Gun owners do not have a consummate right to own their weapons

In an opinion piece in the NY Times, Andrew Rosenthal said: “Even if you believe the Second Amendment grants each American an individual right to own a gun, which remains a matter of some debate, it does not follow logically, legally or constitutionally that this right is absolute. No right granted by the Constitution is totally exempt from limitations.”  The key word is absolute and refutes this claim by wacky Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

Rosenthal continues by citing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2008 comment that “offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment.”  Rosenthal likens this thinking to the fact that it is also unreasonable to allow the purchase of semiautomatic rifles with 100-round magazines without even a background check.  Like at some gun shows by unlicensed dealers (the gun show loophole).

The carnage of this loophole is horrendous as evidenced by the recent mass shootings; see yesterday’s post.  Up to 40 percent of all private gun purchases at gun shows occur with no background check whatsoever, another absurd right the NRA protects like owning an assault rifle.  Bob Costas opened the media door to dialogue on this issue when he said emphatically that he believes we need more “comprehensive and more sensible gun control legislation.”  

But another gun rights activist wacko, David Kopel, said, following the murder-suicide by NFL player Jovan Belcher, that “there is no link between firearm availability and homicide.”  The conservative media followed suit with more false claims until Piers Morgan on CNN corrected this drivel with Harvard research stating, "states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide."

Morgan confronted Kopel that the United Kingdom has strong gun laws and a fraction of the gun homicides in the U.S.  Britain has 35 to 45 gun murders a year: America has 11 to 12 thousand.  Kopel wasn’t convinced.  The CNN host then cited Japan with the toughest gun control laws in the world and the fact that they have only 2 to 10 gun murders a year.  Harvard’s David Hemenway found firearm homicides in the U.S. 19.5 times higher than other high-income nations.

Kopel said Scotland was the most violent country in the world.  If this was supposed to relate to gun violence, the fact is that in 2009, there were two gun murders in Scotland, placing its rate at 0.04 per 100,000 people. In 2010, there were 11,078 gun homicides in the United States. Our per capita rate of 3.59 per 100,000 is nearly 90 times higher than Scotland's rate.  The numbers are stark yet the gun nuts continue to be completely clueless.

In an article in the New Yorker in early 2912, Jill Lepore says, “The modern gun debate began with a shooting. In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald bought a bolt-action rifle—an Italian military-surplus weapon—for nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents by ordering it from an ad that he found in American Rifleman.”  Both junk mail and gun violence at their worst.  Legislation was introduced and passed to restrict mail-order sales of shotguns and rifles, agreeable then to the NRA.

That, of course, was before wacky Wayne LaPierre took over the NRA, after which it was downhill for gun control.  Until now.  LaPierre and his goons are on the run and it looks like there is no let up by the gun control advocates to push through new regulations on the ownership and use of guns.  The fiscal cliff issue has garnered the attention of the White House and Congress for now but that won’t last forever and then gun control will return to the forefront.

From Oregon to Connecticut, from adults to little children, NRA gun culture kills again

What a way to return from a vacation that also ended in a disaster but at least turned out better than the two events in the Crackamas Town Center Mall and Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.  In both Oregon and Connecticut, the shooter was using automatic assault-type rifles to do his dirty work, weapons that Wayne LaPierre and his gun nut members of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) have been protecting since the ban was lifted in 2004.

In Crackamas, 2 were killed, one wounded; in Newtown, 27 shot dead, 20 of these children ages 6 and 7, the second worst mass shooting after Virginia Tech.  2 were wounded.  In both cases the gunmen killed themselves.  And, of course, before these two there were the Sikh Temple shooting, the Aurora Theatre shooting and the Tucson shooting.  But can you believe that sprinkled in between were another 6 mass shootings with a minimum killed of five?  Believe it!



LaPierre - Guns and more guns

So how does wacky Wayne of the NRA respond?  Without accepting any blame for what has happened in any of these firearm massacres, this blockhead wants to put armed guards in schools.  He continued, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  It’s always “more guns” because the only way LaPierre can hold on to his financially lucrative job is to sell tons of guns to satisfy the gun manufacturers that support the NRA.  Collusion at its worst.

However, there is no end to the negative reaction LaPierre has received from gun control advocates and also from gun owners.  Waldo Jaquith says the NRA looks “insane” and has now delayed joining the organization.  David Domke, communications professor at the U. of Washington, says LaPierre waited to make his statement to appease the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.  Connecticut’s new congressman from Newtown labeled LaPierre “tone deaf.”

