I went to bed early last night (10pm) which led me to wake up at 4am and lie in bed for an hour wishing I could fall asleep again. I eventually gave up and came downstairs to read the latest political news, and I saw this crazy piece from the McSpin Campaign saying that they've got Obama right where they want him while they wave the white flag of surrender in Michigan:
| | Strategists for John McCain insisted late Thursday afternoon that it was Barack Obama, not the Arizona Republican, who was on the defensive when it came to the electoral map....
"When we look at the electoral map and we look at Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, and Indiana, all states that Republicans have been winning repeatedly in the past in presidential elections, all states where we are tied or ahead in current public polling that puts us at 260 electoral votes," said Strimple. "We are currently competing aggressively in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico, where we have the combination of any of those states to get ten more electoral votes in order to be successful and have Mr. McCain the next President of the United States." |
My reaction was:+ Show Spoiler +
WTF u talkin bout willis?
Seriously, where do they come up with this crazy shit? I guess to the avg person it doesn't sound crazy, but to a political junkie like me who is reading all the polls and spends hours messing with the electoral map, this sounds like lunacy. After reading that article I thought maybe I'd missed something, so I spent the last hour going over maps and re-checking the polls and I feel confident in saying my initial reaction was right. I'll save you guys the trouble of hunting all the info down and I'll lay it all out for you right here.
State of the Polls/Map
First off let me explain the situation. We started the General Election with 15 "swing states" this year, but a lot of them have moved into "lean" or "likely" categories now. The states the McSpinners listed are basically all of the swing states that we started with, but they are listing states as possibilites for McCain which I think JohnnyMac has no chance of winning. People tend to break the swing states into the "Big 3" (FL, OH, PA), the "New Two" (CO, VA) and then "the rest". I broke the rest down a bit further for my purposes as "Old Red" (NC, MO, IN, NV), "New Blue" (MN, WI, NH), and "Barely Swing" (IA, NM, MI).
So the big 3 are the ones we always hear about and normally elections are decided by them, but this year McCain COULD win OH/FL and still lose the election. The new 2 are probably the most important states, cause if Obama wins 1 of them he will almost certainly win the election, even if he loses OH and FL. Old Red are states that have gone Republican at least the last 2 elections (and some the last 4), and these are states that Obama has put into play when they should be solid red. New Blue are states that have gone blue consistently in the past and McCain has put into play, though not as intensely as Obama did for Old Red as you will see soon. And lastly Barely Swing are just as the title suggests. They are states which were part of the original 15 but are now very solidly moved over.
Below is a spreadsheet where I compilied the poll results from Real Clear Politics (RCP) and fivethirtyeight.com (538). When you look at it you'll see why I think the McCain Camp is crazy.
Obv BO = Obama, JM = McCain. So "3.3 BO" means the avg has Obama ahead by 3.3 points and "58% JM"
means McCain is projected a 58% chance of winning. Also States with an asterisk (*) next to their
names are listed as swing on RCP. Lastly, I used the Trend-Adjusted Avg on 538.
See why I think they're crazy? They say that they are going to win OH, FL, VA, NC, MO, IN... I am willing to give them NC, MO, IN since those will be big upsets for Obama to win (even though it's literally neck-n-neck there), but OH, FL, VA are all going towards Obama right now! At the very least they have to admit OH, FL are tossups and VA is looking like it will go blue. So their states to get to 260 are ridiculous.
But then they get straight up loco homie... They say they're aggressive in IA, NM, MN, WI, NH, PA, NV, CO... LOLZZZ! First off, IA and NM are in Barely Swing cause they're pretty much locks for Obama, so I dunno wtf those states are doing on the McCain camps list. Next they mention MN, WI, NH, PA as if they have a big chance there, when Obama has a better chance in NC than McCain does in any of those 4. Lastly they have CO and NV, which are the only states I will accept they are aggressive with a chance in, though it's going well for Obama right now.
Anyway, let's close with some pictures of potential maps. First, let's give McCain the benefit of the doubt and allocate him OH, FL, IN, MO, NC, NV (2 of the big 3 and all of the Old Red). Obv we give IA/NM/MI to Obama. That leaves the New Two and New Blue. I think we can safely give New Blue to Obama, so that leaves us with CO and VA. McCain has to win them both, Obama has to win 1, and while they're tossups they both are trending Obama.
Note that for the above map we gave OH and FL to McCain despite the fact that Obama is winning in both states right now. We also gave him NV which Obama is winning.
Now let's just go according to the polls and allocate votes, and this is what you get:
Ah, hello landslide, 338 to 200. Here we only gave IN/MO/NC to McCain out of the 15 swing states, according to current polling. This is a very possible outcome.
So what should you look for when polls are coming out? Obviously pay attention to OH and FL because if Obama wins either of these he's going to win the election. Next pay attention to CO and VA. If Obama wins either of these he is probably going to win the election, but it depends on him keeping hold of MN, WI, NH. If McCain steals any of those 3 states Obama will have to counter by stealing some Old Red or winning both CO and VA (to win w/out OH and FL).
Soooo, OH, FL, CO, and VA are the most important states, with MN, WI, NH following. At least that's my view. And if Obama starts to pick off some Old Red then McCain is in deep shit.
BUT DON'T LET ANY OF THIS FOOL YOU!!!!
Despite the good numbers now, we still have 32 days to go and a LOT can happen. McCain can still turn this around so if you want Obama to win you should be out there volunteering at least 1 time a week (ideally more like 2-3 times). You should be registered to vote (best with a mail-in-ballot) and doing everything you can to help your friends and family get registered. And you can't get apathetic and forget the reasons you were excited in the first place!
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