WWTBAM Bored

Virginia.

And Senator McCain must win it. I see it as his achilles heel in the Electoral College factor. There's still time for other things to change, but the way I see it right now, McCain will come up short, and it looks to me like Virginia may be the reason. Iowa and Colorado look like lost causes (because they are), so for McCain to win, he must either hold every other Bush 2004 state, or flip Pennsylvania. Honestly, the easier of the 2 tasks is holding the previous Bush states. Every other "swing/battleground" state in question looks winnable right now (NC, OH, IN, NM, NV), but Virginia looks like a steep climb.

Virginia is indeed an uphill battle for Sen. McCain. I know we've discussed this on the Bored before, but it does bear repeating. One, northern Virginia (especially the DC suburbs) is among the fastest growing parts of the U.S., and this area has become more Democratic over the years. And two, Mark Warner is on the ballot for U.S. Senate. Gov. Warner is extremely popular with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike and is expected to win the Senate seat by a landslide over the other former governor in the race, Jim Gilmore.

If there is record turnout in northern Virginia and other places such as Richmond-Petersburg and Norfolk-Hampton... and at least 75% of the Warner voters also pull the lever for Obama, then ol' Virginny goes blue.

At the end of the day, everyhting boils down to this one fact: either the polls are accurate or the metrics used was flawed (oversampling, et al).

One of the interesting things being discussed here, in the infamous 2nd Congressional District, is that there are 3000 more registered Democratics than Republicans (although there are 10,000 more Republicans than Democraticsin Sarpy Conty). It is the arguing point for Obama and Jimmy Esch possibly winning here.

The issue: no one knows how many of the new registered "Democratics" actually are members of the party. There was a huge number of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democratics in order to cast a meaningful vote in the Nebraska primary (and/or the earlier Democratic Party Presidential caucus).

I wonder if there is a similar issue in other states. McCain had his nomination sewn up pretty early in the process.

BTW, MrK would be terribly lonely here in Nebraska. There are less than 500 registered Libertarians in the entire state. There are vastly more members of the Green Party and the Nebraska Party (I have no idea what this party is).

Appa23 wrote:At the end of the day, everyhting boils down to this one fact: either the polls are accurate or the metrics used was flawed (oversampling, et al).

One of the interesting things being discussed here, in the infamous 2nd Congressional District, is that there are 3000 more registered Democratics than Republicans (although there are 10,000 more Republicans than Democraticsin Sarpy Conty). It is the arguing point for Obama and Jimmy Esch possibly winning here.

The issue: no one knows how many of the new registered "Democratics" actually are members of the party. There was a huge number of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democratics in order to cast a meaningful vote in the Nebraska primary (and/or the earlier Democratic Party Presidential caucus).

I wonder if there is a similar issue in other states. McCain had his nomination sewn up pretty early in the process.

BTW, MrK would be terribly lonely here in Nebraska. There are less than 500 registered Libertarians in the entire state. There are vastly more members of the Green Party and the Nebraska Party (I have no idea what this party is).

Ah, but don't forget, while I have libertarian leanings, I am not a registered Libertarian, and have not been since shortly after I cast my first vote in a Presidential election (1980). That is one of the many factors loaded against third parties in this country, and in Indiana, which certainly has more than 500 registered Libertarians. If I want my vote to count for anything in THIS election, I must have registered as either a Repub or a Democrat in the primary. Granted, there are some people who change their registration every time there is a primary, but the vast majority do not. So if there is a primary race ANYWHERE on the ticket that I care about, I must register as a member of that party in order to vote for it. That has kept me from registering as a Libertarian for nearly thirty years now. Not to mention I disagree with just about as much of the Libertarian platform as I do either of the other two major parties. I'm just cantankerous that way, I guess.

I am a registered Democrat, because the last several primaries there have been Dem races I wanted to vote in. But I always vote for the Libertarian candidate for Secretary of State at least, since if they get at least 2% of the vote, then the party is assured of being on the ballot for the next statewide election.

Now if you want to talk Bored Libertarians (capital L), I think andrewjackson is your man.

mrkelley23 wrote:Now if you want to talk Bored Libertarians (capital L), I think andrewjackson is your man.

I thought he was the bored librarian.

Appa23 wrote:At the end of the day, everyhting boils down to this one fact: either the polls are accurate or the metrics used was flawed (oversampling, et al).

One of the interesting things being discussed here, in the infamous 2nd Congressional District, is that there are 3000 more registered Democratics than Republicans (although there are 10,000 more Republicans than Democraticsin Sarpy Conty). It is the arguing point for Obama and Jimmy Esch possibly winning here.

