The difference between blogging as a compulsive hobby and blogging for a living lies chiefly in how often you’re allowed to take off. Stacy McCain has a thousand things he’d rather be discussing than whatever insignificant quips and dull gotchas emerge from the latest round of Electoral Competitive Grandstanding, but there he is anyway, twittering away and hoping something of worth emerges.

For my money, this would have to be it:

Watching #MSNBC: Chris Matthews isn’t giddy. That means, Romney won.

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) October 23, 2012

An odd weathervane for a presidential election, but probably a correct one. Obama 2008 seemed to get by on nothing but enthusiasm, the sensation. Absent that, you have a rather standard left-liberal president insisting that the weakest recovery in a century cannot be blamed on the policies he specifically created to counteract it. Such gruel may be lapped up greedily by the chattering class, but it’s not going to feed the multitudes.

Then again, those chaps that beat their arguments into the son of a Wisconsin State Senator seemed rather enthused, didn’t they?