I don’t know jjsheridan5. Maybe they are correct and I am wrong. I can just guess that many on the conservative side are going to default to the Republican candidate. For some of the right of center pundits like Rove, Romney was the their guy - the establishment moderate, the one they told us could win. I can’t know their motivations for sure, all I can tell you is their predictions are based on pretty thin gruel.
We will see. It’s not like I claim to be 100% sure I am right. I am simply making a prediction which I think is fairly mainstream. Last I checked folks like Sabato, Cook, etc, concur with my view of how things will shake out.
The way I see it this election boils down to 2 things. Will Republicans turn out in force? and Can Obama keep the heightened turnout that he had in 2008?
In the case of the latter, I am not overly concerned. There is no evidence at all that there is any enthusiasm in these groups (mostly young people, and minorities, especially outside of the inner cities).
Republican turnout is always the wild-card. In 2008, they didn’t come out in large numbers. And of those that did, many went with Obama. If Republican turnout is similar to 2008, then this is a close election, with Obama probably winning.
I know that earlier you had said that Republican turnout would be down, despite much higher levels of enthusiasm, because many were becoming independent. The flaw in that argument is that you would expect an increase in the number of independents, as a result. Once again, that isn’t showing up in the polls (by and large).
I have been looking for any evidence that Obama has kept his coalition together, or that Republicans turnout is going to be depressed. But, objectively, I cannot find any. Just the opposite. It appears that Republican turnout will be very high, independents will at a minimum lean towards Romney (with decent evidence that they will go strongly to him), and that the new voters of 4 years ago are apathetic.
The more optimistic posters here are seeing what you see, and taking it into account. They are much more objective, in general, than you give them credit for. It is just that we are looking at all of the data, and are generally not as confident that made-for-tv polls are anything other than reflections of conventional wisdom.