Not Assured?
By Maybe I’m reacting too much to a couple of offhand comments, but this from Digby:
And if President Obama wins re-election (which I am now convinced is not entirely assured)
For the first time, I’m wondering if Obama’s going to eke out a win.
strikes me as just odd. I can see how the recent jobs report would adjust leftist expectations regarding the likelihood of an Obama re-election, but I can’t understand why Friday’s report would, for the first time, raise the possibility that Obama might lose. See Taibbi making a similar argument here. You also see a form of this argument in the FDL community, of the “Obama represents the ideal corporate-imperialist candidate, so why would the oligarchy bother with a Republican” (and I exaggerate only a touch) sort.
Maybe it’s just the political scientist talking, but the notion that Obama was likely to win in a cake walk went out the door when it became clear that there was going to be no robust economic recovery; any competent GOP candidate stood a good chance of winning, depending on the breaks. Mitt Romney is a competent GOP candidate; indeed, his ability to look moderate to Village (and some hard right) types is a major asset in the general election, especially given that his base is motivated more by hatred of Obama than love of Republican candidate X. The advantages of incumbency are real, but not determinative. When people ask, I’ve been wavering between 60-40 Obama and 50-50, with the latter being my more recent answer. At this point, nothing inside 350 electoral votes would surprise me for either candidate. I’m curious if there’s a line on “Obama wins electoral college, Romney wins popular vote,” because (even though it violates Bernstein’s Dictum Against Paying Attention to Battleground Polls) it kinda does seem that Obama looks strong in a lot of swing states. Doesn’t seem implausible that Obama could eke out victories in big swing states, while Romney runs up huge victories (through fair or foul means) in safe red states.
But in any case, I’m really quite curious why anyone has ever thought that this election was in the bag for Obama.