News What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

[LightbulbSun]

Based upon my election game predictions I have D= 402 R= 136.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Why is Pat Buchanan so vehemently against Obama?

 

[LowlyPion]

Why is Pat Buchanan so vehemently against Obama?

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I think he's somewhere to the right of Fascism and there's little else to his right but the edge of the Universe.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

I think he's somewhere to the right of Fascism and there's little else to his right but the edge of the Universe.

He's so bad.

"Congress has a 10% approval rating, so what are the voters exactly voting for?"

They're voting for competence maybe Pat?

 

[LightbulbSun]

McCain just took the lead in Indiana.

 

[LightbulbSun]

MSNBC projecting McCain as the winner in Kentucky, and Obama as the winner in Vermont. McCain with the early lead 8-3.

 

[Gokul43201]

McCain just took the lead in Indiana.

But it's more or less tied (only 4% reporting) with no precincts reporting from Gary, Indianapolis or Evansville areas. That should be encouraging news for Obama.

 

[turbo]

But it's more or less tied (only 4% reporting) with no precincts reporting from Gary, Indianapolis or Evansville areas. That should be encouraging news for Obama.

Really! I've never been to Gary or Evansville, but there are a LOT of black faces in Indianapolis, and if those folks turned out in force, the early-closing small rural polling places can be swamped very easily.

 

[turbo]

Remember that small-town precincts are tallied quickly and report early. Results from urban districts can wipe out such early "leads".

 

[Gokul43201]

The numbers out of FL are going big for Obama!

Also, even in IN, McCain is way underperforming compared to Bush in the precincts that have come through so far.

 

[LowlyPion]

Fox/NBC declared NH for Obama

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

We're having an election pary
https://www.physicsforums.com/chat/flashchat.php

 

[LowlyPion]

The numbers out of FL are going big for Obama!

Also, even in IN, McCain is way underperforming compared to Bush in the precincts that have come through so far.

FL panhandle is just closing. It closes an hour later than the rest of the state. The key to Florida is the Obama advantage coming out of South Florida. If it's just 300,000 it will be a long night. 400,000 and up and it will be time for McCain to come down from his suite in the Biltmore in AZ and congratulate President Obama on a hard fought fairly won victory.

 

[Gokul43201]

MSNBC has called PA for Obama based entirely on Exit Polls!

CNN exit polls for PA give Obama a 15% lead. I guess MSNBC decided that was big enough to call that.

If you accept that call THE RACE IS OVER for all practical purposes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/individual/#mapPPA

 

[russ_watters]

I found it interesting that when MSNBC called PA, they did not mention the exit polls at all. They gave no data to support their decision.

 

[Gokul43201]

CNN has now called PA as well. Some early numbers from deep red precincts in PA are coming out purple.

McCain will now need to win all tossups + CO + NV + NM + VA.

 

[Gokul43201]

NOTE: To reduce scatter, all subsequent discussion of the Presidential results will happen in the "Today's the Day" thread.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

At last we have a reason to be grateful to GW.

 

[Gokul43201]

How good were the polls? Here's a comparison of the polling averages in some key states against the actual margins there.

Statewise Margins (Obama - McCain):

               AGGREGATES OF CURRENT POLLS                
                                                                 
State     RCP   Elec-Vote  USAtlas-A   Pollster   |   Actual
                                                  |
  IN     -1.4       -2         -3        -1.2     |     +01            
  FL     +4.4       +1         +1        +1.6     |     +02            
  GA     -4.0       -3         -3        -2.9     |     -05
  VA     +4.4       +4         +6        +5.6     |     +06
  NC     -0.4       +1         00        +0.4     |      00
  OH     +2.5       +3         +3        +3.1     |     +04
  MO     -0.7       00         00        +1.1     |      00
  PA     +7.3       +8         +9        +7.2     |     +11
  MT     -3.8       -4         -2        -2.2     |     -03
  CO     +5.5       +6         +7        +7.6     |     +08        
  AZ     -3.5       -4         -4        -4.9     |     -09
  NV     +6.8       +6         +6        +7.1     |     +12

Looks like the polling was fairly good in the really close states (more polling there?) but tended to underestimate the margins in more strongly polarized states.

