Predictable History, Unpredictable Past

This Associated Press story suggests that the campaign is Too Close To Call

As the 2012 presidential campaign moves to a close, national polls say the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is too close to call.

Romney's big lead over Obama from last summer is gone as the hard-fought battle has tightened over the past three months, following the pattern of presidential contests in years gone by.

As more and more Americans focus on the decision of which level ro pull tomorrow, the polls also say Obama's hopes may be damaged because many of those who support him may not vote.

The original watershed mark for the final round of polls was the nationally televised debate between Romney and Obama last month. But late-breaking developments regarding the Americans killed in Libya, or the Americans without power and heat due to Hurricane Sandy could make recent poll results quickly obsolete.
...
While the polls seem to have different results, in fact, the differences are all smaller than the error margins to which all polls are subject. This means that the polls cannot be said to put either man in the solid position as the frontrunner.

In addition, the close race spotlights the unique system of picking a president - the election is decided by who wins the most electoral votes, which are awarded sate-by-state. It is possible in a close race that a candidate could win the most populate votes nationwide and still lose the electoral vote to his or her opponent.

Of course, every election is decided by who actually goes to vote. But the polls this year demonstrate that the issue of turnout is ever more critical than ever. For example, among registered voters, the Pew Research poll put the race at Obama 49% and Romney 42%. But when the results were weighted to reflect possible turnout, their results were Romney 47% and Obama 50%.

Ok, that's not exactly what it said. To see exactly what it said, you need to replace 2012 with 1980, Obama with Carter, and Romney with Reagan. It wasn't published today - it was published on the day before the 1980 election. The day before Ronald Reagan won 50.7% of the vote vs. Jimmy Carter's 41% (John Anderson took 10%). The day before Reagan won 489 electoral votes.

Too close to call...

Media Polls: The Newest Negative Campaign Ad

Mike Flynn:

None of the factors driving Democrat turnout in '08 exist today. Recent polls from AP, Politico and the daily tracking polls from Rasmussen and Gallup, all of which assume relatively lower Democrat turnout in November, show the race essentially tied. Only those polls showing an electorate with equal or greater numbers of Democrats show Obama with any sizable lead.

Yet, it's these polls that are driving the political narrative. Every day the media launches a number of stories about Romney's "struggling" campaign. They cite anonymous GOP sources who wring their hands that the campaign is losing ground. The only real evidence of this, however, are the polls which heavily over-sample Democrat voters. Without these skewed polls, the media's narrative would be untenable.

Quite simply, and apart from past years, the media have decided to weaponize the polls.

There's an obvious question here. "So what?"

Here's "what." There has been much discussion on the right, among those opposed to this President's policies, of the potential for a "preference cascade," for millions of on-the-fence Americans to recognize that yes, their concerns about this administration's competence and policies are shared by millions of their fellow citizens, that they are not bad or racist or greedy or alone in their disapproval of what's gone on in Washington for the last four years. No one wants to be alone in his position; no one wants to be the only one who can't appreciate the emperor's new clothes.

This 2002 piece from Glenn Reynolds is right on point.

[Totalitarian] regimes have little legitimacy, but they spend a lot of effort making sure that citizens don't realize the extent to which their fellow-citizens dislike the regime. If the secret police and the censors are doing their job, 99% of the populace can hate the regime and be ready to revolt against it - but no revolt will occur because no one realizes that everyone else feels the same way.

This works until something breaks the spell, and the discontented realize that their feelings are widely shared, at which point the collapse of the regime may seem very sudden to outside observers - or even to the citizens themselves. Claims after the fact that many people who seemed like loyal apparatchiks really loathed the regime are often self-serving, of course. But they're also often true: Even if one loathes the regime, few people have the force of will to stage one-man revolutions, and when preferences are sufficiently falsified, each dissident may feel that he or she is the only one, or at least part of a minority too small to make any difference.

And more than that, everyone wants to play on the winning team. Marginal voters are much more likely to show up at the polling place to check the box or pull the lever for a candidate that is likely to win than for one that has no chance.

