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.
Yes, I have been inthralled in FR and any research I could on Obama. My son is 18 years old and heading to college next year. A civilian police force is something I would never agree to but I would agree to him joining the military if that were his choice.My family would probably move to an island before I allowed this...there is just so much to this guy that is more than scary. He and his wife are strange. It’s like you know there is more there but you want to scream that it’s not being revealed. Oh well, I seem to think more have got to be thinking like us and I look forward to being online Tuesday night or Wednesday morning celebrating with my freepers. I feel a lot better. Thank You!
Good post. :)
Obama spending money on ads in Arizona is so Karl Rove vintage 2000. He knew that there was a large block of undecided voters and that they would break mostly for Gore. He wanted to create the impression that they were so confident of winning big that they thought even California was in play — all designed to discourage these undecided soon-to-be Gore voters from voting.
He is going to look really stupid spending time and money on VA, NC, AZ when he loses all of these states and also ends up losing PA and/or WI.
Bump! I think your numbers for a McCain victory are low.....but we’ll know in just a few days...;)
Wow, how I agree with you!! It’s unreal; I look back at the last two elections and how I was so “worried” that Gore or Kerry could become our President! NOW, I really worry!!! They can’t compare to what the dem nominee has in store for us. I just pray that we can elect McCain. God help us all.
Well, you totally disarmed me there. You did say it nicer than I would have, however. ;-)
Gallup shows him at 51-52%, but we do not know what the sampling (D-R) is, or do we?”
You don’t. But I do know that (1) last night was Halloween and people with kids is a GOP demographic and (2) Gallup tweaked their likely voter model to increase the assumption of black voter turnout by three points.
Here is a FR-mail that I sent a few days ago to some Freepers (part of a weekly series of e-mails). It will help put these Gallup polls into the proper perspective.
{Beginning of FR-mail]
This report will be slightly different from the previous ones because it really doesn’t reveal anything new and we are now at the point where this information is already obsolete anyway — the undecideds are now deciding and they started deciding after Oct. 26.
These numbers cover the period from Oct. 20 to 26 and show Obama up 51-42 among registered voters (unchanged from last week).
For this one, I chose to focus solely on reverse-engineering the party ID split for Gallup’s reported 51-42 lead. I will also spare you how I got there and just give you the bottom line
Dems 41.3 (4.3 oversample from 2004)
GOP 32.2 (4.8 undersample from 2004)
Ind 26.5 (0.5 oversample from 2004)
At the 2004 distribution, the adjusted totals for this registered voter poll are as follows:
Obama 47.18
McCain 46.18
According to Gallup, Obama has a 42-41 lead among Indepedents (including leaners — this represents a six point drop for Obama and a one point gain for McCain from the previous week), Obama leads Dems (88-9), and McCain leads GOPers (87-10). These [party support] numbers are essentially unchanged from last week.
By way of comparision, in 2004 the Dems voted 89-11 for Kerry, while the Republicans voted 93-6 for Bush. The Independents went 49-48 for Kerry.
I would expect that when you limit each of these subgroups to likely voters — again, these splits are from registered voter pools, not likely voter pools — I would guess that the splits become slightly more favorable for McCain in all three groups (likely voters are more right-leaning as a whole than registered voters). I have no idea by how much, except to point to the 2004 numbers as a reasonable frame of reference.
I will make the same comment here that I made about the TIPP poll: unless Obama gets to AT LEAST 48 in a representative likely voter sample, he’s dead. McCain will get to 48 and he will have an easier time going from 48 to 50+ than Obama if both are polling at 48.
Any other candidate proposing a civilian force like that would probably be forced out of the race because of the screams from the media. We’ll see when they try to make this a reality if civil libertarians and the people who scream about Bush being a dictator have any problems with it.
So how have your predictions been in the past? I admire your optimism of course. But it is hard not to be realistic when just about every “respectable” poll and pundit are saying things will go the other way. That would make victory for our side all the more stunning and gratifying. If you are right every FR member will laud you. :)
You are still confident about OH I see. Glad to hear it. If all the shenanigans going on there didn’t ignite and drive the GOP base to get out then it would surely indicate a sad state of affairs.
I would not count out NM. I talked to a few people tonight. Still trying to find out why long time very plugged in Mexican-American Dems GOTV people are working for McCain. Another resident told me that Mexican-Americans who are citizens are very negative on Obama. Also the bishop has essentially told everyone that Obama and his views on abortion are totally unacceptable. NM Mexican-American Catholics are not like Kennedy Catholics. They are very devout.
You covered two key issues the MSM is not mentioning is PUMAs and white Democrats. Super important.
Add another to the pile - the Brady Effect not Bradley. Democrats got hammered after the Brady Bill as did Bush 1 (second run) and Dole. I received my third NRA - FL Repub Party mailer. I really hope the NRA hits this hard as they did on third mailer - we almost lost the Second Amendment this year in the Supreme Court. We only won by ONE vote. We came very close to losing the Second.
I hope all gun owners understand. Also Obama voted for some of the worst anti-gun and anti-self defense laws ever. Clinton, Gore and Kerry were nowhere near this bad.
My membership expired to the NRA about 3 years ago. I will renew but this election cycle has been expensive. I am getting mailers - so any current and former NRA members are getting these big postcards. I would guess this will reach at least 8 million very serious voters. Gun owners votes especailly when facing VERY dangerous anti-gun candidate. I am not a “gun lover” but the Second is the only thing protecting us from tyranny and it may get tested soon.
