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Good analysis. Thanks.

Losing Florida is losing the election. Romney must defend Florida if he wants to win.

Ohio, like you say could be replaced with Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, but Romney is much closer in Ohio than in those others. IOW, he gets more bang for the buck by spending in Ohio.

He hasn’t been blanketing the airwaves here, so I imagine he’s spending elsewhere or he’s still hoarding his money. I think it’s hoarding, and I think he’s going with a “hail mary strategy” and unleashing everything he’s got the last one or 2 weeks.

JMHO.

(And, of course, we haven’t discussed the so-called debates. They could be gamechangers if either candidate stumbles badly and obviously.)

Losing Florida is losing the election. Romney must defend Florida if he wants to win.

Exactly. The minute Florida is called for Obama is game/set/match. While mathematically there are some far-fetched workarounds to losing Virginia or Ohio, there is no chance Romney wins without Florida. He'll be giving his concession speech before polls close in Colorado. And I wouldn't bank on Pennsylvania or Michigan. At this point, they're settling into their familiar, comfortable place on the floor of the democrat plantation.

Agreed.

If Romney wins Pennsylvania he will certainly win Ohio but he might easily win Ohio without Pennsylvania. It is conceivable that Romney could win Pennsylvania and lose Virginia, if Romney can make an issue of energy which he has unaccountably failed properly to do.

I fear you might be right about the Hail Mary strategy I believe it would be a terrible mistake. It is very difficult to change people's minds to reverse their opinions after they are formed, especially if they have expressed their opinions publicly. It is much easier and therefore much cheaper to win the contest in the first place.

It seems there are two ways to view the debates. Normally, the challenger who is on the right side of all the data need only look presidential in order to win the debate because the undecideds are auditioning the challenger to fill the role of commander-in-chief, they having already decided the incumbent should not be returned if a viable alternative can be found.

Second, if Romney, however, enters the debates behind he will be under tremendous pressure to win in order to restore his campaign and that will be almost impossible because the media will make it impossible. The narrative will be that he has lost.

A Romney Hail Mary strategy really only describes electronic media. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, early voting is a huge part of this election. Most accounts describe a very well funded and staffed Romney ground game in important battleground states (and then some.) A lot of votes will be turned out long before the mass of adds run mid October. Most of the early votes for both sides don’t come from people who are swayed one way or another by ads. They are turnout votes. People who will definitely vote GOP or definitely RAT. I think it’s going to be an easier year for us to get our turnout voters than Obama. Ground games cost real, hard money. Romney has lots. The rats rely on the unions. Unions are hurting and less popular (i.e. Wisconsin Recall). The right has tea parties and groups like AFP to help with turnout/registration. Our ground game is more formidable than ever before. I smell a landslide.