alk to your doctor aut crestor. [ female announcer ] if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. sean: as both candidates head into the final stretch of the campaign there is one critical state that could hold the keys not white house for governor romney and that is the state of ohio. historically no republican candidate has won the election without taking this battleground state. the latest poll shows governor romney in a dead heat with the president both at 48% and as obama is relying mainly on the quote auto bailout for a victor arery in the state, voters are more concerned about the overall economy. romney is leading obama when it comes to the handling of the economy. joining us is michael barone. what do you think? what is happening in ohio? well, this was one of the three
varying in between a tie and a five point obama swing. but you we are also seeing in the polls almost all of them the 11 in which the real clear politics .com average is based romney way ahead as much as is 20 points among independents and when you look at the party identification figure there, the average in those 11 polls is 39-32, a 7-point advantage. that is essentially equivalent to what the exit poll proclaimed although as josh jordan points out in national review the exit poll party i.d. doesn t seem to match with the actual results in the exit the poll or the actual results and he estimates that the democratic party i.d. advantage was about five points. the average poll here is showing it at 7 which is more even though everywhere are else in the country the democratic party i.d. advantage has gone away or disappeared. sean: can you glean anything from the air early voteing that we are seeing in ohio? you understand this state better than anybody county by
what i find insulting that the president of the united states allows the benito attack to happen and allows a united states navy seal to die after he calls for backup and nobody from the white house sends help. i find it insulting more women than men have lost jobs under this president. and they are in poverty and on food stamps. and women are their children are the largest group living in poverty. that is insulting. sean: remember the president said this. let s start with this. because if you don t have any fresh ideas then you use stale tactics to scare voters. if you don t have a record to run on, then you paint your oh opponent as someone people should run from. you make a big election about small things. sean: small things. big bird. bayonets. that romney is is bs-er. grandma over the cliff and
the obama campaign wanted to concentrate on three states where they got the lowest winning percentages in 2008 except for indiana and north carolina which they conceded, florida, ohio and virginia. since the october 3 debate, florida seems to be gone toward mitt romney. he has been winning almost all polls this. virginia has been even tending a little toward romney in my judgment. ohio has been a little stickier. are the auto bailout is an issue there. if you look at the polls what you will see is white noncollege voters. a group that was 58-40 for john mccain nationally four years ago are not giving romney in ohio that much of an edge. and so i think there is some gain that the democrats have gotten from that that huge barrage of antiromney ads they ran before the convention. i would say this, though, sean. i think there is some reason to beware arery of the ohio polls. we are seeing results there in the most recent weeks there
while the democrats try to keep the departed on o the roles they won t necessarily. michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin they didn t run the barrage of antiromney ads preconvention there and those were 16-14 and 10 point obama states. how to they he look close to being even or not polls you cited even states and that is places where romney could win even if he doesn t win, ohio. sean: who is winning this race? mitt romney. sean: michael barone. thanks for being with us. appreciate it. chris matthews is playing the race card and this time attacking governor palin. desperation in full force at nbc news. we ll play you the insane comments, next. [ male announcer ] it s simple physics. a body at rest tends to stay at rest. while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis sympto. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain