I think the conventional wisdom would say that Obama is a terrific candidate; and that his campaign has been somewhere between good and extraordinary. That wisdom might also say that McCain has run an unfocused, erratic, nasty, even juvenile campaign, exemplified by the pick of Sarah Palin and “the fundamentals of the American economy are strong”.
Well, where were we before it all started? And where are we now? According to the fivethirtyeight.com poll average, Obama was up about 5% on 6/19, shortly after he put away the nomination. It tightened; Dems had their convention; the GOP had theirs. And now? fivethirtyeight predicts a 5.7% victory.
Now, people have already been voting, and we'll know the real result on Tuesday (or sometime shortly after). If the margin is significantly more than that 4-5 points, then that may show how the GOTV effort and the execution of the campaigns themselves indeed moved voters.
And if it's Obama by that same, decisive-but-not-crushing margin … we can chalk one up to “structural”, long-term, glacial trends and preferences in the electorate. It's as if it were no-frills Dem vs. UPC-label Republican.
mcrd says
laurel says
if you have one.
danseidman says
I think it shows that for all the pundits saying she cost McCain votes, the negatives mostly just cost him the bounce he got when he picked her. If he had picked, say, Lieberman, the graph would look different but the number at the end would be about the same.
<
p>So where did McCain lose the election? My view is that he lost it by voting with Bush 90% of the time.
<
p> – Dan
laurel says
by being the maverick that wasn’t.
hrs-kevin says
but he should have made it a lot closer. He should have picked a more moderate running mate and done the traditional “compassionate conservative” run to the middle. His base would have no choice but to support him. I don’t think that would have been enough, especially with the economic meltdown, but then at least he would have been able to retain his dignity.
gephardt-for-president says
In some respects, the real news here is that everything is going Obama’s way; right/wrong track, unfavorable for the incumbent, etc, but he is only down by single digits. That said, the reason is this country remains structurally divided. If Obama wins by this margin, and it might be amplified by the electoral vote, it will define the new political reality in voter id and delivery. Does this make Plouffe the new Karl Rove? Or can the new ‘mastermind’ only be a negative force?
gephardt-for-president says
just to be clear