This sounded too crazy to me as a theory when readers first started raising it. But now I’m at least wondering. Could the GOP SuperPacs simply be trying to run up the popular vote as high as possible as some sort of legitimacy cudgel in the face of an electoral college defeat? I have no doubt this would be very valuable to Republicans as a cudgel against a reelected Obama. But actually deploying so much money to get it while so many races — both state presidential and senate — are still in play seems really hard for me to believe.
Here’s the theory from TPM Reader MW … Read More
From TPM Reader GJ …
Regarding dumping money into non-competitive states, here in Dallas nearly every other commercial is an anti-Obama ad from the superPAC, “Restore our Future.” I’m trying to figure out why they’re dumping so much money into the Texas ad market when I’d assume Texas is about as solidly red as it gets. I have two theories:
We’ve got a series of reports from readers over the last few days about vast SuperPAC spends in states that just don’t look like they have very competitive races. Competitive is sort of in the eye of the beholder. If there’s even a theoretical chance of a win, and you’ve got money to go on the air, why not, I guess? And you don’t always know whether a spend in hopeless State A may actually be aimed at hitting a corner of neighboring State B where there’s still a competitive race. Read More
Our reporter made some calls this afternoon to find out why NBC decided to pre-unskew the Florida and Ohio polls it released this morning. Here’s what he found out.
In a detailed memo and conference call with reporters this afternoon, the Obama campaign laid out the case for the power of their ground operation in crucial swing states around the country.
Here’s a video put together by NewLeftMedia.com of interviews of Romney supporters at that recent rally where Meatloaf sang until his veins all popped out of his head. Not really sure what to say about this. Can’t say I’d be terribly surprised if we were seeing some of the biggest idiots among Romney’s supporters at the rally. But … well, I’m just going to pass this on for your review.
Take a look after the jump … Read More
If you’re going to dedicate the next three days to 72 hours of campaign watching obsession, don’t miss Jon Ralston. His blog is here and his twitter feed is here. He’s the political reporter on Nevada politics and from having watched him now for a few years seems to understand the nitty gritty political dynamics of the state at least as well anyone else out there. Not a chin-stroker mainly but someone who’s really focused on the numbers and details. Read More