Watch demonstrators shame LaPierre, about 5 minutes in

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg called LaPierre’s statement, "a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country."  Even former RNC Chairman Michael Steele said the NRA’s remarks were, “very haunting and very disturbing."  Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey called LaPierre “reckless.”  Another Dem, Sen. Barbara Boxer from Calif. says the man is “completely out of touch.”  It would appear only NRA Pres. David Keene came to wacky Wayne’s defense. 

Gabby Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, thinks even NRA members want more common sense gun regulation.  Ladd Everett of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is against putting our children in the middle of shootouts between the “good guys” and “bad guys.”  The right way, according to Ladd, is to ban military-style firearms and improve background checks.  I must add that there is no way at this point the NRA can defend not closing the gun show loophole.

David Frum, former special asst. to G. W. Bush, says that at least LaPierre’s press conference has shed light on the “foundational assumption of the modern American gun culture.”  He quotes an incident of a neighbor shooting a neighbor over barking dogs.  Frum says “There's solid research to show that most so-called defensive gun uses are not really defensive at all.”  Frum’s conclusion is that it isn’t really clear who is the “bad guy” and who is the “good guy.”

After Wayne LaPierre’s recent performance in answer to the Newtown mass murders, most will probably agree that he is the bad guy.

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Nasty Jack is taking a HIATUS for the month of November

Sorry for leaving you on the brink of what will probably be the most important election that this country has experienced for years, maybe ever.  I have said pretty much all I can say, making sure that we progressives understand where we stand and what we have to do before Nov. 6.  So far, it seems most of us are doing our parts in support of President Obama and the other Democrats running for office.  If you haven’t voted do it, or at least by Election Day. 

I’ve decided to take a month off and work on a book that has been in progress for some time.  I hope my readers will stick with me and can promise a return on December 1.  In the meantime, I am leaving weekly periodic links to categories of subjects covered in this blog for the last fourteen months.  In case you want to re-read, or if you missed them, the links will cover all my issues from politics to gun control.  During this period I will not be publishing any new comments.

But let me leave you with a new site announced recently that could be another excellent source for information before the election.  It is powered by Bing search technology and combined with editorial excellence from MSN and political partnerships with Politico, Real Clear Politics, The Cook Political Report, Huffington Post and The Associated Press.  It is definitely worth a look.

Thank you for your support!

Jack E. Dunning

Nasty Jack Blog

Hurricane Sandy impacts the 2012 election - How bad is it?

Before we get into the path of Hurricane Sandy, let me bring you up to date on several Electoral Voting sites that I have been following and which I reported to you earlier in my posts of October 18 and October 23.  Of course the Electoral College takes its orders from the popular vote—although there has been at least one case when the candidate who won the popular vote lost—you might wonder just how these EC sites come up with their numbers.

Simply stated, and that is the only way I can approach this, they are projecting into some borderline/tossup states Electoral College votes based on mountains of political data present and past that the lay voter has no access to.  Nor do most of us care as long as we see accurate predictions of where the 2012 election is going at any given moment.  And that is the key because the figures are changing now on a daily basis and will continue that way until Nov. 6.

My favorites are Nate Silver’s 538 and Real Clear Politics, both of which measure a number of polls and then do their own thing with the numbers.  Silver employs a unique methodology using comparative demographic data to balance the polls, applying history, sample size and recency.  Here are the lineups from these two sites:

538

Elec. votes              Obama 296.6          Romney 241.4

Chance to win         Obama 74.6%         Romney 25.4%

Popular vote            Obama 50.4            Romney 48.7

Real Clear Politics

Elec. Votes              Obama 201             Romney 191

Vote Nov. 6

The 270 To Win site agrees with RCP, but the NYT has 243 votes for Obama, 206 for Romney.  As does 538, Time sees Obama already winning with 271 votes, Romney 206.  USA Today unwilling to commit as many total votes as some others shows Obama with 196 votes, Romney 191 and CNN has been static since I started following these polls, Obama 237, Romney 206.  The Huff Post has 277 Obama, 206 Romney, the Wash. Post Obama 255, Romney 206.

What can you do with this?  Well, you can’t take it to the bank but I’ll bet Vegas would give good odds on the numbers remaining the same, if not improving for Obama down the stretch.  When you have this many polls agreeing on the fact that Obama is ahead in the electoral vote, some significantly, the margin of error narrows considerably, particularly with such a small percent of undecided voters.  It isn’t a sure bet for the President but it is better than just comfortable.

Obama and the borderline/tossup states:

So what could happen?  HURRICANE SANDY!  Who could have possibly forecasted a weather disaster of catastrophic proportions hitting a part of the country with a population affected of 60 million?  So since we didn’t plan for this to happen, Nate Silver tries to do some prognosticating of his own.  He imagines 15 million individuals in this highly democratic area around New Jersey and New York not answering their phones for future polls.  In effect, they are shut down.

But if taken without this group, Obama is not likely to lose over one percentage point in those polls.  What is more important are those states in the path of Sandy where people may not be able to get out and vote.  As this is written on Mon. PM, there were 2.2 million people without power and getting worse.  So far, states have extended hours for absentee voting and on-site voting places like schools and fire stations will receive priorities in restoring their power.

Here are the states affected.  By election day, Florida will be completely out of the storm’s loop.  Other borderline/tossup states in Sandy’s way are North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.  Most of the damage has been done in the first three and now it will depend on outages and follow-up crews to get things done in the few days remaining.  New Hampshire is at the tail end of the storm’s path and the status there more apparent by Tues. or Wed.

Those of us not affected by the storm should give thanks and offer our best to those in harm’s way.  You often wonder about things like this, at a time when this country is just beginning to dig out of a near economic collapse, and if someone is trying to tell us something.  Maybe it’s a shot at the downright despicable and hateful partisanship that has been going on in Congress, a kind of warning to clean up your act or else.  Will they listen?  We’ll see.

2.3 million early voters have already cast their ballots in 2012, a 10 point increase over 2008

According to the United States Election Project at George Mason University, 2,214,807 people had voted in the 2012 election as of October 18.  Paul Gronke, who runs the Early Voting Information Center estimates that 40% will vote early this election, compared to 30% in 2008.  Also in 2008, 91% of the domestic ballots mailed were returned in huge amounts for Barack Obama, according to a recent report from CNN.



 Although the early vote was trending Republican in early October, a later report by Reuters says the polls show that Obama has a “comfortable” lead over Romney with early voters.  Battleground Watch reported on four states: North Carolina, Florida, Iowa and Ohio, two critical to the candidates, one leaning Obama and one leaning Romney.  The very important two are Ohio and Florida, Iowa likes Obama and No. Carolina favors Romney.

The latest poll shows Obama holding a four-point lead in must-win state Ohio, and Romney with a two-point lead in Florida.

There are some160.3 million registered voters in the U.S., a mere 68% of the voting age population, which is, in itself, pathetic.  But when you look at other countries around the world, it is dismal compared to 100 percent of Argentinians, 97 percent of Brits, 93 percent of Canadians and 77 percent of South Africans.  Many Americans just don’t give a shit, and this is reflected in the low-life kind of congressional, state and local government we are stuck with in some cases.

How early vote turned North carolina Blue"

Republicans have strived in this election cycle to make it even harder for some to vote, primarily those who vote Democratic.  They have indiscriminately purged voter files and championed Voter ID when voting fraud is virtually non-existent.  And the GOP has even tried to stop early voting because it doesn’t favor their candidate.  Not necessarily the hate tactics of Karl Rove under George W. Bush, but certainly an extension of Rovian politics.



Barack Obama

John King of CNN asks the question of who benefits from early voting.  To find out he went to the state of Iowa where Presidents have traveled to for years to try and get the pulse of the nation.  In Johnson County, which is home to the University of Iowa, early voting accounted for 55% of the total compared to statewide of 36%.  Demand for early ballots are up significantly from 2008 and Democrats have a big edge; 12 to 1 over Republicans in Johnson County.

Does that mean that Democrats are smarter than Republicans?  Time did a study in 2010 that found this saying on college campuses: “The College Democrats are said to be ugly, smug and intellectual; the College Republicans, pretty, belligerent and dumb.”  On a more serious note, the study attempted to determine that if conservatives are dumber, why?  A non-partisan researcher found:

“…that more-intelligent people are more likely to say they are liberal. They are also less likely to say they go to religious services.”  Further, “…that smarter people are more willing to espouse "evolutionarily novel" values.”



Mitt Romney

If you are wondering just how important early voting is to the candidates, back to that bellwether state of Iowa.  Although the state has only six electoral votes, President Obama made repeated visits there because Iowa has more than a month of early voting.  In contrast, says Ben Jacobs of the Daily Beast, he has paid less attention to another battleground state, Virginia.  Even so, Obama is up 4 points in Virginia over Romney. 

