Originally Posted By ecdc Obama is up to an 80.8% favorite to win on Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog, along with a projected 303 electoral college votes. Interestingly, he still has Florida as a very slight favorite for Romney. He has Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia slightly for Obama, but Ohio looking more solid (also an 80% favorite for Obama) and Wisconsin practically a lock. He had a great article today putting these numbers in perspective, however. He compared Obama's chances to an NFL team who's leading by a field goal with three minutes left in the fourth. A strong position to be in, but every single one of us has seen games where those deficits are overcome. I remain cautiously optimistic, but don't get out the confetti just yet, O supporters. <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/oct-31-obamas-electoral-college-firewall-holding-in-polls/#more-36981" target="_blank">http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n...re-36981</a>
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 <<You need to date, it sounds like.>> Been kind of on and off the last year.
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 If Romney wins I will forever associate the Obama campaign with the San Diego Chargers against the Broncos a few weeks ago. They were up 24 to 0 at half time, and through sheer stupidity and lack of intelligence they gave up 35 points and lost 35-24... President Obama was a 100% sure thing 3 months ago. There is no way this should have even been close, especially after the 47% comments, but Romney kept it close, although I am unsure how... This is way too close for comfort for me at least.. As much as I criticize President Obama and feel he would hurt our country with another term, a Romney Presidency would screw it up 100 times worse...
Originally Posted By DyGDisney Well, then that's where voting for the "lesser of two evils" comes in. Why would you not vote for Obama if that's how you feel?
Originally Posted By DyGDisney Whatever Romney would do or not do for this country doesn't scare me half as much as how he will affect our standing in the world or the likelihood of his putting us in unnecessary wars.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Here's why you vote for the lesser of two evils. If given the question, hypothetical, of course, to have one person stick needles in your eyes or the other person that will relentlessly run a feather over you which would you choose? In this case you are saying, I don't like either option, so you guys choose. You do have the choice of electing someone that you feel would be less worse for the nation then the other and you choose to let others determine whether you get needles or feathers. For what reason, so you can say that "I didn't vote for him" if something goes wrong? It's all well and good to say, I don't like either choice so I'm going to make a stand and not vote for either. Big deal, you accomplished nothing, you showed a maximum amount of inability to decide what is best for you and in the process showed cowardliness and lack of direction. Good for you...my hero! Like it or not this country runs on a two party system, at least for now, and throwing a vote away or not voting at all is just one more step in the direction of the loudest getting the control. Honestly, if anyone feels that one candidate is so-so and the other is fundamentally bad for the country, then a vote against that person is as important, and as noble, as a vote for someone.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Or why do you have to do the lesser of two evils?<< I don't see Obama as a lesser of two evils at all. I can't help but wonder if part of the reason Republicans hate him so much is they have a sense that his Presidency will be viewed very favorable vs. Bush's. Obviously it won't be nearly as dramatic, but this will be like comparing Buchanan and Lincoln or Hoover and FDR. Or for you conservatives, Carter and Reagan. Like it or not (2nd term obviously being a big factor), Obama will be viewed very positively by historians.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer "but Romney kept it close, although I am unsure how" He's black. Have you noticed? <a href="http://goo.gl/42lKE" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/42lKE</a> "Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll finds, as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not. Those views could cost President Barack Obama votes as he tries for re-election" (snip) "Obama has tread cautiously on the subject of race, but many African-Americans have talked openly about perceived antagonism toward them since Obama took office. As evidence, they point to events involving police brutality or cite bumper stickers, cartoons and protest posters that mock the president as a lion or a monkey, or lynch him in effigy." (snip) "The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent)."
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Also, Romney lied through his teeth in his much-heralded first debate. He suddenly took all-new moderate positions on various things. It's crazy that it worked as well as it did, but it illustrates how little attention many people pay to these years-long campaigns.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney Let's prognosticate something else now. Suppose, by some chance, Romney does become POTUS; given the opportunity, what type of people do you really think he will appoint to the Supreme Court? He has come out pro-choice in the past, even had a friend die from a botched illegal abortion. Seems he changed his stance when he decided to run for president last time. So no one knows how he REALLY feels about it anymore. So do you think his nominees will be far-right, or more moderate, like he supposedly "use to be"?
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Romney's SCOTUS candidates will be clones of Scalia, Alito, and Thomas. Guaranteed.
