No, undecideds don't use the Internet. I have a dear friend who owns a small business that has suffered these last few years. He voted for Obama last time, but when I ask him this time who he'll vote for he says he doesn't know. My friends and I try and persuade him with facts we've come across on ricochet, NR, et al., but he begins by questioning where we are hearing this because it isn't in the papers or his oracle for truth, 60 Minutes. I find myself agreeing w/ Rob Long when he talks about undecideds wanting more details. No they don't or they'd seek them out. They can't be bothered w/ looking into details. They'll make snap decision in the booth.

That's encouraging.  If you can help deliver Florida & I do what I can here in Ohio, we might just win this thing yet.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Congratulations! I usually miss it due to work, but have bought every episode on my kindle watch it over the weekend. Here's to many more seasons & nice royalty checks with reruns!

I don't think we've lost her quite yet.  I think this election could be our last shot though.  We are right at that breaking point Hinderaker references about a majority of people voting themselves the wealth of the minority.  We're almost there.

I think the stakes in this election can be best summed up in Lincolnian terms: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."

John, that picture there says it all about coal workers' sentiments here in Ohio.  We also have a burgeoning shale industry in the same area that Obama & his EPA are trying to stop.  I don't doubt those areas will go red this time.  They often do in presidential races, but not enough to off set Cleveland/Youngstown/Columbus vote.

Mona & Lucy, I have family in VA's coal region who voted for Obama last time, but are seriously regretting their votes because my uncle - who is in the coal industry - has seen his business seriously hurt. (I still can't understand how they could vote for men who readily claimed there is no such thing as clean coal or stated they wanted to shut down the coal industry, but I digress.)

Is there enough disatisfaction or more importantly disastisfied voters in Virginia's coal country to offset the vote of the swarms of bureaucrats whose livelihoods depend on Obama's reelection?

Keith, your absolutely right about Bush Cheney '04 GOTV efforts here in the Buckeye State. Romney camp has sort of had a dry run on GOTV here in OH thanks to Portman & his apparatus, especially in Cincinnati area. Romney won the primary in OH due in no small part to Portman and his well established political operation to turnout the vote for Mitt. Fully expect same political machine to swing into a full court press along w Boehner's just north of Cincinnati. 

Rob, many thanks for the warm welcome from you & all the Ricochetti.

ConservativeMercenary, you're absolutely right.  Romney essentially has to make the pitch that Ohio's recovery is not because of Obama, but in spite of it.  

If things continue to remain tight here in Ohio up through election day, watch the voter turnout in SW Ohio precincts - specifically Green & Anderson Twps. in Hamilton Co. as well as Butler Co.  In 2004 these key conservative areas had turnout of 90 & 95%.  In 2008 these same precincts had just 70-80% turnout.    These areas are Portman & Boehner's respective home bases.  Both men are using their political operations to turn out the vote in these key areas.

As I mentioned over on another post, there are encouraging signs on the ground here in Ohio. For the past month or so the group I work for has been making voter ID calls targeting undecided voters in the state and the results are encouraging. Among those likely undecided voters who have taken the survey, 56.26% of them feel that President Obama has negatively impacted the economy with just 21.8% agreeing that the president has helped the economy.

Can't believe Gallup.  For all we know, Axelrod strong-armed them into better poll numbers again.

Plouffe is already lowering expectations saying:

"We come out of the convention with momentum. That doesn't mean the race is going to change significantly. But we think that we come out of here with some momentum in terms of putting together the electoral picture."

Our belief is we entered the convention with a small but important lead in most of those battleground states. We'll see where we are at the end of next week, let's say. But our suspicion is the race is going to be about where it was."

As for Gallup, maybe Axelrod strong-armed them into manufacturing a bounce.