Electoral Vote Predictions

Obama will win 344 electoral votes.

He will win all the Kerry states, plus Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Virginia, Florida, and Ohio.

Your prediction?

Freepers are Funny

One Free Republic wing-nut wrote:

Somebody pinch me and tell me this is all a bad dream. How can so many Americans not be listening to what this guy (Obama) is really saying?

I refuse to believe that America will elect as POTUS this untested, unproven, unknown left-wing radical, who can’t make it one week without another shady association being revealed. This is like the twilight zone.

Of course Obama is going to win the support of the far too many “Americans” who share his ideology, but I just can’t figure out what has gotten into to the rest of the electorate? How can states like OH, PA and VA actually be so close, even in a bad GOP year?

I am fully confident that on November 4th, sober Americans will take their voting responsibility seriously and elect John McCain, a man who made great sacrifice for his country, over this guy who just showed up and wants to “change America”.

But for this election to even be close is a sad commentary on the State of this Union.

“Wake up America!”

In 2000 or 2004, I could have easily written this:

Somebody pinch me and tell me this is all a bad dream. How can so many Americans not be listening to what this guy (Bush) is really saying?

I refuse to believe that America will elect as POTUS this untested, unproven, unknown right-wing radical, who can’t make it one week without another shady association being revealed. This is like the twilight zone.

Of course Bush is going to win the support of the far too many “Americans” who share his ideology, but I just can’t figure out what has gotten into to the rest of the electorate? How can states like OH, PA and VA actually be so close, even in a bad Democratic year?

I am fully confident that on November 4th, sober Americans will take their voting responsibility seriously and elect Al Gore, a man who made great sacrifice for his country, over this guy who just showed up and wants to “change America”.

But for this election to even be close is a sad commentary on the State of this Union.

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning.

It smells like victory!

Palin Is the Future of the GOP

Heh:

Facing the unhappy prospect of defeat, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin indicated Wednesday that she will not disappear from the national political scene if the GOP ticket loses on Tuesday.

“Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we’ve taken, that … that would … bring this whole … I’m not doing this for naught,” Palin said in an interview with ABC News, according to excerpts of a transcript released by the television network.

In response, three words: No Fucking Way.

Obama and McCain in Indiana: Still too Close to Call

Hard to believe:

A new poll shows the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain remains tight in Indiana about a week before the Nov. 4 election.

The South Bend Tribune/WSBT-TV poll released Tuesday found Obama supported by 48 percent of likely voters and McCain supported by 47 percent. The poll, taken Thursday through Saturday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In May, if you asked me who was going to win Indiana, Obama or McCain, my automatic response would be McCain. A Democrat, much less an African-American Democrat winning Indiana? It seemed impossible.

But beyond looking at the polls that look favorable to Obama in this state’s race, I take a look at what I see in the rural city where I work.

City is probably the wrong word. It’s a town of about 20,000 people or fewer. It’s rural and has been solidly GOP in the past. But I drive around and Obama bumper stickers seem to outnumber McCain stickers 5-1 while it’s probably even in the yard sign war. People I talk to seem to be solidly pro-Obama.

This evidence is all anecdotal, and I think in the end, McCain will win the state. But things are looking damn good in a state that Kerry lost by 20 points.

I’ll be taking election day off to get people to the polls. I hope you consider doing the same.

We can do this!

Undecided Voters: Smarter than You Think?

Interesting:

AS we enter the final week of a seemingly endless election campaign, opinion polls continue to identify a substantial fraction of voters who consider themselves “undecided.” Although their numbers are dwindling, they could still determine the outcome of the race in some states. Comedians and other commentators have portrayed these people as fools, unable to choose even when confronted with the starkest of contrasts.

Recent research in neuroscience and psychology, however, suggests that most undecided voters may be smarter than you think. They’re not indifferent or unable to make clear comparisons between the candidates. They may be more willing than others to take their time — or else just unaware that they have essentially already made a choice.

I’ve always assumed that people who were undecided this late in presidential races were, how shall I delicately state this?

Um, idiots?

Maybe I’ll have to cut them a little more slack in the future.

