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Reply With QuoteNo matter what happens in November, I think that statement is surest "prediction" out there.“No disrespect to the other candidates,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger, “but if anyone else had been nominated we’d be toast.”
I've been thinking Obama's the weaker of the two candidates for some time now.
Source: GOP strategists mull McCain ‘blowout’ - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com
GOP strategists mull McCain ‘blowout’
It sounds crazy at first. Amid dire reports about the toxic political environment for Republican candidates and the challenges facing John McCain, many top GOP strategists believe he can defeat Barack Obama — and by a margin exceeding President Bush’s Electoral College victory in 2004.
At first blush, McCain’s recent rough patch and the considerable financial disadvantage confronting him make such predictions seem absurd. Indeed, as Republicans experience their worst days since Watergate, those same GOP strategists are reticent to publicly tout the prospect of a sizable McCain victory for fear of looking foolish.
But the contours of the electoral map, combined with McCain’s unique strengths and the nature of Obama’s possible vulnerabilities, have led to a cautious and muted optimism that McCain could actually surpass Bush’s 35-electoral-vote victory in 2004. Though they expect he would finish far closer to Obama in the popular vote, the thinking is that he could win by as many 50 electoral votes.
By post-war election standards, that margin is unusually small. Yet it’s considerably larger than either Bush’s 2004 victory or his five-electoral-vote win in 2000.
“A win by 40 or 50 electoral votes would be an astonishing upset, just a watershed event with all the issues that were stacked against him from the very beginning,” said David Woodard, a Republican pollster and Clemson University political science professor. “But it could happen. I know this seems like wishful thinking by Republicans. I’m thinking that Republicans could win by 40 electoral votes. But I dare not say it,” he added. “Certainly what is possible could come to pass.”
A top strategist with the Republican National Committee, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, explained that by his own examination, “we’re actually sitting pretty well in most states.”
“There are a lot of scenarios that look good for McCain, and I almost would go so far to say that there are a lot more scenarios [than for Obama],” the strategist added. “I don’t think anybody over here wants to let themselves get too excited about it. It is an eternity between now and November. But McCain looks a lot stronger than our prospects as a party.”
It is virtually impossible to find an established GOP strategist who believes McCain will win in a landslide. But in light of the circumstances, more than a few Republicans are pleasantly surprised to find that McCain is at all situated to defeat Obama.
“The broader environment clearly favors the Democrat,” said Whit Ayers, another veteran GOP pollster. But Ayers argued that “a state-by-state analysis actually makes McCain a narrow favorite to win the Electoral College majority.”
“That would certainly run against the grain of history, if he pulled that off,” Ayers added. “But it’s also clearly plausible and a manageable outcome partly because of John McCain’s strength among independents and partly because of Obama’s weakness in culture, ideology and association.”
Some Republican strategists can envision a scenario in which Obama wins the popular vote but loses in the Electoral College — he might galvanize Southern black turnout, for example, but still fail to switch a state in the region.
Among the 10 strategists interviewed by Politico for this story, there was near-uniform belief that had any other Republican been nominated, the party’s prospects in November would be nil.
“No disrespect to the other candidates,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger, “but if anyone else had been nominated we’d be toast.”
The case they make for a comfortable McCain win is not beyond reason. Begin with the 2004 electoral map. Add Iowa and Colorado to Obama’s side, since both are considered states Obama could pick off. Then count McCain victories in New Hampshire and Michigan, two states where McCain is competitive. In this scenario, McCain wins the Electoral College 291-246, a larger margin than Bush four years ago.
If Obama managed only to win Iowa from Republicans and McCain managed only to win Pennsylvania, McCain would still win by a much greater margin than Bush — 300-237.
“McCain is in a remarkably strong position for how poor the political environment is right now,” said Brian Nienaber, a GOP pollster. “McCain could win Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada with a high Hispanic population. It really does scramble the map of where Obama does find those electoral votes.”
Naturally, Democrats do not concede the point. But conversations with several Democratic strategists reveal that many acknowledge that the Republican scenarios are at least reasonable, though they say less likely to occur because Obama has the potential to dramatically alter the map, putting some nontraditional states in play at the same time. The bottom line, though, is that McCain’s ability to compete in some big industrial states offers a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal election cycle.
“We have to hold Michigan and Pennsylvania. McCain wins one of those states, we are in trouble. They have to hold Florida and Ohio or they are trouble,” Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said. “The truth about this race [is], this is the year that we shouldn’t lose, and we could lose.”
The GOP scenarios do not rely on some game-changing event but rather the possibility of Obama failing to overcome his own and his party’s weaknesses. Obama has long been thought by analysts to have a higher electoral vote ceiling as well as a lower floor than Hillary Clinton.
