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Nightmare Scenario: McCain and Obama 2008

Posted by PATRICK EDABURN in At TMV, Politics.
Sep 20th, 2008 | Comments

We’ve seen various postings on possible nightmare scenarios for Election 2008 so I did some working with the math as well as considering the scenarios suggested on places like Politico.com and came up with a real nightmare. Very unlikely to pan out but not impossible.

How’s this for a nightmare scenario.

McCain 269
Obama 269

McCain wins popular vote narrowly but Obama loses a key state in a close recount which results in the tie.

Election thrown in House where they assign one vote to each state, 26 needed to win.

Thanks to some close races the new House is

Dems: 24

GOP: 22

Even: 4

A couple of the Dem states are ones that voted for McCain while the GOP states are pretty much all for McCain in the Presidential race so there is pressure on a couple of the Democratic congressional delegations to vote with state and not party.

Unlikely yes, but probably 5% chance of it happening.

Cross posted to The Square Deal

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JSpencer

It should be a national embarrassment there is even a 5% chance of this happening. Is the choice really this hard to figure out?

nepr

You know, Nate Silver, at 538.com has looked into this, too.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/12th-ame...

And, what's with this "nightmare" stuff? Sounds like Big Fun, to me, but, of course, I do so like watching grown people make damn fools of themselves.

CStanley

A contested election may be interesting as a spectator, nepr, but it is a nightmare for the country. It leads to a shortened transition period (the 9/11 commission report detailed how that contributed to our unpreparedness for the terrorist attacks) and it leads to a bitterly divided electorate. Not good, particularly when we're facing such serious problems as we are today.

SteveK

"A contested election may be interesting as a spectator, nepr, but it is a nightmare for the country."

If, after what the republicans have done to America the last eight (24?) years, the outcome of the upcoming election is close... the American People damn well deserve the nightmare.

Silhouette

A nightmare scenario only for democrats. The GOP is in power throughout the election in the executive office. Lawbreaking is not unknown to them and if it was necessary to swing the election their way...

Well...

You can guess what will happen...

Silhouette

Just a reminder too, and an opportunity to say "I told you so"..lol...

If Hillary Clinton had gotten the nomination, or at the very least a VP naming we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. It would be a clean-sweep victory for dems.

Neener neener neeeeener...! lol..

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