More here, on the performance of pollster.com:

 

[Gokul43201]

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

Thanks to LP for the link.

Lots of interesting stuff in the voting shifts maps.

McCain bettered Bush04's margin in only 2 states (and AZ wasn't one of them!): AR (by 10%) & LA (by 4%). The Palin factor in LA? The Clinton loss in AR?

 

[Gokul43201]

Some post analysis from the WSJ polling guru.

Barack Obama won the election Tuesday night. So did some pollsters and the number crunchers who used their numbers to forecast the race. But for them, as for the next president, pulling off a repeat in 2012 will require overcoming a new set of challenges.
...
However, as Americans watched the news networks call states one by one for Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, Tuesday night, pollsters could breathe a sigh of relief. There wasn't a single big miss in the presidential race. Most polls showed virtual ties in Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, and none of those states was decided by more than a point. "Pollsters generally did very well," says Mark Blumenthal, a former Democratic pollster and co-founder of Pollster.com.

Zogby International polled in eight states in the last week, including six of the closest races, and missed the final margin by an average of less than two points -- as accurate as the poll aggregators such as Pollster.com.
...
Some of the concerns about polling numbers proved unfounded. The so-called Bradley Effect -- in which Mr. Obama's support would be overstated because poll respondents uneasy about his race would lie about their intentions -- didn't materialize. Several analyses suggest the effect hasn't materialized to undermine a black candidate in over a decade.

Another potential pitfall: Most of the state polls didn't dial cellphones, meaning they were missing many young voters. But weighting their results to account for this appears to have helped minimize error, though not avoid it entirely. Several national polls that included cellphones tended to overestimate Mr. Obama's popular-vote victory margin; those that excluded cellphones underestimated it.
...
The biggest winners may have been poll aggregators, who were combining disparate polls as far back as 2002, but gained new members and reached a new level of national prominence this time around. Their advantage is twofold: Their composite results may dilute the effect of any error in one poll, and their results are more expansive, including regions that no one pollster can typically afford to cover. A dozen or so Web sites combined polls to forecast the election, and just about all of them put Mr. Obama's electoral-vote total at between 338 and 393; he likely will finish with 364 or 375. (Those that also forecast congressional races generally foresaw Democratic gains.)

At least two sites -- Pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com -- also estimated the winning margin for each state, using poll data and their own formulas. They typically missed the margin by just 2.4 and 2.3 percentage points, respectively. Each site beat each of the 10 pollsters active in at least eight states, head to head, except for Zogby.
...
The American migration to cellphones is a big hurdle. "Although I don't think the cellphone issue presented a big hazard this year," says Tom Jensen, communications director of Public Policy Polling, "it's still only going to get worse, and pollsters are going to have to account for that moving forward."

As of last December, 14.5% of American adults had only cellphones, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If current trends hold, that proportion will more than double by 2012.
...
Jay Leve, president of SurveyUSA, predicts, "2008 is to telephone polling what 1948 was to passenger rail: The end of the line."

Full article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122...umbers#project=PREZPOLL08&articleTabs=article

 

[Gokul43201]

Exit polling data, with comparisons to previous elections. Very neat!

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/exit-polls.html

"Trend" among young voters in recent years:

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Oregon is Blue, but we live in a very red part of the State. An acquaintance was giving directions to his house: "Turn right on [roadname] and follow the McCain-Palin signs. When you get to the Obama-Biden sign, that's our place."

 

[phoenixy]

Reality

http://kingdomobama.com/?p=57

Consider Obama’s response to a private national security briefing he received from the CIA during the campaign. Told of the multiple dangers around the world, he reputedly shook his head and asked: “Why would anyone want this job?”

VS

Fantasy

 

[WarPhalange]

I also hear that Obama wears underwear that say "I hate the USA" on them.

It's true, my friend has an uncle who used to work for a guy who knew Obama's half-uncle.

 

[mathwonk]

i am physically ill again today, but feel better somehow than a few weeks ago. on my way to school there were fewer "W the president" stickers, and more Obama ones. It seems people trot these out after the election has occurred, as there were extremely few Obama signs near my school last month.

