Pieces like this one are why Rush drives many liberals to distraction.
Back in 1980, there were cautious voices in the Conservative media (which consisted of National Review and Paul Harvey) expressing optimism for the upcoming election. One of them (I remember distinctly) was Grover Norquist, long before he picked up his current baggage. Norquist was very upbeat about RR’s chances, never wavered, and turned out to be right.
Todays Conservative Media is two or more orders of magnitude more powerful than it was back then, and the influence of the MSM punditry has lost much of its power.
That said, I’m not confident because I’m not confident in Romney. Why won’t he fight? President Lincoln had to go through a whole posse of generals before he found one that would fight. We only get to go through one general every four years. McCain wouldn’t fight. So far Romney is not showing me a single thing.
By this time in 1980, Reagan had already drawn Carter’s blood. Romney’s playing pitty-pat.
They had Reagan loosing until the Sunday before the election...lot easier to fudge the polls back then....the msn was in control
"Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we're as strong as we were four years ago? And if you answer all of those questions 'yes', why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to whom you will vote for. If you don't agree, if you don't think that this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have."
That broke the dam by fulfilling the second requirement of the Incumbent Rule, and the Undecideds broke for Reagan like a tidal wave. Both Caddell and Powell have claimed that they broke the news to Carter the weekend before the election that he was going to lose -- badly.