Polling suggests that the idea of "Mittmentum" in the final stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign is not so extremely accurate. It helps Team Romney, which explains why they keep pushing it, and it helps the media -- which explains why I heard George Stephanopolous speak breathlessly of Mitt's "momentum" this morning.
But the fact is that this "Mittmentum" meme is failing to catch fire with the people who matter -- the voters. As Team Romney and the press try to convince everyone that voters are shifting to Romney in droves, voters are failing to shift to Romney in droves. At this point, "Mittmentum" backers have got to start feeling a little desperate. It really is now or never for this wholly invented narrative to start coming to life.
But joining every other pollster in the world is Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal, who points out that -- for a race supposedly containing some momentum -- things sure look pretty boring and static out there.
"The overall standings produced by the aggregation of all of the public polls in the battleground states have been essentially unchanged for nearly three weeks," he writes. "Although the margins have closed since the first debate and remain very close, Obama holds advantages of 2 percentage points or better in four states -- Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin -- that would combine with those favoring him by larger margins to give him 277 electoral votes, 7 more than needed for victory."
OK, so polling that's been "essentially unchanged for nearly three weeks" does not suggest anyone has any of this "momentum" stuff. In fact, it suggests that the race has been essentially over for three weeks and that Barack Obama has won. We're now in a holding pattern awaiting election day and hoping one of the engines doesn't quit or something. But barring that, it's pretty much over. It's a little more than a week to the election, there are like five undecided voters left in the country... Nothing left to do but sit on the edge of the bed and try not to wrinkle your suit while you wait for your big election night date.
Of course, none of this happens if everyone doesn't get out and vote (assuming you haven't already), but I'm guessing people reading this are smart enough to know that already. Get out and vote -- do it early if that's more convenient -- but don't waste a lot of time planning Romney victory parties. Just make sure everyone gets out to vote.
It's Get Out The Vote time people, because it looks like the persuasion round is over.
