"You don't need a weatherman [like Bill Ayers] to know which way the wind blows." -Bob Dylan
I didn't write it here, but the day that Sarah Palin was announced, I said to all my buddies at work: "It's over, we are looking at a Reagan-like landslide." I didn't even know how ridiculously stupid Sarah Palin was, I just knew that taking someone who I never heard of meant that it was unlikely that they would last under the national media scrutiny.
It was brilliant to announce a woman-as-V.P. the day after the Democratic Convention, stealing Obama's thunder. Otherwise we would have been talking about Obama's speech as "historic" (words of
David Gergen) for days. We'll still talk about as historic, but we'll forget that we forgot all about it for 10+ weeks.
Anyway, back to my predictions:
As far as Electoral votes go, it will be hard for anyone to ever beat Reagan's 525-13 win over Mondale (Mondale only took his home state of Minnesota). In the popular vote Reagan took 58.8%, Mondale 40.6). If we talked about "mandates" back then, Reagan would have been dictator. That was also his re-election campaign, in the 1980 contest he took only 50.2%, a 10% point lead over Jimmy Carter with 6.6% going to John Anderson.
Obama certainly won't get 49 states in his corner, but it's not going to be nearly as close as most pundits think. The pollsters who say it's within 3 points or that Obama won't break 50% are going to have to justify their services next year. Like the bundled mortgages, there are just too much REALITY for computer models to take into account. Maybe it's my experience writing computer models that lead me to so suspect of anyone who takes polling data and extrapolates the answers into very different results based on hunches (why don't they publish the raw data too?).
Obama will draw north of 55%, I'm predicting 56.5%. McCain will be around 41.5%, with 2% going to Nadar+Barr+everyone else. Yeah, that's right, a 15% lead. Imagine what the reelection will look like. I'm calculating 407 electoral votes for Obama, 127 for McCain. Why so much higher than everyone else? I think the Black vote, the young vote and the newly registered will turn out, moving Indiana, Montana, and Georgia in Obama's column.
I've been watching the Senate races more closely. Without a filibuster-proof majority, Obama will be dealing with gridlock, no matter how far he reaches across the isle. On the Senate races I'm expecting that Obama's new voters and the excitement he's generated will translate into a lot of voters just pulling the (D) right on down the line. And since the pollsters are underestimating the effect, I think the Democrats will get it, or fall one short.
Surely switching to the Democrats will be these 7 states:
Alaska - gotta chuckle whenever a corrupt politician loses.
Colorado - Would you want someone as abrasive as Bob Schaffer leading your state?
New Hampshire - not that I'm much of a fan of either. I thought this would be closer since Sheehan is not very likeable.
New Mexico - basicallly has been conceeded to the cousin of of the Colorado democratic candidate.
North Carolina - love to see that fake Liddy Dole (Archer Daniel Midland champion) go down in her own meanspirited flames.
Oregon - easy win
Virginia - the Democrat is rich enough to pay for it himself?
The close ones are :
Kentucky: I don't see Senate Minority leader losing.
Mississippi: I was hopeful here, but Wicker seems to be pulling away too far from Musgrove for the Obama effect to, well, have an effect.
Georgia: This is going to be the surprise of the night. The Obama effect will put this one in the Democratic corner, though it would have to be big enough to avoid a runoff, which is unlikely.
Minnesota: I think in the end, Minnesota will elect Franken, but he may be just not Senatorial enough to win. I listened to his radio show for a long time, and he knows what's going on, but he's far too partisan for my tastes. He's so "ah-uh-um-ah" all the time that I think he probably smokes pot every day or every other day - he's just not serious enough to make a good Senate and I bet wouldn't last long even if he won.
So I think the Dems will pick up 8 seats, perhaps 9, falling short enough that when nothing gets done, it will be blamed on the Dems, and their run will lose all its steam.
As a comparison, here are the
predictions from the "This Week" roundtable:
Mark Halperin, Time Magazine:
Electoral Vote -- 349 Obama
Senate -- 58 Democratic seats
House -- Democrats net 28 House seats
Matthew Dowd, former Republican strategist:
Electoral Vote -- 338 plus Obama
Senate -- 8 plus pick up for Democrats
House -- 17 plus pickup for Democrats
George Will, ABC News contributor:
Electoral Vote -- 378 Obama
Senate -- 8 pickups for the Democrats
House -- 21 pickups for the Democrats
Donna Brazile, former Democratic strategist:
Electoral Vote -- Obama 343
Senate - Democrats 59 plus runoff
House - Democrats pickup 29
Here are my predictions ...
George Stephanopoulos:
Electoral Vote -- 353 Obama
Senate -- 58, or 59 if there's a run-off in Georgia.
House -- 264 House Democrats (+28)