Why Your Vote for Obama Counts - Even in Red States

Because if the national popular vote goes to Romney, repugs will use that to deny President Obama's electoral vote victory. Even if they fail to throw the election to Romney - having 2000 flashbacks yet? - they will use the popular vote to attack and impeach President Obama for his entire second term.

Yes, even an Obama landslide won't stop the repugs from obstructing everything the President tries to do, but a close election will make it exponentially worse.

Digby:

It will be very interesting to see what the legal moves will be if any of these swing states are very close. But it almost doesn't matter. If Obama wins with anything other than a decisive victory in both the popular vote and the electoral college, we will see a collective right wing primal scream. They don't think he's legitimate in the first place, but to eke out a close victory when they already believe that many of "those people" are voting illegally is likely to provoke an emotional response.

This is why I very much doubt that we are going to see a chastened and reasonable GOP in the next congress. Their base is going to be wild with the belief that the election was stolen from them.

Steve M:

Yes, it's true that the Electoral College is ridiculous. But it's also true that both campaigns have been trying to win 270 electoral votes, not 50% of the popular vote plus 1 -- and Mitt Romney is on the verge of losing that contest. If this were a popular vote race, the candidates wouldn't be practically living in Ohio and other swing states -- Mitt Romney would have taken up residency in Texas, or somewhere else in the Deep South, and he'd be trying to run up the score there, while the president would be spending so much time here in the Northeast that they'd assign him his own traffic lane in Midtown Manhattan.

But this is why it's going to be a problem if Obama loses the popular vote. The "hypocrite Democrats" message is going to be the polite edge of the Republican election-stealing wedge, while nastier right-wing operatives burrow into whether some poor Democratic elector in Ohio or Wisconsin ever had a tax lien or missed a mortgage payment or drove drunk. Maybe the GOP won't be able to steal the election, but it won't be for lack of trying.

So let's hope Kos is right when he says registered-voter polls are more accurate than likely voter polls. Let's hope RAND and TIPP are right and Gallup is wrong. Let's hope Obama's get-out-the-vote operation is as amazing as it claims to be. Because it's going to get ugly otherwise. 

 
Vote. Vote Early. Vote Early for President Obama.

And make sure every Democratic voter you know does the same.