: $33 million
11. Nordic Windpower – Government’s Bad Bet: $24.6 million
12. SpectraWatt – Government’s Bad Bet: $20.5 million
13. Konarka Technologies – Government’s Bad Bet: $13.6 million (Heritage’s calculations), $20 million according to Konarka’s website
14. Satcon Technology Corporation – Government’s Bad Bet: $17 million
15. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Co. – Government’s Bad Bet: $10.8 million
16. Stirling Energy Systems, Inc. – Government’s Bad Bet: $10.5 million
17. Thompson River Power, LLC – Government’s Bad Bet: $6.5 million
18. Cardinal Fasteners and Specialty Co., Inc. – Government’s Bad Bet: $480,000
19. Mountain Plaza, Inc.  – Government’s Bad Bet: $424,000

As our Green Graveyard series continues, we will go in-depth with each of these companies and provide details of funding sources, timelines, and more.

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