Neuroscientists have begun to tease out the brain systems that make decisions. Even when it takes no more than a second, decision-making is thought to involve two parts, gathering evidence and committing to a choice. In tasks as simple as deciding whether a shifting pattern of dots is moving to the left or to the right, brain activity in the parietal cortex rises as evidence is gathered, eventually reaching a tipping point (though it’s not yet known which brain regions drive the final choice).

Inherent to this process is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Commit early and you can get on with your life. Take more time and you might make a wiser or more accurate decision.

I’m not sure it’s as easy as this writer sees it. I committed to Obama over a year ago. If I had taken more time, I might have decided on Clinton or Dodd, or maybe even Gravel. But get on with my life? Nah, I’m a political obessive who can never get on with life during a campaign even after making a choice.

Since a commitment to John McCain or Barack Obama is not required until Nov. 4, for the greatest accuracy, one should gather evidence until that date.

Um, no. If a voter is paying attention, he or she knows where the candidate stands on issues important to  her well before election day. She also has a good idea of the candidates’ tempraments, and how they might govern.

So then why aren’t there even more undecided voters? In measurements of decision-related neural activity, after there is enough evidence to reach a person’s decision threshold, his brain can ignore further input even when it might improve accuracy. The brain goes ahead and decides, freeing up mental resources to deal with other problems.

This logic suggests that undecided voters might simply require a higher degree of confidence before they commit. Pollsters know this, and so push “uncommitted” voters to state a preference. Although this approach may seem heavy-handed, it gives a fairly accurate reading of a candidate’s support. In psychological studies, people who describe themselves as undecided often reveal a pronounced preference when they are forced to choose. When someone reports being only “moderately sure” of a decision like whether to accept a new job, his eventual choice is all but certain.

So in other words, undecided voters probably subconsciously know how they are going to vote, but are still unable to commit. They may not be aware of that commitment, but just can’t state how they feel.

So is the real answer about uncommitted voters that though they might not be stupid, they’re incredibly unable to listen to their guts to figure out how they are going to vote?

I don’t know the answer. Are they stupid, slow, or unable to process their internal decision-making factors? I don’t think I know any undecideds, but if I did, I might cause shaken baby syndrome in an adult.

The choice between Barack Obama and John McCain seems quite clear to me. One can either embrace the future or cling to the politics of the last 20 years that hasn’t served us all that well.

What’s so fucking hard about that choice?

GOP’s Present and Future

I am loving this:

Aides to George W.Bush, former Reagan White House staff and friends of John McCain have all told The Sunday Telegraph that they not only expect to lose on November 4, but also believe that Mr Obama is poised to win a crushing mandate.

They believe he will be powerful enough to remake the American political landscape with even more ease than Ronald Reagan did in 1980.

Considering that Bush won by one or two percent in 2004 and called it a landslide, it’s fun to read that Bush’s minions are freaking out about a likely five percent or more win by Obama.

I know schaden freude doesn’t look good on my, but it’s damn fun!

The prospect of an electoral rout has unleashed a bitter bout of recriminations both within the McCain campaign and the wider conservative movement, over who is to blame and what should be done to salvage the party’s future.

My advice to the GOP is that if they want to be a viable party in the future, they need to dump the religous right and go back to being a party that supports smaller government, but stays away from social issues. No one wants the GOP in their bed rooms.

Snip.

“It’s hard to see a turnaround in the White House race,” he (former Bush speech writer David Frum) said. “This could look like an ideological as well as a party victory if we’re not careful. It could be 1980 in reverse.

“With this huge new role for federal government in the economy, the possibility for mischief making is very, very great. One man should not have a monopoly of political and financial power. That’s very dangerous.”

I agree with Frum on that one. I prefer an executive branch controlled by one party and the legislative branch controlled by another, but Bush and the GOP failed so badly, the Democrats deserve at least a couple of years of one-party rule.

In North Carolina, where Senator Elizabeth Dole seems set to loose, Republicans are running adverts that appear to take an Obama victory for granted, warning that the Democrat will have a “blank cheque” if her rival Kay Hagen wins. “These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis,” the narrator says. “All branches of Government. No checks and balances.”