The issue: no one knows how many of the new registered "Democratics" actually are members of the party. There was a huge number of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democratics in order to cast a meaningful vote in the Nebraska primary (and/or the earlier Democratic Party Presidential caucus).

I wonder if there is a similar issue in other states. McCain had his nomination sewn up pretty early in the process.

BTW, MrK would be terribly lonely here in Nebraska. There are less than 500 registered Libertarians in the entire state. There are vastly more members of the Green Party and the Nebraska Party (I have no idea what this party is).

One of the interesting things about Virginia is that we do not register by party, everyone is technically 'independent.' This apparently goes back to the days when Democrats completely ruled the Commonwealth: they apparently thought that there was some benefit to not letting the world know your general political affiliation. When the Republicans took over a few years ago, they came to the same conclusion, and so the rule remained in place. Things are now somewhat evenly divided now, neither party has a real lock on either house of the legislature, nor on the Constitutional offices (Governor, Lieutenant Governor or Attorney General; they all run separately, with no real 'tickets').

The nominating process is pretty screwy, as the parties use both conventions and primaries to pick candidates. If an incumbent plans to run, then he/she gets to decide if it will be a convention or a primary, but if there is no incumbent then the organized party decides which way to go. Governors can not run for re-election so there are never any incumbents running there. One of the ways to tell if the Republicans do not really want to win is when they decide to pick a nominee through a convention rather than a primary: the only people who participate in conventions are the, well, let's say, very dedicated people, yes, they are very dedicated, and they also seem to have a rather, um, loose connection with reality, so that what happens is the convention invariably picks someone someone who could never win a primary (that's why they use the convention), much less a general election. In the Senate race, the Republicans went the convention route and picked Jim Gilmore, a former Governor, who was not that bad but was also not that good, and who has gotten a lot of bad press; he is running against Mark Warner, who succeeded Gilmore as Governor, and who has broad appeal across the spectrum, so I expect a rout. The last time that the Republicans used a convention to pick a Senatorial nominee was in 1994, when they picked Oliver North to run against the then-incumbent Democrat, Chuck Robb; North was the only Republican in the Commonwealth who could NOT beat Robb, and he proved it by losing (George Allen beat Robb in 2000, and would still be in the Senate but for the 'macaca' incident two years ago).

Along those same lines, the current incumbent for that Senate seat is John Warner. He has long not been in favor with the, well, let's say very dedicated people, yes, they are very dedicated, and when he ran (as incumbent) in 1996 he picked the primary route precisely because he would have lost in a convention to people who would rather lose than vote for someone who was not ideologically pure. In that race he ran against... Mark Warner, who was in his first run for elected office (Mark Warner won the governorship in 2003). The 'Warner v. Warner' campaign was kind of fun, and Mark Warner had a cute slogan, 'Mark Not John' which seemed almost Biblical (if you read 'Mark' as a verb rather than a noun).

mrkelley23 wrote:
Now if you want to talk Bored Libertarians (capital L), I think andrewjackson is your man.

But I don't talk about politics here.

I will say that mrkelley is right. Nebraska is a closed primary state. The Libertarian Party in Nebraska, as in most states, has a convention to nominate candidates rather than use the primary election. The number of registered Libertarians probably has little connection to the number of Libertarians in the state.



But now I've said too much.

TheCalvinator24 wrote:Virginia.

And Senator McCain must win it. I see it as his achilles heel in the Electoral College factor. There's still time for other things to change, but the way I see it right now, McCain will come up short, and it looks to me like Virginia may be the reason. Iowa and Colorado look like lost causes (because they are), so for McCain to win, he must either hold every other Bush 2004 state, or flip Pennsylvania. Honestly, the easier of the 2 tasks is holding the previous Bush states. Every other "swing/battleground" state in question looks winnable right now (NC, OH, IN, NM, NV), but Virginia looks like a steep climb.

At a minimum, I'm pretty confident that you're mistaken about New Mexico -- my favorite site for this sort of thing has Obama more heavily favored in New Mexico than in Colorado. I thought I'd read that the McCain campaign had given up on it.

By the way, you need to add Florida and Missouri, at least, to the states McCain needs to actively defend -- Obama is narrowly leading both. And the RNC just bought television time in Montana, and I believe two recent North Dakota polls have shown small Obama leads (well within the margin of error, of course). I assume McCain is still leading the polls in both states.

But all of this overlooks the ground game, which has largely been flying below the radar of the press. I'm starting to see mainstream media stories on the issue, though. Obama's ground game advantage in many of these states is overwhelming. I expect his ground game to be worth anywhere from a 2% advantage (in Virginia, where the Republicans have a reasonable ground game) to a 5% advantage (in Montana, which McCain has ignored until now). In short, I expect Obama to overperform his poll numbers in contested states because he will get his voters to the polls more effectively than McCain will. This belief accounts for some of my more optimistic picks in nitrah's contest. --Bob

Appa23 wrote:At the end of the day, everyhting boils down to this one fact: either the polls are accurate or the metrics used was flawed (oversampling, et al).

