Obama will win or lose by a small EV margin or win by a large EV margin

[Marokai Backbeat]

The term "Blue Firewall" really isn't justified. Just because certain states haven't voted Republican since Reagan and HW Bush doesn't mean that the GOP is unable to win their electoral votes. The reason Republicans have sucked so recently in Presidential politics is because they put up a decrepit Senator in 96, a Neo-Con in 00 and 04 who had no cross-party appeal, and another decrepit Senator in 08 only with a loon as his running mate to top it off. Perhaps for 2012 they should be thinking of getting Gregg, Daniels, Ryan, Portman, or perhaps someone else currently out of there that is out of the spotlight besides the unappealing field of Pawlenty, Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Pataki, Barbour, etc.

Paul or Johnson would the man to swing the so-called "blue firewall", with their strong appeal to independents and principled Democrats.

They have absolutely no realistic chance of winning the nomination, especially Paul. You talk about hacks, yet you make completely ridiculous posts like this. If you think they have a shot, at least post something to back up your claims, which you never do.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The term "Blue Firewall" really isn't justified. Just because certain states haven't voted Republican since Reagan and HW Bush doesn't mean that the GOP is unable to win their electoral votes. The reason Republicans have sucked so recently in Presidential politics is because they put up a decrepit Senator in 96, a Neo-Con in 00 and 04 who had no cross-party appeal, and another decrepit Senator in 08 only with a loon as his running mate to top it off. Perhaps for 2012 they should be thinking of getting Gregg, Daniels, Ryan, Portman, or perhaps someone else currently out of there that is out of the spotlight besides the unappealing field of Pawlenty, Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Pataki, Barbour, etc.

Paul or Johnson would the man to swing the so-called "blue firewall", with their strong appeal to independents and principled Democrats.

They have absolutely no realistic chance of winning the nomination, especially Paul. You talk about hacks, yet you make completely ridiculous posts like this. If you think they have a shot, at least post something to back up your claims, which you never do.

Oh, right, Paul winning the CPAC straw poll, losing by just one vote to ballot-stuffer Romney at the SRLC,

I'd invite you to look at the history of the straw polls and their reflective nature on the nominating process. They're meaningless, even people who cheer when their candidates win acknowledge this.

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Two problems here, first of all, a general election poll is meaningless even if it is legitimate, since it doesn't show the ability to win the nomination. Secondly, that poll had all sorts of problems. Paul succeeded in keeping Obama to his lowest level of base support amongst the possible match-ups, but the real lead Obama had was around 10%. You can dismiss this reasoning from Nate Silver if you like, and you have done so, but you provided no explanation as to how he was wrong, since he does that sort of thing practically for a living, and you're just a poster on the Atlas forum.

There's also the little matter of Paul having practically no 10%+ support in the polls in the republican primary, and the best performances have been caucuses, and not popular support.

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I have never once said such a thing and I hold Obama's re-election to be an open question. I've never made any definitive prediction.

[Marokai Backbeat]

You seem to rely an awful lot on the "hope" aspect of Ron Paul's hypothetical future support. Ironic, for such an Obama hater.