Race for the White House- 11/3/08

1 Day Until Election Day

Random thoughts as they pop into my head on the eve of potentially the most historic/most disasterous election in the history of the United States:

- I am really ready for this to be over already
- It may be over tomorrow, but also, we may have weeks and weeks of recounting and lawyering and litigating ahead of us, and if so, that will make all the vitriol of this campaign season look like child's play
- Win, lose, or to be continued, the scene in Phoenix tomorrow night will be about a million times more serene than the scene in Chicago tomorrow night, win, lose, or to be continued
- I will want to include some post-mortem thoughts on this blog (I eventually will have much to say) in the near future, but it may take some time before I really feel like organizing my thoughts and attempting to do so
- If McCain wins, prepare from some serious entertainment here
- The Democrat campaign has beyond massively outspent and out organized the Republicans this cyle. They also have every conceivable traditional political advantage available to them. Furthermore, the entire mainstream media and almost all elements of our American pop culture on their side, and despite all that, the outcome is not 100 percent certain
- It is equally hard to believe that the nation may be on the verge of electing one of the most inexperienced and liberal candidates in our nation's history, and one that comes from a corrupt political machine at that. The Republicans needed to do more to prevent it. They needed to push the Wright issue a lot earlier perhaps. The McCain campaign really needed to refine their message a long time ago. This election was always going to be a referendum on Obama, and while it is impressive that McCain is in the game as the GOP nominee in this year, there have been scores of missed opportunties
- Say this for John McCain, watch him on the trail the past few days, and it is clear he still wants this. The man has guts and he is not going down without a fight. Many other candidates would have a sense of resignation about them and would just be trying to play out the stretch and look forward to going on vacation. McCain is showing passion in a style reminiscient of Harry Truman
- I wonder if 60 years after the first television Presidential campaign, America really responds positively towards a combative, scrappy, "straight talker." Maybe America feels easier about watching someone smooth and refined on their tv for the next four years. Someone who is tall and has a nice voice, decent hair, good teeth, smiles a lot, and comes across as a calm, and "nice" guy.
- People may not realize it now, but I think if the candidate I supported in the primaries had won the nomination, the dynamics of this race, both substantive and superficial would be a lot different.
- It was pretty cool to hear Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" play after a McCain speech today
- Obama's spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, would probably refer to McCain as a White Snake.
_ I guess once this is over, I can once again go back to unabashedly defending a great man, George Walker Bush
- I just wish that GWB would have realized that despite being reelected and despite having the personal security of his convictions and his religious faith, and not really caring if the country doesn't like him, he should have fought back to defend himself politically a lot more these past four years. The party is paying a heavy price for the White House's willingness to concede political popularity
- Why in the world, in the final hours of this campaign, and being behind, would the McCain campaign use their money to run an ad in which Obama is shown praising McCain and Lieberman on global warming? What a horribly dumb ad! Won't win McCain a single vote, probably will lose him some votes.
- How in the hell did the Palin handlers fall for that prank for those two jokers in Montreal?
- What does it say about me that I actually believe that Obama intended to flip McCain the bird while scratching his face when praising him today in Florida. He did the same thing once when he was speaking of Hillary Clinton during the primaries. We never really have seen him accidentally use that gesture before. Maybe I am far too partisan, maybe that shapes my view of all of this, but I really do look at Barack Obama as being a pompous ass and a jerk of a human being.
- Truly sorry about his grandmother though
- If he becomes the next President of this great country, I sincerely will try to not hate him half as much as liberals have hated President Bush or would hate President McCain
- Republicans are really hoping that the state polls released in the past few days from Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen are close to accurate. If so, considering the undecided voter factor and the beliefs that we try to cling to about the factor of people being afraid to tell pollsters (or anyone really) that they are anti-Obama and that Democrats may really be oversampled in all these polls, all, or almost of all these states could fall our way and we just may win this thing regardless of the popular vote
- I can almost see the headlines now: "Barack Obama wins clear cut majority of popular vote in massive turnout election. Receives more votes than any human being to ever walk the face of the earth. First Democrat to capture a majority since 1976. Largest share of popular vote for Democrat since 1964." And... in small print: "John McCain to be next President."
_ If all, or most of these closely contested battleground states wind up breaking for Obama because of his ground game or whatever, the Electoral Map will look pretty blue, and that will make the total outcome of the race appear more one-sided than it maybe reeally was.
- Let's face it, if Obama gets more than 50.1 percent of the popular vote, that is more than any Democrat since LBJ.
-I think he will
- About a week ago , I would have predicted Obama would win the popular vote by 5 or 6 points. Now, I think he will by 3 or 4 points. Let's say 51-48, an exact reversal from 2004.
- The undecideds are seeming to break McCain and many that will actually vote tomorrow should be expected to follow that trend. All the stuff about various Obama comments and statements which have come out in the past couple weeks (and which should have come out much earlier) are causing the American people to really think twice about their vote. Still though, a lot of Americans are torn and will vote for Obama just so they can claim to have "voted for the winner."
- The Obama campaign's obsession with getting their voters to vote early may pay off.
_ I think McCain will probably carry the vote tomorrow on Election Day, but it probably will not be enough. Perhaps the Obama campaign has some shady plans for Election Day voting or maybe they were just fearful that a lot of voters would change their minds the closer the actual election comes and they just wanted to get them locked into a risky deal before they could change their minds
- I think all this could really cause the exit polls to be wacky tomorrow.
- Let's realize that if there really is a phenomenon of people lying to telephone pollsters about being for Obama, they are certainly going to be more likely to lie to exit pollsters about how they voted
- Assuming the exit polls are to be reliable, I will be interested when all the numbers are in about what percent of the Jewish vote McCain received. If he matched or outdid the 25% that President Bush received in 2004, while falling several points short of that total 51% mark from four years ago, that would be pretty impressive and show a continuing trend of the Jewish community slowly but surely becoming more bi-partisan in our Presidential voting behavior