Originally Posted By planodisney It realy is going to come down to turnout. I think you have to give the tiniest of advantages to Obama going into election day. however, the early voting numbers don't look good for Obama and do look good for Romney. In Ohio, for example, Obama is down well over 100,000 votes from for years ago and Romney is up almost 100,000 from McCain. That basically wipes out Obamas margin of victory from 2008. Also, early voting numbers in Florida are even worse, when compared to 2008. Republican candidates generally outperform Democrats on election day. I realy believe it is all up to how motivated conservatives are. If they turn out like the did for Bush in 04, then Romney is going to be the next president. If not, obama 4 more years. I realy think most of these polls have samples too many democrats within their polls. Many of the polls taken are giving a higher democrat sampling advantage than he recieved in the 2008 turnout which was about 8%. Ive seen a few of them with as much as a 12% sampling advantage for democrats. That just isnt going to happen. Im guessing that turnout will be at least even. I realy have no idea who is going to win what will not be surprised by any outcome. I can see a tight one, but I can also see either candidate getting over 300. I think Romney was well on his way to victory before the storm and somehow it changed everything. Lybia was realy starting to heat up and that has just gone away. The job numbers seem to be, politically anyway, a wash and the only thing left that could effect the election is iff we see freezing, hungry people with no power on the east coast while Obama is partying with JZ and Beyonce in Vegas.
Originally Posted By rockcow1 Colorado is not locked up for Obama. Don't forget we have amendment 64 ( legalizing marijuana) up for a vote. As well as Gary Johnson ( pro 64) up for president. He will be taking away a lot of young voters from Obama. He is very popular in Boulder and other suburbs of Denver.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <It realy is going to come down to turnout. I think you have to give the tiniest of advantages to Obama going into election day.> I just posted this on another thread, but it's worth posting again as a corrective to that. From Nate Silver, the very clear-eyed and highly accurate (in both Democratic-heavy 2008 AND Republican-heavy 2010) aggregator of polls: "Yes, of course: most of the arguments that the polls are necessarily biased against Mr. Romney reflect little more than wishful thinking. Nevertheless, these arguments are potentially more intellectually coherent than the ones that propose that the race is “too close to call.” It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public. But the state polls may not be right. They could be biased. Based on the historical reliability of polls, we put the chance that they will be biased enough to elect Mr. Romney at 16 percent." You might do well also to read Silver's intelligent take on why the right-wing meme on "oversampling Democrats" doesn't really hold. You can find it in excruciatingly geeky detail on the 538 site, but the gist is this: as a candidate gains popularity, more people (especially those near the center) will be willing to identify themselves as either Democrat or Republican to the pollsters. Right after the Denver debate, when Romney was peaking, the "oversampling" of Democrats basically ended - Silver argues (persuasively) that some people who ARE Republicans were nonetheless less likely to identify themselves as such to pollsters in September when Romney was dealing with the 47% video and looked like a sure loser. After the first debate, more felt better about identifying themselves as such. Conversely, some people who were Democrats may have stopped identifying as such to pollsters after Obama's first debate performance. Most polling outfits (with obvious exceptions such as those tied to one campaign or the other) have as their bread and butter their accuracy. They don't want there to be oversampling or bias. There are some who have definite "house effects" (as Silver also talks about) favoring either Democrats (PPP), or Republicans (Rasmussen). But this may not be crude bias or any sort of conspiracy, but more a matter of method; Rasmussen, for example, doesn't call cell phones, thus skewing their demographic decidedly older, and thus more right-leaning. At any rate, Silver uses ALL the polls, calculates for "house effect," and comes out with what has been a remarkably accurate model, in both left and right-leaning years. And you might want to read his comments again if you insist that Obama only has a "tiny" advantage.
Originally Posted By planodisney its not a MYTH of oversampling democrats. Its is precisely why Kerry was ahead in so many polls by 4 points heading into election day. exit polls were also oversampling democrats that year. It happens quite frequently and definitely isnt a MYTH. however, dont get me wrong, Im not convinced Silver is wrong and i have been watching 538 very closely. he may well be proven right, but from what i can see i dont think he is fairly grading each poll.
Originally Posted By planodisney One thing that i think could possibly play out is that people are relying on independants to break big on election day for Romney, which looks like it will happen. However, there is Some evidence that republicans are identifying themselves more as independants this election and the numbers that show Romney winning the independant vote could mean absolutely nothing. This is all going to be so fascinating.
