Obama was always been lucky.  The October Surprise was Hurricane Sandy and the resultant photo op for Obama played right into the hopes of many who had voted for him in 2008 and weren't ready to let go of who they had always wanted Obama to be.  There was Obama, looking both Presidential and bipartisan next to Republican Governor Chris Christie.  Sandy left Romney in the position of the nice guy fiancé of the woman who has just heard the bad boy who let her down, refresh out of rehab, promise her it will all be different this time.  Maybe she knows she isn't being smart but she isn't ready to settle for safe.  Mr. Nice Guy doesn't stand a chance.  Maybe that is why so many of Obama's supporters are single women.  Their judgment about men is simply appalling. 

Obama shrewdly reinforced this image with a big ad buy of General Colin Powell's endorsement. Republican news junkies see Powell as a political general who often put his reputation with the media ahead of the duties of the office he was in.  His propensities for leaking information to settle old scores made him a treacherous ally and we have not forgiven him for the Scooter Libby prosecution.  Unfortunately that is not his reputation among less informed voters.  I wanted to scream at the ad the first time I saw it during a football game last weekend.  By the third football game the ad ran on I was starting to think with its reassurances the economy was improving and Obama's foreign policy was working this could be very effective with swing voters.  It underscored the media image of the week- Obama as so many of the 2008 Obama voters wanted him to be- a competent, moderate bipartisan leader. 

I don't know how many were swayed by this one-two punch, but I suspect it effectively countered Romney's big selling point for independents that he had been a bipartisan governor.  If nothing else, it may have muddied the water enough that many voters not happy with the choices available stayed home. 

The one positive here is that residents of New York City have experienced the amazing bias of the press.  They can look around them and compare what they see to the stories in the media and experience that same sense of unreality conservatives have experienced for ages. Where they really here?  Did they see what I saw? Why is Chris Matthews such a jerk? The recovery from Sandy has not been a great success but a press that jumped on every unfounded rumor out of New Orleans have tried to downplay real problems with Sandy to help their favorite politicians.  In saving Obama's bacon let us hope the national media has taken one more step towards their own demise.