More good luck for President Obama with just days to go before the election. The October jobs number is 171,000.
Nate Silver now has Obama’s chance of reelection above 80%.
Should Romney lose, Marc Ambinder expects these to be among the excuses from Republicans:
It’s the liberal/drive-by/lamestream media’s fault. It always is. They covered for President Obama’s lapses in Benghazi, failed to hold him to account for his obvious failures, generally failed to vet him properly in 2008, and ignored the scandals during his first term. They tipped the scales. And in the last week, they covered his response to Hurricane Sandy as if he were a conquering hero. They hated Mitt Romney because they were jealous of his success. They ignored Chicago’s relentless negative campaign.
But if, on Wednesday, we all wake-up and find that President Obama has been reelected, Ambinder says these will be the real reasons:
The economy overall hasn’t improved much since President Obama took office, but the indicators are pointing in the right direction. Voters trust and like Obama more than Romney. The auto bailout issue helped in the Midwest, particularly among white voters. The GOP’s demographic share of the electorate continues to shrink proportionally; white voters did not cross the percentage threshold needed for Romney to offset the Obama coalition.
The Republicans may find themselves in the political wilderness for a while–maybe even a long while. But Americans like wilderness dwellers–Moses and the party of Moses. Win or lose, Democrats can’t get comfortable–can’t imagine themselves as the secure owners of the Pharaoh-space.
__________
Tuesday will certainly be revealing. Who’s on firm ground and who’s been living in cuckoo fantasy land? But even after the election, let’s not pretend it’s a simple call or that this question doesn’t function quite differently on different levels, and cuts many ways. Who’s living in cloud cuckoo land is a question that tolls for all of us every day (because we’re all prone to delusion and, being mortal and limited in the universe, live in the fog of situations).
Prometheus Unbound 