Now get out there and vote early but be sure and vote!

More Mormons for Obama than you might think

Romney asks, which side yoday?

A June 2012 Gallup poll found that 84% of Mormons are for Mitt Romney, 13% for Barack Obama.  Based on a total figure of approximately 5.4 million Mormons living in the U.S., the President has a solid constituency of around 702,000.  A Seattle group, Mormons for Obama, says that Romney does not represent them.  They are progressive-minded Mormons, not officially affiliated with the LTD Church, who question Romney’s stand on gay marriage, health care and religion.

And then there are Mormon feminists who feel they can exercise their women’s rights and still be devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Aimee Hickman, co-editor of Mormon feminist magazine Exponent II felt Romney’s remark about the “binders full of women” indicated his approval of powerful women around him.  But disagrees because the candidate still thinks women were meant primarily for domestic issues.

Feminist Mormon Housewives blogger Lisa Butterworth says of all the Mormon feminists she knows, none are going to vote for Romney.  An Exponent II unscientific poll recently found that Obama leads Romney in the upcoming election 72 to 30 votes.  Yet Andrea Alexander from Windham, NH said that she is socially liberal but fiscally conservative.  I could not determine just how big this group of feminists is but right now Romney can’t afford to lose any female votes.

Joanna Brooks, senior correspondent for ReligionDispatches.org and author of "The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith," said in Belief Blog that she wanted some “hard truths” and Obama did marginally address the following:

“This recession is fundamentally different than other recessions, and there are no short-term fixes.”

“Our old strategies for managing Middle Eastern conflict through military intervention or propped-up dictators don’t work. And there is no easy way forward.”

“The only thing the $3 trillion Iraq war produced for the United States was a mountain of debt and a legion of disabled Americans.”

“We need to have a serious discussion about Social Security.”

“Debts don’t get paid down without adjustments in revenues.”

Senate Majority leader and Democrat Harry Reid, a Mormon from Nevada, met with Mormon Democrats after the Charlotte convention and acknowledged there was pressure from the Mormon community to vote Republican.  He says his son was confronted at a new school by a classmate, when learning who he was, exclaimed that he didn’t know Mormons could be Democrats.  It’s not a joke the Senator said, and he’s been trying to change that for 30 years.

Mormon Democrats:

Jordan Morales, a Mormon Boise state student, learned his progressive page on Facebook was causing a real problem with LDS friends.  The whole thing even got “messy” when these friends started arguing with his mom.  All this comes at a time when Mormon Democrats are “trying to convince the rest of their church that Mormon teachings are more closely aligned with Democratic principles of social welfare and care for the needy, than conservatism's individualist ideal.”

It almost sounds like a revolution within the Mormon Church, much as I view the revived progressive movement that is going on in this country in a cycle that has determined that the conservative crusades of the last several years are not working.  Nothing from the financial to the social programs the GOP has tried has worked.  The U.S. economy almost tanked, millions are out of work, foreclose has become common and the middle class is listed among the homeless.

Unfortunately Mitt Romney wants to return the country to the policies of George W. Bush and others like him, and because of the big money Republicans favor he has been able to convince enough people that he is right to run a tight election race.  But there are factions who see through this like blacks, Hispanics and women.  In all likelihood, many Mormons will do the same on election day.

     

See my earlier blog on the major Utah newspaper that endorsed President Obama here.

NRA attacks Barack Obama on gun control…so who cares anymore

The President said in the October 16, debate at Hofstra University that he supported the 2^nd Amendment but wants to get the assault weapons ban reintroduced.  Mitt Romney stated flatly that he opposes any new gun legislation.  So gun control advocates were at least encouraged by the President’s approach, knowing full well we could not expect anything from Romney.  But the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) took note releasing the following ad with the same old crap:

"Freedom. These guys fought for it," begins the ad, which shows a soldier returning home to his family as gentle music plays. Then, the music turns frantic and the scenes go from color to black and white. "Now, imagine our country without it. Obama put two justices on the Supreme Court who threaten our right to self-defense. Defend Freedom. Defeat Obama."

As Joe Biden would say, “Malarkey.”