Um. Didn’t we have six years of one party GOP rule recently? There were no checks and balances from 2001-2007. How did that work out for us? The Democrats will probably fuck up one party rule, but let’s let them try to deal with our nation’s problems. If they fuck it up, they’ll be out by 2011.

Snip.

But the real bile has been saved for those conservatives who have balked at the selection of Sarah Palin.

In addition to Mr Frum, who thinks her not ready to be president, Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s greatest speechwriter and a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, condemned Mr McCain’s running mate as a “symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation of American politics.” Conservative columnist David Brooks called her a “fatal cancer to the Republican Party”.

Snip.

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin’s critics as “cocktail party conservatives” who “give aid and comfort to the enemy”.

He told The Sunday Telegraph: “There’s going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?”

Mr Frum thinks that Mrs Palin’s brand of cultural conservatism appeals only to a dwindling number of voters.

He said: “She emerges from this election as the probable frontrunner for the 2012 nomination. Her supporters vastly outnumber her critics. But it will be extremely difficult for her to win the presidency.”

Mr Nuzzo, who believes this election is not a re-run of the 1980 Reagan revolution but of 1976, when an ageing Gerald Ford lost a close contest and then ceded the leadership of the Republican Party to Mr Reagan.

He said: “Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan.” On the accuracy of that judgment, perhaps, rests the future of the Republican Party.

Schadenfreude is a dish best served cold.

That being said, I am starting to think that Palin will be the GOP frontrunner in 2012 as the GOP rallies behind their socially conservative soulmate. By that time, I imagine that Obama will have had a relatively successful first term that will have the fundies up in arms over something.

Their two most viable candidates will be Palin and Romney. Huckabee may also play a role.

GOP voters will have to decide between a pro-business Romney and a pro-fundie Palin.

I have no idea which direction they will pick, but it will be a lot of fun to watch.

Cowardly Indianapolis Star Endoses No One for President

This is funny:

Americans on Nov. 4 will choose between two presidential candidates with great strengths but also significant weaknesses.

Snip.

Democrat Barack Obama is eloquent and charismatic. He has enthralled millions of new potential voters and brought hope to many Americans who for far too long have felt excluded from full participation in the democratic process, particularly African-Americans and young people. He promises a sharp break from past policies at a time when much of the public longs for a change in the nation’s direction. Obama also offers the potential to shape an administration with an inclusive and collaborative style of leadership, a quality lacking in Washington for far too long.

If elected, however, he also would be the most inexperienced president in modern American history, only four years removed from service in the Illinois Senate. And experience matters greatly in a president, particularly in the area of foreign affairs.

So the Star’s editorial board thinks Obama has the opportunity to be a transformational leader who will help our country get past the failures of the last eight years, but he’s too inexperienced. Though I don’t agree with them on the experience thing, I think it’s a fair assessment.

Snip.

Republican John McCain has a long and distinguished record of service to the nation. His personal sacrifices, including more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, deserve the gratitude of all Americans. He has been a strong, bipartisan leader in the Senate, pushing, among other issues, for reforms in the campaign finance system and pork barrel spending.

McCain, however, has delivered a muddled message on how to confront the economic challenges facing the nation. He also is unlikely to provide a sharp enough break from the Bush administration’s policies on the economy and foreign relations. His running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, also has limited experience, raising concerns about her readiness to lead the nation if needed.

McCain, they remind us was a war hero who used to be mavericky. They worry that he is too much like Bush and they’re concerned about Palin’s ability to step up as president. Again, that’s a fair assessment.

But even given those assessments, it seemed like an Obama endorsement might make more sense, if they are interested in looking toward the future and making a clean break with Bush’s policies.

Dennis Ryerson, the paper’s editor, has a column in today’s paper in which he discusses their decision-making process. This sentence seems to sum it up:

We considered the newspaper’s traditional positions; it had not endorsed a Democrat for president since 1964.

So in other words, rather than endorse Obama and piss off their many wingnut readers, they decided to not endorse.

