The McCain camp before the VP Debate announced they were pulling out of Michigan essentially ceded defeat of the state to Obama. Obama’s numbers in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are looking good and if he can keep those states he can win the election by winning any one of the following states:
Ohio
Florida
Virgina
North Carolina
Or another path to victory is if Obama wins a combination of the states below that equal 12 or more (the first 4 currently lean towards Obama, the second 4 lead towards McCain, all are in play);
New Mexico (5)
Nevada (5)
Colorado (9)
New Hampshire (4)
McCain’s resources on the ground in Michigan will undoubtably will be going to OH, PA, WI, and VA. As of now McCain has a very hard road to the White House, the nastiness of their campaign will be going into overdrive.
I find 270towin.com the easiest to analyse the latest poll number. You can do what John King does on CNN with surface computing technology on large screen.
I think Obama is taking a different route all together. I remember Bill Clinton said few weeks back, that Obama will win big. My analysis is that either it will be Bush/Gore tight (within 4 electoral votes) if GOP pulls out an October suprise like last time (and also if Obama goes flat in next two debates with complete McCain dominance). Or it will be a landslide (from a first Black candidate's standards) for Obama.
Obama wants to break FL and OH's dependence for Dems. He wants to make inroads in the heart of Western states like CO, NV and MT. Also to spread the base in working class in VA, NC and GA, which are generally Bible Belt sourthern states with siginificant black votes.
Here is how Obama can with without FL and OH. If he gets the Rust Belt minus OH, which is MI, PA, WI, MN and IO, alongwith NM, CO to southwest and independent NH to the east. He is safe. But most recent polls suggesting he is ahead in OH with +2 and +6 in FL, that is a good news for him. Anything can happen in 4 weeks. But if one of these two votes for Obama, then he can afford to loose in CO and NH.
BTW, NV and VA are also very tight. More than anyone thought in summer. All the polls showing 1 or 2 point advantages for both candidates, which is a real tie and anything can happen. This is trend of last 4 days. So its consistant.
In my view if Obama wins VA or Ohio, it would be his best performance. Regardless if he doesn't win white house race. This would be an extraordinary showing.
"You can't call yourself a maverick when all you've ever been is a sidekick," Biden said Wednesday of McCain. He credited Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey with first using the line.
.. and I swear if McCain uses the "I was not elected Miss Congeniality" line one more time, I'd throw something. Its such a lame line. Especially when said with his most irritating verbal tic "my friends". I think he said it about 20+ times last night.
In the predictions markets Obama is at his highest levels thus far. At Intrade he's sitting just below 75, I imagine it won't go much higher than that until maybe a day or so just before the election.
The last debate scheduled is next Wednesday Oct 15th, domestic policy is the focus of that debate. After that it's 20 days until the election. So what's the McCain strategy? Today in Pennsylvania both McCain and Palin, side by side, gave speeches but made no mention of past connections to controversial figurers (Wright/Ayers) that they want to link to Obama as Palin has been doing since last weekend. And 2 new McCain Ad's don't touch the subject either. So the strategy...
My guess: McCain will focus on trying to sell Obama as an out of control spender until the debate and then afterwards, seeing no bump from the debate, unleash the Pandora's Box of negative ad's that attempt to shift focus away from the issues and into scaring people away from voting for Obama, for example using his middle (Hussein) whenever they can fit it in without seeming so obvious of what they are doing. Republicans do love fear tactics after all.
And undoubtedly McCain in talking with his camp is using the metaphor about how the surge worked in Iraq when the U.S. was finding success hard to come by and the same thing can be done with his campaign. In the end, a McCain surge fueled by fear going against an Obama surge based on hope and solutions to the problems the country faces has no chance of winning the hearts, minds, and most importantly, votes of the American people.
McCain rally speaker refers to Obama’s middle name
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer 52 minutes ago
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - For the second time in three days, a rally for the Republican presidential ticket invoked Democrat Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, in an attempt to add to doubts about his background, faith and campaign.
Yesterday on O'Reilly, Karl Rove presented his company's (Karl Rove & Co) electoral map predictions. Right now it shows 273 for Obama and 110 toss-ups. Coming from Rove, that is a bit surprising.
Its strange how great minds of GS get is deep intellectual discussion on the strategy of both candidates and thier possible moves. You guys need to get out of this false left right paradigm and start realizing that these puppets don't run anything. Isn't that insult to people's intelligence that both candidates are being advised by same Anglo American/ Trilateral Commission/ CFR think tank? Zbigniew Brzezinski is Obama's foreign policy advisor and his son Ian Brzezinski is currently employed by the John McCain presidential campaign. If you don't know who Brzezinski is then you better find out since guys like him and Kissinger are real deal when it comes to shaping US foreign policies.
^To those who are able to vote, it is an important event every 4 years. Who runs what and what not, does not churn out jobs for those trying to feed their families, so more often than usual their policies are a reflection of their mindset and it is the character that people are voting for.
Please don't consider Bush era, most of us made a booboo back then. Who comes to replace President Bush now matters, and it's not the intellectuals of GS who are concerned, it's most countries around the world who are just as curious about the candidates as Americans.
^^ How it matters when in reality both candidates are bought and paid for by the same establishment? Your point that 'it matters who is going to be the President' is only valid if we have a real choice. Unfortunately most Americans and rest of the world are under this illusion that people really have a choice and these elections really mean something. If you start looking at who is controlling both parties and these candidates then you realize there is absolutely no difference.
To an extent you are right that core policies are not likely to change between a Republican and a Democratic Presidency, since US national interests remain constant; however overly cynical conspiracy theories and indifference towards the political process only suits those who have nothing to gain or lose in the United States. There are definite differences between Obama and McCain/Bush. On some I prefer Obama and others not so much.
Forget rest of the biased media, and their “bogus” polls. The ultimate in Fair & Balanced - Fox News has come out today with their polls. Here is what Fox News says:
Less than two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama leads John McCain 49 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday.
Obama’s advantage comes mainly from independents, and from the fact that more voters identify themselves as Democrats these days and almost all of them back their party’s nominee.
Eighty-eight percent of Democrats support Obama, and 83 percent of Republicans back McCain. Independents break 44 percent to 35 percent in Obama’s favor.
In addition to independents, white Catholics are another important swing voting group and they support Obama 50 percent to 39 percent. White Catholics have voted for the winner in each of the last four presidential elections.
And here is another interesting bit, considering Joe the Damn Plumber is hogging so much of conversation these days and Obama’s “spread the wealth” around comment.
Here is what Fox News Poll says about it
In a conversation with “Joe the plumber” about his tax plan, Obama said “when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.” Americans are evenly divided on the idea: 45 percent think it is a good idea and 46 percent a bad idea to use some of the money government collects in taxes to “spread the wealth” to others who are less well off.
Most Democrats think spreading the wealth is a good idea (66 percent) and most Republicans think it is a bad idea (72 percent). Independents split 47 percent good idea and 41 percent bad.