We're more shallow than you think.

Update: Romney didn't win.

I'm calling it. Romney won't win unless something radical happens.

12 of the 15 president elections since 1960 (dawn of TV) went to the taller guy.

Exceptions were Nixon 72, Carter 76, and Dubya 2004.

With 2012 we'll have 12 in 16.

my prediction is Romney winning the electoral college and Obama winning the popular vote on wide margins here in Cali

this is an interesting call. well done, Jason. Which swing state(s) goes to Romney? The (lame) bottom line is that the election will likely be close enough that it comes down to the get-out-the-vote efforts of both parties in a few states. The vote restriction laws bother me a lot.

538 (now part of NYT) still gives both electoral college and popular vote to Obama.

Height is an issue. Money is an issue. Is the war an issue? War time presidents get re-elected. Romney taxes should be an issue...it is for me.

I am still annoyed/cynical enough to be one of those folks that wants to ignore all the politics until convention speeches and debates. Yet I do read everything posted here, NYT, etc.

Really Romney is a one-trick pony, e.g. the economy will be better with me, (unproven trick to boot) at this time to me. I just see a smart man who desperately wants to be President. Obama at least seemed like he offered a bit more when he ran in 2008.

As a very non-party person, I feel like the Republicans have poisoned the well for me for the next decade. The Tea Party stuff needs to split again between social conservatives and Libertarians.

Interesting that Obama is a wartime president but very few citizens know it despite bin Laden and Khaddafi getting taken out under his watch.

Romney has nothing interesting to say about Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran. At least Obama HAS a plan.

Ultimately it does come down to less than a dozen states. Feels like the rest of us are sidelined in this election thanks to the electoral college.

in 98-99 Rove started putting together a definitive national voter database for the RNC. From what i'm told, it's comprehensive, includes damn near every possible data source you can imagine (incl Census), highly secret, includes virtually EVERYBODY at least by profile if not by name, and is responsible for pulling an extra 4 to 7 points on election day. In 2000, it was called Basezilla and/or Datazilla. Not sure what they call it these days.

Even McCain did better than he otherwise would have based upon the gotv efforts derived from this data... And the Romney campaign is depending on it in November, b/c the cw is that the polls will stay close all the way through and they'er going to need superior targeted gotv to pull enough swing states to squeak it out.

But squeaking it out is their strategy atm...

Fascinating blog post: "Playing for 51 percent"

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/playing-for-51-percent/

From Bill Kristol: "So far, the Romney campaign doesn’t resemble the Clinton campaign. It seems to be following more comfortably in the tradition of the five post-Cold War Republican presidential candidates who preceded Romney. They received 37.5 percent, 40.7 percent, 47.9 percent, 50.7 percent, and 45.7 percent of the vote, respectively. The average GOP presidential vote in these last five elections was 44.5 percent. In the last three, it was 48.1 percent. Give Romney an extra point for voter disillusionment with Obama, and a half-point for being better financed than his predecessors. It still strikes me as a path to (narrow) defeat."

@jason Funny, I had only heard datazilla in terms of the Obama 2008 election effort. Not McMcain.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/411403/the-democrats-new-weapon/

playing catch-up.... what will be interesting is who's database will reign supreme this cycle

I still remember Howard Dean and ex-NBA star Bill Bradley's endorsement of him. The two standing next too each other was the beginning of the end for him.