How dare they say Obama is up

Yes, Obama is at 45%, but being so close to below 40 is not a good sign for the Mittster.

because then everyone would know it was over.

Romney has no early voting ground game there or in Iowa. Obama always encourages early voting in all his speeches as do Dem surrogates and candidates. If Romney loses Ohio, it is his own fault. Perhaps instead of trying to suppress the vote, Repubs in Ohio could have encouraged Repub voters to vote early.

So while Obama didn't go up, Romney went down 2:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/oh/ohio_romney_vs_obama-1860.html

But this poll was conducted prior to the debate. If Obama goes up in the poll they do post-debate, he should be able to lock down OHIO.

Especially the second one where Obama cleaned house

Obama has the overall lead because of early voting, but we can't take anything for granted yet because Romney caught up to the President in the polls after the first debate.

Obama needs to go back up in the polls after the second debate in order to pull away from Romney and prevent any shenanigans of a close election.

So it's looking good, but the final stage has yet to be completed.

he would have to be winning everywhere else. He would have to be on a huge comeback not just a bounce. Note that this is the lowest of the last 4 polls of Ohio at 3pts. The rest are 4-6 I believe with higher EV percentages. He has lost Ohio, period.

...but you can always follow the money and the strategy. When Romney pulled his staff out of Pennsylvania and moved it to Ohio, it meant 2 things:

1) They have no chance in Pennsylvania.
2) That whatever plan they had for Ohio wasn't working.

If everything was going according to their intended plan, they wouldn't have restructured in Ohio. I think they realized that not only were they behind in Ohio, but they were greatly outflanked in terms of ground game. Romney is in deep shit in Ohio and everyone knows it.

I think I'm more worried about WI than OH. The Marquette poll shows only a 1 point lead. The media keeps acting like Romney has a shot in Ohio but there is really no evidence of that.

If Obama wins OH and WI, there is no way he loses the election. He would then only need one of the following states: CO, NV, IA, VA, FL, or NH. NV looks as bleak for Romney as OH. Again, Romney appears to need WI to win the election and that's not looking likely.

From this poll is that he maintains a 13 point lead amongst women. Now lets see what the debate produces amongst women voters for Obama. This is where I believe he is likely to gain ground. Rmoney was a total turnoff for women (other than that bubblehead on Fox and Friends).

Win remaining voters by a margin of 51% to 48% to win Ohio.