Romney in better shape than media

Rick Wilson:

...

If you read the usual horse race coverage of the last few weeks, you’d be convinced that Romney’s campaign had entirely collapsed and that Obama would be safe staying home for the next 45 days and playing a few dozen rounds of golf in the crisp fall air of Washington, D.C.

From the “47%” fund-raiser video to the Libya announcement to Clint Eastwood to Paul Ryan, it seems that every week, the press declares Romney has made a fateful slip that has nailed his campaign in the coffin, once and for all.

After all, the Beltway media “Gang of 500” said so, right?

But these stories from the hermetic world of political media reporters are never quite as deadly as their breathless prose would suggest. Instead, Romney has kept grinding it out, pushing through tough coverage and Team Obama’s increasingly shrill and desperate attacks. He’s a better candidate than the anonymous critics on his own side would suggest, mainly because he has a key attribute many lack: guts.

National polling on the race is a distorted mirror, and even that shows a tie game. Romney and Obama are close to tied in the swing states, and with swing voters.

Plus, there’s this little-noticed problem: Far too many of the public and media polls have set their likely voter screens and models to something looking more optimistic than the 2008 turnout model, which even Obama’s most dedicated partisans think is highly unlikely.

Considering that Obama won a crushing, decisive electoral and popular vote victory in 2008, it’s not surprising he’s kept the Democratic base intact.

But the rest of America figured something out about him: He’s a charming communicator, but a mediocre President. That’s why his job approval, the right-track wrong-track numbers and his ratings on the economy match up with his failed economic record.

Presidents’ final ballot percentages typically run behind their job approval numbers. With his hovering below 50%, Obama has almost no room for error, and the economy is not his ally. He is not, contrary to the belief of some in the press, immune from the laws of political physics. 

Add it up: 1% growth, 8% unemployment, $4-per-gallon gas. Record numbers of Americans who have abandoned even looking for work. Record declines in household incomes. Home values still wheezing. The stories of “funemployment” are long passed, and the picture isn’t improving in the minds of most Americans.
...

There is much more.

Crushing conventional wisdom will only slow this gang down for a few days, meaning Romney will have to govern in a hostile environment, but so did Reagan and Bush.  The reason that Obama is doing so badly when the party ID skew is removed from the polls is the Independents are going strongly for Romney.

BTW, polling shows distrust of the media at an all time high.  Their bias has become too extreme to ignore.