Posted on 06/11/2008 10:01:56 PM PDT by The_Republican
Presidential politics, like football, chess and other rule-bound competitions, is simple in objective but complex in execution. The objective is 270 electoral votes. This year the execution will turn on numbers such as:
48.3: In 2004, John Kerry won that percentage of the popular vote, the strongest showing ever by someone losing to a re-elected president. The lesson of this is that Democrats start from a position of strength.
251: That was John Kerry's electoral vote total. Barack Obama stands a better chance of holding Kerry's 19 states and the District of Columbia, and finding 19 more votes, than John McCain does of holding all 31 of Bush's states. Obama might capture the 2004 red states New Mexico (5 electoral votes), Nevada (5) and Colorado (9) - George W. Bush won them by a combined 127,011 votes -- giving him 270. McCain, who in his 10-year campaign for the presidency has lingered in New Hampshire long enough to vote as a resident, might turn it red, gaining 4 votes. Obama, however, has reasonable hopes of winning Iowa (7), which Al Gore won by 4,144 votes out of 1,315,563 cast in 2000. Bush won it in 2004 by 10,059 out of 1,506,908 cast. And Obama's estimated 90,000 caucus votes this year almost equaled the combined 118,167 won by Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, McCain, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who finished in that order. Furthermore, Obama might carry Virginia (13).
Bush won it with 54 percent in 2004, but rapid demographic changes favor Democrats and Obama won this year's primary with 623,141 votes while McCain was beating Mike Huckabee with 244,135. And should former Sen. Sam Nunn be his running mate, Obama might win Georgia. Obama's 700,366 primary votes were more than Huckabee's 326,069 and McCain's 303,639, combined.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Obama will lose Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California.
We can also get Ohio.
If Obama loses Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California, it’s hard to see him making up those electoral votes elsewhere. Esp. Calif. with 55 electoral votes.
Betting lower your X intake.
He probably meant 2012.
There is rather a lot of danger in thinking of these things in terms of “feel”.
There are better ways. The first is that states in recent years do not flip large %’s from election to election. This means no, California is not flipping. And no, likely Virginia is not flipping either.
States that can flip are states that were close. Bush won CO with 52%. Kerry won PA with 51%. Kerry won MI with 51.7%.
The point being, there’s not much new under the sun. The swing states are where the battle will be. If you don’t want Obama, start making travel plans to one of them the final weekend to work the phones, then return home to vote.
Exacty, guys like Will in the DC bubble don’t realize how close states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan were in 2004 because they spend all their time listening to Dims bemoaning Ohio. Heck the Dim Governor of the state of Pennsylvania said Obama could not carry the state and he may well end up being right.
Michigan and Pennsylvania are in play. Forget California.
Obama will lose Ohio.
Nope. I’m in Nevada and get the buzz from both states. McCain’s always been popular in both California and Nevada, due to his Arizona roots. The Desert Southwest likes its own.
Ohio is already in the GOP column. I never considered that we would lose it.
george, clean your glasses and look out the window. This won’t be close.
But much of California is not “desert southwest”, and that part most definitely won’t embrace McCain.
I doubt California will even be close.
The central part of McCain’s strategy is to attract disaffected Hillary supporters, various dems and independents.
Those voters will vote for dems in all of the congressional races, so even if McCain wins, the GOP loses.
Democrats do that but then they stay and vote.
The point being, there’s not much new under the sun. The swing states are where the battle will be. If you don’t want Obama, start making travel plans to one of them the final weekend to work the phones, then return home to vote.
That is a strong tendency, I'd agree - but there's a "purple" cast to this race. McCain isn't as strong in the "red states" as Bush was, and Obama isn't as strong in the "blue states" as Gore and Kerry were.That opens up the possibility of an Electoral College wipeout for whichever candidate gains traction in the popular vote this fall. I think that will be McCain, since Obama seems pretty prone to gaffes unless he's on the teleprompter, and I don't think the red states will be too forgiving and even some of the blues - or a lot of them - might react the same way to comments like Obama's "bitter" one. That might already be pretty well baked in the cake, in fact - and not revealed in polls but ready to strike with full force in the privacy of the secret ballot. The "Wilder Effect."
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