STATEN ISLAND: The Island That New York City Forgot.

HOPEY-CHANGEY: Reuters: Anger grows over fuel shortage in storm-hit Northeast.

MICHAEL BARONE: Romney Beats Obama, Handily.

Fundamentals usually prevail in American elections. That’s bad news for Barack Obama. True, Americans want to think well of their presidents and many think it would be bad if Americans were perceived as rejecting the first black president.

But it’s also true that most voters oppose Obama’s major policies and consider unsatisfactory the very sluggish economic recovery — Friday’s jobs report showed an unemployment uptick.

Also, both national and target state polls show that independents, voters who don’t identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans, break for Romney.

That might not matter if Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 39 to 32 percent, as they did in the 2008 exit poll. But just about every indicator suggests that Republicans are more enthusiastic about voting — and about their candidate — than they were in 2008, and Democrats are less so.

That’s been apparent in early or absentee voting, in which Democrats trail their 2008 numbers in target states Virginia, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada.

The Obama campaign strategy, from the beginning, has recognized these handicaps, running barrages of early anti-Romney ads in states that Obama carried narrowly. But other states, not so heavily barraged, have come into contention.

For the country’s sake, I hope he’s right.

CBS NEWS: Sandy Victims Run Low On Fuel And Patience. “When it came to fuel supplies and patience, the New York tri-state area was running close to empty Friday.”

JIM TREACHER: Benghazi News Roundup.

DIRTY TRICKS: Toledo Union Members Caught with a Truckload of Stolen Romney Signs.

BAD NEWS: The Million Muppet* Puppet March is still scheduled for tomorrow in DC.

The organizers estimate that their attendance will be approximately 600 people, and their muppets puppets. Spokesmuppet Count von Count says that he only has four fingers on each hand, but he’s pretty sure that 600 is far less than a million.

* If you’re PBS, and have to potentially work with a Romney administration, would you allow your trademark to be used?

MAX BOOT: Why Did We Abandon The Benghazi Compound?

MICKEY KAUS: A New Theory of BLS Skew.

OUCH: Staten Islanders abandoned by Obama, kinda like Ambassador Stevens.

Hey, they’re white, working-class, Catholics. Bitter clingers.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Make college relevant, not a resort vacation.

AT AMAZON, introducing the Christmas Corner.

WELCOME BACK CARTER: Starting at noon Saturday, New Jersey will move to an odd-even gas rationing system in 12 counties.

A TALE OF TWO CANDIDATES:

[jwplayer mediaid=”156627″]

UPDATE: Related videos at Hugh Hewitt’s Website.

MORE: If Romney goes on to win on Tuesday, the above video will be seen as his equivalent of Ronald Reagan saying to Jimmy Carter — just a few days before his own “unexpected” election — “There you go again.” In both cases, they were a gentle and positive way for the challenger to remind the American public that the president they elected in good faith, based on a groundswell of media-generated frenzy four years prior, under the auspices of “Change” and a new tone, were, underneath it all, mean-spirited, punitive liberals.

AMERICA TODAY:

This is America today. Please Retweet this image if you care about jobs in this country: twitter.com/Heritage/statu…

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) November 2, 2012

And a reminder that Mr. Obama views this as a feature.

VODKAPUNDIT’S WEEK IN BLOGS — with a Dr. Johnny Fever homage (“Booger!” remains a firing offense at PJTV, however):

[jwplayer mediaid=”156619″]

NEO-NEOCON: Notes for Noonan on Narcissism.

(Found, including nifty alliterative headline, at Power Line.)

HOW MUCH ROOM IS THERE UNDER THAT BUS: Obama Throws Democratic Congressmen Under The Bus; Urges Voters To Vote For Anyone — Republican, Democrat, or Independent — So Long as They Vote Against “Gridlock”.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: “If your boobs are each more than twice the size of your head, they are probably too big.”

FRIDAY NIGHT RIGHT: Romney supporters pack rally in West Chester, Ohio; photos at Twitchy.com.

Stunning 360 degree view via BuzzFeed; live streaming video at Right Scoop.

WELL, HE DID PROMISE TO LEAD FROM BEHIND: Gross… Axelrod: Obama Is Closing With His Loins.

RELATED: We cannot confirm if this is a verified Twitter account.

MORE HOPE ‘N CHANGE: FOOD STAMP GROWTH 75x JOB GROWTH:  Yikes.  Here’s the Weekly Standard graph:

THIS ELECTION YEAR, is America Nurse Jackie?

MICHAEL BARONE CALLS IT FOR ROMNEY: You heard the snap call at the end of his appearance last week on Hannity; he goes into specifics this afternoon at the Washington Examiner:

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

Plus this, from Ace, via the Washington Post: “Whoah: 13% of Obama’s 2008 Voters Are Defecting to Romney; 3% Undecided.”

The WaPo also believes that the GOP may add to its 2010 house gains. If that prediction plays out, Ed Morrissey writes, “we’d be looking at a 2010 midterm model … and a lot of pollsters will have egg on their faces on Wednesday.”

Speaking of which, there’s one enormous caveat to all of the above predictions: Dick Morris still thinks Romney can win.

UPDATE: Don Surber asks, “Where’s Michael Barone’s ‘don’t get cocky, kid?'”

What — doesn’t the Dick Morris addendum count?

I keed — I keed. But I think the Chicago Boyz have the right attitude going into the weekend.

OUCH: