Comments?
I am neither of those esteemed FReepers, but I will chime in, anyway. :)
Ohio is losing population, and the largest drains are from Lucas and Cuyahoga counties, both heavily Democratic. Cuyahoga alone has lost over 400,000 registered voters since 2008 (likely 80% of them Democrats), partly because of population decrease, partly because our Secretary of State has weeded out thousands of dead and fraudulent registrations (in part a legacy of the ACORN registration drives of 2008). Cuyahoga is the key to a win for Romney; if he can hold down Obama's margins there, he will carry Ohio.
The other factor is the real-time data provided by the absentee ballot requests so far this cycle. There have been 220,000 fewer Democrat requests and 30,000 more Republican requests, a swing of 250,000 in favor of the GOP since 2008. That does not count unaffiliated requests, which, if the current polling showing Romney was ahead in Independent voters is correct, should lean towards Romney.
The Republican vote on Election Day will swamp the Democrat vote for people who vote on Election Day (by as much as ten points), so it is possible that Romney has already won Ohio - we just need to turn out our voters on Election Day, and it's over.
We don't have to win by 225,000. The Ds have LOST 175,000 in absentee voters alone from 2008, so we only have to win by 75,000 in all the other counties (that's net---in Cuyahoga the Ds gained about 11,000 but the Rs gained 15,000 in absentees).
In Montgomery County, just in absentee ballots the Rs gained 5,000. So probably the number that we have to beat is about 60,000. Now, bellweather county analysis shows that in EARLY voting Rs are up by a small margin (.01%) for the first 250,000 who early voted. If you spread that over the remaining 4+million we're ALREADY almost even . . . and this is before election day where Rs rule and without a SINGLE indy advantage.
If we go in near even, we'll win OH by 3-4 points.