My Take On The Polls

I basically agree with Ramesh Ponnuru. I think Romney is behind. I don’t think that Gallup and Fox News have joined the vast media conspiracy to demoralize Republican voters and I don’t think that they misplaced their calendars and still think it is 2008. But I don’t think Romney is going to lose Ohio and Florida by double digits. The truth lies somewhere between Rasmussen’s tie race and the Obama blow out of some other polls. Romney is still within striking distance but time is running out. It isn’t just calendar time. Since the mainstream media is so sympathetic to Obama, it takes more time for a Romney message to get to people who don’t follow the right-leaning media. They can get a message out, but it takes time, planning and focus. Romney and Ryan were winning the Medicare debate even with all of Obama’s advantages. Then Romney threw it all away with this “dad got my mom flowers and that means I’m like a human and stuff so vote for me or something” speech. Ponnuru writes of somebody describing the Romney team’s strategy as “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.” The problem for Romney is that, given the media ecology, having a shifting message is the same as having no message.