Can McCain keep his own States?Follow

Which is why people look at polls in aggregate. If a single poll is wrong within the margin of error, it shouldn't be duplicated across multiple polls by multiple agencies. When a number of polls show roughly the same result, it's extremely unlikely that all are showing the wrong information. The result might not be, for instance, Obama +5 but it's almost mathmatically impossible that it's McCain +2.Which says more about your understanding of polling than it says anything about the polls.

As for the original post, McCain is -- simply put -- hurting in the state races right now. McCain's plan was for him to press Obama hard in states such as Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. Instead, all of those states are now polling strongly for Obama (MN at +7 is the only non-double digit lead for Obama) and McCain is being forced to defend Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. They had Palin in West Virginia for Christ's sake.

Speaking of VA, one of the McCain advisors was on the talking heads shows today saying that North Virginia wasn't "real Virginia" and that the real Virginians in the southern parts of the state would vote for McCain even if the poser quasi-Virginian liberals who inhabit the northern part of the state wouldn't. This was while McCain was holding a rally in Woodbridge... about a half hour away from DC. Way to keep your message tight

As the map stands today, McCain needs to do the following to have a chance:
(1) Hold the "Barely McCain" states of Indiana and WV
(2) Win the "Tie" states of North Dakota and North Carolina
(3) Win all of the "Barely Obama" states of Nevada, Missouri, Ohio and Florida
...that puts him at 252...
(4) Win 18 electoral votes from "Weak Obama" states. Most likely two of these three: Virginia, Colorado and Minnesota.

Number 1 is possible enough. Number 2 is doable (especially ND). Number 3 is very unlikely right now and Number 4 is looking nigh impossible. Much less to do all of them.

Virginia is the big one. If Obama wins Virginia, the race is over before they finish counting the Eastern seaboard. There is almost no realistic path for McCain victory which doesn't require Virginia. "Real Virginians are the ones in the south"... hehehe. Nice one.

Edited, Oct 18th 2008 10:30pm by Jophiel

Really, the point is that a hundred thousand people is a pretty big choir. Choirs may only be a percentage of the voting population but the bigger the crowd, the bigger the percentage.

The McCain campaign knows this which is why they were making sure everyone knew that Palin drew 60k to a rally in Florida a few weeks ago.

I take it you don't like Obama?

That's cool. I don't like MCacain. He may have been a maverick in the past, but he's completely destroyed any credibility he's had over the last few months by letting himself be manipulated by the party heads at the GOP. Bush's biggest problem wasn't that he was stupid, it was that he let other people dictate his policy. It's a sign of a weakness of will. Obama has demonstrated that he is 100% in control, on message, and he'll be making the policy, not the people he selects to advise him.

What's worse, a leader who makes decisions you disagree with, or a leader who doesn't make any decisions at all but lets others decide for him?

GODWIN'D!

/thread

Then why does he have nationalised healthcare, an unpopular policy, on his ticket?

Then why would you agree with them?

that was more of a mistype. drop the "with"



he was a maverick when he didn't need republicans to give him the presidency. Again, he has done things to annoy his base, and please keep in mind repubs never rallied around him like dems did with obama. He may have recanted rather shamelessly some of this disagreements, but they are there, and that's in part why republicans dont like him, and why he had to recant.

The point though is that obama is supposed to be 100% his own policy, but why is his policy so finely tuned to democratic needs? If he is the maverick and provider of change mccain isn't, he should be sparring with his own base or disagreeing with it on meaningful issues to show his independence.

Again, keep in mind a lot of repubs are voting for mccain not because mccain is best, but obama is worse. Huckabee and giulani really fubared the party, one by stealing romney votes, the other by not even bothering to campaign at all.

Romney was the one actually picked out according to the punditry and the general sentiment. Mccain was low on the list of serious candiates. Even fred thomspon was considered more viable than him, and giulani. It was more him winning because of huckabee being an *** and siphoning votes when he was by no means a seriously electable republican candidate. It may have ended sooner, but it wasn't an ending to unite the party.

It would be like Chris dodd suddenly coming up and appealing to obama voters to vote for him, and then throwing his votes to hillary later on.

He voted for FISA's renewal a few months back. That pissed off quite a few of the die-hard liberals.