Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Republican fantasy world continues unabated

Charlie Cook:

Leading Democratic and Republican pollsters and strategists privately say that the Obama lead is around 4 or 5 points and is neither widening nor narrowing. The convention bounces have dissipated, but Romney's negatives remain quite high and are not diminishing. In the Gallup three-week super-samples'almost 10,000 interviews'the percentage of Democrats saying that they will definitely vote has moved up to the point that it is now virtually tied with Republicans...

Again, this election isn't over and could still change. But there are no signs that it is changing today.

Jamelle Bouie:

There isn't much time left in the election, and we're reaching the point where polls become highly predictive'as Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien note in The Timeline of Presidential Elections, the candidate who leads at this point in the race almost always goes on to win on election day. Barring a major exogenous event'like economic collapse in Europe'Romney faces extremely long odds for the White House

Greg Sargent:

Obama pollster rips Romney camp's version of electorate as a`fantasy'

The Romney campaign is joining the ranks of supporters who have decided that major national polls show Romney losing only because the samples are overly weighted with Dems. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse insists that public polling averages are 'skewed,' and that the 2012 electorate will not show the same minority and Dem base composition as the 2008 one did.

But in an interview with me, Obama campaign pollster Joel Benenson mocked the idea that the electorate will diverge meaningfully from that of 2008 as as delusional.

'The notion that this electorate isn't going to be as diverse as it was is frankly a fantasy,' Benenson said.

Ed Kilgore:

There are really only three ways to deal with all the evidence that Obama is ahead with time beginning to run out: (1) blame it on a bad Romney campaign; (2) argue some 1980-style 'big shift' to Romney is inevitable and perhaps already baked into the cake; or (3) just deny it all on grounds most of the pollsters are wrong, biased or both.

Who knew Jennifer Rubin would have to compete for crazy?

There's a website called http://t.co/... it's a compilation of existing polls but re-weights them. When re-weighted @MittRomney leads.
' @DickMorrisTweet via HootSuite
dick morris wtf -bo
' @SimonMaloy via web
I'm seeing evidence of a strong trend in favor of @MittRomney around the country, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania. #RomneyRyan2012
' @DickMorrisTweet via HootSuite
@jmartpolitico dick Morris: "I see dead people"
' @matthewjdowd via Twitter for iPhone
MT @DickMorrisTweet People are loving these new NFL refs. I'm predicting they stay on all season.
' @LOLGOP via TweetDeck
Alec MacGillis:

It's worth stepping back to consider how remarkable this state of affairs is.  Since Barack Obama started running for president, Ohio was supposed to be his Achilles heel. It has lots of those dread white working-class voters ' in fact, it's one of only a few states in the country that demographers say saw its share of whites without a college degree increase since 2008. Part of the state lies in Appalachian coal country, where Obama is roundly blamed for the mining decline. The state has a Republican governor, John Kasich, who should be helping Romney as much as Ted Strickland boosted Obama in 2008. Obama's emphasis on social issues earlier this year ' especially gay marriage ' was deemed so unsuited to Ohio that one veteran TNR contributor argued that he was effectively choosing a non-Ohio path to reelection.

So what gives? No one can say conclusively. But I've been to Ohio on three reporting trips in the past six months, and wrote a big piece on the state's political landscape in May, and have my theories. Here are a half-dozen reasons for Obama's strong standing in the state, in no particular order:

Steve Lombardo:

The problem for the Romney campaign is that the president's lead in several of those states is slowly moving beyond the margin of error. If the current trajectory continues, we may have to move three or four of those states into the "lean Obama" column within the next week. With just 42 days to go before Election Day, this is Barack Obama's race to lose.

ICYMI: Ralph Reed's Group Compares Obama Policies to Nazi Germany. (And says Obama has "Communist beliefs.") Really. http://t.co/...
' @DavidCornDC via web
Stephen Dworkin:

More recently, the Romney ticket has attacked renewable energy and defended increased fossil fuel production. And, in what was perhaps his most widely viewed anti-climate spectacle, governor Romney's speech at the Republican National Convention mocked President Obama's stated commitment to mitigate the effects of climate change.

But Romney's policy positions, sponsored by the oil, coal, and gas lobbies, do not carry nearly as much ideological and philosophical significance as those of his vice presidential pick, Paul Ryan. When Ryan was chosen as Romney's running mate, environmental journalists quickly set about examining his record on environmental issues. Although Ryan is a self-described 'avid outdoorsman,' he has an abysmal voting record on protecting the outdoors.