MITTMENTUM IN MICHIGAN:  Latest poll in deep blue state of Michigan has Romney up by 1 point, 47-46.   Wow.

JUST A REMINDER:  Why it’s important to vote:

BAD KIDS REJOICE: NO MORE LUMPS OF COAL AFTER OBAMA REELECTION:  This Christmas and future ones may be very bright indeed for bad little boys and girls, as the Obama Administration rolls out its vehemently anti-coal environmental agenda for a second term.  Take note, Pennsylvania and Ohio:  A second Obama term will know no political shame and have zero incentive to moderate.

GEORGE WILL PREDICTS ROMNEY BLOWOUT:  Quite a turnaround for Will, who seemed to write Romney’s obituary a few weeks ago.  He also predicts Minnesota will turn from blue to red for Romney.

EXPECT A LOT OF THIS ON TUESDAY:  Incredible efforts–particularly in minority neighborhoods– to run polls like they are groupthink rallies.  I feel sorry for the poor pollwatchers in these neighborhoods– like trying to monitor an election in a third world country.

ROMNEY UP BY 1 in DEEP BLUE MINNESOTA:  According to an American Future Fund poll, Romney is up 46-45 in . . . Minnesota.  He has a 13 point advantage with Independents.  When it rains, it pours.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “My GF is a DFL party major donor in St. Paul…..they are pissing themselves…… For the love of God don’t use my name, she’s hot, but communicate the feeling……..” Well, make of that what you will. We’ll know soon enough. Meanwhile, don’t get cocky!

THEY DON’T SEE IT COMING:  This Politico story is almost funny–they are scratching their progressive heads, wondering why early voting numbers are relatively even.   In their words:

Republicans claim that although Democrats are leading in early voting in most battleground states, they are simply “cannibalizing” or diluting their Election Day turnout by turning out voters who would otherwise come out on Election Day.

Senior Obama officials aggressively refute this by pointing to the number of first-time voters they have registered in battleground states. In Florida and Colorado, for example, they have registered an overwhelming number of new Latino voters, who tend to vote Democratic. (In Florida, Democrats say the bulk of the new Latino voters are Puerto Ricans, who are more likely to vote Democratic than are Cuban-Americans). In those states, the campaign has used Spanish-speaking volunteers to return repeatedly to the voters it has registered until they have mailed in their ballots or gone to the polls.

In addition, in hotly contested Ohio — where voters don’t register by party affiliation and where 1.2 million people have already voted — Obama officials point out that of the newly registered voters, 83 percent are either women, young voters or minorities — which they believe works to Obama’s advantage.

What they don’t see coming–or are choosing not to see–is the absolutely massive, crawl-over-broken-glass turnout for Romney (and against Obama) on Tuesday.

But again:  Don’t get cocky– just VOTE.

BIG TIME MITTMENTUM: SUSQUEHANNA POLL SHOWS ROMNEY UP BY 4 IN PENNSYLVANIA:  Whoa.  If this is accurate– and Susquehanna is Pennsylvania’s best, most accurate pollster– the race is OVER.   Romney 49%, Obama 45%.

But for all the superstitious readers out there (including me):  Don’t get cocky!!!!

NEW OBAMA STRATEGY: DEMONIZE THE TEA PARTY:  After mentioning the tea party only once in the entire campaign (in October), Obama decides his last, best hope is to demonize millions of Americans who have the audacity to care about things like limited government and the Constitution, mentioning the tea party disparagingly at least 5 times on Thurs and Fri.  Yeah, great strategy — I’m sure THAT will work.

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

THE OBAMA DEFECTORS:  You know things are a’changin’ when the Washington Post does a story on the Obama Defectors.  Here’s their graphic:

FOUR MORE!:  Days!!!

KRAUTHAMMER: A STARK CHOICE:  “Every four years we are told that the coming election is the most important of one’s life. This time it might actually be true. At stake is the relation between citizen and state, the very nature of the American social contract.”