 

It ran in the states of Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Iowa and Nevada, according to Jennifer Bendery in the Huff Post.  All 7 states are considered toss-ups by Electoral College site Real Clear Politics.  What is interesting is that the NRA is not targeting Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes after Obama’s famous comment about these people clinging to their guns or religion.  A protocol mistake maybe but he is right here and in many other states.

Gun store gun bubbas from Des Moines:

I did a post on July 26, of this year, “It’s all fiction: NRA has no effectual control over elections, Part 1 and Part 2. ThinkProgress did a very comprehensive study on the effects of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) on political elections in relation to money contributed to candidates and the organization’s influence on the outcome of the elections.  Paul Waldman of The American Prospect, and author of the study said: “The NRA has virtually no impact on congressional elections.”

  



How the NRA would have it

I thought this latter statement was significant considering how congressional wimps are scared to death of the NRA and its CEO Wayne LaPierre.  But plowing ahead in my research, I was even more confident in the statement and still cannot figure out why large gun control organizations like the Brady Campaign, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, States United to Prevent Gun Violence and Mayors Against Illegal Guns haven’t focused on this data.

As an example, “In the last four elections, the NRA spent over $100,000 on an IE (independent expenditure) in 22 separate Senate races. The group’s favored candidate won 10 times, and lost 12 times.”  In all but a tiny number of races, the NRA endorsement is essentially meaningless and here’s why: 

In 2004, all of the 4 NRA-endorsed challengers lost to their Democratic opponents, as did all 4 NRA-endorsed challengers in 2006. In 2008, 11 out of the 12 NRA-endorsed challengers lost.  In 2010, only 18 of 36 challengers won.  in the last four federal elections, in which the NRA made a total of 1038 endorsements in House races, the group could claim credit for a grand total of 4 wins.”  



Wacky Wayne LaPierre on the loose

In my Part 2 post, there is insight into this myth—I call it a conspiracy by the NRA’s LaPierre to bolster the profits of gun manufacturers while lining his and other top NRA leaders’ pockets—that if you don’t follow wacky Wayne’s orders, you’ll be history in Congress.  Not true and Paul Waldman has made that statistically clear in his studies. 

On another side of the issue, according to a poll commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, gun owners, including a majority of National Rifle Association members, are in favor of some forms of tighter gun laws.  The poll found that:

71% of NRA members support prohibiting people on the terrorist watch list from buying guns (76% of all gun owners support the same), while 65% of NRA members back a law that would require gun owners to report a missing or stolen gun to police.

So I ask you again, who cares anymore if the NRA attacks President Obama on gun control?  Their presence and influence have been severely compromised in the way gun violence has taken over the country in the last year.  2013 is the year for gun control advocates.

North Carolina Tea Party racist hangs Obama in effigy

It seems that VR Phipps, a Command member of the Tea Party from Faison, NC has a hanging truck that he is driving around the country.  The racism part comes with a combination that the person in question is Obama who is black, and the noose is a symbol of lynchings so prevalent in the 1960’s South.  Not sure why this has become news all over again since it dates all the way back to over 2 years ago and was revived for the Charlotte Sept. Democratic convention.

Phipps hanging gallows truck in New York

This incident over two years ago found Patriot Phipps driving around New York City, without the President, but with other Faison politicians Phipps claims did nothing in the murder of William Henry Phipps.  Obama was added when Phipps was unhappy with the way a federal case ended.  This is when he decided to take his show to the Charlotte convention.  WBYV in Charlotte covered the story last October with vivid pictures you can see on the link.

Faison, NC has a population of just 961 with a median income of $31,656 compared to the United States as a whole, $56,775.  The town is 47.7% white, 38.5% Hispanic and 12.8% black.  It ranks 40.2 in the cost of living index compared to the U.S. at 100.  Faison’s closest large city neighbor is Raleigh.  If ever there was a case of everyone knowing each other, it should be here.  With the majority of the population of color, you wonder about Tea Party numbers. 

Phipps claims there is nothing racist in his display, and in all fairness he did have the noose thing before adding Obama.  But anyone coming from the South must, or at least should, understand the connections between a noose and Southern racism.  I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s South and witnessed first-hand the appalling treatment of blacks.  I knew a Ku Klux Klan member and I remember his dedication to this sick cause.  To say we have fixed this is simply absurd.

You can see my posts on racism here.

As I write this post I am corresponding by email with VR Phipps about his Tea Party membership which I confirmed on his site you can see here.  Not only is he a member of the Tea Party but a part of their Command Center as well,   whatever that means.  The Phipps I am talking to claims that he is not a member of the Tea Party, although the VR Phipps I originally emailed was an address taken right from the man’s own site, which he actually asked me to explain.

