US Prediential Election - One Question remaining
On Tuesday in the United States history will be made one way or another. For the first time in 20 years the neither the Bush clan nor the Clinton clan and their teams will have hold or occupancy of the White House. Hilary of course tried to continue the two family domination who, for while they fight elections on opposite sides in electoral terms, both too have much in common.
Tuesday will also create history for either being the first black President if Barak Obama wins, or the oldest elected President if John McCain wins. How much 'change' this will actually bring is in reality open to debate, despite the never ending rhetoric of 'change' coming from both candidates, the likelyhood is the scope for change will be considerably more limited than candidates in an election fight will have you believe.
So who is going to win? I state from the outset, on this blog while I have every respect for Obama and don't believe he will be a bad President by any means, I have supported McCain throughout. He now however has only the most marginal chance of taking this election, Obama should not lose this from here, unless the one question remaining is the final catalyst of a huge upest.
Every poll on the eve of this elecion, both national and state, has Obama ahead. A few months ago I wrote that this election was McCain's to lose, I still believe that was the case, and with some poor campaign decision making early on concentrating too much time on the states he was trying to win from the Democrats and not enough time on states that George W Bush actually won, it looks like he has contrived to do exactly that.
The final weekend polls on the eve of the election have no encouragement whatsoever for McCain. Rasmussen's national tracker, probably the most reliable of the pollsters, has Obama 5% ahead nationally. The state by state position is even more problematic for McCain. Rasmussen's breakdown of the position gives Obama 260 electioral college votes in the 'likely' or 'safe' categories for Obama. McCain only has 160. As 270 are needed to win, McCain has to win almost every state that is either to close to call and considered to be leaning to Obama to take the election by winning 110 of the 118 electoral votes still in play. Obama only has to take 10 electoral votes out of the possible 118 still in play. That with the national poll backing Obama up, looks like game over.
McCain's position is even worse according to the methodology used by Karl Rove & Co. A company dedicated to giving the picture for this election headed by Karl Rove, the man considered to be the mastermind behind the two election victories of George W Bush. He agrees with Rasmussen that McCain has 160, but he calls a few more states for Obama, giving him 311. That is above the 270 threshold required. All very bad news for John McCain, and all very good new for Barak Obama.
Indeed I have not found a single polling scenario that puts McCain ahead, or gives him a glimmer of hope. So can we say with certainty Obama has won this election? The answer is probably. Several factors can affact the outcome, which all feed into one question. First, pollsters traditionally overstate the Democrat and under state the Republican, as a result McCain is probably not quite as far behind as it seems. Secondly many Republican supporters live in the middle of nowhere and are unreachable by polling organisations, so there views may be under represented by default.
In addition the Republican brand is not seen as a popular one right now due to the economy and the fact President Bush's popularity has been in dcline for some time, therefore there may be a 'shy Republican' factor, people unwilling to tell pollsters they will vote Republican, but actually will when they get into the polling booths. Finally in this election there is also the potential for a closet race factor, who would admit to a pollster they were not going to vote for Obama because he is black? Nobody, does not mean for some that may not be true though.
If all these factors come together, it may not be quite over just yet. It is an unlikely scenario, Obama should win this election now. All the evidence says Obama will be the next President of the United States. Nobody could seriously predict a McCain victory right now, there is merely one question left that may turn it around. Are the pollsters actually right? On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning we shall find out.
