magnet
1701
Then you’re predicting victory for Obama.
Fooey
1702
What? I’m saying I think the race is now a toss up. Pre-Palin I though Obama was all but assured to win. Do you not understand the statistical margin of error concept or something?
TimJames
1703
A 75 electoral vote difference is pretty significant right? Obama even has a 31 vote cushion over the 270 he needs.
It would be really sweet to see a chart with these same prediction engines running the 2000 or 2004 elections retroactively, just to see the electoral vote count and popular vote swing. Not that I’m skeptical of it, just that it’d be neat to look at the races in the same way. Although I guess if they’re using data from those elections it might not be statistically relevant. Err…
I say 70% chance of Obama win.
Before McCain’s speech last night I would have said maybe 60-65%.
Edit: I backed off a little and voted 60-69% in the poll thread.
magnet
1705
If McCain can’t break 50% in the national polling, he won’t win. The electoral landscape is heavily tilted against him.
Obama has also been running a ground game strategy over the entire summer that’s going to push him out past the polling come election day.
Having Palin bringing out the evangelicals will help, but Obama doesn’t need to win that game to win, he just needs to match it.
Lux
1707
Not at all, but it IS a sign of being able to sucker a massive majority of voters into beliving she’s working in their best interests. The moderate and conservative voters who don’t really vote based on issues or platforms are going to love her and they’re a LARGE voting block.
Lum
1708
Based on electoral vote projections, it will be an Obama landslide in the electoral college, especially if Colorado and Virginia (two very tossup states) break Obama’s way. If Colorado flips for Obama, Obama can afford to give up Florida (which is leaning McCain in most polls, although the latest shows a statistical tie - McCain up by 1%). Thanks to the flush coffers they have from Internet fundraising, Obama’s team are mounting a challenge in EVERY state. Even Alaska.
The Sarah Palin dramatics is great for pundits and board warriors, but Obama’s ground game is going to be devastating in the general election. You know, all that “community organizing” unimportant stuff.
magnet
1709
What’s even more remarkable is that Obama can win even if he loses Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida. All he needs to win is the Kerry states, Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada.
He has the Kerry states, Iowa, and New Mexico in the bag already. And his latest numbers in Nevada (47-44) are even better than in Colorado (45-43).
Papageno
1710
Let’s not count our chickens… a lot can change in 2 months.
And we haven’t even begun to see the worst of the attack ads.
According to Pollster, McCain is only polling ahead in three of the nine battleground states, and he needs to win almost all of them to win this election. A lot can happen between now and November, but my personal impression is that this race is not nearly as close as the national tracking polls might indicate. I went with 70% for an Obama win in the prediction thread.
Rumor is that the National Enquirer is going to provide evidence that Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband’s former business partner, Scott Richter (who has just filed an emergency request to have his divorce records sealed). Same reporting team as what broke the Edwards stuff, apparently.
I love the circus. Especially the elephants!
RCP shows pretty similar numbers,
Barack Obama 238
183 Solid 55 Leaning
John McCain 174
142 Solid 32 Leaning
Toss Up 126
126 Toss Up
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/
Where are you hearing this too perfect to be true rumor? Sounds like Karl Rove faking a fake memo for Dan Rather trap to me.
If it is true I might have to vote for McCain. Too much fun not too.
Lux
1715
Everybody sleeps with everybody else in Wasilla. It’s like a soap opera but most of them are ugly. I have no doubt it probably happened but they’ll never make it stick.
I’ve never really understood how such personal trivia factored into how fit someone was for public office.
The strength of her VP appointment is based entirely on personal trivia. Just sayin’.
Well, the NE running the story isn’t a rumor, the McCain campaign has already threatened to sue over it. I think the speculation is being lead by the NE publishing it, and the gentleman in question rushing to try to seal his divorce records a couple of days ago.
Lux
1718
Too true. But the fact that this kind of material is being treated as a determining factor in national elections raises the question as to weather the information explosion killed democracy years ago.
Why does it matter if Bill “had sexual relations with that woman” or how many houses McCain has? How can that possibly relate to thier decisions when running a country of this magnitude?
The science of feeding the public the right soundbytes and talking points seems to have been driving our political machine for some time now. The real question is how on earth did we let this happen? Why is the majority of the voting public unable to cut through even the most transparent misdirection? How can our educational system fail this abysmally without someone taking notice and doing something about it?
Palin raises this point because she is just about the most cynical pick for public office I’ve ever seen. There’s a LOT of compitition for that title.
Publishing WHAT exactly. I see no reference to this rumor on their site (though perhaps I didn’t look hard enough, or they’ve scrubbed it). The site pitches the printed tabloid. Is there something there?
Basically, on what basis is anybody talking about this story? (I’m not saying there’s no basis, but I’d like a firmer grasp of what that basis, if any, is.)
