Nine days out

I just had to get this McCain quote up for posterity.
If Obama wins, McCain says "the nation" will be defeated, and he's got Obama right where he wants him. Hilarious.
From the BBC:

"I will never allow this nation to be defeated ... my friends, we've got them just where we want them. We love being the underdog and we're going to win!"

Nine days to go.
Fivethirtyeight.com has Obama projected to win 348 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win.
McCain's "master plan" is tragic in its hopelessness. He is going "all in" in Pennsylvania to get its 27 EVs, which will serve to partially counteract some of his other expected state losses.

The problem is that McCain has never led in any reliable polling in that state. The closest he ever got was a tie on Rasmussen 9/14, which looks like an outlier in retrospect. Subsequent Rasmussen polling showed a steady increase in Obama's PA support:

• 9/21 Obama +3
• 9/24 Obama +4
• 9/28 Obama +8
• 10/6 Obama + 13

Bear in mind that Rasmussen has generally been showing lower levels of Obama support in PA than most other pollsters. For example, SurveyUSA (whom I consider to be a Republican-leaning pollster) showed Obama as +15 on 10/6 when Rasmussen showed +13.
On 10/22, SurveyUSA placed Obama ahead by 12%.
Yet this is where John McCain is making his final stand, and this is right where he wants Obama to be.

Even if McCain wins PA, he must win Florida or it is all over. That scenario is not supported by the polling, either. Rasmussen polled McCain ahead by 1 point 10/21, well within the margin of error. Other pollsters show Obama 3 or 4 points ahead.

Missouri is another must-win state for McCain. Rasmussen polled it in Obama's favour by five points on 10/19.
If McCain loses North Carolina, Obama moves in to the White House. Polling there is mixed, with Rasmussen giving McCain a two point lead (within the margin of error), while other pollsters show Obama with a single-digit lead in the state.

Indiana is a state that McCain cannot afford to lose, either. Like the others mentioned, if McCain loses it, there is no way he can reach 270 EVs. SurveyUSA polled Obama ahead by 4% there on 10/22.
Ohio is another must-win. Rasmussen favoured McCain by two points (again within the MOE) on 10/19.

There is also the western option: Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico all favour Obama (19 EVs right there) , while ND and MT are toss-ups (6 more).
Georgia, with her 15 EVs, is three points away from going to Obama.

McCain now has to get very lucky multiple times in order to win. It's like flipping a coin seven times in a row and calling it correctly.

But the truth is that these polls under-estimate Obama's support. Rasmussen relies on a tight "likely voter model" that excludes a lot of Obama supporters. If you are first-time voter in this election, Rasmussen would not count you as a "likely voter". Even though statistics show that newly-registered voters turn out to vote nearly 90% of the time, Rasmussen would not consider a newly-registered voter to be "likely". Even if you voted in the primaries, but not in previous general elections, Rasmussen would not count you as a "likely voter". That hardly seems realistic. And Rasmussen is not alone in maintaining this tight model.

Consider the massive registration drives conducted during the Democratic primaries/caucuses, in which new records were set in registering new voters. Consider the massive turnouts in the primaries. Consider the truly unprecedented ground game of the Obama campaign in mobilising voters to turn out this election. None of that is being taken into account by any pollster that uses a common likely voter model. In fact, in comparisons between "registered voters", and registered voters who self-identify as likely voters, Gallup has shown very little difference (about 2%) between the two groups. And the Democrats hold a huge registration advantage in these seven crucial states.

Many of the pollsters seem to simply be assuming that Democrats won't turn out this year, despite the historic character of this election. They are far off the mark.

Republicans are looking back to 2004 for reassurances, but that was a pre-Katrina world, a world in which the Decider was still popular and Iraq was not yet judged a miserable mistake, and the economy was not in a state of disaster. Republicans have completely ignored 2006 and the mid-term elections that brought them sweeping losses. No, it's still 2004 to them, and they are relying on imaginary 2004 voters to rally and save the day.

And, in spite of Obama showing higher "favourables" than McCain, the Republicans are still pushing Obama as a scary candidate. People simply are not afraid of Obama. They have seen him at the debates, the Convention, and in campaign stops, and they have seen a reasonable, well-spoken, and intelligent man. The more McCain pushes his wild terror of Obama, the more rabid and un-hinged the Republicans appear to the public.

