Happy Election Eve, America

Well, it’s almost all said and done. Two men have taken their case to the country, although they’ve delivered it in person to a mere fraction of it.

Residents in about 10 states have seen more of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney than many of them have cared to see. These are the residents of those so-called “battleground states.” Texas isn’t one of them. We haven’t been graced much by the presence of either man. Democrats don’t care for a state that votes so heavily Republican and, well, Republicans just take Texas for granted.

What will happen Tuesday? Will Obama win re-election or will Romney score an upset?

Every major pollster in the country seems now to be saying the same thing: It’ll be Obama by a whisker. I am believing what they’re saying.

I’ll venture this guess, though. The Electoral College victory won’t be all that close. I think the president will win with 303 electoral votes, down a good bit by the 365 electoral votes he won in 2008. Popular vote? I’m guessing it’ll be around a 1.5 percent Obama victory, making it a clean win, with no popular vote/electoral vote split, a la 2000 and Bush v. Gore.

Joe Scarborough made a curious observation this morning on his “Morning Joe” talk show on MSNBC. He thinks a Romney upset is quite possible. Scarborough – a former congressman – is a loyal Republican and I’ll concede his wishful thinking. I won’t concede what he said today about “no one seeing the Reagan revolution” coming in 1980. The folks who did see it coming worked within President Carter’s re-election campaign. Carter’s team knew by the weekend before the ‘80 election that the president was toast. The undecided voting bloc broke decisively for Ronald Reagan at the end, giving him a big victory. The Carter people broke the news to their guy three days before the votes were counted.

Is a similar result possible Tuesday? I don’t think so. Polling is a lot better these days. There are many more polls. All of them taken together say the same thing: Obama in a squeaker.

Let’s hold on, though, for a long night.