One of the interesting things being discussed here, in the infamous 2nd Congressional District, is that there are 3000 more registered Democratics than Republicans (although there are 10,000 more Republicans than Democraticsin Sarpy Conty). It is the arguing point for Obama and Jimmy Esch possibly winning here.

The issue: no one knows how many of the new registered "Democratics" actually are members of the party. There was a huge number of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democratics in order to cast a meaningful vote in the Nebraska primary (and/or the earlier Democratic Party Presidential caucus).

I wonder if there is a similar issue in other states. McCain had his nomination sewn up pretty early in the process.

BTW, MrK would be terribly lonely here in Nebraska. There are less than 500 registered Libertarians in the entire state. There are vastly more members of the Green Party and the Nebraska Party (I have no idea what this party is).

I think this is why people are still considering Nebraska's 2nd a longshot for the good guys at best.

ToLiveIsToFly wrote:

Appa23 wrote:At the end of the day, everyhting boils down to this one fact: either the polls are accurate or the metrics used was flawed (oversampling, et al).

One of the interesting things being discussed here, in the infamous 2nd Congressional District, is that there are 3000 more registered Democratics than Republicans (although there are 10,000 more Republicans than Democraticsin Sarpy Conty). It is the arguing point for Obama and Jimmy Esch possibly winning here.

The issue: no one knows how many of the new registered "Democratics" actually are members of the party. There was a huge number of Republicans and Independents who registered as Democratics in order to cast a meaningful vote in the Nebraska primary (and/or the earlier Democratic Party Presidential caucus).

I wonder if there is a similar issue in other states. McCain had his nomination sewn up pretty early in the process.

BTW, MrK would be terribly lonely here in Nebraska. There are less than 500 registered Libertarians in the entire state. There are vastly more members of the Green Party and the Nebraska Party (I have no idea what this party is).

I think this is why people are still considering Nebraska's 2nd a longshot for the good guys at best.

No, McCain/Palin and Lee Terry should win the 2nd.

"They" say that for Obama to take Virginia he needs to take 60 + 1. Or, 60% of the vote in NoVa and win one other region, even by a small margin. Which is why he was here in this area of Real Virginia on Tuesday night and again tonight. McCain came through one Monday morning, but people were at work and kids were at school, so it's hard to gauge comparative turnout. McCain will be here Saturday, but the time and place have yet to be announced, other than he'll be somewhere in Hampton, so it's pretty hard to say who is planning on going if they don't know where or when they're supposed to go. Palin will be here on Monday, when the public schools are closed.

I checked the website and 2700 had RSVP's for the Tuesday night gathering, and 20,000+ attended. It's really hard to judge support until all the votes are counted, I guess.....

Bob78164 wrote:

TheCalvinator24 wrote:Virginia.

And Senator McCain must win it. I see it as his achilles heel in the Electoral College factor. There's still time for other things to change, but the way I see it right now, McCain will come up short, and it looks to me like Virginia may be the reason. Iowa and Colorado look like lost causes (because they are), so for McCain to win, he must either hold every other Bush 2004 state, or flip Pennsylvania. Honestly, the easier of the 2 tasks is holding the previous Bush states. Every other "swing/battleground" state in question looks winnable right now (NC, OH, IN, NM, NV), but Virginia looks like a steep climb.

At a minimum, I'm pretty confident that you're mistaken about New Mexico -- my favorite site for this sort of thing has Obama more heavily favored in New Mexico than in Colorado. I thought I'd read that the McCain campaign had given up on it.

By the way, you need to add Florida and Missouri, at least, to the states McCain needs to actively defend -- Obama is narrowly leading both. And the RNC just bought television time in Montana, and I believe two recent North Dakota polls have shown small Obama leads (well within the margin of error, of course). I assume McCain is still leading the polls in both states.

But all of this overlooks the ground game, which has largely been flying below the radar of the press. I'm starting to see mainstream media stories on the issue, though. Obama's ground game advantage in many of these states is overwhelming. I expect his ground game to be worth anywhere from a 2% advantage (in Virginia, where the Republicans have a reasonable ground game) to a 5% advantage (in Montana, which McCain has ignored until now). In short, I expect Obama to overperform his poll numbers in contested states because he will get his voters to the polls more effectively than McCain will. This belief accounts for some of my more optimistic picks in nitrah's contest. --Bob

I hope 538 is right in respect to the Senate if it's right in regards to Obama.

Because if the Dems get only 57, they will not have a filibuster-proof majority.