So Obama is leading the national tracking polls by about eight points, and he is leading in the states he needs to win 270 electoral votes, with the chance to pick up a few more.
And this is, apparently, right where McCain wants Obama to be.

Devilishly clever of him, isn't it?

My prediction is that Obama wins with 349 electoral votes. The second most likely outcome is 375 EVs, in my view.

McCain's Convention Bounce?

I still think that McCain will not get much of a Convention bounce at all. Seriously, a bounce from what?

At the DNC, the Democrats unified their Party, slammed McCain, and introduced Obama to the nation while wiping out the idea that he is scary, unpatriotic, and wants to raise taxes - all to an immense audience across the nation.
They got a bounce from that, and Obama is up by 8.

What will the Republicans do?

Talk up the Iraq war, drilling, God, God and a bit more God thrown in for good measure. They will repeat several dozen times that McCain is a war hero and a POW. They will repeat all of the smears that have failed to gain traction over the past year.

This is all just re-hashing what they have already been saying for a year now. But people think that now, because it's said at a bloody Convention, that the nation will sit up and change their minds?
The Republican base is already solidified going in to the Convention. They have been un-enthusiastic, yes, but always ready to vote as they are told.

So what does anyone imagine they will get a bounce from?

I am so bloody sick of people pointing to 2004 and thinking that everything will play out the same way. This is an incredibly unique situation that is hardly comparable to 2004 or 2000. The entire electoral map has changed, but everyone still continues to think in terms of 2004: PID, Republican organisation, turnout, how Kerry did in certain states, 2004 exit polling, etc.

It's not 2004 anymore. Isn't that obvious? The Republicans have too much ground to defend. They have put their strongest candidate (most moderate), one that has made a career out of standing against them, against the Democrats...and the Republican is losing. In effect, they have put the candidate who least represents their core values against the Democrats, and even that hasn't done them any good. The McCain candidacy itself is a sign of desperation on the GOP's part, but everyone just wrings their hands over CW that doesn't match reality. It's so pathetic.

The Palin Pick

Wow. The Republicans' heads are spinning around.

By picking Palin, McCain takes the "Obama is too inexperienced" issue right off the table, which was his only non-smear issue.

By picking Palin, McCain gives up on the independents. Palin is a complete 28%-er who backs Bush completely. She is also a creationist, hard-line pro-life, and evangelical Christian. You don't pick up independents with someone like that. If independents had those views, then they wouldn't be independents - they'd already be Republicans.

By picking Palin, McCain actually alienates women voters. It takes a Republican Kool-Aid drinker to believe that women will vote for McCain simply because a woman is on the ticket, especially since that woman is completely out of the mainstream political views that the strong majority of women hold.

This is a move to appeal to the Republican base, which it will. The problem is, though, that McCain already has 87% of that base locked up. And that base is a lot smaller than it was in 2004, while the number who self-identify as Democrats has increased by 10% to record highs.

Palin will definitely improve the turnout among Republican evangelicals, but their numbers have also dropped since 2004 in a generational split.

Palin will be under intense media scrutiny in the next two months to a degree that the Governor of Alaska never was. It is almost certain that she will make some gaffe, which Republicans will be forced to defend. They will cry that the media and the Democrats are "picking on a woman", while at the same time crying about "picking on a war hero". It will be the ultimate whiner's ticket, and it will sound like these two aren't ready to face 21st century challenges.

Meanwhile, all McCain has left against Obama are smears: Ayers, Rezko, secret Muslim, crazy radical, and unpatriotic. None of these have gained traction despite being given heavy play in the primary and by McCain surrogates for several months. And Biden, HRC, and Bill will be attacking McCain constantly on his weaknesses. Being a "war hero" just won't cut it.

