I listened in on the Romney campaign’s conference call this afternoon, delayed for 40 minutes after the scheduled time. Campaign manager Russ Schrieffer started off by saying Romney was just where he hoped a week before the election one year ago, with “lots of states in play and the president well before the 50% threshold.” Field Director Rich Beeson said that national polls (Pew Research is one) back up his claim that despite having many fewer offices the Romney forces have made about as many voter contacts as the Obama forces. They’re underperforming 2008 and we’re overperforming 2008, he said, and a ground game doesn’t work unless it has a strong message. He discussed early and absentee voting in Florida (citing Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times on Obama’s decline since 2008), Ohio (where he used counties for analysis rather than precincts, as the Obama campaign does, which he said have had boundary changes since 2008), Iowa (if Democrats don’t lead by 130,000 in early voting, which they have specialized in, Romney will win the state), Virginia (Romney is nearing 70% of early voting in “coal country”), North Carolina (he claimed Romney is 102,000 ahead in early voting), Colorado (“they need to win early and absentee, we’re actually ahead” in a state that now has more registered Republicans than Democrats), Nevada (Obama needs to win early voting in Las Vegas’s Clark County by 80,000 to carry the state). He didn’t mention Wisconsin, which I thought odd, and I was startled when he said that Romney would carry Florida by double digits. During the question and answer period, he corrected himself by predicting that Romney would carry the election day vote by double digits.