Wednesday is the first presidential debate. It is widely viewed as Romney's last chance. If he is judged to do well--a judgment that the media will probably solidify by the end of Thursday--then the contest between Romney and President Obama becomes more tightly engaged.
If he is judged to have done not well enough, then the campaign changes in a different way: while the GOPers fight among themselves over whose fault Romney is, the Romney donors find other things to do with their millions. The Obama team probably won't risk expanding the content (the issues, themes) of the campaign, but they may very well expand the playing field, by going into states that might be newly in play, and/or into states where they can help other Democratic candidates.
How well must Romney do? There is no answer to that question that doesn't involve guessing the judgments that media will make, at least until the first polls undercut them (if they do.) The usual reaction, as I've noted here and as others said on Friday, is if Romney does okay, there will be a big temptation to declare him back on track, the winner, etc. "We're about a week away from the Mitt Romney comeback - or at least the Mitt Romney comeback story," writes Rick Klein. " The race can't be over yet because it's not over yet, and Romney is primed to be the beneficiary of that dynamic."
On the other hand, a bunch of pundits are on the record saying that Romney is so fundamentally screwed that only a clear victory (meaning a Romney transformation, and an Obama collapse) can alter the dynamic.
Well then, what could Romney possibly do? There are the usual prescriptions, typically obvious and unconvincing. But there is this--a description by Slate's Kara Brandeisky of how Romney won the governor's race in Massachusetts: "In his gubernatorial race in 2002, Romney was trailing his Democratic opponent Shannon O’Brien by 6 to 12 points in mid-October. His own polling had him 10 points behind. Romney was losing among women by 18 points... But with four weeks to go, Romney hit O’Brien with ads attacking her for $7 billion in state pension fund losses, with images of a watchdog sleeping on the job. On Nov. 5, he became Massachusetts’ Comeback Kid and won the election by 5 percent."
Does Romney have a new attack up his sleeve, with a huge ad campaign ready to go for October? A long-planned October Surprise would explain his general lethargy and apparent disinterest in doing anything but raising money, and his characterizing late September polls as "early."
If he has such an out of left field attack primed and ready, the place to introduce it would be at the first debate. To catch President Obama totally by surprise. (Of course if it is a lame and desperate charge, allowing Obama to shoot it down immediately wouldn't be helpful.) But right now that possibility seems the last gasp for the Romney campaign.
In voter suppression and registration news: The PA judge holding the fate of the Commonwealth's voter suppression ID law said on Thursday that he wasn't going to be issuing an injunction today. But signs are still good that by Tuesday, he will. Since he's following the state Supreme Court's instruction, I don't see how an appeal is even possible if he does.
But the big story on the voter fraud front is just beginning: fraud in Florida conducted by a company working for the Republican party in that state and other battleground states, as well as the RNC. It started in one county of Florida and now involves nine or ten. Falsifying GOPer registrations is the charge. Stay tuned for this getting bigger next week.
And while Florida had successfully stifled voter registration drives, the Obama campaign has been very successful in registering new voters in North Carolina. They've registered a quarter of a million new voters in a state that Obama won in 2008 by 14,000 votes.
The next poll I'm really interested in seeing is the Massachusetts Senate race. Scott Brown seems to have risked everything with his racist attack on Elizabeth Warren--he's refused to apologize in response to the Cherokee Nation statement and he's released a second attack ad. The next debate is Monday. How has this attack affected the race? My feeling for that particular Commonwealth is based on my residence many years ago now, but while I recognize completely the smug and vicious racism that existed in certain Boston neighborhoods (and Cambridge households) more strongly than any place else I've personally encountered, I can't believe that the state as a whole is going to respond well to Brown now.
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