So putting out reports that the Romney campaign is struggling, running skewed polls that show Obama pulling away, isn't just "news." It's propaganda. It's propagating the storyline that Obama is just fine, Romney's a bad guy, running a bad campaign, no one wants to vote for him, so you don't want to vote for him, etc. It's propaganda intended to marginalize and depress the Romney support.

If, that is, they're wrong. And that's really the question. Are they? If the Democrats have a better year in 2012 than they did in 2008, they are. Look at all that's happened over the last four years, and ask yourself if that seems likely...

New CNN poll - more manufactured Obama support

There was a new CNN/ORC poll released yesterday afternoon, and it has President Obama up by 6 points over Governor Romney, 52-46.  But there are some curious numbers in it.  Such as how it's possible that Governor Romney could be trailing by six points in a survey that finds him with a 14-point lead among independents.

Since they don't include most the raw numbers, and every respondent did not necessarily answer every question, there's some guesswork required, but there's a lot of information, and it doesn't all add up.

To start with, they give us the following information about their sample:

Sample information

1022	Adults
875	Registered voters
709	Likely voters

In 2008, according to the census bureau, about 64% percent of the voting-age population voted, as opposed to the 69% of this survey tabbed as "likely."  Other sources suggest that 61% is closer to correct.  Given that those who are not registered and not at all likely to vote are also less likely to take the time to respond to the survey, their likely voter screen, whatever it is, is producing a  number of "likelys" that might be a little high but isn't too unreasonable.

So they ask the question:  Obama or Romney?  And they tell us, in question 1, that the voters responses are:

Ballot test

	Likely	Registered
Obama/Biden	52	53
Romney/Ryan	41	45
Neither	2	2
Other	*	*
No opinion	1	1

So far, so good.  No, that doesn't add up to 100, but there are rounding errors, so, close enough. And, as one would expect, Obama's lead is bigger among registered voters than among likely voters (though not as much bigger as one might expect.)

Next, they ask Obama voters whether they are voting for Obama or against Romney, and then ask the converse of Romney voters.  Here's where it starts to get interesting. In the preface to the questions (pg 3), they reveal how many people chose each candidate in question 1.

Respondents

	Likely	Registered
Obama voters	351	441
Romney voters	340	409
Total	691	850

Here's the first problem.  A serious problem.  The 691 voters for Obama and Romney combined is about 97.5% of their advertised 709 likely voters, which is what we'd expect.  But they're touting a 6-point Obama lead; when they give the number of respondents who chose each of the candidates, what we see is an 11-voter lead for Obama, (351-340) out of 691.  11/691 = ~1.5%, not 6%. 

Did their sample require that much manipulation?  On page 5, we see that they found 441 registered Democrats and 397 registered Republicans.  That breaks down to a 52.6-47.4 advantage for the Democrats in the two-party sample.  That's smaller than the 55-45 advantage in the two-party electorate that they had in 2008 (39-32), and maybe the pollsters are trying to match that.  On the other hand, that was a best-case result for Democrats (2004 was 50-50 [37-37]), and there's no reason to expect them to match it in 2012.  Obviously, there's a science, and an art, to coming up with the best analysis of the raw numbers, but this looks like a gratuitous thumb on the scale somewhere.



I mentioned the other anomaly at the top.  On page 21, they've broken the vote down by demographics.

By Party Affiliation

	Total	Democrat	Independent	Republican
Obama/Biden	52	97	40	2
Romney/Ryan	46	3	54	96
Other	*	*	*	*
Neither	2	*	4	2
No_opinion	1	*	2	*

Obama has a commanding lead among Democrats. To be expected. Romney has a commanding lead among Republicans. To be expected.

But what about those unaffiliated with either party? Where much of the Presidential contest is actually "fought"? Romney has a very large lead there, too, 14 points, 54-40. If that's the case, how can he be trailing by six?

