I haven’t been watching the Sunday talk shows this morning.  However, it appears that the media are really driving hard at how Obama is up in the polls, Romney’s losing.  From the tone of it, the media is REALLY pushing this thing now.  Now granted, I believe Obama is up 2-3 points nationally right now, assuming a D+3 electorate.  I believe this would show if Gallup had a likely voter poll that was taken of this race right now and Rasmussen confirms this is how he is projecting the electorate to be this election.  A D+3 electorate is the historic average for partisan ID turnout at the polls.    Why is the media pressing so hard now?  Maybe this?

The poll of 1,446 adults, taken Monday through Thursday, has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

Republicans have opened a big enthusiasm gap: 64% say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared to 48% of Democrats. In general, though, the results show an electorate that is less excited and less engaged than in recent presidential elections.

Democrats are less enthusiastic about voting than in 2008, although Republicans are a bit more enthusiastic. Fewer Democrats and Republicans say they have given a lot of thought to the election than they did in the falls of 2008 and 2004.

A 16 point enthusiasm gap for the GOP signals almost the end of Obama’s presidency if that holds.  Moe Lane highlighted the very anemic turnout for Democrats in the early voting returns in Ohio.  Is this the reason why the Columbus Dispatch used a D+8 sample in its polling this morning showing Obama up 9?  I don’t know.  This assumes a 2008 like turnout.  It seems though that they are forgetting about the 2010 election.  If the turnout of the electorate was D+8, Kasich would have lost and Rob Portman would have been in a nail-biter for the Senate seat.   For how seemingly Mitt Romney is getting blown out in this polls statewide and nationally that are assuming 2008 or better turnout for Democrats versus Republicans, the observation of visual data is indicating something completely different.  If it is like this in Ohio, it most certainly is like this across the country.  Nationally, the state registration data across the swing states has shown a huge loss of Democratic voters with Republican registration holding the same or doing a little better than in 2008.  I think this is the reason why the media is going on such a frenzied push to declare the race is over.  The media are starting to look scared and that is a very good thing.  Why are they scared?  Because Romney is still in this.  There is likely very bad economic news coming down the road, the Obama Administration is trying to get defense contractors to delay giving layoff notices to workers in violation of the WARN Act, and the GOP base’s enthusiasm hasn’t decreased regardless of their push poll depression tactics.

The turnout of the electorate will be determined by how well the GOP base shows up in November

This is key to remember.  The media and partisan pollsters are doing everything possible to throw water on the fire of GOP enthusiasm.  They are counting on us not showing up to validate their polling.  If the turnout of the electorate is a push like we saw in 2004 which was 37D/37R/26I, Romney wins.  The Romney ground game has already surpassed the awesome Bush ground game in 2004 in contacts made.  Could the turnout be like this?  Absolutely.  I think a big key will be how well evangelical voters show up and vote for Romney.  If they vote for Romney like they did Bush, Romney’s chances to win go up sharply.  Another thing, Romney has held roughly a 5 point edge with independents nationally if you look at Rasmussen’s national polling.  We all must show up in November.

A look to the debates

The media and the Democratic Party are trying to play this thing up like Obama is the underdog in this debate, that Mitt Romney is an awesome debater, and that if Romney doesn’t have a good debate, then it is all over.  They are trying to minimize as much as possible the effect that the debates are going to have on the election.  They have to because they know Romney is going to attack and hold Obama’s feet to the fire with his record.  On top of that, they want to put Obama in the position that if the debate is a draw, then Obama has won and the American people should just accept it.  So predictive these journ-O-lists are.   A few key points:

Jobs:   Romney is going to have to highlight how many people have fallen out of the workforce since Obama has been in office.   The last time we saw Americans participating at this level was in 1981.  Job growth isn’t keeping up with population growth by any measure.  Obama likes to tout the job growth that has been experienced while he has been in office.  The job growth has been a joke.  It’s completely indicative of stagnation.  Businesses are not hiring because of Obamacare and are scared to death.  Americans are giving up looking for work and that is the fault of the Obama Administration with its overbearing regulatory and legislative enactments like Obamacare.  If Obama tries to go with “Because of the situation I inherited..” I would love to see Romney shoot back with “Don’t you ever accept responsibility for your record while in office?”

