Shaking the Etch-A-Mitt, Ctd.

A friend of the blog on why Romney's momentum appears to be self-sustaining.

Here is my thinking on the reasons to take a Romney win at least a much more likely possibility than the current 1/3 odds on 538 and at the Vegas houses.

The President's support is declining in Ohio. The big CBS poll this morning showed Obama at +5 and the hot-off-the-presses PPP poll shows him at +1. Without Ohio, Colorado is the absolute last firewall.

The Democrats have utterly failed to recreate the messaging against Romney that served them very well over the summer. They no longer talk about the Ryan budget, or Medicare. Romney's campaign has responded by smartly deciding to hide Paul Ryan. The old Democratic strategy focused on attacking Romney's character as an out of touch businessman who felt no empathy. At the first debate, that image was destroyed with Obama looking lethargic and Romney looking engaged and pragmatic. "47%" is gone. A lot of this movement is also happening with favorables and unfavortables. Romney used to be personally unpopular, now many polls, across many states, show that favorability gap closing, closed, or flipped.

Finally, Big Bird was a waste of a week, and "Binders Full of Women" was a meme that only made Democrats feel content on tumblr, in reality Romney's campaign projects competence and a laser focus on the economy while Obama's campaign lurches to fleeting memes of the moment.

What are your thoughts, readers? My feelings on the last paragraph are well known, but I'm curious to see what people think about the 3rd paragraph. Namely, has the Etch-A-Mitt succeeded? Do voters see an entirely different candidate than the caricature of himself Romney created during the primaries?

Look over the list. Tax cuts, health care, immigration, and even his corporate record are all things I thought he had a substantial disadvantage on compared to Obama as a direct result of his aggressive move to the right during the primary campaign. It appears every one of those has either been softened or outright neutralized.

Note: the comments section does not appear to be working. If you would like to respond, please email me at jlucasgreen(at)gmail(dot)com. I'll be posting a follow up later this afternoon.