I don't have much to say this morning. The state of the race as we head to the finish line is, thank goodness, far better than it was in the wake of the post-Debate 1 slide. Right now, Nate Silver gives Romney about 1 chance in 7, and I really think he's overstating Romney's chances a bit.
I don't believe the GOP really has the ability to steal Ohio. But for those who do, there should be comfort in the knowledge that if we lose Ohio due to vote suppression, computer skulduggery, or other means unrelated to an underlying shift in voter preferences, we should still have the upper hand in pretty much all of the other swing states except for NC (still likely Romney) and FL (tossup). There are really only so many states you can steal, and the way the polls are breaking lately, the GOP would need to steal not only Ohio, but Virginia and at least one other swing state. Good luck with that.
The video is a message to the Republican Party. Please keep your bull outside our china shop!
Open thread.
On edit: thought I'd recommend a couple of pieces I found worthwhile this weekend.
First is one that Paula mentioned in comments yesterday: Tom Scocca's Why Do White People Think Mitt Romney Should Be President? Parsing the narrow, tribal appeal of the Republican nominee which flips the usual perspective - of whites (especially white men) being the 'real people' and everyone else being minorities voting as members of a class - to show how Republicans have inverted that logic to attempt to get large numbers of whites to vote the way they do on the basis of their race.
The second was Wen Stephenson's A Convenient Excuse in the Boston Phoenix, which makes the point that, to the extent that the mainstream media even covers climate change at all, it's covered like a side issue that's only of importance to environmental activists, rather than an oncoming crisis that threatens the stability and well-being of the world that our children will spend most of their lives in:
After a quick round of introductions, I explained to my former Globe colleagues that I wasn't there to "save the planet" or to protect some abstraction called "the environment." I'm really not an environmentalist, and never have been. No, I said, I was there for my kids: my son, who's 12, and my daughter, who's 8. And not only my kids — all of our kids, everywhere. Because on our current trajectory, it's entirely possible that we'll no longer have a livable climate — one that allows for stable, secure societies to survive — within the lifetimes of today's children.
That struck a powerful chord with me, because I've often wondered if I've already fundamentally failed my 5 year old son in this respect. He could very well live to see the opening years of the 22nd century, a fact that's still an astounding notion to a guy who was born in 1954. I'd hope that my generation would leave a decent world to him and his cohort, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
