If you don’t think seven days is time enough time to swing an election, ask George W. Bush about that. A week out in 2000, he was looking like our next president, when news of a youthful drunk driving charge was dropped into his lap the Thursday before Election Day. The polls flipped, and Bush ended up losing the national popular vote. It’s just a fact that seven days is forever in politics, and today the race is officially on for the once-safe states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — with plenty of time to win both.
Intentionally buried in Politico’s completely irrelevant Playbook is the bombshell news that the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, is dropping millions into a number of states that would not be in play were Obama winning this election: Michigan: $2.2 million, Pennsylvania: $2.1 million, Wisconsin: $1.6 million.
That type of money is no bluff; Karl Rove is not spending $5.9 million to psyche out a Team Obama buried in their own internal polls or a CorruptMedia that will protect Obama by burying this news like the corrupt Politico just did. Moreover, this is not a move made by a super PAC (that does its own polling) worried that we need a massive push in a state like Ohio.
Keep in mind that Obama is sending Bill Clinton to Minnesota and Joe Biden to Pennsylvania sometime this week. Obama’s also going up with ad buys in both states. The Obama campaign is one that prides itself on promoting strength and inevitability. For them to play defense like this is a very big deal.
Currently, Rove shows Michigan as an outright swing state. That goes for Wisconsin, as well. The last poll out of Michigan showed the race tied at 47%. The RCP poll of polls shows Obama sitting at an average of 48.8% in Michigan. No Democrat incumbent wants to be polling below 50% in Michigan this late in the game. Things look better for Obama in Pennsylvania, but there’s enough of a disturbance in the force to have both campaigns spending resources there.
Wisconsin, however, is a legitimate swing state, where Romney has a real chance. Marist is a left-leaning pollster dedicated to pleasing MSNBC’s Chuck Todd. You remove their juicy-juice from this poll of polls and everything’s looking up-for-grabs.
CNN’s Dana Bash just tweeted out the news that a source tells her the Romney campaign itself is going to buy ads in PA.
Oh, it’s on.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
CORRECTION: Dana Bash was incorrectly identified as Dana Perino.
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