“If the election were held today …” Well, it’s not. But if you seriously cared what the polls suggest would happen “if the election were held today”, you’d ignore winner-take-all totals of state Electoral Votes. You’d run Monte Carlo simulations like the ones Darryl Holman publishes Hominid Views, and you’d award EV ties to the D’s (who figure to control the majority of state Congressional delegations).
If you did so, you’d project a McCain victory … and you’d notice that Barack has been leading, but Hillary just pulled ahead. Clinton projects a 34.2 winning percentage against McCain, with a mean of 262 Electoral Votes, versus Obama’s 26.2% and 254 EV.
Meanwhile, as Steve Clemons at The Washington Note observes, Gravity Takes Bite Out of “Obama Wind”.
… Clinton has run a sometimes terrible campaign and has lost a dramatic lead over her opponent, but … “gravity” is finally taking hold on the former gravity-defying campaign of Barack Obama. …
Gravity has set in on Obama — and there are six months left until November.
My view “if the election were held in November” is that gravity has done about all it can do to Clinton (but beware the Bosnia baloney). Gravity tugs hard on McCain, whose supporters are largely unaware of key positions and reversals. And for Obama, gravity sucks. He has no idea what kid glove treatment he’s received from the Clintons and the Media, and his lighter-than-air “movement” is inflated with naught but “inspiration”.
Whatever goes up comes down; whatever breathes in breathes out; and as they say in show biz, “be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because you’ll meet the same people on the way back down”.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
RonK,
And who will Obama meet on the way down? Alice Palmer (now campaigning for Hillary), Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. They all helped him get where he is and he’s dissed them all. I wonder what they’ll do to him when he hits bottom?
Karl Rove has an interesting new article out in Newsweek, giving advice to Obama:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134322
I hate that man, but I’ll the take truth wherever I find it.
I just watched part of Fox News Sunday. I didn’t see much of the Obama interview, but in the roundtable section when everyone was beating up on Hillary, Bill Kristol said several times that “Hillary is a better candidate than Obama.” “She’s a good candidate.” Even David Broder kind of defended Hillary and dissed Obama. Something is definitely shifting out there…
Gabriele, Rove said,
{{shiver}} Has Obama EVER used the phrase, “building on the good work of the Clinton administration” — ever?
Yes, he said that. He said this morning she’s already proven herself the better candidate and this is all just sexism.
I truely hate Monte Carlo simulations. I hate them with a passion. I once had to spend an entire month learning how to write programs about them in a class called statistical physics. It was a nightmare. The problem that I find with them is that there are better, more accuarate and easier methods of doing this kind of analysis. Another problem is that like all other statistical techniques a Monte Carlo simulation is only as good as the information that is put into them.
Now, I went to the website but I didn’t read anything about the methodology or their input variariables, etc. but I can’t believe for a second that Hillary only has a 30% chance to beat McCain in the fall. Right now I’d have to say that it is closer to 50/50 or that she would have a slight lead.
She has a few advantages in the electoral map over Obama because Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan are all still in play for her while Obama stands no shot at winning any of these states. Also, a few democratic leaning states such as California and Massachussets are clearly in play for McCain when matched up against Obama. I seriously doubt that Obama could even get anywhere near 200 delegates in the general much less win the danged election.
Thanks RonK.. When I saw some newer state polls come out and Paul Lukasiak’s diaries on them at Corrente, I wondered what was up with Darryl..
A tiny little comment:
Thank you so much for using the subjunctive mood correctly. 🙂
Matt Stoller under the bus … and he doesn’t like it there.
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3D9BAC288EFE1B4B7713D53E01EAE17D?diaryId=5412
Do they not remember when he called himself a “so called liberal” in one of the debates as if that was such a preposterous allegation. Did they also forget the “not liberal but common sense” tirade he made in Texas – Let me remind them:
Obama in Texas:
“Let me tell you something. There’s nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics that is common sense. There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure [our soldiers] are treated properly when they come home. “There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure that everybody has healthcare, but we are spending more on healthcare in this country than any other advanced country. We got more uninsured. There’s nothing liberal about saying that doesn’t make sense, and we should so something smarter with our health care system. Don’t let them run that okie doke on you!”
Those are actually liberal policies, Sen. Obama.
Then there’s the skipped vote to defend MoveOn during the General Betray Us Scandal and yet MoveOn endorses him.
WS,
I refuse to ever go to OpenLeft. What is Stoller saying, exactly? Is he justifying Obama now just like he did when Obama threw universal health care under the bus?
Is Obama being egged on by the media to debate Hill–Lincoln/Douglas style? I don’t have cable and no reception other than PBS really.
I was told that he is being challenged by the media to debate.
If so, either way he loses.
Don’t forget that Patrick Fitzgerald is hot on the Rezko case…he’s going to sing, but maybe it’s only the Governor who will be on list.
Obama had better hope so.
gqm, here’s BTD on Stoller:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/27/202518/086
Does Obama have any moves left? Where does his campaign have to go but down? What’s he going to talk about, besides coming up with new ways to passive-aggressively attack Hillary?
We should start setting Obama’s NC expectations.
Anything less than 70% for Obama in NC is a failure and should be considered as such.
Oh dear. Rev. Wright’s speech to the Michigan NAACP was live on CNN and Fox News. Wright mocked JFK accent in his speech. I wonder how Ted K. feels about that?
bostonboomer: He actually mocked JFK? This will not go over well in Massachusetts. Kennedy’s are still revered here. Good old Teddy should be screaming bloody murder if this is so. JFK is an icon in MA.
I didn’t hear it myself. I read that in a comment at Talkleft, I think. I heard Wright also made fun of LBJ.
LBJ who signed the civil rights act? God almighty, what is this man thinking?
I think the speech was about the differences between different cultures and how different doesn’t mean better or worse. I haven’t seen the speech, so I don’t know exactly what he did.
Ah, yes. The difference between his culture and The Monolithic Homogeneous White Culture.
If he didn’t invoke a Philadelphia accent and eat some lasagne, he wasn’t talking about MY white culture.