But the base won't be enough this year. I think the bottom line is an inexperienced, hard-right conservative - who could serve with a 72-year old president - will not help with swings in key states like Colorado or places like northern Virginia. Palin may help turn out the base enough to win semi-swings states like Missouri or my home state of North Carolina (though Zogby had Obama up 7 in late August; I image Palin will eat into that lead, which was too good to be true anyway).
And no matter how fired up she makes the base, swing voters - like most voters - vote for the candidate running for president, not vice president. Finally, I doubt a significant number of Hillary voters will go to Palin out of clitorisolidarity.
Obama will win it with turnout and new voters, and more importantly as a result of Bush/GOP fatigue.
I've been spending lots of my free time at 270towin.com, playing with various electoral college scenarios. My conservative estimate has Obama narrowly winning the electoral college vote 273 to 265. That scenario has him winning all the New England states - MD/DE/DC north to ME - the 4 Pacific states, the reliably Democratic Big 10 states - MI, WI, IL, MN, IA - and two crucial western states in New Mexico and Colorado. This scenario is intriguing in that he wins without Ohio or Virginia.
I think it's very likely that Obama wins Virgina (13 electoral votes), and is up by a few points in recent polls (conducted prior to both conventions) in Ohio (20). He'll win at least one or both of those states, so could finish with anywhere from 286 to 293 to a landslide-like 306 electoral votes. And Obama could pick up other states in play, for instance Nevada (5).
That said, my final pick is Obama at 293. That basically is my original conservative scenario but with Ohio plus holding Colorado and New Mexico.
Hard to believe isn't it - Joe Biden will be vice president!
One last political note: word in some Hellenic circles is that if Obama wins, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (the only Eastern Orthodox governor in America, he's Serbian; Florida's Charlie Crist is a third-generation Greek Cypriot but somehow ended up a Methodist) will appoint Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulis to fill his Senate seat.
Greece Beats Luxembourg
Greece's quest to qualify for just their second World Cup ever got off to a good start today with a 3-0 win over Luxembourg in Luxembourg (city?). Charisteas scored, as did my main man Fanis Gekas. I thought Gekas would lead Greece out of the first round of the EURO 2008 championships. But he didn't play much or that well in Euro 2008, so I'm particularly glad to see that he scored today.
The other significant item from today's win was the shut out by goalie Constantine Chalkias, who plays for PAOK in Thessaloniki. Chalkias replaced legendary keeper Antonis Nikopolidis who retired after EURO 2008. Nikopolidis was magnificent in EURO 2004 when Greece won the championship, but played terribly in EURO 2008. He was especially bad in Ellas' second game, a critical 0-1 loss to Russia
Coincidentally, Gekas and Chalkias are both from Larissa, Greece.
Nats have stopped hitting
After playing great baseball - and really hitting - the Nats have gone to Atlanta and reverted back to their July selves. Zimmerman has hit against the Braves but Guzman and Dukes - those three led the hit parade against the Phillies and Dodgers as the Nats won 7 in a row and 8 of 9 - have not.
For a while Evan and I entertained the notion that the Nat could sweep the 4th-place Braves, keep this roll going for the next month, eventually catch Atlanta, and therefore avoid finishing in last place. But after dropping the first two games in Atlanta it is almost a certainty that Washington will once again be 'first in war, first in peace and last in the NL East."
Rays Bandwagon
I'll spend the rest of the baseball season rooting for the Tampa Bay Rays. Nice to see a small market team succeed, but also impressive to see a recent expansion team win what Sports Illustrated calls the toughest division in professional sports.
3 comments:
Couple comments: Clitorisolidarity is one of the best and most apropos words I've heard in a long time - Kudos to Athan on that one. Secondly, I've heard Alexi's name thrown around to fill Obama's seat, but its been second to Tammy Duckworth, who narrowly lost the bid in IL-6 to replace Henry Hyde in 2006 to Peter Roskam. I hear Rahm Emanuel is pulling hard for Duckworth. Couple that with the fact that Blagojevich is currently embroiled in about 5 scandals and it will be interesting to see how everything shakes out.
No blogging about kickoff weekend in the NFL?
The real issue is not how well 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 vote -- 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).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been 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 passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes-- 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
susan
Excellent, Obama Greeks, let's all party! Now you Greeks have to stop being so cynical about your muslim brothers and let Albania and Turkey join Europe so you can all party together and racism between you will end! Islam arose via monophysitism from Greek oppression of the Black Man. Even the Jews needed to bring Iranians then Arabs to take back their cities in the seventh century. Your Benaki Lousiana Shipping brought over most Black Slaves together with Lehman Alabama Finance. You cynically want to take Palestine just like Macedonia with Trojan Horse Perfidy by distorting history. Heridotage knew Athena was Black but fascist Madoxus adulterated the histories. Do we forget what you did to the Macedonia AME church in Flushing? Religion is just oppresses people as we will make global progress now that superstition-based initiative people are out of office. YOu need to unshackle our ALbanian brothers in Janine, Slavs in Fleurine and Turks in Kozane and Cyprus so we can all party.
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