[...]  We need a blowout.
But it looks like we're going to have that nail-biter instead. Gallup's tracking poll Thursday morning could hardly have been closer: Romney 46, Obama 45. A day earlier, the two were dead-even. This apparently is how things will go, giving both sides incentive to go nuclear with each news cycle -- whatever that is these days.
Can you feel the stress?
If you doubt how brutal it's going to be this year, then look at how nasty the primaries have been. Candidates are attacking one another with ads that are almost comically nasty. Supporters on one side are whispering rumors about the opposition. Records are being distorted. Voters are on edge.  [...]

Now for my assessment.
I would agree with Tully's thought that we need a blowout election in order to move ahead.  It would clear the air temporarily, at least, between the two parties before the partisan fighting would once again begin.  Being a right wing partisan I believe we need a blowout in the presidential election in order to send a message that the business of government in Washington, D.C. will change significantly in the next four years or more.  Of course I am referring to a Romney victory to seal the deal for the change so desperately needed in downsizing our bloated federal government and its unbridled and absolutely wasteful spending habits for every social program under the sun.
I see several different possibilities occurring.  

Obama wins big.  Heaven help us then, as there would be no holding back an avalanche of left wing socialist adventures going forward, especially if the Democrats hold the Senate and close the gap of their House minority status.  Obama would rein regularly with the use of executive orders and with concurrent cover provided by the Democrats in the Senate and to a lesser degree in the House.
Obama wins in  a squeaker.  Still a disaster for the country, but with less opportunity for Obama to maneuver around the roiling political shoals he would encounter with a Republican House and either a Republican Senate or a very tenuous and weak Democrat Senate majority.  Look to Obama to rule almost exclusively through a continuing backdoor use of executive orders for the next four years should this scenario play out.

Romney wins in a squeaker.  Romney by his very nature will seek to move to a centrist position in leading government.  He will reduce the size of government by attrition rather than by wholesale elimination of departments and functions.  He will seek to rule by consensus.  Markets would immediately improve in anticipation of changes to reduce regulations in the financial markets and the environment.  This could be a short lived boost if Romney and the Republicans cannot manage to make significant changes within the first year.  Romney would be much less likely to rule by executive order if he could establish a working consensus of sorts with Democrats.  Romney would probably lead at the margin of most issues and only achieve those successes the Democrats would allow.

Romney wins big.  Romney wins in a landslide, maintains the House and either gains a slight majority in the Senate or at the very least finds a reduced Democrat majority with fewer radically liberal senators and a Senate that he can work with.  Immediately the markets react positively.  Romney is able to pass significant portions of his agenda.  The economy improves under Romney's agenda of streamlining the various regulatory processes, reducing taxes and spending and reforming social programs.  Employment improves substantially as the business sector sees stability in government's role in regulating business and a return to basics, thus removing many of the burdens of trying to exist in a highly regimented environment with all its non productive burdens and associated costs.

Looking at these scenarios, the reader is bound to understand the many variables that exist within each scenario.  Any changes in the makeup of the House and/or Senate will be critical one way or another in determining the direction of government no matter who becomes president.  Congress will either work effectively with the president, oppose the president at every turn and or will work around the president at the margins of running government.