MORE HOPE ‘N CHANGE:  UNEMPLOYMENT RISES TO 7.9%:  Still wallowing around 31 year lows. 

SIX ENORMOUS STAKES IN ELECTION:  If you needed any extra motivation to vote in the presidential election, these stakes should do it for you.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL EXCORIATES OBAMA AS “UNWORTHY”:  WOW.  I’ve never seen anything quite like this.  An editorial in today’s Las Vegas Review-Journal–the largest daily circulation paper in Nevada–absolutely slams Obama as an incompetent leader, starting with the Benghazi non-response:

The Obama administration sat by doing nothing for seven hours that night, ignoring calls to dispatch help from our bases in Italy, less than two hours away. It has spent the past seven weeks stretching the story out, engaging in misdirection and deception involving supposed indigenous outrage over an obscure anti-Muslim video, confident that with the aid of a docile press corps this infamous climax to four years of misguided foreign policy can be swept under the rug, at least until after Tuesday’s election.

. . . .

Not only did the White House do nothing, there are now reports that a counterterrorism team ready to launch a rescue mission was ordered to stand down.

The official explanation for the inadequate security? This administration didn’t want to “offend the sensibilities” of the new radical Islamic regime which American and British arms had so recently helped install in Libya.

The official explanation for why Obama administration officials watched the attack unfold for seven hours, refusing repeated requests to send the air support and relief forces that sat less than two hours away in Italy? Silence.

. . . .

This administration is an embarrassment on foreign policy and incompetent at best on the economy – though a more careful analysis shows what can only be a perverse and willful attempt to destroy our prosperity. Back in January 2008, Barack Obama told the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” He added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” It was also in 2008 that Mr. Obama’s future Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, famously said it would be necessary to “figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe” – $9 a gallon.

Yet the president now claims he’s in favor of oil development and pipelines, taking credit for increased oil production on private lands where he’s powerless to block it, after he halted the Keystone XL Pipeline and oversaw a 50 percent reduction in oil leases on public lands.

These behaviors go far beyond “spin.” They amount to a pack of lies. To return to office a narcissistic amateur who seeks to ride this nation’s economy and international esteem to oblivion, like Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb to its target at the end of the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” would be disastrous.

Candidate Obama said if he couldn’t fix the economy in four years, his would be a one-term presidency.

Mitt Romney is moral, capable and responsible man. Just this once, it’s time to hold Barack Obama to his word. Maybe we can all do something about that, come Tuesday.

Major Mittmentum.

RELATED (From Ed): Steve Green charts The Silver State Ground Game.

CAN THE GOVERNMENT TAKE YOUR BUSINESS WHEN YOU’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG?:  A important trial being litigated by the superlawyers at the Institute for Justice begins this Monday in the federal court in Boston. At issue: Whether the government can seize a private business, using what’s called “civil forfeiture,” just because a third party has used the property to commit a crime.

The case is a compelling story of the Caswells, who own a mom-and-pop motel, the Motel Caswell, at which a few drug busts have occurred over the last decade or so (about .05% of the patrons of the hotel were arrested for drug crimes).  The Caswells have not been accused of any wrongdoing, yet the federal and local governments have partnered up to seize the hotel–worth over $1 million dollars.  If the forfeiture is successful, the Caswells will lose their business entirely and will not be compensated one dime.

Watch this video to find out more about the stakes involved in this outrageous (and growing) use of government power:

[jwplayer mediaid=”156464″]

BENGHAZI-GATE INDIFFERENCE:  Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece in today’s Chicago Tribune documenting the lamestream media’s incessant, overt bias against conservatives, which helps explain its continuing indifference to all things Benghazi.  Says Goldberg:

Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. They were allegedly told twice to “stand down.” Worse, there are suggestions that there were significant military resources available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.

If true, the White House’s concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles, as do several other fraudulent claims. Yet, last Friday, the president boasted that “the minute I found out what was happening” in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel.

