AN EASY RIDE?

I AM VERY CONFUSED

Can you help me understand what's going on in politics? What am I missing? I've been studying the Hedgehog Report which collects data from all the major polls and it shows Obama beating Gingrich in the Electoral College by a vote of 426 to 112. That's what is called a landslide victory. And Gingrich is tied with Obama in Arizona and has only a 1% lead in Ohio but Hedgehog gives them to the Republican. The Hispanic vote could tip Arizona to the Democrats and Independents could swing Ohio. That would turn an Obama landslide into a tsunami.

There is, of course, a year to go before election day but one would think those numbers would have Republicans quaking in their Gucci loafers and hunting for an “anybody but Newt” candidate. Why aren't they and what is the GOP thinking? That's my conundrum.

I had one thought. Maybe there's a George Smiley-type agent in the GOP. You know, John le Carré's master spy in Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy. He would have been the one who plotted all their disastrous debates, sought out the women in Herman Cain's past, fed Rick Perry a drug which made him forget what agencies he wanted to abolish, and talked Gingrich into saying Freddy Mac hired him as an historian. Oh, and he convinced Romney that Americans had lousy memories and wouldn't be able to recall what he's said yesterday about gays, abortion, or universal health care.

Their Smiley chap (who never smiles) has also gotten into Karl Rove's head and GOP pollster Linda DiVall's. Rove said the Obama campaign has a “sort-term view” and a very bad long-term problem. Ms. DiVall was prompted to note that the Obama campaign “should not feel in the least comfortable.”

Short term? Don't they read The Washington Post? That sometimes good paper finally noted that the Obama campaign launched the “two Mitts in one body” TV ad with sole objective of helping Newt get the nomination That was damned smart long-range planning and the campaign staff is feeling quite comfortable as they meet in the White House today. .

Or maybe the GOP rigged all the polls and concocted the Hedgehog report just to give the Obama campaign a false comfortable feeling. Now that would really have been a major coup for their Smiley-face. Or they could be echoing the line, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” to victory in 2012.