Mittmentum is real

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney holds a rally at Defiance High School, in Defiance, Ohio, October 25, 2012.

/ Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

This post originally appeared on Slate.

DEFIANCE, Ohio There's a moment that arrives now and again in presidential campaign speeches when the candidate says, "If I'm president," and then corrects himself: "when I'm president." This is a crowd favorite and usually gets a healthy round of cheers. Then the candidate moves on. When Mitt Romney said this on Thursday morning in Cincinnati, the crowd reacted as if it was election night and he'd just been declared president--and they'd been given a new car. For 30 seconds they screamed and cheered.

As we enter the final sprint, campaigns and their supporters will sustain themselves on sweeping crowd shots of supporters cheering on their man. At the Romney rally on a football field in Defiance, Ohio, the campaign had a camera hooked to a drone to get sweeping crowd shots. So far this campaign we've had fights over facts, and then it was a fight over the polls. Now we're having a fight over momentum. Who has the larger crowd? Who has more enthusiasm?

Trying to read a crowd is mostly a mug's game. I remember attending a John McCain event in Appleton, Wis. in 2008 that made the ground shake in the gymnasium. McCain lost Wisconsin by 14 points. Still, for Mitt Romney, who was once considered merely a tepid vessel of anti-Obama feeling and who had trouble in the primaries stirring the party faithful, he's peaking at the right time. The lines snake through neighborhoods and people leave hoarse and buoyant. It used to be that his crowds were most excited when he said mean things about Barack Obama. Now that's not what is getting most of the cheers. They cheer for Romney, the guy up there on stage.

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What makes crowd size and enthusiasm so alluring is that everyone is flying blind about Ohio, looking for a sign somewhere that the state is going their way. Both campaigns believe the polls are essentially tied. Recently the debate in Ohio has focused on which party is doing better in early voting. Democrats say they are exceeding their 2008 levels. Republicans say Democrats are just capturing the voters that were already going to vote for Obama and not using the early voting period to win over low propensity voters. (I wrote about this Thursday.) Campaign aides say they are "exceeding their metrics," which means they've knocked on more doors, put up more signs, or made more phone calls than they expected to make. But you can exceed your metrics and lose because the other guy is exceeding his metrics, too.

Romney is using Obama's 2008 campaign against him. He's trying to steal the change mantle from the president. The word "change" cropped up a dozen times in two speeches, and Romney regularly shakes his head at how low the author of Hope and Change has fallen. "His campaign gets smaller and smaller," he says, "Our campaign is about big things. We happen to believe that America faces big challenges ... Americans want to see big changes and that's what I'm going to bring."

The day ended for Romney on that football field at Defiance High School. The scoreboard read 4th down 12 to go, referring to the number of days left in the campaign. After the national anthem was sung, fireworks launched behind the end zone. And then Meatloaf took the stage. "Never before have I endorsed a single candidate until now," said the 65-year-old singer of "Bat Out of Hell" and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," who said that after the last debate he couldn't stay on the sidelines given the "storm clouds rising over the world." Before he left the stage. he said he had called three Democrats and convinced two of them to vote for Romney. "So two out of three ain't bad," he said.

[JCK77523]

The NY Times says so in a blog? Now there is unbiased source. Out the door #44.

[RollotheNorman]

Mittmentum came to a halt three days ago. Do try to keep up.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Willard now has a one in four chance of winning the election and it's shrinking.

[logictoo]

Saw Obama signs in yards today. Says "OBAMA Y'ALL"-no mention of Biden. Don't know if it is pro Obama or if it is white racist jibberish. Could someone enlighten me??

[MTATL670]

Why doesn't CBS comeout of the closest and just endorse Romney.

[LorettaAdams]

The author of this article was paid crony of the Bush II years. He now writes articles that are favorable to Republicans based upon his byline history. Big money:) If you don't have momentum, you can certainly BUY IT.

[LorettaAdams]

And ironically, another one from the right leaning Drudge Report just today:

DRUDGE REPORT SHOCK POLL: ROMNEY FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE IN N.C.

North Carolina Civitas: Romney 48 Obama 47

Developing......

[LorettaAdams]

So much for momentum:


DRUDGE REPORT SHOCK POLL! Obama surged in RAND today, to his highest level ever. Obama: 50.56% Romney: 44.64%

[LorettaAdams]

The trend-lines since Tuesday have been going downward. Romney was +7 Nationally and is now +3 according to Gallup. But, again, the national polls are meaningless. Let's say Gallup has Romney at 65% and Obama at 35%, does that affect NY or NJ? No, it does not. Both of those states will still go for Obama. My point I am making is that the the respective swing states have been utilized as mini-"laboratories" over the past year with money, ad buys, and GOTV efforts...taken as a whole...decidedly driving up Romney's negatives, lifting Obama's positives, and registering a record number of Democrats over 2008 as well as converting those registrations to ACTUAL Obama votes by a 2:1 margin in many of the swing states. Essentially, the ad buy and campaigning has had the effect of turning many of the swing states like Ohio into behaving like many of the solid blue states that will typically go blue despite any national poll---as in the NYand NJ examples above. When you couple the lopsided nature of Romney's poll numbers in these swing states (often polling 2-5% points below Obama) along with the already baked-in 2:1 lead in early voters that Obama has, that means that not only does Romney have to make up ground to break even with the voters who have already early voted for Obama by a 2:1 margin, but he also has to close the 2-4% gap the he trails Obama amongst likely, registered voters in that swing state on the day of the election. Both of these obstacles are HUGE, and must be overcome with RESOUNDING NUMBERS... the likes of which, while not impossible, are HIGHLY IMPROBABLE at this point.

[LorettaAdams]

And when you factor in the 2:1 baked-in early voters for Obama, that means that Romney not only would have to overcome the 2:1 early Obama voters, but he would he would also have to be polling at 55% or better in the swing states on the day of the election to break even with the early voters as well as surpass the Obama totals for those who were actually voting on election day. In nearly all the swing states, Obama is expanding his lead as of today; therefore, he will be capitalizing on this already baked-in early voter lead if this holds out until a little over a week from now. Florida will likely go to Romney, but VA and CO remain to close to call. If Obama gets Ohio and Nevada, that is all he needs for 271. He could lose Colorado (tied), Virginia (tied), Iowa (expanding lead), and New Hampshire (expanding lead).

[LorettaAdams]

The Salt Lake City Tribune endorsed Obama.