mianderson
2008-08-20 19:33:13 UTC
First, couldn't be more pleased with how the campaign is going.
Mccain seems to be aging 2 years with every passing week. He's also
completely incapable of thinking/answering questions that veer the
slightest off his stump speech. Kos summed up the situation today
pretty well with the following: "a new Q-poll has Obama up five,
Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras
has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times. Look, the race is tightening
at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the
state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency.
So while it's not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls
from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic."
Here is how I like to look at the situation state by state: Looking
at the electoral map of 2000 that everyone uses as a template, it's a
pretty safe bet that Mccain *cannot* hold all those states that bush
won. Be it colorado, nevada, florida, ohio, virginia, etc.....he may
hold some of those states, but there is no way he holds the 6 or 7
states that Bush has won the last 2 cycles that are most vulnerable.
Which means mccain would have to pick up some states gore won, again
using the 2000 template. And where are they...... Michigan? No way,
the natural gap there between dems and reps there has grown too much
over the last 8 years. Minnesota? Please. Wisconsin? Some polls
there have been close(and some havent been), but Mccain is smoking
dope if he thinks he can steal wisconsin. So that leaves
Pennsylvania, and the numbers for mccain just arent feasible for a few
reasons:
1) Philadelphia turnout with obama on the ticket will be *higher* than
for gore or kerry because of the race thing. Mccain is going to have
a 550,000+ vote deficit to make up after philly is counted. He can't
do that.
2) The state polls that show philly close right now are overcounting
the more gop areas of the state and undercounting the more dem areas.
If you actually take the polling numbers and adjust to better
approximate the voting turnout in each part of the state the last two
cycles, it's more like an 8 pt race in pa and not a dead even race.
Ok, enough about that. Let's talk about kingjoe accepting an
invitation to speak at the gop convention. The rumor mill is saying
that harry reid, levin, etc are prepared to boot kingjoe's *** off his
chairmanship after the election. Hoooray! Apparently this may have
been the straw that did it. And the great thing is that come january
09 we won't need kingjoe's vote because we'll have somewhere between
53 and 56 senators most likely.......the sweetest thing about picking
up more senate seats in 2008 will be the fact that any leverage
kingjoe has is completely gone. Personally I'd like to see capital
security have to drag him out of his chairmanship seat clawing with
them.
Now the vp picks. The media is still clueless in mentioning some
names(bayh) as potential vp's. Yes biden is in the running. Sebelius
is in the running. Dolts like evan bayh aren't. What do I think
about Biden as a vp? Eh....he's fine I guess. I don't think it
really matters either way.
Mccain seems to be aging 2 years with every passing week. He's also
completely incapable of thinking/answering questions that veer the
slightest off his stump speech. Kos summed up the situation today
pretty well with the following: "a new Q-poll has Obama up five,
Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras
has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times. Look, the race is tightening
at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the
state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency.
So while it's not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls
from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic."
Here is how I like to look at the situation state by state: Looking
at the electoral map of 2000 that everyone uses as a template, it's a
pretty safe bet that Mccain *cannot* hold all those states that bush
won. Be it colorado, nevada, florida, ohio, virginia, etc.....he may
hold some of those states, but there is no way he holds the 6 or 7
states that Bush has won the last 2 cycles that are most vulnerable.
Which means mccain would have to pick up some states gore won, again
using the 2000 template. And where are they...... Michigan? No way,
the natural gap there between dems and reps there has grown too much
over the last 8 years. Minnesota? Please. Wisconsin? Some polls
there have been close(and some havent been), but Mccain is smoking
dope if he thinks he can steal wisconsin. So that leaves
Pennsylvania, and the numbers for mccain just arent feasible for a few
reasons:
1) Philadelphia turnout with obama on the ticket will be *higher* than
for gore or kerry because of the race thing. Mccain is going to have
a 550,000+ vote deficit to make up after philly is counted. He can't
do that.
2) The state polls that show philly close right now are overcounting
the more gop areas of the state and undercounting the more dem areas.
If you actually take the polling numbers and adjust to better
approximate the voting turnout in each part of the state the last two
cycles, it's more like an 8 pt race in pa and not a dead even race.
Ok, enough about that. Let's talk about kingjoe accepting an
invitation to speak at the gop convention. The rumor mill is saying
that harry reid, levin, etc are prepared to boot kingjoe's *** off his
chairmanship after the election. Hoooray! Apparently this may have
been the straw that did it. And the great thing is that come january
09 we won't need kingjoe's vote because we'll have somewhere between
53 and 56 senators most likely.......the sweetest thing about picking
up more senate seats in 2008 will be the fact that any leverage
kingjoe has is completely gone. Personally I'd like to see capital
security have to drag him out of his chairmanship seat clawing with
them.
Now the vp picks. The media is still clueless in mentioning some
names(bayh) as potential vp's. Yes biden is in the running. Sebelius
is in the running. Dolts like evan bayh aren't. What do I think
about Biden as a vp? Eh....he's fine I guess. I don't think it
really matters either way.