Well, 441 registered Democrats plus 397 registered Republicans equals 838 register voters out of their  875 registered voter survey.  838/875 = 96%.  Given that Republicans and Democrats have made up 70-75% of the voting electorate in the past few Presidential elections, and that they make up 96% of the registered voters in this sample, it seems that they have undersampled independents.  There just are not a significant number of independents in this sample.

Which answers the question of how Romney could be trailing by 6 points in a poll that shows him leading independents by 14 points.


All in all, this looks like a poll result designed to be used to depress Republicans and promote the "inevitable reelection of the President" storyline.  This looks like news-making, rather than news-reporting. 

University of Colorado analysis predicts...

University of Colorado analysis predicts Romney win in presidential race

A state-by-state analysis of the presidential race conducted by two University of Colorado professors predicts that Mitt Romney will be our next president. The analysis, released today, by political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver, is based on economic and other factors within each of the 50 states. This same study has correctly predicted the winners of the last eight presidential elections, starting with the 1980 election won by Ronald Reagan.

I said that, too. Over a year ago.

Because of [various factors], he will not be the Republican nominee. I don't know who will be. Rick Perry, maybe, or Tim Pawlenty or Herman Cain. But not Romney.

If I'm wrong about that, though, I'm right about this, anyway - if Mitt Romney wins the Republican presidential nomination, he is the next President of the United States.

Hopefully I was half right, not 0 for 2...

Here's the real question...

...why is it that high?

Obama job approval: Worst quarter yet

President Obama's cumulative job approval for the last quarter was the lowest of his entire administration and put him historically down in the lowlands of Jimmy Carter country.

The 41% average job approval for Obama's 11th quarter in office (july 20-Oct. 19) was down four points from his previous low (the 7th quarter) and down six points since the tenth quarter at the beginning of summer.

Scary statistic of the day

Based on 2010 census data and the latest Gallup poll, there are over 80 million Americans out there who approve of President "Bad Hand" Obama's handling of the economy.

And those people are driving on the same highways that you are...

The dangers of poll driven politics

It has long been known that the answer to a question depends, in many cases, on the circumstances under which it is asked. Successful salesmen are always asking "yes" questions - that is, questions that virtually require the potential customer to answer "yes." Successfully framing the issue is the first and most important part of making a sale. This is why polling is more art than science. Consider, for example, this discussion of polling techniques between Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Wooley on the brilliant 80s British TV show Yes (Prime) Minister:

Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

There have been many psychological studies which demonstrate that peer pressure can influence people to give incorrect responses on even fairly straightforward factual questions.

Which is why this kind of thing is so concerning.

A CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday also indicates that the public doesn't want the super committee to propose major changes to Social Security and Medicare or increase taxes on middle class and lower-income Americans.

Well, of course it doesn't. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to increase taxes on the middle class. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to cut Social Security, because of the millions of people currently dependent on it. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to cut Medicare, because of the millions of people currently dependent on it.

But none of those is really the question, is it? My response to someone that posted this yesterday on facebook, with the comment that, "OK Leaders, there are your orders. Get 'er done!" was, "You understand that you can't actually fix the problem that way, right? You understand that even confiscatory taxes on the wealthy and deep cuts in all discretionary budgets won't even close the current deficit, never mind the projected deficits that the rising costs of entitlements create?"

FBF: The position that politicians should somehow ignore the public and do as some see as "the right thing" seems pretty idealistic.

Me: I agree that it's unlikely that they'll "ignore the public." But some of them will - some always do. The key thing is that this is a Republic, not a Democracy, so they're elected to defend the Constitution and represent our interests, even when that's not what we want. (Obviously, most of the time that's not what happens. "Representing our enlightened best interests" and "pandering to the popular will" never been, are not now, and never will be synonymous. Sometimes, the latter looks like the former, and everything's spiffy.

