...at this exact time in '08, the media was saying it was as tight as they are claiming now...??? Of course, I don't have anything to back this, so I could be wrong. But as memory serves, I was fretting myself into a frenzy two weeks out from the election back then.
Something I do look at every day in this 2012 election, is how the markets react. Intrade has O at 61.1% this morning. O hasn't fallen below 55% and hasn't gone above 65% for the last two weeks, which would show that the race has in fact tightened, but that O has maintained solid odds in his favor. I am certain that the republicans would love to have these kind of odds for their candidate and would trade places in a heart beat.
I have used 'ear to the ground' over and over in this forum to imply that those folks betting their hard earned cash know more of what's going on than the media is telling us. MSM has to make money and right now, showing a locked even race with one or the other candidate going up/down consistently in polls, they are raking in the major bucks. They make money off of viewership both on air and on their websites. They need this race to be exciting and they need headlines. Just reading HP makes my head spin - they are the worst at putting up melodramatic headlines over and over to draw another click.
We can choose to ignore Gallup and embrace IBD/Tipp. Or we hyperventilate over the Gallup results and just assume the race is over. Either way, they are both just polls. Their are millions of people in the country and I don't think anyone can argue that the polling methods aren't outdated, their is significantly less polling this year than in '08, and any one of them (whether great news or terrible news) for our candidate is not representative of how the country will ultimately vote. We could wake up on November 7th to the news of a squeak or a landslide for either candidate, but if I had money to bet, it wouldn't be on Mittens.
So, I say, stick to the markets. Follow 538 - Nate may end up losing his credibility after this election for all I know, but he seems the most non-partisan out of anyone out there. He is not a shill for Obama nor is he secretly backing the RNC. He's a very bright numbers nerd who has either had extraordinary luck in predicting the outcomes in past elections or his numbers really do mean something, his model really is effective and O's chances of winning really are as good as he states. And, so far, things are still looking good for Obama.
One last thing - there was a tweet out a couple of days ago about how Wall Street is now donating to O. I never heard anything more about it, but if that is true, it's a very, very good sign, especially this late in the election.
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