"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
It's Obama's to Lose
Posted 11:51 p.m., Oct. 27, 2008
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Take it for what it's worth. It's only one poll, conducted by a firm owned by Newt Gingrich's former chief campaign strategist. But the latest InsiderAdvantage poll has Barack Obama leading John McCain, by 1 percentage point--in Georgia.
That's not a typo. We're talking about Ty Cobb's very own Peach State.
In a Webcast discussing the results, InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery says that the results of the Oct. 24 poll might easily be dismissed, but he insists they shouldn't be.
He says Obama's 48-47 percent lead can be attributed to Obama's relatively substantial support among the state's white voters, a large number of whom are college-aged. Obama's lead among independents is outside the margin of error. He has 75 percent support among Hispanics. All that, plus a projected 30 percent turnout among the state's black voters, adds up to a realistic chance for Obama to win the state.
Towery's written comments on the InsiderAdvantage Web site are worth quoting:
“While this is a tight race, the problem for McCain is that all but 3 percent of whites have made their decision and approximately 8 percent of black voters have continued to say they are undecided or voting ‘other.’ This will likely move closer to 95 percent for Obama when all said and done. Obama has room to go up.“If the race were to remain the way it is today, you won’t see these numbers come to fruition until very late in the night of Nov. 4 or perhaps the next day. The early numbers will likely show McCain ahead, as the counties where Obama is doing best are some of the largest counties and will be the slowest to report.”
--Matt Towery
InsiderAdvantage Georgia
Oct. 24, 2008
Obviously, this needs to be taken with some caution. Towery is a smart guy--he certainly knows his home state of Georgia--but it is also true that an NBC/Mason Dixon poll taken Oct. 22-23 has McCain up by 6 percent. (Both polls have a margin of error of roughly 4 percent.)
It's still damned amazing.
Seismology
I point this out to suggest the obvious: We may be on the cusp of the most seismic U.S. presidential election in many generations.
Barack Obama may not only be the first African-American to lay his nameplate on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. He may get there by winning as many as four former Confederate states--Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia.
I was born in 1965, exactly 100 years to the day after Gen. Phil Sheridan began his final series of raids against Jubal Early to drive the Army of the Confederacy out of the bread basket of the Shenandoah Valley--the beginning of the end of the Civil War.
I was born only eight months after three civil rights workers--James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman--were murdered in Mississippi for the crime of trying to register blacks to vote.
Those are tales of the Old South, true. Still, I never thought I would live to see the day that a black man could even plausibly discuss winning a Deep South state in a presidential election.
The Electoral College
Being challenged in the South is hardly McCain's only problem. It's not even the main problem. Even worse for his chances, he is in trouble in Ohio and Florida, and is losing badly--by almost 11 points--in Pennsylvania. That is the state his campaign abandoned Michigan for, the state McCain has flatly stated he must win to become president.
Back on June 25, I did a column where I played with the electoral map numbers. At that time, based on the polling that was taking place then, I calculated that Obama was beating McCain by 331-227 in the electoral college.
A lot has happened since then. For a little while there, things got tighter. Right around the time of the RNC in September, McCain might even have been winning. Then came the rise and fall of Sarah Palin. The economic collapse. The Michelle Bachmann episode, which seems to have helped bring Colin Powell out for Obama.
So now, it looks like an Obama blow out. Since my June essay, Obama has managed to maintain or increase his lead in nearly all of the states where he was leading then, the exceptions being Montana, which is now very slightly favoring McCain, and Missouri and Indiana, which rate as toss ups.
Meanwhile, Obama is poised to overtake McCain in several states that were solidly red last summer. These include North Dakota, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. And it is possible that Obama could take back all three states McCain wrestled away from him in late summer.
Amazingly, Obama is even within striking distance of McCain's home state of Arizona, where McCain leads by just 5 percentage points.
Tally-ho
I wouldn't put any money on it, but by my reckoning, it is possible that Obama might win the presidency 396-142 in the electoral college. He could win 30 of the 50 states, and the District of Columbia.
I think that's high. If you forced me to guess, I'd put the actual final tally at 355-184 for Obama. (I'll go out on a limb and give him Montana. But I can't bring myself to believe Obama can win North Carolina and Georgia, the power of symbolism notwithstanding.)
McCain can still win this thing, but it is getting increasingly difficult to see how. Palin is now a "rogue diva" who routinely wanders off message to protect her own political future. The Ayers allusions haven't moved uncommited voters in McCain's direction. And the spread-the-wealth, Obama's-a-Marxist theme doesn't seem to be moving the needle. The economic collapse, and McCain's dithering early response to it, have proved crushing.
Of course, all the polls could be wrong. But it seems dubious that so many polls could be so far off base.
Even the ever-cautious Charlie Cook is just about ready to call the fat lady out to sing.
"Although this contest was very competitive over the summer and could have gone either way before the stock market crashed and the credit markets seized up, arguably it has become virtually unwinnable for McCain. The nation's economic problems feel very personal and very painful for nearly everybody who has looked at their 401(k) or other retirement account statements and seen that a quarter or more of their retirement savings have evaporated. ..."Of course, this election isn't over. Something could transform it from one focused on an economic recession to one obsessed with national security or some other topic that would give McCain a fighting chance. But with the growing popularity of early voting, that "something" would have to be very big and happen very soon to have the power to change the trajectory of Obama's campaign.
For now, what is so jarring about the tempo of this election is its shift from turbulent to placid, from shocking to inevitable. Perhaps that is a fitting end to this weird campaign year."
--"Obama Swinging for the Fences,"
Charlie Cook
The National Journal
Oct. 25, 2008
It's looking like Obama is going to be having a very good night on Nov. 4.
