Is this election over? (April 2012)

[Adam Griffin]

I never thought Romney would walk into this election being so damaged. Granted, he's done a lot of it to himself, but there's absolutely no excuse for such a decent candidate on paper with so much money to be roughed up so badly after dueling with a bunch of candidates that are running organizations that can barely be considered on par with a HoR campaign.

Obama - in any other climate - would be having his tuckus handed to him at this point. Unemployment's still above 8%. We're still down several million jobs from where we need to be. Even if much of the lack of action has been caused by political gridlock, the public should be blaming Obama, but they are not.

I don't see how Romney can reverse this. It's one thing to blast the airwaves and media markets of primary states with millions and millions of dollars; opinions can change. When your unfavorable rating is hovering at 60% and your favorables are below 30% among the general electorate (specifically independents), however, there's no room left to gain much ground. Unfavorables are not nearly as fluid as favorables, even when you have $1 billion to throw at the problem. Romney would get 42-44% of the PV if the election were held today.

Of course something big could happen, and I can only be grateful for the wave of Republican ineptitude and incompetence that us Democrats are hopefully going to be able to ride through the general election. With that being said, I'd give Romney a 20% shot.