If true, this is a bad piece of late-breaking news for Mitt Romney. Concerning a weekend conference call, Howard Kurtz at The Daily Beast reports the following:
On a conference call Saturday, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said his team had built “a ground game unlike what anyone in American politics has ever seen” and had “blown away our most optimistic expectations.” Messina also issued a memo saying, for instance, that nearly 138,000 people registered by the Obama side had voted early in North Carolina—meaning, they say, that Romney would have to win 65 percent of the remaining vote to carry the state.
If Romney makes a last minute visit to North Carolina, forget it. It would suggest that, in the electoral college, he’s completely toast. North Carolina can’t be in play this late in the game.
Can it?
One thing is sure. North Carolina’s neighbor, Virginia–a state Romney ought to have put away long ago, and a must win–is now ground zero. This is at the Washington Post this weekend:
Four years ago, Barack Obama became the first Democrat since President Lyndon B. Johnson to win Virginia. Both sides consider the state very much in play this time around.
After Ryan’s rally Saturday, Obama was due to attend a rally in Prince William County with former president Bill Clinton and musician Dave Matthews.
On Sunday night, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will appear in Newport News. Come Monday, on the eve of the election, he will headline two rallies, one at a Lynchburg airport and another at George Mason University.
Vice President Biden, accompanied by his wife, Jill, will stump Monday in Sterling and Richmond.
If Mitt Romney is winning, why has Virginia become the center of last-minute attention? And why is North Carolina so obviously close? And why are late polls of Florida showing Obama ahead there? Florida should not be a toss-up state. Not this late. What the heck are we doing focusing on the South–the South–this late in the game?
Prometheus Unbound 