I don't want to totally relax, but somehow I feel entitled to a little sense of a job well done, after sitting back in previous elections and watching zealots try to destroy the nation and the world, and come close. Of course Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh never rest, as there is profit involved in the efforts of their ilk and those they represent.

To some people, many of whom pretend to be conservatives but of course are merely cynical profiteers, politics seems an opportunity for fraud and robbing the public trough. Which brings us back to the ongoing treasury robbery being managed by Paulson.

 

[Gokul43201]

It's official: Obama won the single electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd district.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=news-000002986020

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's official: Obama won the single electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd district.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=news-000002986020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ_XwLSN45I

 

[Astronuc]

It's official: Obama won the single electoral vote of Nebraska's 2nd district.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=news-000002986020

So Nebraska hands out electoral votes according to who one a particular district, i.e. it's not winner take all?

 

[turbo]

So Nebraska hands out electoral votes according to who one a particular district, i.e. it's not winner take all?

Maine does that too. The majority winner of the state gets both of the electoral votes accruing to the senators, and the winner of the majority in each congressional district gets the electoral vote accruing to the congressional district. That way Maine can go all four votes to one candidate or a 1-3 split. The southern congressional district is far more affluent than the rural north, and it's possible to pry one vote away with the right appeals and issues, even if you can't win the entire state. Todd and Sarah Palin campaigned in the 2nd district to try to swing it to McCain.

 

[LowlyPion]

It’s official: McCain wins Missouri
By ANDY BARR | 11/19/08 5:17 PM EST

The Associated Press on Wednesday declared John McCain the winner in Missouri, the last undecided state of the 2008 presidential election.

The race had been too close to call in the two weeks since Election Day, with McCain holding a slim lead. Heading into last weekend, McCain held a roughly 5,000-vote lead with tens of thousands of ballots remaining uncounted. The final margin of victory was 3,632 votes, out of over 2.9 million cast.

With Missouri’s 11 electoral votes going to McCain, the final electoral vote tally stands at 365 for Obama to 173 for McCain.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15802.html

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Heh, who would have thought that Obama would win Indiana, but lose Mo?

 

[leopard]

Will any other party than D and R ever stand a chance in American election?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Will any other party than D and R ever stand a chance in American election?

Not if no one will vote for them. Would you want a party to succeed if no one voted for them. Did you vote for any other party than D and R this time around?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We always know long before the election that a third party candidate has no chance of winning.

Who were we going to vote for, Nader - the guy who has philosophical discussions with his parrot? Or Bob Barr, nutjob? Not ready for prime time Paul? If there was a viable choice, a third party candidate might have a chance [provided that he's not up against a phenomenon like Obama].

I went door to door collecting sigs to get Perot on the ballot, but in the end, he was a nut.

 

[LowlyPion]

I think for a party to take root it needs more than a cult of personality - it needs a movement.

I think that's where the more recent parties have sprung from - Perot, Anderson, Wallace, Nader. I suspect they are doomed to failure. As I recall not even Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose were able to win with just the force of his personality, though I think they managed more than Taft and the Republicans.

Given that the Republican identity has in recent decades become so entangled with the extreme Christian Right agenda - which has apparently been repudiated in this last election - I doubt that without abandoning their more extreme agendas, and accepting more reasonable standards as regards social issues like rights of gays and abortion they will only serve to marginalize themselves further.

 

[leopard]

I supported Mike Gravel.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I supported Mike Gravel.

Gravel was much too coarse for me.

 

[turbo]

Gravel was much too coarse for me.

Sandy Berger wasn't running - not much choice over coarseness.

 

[leopard]

Gravel was much too coarse for me.

I respect that, but I vote for politicians, not charismatic persons.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I respect that, but I vote for politicians, not charismatic persons.

It was a joke.

Still, like Paul and Perot, he is not Presidential material, IMO. I think he got about two votes!

 

[Count Iblis]

Will any other party than D and R ever stand a chance in American election?

Well, the R is about to disintegrate in a C and a M...