More gallows from Patriot Phipps:

Maybe CNN brought this up again as a news item to remind Americans what a gang of radicals the Tea Party is, and also that there is still considerable work to be done yet on the equality of the races.  Blacks have almost taken a back seat on race issue in the last few years as the state of Arizona persecutes the Hispanics.  Between Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, plus disgraced State Sen. Russell Pearce, this state is considered the most bigoted.

But there is no excuse for what VR Phipps did, even though he claims that he intended no racism.  It is disrespectful of the office of the President to hang the man in effigy.  I remember being told by my superior in the Navy, you may not respect the officer, but you aren’t saluting him, you are saluting the rank.  As much as I disagreed with George W. Bush, I would never condone that kind of action against him.  Mr. Phipps should tear down his gallows for good.

Obama in noose

By the way, I have not had an answer from my latest email to VR Phipps asking:

“Are you the VR Phipps that drove a trailer with gallows of mannequins hanging in effigy around New York City and Charlotte, NC during the Democratic Convention?  If not, there are two VR Phipps living in Faison, NC.”

Earlier emails from me with answers in chronological order from the first:

“Are you a member of the Tea Party?”

Answer: “No are you.”

“If you aren't, how do you explain this [your Tea Party] site?”

Answer: “What do you mean explain the site.

         

“Mr. Phipps, this is your page, clearly stating you are "now a member of Tea Party Command Center."  If I have to explain your own site to you we have more than a communications problem.”

Answer: “Are you a member of the Tea Party.”

“Apparently you are refusing to answer my question.  I thought Tea Party Patriots were proud of their status.  Obviously you are not.”

Answer: “No sir I do not claim to be a tea party member a Republican only.”

With that last answer, the GOP must be cringing right now.  More if I hear from Mr. Phipps.

How the Electoral College works and how the vote might go

Typical Electoral College map

“Each state is assigned a number of electoral votes based on population with the exact number corresponding to the number of senators and House members who represent a given state in Congress,” according to the Voice of America.  Votes range from 3 (Wyoming) to 55 (California).  In two states, Maine and Nebraska, they can split their votes among the two candidates.  In the balance of states, the candidate receiving the popular vote gets all electoral votes.



It's the "swing" states stupid

VOA says the 2012 election will be decided in these states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina.  In a Huff Post article, we learn it could come down to only 106 counties, the ones won by George W. Bush in 2004 but voted Obama in 2008.  As an example, political ads have been aimed at Cincinnati, Tampa and northern Virginia.  Also Huff-critical are North Carolina and Nevada.

I did a post on the Electoral College Vote on October 18, providing several sites tracking the election with a wide array of results.  In one instance, Real Clear Politics switched on that date from an Obama lead now to Romney leading.  The balance still favor Obama, some like CNN, Time and Huff Post significantly.  I plan to do another post soon on Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times, named appropriately for the number of electoral votes, 538.

Pennsylvania GOP unsuccessfully tries to change Electoral College vote to beat Obama:

Silver has a track record from accurately predicting the 2008 election in every state but Indiana.  It is done through balancing out the polls with comparative demographic data and weighting each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll.  As an example, on Monday the 22^nd, he is predicting 288 electoral votes for Obama, 250 for Romney, giving Obama a 67.6% chance of winning, Romney 32.4%. 

According to VOA, without Ohio’s 18 electoral votes, Romney has to win Florida (29 electoral votes), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Nevada (6) and New Hampshire (4).  With Ohio, Obama would only have to win Iowa.  Right now FiveThirtyEight is predicting Iowa 49.0 Obama, 46.1 Romney; Ohio 48.2 Obama, 45.2 Romney.  A lot depends on the Monday debate, according to some political pundits, so the number could change quickly.

But what happens if there is an Electoral College tie?  Some political analysts are predicting this, with each candidate winning 269 votes.  Many experts don’t expect this to happen, unless the third debate is a complete disaster for Obama, also unlikely.  The President is going to have to address foreign policy questions on Iran, a situation which seems to be in his favor, but the Benghazi, Libya incident could be real trouble if Obama doesn’t have firm answer.

If you are still thoroughly confused about just how the Electoral College Vote works, go to Wikipedia for a good explanation.  In the meantime, there is rebellion going on within the Electoral College with Republicans indicating they may not follow the popular vote.  More on that later.