But no, as before I was saying those early polling leads were irrelevant. As the race tightened nationally, it would tighten in the swing states. That's what's happened.
I love your optimism, but you're a complete fantasist. There is no path to an Obama landslide, save Romney and Ryan getting caught spit-roasting an altar boy on a taxpayer-funded holiday to Cuba.
Romney didn't look like a great debater in the primary, but he's competent. The medicare stuff is too complex for anyone to understand, he'll talk about stopping the ACA cuts to medicare and Obama will try to explain that those cuts are wasted overpayments to private companies, and amid all the yawns it will be a wash. He will talk about cutting taxes, which is never a very tough sell, and when it comes to the rich he'll bang on about the American dream and 'job creators', and as usual a lot of people will buy it.
Obama ran a really impressive campaign last time out, not only did he cut an impressive figure but, from what I read, had a team that did a fantastic job of getting people out to vote. I was registered to vote by one of the people his contribution money sent door to door, for example, something I'd never experienced before.
Of course for many Obama has failed to cash in on the capital he had to create real change in Washington, but I expect he'll run a campaign, 'on the ground' as they call it, that will be just as effective as Romney's.
As far as the political fight, it seems Obama hasn't even warmed up yet. All the talk has been about Romney, for good or for bad. Once Obama starts to focus on what he want to accomplish in his 2nd term rather than what's wrong with Romney then I think we'll see the numbers going back in his direction.
Romney can come back and win a fair portion of the States where he's within a few percentage points, I just don't think he can get enough to win the election.
Here's the likely vote break down at the moment, Romney would do very well to hold onto Florida and Carolina, taking the 45 more votes he'd need to win from the list of Obama probables is hard to see, interestingly the 4 states where Obama's lead is the smallest (Michigan, Virginia, Colorado and Iowa) add up to 44 votes and a tie. In which case the House of Representatives each cast 1 vote and unless the Democrats do very well this term Romney would win. I'd say that's Romney's best chance, but winning Michigan and Virginia (and Colorado and Iowa) while holding onto Florida and North Carolina is quite a challenge. I still wouldn't say that's more than about 30% likely.
538 total votes, 270 to win:
Solid Obama: 221 [CA, OR, WA, NM, MN, NY, PA, DC, MD, DE, NJ, CT, RI, MA, VT, HI, IL, ME]
Solid Romney: 181 [AZ, UT, ID, WY, ND, SD, NE, KS, TX, OK, LA, AR, MS, AL, TN, KY, GA, SC, WV, AK, MT]
Obama [82 votes, needs 49 to win]
Colorado: +0.9% (9)
Iowa: 1.8 (6)
Virginia: 2.5 (13)
Michigan: 3.1 (16)
Ohio: 3.2 (18)
Wisconsin: 3.3 (10)
Nevada: 3.8 (6)
New Hampshire: 4.6 (4)
[54 votes, needs 89 to win]
North Carolina: +0.1 (15)
Florida: 1.9 (29)
Missouri: 4.2 (10)
All %s are current polling averages from 538.
