[qoae] Rosemary: Thing Look Good For McCain in November

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Posted by Rosemary:
Thing Look Good For McCain in November
http://www.qoae.net/posts/1211384624.shtml


   [1]Paul Maslin's Electoral College math looks good for McCain and not
   so good for Obama:

     To figure out how Obama can assemble the magic 270, then, let's
     look at the 17 states where this fall's outcome is not a mortal
     lock. I am a Democratic pollster -- this presidential election
     cycle I worked for Bill Richardson, and last time I worked for
     Howard Dean. But my collection of swing states is not based on
     current match-up polling between Obama and McCain. I mostly ignored
     the polls -- come on, it's May. Instead, I looked at long-term
     voting trends and demographics. Swing states Obama absolutely,
     positively has to win: A reasonable projection of the Electoral
     College results for 2008 would award the Democrats 157 safe votes
     in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 17 swing states
     where Obama has no guarantee but a good shot, six are really
     "must-wins" for him. Defeat in any -- particularly the two biggest
     -- either signals grave problems elsewhere or puts inordinate
     pressure on him to run the rest of the table.

   What did he see when looking?

     States that strongly favor Obama ("strongly" in the context of
     close states, that is): Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington.
     That's 43 electoral votes. Add that to the safe blue 157 votes in
     11 states and D.C. and Obama is at 200.

     States that slightly favor Obama: Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania,
     Wisconsin. Another 55 votes. He's now at 255

     States that strongly favor McCain: Florida, North Carolina. Their
     42 electoral votes are probably going to the Republicans.

     States that slightly favor McCain: Colorado, 9 votes; Missouri, 11
     votes; and Virginia, 13 votes. Obama's chances are better here.

     Pure toss-ups: Nevada, 5 votes; New Hampshire, 4 votes; New Mexico,
     5 votes; and Ohio, 20 votes.

     Clearly, and I'm being cautious, I think it's going to be a close
     race. If Obama wins the 255 votes in the states where he's favored,
     then to get to 270 he needs to choose from the following menu: 1)
     Win Ohio, which takes him to 275; 2) win in the West -- Nevada, New
     Mexico and Colorado, for 274; 3) win the three N's (Nevada, New
     Mexico, New Hampshire) for 269, plus one other state; or 4) win two
     of the three N's and either Colorado or Virginia.

     The bottom line is that 270 is achievable, provided the Democratic
     ticket keeps all of these 17 states in play as long as possible.
     And it looks like it can. Obama has the money to fight in the truly
     purple states and force his opponent to defend some of the redder
     ones. For the moment, McCain doesn't have the money to respond in
     kind. Obama can stretch McCain's scarcer resources. He can also
     improve the Democratic Party's odds of breaking through and winning
     its first Electoral College majority in a dozen years.

   The way this Democratic pollster is looking at things, it's not going
   to be the blow out the faithful followers of Obama would have you
   believe. Actually, it looks similar to what [2]Karl Rove was saying
   about the map. Rove's analysis says that it is Hillary that will have
   the easier time defeating McCain and Obama will fight an uphill
   battle. Proving once again that you twits picked the wrong candidate.
   I can't wait to blog about the election results this fall!

References

   1. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/05/16/270/print.html
   2. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/roves-latest-el.html