I think Carl’s playing a balancing act - throwing enough bones at McCain supporters to keep them energized and determined, but lulling Democrats into complacency.
I think there will be a point in the next few days where O faces the stark truth that the strategy of appearing invincible has failed and he’ll started scaring his supporters to get them to the polls. We’ll probably see some equivalent of the James Byrd dragging death ad deployed against McCain. He’ll have no choice.
Are we related, LOL? If so let's include our relatives in Ct. in the mix. Frankly I haven't met a soul who is voting for Obama and that includes many life long dems.
Obama may be running for 2012. The Clintons & PUMAs want to see Obama lose in a landslide to make sure Dracula has a stake in his heart for 2012.
I am hopeful millions of PUMAs are hoping to punish their party for this clown. I hope this may help down ticket and we get back the House and stay close in the Senate. Hillary and the PUMAs were screwed over by Obama, his ACORN thugs and the party leaders - Dean, Pelosi and Reid.
That's one change in Virginia we can count on: urban and suburban areas have turned more Dem compared to last election. So the media will be able to compare the early raw returns to last year's and excusably predict an Obama win (Kaine's party can be expected to facilitate this- they've probably already set up the districts they want to report returns first to do so) .
But what will actually happen here I don't think anyone knows- there are just too many new variables.
I believe a Navy fighter pilot hero will still win this state against a yankee no-body.
John Fund in the background is saying even if McCain won Ohio and Florida it wouldn't be enough as Colorado is a lost cause and at this stage it's Obama's election to lose. He added that a small percentage of conservatives believe Obama will reduce their taxes which helps Obama's argument. Huh?
Just learned that Gov. Rendell said to not believe the polls which leads one to wonder if McCain/Palin can win in PA.
I seriously expect the mainstream media to inflame race and riots should it appear Obama was losing. They will scream, cry and shout and start telling Obama what he needs to do!!
They have been carrying on this fantasy that Bush stole the election in 2000. Consider how they incited racism during Katrina.
A very sad state we are in, today.
Very sad.
We are talking about CA. I am pretty shocked about Issue 8 winning in such a lib state. I think the Mexican-American citizens in NM may break pretty big for McCain. I have heard they have a really big problem with an African-American President. Bigger than even people in W PA.
In CA you have to wonder: the Repub base will be out 100%, we may get more Mexican-American votes and also more savvy Jewish voters who have issues with Obama as they should. I also wondered how much retired military is still in CA. And white about moderate white democrats in CA?
CA has a lot of evangelical and also LDS (Mormons) voters. Mitt has been hitting the SW hard in the final days - I hope he stops in MI. I work with a PUMA (weakly supports Hillary) Dem. She hated Rudy before but loved him after his convention speech. She wants Mitt in 2012. I think Mitt is a good guy too. I voted for him in the primary after Tancredo through his support to Mitt.
We have had the elites voting at this polling station including Colin Powell, Sam Donaldson, and today former AG Gonzalez who was wearing a Navy sweatshirt similar to my Navy shirt and cap. I offered him a sample ballot and he winked and said he knew who he was voting for and pointed to his sweatshirt.
This site has seen the largest number of early voters in memory with more than 8,000 voting thru today. Based on my two days there and about 10 hours, I offer the following anecdotal observations:
The vast majority of voters were white and Asian [Koreans, Vietnamese, Filipino, Pakistani, and Indian] with a sprinkling of blacks, hispanics, and arabs.
The elderly made up about 20% of the voters and they appeared to be overwhelmingly for McCain based on the distribution of the ballots and their comments and gestures to me. Many of them expressed their fears of an Obama presidency. One 90 year old even raised the specter of a Hitler-like figure having been raised in Germany and coming to this country in 1948. Some were concerned about increased taxes, especially capital gains since many are living off of their investments. They were mostly white and Asian. I was amazed how determined they were to vote. They were using walkers, canes, wheelchairs, etc. standing in line for up to two hours. I have seen some of the polls giving the senior vote to Obama, but that clearly was not the case here.
The Asians broke down into two camps. The Koreans, Vietnamese, and Filipinos were predominantly for McCain. This is significant because there are large Korean and Vietnamese communities in NoVa totalling around 150,000. I would say they made up about 5% to 10% of the early voters. The Pakistanis and Indians were overwhelmingly for Obama. I think a lot had to do with the perceived Islamic connection of Obama. They were about 2% to 3%.
There were the white professionals including lawyers, teachers, professors, etc. and young college students. This group, more women than men, were mostly pro-Obama. I would estimate they made up about 45% to 50% of the voters. The blue collar types and military and former military were pro-McCain. If someone spoke with a Southern accent, they were for McCain. The white, liberal transplants from the the Northeast and Left coast were for Obama, belligerently so.
The Obama sample ballot distributors were well organized and more numerous than we were. They have a good ground game here and have effectively mobilized their voters. How that translates into overall turnout is another question. Clearly, the Reps are also more energized than they were in 2004. There is no doubt that the Dems will win NoVA, the only question is by how much. If McCain can keep it close, he will take the state.
This is going to be a close election in VA. Rep turnout will be key. Now that the race has become a referendum on Obama, the Rep base has become more energized. To be continued....
Well, please don’t take the last six without the previous, uh, forty-seven or whatever.
It would be a very different Obama.
Sigh. Probably inconceivably different.
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