HOW THE MITTSTERS READ IT – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  We are one week and a day away from deciding whether to sink further as a nation, or try a new beginning.   The polls appear very close.  We won't know how accurate they are until a week from Wednesday.

So, how does Team Romney read the situation?  Byron York, in the Washington Examiner, has a good report: 

Team Romney believes there is a fairly close relationship between the national polls and the polls in Ohio. Romney aides are highly skeptical of any results from Ohio that are several points out of line with the national polls. For example, if Romney is up two nationally, they would find it very hard to believe a poll that shows him down by five in Ohio — to them, that seven-point gap just seems too big.

Further, they believe that the national and state numbers ultimately move together, and that if national numbers move, the state numbers will eventually move, too. They concede that intense campaigning in individual states can change perhaps two or three points, but they believe there is still a fundamental relationship between national and state poll numbers. They discount the possibility of conflicting popular vote/Electoral College results as extremely remote.

Republican experts who are not affiliated with the campaign agree. The reason Ohio is the center of attention now, they say, is that it has a mix of the electorate that creates a hugely competitive race similar to that on the national level. Ohio is not exactly like the American electorate as a whole, but it’s pretty close. For example, in 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain nationally by 53 percent to 46 percent. In Ohio, the margin was 52 percent to 47 percent.

Given that, a number of well-connected pollsters expect that in the end, Ohio’s results will be fairly close to the national results. If Mitt Romney wins the national vote, they expect to see him win Ohio, too. And they would be very surprised to see a close national race and a blowout in Ohio, or a close race in Ohio and a blowout nationally.

Finally, of course, there is the question of who is really ahead in Ohio. Going back over the last 15 polls in the RealClearPolitics average of polls for the state, Obama led in 12 and three were tied. None showed Romney leading, so it’s safe to say Obama is leading in Ohio. Yet Team Romney views the race as closer than the 2.3 percent Obama margin in the RealClearPolitics average would indicate. And not only is it closer than 2.3 percent, they say, there is also the issue of Romney’s lead among independents in several polls. In past Ohio elections, they argue, the candidate who won independents also won the election. Obama, John Kasich, Ted Strickland, Rob Portman — they’re all winning candidates who fit that pattern. So watch the independents, Team Romney argues, in hopes the race will eventually line up their way.

That argument got a boost, at least a momentary one, on Sunday morning, when the consortium that conducts polling for major newspapers in Ohio released the results of a new poll showing Romney and the president tied at 49 percent. “Obama wins support for his foreign policy and for pushing the auto loan package for GM and Chrysler,” the Columbus Dispatch reported. “But [Romney] scores with his performance in the debates. And on the crucial question of who would do the best job handling the economy, Romney prevails by six percentage points among all voters and 18 percent among independents.”

COMMENT:  A partisan, but well-reasoned analysis.  Of course, this doesn't factor in the possible effects of Hurricane Sandy.  The mainstream media now has most of a week in which to portray Obama as the active commander-in-chief, and to take the emphasis off the economy.   The mainstreamers also have an excuse not to give much coverage to the Romney campaign.

And, of course, there will be end-of-the month jobs figures released later this week.  Will they be honest?  Will someone's finger be on the scale.  When jobs figures recently showed "improvement," statisticians immediately noticed some odd discrepancies.  We'll wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, but I wouldn't be shocked if they contain some good news for Obama, or at least news that could be spun that way.

We're watching state polls day by day.  Despite the fine analysis above, we saw what happned in 2000, when 500 votes in a state election – Florida – ultimately decided the presidency.

October 29,  2012