350+

Is how many electoral votes Obama will take on November 6. Take that to the bank. Bet the farm.

There seem to be very few "experts" on the subject who can see that Obama is way ahead of Romney.

Okay, for one thing, is it really so hard to see that nationwide polls are completely useless in predicting an election which will be decided by electoral vote? These news stories claiming that the race is close keep pointing to nationwide polls and ignoring state-by-state polls. That kind of story defines the term "useless" about as well as anything I can think of. Not one electoral-vote projection based on current polling shows Romney ahead -- Huffington Post's Speculatron electoral-vote map is based on what Speculatron Boy has pulled out of his butt -- and some show Obama with as many as 332 electoral votes. The latter seem like the most sensible projections to me. I think there's widespread bias and/or incompetence among the "experts" who are calling this thing close.

Romney didn't get a bounce from the RNC convention. This doesn't surprise me. I know, my claim of not having anticipated a bump would have been much more impressive if I had posted it before the Republican convention. It seems to have surprised a lot of "experts," but don't expect a lot of articles and editorials with headlines like "OK, WE'RE IDIOTS!" Idiots can't admit to themselves that they're idiots. This is one of the reasons they stay idiots.

The "experts" predicted small post-convention bumps for both Romney and Obama. I'm predicting a big bump for Obama, big enough that the projection of 332 electoral votes will have to be adjusted upward. Maybe much higher.

And I predict that after Obama's big post-convention bump, the "experts" will continue to find a way to claim that this thing is close. I predict that they will predict that the bump will melt away quickly. I predict it won't.

Why are the predictions of the "experts" so far off, and why will they continue to be? I don't know. Straight-up stupidity, maybe. Maybe they don't care whether people will look at their performance as prognosticators when considering in the future to hire them.

Maybe there's some grand conspiracy here which would be easier for me to see if I were neurologically-typical. Anyway, what I'm predicting is that enough voters will be able to see the difference between a highly-intelligent centrist powerfully motivated to do the country good, and a pathological liar who chose another pathological liar as his running mate, and the difference between a campaign based on good ideas and one based on lies and irrational fear, to make this thing lopsided. Maybe more like 380 than 350.