And the big issue about this pick that makes even Republicans pause is that McCain is 72 and has recurring cancer. If McCain dies or is incapacitated in office, then Palin takes over. Can anyone imagine Palin commanding two wars (plus any new ones that McCain has started while in office), staring down Putin, handling negotiations with Iran, Venezuela, or Pakistan? Can anyone imagine Palin convincing our allies to go along with whatever crazy foreign policy McCain has left her? Telling the rest of the world not to "pick on a woman" is not going to work in those circumstances.

Palin is not a scholar along the lines of Obama. She has no foreign policy experience, whereas Obama has been to Iraq, toured Europe, been briefed extensively on military matters, and has served on the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate. Palin would inherit all of McCain's "yes men" advisors, and be completely out of her depth on the national and international stage. If the crises the country faces in the next four years all involve attending hockey games, then she can handle it. If it's more complex than that, we are all - Republican, Independent, and Democrat alike - in big trouble.

Back again

I'm back again after a sojourn in the blogosphere wilderness.
I've been a reader and commenter on other blogs that I don't usually frequent in an effort to broaden my perspective. This has also brought me into contact with quite a few Republican and right-wing trolls, which is refreshing because it shows that their movement is bankrupt.
A few of my observations:

• Obama's lead dropping even a point on any given day somehow means that McCain is "winning". To most people, if your candidate is still behind, it means they are losing.
• There is always something, some minor event, which is allegedly going to "break things wide open" for McCain. Perhaps a GOP hack makes a disparaging remark about Obama. OMG! McCain is gonna win now fer sure! Or Regnery Press releases another one of their slimy character assassination books ("ObamaNation") - now the public is going to find out the "truth" about Obama and he is going down in flames. It never dawns on these fools that they said the same thing two weeks ago, and Obama is still ahead.
• Republicans still think the public believes every unsubstantiated assertion they utter. Apparently the GOP has immense credibility to the nation at large, at least in the minds of these partisans.
• If a state has a military base within its borders, it means that state will vote for McCain. Obviously (to the wingnuts) voting for Obama means that you don't support the troops, and the presence of a military base means that the vast majority of the state's residents support endless war.
• Obama wants our troops to die at the hands of terrorists, per wingnut CW. This is so incredibly obvious that Obama won't even try to deny it, which is "proof". Yeah.
• Spending a few days (seven years ago) in a rural part of a state that holds less than 10% of the state's population gives you a keen insight into how that state will vote. Thus, there is "no way" that Michigan will vote for Obama - polls be damned.
• Likewise, if a wingnut polls a half dozen people in the rural area of a Deep Red state where he lives, you can easily infer from that "poll" that Obama doesn't have a chance to win on the national stage. 'Nuff said.
• One wingnut heard from another wingnut, who heard from their pastor, that Obama is a "socialist". Again, the result is that McCain will win "in a landslide".
• Unless Obama himself explicitly denies something, then it's completely true. And if he does deny something, he's a liar, so it's true anyway.
• Everybody hates liberals, and the only way they ever get elected is because illegal immigrants vote them in. Uh-huh. Likewise, numbers of registered voters don't matter because Democrats don't vote - they are too busy watching TV and doing drugs. That's why McCain wins this time.
• Everybody hates popular people. Nobody is excited about McCain, so that unpopularity means that he wins. Obvious, isn't it?

Overall, Republicans are deeply stuck in a world where it is 2002 forever, and 2006 never happened. Rush Limbaugh and Bill Kristol are believed by everyone. The "success" in Iraq proves that America wants yet another war, as long as this means a lot of Muslims will die. Christians are a persecuted minority, but yet they are so strong and numerous that this is a "Christian Nation" that shouldn't tolerate Muslims.

One would also think that the current portrayal of Obama as the Antichrist would be a good way to get evangelicals to vote for him. If Obama wins, that means the Rapture is at hand, and the evangelicals claim to want that. Sadly, the fundamentalist hypocrisy is so deep that they don't even see the contradiction. If they truly believed that Obama was the Antichrist and that the End Times are at hand, wouldn't they be repenting and selling their possessions to donate to the poor? Instead, it's just another opportunity for slander in the name of being a good Christian.

So, I'm back from the wilderness to tell you that the GOP is screwed.
They are delusional victims of their own rhetoric, resting on their laurels and hoping for legions of imaginary voters to heed the Idiot Call and follow their orders.