It may be cowardly of them, but it certainly can’t be good for the McCain campaign. In a year when newspaper endorsements, even very conservative newspapers, are going to Obama, I imagine the McCain people were expecting the Star to be a reliable endorsement for them. This piece must sting.

But still, I lost some more respect for the Star today. In the past, I most often disagreed with them, but at least I could respect their different point-of-view. This choice was pathetic and doesn’t speak well to their ability to take stances on issues that their readers might disagree with.

Campaign Nostalgia

There are ten days left in this campaign, and things are looking really positive for Obama supporters. I’m excited that it appears that finally we are going to take our country back.

But at the same time, I’m a little bit sad, as I’ve really had a lot of fun obsessing about the campaign. What will I blog about once it’s over? I have no idea.

But as the campaign winds down, it seems appropriate to count down and rank my favorite YouTube videos from this campaign. Doing so will help us all gain a little bit of closure.

To that end, beginning tonight, I’ll be posting my top 10 campaign videos from 2008.

“Attacked” McCain Volunteer Admits to Lying about Incident

Developing…

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Snip

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

I wonder if the right-wing freak-out over this story will end, or if will they just make up something else to try to scare voters?

Todd is reprehensible, but probably is a good poster child for the GOP mindset in this campaign.

McCain Supporter Attacked in Pittsburgh?

Drudge has been screaming about this one all day:

A 20-year-old woman who was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield was also maimed by her attacker, apparently because of her political views, Pittsburgh police said.

Snip

Police spokeswoman Diane Richard said the robber took $60 from Todd, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim’s car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter “B” into her face, Richard said.

If Todd’s report is true, then it’s a horrifying crime and the perpetrator needs to be apprehended and be sent away for a long time.

The only problem is that it doesn’t really pass the smell test.

I’ll let Michelle Malkin explain:

I’ve reported on the great lengths that warped attention-seekers have gone to in perpetrating fake hate crimes, including beating themselves up, carving swastikas on their dorm room doors and walls, locking themselves in bathroom stalls, and burning down their own houses.

Which is why I’m not jumping up and down with outrage over Drudge-promoted story of a McCain volunteer claiming to have been attacked by a black man whom she accused of carving a “B” in her face after spotting her McCain bumper sticker.

She refused medical treatment after reporting the incident to police. Why on earth would she do that?

Now, I’m sure that it’s possible that she may have been attacked by a dyslexic thug, but it’s odd that she has such a nicely done superficial backward “B” on her cheek. If someone were to use a knife to carve a dyslexic “B” on someone’s cheek on a sidewalk somewhere, would the “B” be as neat as that one is?

And if someone did that to you, would you refuse medical treatment?

Also, as Malkin mentions, isn’t Todd’s Twitter page a little strange?

• atodd: Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers- I’m phonebanking so let’s all work together and get John McCain elected #litf08
  Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:55:41 +0000
• atodd: Oh the blog I will be making soon… Its been a rough night #litf08
  Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:52:58 +0000
• atodd: Pretty sure I’m on the wrong side of pittsburgh
  Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:45:59 +0000
• atodd: Stubbornly searching for a bank of america to avoid ATM fees.
  Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:23:21 +0000
• atodd: This traffic in pittsburgh needs to go away!!!! #litf08
  Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:04:06 +0000

So she’s looking for a Bank of America ATM, says that she’s on the “wrong side” of Pittsburgh,” and her next Twitter post is about the blog she will be creating? She says nothing about the attack before she mentions the blog?

Odd.

From one of Malkin’s readers:

“I’m a cop – 8th year now – and this McCain supporter attack just didn’t pass the “smell test” as soon as I read about it.

At this point, I’ll guess the shiner was inflicted either by a friend willingly as part of this hoax or a boyfriend in a domestic dispute.

The “B” is far to shallow and clean to be taken seriously. Reminds me of the stab wounds that a “hero” would get when fighting off a phantom attacker – far to superficial to have been done in what is a fairly violent encounter.

Either way, I’m voting McCain

Again, if she was attacked, the guy who did it needs to be locked up for a long time.

But there are circumstances here that make me think: hmmmmm.

If Michelle Malkin think it’s BS, I can’t be too far in left field for questioning the story’s veracity.