With apologies to Nate Silver (whose headline in the NY Times we ripped off today), the big story on this third-to-last weekend before the presidential election is: who is winning the race right now, nationally and in the key battleground states?
Conservatives were besides themselves with joy yesterday when the daily Gallup poll showed Mitt Romney increasing his national lead a point from the day before, at 52-45 percent.
Coupled with Real Clear Politics showing Romney leading in the electoral college, and well, Mitt's looking damn good right now, right?
Well, perhaps. Actually Real Clear Politics national poll has Romney up by one – that's one point, not seven. The WSJ-NBC News-Marist poll also shows Obama doing well in Iowa and Wisconsin, two crucial Midwest states.
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay continue to be part of the center of the political universe, with Joe Biden speaking late this morning at Sun City Center in southern Hillsborough County, and Paul Ryan making a swing up to the USF campus a short time later.
The Republican National Convention may or may not have been a game changer in terms of future development in Tampa Bay, but organizers insist that when it's all said and done, the 3-day political event will have brought in around $180 million to the community.
Monday night's third and final presidential debate in Boca Raton will deal with foreign policy. On Thursday some heavyweights (Robert Zoellick, Anthony Zinni among others) discussed America's place in the world in 2012 at the Tampa Convention Center.
Charlie Crist continues to be a leading advocate for President Obama and against Mitt Romney…
And check out our story in the current CL on the competitive races for Pinellas County Commission.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2012.