So, ok, time to wrap this up... let's predict the states. Four years ago, I predicted them based on margin between the two candidates and almost exactly nailed it. I am not going to bother with that this cycle, but let's just take the easy ones first...

Obama will win: DC, CA, CT, DE, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA, and WI
McCain will win: AL, AK, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, and Dick Cheney's WY.

Despite some speculation, McCain will also take AZ, GA, MT, and ND

While the polling history for both candidates in the Granite State should be of great concern to the Obama camp, I think he will take the state, and also will add the 2004 red states of Iowa and New Mexico.

Pennsylvania has become a prime battleground state and I believe it has tightened considerably once the McCain campaign decided to gamble almost everything on winning it. Sadly, I think they will fall a bit short.

These will all be very close, but I think McCain will win the battleground states of Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada (maybe), North Carolina, and Ohio.

So, considering the bellweather nature of Missouri and the fact that he would win both Ohio and Florida, one would think that should be enough for the Republican nominee.

However, I sadly think Obama will eke out Colorado and Virginia, and that will put him over 270.

That is truly a head-shaker, every bit as much as would be the case if as I talked about above, Obama wins the popular vote by 2 or 3 percent/several million votes, and still loses.

Colorado and Virginia really should have been Republican states. Very sad that they will have gotten away, if that happens. I guess we Republicans are left with the hope that they are close enough perhaps to still be in play, and also remember that John Zogby, in predicting a John Kerry landslide on Election Day 2004, said that both states would be too close to call, but in the end, were easily carried by the GOP ticket.

I don't feel like doing the total math. I know it would have Obama under 300 EV, but a win is a win, and a loss is a loss. It also would not be a surprise if he won a few more of the tossup states, and then was over 300 EV.

Obviously, I really hope I am wrong about the Electoral College outcome, and John Sidney McCain shocks the world and saves our country.

Honesty compels me though to admit, I just don't have a good feeling about it happening. But I am a Chicago Cubs fan. Good feelings are not going to be something I have about contests anytime soon.

Whatever happens tomorrow, or in the potential weeks of contesting the results, I will still be grateful to live in the greatest and freest of all nations, where I do (and hope always will) continue to have the rights of free speech and dissent, even against an overwhelming one party-rule of a nation with the support of their media lackeys.

Democracy is a great thing. It's even better for the winners, but the losers must take solace in the fact that here, the people rule. We will get the President we deserve and while future elections are always around the corner, we need to hope the nation prospers and is secure over these next four years; a mere blip in the long history of this nation and of humanity. America is and always will be greater than one man, or one party.

Those of us who will make the right decision this year will maybe have to live with the decision made by those who will get it wrong, but that is a small price to pay for being Americans.

May G-d Bless our next President and watch over him, but may G-d always bless the country first.


http://www.johnmccain.com/