2010 IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE A WARM-UP: Media skewing polls by double digits to make up for Obama enthusiasm gap

Call it the Obama reality deficit. The highlights of a roundup from Nice Deb should warm the cockles of your heart:

• Dick Morris: "I can’t predict what will happen November 6th, [but] if the Election was held today Romney Would Win by 4-5 Points. ... People need to understand that the polling this year is the worst it's ever been... this is the first election that where if I tell you who's going to vote, I can tell you how they're going to vote... and I'll be right two out of three times. Therefore, the issue is who is going to vote. Polling is very good at saying how you're going to vote, it's very bad at say who's going to vote. The models these folks are using are crazy. They're using a Democrat edge of six or seven points... I'm assuming a three point Democrat edge and even that is likely overstated. ...The people are overwhelming concluding that this guy isn't up to being President, and the media is trying to convince us [otherwise]."

• John Giokaris of Townhall: "The liberal mainstream media and blogosphere are desperately trying to write Romney’s funeral using polls that oversample Democrats by as much a D+10, D+11 and D+13. In 2008, an historic election wave for Democrats, the electorate was D+7. In 2004, when George W. Bush won re-election, the electorate was evenly split. In other words, D+0. So was the 2010 midterm election: evenly split. The Democrat share of the electorate is not going to double this year. Given the well-noted enthusiasm edgefor Republicans this year, the electorate is going to be far closer to the 2004 and 2010 models than 2008. Any poll trying to replicate the 2008 is going to artificially inflate Obama’s support."

• Brian Cates of Draw and Strike: "...in 2008, Democrats DID outvote Republicans by +7. That was a historic wave election for the Democratic party; you’d have to go back decades to find another election where Democrats outvoted Republicans by anything like that kind of number. Usually the partisan split between Dems and Repubs is pretty damn close, and if it’s not tied within the margin of error, it’s between a +1 or a +3 advantage to whichever party gets the upper hand. So +7 was pretty damn eye-opening in 2008... Despite the fact that a lot has changed since 2008, many of these MSM pollsters are using a 2008 template for their polls... However, all the signs point to a big REPUBLICAN voter enthusiasm advantage in this election."

• John Nolte of Big Journalism: "If you’re going to believe the polls released from CBS/New York Times this morning — you know, the polls the media’s currently using to beat Romney senseless and to depress Republican enthusiasm, you have to believe that the turnout advantage for Democrats over Republicans will blow away every previous record and common sense."

• Jay Cost of The Weekly Standard confirms: "Yes, Most Polls (The Ones The Media Prefers) Are Giving Obama a Phantom 3-4 Point Edge"

• Nice Deb herself observes: "They’re trying to wrap this up before the debates even start, because I think they’re worried about the debates. I think they’re trying to get this election finished and in the can by suppressing your vote and depressing you so that you just don’t think there’s any reason to vote, that it’s hopeless. They want you making other plans... Open your eyes – it’s beyond obvious, now what they are doing."

That, my friends, is the critical point: Democrats are scared to death of the public reality check represented by the debates, as I wrote in "IT'S OVER: The Left's Information Warfare Campaign Has Failed -- and Mitt Romney is Going to Win This Election":

Obama without TOTUS is like Joe Biden without the hair-plugs. Romney has been tempered through the fires of a dozen, hard-core, debate melees.

And Obama has had precisely zero debates and, for that matter, hasn't even entertained a serious interview in years. Without practice -- and with his increasingly questionable work ethic -- I have a prediction to make:

Obama is going to stumble in these debates. He will stumble badly. And he will reveal himself.

Furthermore, when you come right down to it, he's an easy mark. He has a record he must try to defend. And that record is downright ugly. He can blame Bush, Tsunamis, ATMs and the Euro for all of his failures, but if he tries, he'll sound even more like an unpresidential loser than usual.

The combination of being confronted with his failures -- one after the other, with no real way to spin or lie without blatantly appearing as a charlatan -- along with his documented case of Aggressive Narcissism results in my Lock o' the Week prognostication:

Obama will seriously stumble in these debates. It will be cringe-worthy.

Write it down. Take it to the bank. This is going to be fun.