WHERE OBAMA STANDS – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  At this stage in the presidential race, polls are merely guides to trends, but those trends are important.

Right now Mitt Romney is in a much better place than Ronald Reagan was in June of 1980, when he faced off against President Jimmy Carter.  That's encouraging, but only cautiously so.  Romney isn't Reagan, and Obama, despite his almost endless list of failings, doesn't come off as the petty, pathetic creature that Carter was.  Carter was a nothing campaigner.  Obama is usually an excellent campaigner, although his campaign thus far has been disorganized.

Today's Rasmussen tracker has Romney five points up, 48-43.  Some 41% of Romney supporters say they're certain to vote for him, whereas only 35% of Obama supporters are sure of their vote. 

But the picture is different in the individual states, where the election is actually decided.  There Obama leads in such key states as Pennsylvania and Michigan, and New Hampshire, which has a large liberal vote in the areas closest to the Massachusetts border.  Romney leads in North Carolina and Missouri.  It's the toss-up states that worry me – Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and Colorado.  They will probably decide the election.

Is it possible that we'll have an outcome like 2000, where the winner of the electoral vote, George W. Bush, didn't win the popular vote?  I think it's quite possible, although unlikely.  But Obama is close enough in the toss-up states to realize that some rough tactics, and the playing of the race card, can pay off.  I suspect that the result in these states will depend mostly on Obama's ability to energize his base and get it to the polls.  That need translates into scare tactics, and the libs are experts at that.

June 24, 2012