I can breathe easier now.
You’ve got the lore slightly wrong. It’s no Republican has been elected president without carrying Ohio.
Well, I’m pretty confident that the one about the winner always being some white guy is, as of today, still true.
Ah ha! Thanks.
Speaking of lore, no Republican has been elected without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket since 1928.
McCain should have learned from this, instead of Sarah Palin he needed Nixon’s daughter.
I guess the Trot Nixon/Randy Bush ticket in 2012 will be extremely successful.
Nitpick 1: Polk won without winning his birth state or his state of residence.
Nitpcik 2: Gore had no chance in TN. During the eight years of the Clinton presidency, it became steadily more conservative; note that Clinton won it by 5% the first time, and only 2% the second time. Combine that with Gore’s charisma relative to Clinton’s, and it’s no wonder he lost by 4% in 2000. The amazing thing is that he didn’t lose by more, given the presence of an evangelical Christian on the other ticket.
I also have to believe it’s a bit of an ego thing. NH is what saved McCain, putting him back into play in the primaries and essentially reviving the momentum that led to his eventual victory. He wants to believe that what Iowans feel for Obama NHers feel for him and to somehow lose that state would represent a larger repudiation of his entire campaign.
So we’ve had quite the cavalcade of Republicans announcing their support for Obama (Powell, McClellan, Buckley, the Goldwaters, etc). Have any prominent Democrats or liberals announced their support for McCain? The only one I can recall is this speechwriter, who makes a terribly uncompelling case IMO. And I’d guess most people wouldn’t call her a “prominent” Democrat. Are there others?
I’d consider Lieberman a prominent Democrat. Yes, there’s an “I” after his name, but he’s still a Democrat.
Lady de Rothschild, the multi-millionaire baroness endorsing McCain because Obama is “elitist.”
Ah yes. You gotta love a person whose house has its own Wikipedia entry calling someone an elitist. 
BTW, McCain still has one trick up his sleeve: RED STATE RAMPAGE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lix3LUyj9jo (From Bill Maher’s show)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html
Overall the situation seems to be fairly stable in early polls released today. The RCP average has inched up from 6 to 6.4 for Obama’s lead. When it comes to the state polls the one big surprise is a 4 point race in an NBC poll in PA; however there is another CNN poll which shows the usual 12 points. Decent numbers for Obama in North Carolina and Ohio. The race appears to have tightened in the last few days but McCain needs that tightening to steadily continue till election day and start showing up in the state polls. Apart from that one PA poll , which is probably an outlier, it’s not a good polling day for him so far.
That Mason-Dixon poll in PA isn’t really good news, since their last poll there was +2 
They’ve always been closer than others.
Oh and Zogby and Rasmussen are back up to +7/+5. So much for the tightening.
Both Bill Clinton and Al Gore (!) are going to be campaigning for Obama in Florida over the next week.
Obama’s infomercial was well-done and will get a lot of the news cycle for the next day or so.
McCain needs to strip a point per day from Obama’s lead.
We just found out that the economy contracted last quarter.
It’s night, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
I was thinking Mojo/Kate, myself.
I read that twice before I realized it didn’t say “McCain needs a strip joint per day for Obama’s lead.”
Wow, I didn’t get enough sleep last night.
And now I’m probably never going to sleep again…
I’d agree “stable” but moreso showing that it has really been stable and that the apparent “tightening” of the past several days was more likely statistical flutter being overanalyzed. Reuters puts it like this
Rasmussen puts it similarly.
Diageo/Hot Line has the additional fun factoid:
Stable it is, stable it has been for about a month.