The Paddock

Bear with me here as I am an old man and don't get all the nuanced humor of you young folks ... help me understand what I'm missing.

Now, on the other hand, your signature is funny and clever - I get that.

Biden more effective in a closely matched debate.

It wasn't closely matched at all. Biden owned him. It wasn't the beatdown Romney gave Obama but it was a clear cut win according to pretty much everyone but fox "news". Ryan did about as good as someone can do under the circumstances that your entire platform is based on lies and incredibly fuzzy math.

Biden couldn't say "shit". "Stuff" was as close as he could get to it lol I laughed too.

I don't know if you're referring to geography or topics.

With geography, Romney is doing better than he was before the first debate, but he's not doing better than Obama--with the possible exception of Florida. The best prognosticator (imo) is 538 and he's moved Obama back to almost a 2-1 favorite despite a tightening in the popular vote.

Topically, Romney continues to lead Obama in perception of ability to handle the economy. Obama leads in pretty much everything else.

Substance aside, Romney had a bad night. I liked Steve Schmitt's comment that Romney played a pretty good game but lost by committing turnovers. He teed the ball up for Obama at least three times.

Obama... 2-1 favorite?

Boy, are you ever in for a rude awakening my friend... no offense.

Which polls?

In terms of the 3,2,1. It's an all or nothing proposition in all likelyhood. That's the misconception about the race. While it is an electoral college, it's hard to imagine Romney winning Florida, VA, NC, indiana, etc... and not winning Ohio. LIkewise, if Obama wins Ohio, he likely picks off VA or NC. You don't look at each state in a vaccum. If you do, then you get fooled by the samples. Remember, one out of 20 polls falls outside the margin of error. The rest have around a 2.5% varriance in either direction for both candidates.

Rasmussen polls voter Identification on a monthly basis. This is a poll of what party people identify with. In 2008 Obama enjoyed 7.6% advantage for democrat voter id. roughly 41 d - 34 r. In the 2010 midterms it was a R+1.3% Roughly 36 R - 35 D. In September the breakup was 36 R 34 D. The voter breakdown usually reflects the margin of victory and it has shown to be true. In 2008 it was obama +7 in the election and +7 for d's in terms of party id nationwide.

In 2010 it was R's +1 or so. In 12 it's r's + 2 or so. If romney captures 51% of the vote nationwide it's nearly impossible to imagine him not winning the electoral college.

I also think you make the incorrect assumption that the incumbent gets undecided voters.

By the last 2 weeks of the 04 race Bush was ahead in national polls by 2 or 3 % points. He won by about 1.5% or 2. Political history says that the incumbent needs to be at 50% or very close as undecideds typically don't vote or vote for the challenger. Obama is around 46% and 47% nationally. Romney is around 48-50% nationally. This is not good for obama. Rasmussen has the race at 49% R and 48% Obama today. Gallup has it at 51% - 46% for romney (LV) today and for Registered voters it's 48%-46% for Romney. By Friday the debate from last night will be filtered into the polls. If there is no movement towards obama i'd say it's time to get worried for obama supporters. At the end of elections, unless there is some kind of crazy event, undecideds swing towards the challenger. Romeny's playing that hard right now by pushing his "plan" for the economy while Obama offers no specifics.

From a political standpoint i'd submit that Obama is making a mistake by not offering up specifics for his next 4 years. Whether you agree with Romney's propsoals or not, he's doing the smart thing and offering specifics for those undecides who aren't really happy with obama but need to be convinced to vote for romney. They want a plan. If you watched the cnn focus group last night (I dont' watch fox news or msnbc although i turned on msnbc last night) both focus groups of undcideds discussed that they like ROmney's plan for the economy and they almost universally agreed that obama isn't offering them a plan for the next four years...

Bottom line, it's close today. I suspect unless something drastic changes we won't see major movent until a week from today or so, then the undecides will start to eitiher say they aren't voiting or will break towards romney. If they don't vote, obama has a shot, if they do, romney likely wins. The other factor is enthusiasm. Republicans have had the enthusiasm edge since the last debate. It has tightened a bit, but obama got 53% of the vote last time by getting virtually every undecided and having a democrat turnout that ha snever been seen before. This time he won't get every undecided/independent and he won't have the same turnout.

