(via Andrew Sullivan)
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It has been a full two weeks since there has been any state changing categories in my electoral college calculations. There have been plenty of polls, just not much movement. At least not movement that changed categories. Today brings movement though, and once again it is good news for McCain. This time Obama’s lead in Wisconsin drops to below 10%, moving that state from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”. Looking at the trend lines, it seems that the “bounce” Obama got after securing the nomination has indeed peaked. While some news has been mixed, for the most part since mid-July McCain has very gradually taken back some ground. For the most part though, the race seems to be in the summer doldrums. Not much is changing. Things are just sort of slowly moving forward, with most polls just continuing to confirm that things are still at about the same place. As we approach the conventions and the end of the summer, I expect we’ll start to see some more motion again. But for now, it seems things are relatively static, although moving a tad, just a bit, slowly, in McCain’s direction. Since today’s change just moved a strong state to a weak, and didn’t change the inventory of leaning swing states at all, the summary remains the same: Current Summary: McCain Best Case – McCain 281, Obama 257 If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232 As was announced earlier, on Wednesday Chris Weigant included a link to us on one of his Huffington Post columns. This site is indeed getting some extra traffic due to this. So for those new people, welcome. Besides the 2008 Electoral College Prediction pages and the blog itself, other popular items here include the:
If you find any of this interesting, please do come back. In the meantime, for regular readers, here is the article that mentions this site… along with additional analysis of the state of the race. Electoral Math Charts Updated
I don’t believe it is the same set of documents being talked about, but when reading today’s notes from Ron Suskind, I was reminded of my post “Follow the Forger” from October 2003. Well, Suskind claims to have found at least one forger of documents related to the Iraq/Niger/Yellowcake connection that was claimed but did not exist. The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?
Mr Suskind is of course promoting a new book But… If even 5% of all the things this administration has been accused of over the last 7+ years are even partially true, then the fact that there have not been full fledged impeachment proceedings is extremely shameful. I wonder just how many preemptive pardons will be issued on January 19th. I am anticipating quite a few. Not that I really think even a potential Obama administration would be interested in going after any of these jokers (including W). Instead they will look the other way and decide to worry about the future rather than the past, to not reopen old wounds, to “heal” etc. Blah Blah Blah. Sorry, these folks need to be held to account. All the way up and down the command chain. Including W and Cheney.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews panning this movie for various reasons, but I’ll just say I liked it. I liked the X-files when it was on, and this was just like a giant episode. And not one of the “conspiracy” episodes either, but more like one of the one off episodes. I thought that was just fine though. I liked those kinds of episodes just fine when it was on TV. And yes, it had more about Mulder and Scully and their relationship. Some people really hate that. I think it is just fine. And come on, given the whole history and all these two have been through, like they aren’t going to end up there? Geeze! :-) I like the two characters. I like exploring them as people. They don’t just have to run around doing the chasing aliens thing ALL the time. This was OK. Anyway… as I said… basically just a long episode. If you liked the show, and you liked the non-arc episodes, then you should like this too. If you didn’t like the show, or just didn’t care and never watched it, you are probably quite safe skipping this movie. You won’t miss a thing. Official information here (pdf). This is the follow on to Question 1 which I blogged about on Saturday. There are two possible initiatives to choose from. If Question 1 passes, then the winner in Question 2 will appear on the ballot. Boiled down, the first option “Initiative 26” makes a number of local offices that have been partisan offices into non-partisan offices. The second option “Council-Proposed Alternative” does the same thing, but also provides for candidates to still identify their party preference on the ballot. (Although such identification would not imply the endorsement of the party.) WTF? The argument is that it is better to be open about a preference which will exist anyway than to hide it, and that putting the party preference on the ballot gives the voters more information in order to make a educated choice. I frankly think that is bullshit, and is just an attempt to essentially keep the positions partisan, even while calling them non-partisan. It is an effort to maintain the status quo while pretending to do otherwise. I generally am displeased with political parties and think that any effort to disrupt the influence of such organizations, and rather have people make decisions based not on party identification, but rather by evaluating the individuals involved and their specific views, is a positive development. If candidates want to make known a party preference, then they can put it on their websites, they can talk about it, people can discuss it. But it should not be on the ballot. (Frankly, I think all elections should be that way.) And honestly, I think that if an office is truly a non-partisan office, then close identification with any political party should be a major negative for any candidate. If it is a non-partisan office, then people running for those positions, or elected to those positions, should make a significant effort to NOT be tied to beholden to any political party. In any case, as I’m sure is obvious by this point, my vote is for: INITIATIVE 26 For those of you who may not have seen it yet. Ouch. Poor McCain. (via Huffington Post) And another rumor gets popped. At least for the moment. Bayh: Obama hasn’t asked me to join ticket
(via TPM Election Central) As a semi-announcement, my Electoral College Prediction pages are now also being included as a feature on chrisweigant.com. New CW.com Feature! Charts! Maps!
As he mentions, it may get some additional exposure tomorrow. The rumors all over the place seem to be veering quickly in the direction of Evan Bayh for Obama’s Veep. I saw it first on Brendan Loy’s blog while I was at Seafair Sunday… I just never had a chance to post. Obama to announce Evan Bayh as veep in Elkhart on Wednesday?
I guess there won’t be long to wait to see if this is true, or if it is just another random rumor. As I mentioned on this week’s podcast none of the veep possibilities really excite me. And that includes Bayh. But maybe he’d push Indiana out of swing state status to a clear Obama lead. |
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