Poll shows Romney leading in Penna.

[tailfins]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/poll-shows-romney-leading-in-blue-pennsylvania/article/2511153#.UICJf4bSXjJ

Could it be while making Ohio part of his "firewall", Obama could have let Pennsylvania slip away?

[Kathianne]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/poll-shows-romney-leading-in-blue-pennsylvania/article/2511153#.UICJf4bSXjJ

Could it be while making Ohio part of his "firewall", Obama could have let Pennsylvania slip away?

If Romney wins PA, OH will be a win too. There seems to be a 'preference cascade' going on here:

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/330887/campfire-stories-preference-cascade-haunts-campaigns


Campfire Stories of the ‘Preference Cascade’ That Haunts Campaigns (http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/330887/campfire-stories-preference-cascade-haunts-campaigns)
By Jim Geraghty (http://www.nationalreview.com/author/4031)

October 18, 2012 2:25 P.M. (http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/330887/campfire-stories-preference-cascade-haunts-campaigns)
Comments (http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/330887/campfire-stories-preference-cascade-haunts-campaigns#comments) 12



When campaign strategists and political analysts go out on camping trips — they do, you know — they end the night by gathering around the campfire and telling stories of a terrifying, unstoppable, voracious and mysterious force that preys on vulnerable political campaigns: the Preference Cascade.



“The Preference Cascade only stalks totalitarian regimes,” the skeptics say. “I’ve read Glenn Reynolds’ field reports (http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2002/03/patriotism-and-preferences.html) and eyewitness accounts, about how the Preference Cascade needs a lot of unexpressed emotion to feed upon. ‘A totalitarian regime spends a lot of effort making sure that citizens don’t realize the extent to which their fellow-citizens dislike the regime. If the secret police and the censors are doing their job, 99 percent of the populace can hate the regime and be ready to revolt against it — but no revolt will occur because no one realizes that everyone else feels the same way.’ You just don’t have that same group dynamic in American society.”


“Ah, but how many early-favorite candidates have tried to run on inevitability (http://observer.com/2008/01/hillary-and-the-myth-of-clinton-inevitability/)?” says the old timer, tossing a stick onto the campfire. “Everybody you know is voting for somebody, because everybody they know is voting for that guy. Nobody’s really giving the other candidates a serious thought, until something unexpected happens — and then the favorite finds out his support was a mile wide and an inch deep.”


Another consultant pipes up.


“An old-timer I know said he had the Preference Cascade gobble up one of his candidates once,” he said quietly. “He said it was like a nightmare. You think you’re doing fine, you have enough folks whose default setting is to vote for your guy, and then . . . BOOM. Suddenly, day by day, things get worse. The undecideds start jumping onto the bandwagon of the other guy, and they just won’t stop. They tune out your guy and just about everything he says. Attack ads that normally would be called ‘tough’ or ‘hard-hitting’ start getting mocked as ‘desperate’ or ‘flailing.’ Volunteers stop showing up. Your early voters taper off. It used to be nobody mocked your guy, and suddenly he’s the butt of the jokes of the comics.”


A shiver ran down the spines of the younger campaign strategists. “Does the Preference Cascade give any warnings?”


The old timer piped up again. “It sniffs out weakness and vulnerability in a well-known candidate’s job approval numbers,” he said, pointing his finger. “Sometimes voters avert their eyes from an incumbent’s flaws — he’s in there, they hope he does well. Sometimes they won’t like what he’s doing, but they’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. They’ll come up with all kinds of excuses. But the Preference Cascade’s catalyst triggers this change, and suddenly all of that repressed disapproval comes tumbling out. It’s not that the candidate has suddenly irked these voters so much; it’s that they’ve been irked for a while and they suddenly feel okay expressing it.

And once they see more people expressing it, they express it louder themselves — swaying the people around them. It’s like a feedback group that gets louder and more intense and faster as time goes on.”...

[mundame]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/poll-shows-romney-leading-in-blue-pennsylvania/article/2511153#.UICJf4bSXjJ

Could it be while making Ohio part of his "firewall", Obama could have let Pennsylvania slip away?


Not yet. This poll is an outlier --- Pennsylvania is still going for Obama according to all the other polls, but it is true the percentage is shrinking now.......

I'm not sure Penna is where it's at. Ohio HAS to be won by the winner, or he doesn't win: history forever. As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. And Florida is being very interesting: it is now so tight that both candidates are campaigning there today, the paper said, and there is basically no difference, 1% Romney, switched from Obama.

And my first thought is, can we survive another Florida election hangup?? Because that's what it looks like we're going into right now: Florida Doing It Again. That would really be something.

I'm also interested in Virginia. It is shifting and it may shift all the way, to Romney.

I'm mostly afraid of a minority election --- one candidate wins the popular vote and the other the Electoral College.

Also, how about coattails? If it's not a close election after all, whoever wins might well swing the Senate one way or another.

[aboutime]

The only RELIABLE Polls are those who live, and work in Poland.
All other polls change every day, and never mean a thing after election day.