Swirling news, aggressive campaign tactics, and lots of polls don’t — and won’t — change the basics:
- Neither Chicago nor Boston expects either candidate to establish a meaningful lead anytime soon, if ever.
- Neither side has expanded its electoral college map — yet.
- Chicago needs to disqualify Romney to win.
- Neither candidate is talking about the hard choices required to deal with the Fiscal Cliff — yet.
- No campaign is ever truly happy with the content of outside group TV advertising.
- Neither candidate/campaign has a warm-and-fuzzy relationship with the congressional wing of its party. It isn’t quite “every person for her/himself,” but it is close.
- Obama and Romney spend an enormous amount of their time fundraising.
- If you follow the campaign on cable TV, talk radio, Twitter, and blogs, you would think Americans are the angriest and most partisan people in the history of the universe.
- Most of the voters who will decide this election aren’t paying much attention to politics right now.
- Romney’s chances of winning are highly dependent on how well he executes his VP pick, convention speech, and the debates.
