Posted on 11/01/2008 4:44:51 PM PDT by LS
These are words that are, actually, somewhat difficult for me to say. John McCain wasn't my favorite candidate in the primaries. For the better part of eight years, he's been on the wrong side of many crucial issues. So I am not making this prediction based on any love of my former Arizona senator. (And forgive me for a slightly windy post, but I want to provide evidence for my congratulatory note.)
A week ago ("Don't Look Now . . . But There Won't Be an Obama Swag-Bag"), I warned that the numbers in the early voting were not sufficient for the Messiah to win---not in Colorado, not in Florida, and at the time, barely enough to carry California. Since then, the numbers in CO have improved for Obama, but in my view not nearly enough. The numbers in Florida remain daunting for him, and California still is stunningly close in terms of Democrat/Republican splits. Based on that, and some other factors, I predicted there would be no Obama victory, and no Obama "Swag-Bag." (Did anyone see the Obama voter who said the Messiah would pay off her mortgage and pay for her gas!?)
The developments in the past week have, if anything, strengthened my conviction that McCain will be inaugurated next January.
High numbers of undecideds remain in the major national polls. According to Dick Morris, "An undecided has already decided not to vote for Obama." While his claim that undecideds---based on a FOX poll---would go for McCain at a clip of 7:1 is, I think, exaggerated, our own Freeper kesg has made a similar argument. It's all about what he calls the 'death line' of 48% for Obama. In only a couple of polls, with drastic manipulations involving oversampling of Democrats, has Obama crossed that line.
Even National Review's anonymous sage "Obi Wan" doesn't seem to fully appreciate the significance of Obama's inability to "close the deal" at that number.
Then there is the completely un-discussed (save for conservative sites) phenomenon of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos." This was real, it registered thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of temporary Democrat voters who are "coming home." Then there are the disaffected Hillary voters---call them PUMAs, if you will---but they do constitute some percentage of the Democrat electorate that the media has been entirely unwilling to acknowledge. Sources tell me that while MI will still land firmly in Obama's column, his lead there has been cut by shocking levels due almost entirely to a scorched earth policy by the PUMAs and the 527s.
Taken together, however, these two groups of "Democrats" (one faux, one real but angry) are tiny compared to the number of white Democrats who think their party has been hijacked by a terrorist. Again, to the drive-by media, such people don't exist. To admit they were real---let alone in numbers---would destroy the entire mythos of the "surge in voter registrations." I'll say more of this in a moment, but for now, I predict---out on a limb here---that Obama will barely come close to Kerry's 2004 Democrat support number.
What does all this mean for the states? With indies breaking at a far higher rate for McCain than Obama, and with large segments of the Democrats voting Republican, you are likely to see both a very high level of Republican support for McCain (probably in the 90s), combined with a significant level of Dem support and late breaking independents. That breaks down to:
*CO will be Republican by about 2 points.
*NV will be a 2 point or better final for McCain.
*MO will be a 4 or 5 point McCain win.
*NM will end up a 2-point McCain loss.
*We will bring in OH at 2 or 3 points---better than Bush did in 04.
*FL will be a double digit McCain lead. GA and NC won't be that close.
*Here's the clincher: the southern part of VA, combined with the west, will give McCain a 1- to 2-point win in the Old Dominion.
*I won't predict NH, IA, or PA. These are very, very close. If I had to guess, I'd say McCain wins NH, loses PA by razor thin margins---but there's that darned "Bradley Effect," and it is real, and it may well bring PA along.
There are other dynamics at work that could, in fact, blow this open a tad for McCain (i.e., bring in IA, PA, NM, and even WI). First, GOPTrust is running $7 million---that's right, $7 million---in devastatingly effective Jeremiah Wright ads this weekend. McCain's support with the oldsters has been somewhat soft due to claims he'll "cut" Social Security, but these ads will scare the bejeezus out of them, and with good reason.
Second, Zogby's overnight not only had it a 1-point McCain lead, but noted that a very good Obama night was dropping off the rolling three-night average. Now, I know, it's the Zogs special sauce. Isn't IDB or Battleground supposed to be better? Well, it actually depends. I think Zogs has been so volatile because his poll has been extremely sensitive to rapid changes. The others have not been as, well, "emotional." Hence, they've stabilized (Battleground at under 4, IBD Tipp at 4 to 5). However, the McCain team said their polling showed that Obama lost ground with the infomercial. The polls didn't pick it up Friday because of the Halloween effect---families (otherwise known as Republican voters) were out with their kids. I think Zogs picked up that post-infomercial shift. Hello, Dickie Morris.
