I’m 2 out of 2 so far in my original pre-Iowa predictions.
One more prediction to go. Will it be 3 for 3?
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There have been a bunch of these coming out in the last few days, but here is mine based on my Electoral College Prediction pages, which use the last five polls in each state based on pollster.com data. In this map the “Leaning” states for both candidates (with leads under 5%) are shown as “Undecided”. All states where a candidate is “weak” or “strong” in my classification (leads over 5%) are colored for their candidate. Bottom line, the race at the moment is too close to call, with enough undecided states to easily make either candidate win depending on which way those leaning states end up going. But we knew that already, didn’t we? But maybe tomorrow… She’s bringing up the bogus popular vote argument (she only wins if you don’t count some caucus states). And she is going through all the reasons she (still) thinks she is the best candidate. Is she really going to keep pushing this forward? Really? Well, now she’s talking more about issues than about herself. I wonder just how much trouble she will make over the next few weeks. Hopefully she will just go away. But I know that is wishful thinking. As the polls close in South Dakota, Obama goes over the top. Clinton may or may not officially give up and endorse him today, but it is now finally time to press the play button on this: (Note: If you are reading this in an RSS reader, you may need to click through to the actual post to see the widget and press play. :-) ) Polls start closing in less than 8 minutes. Obama only needs 4 delegates by CNN’s count. It is so exciting! Obama is now 10 delegates away as per CNN. If the rate we have seen over the past few hours continues, he will clinch this before the polls even close in Montana and South Dakota. He needed 42 when I posted 9 hours ago.
New polls push Obama’s lead in Washington State over 10% moving it from the “weak” category to “strong”. Just as a review, “leaning” states are ones where the lead is less than 5%, so they are very actively in play as swing states. “Weak” states are ones where the lead is between 5% and 10%… they are not really currently in play, but there is the possibility that events or heavy campaigning might put those states back into the game as we go on. “Strong” states are ones where one candidate has a lead of greater than 10%… meaning absent major changes in the state of the race, those states are “safe” and are very unlikely to be actively “in play”… absent, of course, very major changes. We do have many months until the election. These charts and graphs and numbers really should NOT be viewed as a prediction of the actual election results. We are too far out. They should be viewed as a snapshot of the state of the campaign RIGHT NOW. And looking at the historical charts you can try to look for trends as time goes on. But we do have a LONG WAY until the actual election. Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 313, Obama 225 And if everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 277, McCain 261
Eight more superdelegates today. Six for Obama, Two for Clinton. So the new statistics: Delegate count is: Obama 2076, Clinton 1917, Edwards 13 In percent terms that is: Obama 51.8%, Clinton 47.9%, Edwards 0.3% 2118 delegates are needed to win. There are 228 delegates yet to be determined. Obama needs 42 more delegates to win. Clinton needs 201 more delegates to win. In percentage terms, that means: Obama needs 18.4% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 22.9% before PR.) Clinton needs 88.2% of the remaining delegates to win. (It was 82.3% before PR.) After two days, Puerto Rico and a bunch of superdelegates have already completely erased the benefit (in terms of percent of remaining delegates needed) that Clinton got from the Rules and Bylaws Committee over the weekend. Based on the recent (limited) polls, I expect Obama to get 17 more pledged delegates out of Montana and South Carolina. (Compared to 14 for Clinton, not that it matters.) That means that Obama needs about 25 more superdelegates to endorse to clinch the nomination. There are lots of rumors swirling today about various blocks of supers intending to endorse Obama right after polls close tonight. None of these have been officially confirmed of course. Obama really wants to be able to wrap this up tonight and declare victory. If they keep trickling in during the day and then there is a bunch of them right as the polls close, he may be able to do this. Or, he could be in the awkward situation of still being a few delegates short, with everybody knowing that he will get there… but not tonight. We shall see. But this may well be over in less than 24 hours. Well, at least in terms of Obama having the number of delegates he needs. Who knows if Hillary will actually admit defeat and drop out or not. Or if instead she does that “suspend her campaign while reserving the right to make trouble between now and the convention” option. First polls close in about 11 hours. Woo!
Now, this was a bit of a dilemma for me, as I wasn’t actually sure if I’d ever seen the second one. But in the end I decided to go. Now, I think I actually have seen fully the first and third ones at some point along the line. Probably on TV, not in the theaters, and probably in edited for TV 4:3 versions. But I saw them, I guess. Just not sure I ever managed the second one in whole, although I’m sure I’ve seen parts of it. Anyway, we saw it. My thoughts… which seem to echo most other comments about it… “Eh, OK”. I mean, it was interesting I guess. And there were some funny moments. And frankly, I can’t really remember the older ones to know if they were really about the same or not. It was fine and all, but I’m not sure exactly why they bothered. (Except for the $$$ of course.) I mean, it was an OK movie I guess. I was entertained, I do not begrudge the price of the tickets or the popcorn. But it seems like this was just somehow… unneeded. Especially the ending, which I won’t give away here. I mean really, did we need that? Did we? Really? (And I’m not talking about the actual end, but rather the climax.) Oh well. An escapist couple of hours if you’re looking for that on a weekend. |
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