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The Presidential campaign has reached the final stage for Barack Obama to secure victory: To close the deal he has to make voters comfortable with the idea of him as President. If he can do that then "that other one" become irrelevant.
Someone asked me what I thought he needed to do to close it out. The debates help him immensely because some 60 million people (presumably nearly all of whom are voters) get a chance to see him. Obama presents himself as steady, calm, reasonable. He's the same person one day as the next. There is a favorable cumulative impact for Obama from the debates and other sources of more-or-less unmediated contact with voters.
Obama is also aided by the continual churning and flailing that has marked the McCain campaign.
The polls, which I still expect to tighten in the next week or two, give Obama nearly insurmountable leads. Real Clear Politics is fairly conservative in using a 'poll of polls' to project state-by-state outcomes. RCP leaves states as 'toss ups' until a clear gap emerges. RealClearPolitics - RealClearPolitics Poll Averages
Today, for the first time I believe, RCP projects Obama with more than the 270 electoral votes to win - even though they still have 103 electoral votes as toss ups. In other words, Obama if he fails to win even one of these states:
Florida
Ohio
Missouri
North Carolina
Colorado
Nevada
West Virginia
Indiana
Especially bad news for McCain is the fact that he is ahead in only three of these states: Missouri, West Virginia, and Indiana.
Here's a sampling of other sites:
Statistical analysis: http://presidentforecast.andreamoro.net/
Poll of polls: http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Political future markets: http://www.intrade.com/
Events can still intervene, but the race seems to be almost beyond mere political manipulation or tactics. The economy's hastening downward spiral continues (and is getting truly scary), but that hardly favors McCain, who prefers to avoid the subject. Something horrific could happen, but again it's hard to see that favoring McCain either. An enormous Obama gaffe - I mean really big like showing in his SpongeBob SquarePants jammies for the final debate - could give McCain an opening.
For those of you who getting uncomfortable with my rosy report see these cautionary takes on the chance that race and vote suppression could deprive Obama of a victory see:
Obama: The Price of Being Black - The New York Review of Books by Andrew Hacker
A Reporter at Large: The Hardest Vote: Reporting & Essays: The New ... by George Packer (this essay may say more about Packer's Brooklyn-centric view of the Midwest than anything else.)
Thursday, October 09, 2008
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"The debates help him immensely because some 60 million people (presumably nearly all of whom are voters) get a chance to see him. Obama presents himself as steady, calm, reasonable."
ReplyDeleteOK, I am going to vote bama-I have one of thoese fancy dancy signs.
However, I think he presents himself a professor who knows more than me and by him educating me-I will see his light.
On phrase that he uses a LOT is "NOW, let me explain-" in a tone that is....bothersome
McCain connects better...for me.
A the end of day, how can anyone in their right believe that more republican leadership is a good thing?
My friends, I WANT a president who knows more than I do. Listening to McCain it's clear that a LOT of people know more about say, the economy than he does.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me tell you my friends, I don't like being talked down to either, but McCain set the bar for patronizing with his 'you'd probably never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac'.
I want my president to be really, really smart, and I want him or her to sound smart too! And, I want him or her to be able to explain things to me, to enlighten me, because I expect that person to know more than I do! I think Obama does an excellent job of displaying his intellect without seeming arrogant. Not an easy thing to do in politics, and he does it well.
ReplyDeleteGood Lord, why do people find comfort in that folksy Palin-style Joe Six-Pack crap? It's so affected and patronizing. As though people are too stupid to understand someone who doesn't speak exactly like them.