[EternalVigilance]

If the Independents and conservative Republicans will support me in CA, Barack Obama will lose the presidency. He can’t win without those 55 electoral votes.

I’m the only conservative running there. The Left is split five ways.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2931555/posts

[Reily]

No he can not!
Only if he wins it in sufficient electoral vote rich states and loses it astronomically in others so the current averages (if the hold!) work out. I see that as highly unlikely.

[Viennacon]

In a word. No

[faithhopecharity]

The country is being shoved right down the sewer.
R+R should win in a landslide!

[Parley Baer]

The problem with the Real Clear politics poll average is that it includes the outlandish polls put out by the msm and others. That skews the results. One CNN poll only had 4% independents as an example.

[jocon307]

I read this over at Hot Air and I was surprised to see it had ever happened.

I doubt it could happen this time, though. I think the REpublican base is MUCH more motivated than the Dems, and Rs vote more reliably then Ds to begin with.

If the Rs turn out for Romney and he wins the Is, I find it hard to think he could lose. Now, I know it is all about the electoral college, but I have to think the swing states are swing states for a reason, and part of that must be pretty much party parity/lots of Is.

[OrangeHoof]

We keep hearing about how polarized the electorate is. If so, there should be a lot fewer true independents (ones who are not uberliberal or uberconservative). They may only be 10-15% of the electorate and I suspect many of those who would still vote are women who think it's their civic duty to vote but not their civic duty to be informed about the candidates. I'd say 2/3rds of them probably break with the Democrats because what information they do get is likely to be from the heavily-slanted mainstream media.

What I'm trying to say is that the indy vote may not be as important as turning out the base. Here, I see the GOP with a big advantage although it would be bigger still if they had a candidate they were more confident would do their bidding if elected.