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Joe Scarborough: We’re Not a 60/40 Country

Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor in Economy, Media, Politics.
Oct 19th, 2008 | Comments

On Meet the Press this morning (after the Colin Powell endorsement) Joe Scarborough offered up some advice to Obama, “Go to Florida. Go to Ohio. Get out of North Carolina…” He says we’re not a 60/40 country and later suggests that the only reason for Obama’s lead is the economy. Do we agree?

RELATED: Earlier in the segment NBC News political director Chuck Todd’s numbers included the observation that, “McCain’s path now is solely an electoral college path and if he wins the electoral college it’s hard to see how he actually wins the popular vote.” Marc Ambinder has been fantasizing about that scenario for months.

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JSpencer

Sure, the economic meltdown was advantage Obama, but I believe the bump McCain got with Palin was starting to swing the other direction anyway. People were starting to be turned off by the increasing negative tone and fears about what McCain/Palin might bring to the White House. Scarborough is right about the country not being 60/40 but I think his belief that it's 51/49 is wishful thinking in 2008.

Manchester2

I'm reminded of the rookie player for the Philadelphia Eagles who celebrated his touchdown before he was in the endzone. He dropped the ball, and never got the touchdown. Things will be much tighter on election night than the conventional wisdom lets on. McCain is connecting with average voters in a bigger way, and arguably has renewed momentum coming out of the third debate, which he clearly won. Two weeks left, polls narrowing....

kritt11

JS is correct.

Palin came out of the gate like gangbusters, but after a few weeks, voters began reading her interviews with Katie Couric and realizing that she had no foreign policy experience or knowledge. She was billed as a hockey mom, who is "one of us",but thankfully Americans are finally realizing that "one of us" would be clueless about figuring out what to do about the economy, and that watching Putin fly over Alaska in a plane is no substitute for diplomatic travel.

Also, clearly voters do not like the negative tone of the McCain campaign and aren't buying into its smears.

So Joe Scarborough is only partly right.

superdestroyer

Of course, the U.S. is a 60/40 county. When everything goes for the Repulbicans and the Republicans get most of the swing voters, the Republicans win with 50% of the vote. When things go bad for the Repulbicans, they lose in a rout. The country is really 45% automatic Democratic voters and 40% Republican voters. elections are fought over the 15% in the middle.

However, that 45% automatic Democratic voting block is growing relative to the 40% Republican block. Sometime in the near future, the Democratic party will reach a point where it will get 50% of the vote no matter who they run or what they do. The incompetence of the Bush Administration has just sped up the process.

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