But right now, we're caught in a trap that our elected representatives have built over the years. Every time the government creates an "entitlement," it also creates a client cohort dependent upon it. Every program that the government funds will have voters receiving those funds. Eventually you reach a point where the math just doesn't work anymore, where, in Margaret Thatcher's memorable phrase, "you run out of other people's money." If the public says "don't raise tax rates on anyone other than the rich AND don't cut Social Security AND don't cut Medicare" - well, guess what? That simply doesn't work as public policy, and the public's got to be educated and enlightened or imperiled.

Or ignored.

I'm not suggesting ignoring, because the will of the people matters. But if the will of the people is for an unachievable combination of programs that can't be sustained, the will of the people is going to be thwarted, one way or another. Right now, the people can't have all of what they say they want, and the longer we go before that's made clear and the problem is addressed, the more painful the eventual reality is going to be.

If you ask people what they're looking for in a car, you'll get a long list, including things like safety, style, fuel economy, price, acceleration, towing capability, loading capabilities and the like. But people seem to understand that they can't have all of them. There are trade-offs to be made. If you want spectacular fuel efficiency, you're not going to be able to tow your boat to the lake. If you want a lower price, you're not going to have a super sports-car.

There are trade-offs that have to be made at the national level, too. If we want a cradle-to-grave welfare system, guess what? It has to be paid for. And there's not enough money in the pockets of the "rich" to pay for it all. So poll results like the above CNN poll are not useful. They're not helpful. They offer a bunch of a la carte options that people can't actually simultaneously get. They present "or" choices as "ands." You can have a cradle-to-grave welfare state which provides all things for all people OR you can have low middle class tax rates and economic freedom. One or the other. Not both. The math doesn't work.

One of the reasons that approval ratings are so low for politicians right now is that the government has built a power-structure which rewards short-term thinking and behavior that damages the country. But another reason is that we, as a society, have been told for the last forty-plus years that we can have everything. We can have food, housing, clothing, education, retirement, all at someone else's expense.

The real world doesn't work that way. And the bill's coming due...

Meltdown

Allahpundit:

The Democrats’ strategy, led by President Present, is to sit back and let the tea party bleed some of its popularity on an aggressive “tough choices” agenda and the occasional serendipitous (for Democrats) political overreach. That way, when the real battle finally begins over entitlements, independents will be more suspicious of the tea-party brand than they were before. It’s a gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy given the magnitude of our spending problem, but it’s not stupid. It may have worked to some extent here.

Let me just say this - if the American electorate lets them get away with this gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy, then that electorate deserves the economic catastrophe that results.

I haven't read any Heinlein, but I love this quote, and it's been circulating a lot recently. For good reason.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

In many ways, the worst excesses of Rand's looters are being played out before our eyes...

Public Policy Polling: Obama a big drag

Public Policy Polling: Obama a big drag

If this election is a referendum on Barack Obama then o boy are Democrats in trouble. In our final round of 18 polls we found the President with a positive approval rating among likely voters in only 1 state- Connecticut. Even there only 46% of voters expressed support for the job he's doing. He's slightly under water in some of the bluest states out there- California, Washington, even his home state of Illinois.

As Ace said, "well, duh."

But this part of the analysis is preposterous.

There's a lot of good Democrats tonight- both incumbents and challengers- who are going to lose and it won't be because of anything they did wrong. It's just hard to overcome an incumbent President of your party being so unpopular with the people most motivated to vote.

Did those "good Democrats" vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker or Harry Reid for Majority Leader? Yes, they did.
Did those "good Democrats" vote for the stimulus bill? Yes, they did.
Did those "good Democrats" vote for Obamacare? Yes, they did.
Did those "good Democrats" go along with the reconciliation farce to force the Obamacare monstrosity through? Yes, they did.
Did they support the "Lousiana Purchase" and the "Cornhusker kickback"?  Yes, they did.

So why in God's name would someone say that they're going to lose and "it won't be because of anything they did wrong"? There's not a one of them for whom I feel a shred of sympathy. They're going to lose precisely because they've done everything wrong.

What's next?

