Don’t get me wrong, I am nervous as all get out in this election. I find it unbelievable that this election is so closely contested. Alas alack.

But I have been following this very closely, I have read the internals on every poll, I have read every article discussing the internals of every poll, and I have my own sense of where things are. I will not bore you with the details of all of my analysis and thinking, but I think I can distill it into a few bullet points.

There is every indication that Republican voter enthusiasm nationally and even in Ohio is up and Democrat enthusiasm down. I think that will negate much the edge that Democrats enjoyed last time around and I expect that Republicans will come close to nullifying that advantage altogether.

So with base turnout a wash, it comes down to independents. In just about every poll for the last month, even the ones that show Obama ahead, show Romney leading among independents and not by just a little. On average Romney’s advantage among I’s has been 8-11%. This is enough to give Romney a win even with a D+ turnout.

And lastly, the incumbent Obama has been at 47-48% in almost all the polls. This is likely close to the number that he will get on election day. My guess is that Obama comes away with 48.5% of the vote.

So at the end of the day I think that Romney wins R 51% – O 48.5% and that Ohio will mirror this national number.

Electorally that is enough but I also think that Wisconsin is a tossup, Iowa is a longshot, and that Michigan and Pennsylvania are a pipe dream.

*subhead*And the winner is…*subhead*