It is that potential Obama floor that increasingly occupies the minds of Republicans studying the map. Even the potentially dramatic rise in turnout of African-Americans may only gain Obama 1 percentage point in many swing states, according to Maslin. Yet Obama’s weaknesses may end up neutralizing some of those relatively modest gains.
Since 1968, Democrats have had a deficit with whites, particularly men. Some Republicans believe that Obama may exacerbate those Democratic challenges, especially in key rural regions like Appalachia, struggle to win back Hispanics or some women, and dash Democratic prospects during their most favorable landscape in at least three decades.
“There is a one in four shot that McCain can win an electoral majority in excess of 50 electoral votes, which by most recent standards would be a blowout,” Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio said. “Considering where the Republican brand is right now, that’s pretty phenomenal.”
No matter what happens in November, I think that statement is surest "prediction" out there.“No disrespect to the other candidates,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger, “but if anyone else had been nominated we’d be toast.”
If Obama is the nominee, and it looks like he will be of course, then yeah, I think McCain will totally pants him. Will that translate to a general non-bloodletting of senate and house seats though? I dunno. I'm pretty ignorant on the topic but I'm willing to bet a pizza that McCain completely stomps Obama but the Dems still do well in general.
-dale
well, now the word here is that hil is talking to obama's people bout veep. if so, that would certainly lower mccain's hopes that any one of the dem nominees will split the party.
The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"
-Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
...and I heard that she's claiming that for some dignity before dropping out. I don't believe either one.Originally Posted by astralis
-dale
I actually think that he has more of a chance than Hilary to beat McCain.
Sometimes things dont end up how they should, a son, a brother, a mentor, a teacher, a cousin, a nephew, a grandson and a god in my eyes.
Who knows what he more could have been...
Christopher Muzykant
April 9, 1976-November 4,2005
My Brother, Always and forever
That is what scares me.
Then again I already made a toast to "President Obama" about a month ago.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
The real issue is not how well Clinton, Obama, or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn't have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 17 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the law into effect.
See National Popular Vote -- Electoral college reform by direct election of the President
Oh god, not another "the Electoral College sucks!" thread. If you're not just a bot, go start you own thread please, leave this one for discussion of McCain's chances at a blowout this November.
And I think they're good.
-dale
Why do you think that McCain's chances are good for a "blowout"? How do you define a blowout---in terms of popular vote or electoral votes? A 50 vote margin in the electoral college is hardly a blow-out by historical standards.
Also consider McCain's right-flank is now going to be under constant attack:
Barr Wins Libertarian Party Presidential Nod
Sun May 25, 6:09 PM ET
Former Rep. Bob Barr won the Libertarian Party's Presidential nomination at the party's convention in Denver Sunday afternoon. He defeated long-time party activist Mary Ruwart, 54 to 46 percent, on the sixth ballot.
Fourteen candidates ran for the nomination. Former Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel was defeated in the fourth round.
Third place finisher Wayne Allyn Root, an internet gambling entrepreneur, is the vice-presidential nominee.
Ruwart, a scientist and consultant from Texas, is a frequent Libertarian candidate, and challenged Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2000. She campaigned earlier this year for Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who is running for Republican presidential nomination. He also espouses libertarian beliefs.
"I'm sure will we emerge here with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party," Barr said in his victory speech.
"This team, this candidate, will not let you down. This will be an historic and positive campaign that will succeed," he added.
Barr, 59, left the GOP in 2006. He is perhaps best known as a key player in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.
Some of his earlier positions were at odds with the party. He was an opponent of the legalization of medical marijuana, a position he has since reversed. The Libertarian party's platform states that "all laws establishing criminal or civil penalties for the use of drugs" should be repealed. And he was a strong opponent of abortion rights. The party opposes any restrictions on reproductive rights.
But he was always a gun rights supporter, and called for the end to federal income tax and the IRS, all Libertarian principles.
"Bob Barr is one of the strongest candidates in the Party's 37-year history, and we look for him to have an enormous impact in the 2008 race," Libertarian Party spokesperson Andrew Davis said.
The final vote was 324 for Barr to 276 for Ruwart and 26 for "none of the above."
The Libertarian Party is on the ballot in 28 states.
Barr polls now at 6-7% with 36% name recognition. That's not bad for a third-party candidate, especially the historically woeful Libertarians. Combined with the Constitution party they could take away a million votes from McCain, and put a state like Georgia or South Carolina into play for the Dems.
McKinney and Nader probably won't have the same pull away from Obama. So what does McCain do---he drifts too far to the center, Barr will hammer him and pick up dejected conservatives and alienated Republicans (ahem...such as I), he tacks to the Right and Obama picks up the mushy middle voters. I don't know what effect Barr will have on the election, maybe none, he could play John Anderson to McCain's Reagan, but hie is someone McCain has to deal with at least tactically.
