GatewayRedbirds.com

docellis wrote:I wonder how he'd be doing right now if he had picked anyone but Palin.

According to the latest polls, better but not enough to close the gap...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/us/po ... 1poll.html

Care to make this interesting?

KyCardinalFan wrote:

UK wrote:

KyCardinalFan wrote:So will Missouri keep it's reputation of voting for nearly every president?

It'll be close, but I think MO is going red while Obama wins the election.

That's what I'm thinking.

I'm keeping the hope on Missouri for Obama. Yes - Bush won by 8% I think. We have the bible belt and a rural urban divide thing going. - you've all seen that play out over these pages.

But I sense that there is much greater support for Obama than Kerry. I'm seeing an unusual amount of Obama signs in wealthy "oh my precious capital gains rate" neighborhoods. I took a fall trip in rural MO today, and saw Obama signs out and about. The governor is going to be a democrat. It will be close.

BenX:

All fair points raised, though I disagree with you on the suggestion you make that pollsters have some sort of agenda. Some of the polling companies are left-leaning, some are right-leaning, and others are pretty much independent. Whichever way you as a pollster might lean, the most important thing you need to do if you want to stay in business, is be as accurate as you can be. So yes, they need to promote their business, but they do that by being as accurate and unbiased as possible.

Without a doubt, every polling methodology will have some error, and all of the models they use are based on historical data. What they cannot account for with certainty are changes that are happening. For example, cellphones, early voting, large increases in new registrants, and participation rates of young and African American voters are all factors that are potentially idiosyncratic to this year's election that we don't have a lot of historical data to use to base models on. Gallup for example, has 3 models that they release with every poll: registered voters, traditional likely voters (based on historical turnout), and modified likely voters (based on some estimates of voter likelihood taking into account some of these idiosyncratic factors).

Finally, I'll just say that winning a statewide election by 4-6% points is hardly a landslide. If Obama wins by that much, which is a conservative estimate of what the polls are suggesting, I'd call that a solid, but modest victory. And there are plenty of things that have happened in the political climate between 2004 and today that would push the state in that direction. I'm not sure what things you're suggesting that have happened in that time that would push the electorate of PA in the other direction.

Lastly, I don't think many people believe Obama will win by 200 EVs. A 150 vote margin is a plausible prediction though based on the polls that are out there. I do think that McCain will have narrowed the victory in PA somewhat, but only because he has put so much effort into it. Had he abandoned PA like many suggested he should have, and put all his Keystone marbles into Nevada, Colorado, Florida, and Virginia, I think he would have lost PA by 8-12% instead of the current estimates that he'll lose by about 4-6%.

BenNX74205 wrote:Maybe the polls will be right. Personally, I have a hard time believing Obama will win by 200 EVs. We'll see tomorrow night. Obama is not Jed Bartlet. The real world is not "The West Wing." Democratic presidential candidates don't win this type of victory, and the ones that do have extenuating circumstances on their side, or run a campaign atypical of the "standard liberal democrat."

Bartlet's first term was a pretty tight race.

If Wikipedia is correct, Clinton won by this sort of margin twice. FWIW, 538 has Obama projected at 346 electoral votes and 52 to 46 in the popular vote.

fwiw:

Election Predictions: Pundits Weigh In

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/0 ... 40149.html

pop_haines wrote:

Arthur Dent wrote:Care to make this interesting?

Hullo?

Gauntlet thrown with an audible clank, two snaps, and a flipped bird.

C'mon, true believers; someone pick it up.

LMAO, pop, you've got to make a foray out to the Show-Me state. Especially after we push MO blue tomorrow.

Jocephus wrote:fwiw:

Election Predictions: Pundits Weigh In

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/0 ... 40149.html

You should have warned I was going to see that scum bag Rove on the front.

BenNX74205 wrote:Democratic presidential candidates don't win this type of victory, and the ones that do have extenuating circumstances on their side, or run a campaign atypical of the "standard liberal democrat."

I'm not predicting a blowout necessarily, but don't you think we have those circumstances? A financial crisis first and foremost, along with an unpopular war and a Republican president with historically bad approval ratings. It seems like that would do.

Haltz is correct about Clinton. He delivered major ass whuppings to both HW and Dole.

370-168 in '92
379-159 in '96