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Across the board I think we’ve had a lot of good news and I do believe we can win without OH, but shouldn’t have to.

But, I also have one concern that may be nothing. The polls out of OH just last week were showing huge indie leads for Romney some 20+ and thus were very heavily skewed to make it look like O was ahead. However, Rasmussen has the indies almost equal in his new OH poll with an R+1 sample and several dem leaning polls lately seemed to show much more fair breakdowns of D/R with indies trending away from Romney.

I think there are a few possible scenarios. Dems are putting together a concerted effort to have their people report as indies in polls ? There is a real surge for O with indies in some battleground states. Why ? Maybe the exploitation of comments by Akin and Mourdock about rape and abortion is working with indies ? In PA I’ve noticed the pro-O commercials turning to positive themes exclusively, something I’d like to see more of from Romney. Maybe this works with indies ? Finally, it could just be statistically noise and differences in polling techniques.

This is my last real concern, the next few days should tell whether it’s a real one or not.

There is a real surge for O with indies in some battleground states.

Really? Rasmussen has Romney leading Indies today by 23 nationally. ABC/WaPo has Romney's lead with Indies (nationally) at 20. These are record levels. In every other national poll, Romney leads Indies, most by double digits.

If Romney is up with Independents nationally, at record levels, there is no statistical way that the opposite would be true in swings states (as swing states historically correlate with the national trend). In fact, Rasmussen today had Romney up 15 with Indies in his Swing State tracker.

The idea that there is a "real surge" for Obama, who sits at 46% nationally, and is down with Indies across the board, is quite laughable.

Mitt Romney's Surge With Independent Voters Is Sharpest Tilt Since Reagan's 1984 Landslide

And this debate is about exactly that: what percentage of the "indies" are really "unaffiliated Ds" that just didn't vote in the last election and therefore are automatically called "unaffiliated."

I tried to examine this as follows: I looked at the decline in "Us" in key counties from 08 to 12. With the exceptions I note, all counties saw both parties decline, but Ds more as a percent:

Cuyahoga -16% (Both Ds and Rs gained, but Rs gained net 3000 more)

Erie -10%

Franklin -24%

Green +10%

Hamilton +.02%

Lake -32%

Lucas -19%

Montgomery -27% (Rs gained 5000 over 08)

Now, maybe someone with better understanding of some of these counties can jump in, but on the surface, the notion that the Us are simply Ds who didn't vote in the primary doesn't seem to stand up. If they are, the Ds really LOST FAR MORE than what we've thought. A couple of red counties---Green and Hamilton---actually gained Us while losing Ds, suggesting (but not proving) a shift out of the D party and into R status because they don't like the Ds.