The CNN polls that you and I thought StillDA23 were referring to.

I would disagree with that, depending on the state. Florida is a vacuum. No other state has a mix of demographics like that. Same for New Hampshire or Nevada.

You can put NC and VA together in some ways. If Obama wins NC, I'd say he's a lock to win VA, but that doesn't work the other way around. He could either win both, win VA, or win neither. He wouldn't win just NC.

Likewise, you can make some predictions regarding Ohio, MIchigan and maybe PA moving together, although not to the same degree (Ohio has the highest beta). Minnesota and Wisc. often move together, complicated in this election by a favorite son. Indiana shares huge borders with both IL and Ohio, but is much more likely to vote with KY.

In terms of whether or not obama will see a bounce of of the debate, Rasmussen doesn't seem to be showing one in it's 3 day tracking poll. Yesterday (no results from debate in poll) Romney led 49/48. Today Romney leads 49/47. Today's poll includes the day after the debate and the day of the debate l (no respondents after debate) and the day before the debate. It is entirely possible that a big day for Obama fell off and a not quite as good day for obama rolled on. Meaning,

For Example.... If Sunday night's poll showed 49/47 for Obama. Monday showed Romeny ahead 50/48 romney, Tuesday showed 49/48 for Romney and last night showed 48/47 for obama. Since the 49/47 for obama rolled off, and the 1 point lead for obama rolled on, ROmeny's lead grew. But tomorrow if there is a trend towards obama and we have another 49/48 for obama and the 50/48 for romney rolls off, you could see a swing to obama. That is highly unlikely as it would be expected that the day after the debate would show the largest bounce, but it is still a bit early to jump to conclusions, but I suspect the Obama camp has to be a bit worried that there isn't a bump in a 3 day tracking poll. Gallup will take around 3 days to see fi there is a bounce (obama trailed by 5 in gallup's 7 day tracking poll yesterday).

Public Policy Poling, a democrat polling firm tweeted this morning that they are not seeing any movement towards obama after the debate in their polling. They think the status quo is continuing with no major shift after the debate. Considering PPP's willingness to skew polls towards d's (like Maglophlin is for republicans) I suspect the last debate had little to no effect on the race.

Does the concept of a tracking poll make sense? I tried to explain it. A tracking poll is a 3 day average of a daily trackign poll. It's not a snap shot on one day, instead it is a 3 day average of an ongoing poll. Rasmussen polls 500 people per day and averages the last 3 days. This avoids big spikes and swings and instead picks up trends. During the long drawn out part of the race tracking polls are much better. Whereas after the d convention obama had huge jumps in the snap shot polls, he only went ahead by 2-3 in rasmussen. And whereas there was a massive jump for romney after the debate, Rasmussen has only shown romney up 1 or 2. Gallup on the other hand, a 7 day tracking poll shows a 5 point lead for romney.

I agree. But the entire nation seems to be moving towards a very tight race. These things typically don't operate in a vaccum. While each state is unique demographically, the trends seem to go from state to state.

I'd encourage you to look at past exit polls from the swing states and notice how much of a wave Obama rode 4 years ago. IT was truly remarkable. If we see a more traditional electorate it could spell big trouble for obama.

Thoughts on what we're seeing after the debates in the polls?

I think you are making a dangerous assumption that the state polls have caught up with the "national polls". State polls are historically much more slow to catch "waves" and much more volitale. It just doesn't happen very often that the winner nationwide loses the electorial college. It could well happen but I think whoever wins the popular vote wins Ohio...

As big of an idiot as Gloria Allred.

About to be a shake up in the cabinet. Hillary is leaving for sure. Geitner and Panetta are likely leaving. I think I'm forgetting someone else. Anyway. They're talking John Kerry being secretary of state. He'd be beyond great with that job but I don't know if I want to see him leave the senate.