And Now, Some Inside Baseball

By Sniffles

A new Public Policy Polling survey shows President Obama widening his lead over Willard Mitt Romney in Ohio to five.

It's just one of recent PPP polls indicating no movement, or negative movement, for Romney — including North Carolina, which is still way closer than the Romneybots were hoping.

So, let us cats get all wonky and detailed on you. Here's what we think is going on.

Looking at the election on a state-by-state level, we think it's likely that, between now and the first debate, the Romney campaign takes some combination of states — say, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota — off the table as places they can possibly win.

Additionally, we think that a couple of the current tossup states — such as New Hampshire, Virginia, Iowa or Wisconsin — could move to where the polls are in Pennsylvania and Michigan today.

If that happens, you'll start hearing news stories about the Obama campaign making fresh, concerted efforts in such presumed-Republican states as Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota or Arizona.

But back to Ohio.

The PPP five-point Buckeye lead for Obama — and PPP has been historically quite accurate — means that Romney has a heck of a mountain to climb. To be tied — not ahead, but tied — with Obama by Election Day, he would have to close the Ohio gap by a point a week. These would have to be solid gains — not ephemeral blips — that he would have to make, either by taking away significant numbers of committed Obama supporters or by moving equally significant numbers of uncommitted voters. (Since there are so few uncommitteds, to move the polls by a single point, Willard would have to sway about 10 to 20 percent of them.)

These are such huge ifs that they're almost incomprehensible. They're predicated on no bad news for Romney and total incompetence by the Obama campaign.

The Willys might think they'll rectify that with an onslaught of negative ads and three stellar debate performances. The problem, among others, is that all the negative ads in the world won't work when 1) you haven't established your own guy's positives, and 2) the other guy is more personally popular than your guy. (Funny, the Romneybots have been building an economic argument for years now. We cats guess they haven't figured this one out yet.)

As for the debate performances, we cats fail to see how Romney's 20 encounters with the Republican clown college during the GOP primaries would set a bar high enough to argue actual facts with the President.

So, do the Silly Willys feel the Buckeye State slipping away? Less than two months out, they're having to spend precious time furiously (and profanely) denying it. All we know is, if you have to resort to words that we wouldn't print in this blog, you're probably a frustrated loser. Our paws are crossed, and we cats PURR.