Electoral Math...

[Gob]

10 years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash - Now we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.!!!

[Lord Jim]

10 years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash - Now we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.!!!

Stop stealing Dale's lines...

[Gob]

Let's hope Kevin Bacon is in good health!

[Joe Guy]

10 years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash - Now we have no Jobs, no Hope and no Cash.!!!

Sounds familiar

[Crackpot]

Republicans Are just going to Face the fact that they've selected John Kerry as their nominee.

THere's so many parallels between the Campaigns I'm wondering if we'll find out in four years that Paul Ryan has an Illegitimate child.

[Lord Jim]

Republicans Are just going to Face the fact that they've selected John Kerry as their nominee.

THere's so many parallels between the Campaigns I'm wondering if we'll find out in four years that Paul Ryan has an Illegitimate child.

This man is on drugs....

[Crackpot]

What you mean he isn't a rich out of touch politician from Massachusetts with no position he isn't willing to change with luke-warm support from their own party unable to unseat an unpopular president despite all if his negatives?

[Lord Jim]

CP, I have reconciled myself to the fact that Mitt Romney is most likely to lose this election...

And that instead we are going to have a President who thinks that the way the United States owns the 21st Century is to build a whole bunch of solar panels and wind mills...

It is a bleak choice.....

As I've said, in three decades of voting in Presidential elections, I have never been as depressed about the sorry options I am confronted with as I am in this election cycle....

It's so bad I'm just about ready to go quietly into the shower and break open my five blade Gillette and cut my throat from ear to ear...

(Okay, well maybe that's a little over the top dramatic, but you get my point... )

[Lord Jim]

A well meaning man who's completely failed as a President, and who's lack of any basic understanding of economics has brought us 23 million unemployed....

Versus a man who has a better understanding of economics, but who has the communication skills of a pot holder... Mitt Romney makes Dick Nixon look warm and friendly...

Like I said, I'll be in the shower with my razor....

[Crackpot]

I forgot to mention they're both a couple of neck-bolts short from a convincing Frankensteins Monster.

[Joe Guy]

Versus a man who has a better understanding of economics, but who has the communication skills of a pot holder...

Mitt Romney. Vote for him and he will keep your hand from burning.

[Lord Jim]

Well, I've come to the point where the only things that matter to me are to take care of Tati and Jimmy and Lady Kelly, and the hell with the rest the world...

We are blessed in that we have enough income to provide a good home and education for our kids, and that will remain true no matter which of these garbanzos wins the election...

In the final analysis, that's what really matters...

[Gob]

Move to Australia, we have holidays!!

[Lord Jim]

Move to Australia, we have holidays!!

Well, I do think it would be cool to have kangaroos in the back yard....

But you guys celebrate Christmas in the summer time, and that's just wrong.....

And then there's that whole cricket thing....

[Gob]

I used to think that about Xmas, Jim, but it turns out that Xmas on the beach in the sun ain't as bad as you would imagine. (Going into winter with no Xmas and New Year to look forward to is NO FUN.)

But you're right on the Cricket thing. You're in your fifties, right? I don't think you'd be around long enough for us to educate you, (as you are an American,) into the subtle nuances of the game.

(he started it.)

[loCAtek]

Well, then there's the spiders the size of CD's, that'll steal your sandwich

[Long Run]

Mitt Romney. Vote for him and he will keep your hand from burning.

They need 360-thinkers like you in Boston.

[Gob]

WASHINGTON: The ominous muttering about Mitt Romney's campaign began last week, but last night the bad headlines really started piling up.

''Republican activists to party candidate Mitt Romney: Why aren't you winning?'' was one. ''Time To Panic,'' read another.

And this: ''Mitt Romney's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Campaign.'' To be fair these were not run in conservative-friendly media, but what will worry the campaign is the number of conservative voices that have joined the critical chorus.

A dead heat in the polls has faded to a slight but broad lead for Barack Obama, while details of disunity in Mr Romney's team have started leaking and some have already begun to speculate about the future of the conservative movement should Mr Romney lose the November poll.

The most obvious low point for the campaign came last Wednesday night when Mr Romney criticised the President for statements put out by the US embassy in Cairo, even as diplomatic posts were being attacked, leaving four dead in Libya.

Mr Romney's approach has been criticised on many fronts. It has been said he spoke too soon, leaving himself open to the charge he was point-scoring during a crisis that called for national unity; he failed to observe the political truce agreed to for the anniversary of the September 11 attacks; he made himself the news focus, rather than any failings of the State Department or the administration and its foreign policy.

Further, he failed to maintain a disciplined focus on his main strength - the economy. And, most importantly, he got his facts wrong.

But things had already taken a turn for the worse.

It had already become apparent Mr Romney failed to secure a ''bounce'' when he accepted his party's nomination at the Republican convention. Rather, in formally introducing himself to the American people he actually secured a slump.

Only 36 per cent of those who followed the convention said it made them more likely to vote for Mr Romney, while 46 per cent said they would be less likely to.

The following week, during the Democrat convention, that slump showed itself in average national polls, which had held the candidates at a dead heat of 46.8 per cent. Mr Obama's support rose to 3.3 per cent ahead of Mr Romney.

Polls released last week showed Mr Obama had managed to get his own convention bounce, with Gallup putting him ahead by 7 per cent last Wednesday.

Last night, the Huffington Post's Pollster average of 445 polls gave Mr Obama a national lead of 48 per cent to 45.1 per cent. This is slim, within the margin of error for most surveys, but it is consistent with polls of key states. This trend, though far from irreversible, explains the questioning of Mr Romney's campaign.

A dozen die-hard conservatives interviewed at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on the weekend were baffled that Mr Romney was not leading, given the energy of the Republican base and the stagnant economy, Associated Press reported.

''No developments in the economy or the world can explain this shift [Mr Obama's lead],'' a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, William Galston, wrote. ''That leaves the campaigns themselves. And during the past two weeks, Romney's campaign has revealed itself to be stunningly incompetent.''

Mr Galston once worked for Bill Clinton but revelations about internal dissent will be harder for the Romney campaign to dismiss.

The Politico website reported Mr Romney's key convention speech was scrapped a week before the event and new writers brought in. This gave him less time to prepare, and also explained his failure even to mention the war in Afghanistan.

''Romney associates are baffled that such a successful corporate leader has created a team with so few lines of authority or accountability,'' its story said.

[Guinevere]

Perhaps those so puzzled should actually look into the details of Mittens' "success" as a corporate leader. He made money yes, but its becoming more and more clear that he was not the one with the vision or the creativity, nor the one who made the most significant strategic and/or leadership decisions.

How many times must I say it: the man is an empty suit. I'm going to have it tattooed on my forehead for the next month!

[Long Run]

I guess the basic question is fair: why isn't Romney running away with this race handily?* But I can recall in 2008 when McCain had Obama on the defensive and looking the amateur (that he has turned out to be in many ways). Eventually, the overriding reality of that race played out and Obama won easily. As we have seen in the last few days, the polls have tightened again and the race is tied. The undecideds and leaners will wait for the debates and the rest of the campaign to play out, and then either Romney will truly be an incompetent campaigner or the overriding reality of this race will dictate the outcome.

* Some of us wish there were more stories about what each of these two unimpressive presidential candidates would do in the next four years to deal with the serious problems facing us, rather than the trivial stories and horse race angle that the media thinks sells.