So there's Barr's insurgency as one strike against a blow-out (however so defined), in addition another strike against a McCain blow-out is the probable absence of minorities/women/youths voting for him. Let's look at the last Republican to win by blow-out (note that GHWB won in '88 on the back of the so-called Reagan coalition so the same demographics probably apply): in 1980 Reagan picked up 14% of the black vote, and 36% of the Hispanic vote, as well as a plurality of women, and a tie in the youth vote. Reagan coalition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1984 he duplicated the feat (though with slightly less black vote), but with a lot more women. http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/ele.../voted_84.html
McCain is almost assured of not getting more than 8% of the black vote, and more than likely less than 5% of the black polity (which is larger than it was in 1980/1984). The youth vote, such as it is, also will belong to Obama. White men historically vote Republican and this shouldn't change with McCain, especially among lower income, lower educated white men in the South and Appalachia, though how much Barr can cut into this group remains to be seen.
Which leaves white women and Hispanics to tip McCain's candidacy to blow-out proportions. McCain gets good numbers from Hispanics in his home state, and Hispanics favored Hillary over Obama, but there are indications that Hispanics will vote for the Democratic nominee in large numbers regardless of who he is, and this will reverse the gains that Reagan and later Bush made in the group.
That leaves only white women as a group that McCain could tap in order to blow-out his competitor. But here alas McCain has a probable woman problem; he left his first wife for no apparent reason than because she was in a car accident, and was less pretty and older than the woman he eventually married (who was also richer than him). McCain likes to talk about his biography and his character, but skips over this part. Regardless of why it happened or how it came about, or if it is the voters' business McCain has garnered a reputation of, if not quite a rake, as a man who at least ill-treated one woman. And that may not go over well with women as a whole.
No, McCain's got a lot of problems, from a possible revolt on his right, to his inability to make in-roads into historically Democratic demographic groups, to inconsistencies in his character, he'll be lucky to win at all. A blow-out should be the last thing on his mind.
Look, I don't like McCain, and I wish he wasn't the nominee. But he is, therefore I support him. Why do I think "blowout"? Three reasons:
1) Obama's a weak candidate and is showing more weakness every time he opens his mouth.
2) McCain has reach into the center and moderates.
3) I believe that conservatives and Republicans, when faced with the potentiality of an ignorant punk Marxist in the Oval Office, will flock to McCain in nose-holding droves.
I don't think that Barr poses any real threat, and I think that McCain might go 40 states.
I tend to side with the punditry that says that a McCain victory still might not help the other races. I fear a bloodletting in the House and Senate.
-dale
It should buy some time to repair the Republican image though. That blowout will most certainly not be made worse by McCain, and should give us the two to four years we need to reorganize the party to make a comeback.
Do you have any facts or statistics to back up your statements or are you just going by a hunch of some sort? You say McCain might go 40 states, but don't state really why you think that, especially considering how unpopular the incumbent and the incumbent party is (the same party McCain will run on). I'm not saying McCain won't win, but a blow-out may be overstating it, especially now that the electoral college is tightening up due to changing demographics and voter migration.
Obama may or may not be a weak candidate, he is probably weaker than Hillary, but his gaffes don't seem to be hurting him yet in the polls. And if we are going to go by what a candidate says, McCain has plenty of foot-in-mouth disease moments as well. I have already stated why McCain may have trouble reaching into other demographics. You also dismiss Barr out of hand yet his candidacy hasn't even begun, so neither you nor I know what impact he will have on the race. I at least acknowledge the fact that Barr could be problematic for McCain.
Ron Paul garnered a million votes in the Republican primaries; many after McCain had already clinched the nomination. If it isn't disgruntlement with the chosen candidate, I don't know what you would call it when voters go out of their way on election day to vote against their nominee.
I'm no fan of Obama, but he is too slick and smooth to be tagged with the Marxist label in any believable way, regardless of his personal philosophies. A McCain win is possible, even probable, I would never rule it out, but a blow-out--either way, is less probable. I could see ticket splitting in the down ballot races; the House Dems pick up 20-30 more seats, and 3-5 seats in the Senate. But again all is subject to change since the election is in November and not May.
Only if the party recognizes why it went down to defeat in the first place; embracing Bush's big government expansion at home, and neo-Jacobin global democratic revolution abroad.
Republicans Are in Denial - WSJ.com
A Jacobin in Chief
Wow have you ever heard of Obama talk? He's like Bush the way he yammers and stumbles. He can't piece together a complete sentence without using 35 "uhs" and "mmmms."
As far as Marxist goes, didn't he say somewhere that he likes to hang out with people who believe in Marxism?
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
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