Battleground's "Battleground State" poll, in a little-reported item, noted that all the battleground states were within a point. It then did not define what these states were (hence, I think FL is excluded) but did include NM and IA. New Mexico? I thought Obama had this locked up in 2006!
Finally, the clincher in all this, as it has always been, is the white Democrat vote. And it was "early voting"---contrary to all conventional wisdom---where Obama lost the election. The drive-bys are obsessed with black turnout early (some indicators STILL don't convince me that it will equal Algore's 2000 level turnout, but I could be wrong on this, and it still won't matter).
The critical element of the "early" black vote that all pundits have missed is reflected in the Morris "7:1" comment. In normal elections, cameras go to polling places and show lines. High turnout, low turnout, but the crowds are almost always mixed. This year, "early" voting, combined with the emphasis on Obama's race (and he has run the most racist campaign since Bull Conner), the images have overwhelmingly been of . . . crowds of black voters.
By itself, this would disturb no one, until Obama begins to talk about "spreading the wealth around," and anyone making over (pick a number) $200,000 will see a "patriotic" tax increase and (feel a chill yet?) saying this will be a "transformational" election.
When the camera shots of the lines of black voters is combined with the rhetoric about "he's going to pay my mortgage and pay for my gas," working-class whites (indeed, everyone) starts to get a little antsy. No doubt, more than a few Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Missouri voters suddenly conjured up the Reconstruction images of "Birth of a Nation." "Do people on welfare really think after November 4 they will be moving into my house?" they ask. The House's hearings on nationalizing 401(k)s has percolated into the electorate, including the oldsters.
If I am proven right on November 5, and John McCain is elected president, it will be due to the incredibly stupid, wasteful ad spending by Obama for four months that was forgotten in the last 72 hours; it will be due the early voting that reinforced in the minds of the middle-class and white voters of all economic backgrounds that when Obama says he wants to "spread the wealth around," he really is coming for MY house.
And above all---let's give credit where credit is due---it will be because of a relentless performance by Sarah Palin, a brilliantly choreographed campaign by McCain's managers, and to the gritty, plodding but oh-so-successful turtle from Arizona.
FYI... interesting assessment of the race by FReeper LS.
Great thread and analysis, Larry. Now that I’ve read everyone’s thoughts...here’s my report. I know many many folks in NY and NJ who are voting for McCain. Call it the Italian vote. ;)
Let me throw this out there. We are told to always follow the money, that is where you will find the truth.
We should be asking ourselves: Who has the biggest bag of money in this campaign? Who has been raising money in record amounts? Who wants that money?
There are a LOT of people who have become VERY rich off of “illegal” campaign contributions. BO probably has the biggest money laundering business EVER. He is a money making machine
No one wants to upset the apple cart do they? How about we show him winning in a landslide! We can manipulate the numbers enough to show he is winning in every state. The more we are on his side, the more money he will dump in our pockets. The MSM and well over 200 polling firms have got in on the action. They have been taking money from this guy for almost two years now.
Bottom line is this is about money. The people will speak on November 4th. McCain will win and the money party will come to an end.
The question then becomes, what are the characteristics of the sampled population? Well, for starters, they first need to agree to answer polling questions! This, in a situation where the questioner is anonymous but the respondent is known. Forget party affiliation weighting, voter type (eg registered, likely, etc) or even honesty/lying. No, the real driving issue is whether or not the respondent agrees to participate in the first place.
And this is where polling has gone horribly wrong. When Gallup started out, indeed for generations thereafter, respondents were highly flattered that their opinion was sought out and valued. It's only been recently through the democratization of the press via the Net that the bloom, so to speak, has worn off.
Now, people regard pollsters with suspicion, and for good reason: what happened to Joe the Plumber has resonated with millions of walkaday Americans. This video provides a great demonstration of the hostility average voters display towards those perceived as being snarky liberals.
