by Jim Geraghty, NRO

Let's see. Seven days out:

Mitt Romney's running ads in Pennsylvania.

Both campaigns are running ads in Minnesota.

The Obama campaign is buying a week's worth of television advertising on broadcast markets in Detroit, Michigan.

Then there's this wrinkle in the early-voting-will-give-Obama-an-unbeatable-edge narrative, as laid out by Dave Weigel:

It hasn't gotten too much attention outside of talk radio, but if accurate, Gallup's study of early voters neutralizes one of the Obama campaign's best road-to-victory talking points. As it conducted tracking polls (which have been paused for now), Gallup asked voters whether they'd cast ballots or intended to before election day. The early voters broke 52-46 for Mitt Romney. The dawdling voters who would vote before election day were tied, 49-49. The voters waiting for November 6 broke for Romney, again, by a 6-point margin.

This would be easy to explain away if Obama had lagged in 2008's early vote. After all, this study includes votes in Georgia and Texas and other places that have broken away from Obama. But . . . in 2008, Obama was winning this vote. An identical Gallup study taken around the same time gave Obama a 53-43 lead with early voters and a 50-44 lead on voters who would wait for election day.

Remember, "If votes cast on Election Day decided the 2008 election, McCain would have won in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa." That's how central the early vote is to Obama's strategy.

Richard Grenell summarizes a take: "It's happening. Romney winning independents, safe Obama states no longer safe, female gap closing. Obama is in trouble."

---30---

WE: Some see GOP voting tsunami coming

DM: Here comes the landslide