One Final Point . . . (with updates)

From Steve Benen:

Gallup suspended its daily tracking poll after Hurricane Sandy slammed the East coast, but the pollster published one last set of results yesterday, wrapping up the 2012 campaign season. *** Gallup found that a 52% majority now approve of how Obama is doing his job. The final Washington Post/ABC News poll showed a similar result, with Obama scoring a 51% approval rating, tied for its highest point since the president ordered the strike on Osama bin Laden.

And why does this matter? Because there's no modern precedent for Americans defeating an incumbent president with an approval rating this high. ***

By the way, Nate Silver's final forecast gives Obama a 90.9% chance of winning the Election, and he predicts that Obama will win 313 Electoral Votes. Other forecasting models are predicting a similar outcome.

Now get out and vote -- and then turn your channel to FoxNews because I've been watching it for the past few days and it is freaking hilarious.

UPDATE:  Maybe you Republicans out there can answer me this:  You guys are all up in arms about Voter Fraud, but why is it that every time fraud is revealed, it is always Republicans that are engaging in it?

Clackamas County today identified the temporary elections worker accused of altering ballots as Deanna Swenson, 55, of the Oregon City area.  She was "relieved of duty immediately after the alleged ballot tampering was discovered," Tim Heider, county spokesman, said in a press release.

Swenson, who is registered as a Republican, also worked previous elections, at least back to 2010, said Scot Sideras, county counsel.  Swenson is accused of filling in the names of Republican candidates on ballots where voters did not make a choice. Tampering with ballots is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $125,000. * * *

UPDATE II: Look, I still hear stuff on Fox News and other sources that the polls are "razor tight" (whatever the fuck that means), the polls are all wrong, they oversample Democrats, Romney and Obama are actually tied in Pennsylvania, Romney is actually two points ahead in Ohio, etc. etc. etc.  This stuff doesn't bother me because it's all a bunch of shit.

So what kind of stuff bothers me? Well, the above-quoted ballot-tampering story does, as does this: "A Pennsylvania electronic voting machine has been taken out of service after being captured on video changing a vote for President Obama into one for Mitt Romney, NBC News has confirmed."

Just a glitch?  Perhaps.  But given that the Republicans have openly engaged in extensive efforts to suppress the vote over the past year, I can't help but wonder how far the GOP and its allies would be willing to go along these lines.  We already know how far the above-referenced elections worker from Clackamas County, Oregon was willing to go (hint: it involves going to prison).

UPDATE III:   Voter suppression tactics appear to be working well in Pennsylvania (see here and here). I guess that explains why the Romney Campaign thought Mitt had a chance there.