So how come we don't hear about decline-to-answers or hang-ups? Because Gallup and the other pollsters CAN NOT make any statistically valid prediction about their behavior - they simply are not part of the sampled respondents. Gallup, et al are charged with assessing the results of actual respondents, not those who choose not to participate.
It is anyone's guess what percentage of contacts decline; it's also anyone's guess as to surmise what is meant by these actions. That's where intuition comes into play - it's a pure gut level reaction, but this poster believes these people are McC voters. No one can say for sure since there isn't any valid basis - after all, they refused to participate - so in this case, it's art, not science.
2006 was the worst. The networks where calling races too quickly.
In 2002, I picked every senate race except Thune's last second loss to 500 Indian votes; in 2004, I picked every competitive senate race (including Allard, who was behind 5 points going into election day), and missed one.
In 2006, I missed all of the senate races except Santorum. In retrospect, every one of these was VERY close. The number I heard was 35,000 votes would have kept the Senate for the GOP.
So there you are.
Not necessrily. How many of those 50,000 Democrats who voted early this year voted, but not early, four years ago? The net might be less than 50,000. But yeah. Obama needs to make up 100,000 votes (Bush's approximate margin of victory in 2004). That's hard to do in a relatively small state like Colorado.
Those are words I’d enjoy hearing the MSM say.
“I say again, ignore the polls!”
Thanks, I needed that! I’ve been trying to ignore them, but sometimes it’s just hard not to. I’m watching college football now, to get me away from the election!! I’ll be voting with excitement in MD on Tuesday, with my neighbor who is dressing up like Sarah to go with me!! Again, thanks for your words of encouragement!!
I’m still putting the odds 60-40 to Barack Odingo.
And I'm putting strong odds that if ODumbass wins, the economy will tank for real. Not a scripted selloff fueled by irrational fear (and a little bit of shorting by Soros & company), but a genuine lack of investment. A totally democRAT government is guaranteed to seek ways to steal the wealth from the earners so that they can continue to buy the votes of the deadbeats. That's their trademark.
The hints at robbing 401K's to provide new "revenue streams" is of particular interest here. I, along with many, would gladly take the 10% penalty to keep MY earnings out of the hands of the government. If Obambi wins, count on an actual crash. Guaranteed.
You just don’t know how you are helping me sleep tonight. This has been one of the scariest elections I have ever experienced. We kind of wanted Obama over Hillary to be the Dem candidate mainly because we thought he would be easier to beat, until more started being revealed about this guy. It’s just not OK for him to be our leader...it is and would be dangerous for generations. Today he claimed change was coming to not only America but to the world. That statement alone scares me.
Thanks for posting your note. IT is helping me and many tonight online.
It becomes more scientific if you know the demographic of the refusers. I have read in a few places that rural voters are the largest group refusing to participate. Rural voters are overwhelmingly conservative. They are much less gullible and not easily manipulated. They don't like or trust the MSM and associate polls with the MSM.
If the only GOP responders a pollster can get are urban/suburban ones, the poll is about as valid as one which could get only rural Democrats to respond.
The only consolation is that if he wins, the slimy, simpering libs will be in front of us on the firing squad line, because they are always the first ones killed.
Thanks LS... I am so grateful for your analysis. I pray that PA can be delivered - and I think there is a chance. If it comes thru, a seismic shift will occur that will have the pundits shaking their heads for months. As others have noted, the refusal rate has been high on the GOP side which in itself will skew the poll. And - purely subjective here - I believe there will be a large number of voters who will change their mind in the booth. It will be that nagging question of, “who can I trust?”. For more than a few, it will tilt towards McCain.
Now, let’s hope for a stable market on Monday. I love your comments about the relentless campaigning of Sarah and the deliberate plodding of JMcC. I pray that you are dialed in, my friend.
I predict that the election will go to McCain 55 to 44.
Congratulation President McCain.
I am with you. McCain/Palin gets 308.
Thank you Professor. Get some more gigs on C-Span, please?
I’m in NH and keep having the same weird experience:
I wear a large McCain/Palin button and also a Veteran’s for McCain sticker on my sweatshirt. MANY folks come up to me and almost whisper “Go McCain” as if we’re part of some secret society - and this is NEW HAMPSHIRE!
For whatever reason, I think there may be a large number of folks who are afraid to say what they really think of O-Barry and we may see something quite surprising Tuesday.
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