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Sabato’s Crystal Ball: IS THE ELECTORAL DAM BREAKING FOR OBAMA?
All season, political observers have been speculating when, if ever, the Electoral College and the state and national polls would reflect the basic pro-Democratic fundamentals of the presidential election year. Those fundamentals, historic true-blues (pun intended in this case), include presidential popularity (the Republican incumbent is at rock-bottom), a horribly weak economy, and a disliked foreign war. All point to a sizeable Democratic victory.
Yet the public opinion polls have often painted a very different picture….
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Larry J. Sabato on STATEHOUSE ’08 UPDATE
There are just eleven governorships up for grabs from coast to coast, six currently held the Democrats and five by the Republicans…
One Response to “Sabato’s Crystal Ball: IS THE ELECTORAL DAM BREAKING FOR OBAMA?”
Sabato speaks as an academic statistician and poli-sci “historian,” as it were. He is pretty reliably party neutral, and I give his commentary solid weight, normally. However, there are some factors at play here which, I think, are well outside his comfort zone.
For instance the most obvious is, though I hate to admit it, the fact that Obama is a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. That is in addition to his being solidly identified as a Democrat. Assume there are a subset of voters who would never vote for a Democrat. Intersect that with those who will not vote for a Black man – and add still more who's doubts are only intensified by his name. That intersection is not all exclusive of voters of either party. That sort of new unknown is impossible for the Larry Sabatos of the world to gauge.
I think that Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com ( http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/what-is-… ) is more on track by asking, where is Obama's ceiling of support? In that post he argues that Obama is probably at or about to hit his maximum level of support, especially in swing states, given the fundamentals of the race in our highly polarized electorate.
I'd love to see Sabato's dam break, washing the Republican Party into the abyss for a generation as punishment for the last 28 years of its ever-increasing over reach, and abject demonization of those who didn't agree with it's Ozzie and Harriet fairy tale vision of America. But then I hear “Sarahcudda” attempt to dehumanize the “other” and I hear those trapped in that intersection of learned ignorance howl with violent approval.
I think and expect Obama can win mind you, but I'm increasingly reminded of the worst reasons he can't.