[credit: Joseph Heller, Green Bay Press-Gazette]
More: Saturday, Mitt Romney announced the addition of right extremist Paul Ryan to the ticket. The tactics behind the choice is that it will shore up support from the Repugnant base which, incredibly, view the Massachusetts plutocrat Romney as suspiciously "liberal". The Obamanation will no doubt be pleased with a vice-presidental choice who actually has a legislative record they can run against: a low-tax, anti-government, anti-environment, Koch Bros. approved, Ayn Rand-reading corporatist. The latest political odd couple are off to the battleground state of Wisconsin, scene of a Koch-funded triumph against un-American, lazy unionists who were insulting enough to ask for more.{12.08.12}What else can the right-wing talk about when their candidate is doing a great imitation of a reactor meltdown? Certainly not the fact that the ten most profitable corporations doing business in America paid a tax rate of just 9%! The respected Pew Center for public opinion released a survey showing Mitt Romney's negative factors increasing. Only 37% of Americans view him favorably compared to 41% in June. The race is seen as relatively stable among various voting blocks. Whites go with Romney while minorities pick Obama as do women by a wide margin. Men are split equally, but young people still support Obama by a wide margin. Another poll by the Washington Post and ABC News shows Obama still ahead of his challenger with an approval/disapproval rating of 53%/43%.
That said, the election is far from over. Polling in individual swing states show a tight race in Colorado and Virginia, with Obama leading in Wisconsin, but not by the double digit margin he won there in 2008. His support among white males in these three states is slipping because of the economy. Romney is also doing better with women in Colorado, where he holds a five point advantage overall and within the poll's margin of error. At the end of the day the only vote totals that count are in the Electoral College, thus the swing states and their respective electoral votes are the key to winning the national election.