Obamacare: Obama will try to say that the law was written based upon what Romneycare was in Massachusetts.  The key difference is public support for the legislation.  The people of Massachusetts overwhelmingly wanted it and there were legislative Democratic supermajorities that would have overwritten any Romney veto pen.  The problem with passing Obamacare is that the majority of people NATIONALLY didn’t want it, still don’t want it, and would like it repealed as of today.  The American people spoke in the November in 2010, handing the Democratic Party a monstrous defeat on the national and state level.  Romney will probably say something like “Mr. President, to this day you are deaf to the opinion of the American people on this piece of legislation that you passed that they did not want.”

Decreasing income +rising gas and food prices:  The Romney campaign has done a good job of highlighting this.  It’s what Ronald Reagan used to bury Jimmy Carter in his closing debate statement.  This will be important because it affects American’s pocketbooks.  How are you going to do this Mitt?  This is directly tied to our growing debt and the Fed having to print money because the number of countries buying our debt is getting less and less.  The Fed isn’t printing money to stimulate the economy no matter what the news tells you.  Investors have been investing in U.S. Treasuries for the time being because they want a safe haven with the turmoil that has been happening in Europe.  What will happen when the economy improves and some of these investors liquidate these holdings to get into equities?  (Shudder) Talk about a rollercoaster.  For the time being, our debt is having drastic effects on our economic growth and our purchasing power.

Outlining and Detailing WHY The American People Should Vote for Romney:  This leads into the final and is probably most important and is the only thing I have seen lacking in the Romney campaign.  The country is saying “Yeah, we know this economy sucks and Obama has sucked.  But why should we vote for you?”  The GOP SuperPACs are doing their job in driving up the negative attacks and the Romney campaign has done that as well to some degree.  If you’re trying to sell someone something, they don’t buy because your competition sucks and has a poor product.  They buy you and what you are offering.  Keep it simple and outline the benefits of what the American people have to gain.

Foreign Policy:  Though this first debate will be on the economy, this could come up.  Democratic pollster Pat Caddell issued a scathing rebuke regarding the media’s attempt to sanitize the Obama Administration’s negligent and horribly incompetent defense of U.S. embassies around the world that killed 4 Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador.  First the Obama campaign stated it was a spontaneous protest, though U.S. Intel knew within 24 hours it was a terrorist attack.  The amount of B.S. coming out of the White House on this matter was truly to a level that I had not seen ever before and I didn’t think that was possible.  The most unbelievable thing about the Benghazi attack was the embassy was not adequately fortified or even had a remote security presence on the most predictive date that a terrorist attack would be most likely to happen, the 9/11 anniversary.  This whitewashing has been happening with Solyndra and Fast & Furious.  It is incomprehensible that Univision is holding Obama’s feet to the fire on Fast and Furious and other matters, most notably his neglecting to pass immigration legislation while he had legislative supermajorities in Congress prior to 2010.  I really hope Romney nails Obama on this as well.

In summary, Romney is a little behind right now.  Romney has been preparing for the debates for some weeks now and has probably the best debate prep opponent you could have in Rob Portman.  To get an idea of Portman’s prowess as a debater, go and watch his performance against Lee Fisher in 2010.  It was much to my chigrin when I supported Rick Perry in the primaries that he debated solidly.  He is very practiced as a debater.  Heck, I didn’t want Mitt but as I have learned more of his background, his goodness and generosity, I have grown to like him.   I may have differences of opinion with him but I cannot deny he is a good man.  He and the GOPSuperPACs are assured to outspend Obama and his SuperPACs the rest of the way in the election.  Romney’s success will solely hinge on well the GOP is united behind him and comes out to vote for him in November, his effectiveness in articulating and detailing the vision he has and why America should vote for him in November.  There are still a lot of undecideds out there which means that historically, break against the incumbent by a 4 to 1 margin.  Romney has a lot of overwhelming intangibles in his favor.  He just needs to give America a reason to vote for him, not because Obama sucks.  We all already know Obama sucks.