by Benjamin J. Kirby
I've been largely quiet on the issue of abortion, mostly because who in the hell knew which way Romney would go on it. But his statement today that there is "no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda" completes his throwing of his base -- which he spent the better part of a year-plus trying like hell to cultivate -- entirely under the bus.
Seriously, Fehrnstrom wasn't kidding about re-setting Romney like "an Etch-a-Sketch."
Remember this: "I'm running as a conservative Republican, I was a conservative Republican governor, I'll be running as a conservative Republican." The severe Republican.
Or whatever.
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I've been monitoring the polling in a number of places, always starting with PollTracker at Talking Points Memo. They now have Romney leading nationally by +2.4 in the popular vote, but still losing in the Electoral College, 270 to 206. I would note that on the PollTracker page, Obama had fluctuated going well into the three-hundreds on the electoral vote counter, but Romney couldn't seem to bust out of 191.
He obviously has now.
Here in Florida, it's a straight-up tie. I think that tells you a lot about where things really are nationally. People are giving Romney a second look.
What's more, the air war is really heating up. Ads from both sides are starting to reach saturation levels. This is happening fairly early, by the way. We still have several weeks to go, and already people are fed up with the ads. What will be the strategy from either side to keep people going, keep people engaged in the conversation and not turn folks off in the next twenty-seven or so days?
The ground game matters now, too. People are already voting in a number of states. Voter registration just closed here in Florida, where many folks -- like me -- already have their mail-in ballot. I know a bunch of folks who have already voted. (Duncan and I will tonight or tomorrow).
If you're frustrated about Obama's debate performance, or wondering why a guy as lame as Mitt Romney has surged at all, for crying out loud, don't complain about it: get out and do something. Go walk some neighborhoods for Obama. Make some phone calls. Donate some cash.
The way we get to real change is not by complaining (or blogging like an idiot, like me) -- it's by suiting up and going to work.
Go campaign. You'll love it.
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Just a quick administrative update: I've been using the Typepad platform for a long time, here. Actually, for the full six-plus years. It's served me fairly well, and has only ever eaten a handful of the Greatest Blog Posts Ever Written.
I have been investigating different platforms for some time, now, and I think I'm ready to make a move.
I'm probably going to migrate everything over to Wordpress at some point, after the election for sure.
I want to do more with my fiction writing, so I need a better home for that, rather than just a whole separate blog. I also want to give my contributors a better space, too.
I'm thinking about this theme -- what do you think?
Well, I'll give you the heads-up before I make the change (which, FYI, isn't cheap, and may take a bit of technical work on the back end; what I don't want to do is lose a lot of stuff I've spent six-plus years writing...)
Thanks, as always, for reading.
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I know I usually do videos for almost Friday and finally Friday, but I love this song, and I figured you could use the inspiration.
Now go out and walk a neighborhood for Obama, or your candidate of choice.
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