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Is Obama Headed For A Blow Out?
The Politico asks an impressive collection of experts with various viewpoints. Bottom line consensus: Democrats…don’t hire your moving vans just yet…
12 Responses to “Is Obama Headed For A Blow Out?”
I refuse to believe the hype. Obama in a blowout?!? Please. There are way too many variables at play for anyone to call “blowout”.
I'd like to comment on the explanation given by Jeffrey Stewart:
I think that the country may have decided that the skills set that McCain brings to the presidency is not what is needed right now, whereas that which Obama brings is. It is wrapped up in a subtle difference–Obama's story. I think his story has been underutilized by his campaign. It is a powerful story, as many stories of successful African Americans are. Remember George Bush said when he selected Colin Powell as Secretary of State: “I love his story.”
Think about it. Think what it is required for a son of a single mom, who dies relatively early in his career, to reach the position that Obama reached even before he decided to run for president. That is his credential. McCain's story, while riveting, can't compare in terms of the kinds of social competence, intelligence, wherewithal, mother wit, and just plain drive that it takes to climb the ladder that Obama has climbed. He is the epitome of the American self-made man. The son of immigrants story par excellence. Of course, that seems to be blunted in America because his father was African, but Obama's is the American story if the nation can take off its racial blinders long enough to see it.
Perhaps some middle of the road Americans are beginning to do that.
I think that's a very thoughtful analysis and probably does explain why some undecideds are breaking for Obama.
However, I think there's still a sizable portion of them who are asking whether Stewart's narrative is accurate; when he describes Obama as the quintessential 'self made man' I think some are wondering about the quintessential question of Chicago politics: “Who sent him?”
For someone (anyone) in Chicago to have a meteoric rise, you have to wonder who is behind the curtain- there are always powerbrokers behind the scenes (always in politics, but particularly in Chicago.) Those are the reasons that Obama's past associations matter. If some people look at the people who gave him a boost and find those people completely acceptable, then so be it- but voters ought to at least take a look, particularly if the reasons that Obama appeals are the ones that Stewart feels are important (because if that's the basis of it, then one ought to make sure that narrative is actually true.)
BTW, TSteel, I saw some people talking about the site acting buggy the other day- I had been experiencing those problems too, and while it seemed to improve a bit after you made a fix, it's acting really erratic again (more so than John McCain heh)
I'm experiencing crashes with IE when I try to navigate through the site (seems to be when I click on the Disqus links), and the page reloading to an old homepage instead of the current one, and occasionally when I try to click on the 'home' link I get a page of gibberish that looks like either code language or Chinese.
Can you do some troubleshooting?
CStanley said: “I'm experiencing crashes with IE when I try to navigate through the site (seems to be when I click on the Disqus links), and the page reloading to an old homepage instead of the current one, and occasionally when I try to click on the 'home' link I get a page of gibberish that looks like either code language or Chinese.”
I'm aware of these issues. TMV uses a page caching system to help with traffic spikes. I found an issue there and fixed that so I'm confident the TMV experience will improve. Looks like some people were getting old TMV pages when new ones were available.
Is Obama headed for a blowout?
http://www.pollster.com/polls/2008president/
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/todays-p…
http://www.jedreport.com/shipjumpers/
Maybe… Maybe not!
Once again, the Iowa Electronic Markets are instructive. Note the distinction between the Vote Share (what the likely Dem-GOP results will be) and the Winner Take All (which candidate will win the popular vote) markets. Obama's about 85% likely to be the winner at this time, but the actual vote result is perceived to be about 55%-47%.
http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/Pres08.html
T: so if I'm still experiencing those issues, it should soon resolve itself?
CStanley, I'm going to check with Disqus about this. The only issues seem to come from IE6 and IE7. Looks like it isn't my problem but I'm going to make it my problem.
It is not whether Obama is headed for a blow out. It is whether this is the last election where the Republican candidate will be considered relevant to the process. Even with Senator Obama's massive lead in the pools, the MSM keeps pretending that McCain is a viable candidate. Image what happens in four years when the Democratic Primary's will be moot and the idiot Replubicans nominate someone like Huckabee. The election will be over before the conventions and i doubt that CNN/MSNBC will want to spend money covering someone who has zero chance of winning.
The only question about the result is whether the Democrats get to 60 seats in the Seante and make the Republicans irrelevant in 2009 or whether the Democrats have to wait two more years to get to 60 seats.
Super D, the GOP's complete demise hasn't happened yet and it may never.
Admittedly, they need to field better people. The economic team concern was noted in the Economist last week, given who is giving Obama economic advice (even if Obama's current plan is wacky and designed to buy votes) versus the questions concerning who McCain may bring aboard, or has aboard, his team. (McCain has just announced his economic plan to counter Obama's, and it is little more than a pale imitation of Obama's:.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/13/obama-…
Thanks T.
T-Steel, are you using the PHP and WordPress properties to check which browser we are using? Run across some site which check the users browser and make adjustments accordingly, this makes loading a site much easier for those of us using older browsers and OS's..