US election :
Right now, About a 60% chance for John McCain, and 40% for Barrack Obama.
Some factors -
Tactical & Campaign experience -
John McCain doesn't have much in the way of past mistakes, or extreme comments. Lots of dirt was throw at him when he was going against GW Bush in the Republican primaries.
Barrack Obama has strange statements and controverial associates (leftist bomb makers, extreme preachers, dodgy real estate developers)
And he is just a little tone deaf about some of his statements -
like the one about small towns full of economically backward people clinging to their Bible and guns.
So I think Obama or his wife might make another couple of faux pas before election day.
Taxes -
John McCain will raise taxes a little.
Barack Obama will raise taxes a lot, and play soak the rich, soak the oil companies, etc.
The length of the campaign -
It has been long enough so that many white people will have gone beyond voting for Obama to show themselves they are not racist, to looking at the actual issues and experience.
On this Obama does not look as good as John McCain.
Conservative black commentators will start attacking Obama after the nomination.
Shifting demographics - The Hispanic votes (not plural ) are up for grabs, and McCain has some appeal for them. Obama maybe seen as threatening, both becuase of his liberalism and the preception that blacks would get preferences over hispanics. This is one of the biggest blocks in play.
The war issue - Obama's biggest plus, and risky for McCain. IF John McCain can put a little distance between himself and the disastorous GW Bush policies, he has a very good chance of winning.
John McCain is sort of a mainstream semi-liberal Rebuplican -
his views on most issues are close to or sound close to the actual center of most voters.
Barrack Obama is strongly left, which helps raise money, and get dedicated campaign workers, but is a strong negative for about 30% of the voters, and a mild negative for another 25-30% of the voters.
If McCain can have Obama seen as a 'leftist', there goes 55% of the vote and the election. So Obama needs to be friendly, charismatic, and avoid specifics and a number of hard issues.
Obama is the stealth left candidate, he needs to keep his leftist positions hidden.
McCain was the stealth moderate canadidate, to get the Rebuplican nomination, he had to pretend to be much more right wing than he is.
It is a long time until election day, and the media may print the truth after they run out of more interesting stories.
I expect that somewhere along the line, Obama will say something that sound okay to his Havard left wing friends, but that shocks most Americans. Something like "Americans have no rights to so many cars" or some soak the rich argument.
After that, he will be luck to carry 10 of the 50 states.
We a Rebublican McCain in the Whitehouse, and a Democratic Congress. |
