List of Pundits Predicting Romney to be the Next President

• Michael Barone

• Bottom line: Romney 315, Obama 223. That sounds high for Romney. But he could drop Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Fundamentals.

• John Hinderaker - Powerline Blog

For a long time I have been predicting that Mitt Romney would get the Republican nomination, and that he would then win the general election.

• Bill Kristol

Tonight, Romney seems as fully capable as—probably more capable than—Barack Obama of being the next president. He probably will be

• Wayne Allyn Root

I’m predicting a 5 to 7 point popular vote victory. Electorally it won’t even be that close. Romney will win many states that went to Obama in 2008. I’m predicting Romney victories in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Indiana. I predict a Romney victory by 100 to 120 electoral votes.

• Kenneth Bickers, Michael Berry

A University of Colorado analysis of state-by-state factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.

•  Steve Forbes
• Voters will “fire” President Barack Obama, Forbes said, because “the economy resembles a car on the open highway that should be going 70 mph, but instead is puttering along at 20-25 mph and shows signs of going at an even slower pace. 
• Dick Morris: Romney 325, Obama 213
• In an appearance on Fox News, conservative commentator Dick Morris predicted a massive Romney win with 325 Electoral College votes. To get there, Romney would have to win all of the swing states but Nevada and turn Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania red.
• George F. Will: Romney 321, Obama 217
• Conservative commentator George F. Will predicted a huge Romney win, with 321 Electoral College votes. His map is essentially the same as Morris' scenario above, but he would keep Wisconsin in Obama's column and give Nevada to Romney instead.
• Dean Chambers: Romney 311, Obama 227
• Conservative activist Dean Chambers runs the website UnSkewed Polls, where he recalibrates polls to offset what he believes are misjudgments about sampling. His prediction calls for Romney to win the South and the Midwest, including Michigan, a state on few other lists.
• Andrew Beyer: Romney 284, Obama 254
• Karl Rove: Romney 279, Obama 259
• Republican strategist and former Bush adviser Karl Rove predicted in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that Romney would win with at least 279 Electoral College votes. Though he didn't specify which states, a likely route would be for Romney to clean up in the South plus win Colorado, Ohio and New Hampshire.
• Ben Domenech: Romney 278, Obama 260
• In a post on Real Clear Politics, Red State blog co-founder Ben Domenech predicted a narrow Romney win with 278 Electoral College votes. His map includes Romney sweeping the South and picking up Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire plus one of Maine's Congressional districts. 
• Leslie Sanchez: Romney 275, Obama 263
• Also as part of the "Crystal Ball" contest in the Washington Post, Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez, a former adviser to George W. Bush, predicted a narrow Romney win. Again, the actual states aren't known, but the most likely scenario would be for Romney to clean up in the South, plus win Ohio and Colorado.

Source: Mercury News

The Scope of Obamas Achievements

Who Gets Credit for the Recovery? — www.nytimes.com — Readability: The final factor, one that Mr. Obama’s base often overlooks, is that his presidency has produced a more significant set of policies than any Democratic presidency in a half-century. And an assertive Republican Party has promised to undo many of those policies if it wins.

The scope of Mr. Obama’s changes is easy to miss in part because he has used incremental, even moderate, means to achieve liberal ends. The health care law he and his Congressional allies passed relies less on government-provided care than either Richard M. Nixon’s or Mr. Clinton’s plans. But it is nonetheless the largest expansion of the safety net since Medicare and the most aggressive attack on inequality since inequality began rising in the 1980s.

In education, the Democrats expanded college financial aid, partly by eliminating bank subsidies, and pushed dozens of states to make K-12 schools more accountable. The 2009 stimulus bill also expanded and revamped infrastructure, antipoverty and research programs, as Michael Grunwald documents in his recent book, “The New New Deal.”

Even Mr. Obama’s and his allies’ biggest domestic failure (aside from misjudging the depth of the economic downturn) was not complete. Although Washington never passed a sweeping climate bill, it sharply raised fuel-mileage standards and spurred a wind and solar boomwith subsidies — subsidies scheduled to expire on Jan. 1.