Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Almost a Prediction

I just looked at the polls for a last time. Most of the battleground states are within the margin of error. In fact, most of them are just about a tie. with McCain, if anything, making very slight gains here at the end That final state that could conceivably put McCain over the top isn’t there, as far as I can see. McCain could also easily lose every battleground state, and in a surge year, we have to tell the truth, all the close results tend to go one way. But the polls themselves suggest some kind of split, with PA reasonably close but no cigar for McCain and the tireless Palin, who did excellent work in the Virtuous State. I still tend to think the early voting will give Obama GA, although nobody can be sure. A huge turnout tomorrow could prove my guess wrong.

In any genuinely scientific prediction, we have to take into account Obama’s big advantages in organization and enthusiasm, the close to doubling of the African-American turnout, the semi-collapse of Republican support among Hispanics, and McCain’s failure to close (or conduct) the camapaign with a coherent message. So I have to say that Peter’s and Karl Rove’s predictions are pretty optimistic. Most states will be blowouts, which means the Republicans will have a lot of work to do just to regain a serious presence in a dozen or more states.

In the House, it appears the Democrats will pick up 30 seats or more. This election is a continuation of the disaster of 2006; most of the losses can be accounted for by one Republican error after another. In the Senate, things are just as bad, but our standards have gotten so low if the Democrats finish under 60 seats we think we’ve done well. My guess is that the Chambliss victory in the runoff will keep the Democrats at 59. If Coleman holds on, 58. The bad outcomes here aren’t the result of a "crisis in conservatism," but campaign cluelessness, incompetence, and corruption. The only way the Republicans could have lost the Alaska Senate race, for example, is to have a convicted felon for its nominee. And I don’t have time to begin to list all the obvious ways--beginning with early voting and campaign finance--that the Republicans have failed to adapt to a changing political environment. Pete has written well in the threads about how lost the Republicans are this time without the Bush/Rove personal organization doing what should be the party’s work.

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