That is either untrue, or he’s being disobeyed on grave matters.

This isn’t an “October surprise” foisted on the media by opposition research; it’s news.

This story raises precisely the sort of “big issues” the media routinely claim elections should be about.

And yet still, we hear from the MSM . . . crickets.

LAWFARE ATTACKS STANDING:  The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on Clapper v. Amnesty International, an important case that requires the Court to decide whether lawyers and journalists who “fear” government surveillance of their conversations with foreigner terror suspects have standing to challenge the law allowing such surveillance (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA).  The case is considered to be part of a “lawfare” effort by the far left to undermine U.S. efforts in the war on terror.

Normally, such “fear” won’t give rise to an active “case or controversy” required by the Constitution to allow adjudication, but the plaintiffs in Clapper argue that an exception should be made because if such surveillance occurs, it would be secret, and they would never know that they’d been injured.

A great summary of the case is available here.

LIAR, LIAR:  But will Benghazi-gate catch fire?

MI SUPREME COURT SHOWDOWN:  Two conservative Michigan Supreme Court justices are facing tough elections this November– Steven Markman and Brian Zahra.  A lot of union money is being spent to unseat them.  I knew Markman from my early days on the law faculty at Michigan State.  He’s a super smart guy, an strong originalist, and deserves to be reelected.

POLITICIZING DISASTER RELIEF:   Totally predictable, of course, but still utterly ignoble.  The editors of the Wall Street Journal document the Obama campaign’s–and its surrogate, the lamestream media’s–panicky attempt to capitalize on Hurricane Sandy by implying that Romney and Republicans are opposed to disaster relief.   Uh, yeah, whatever.

But seriously, here’s how inane the Democrats’ efforts are:

As for Mr. Romney and FEMA, the liberals are excavating remarks from one of the early GOP debates. CNN’s John King asked if “the states should take on more” of a role in disaster relief as FEMA was running out of money.

Mr. Romney: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

“Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut—we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in.”

This isn’t an argument for abolishing FEMA so much as it is for the traditional federalist view that the feds shouldn’t supplant state action. As it happens, the response to Hurricane Sandy has been a model of such a division of responsibility.

Exactly.  Word of the day for our liberal/progressive friends out there:  FEDERALISM.  It’s part of this thing called the “Constitution.”  You should check it out some time.

MICHELLE OBAMA’S MARXIST/CRITICAL RACE THEORY TIES:  The Blaze has a thorough report detailing Michelle Obama’s (nee Michelle Robinson’s) ties to Marxist/Critical Race Theory groups while an undergraduate at Princeton. 

Her husband’s ties to this radical ideology is well documented.

EVEN MORE MITTMENTUM:  N.H. NASHUA TELEGRAPH ENDORSES ROMNEY:  Add New Hampshire’s largest newspaper to the growing list of papers that endorsed Obama in 2008 but are abandoning him in droves now.  The editors stated:

So the basic question facing The Telegraph editorial board when it met last week came down to this: Did the former Illinois senator do enough to live up to those admittedly high expectations to warrant a second term?

After several hours of spirited debate, not unlike conversations taking place in kitchens and living rooms across America, we reached a consensus that he had not. Perhaps more importantly, when we identified the key challenges facing the nation – jobs, the economy and the national debt – we concluded he was not the best candidate to meet them.

That person is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and we hereby endorse him to become the 45th president of the United States.

But don’t get cocky, y’all.

BLOOMBERG TO OBAMA: STAY AWAY:  Breitbart reports that Obama wanted to visit NYC to pose for more photo-ops.  Mayor Bloomberg’s office rejected Obama’s offer, saying, “We’d love to have him, but we’ve got lots of things to do.”   Obama’s basically the pesky little brother who wants to follow big brother Bloomberg around and act cool and grown up.  Go play with your State Department or CIA friends, Obama.  Oh, that’s right:  They’re mad at you right now.