Good news for the GOP from CBS, of all places:

A CBS News poll released Wednesday finds that nearly two in three Americans want Republicans in Congress to continue to challenge parts of the health care reform bill...62 percent want Congressional Republicans to keep challenging the bill, while 33 percent say they should not do so. Nearly nine in ten Republicans and two in three independents want the GOP to keep challenging. Even 41 percent of Democrats support continued challenges.

Of course, the big issue isn't how people feel now - it's, "how are people going to feel in November?" I wish the election were today, but it isn't. And there's a lot of time for events to alter the landscape between now and then.


Frankly, the pitch cannot be kept this high for the entirety of the next eight months, and it would be a mistake to try. They need to keep fighting it without being hysterical every day. This is a time for grim resolve as opposed to harsh rhetoric. There's been a time for that (and Lord knows that I've indulged) but people will tune that out shortly, and it would be a mistake to try to continue it. There will be a time to ramp it back up after Labor Day, but for now, working the courts and continuing to make the case that it's a mistake are the things that need to be done.

Obama Underwater

Remember the talk of political realignment? The way in which Barack Obama's election was indicative of a transition from a center-right to a center-left country, a country with a permanent Democratic majority?

Never mind...

Barack Obama now has a negative approval rating in every state he flipped from the Bush column to his in 2008. In each of those places his level of support is now in the 44-46% range.

Calling Joe Klein - more shocking polling news!

Calling Joe Klein! There's some bad news in the latest CBS/NY Times poll - more evidence for Klein's contention that the electorate towards which he condescends is made up of ungrateful dodos...

When it comes to job creation, just 6% say the stimulus package has created jobs, but another 41% expect it will do so. 48% think it won’t. These views have not changed much in recent months, but optimism about the impact of the stimulus package was much higher last summer.

STIMULUS PACKAGE AND JOBS

	Now	12/1/2009	7/1/2009
Has created jobs	6%	6%	4%
Has not, but will create jobs	41	44	53
Will not create jobs	48	45	41

So we're 11 months in, and 94% of the people in a CBS News/NY Times poll think that the stimulus hasn't created any jobs. They're right, of course. At least, it hasn't created any net jobs, which is the intent of the question.

But hey, maybe if Joe writes another column explaining to everyone how Obama'a creating jobs left and right with that stimulus, they can eventually get that up to 7%...

"It's just a flesh wound!"

White House Spokesmoronperson Robert Gibbs was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this morning. If the first step to finding a solution is recognizing that you've got a problem, then this suggests that Obama White House is not yet headed anywhere near the right direction...

WALLACE: Scott Brown explicitly campaigned against the — campaigned against the Obama agenda.

GIBBS: That may be what he campaigned on but that's not why the voters of Massachusetts sent him to Washington. If you look at exit poll, done by the ""Washington Post"" —

WALLACE: It wasn't an exit poll. They did a poll.

GIBBS: Poll where voters participated to why they voted. More people voted to express support for Obama than to oppose him. His approval rating among the electorate was 61%. The enthusiasm for Republican policies among that electorate was for republicans 40%

I don't know what poll he's talking about, but I'm in Massachusetts, talking to people, and the idea that this election produced anything other than a "stop-Obamacare" result is delusional. Seriously, dementedly delusional...

The will of the people vs. the won't of the Speaker

Gallup finds that:

In the wake of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Tuesday's U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, the majority of Americans (55%) favor Congress' putting the brakes on its current healthcare reform efforts and considering alternatives that can obtain more Republican support. Four in 10 Americans (39%) would rather have House and Senate Democrats continue to try to pass the bill currently being negotiated in conference committee.

But Nancy Pelosi's running around like Miracle Max (albeit looking slightly older) with her fingers in her ears crying, "I'm not listening! I'm not listening!"

Circumstantial evidence, piling up...

I've said that everything that's happened since the middle of last week has boded well for Scott Brown and ill for Martha Coakley. There haven't been any contrary indicators - everything's pointed to a Brown win. Everything.

Just about every election night, Republican pollster Frank Luntz assembles a focus group of likely voters to help predict election results. Tonight you can see Luntz interview an assembly of Massachusetts voters on Fox at 9:10 p.m. EST.

But you probably won’t see all the work that went into it. As of late this afternoon, Luntz was still scrambling to balance his focus group with supporters of Democrat Martha Coakley. “I just lost another one,” Luntz growled over his cell phone from a hotel ballroom at Logan Airport. In the last 24 hours, six Coakley voters have dropped out. By contrast, Luntz hasn’t lost a single supporter of her opponent, Scott Brown.
...

Instead, says Luntz, they’re ashamed. “They don’t want to be on television defending Martha Coakley. It’s passé. It’s socially unacceptable. I never dreamed I’d see Democrats in Massachusetts embarrassed to admit they’re Democrats.”

In all his years of running focus groups, Luntz remembers only a single other experience like this one. It was January of 2004, in Iowa....“All my Dean people quit two days out,” he remembers...It all comes back to Luntz now as he works to find bodies willing to represent Martha Coakley. “This is definition of collapse,” he says.

Polls close in 1 hour and 22 minutes...

More "where we stand" the day before the special election

Stu Rothenberg:

While special elections often come down to turnout – and they therefore are more difficult to predict than normal elections – the combination of public and private survey research and anecdotal information now strongly suggests that Republican Scott Brown will defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in tomorrow’s race to fill the remainder of the late-Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat.

Brown is running extremely well with Independents in the Bay State, and unless Democratic turnout exceeds everyone’s expectations, Brown is headed for a comfortable win. Move from Toss-Up to Lean Takeover.

Geraghty:

We're reaching the surreal point where if Coakley wins, it might be a huge upset. Rothenberg nudges his assessment one more notch over, to "Lean Takeover" (a Brown win) and apparently this morning, a pollster from Suffolk University appeared on MSNBC, saying he had surveyed three bellwether communities across Massachusetts last night. All three showed a double-digit lead for Scott Brown.

It's not over until it's over. It's not over until it's over. It's not over until it's over.

But there's nothing - NOTHING - visible right now to suggest that Brown doesn't win tomorrow, outside the margin of fraud.

PPP: Brown 51, Coakley 46

Public Policy Polling:

Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 51-46 in our final Massachusetts Senate poll, an advantage that is within the margin of error for the poll.

Over the last week Brown has continued his dominance with independents and increased his ability to win over Obama voters as Coakley's favorability numbers have declined into negative territory.

Not over. Not over until tomorrow night. Still 36 hours for this to be won or stolen.

"...things could get rough and unpleasant..."

One week ago today, I said, in response to the news that a poll had Scott Brown one point up on Martha Coakley,

The big concern is that this kind of news will wake up the machine...No one cares about Coakley, but as the national Dems awaken to the possibility of losing "Ted's seat" before health care reform passes, things could get rough and unpleasant here...

Since then, we've had the assault on Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack, Ed Schultz' suggestion that election fraud would be just dandy, Bob Kerrey's accusation that Scott Brown doesn't believe in evolution and the Democrats' mailer saying he doesn't want medical care for rape victims.

In other words, the machine woke up, and they are doing whatever they can, regardless of the truth of any accusation, to destroy Scott Brown. It's gotten very rough and unpleasant.

As I predicted it would a week ago...

Coakley internal poll: Brown by two

Steve Kornacki has the latest internal Coakley poll, and apparently the Coakley campaign still has Brown up by two points...

Prediction: Brown wins

Last night, my kids asked who I thought was going to win the special election for the Senate seat in Massachusetts on Tuesday and I said, for the first time, that I thought that Scott Brown, absent some significant race-altering event, was going to hold on and win.

Now, for the first time, people investing real money at intrade also think that Brown's going to win.

It's not over yet, but we're now looking at five different polls over the past three days (Suffolk, ARG, CrossTarget, and the internal polls for both campaigns), and all five have Brown in front, with no indicators of any kind that his momentum has slowed. It's hard to imagine, about 75 hours out from the polls closing, what could happen that could change the dynamics of the race enough to save Coakley.