On the last point, Fallows cites, in particular Fred Kaplan's "Mitt Romney's Most Dishonest Speech" in Slate, and Conor Friersdorf's "Mitt Romney's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Foreign-Policy Speech".
[I]t was astonishing to watch Romney spin a daydream of himself as some latter-day George Marshall, bringing peace, prosperity, and hope to a chaotic world--this from a man who couldn't drop in on the London Olympics without alienating our closest ally and turning himself into a transcontinental laughingstock.
Against the handicaps of a sluggish economy, closet racism, disappointed supporters, and Republican voter suppression efforts, Obama has the advantages of incumbency, Electoral College math, demographic trends that favor Democrats, an often bumbling opponent and opposing campaign, and a divided opposition party.
Fallows reminds us "None of that has changed."
Greg Sargent to Obama Supporters: "Chill"
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reiterates some of James Fallows's argument in "Chill, Obama supporters, chill". In particular he notes that the Obama campaign has always assumed the race would be close until the end, Obama would hold a two or three point lead in key states, and not enough undecideds would break to Romney. This, as Sargent notes, "is still eminently doable."