The chances of Obama receiving the Democratic nomination look better and better with each passing primary. For sure it will be McCain on the Republican side. Which one would win the Big Contest in November, and why?
I’d be pretty surprised if McCain won, even though I’ll be voting for him. I’m not in the least convinced that Obama is the better candidate, but I just think a huge amount of people are far more interested in change than anything else. I don’t know exactly what they think is gonna change, but I think they perceive that Obama is the candidate to make it happen.
It’s a long road until November, but at least right now, survey says…
McCain is a pretty big change, too, if we’re comparing him to George W. I think people are voting for Obama because he inspires them, not because of what you’re implying - that they’re just a bunch of sheep buying into a campaign slogan.
To the OP, I think people are underestimating the Republicans’ ability to influence public opinion. They’re way, way better at it historically than Democrats are. Opinion polls can be in the gutter for a Republican candidate, election day comes, that candidate wins, and the next day everyone wonders just what they were thinking as the approval ratings tank again. It’s like hypnotism.
I would certainly not be surprised if McCain beat Obama. Opinion polls mean nothing against Republicans.
I expect Obama to win, but the Democrats have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
A lot might depend on whom Obama and McCain tap for running mates.
I really don’t expect the “Obama is a Muslim” canards to have any traction with swing voters.
Maybe that’s what I’m seeing. Maybe it’s not Republican devious plotting that I’m seeing on election day, but rather mostly Democrat incompetence.
Never attribute to malice what could be explained by brain damage and all that.
@Mosier, the impression I’ve gotten is that the GOP traditionally has had a better ground game, at least the last few elections. In blow-outs like Clinton v. Dole it wasn’t a big factor but in close races like the last two Presidential elections I was enough to swing the vote against the Dems.
I just remember going into election week both in 2000 and 2004 many polls were giving the Democratic candidate the lead. Does anyone remember that electoral-vote prediction website? It was giving Kerry a clear lead in the EC right at election day.
Is it possible that perhaps Democratic voters are more likely to be involved in the “random sample” of people who get polled? I don’t know (I kind of doubt it–although I do know opinion polling has to factor in that some people who vote don’t have telephones.)
Personally, with the Dems looking very popular now (look at election 2006) this is an election that most people are going to be calling for the Democrats from day one. While I always maintain the line that “it’s impossible to predict a Presidential election this far out” I do feel Obama versus McCain, right now, would be an Obama victory.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Full disclosure: I’m an Obama man and have always voted Democratic despite never joining the party. BUT … I have nothing against Republicans. In fact, some of the finest people I’ve known have been Republicans. I’m definitely not a Republican basher. I just like the Democrats’ policies better in general.
But that’s neither here nor there. I’m interested in who people think would win between the two and why.
Here is the map of the 2004 election. Obama’s got to flip enough Red states to win.
Here is 2006. Ohio was very blue in 2006. If Obama can hold all the Kerry states and flip Ohio, Obama wins.
Realistically, there are only a few states in play. Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
With the economy and the Iraq failures continuing, I see Ohio leaning blue. Very hard for McCain to make that up in other places.
Iraq failures continuing? That’s not a very reality-based view of what’s actually happening in Iraq.
Also, I think more states are going to be in play than you think.
Add Virginia and Michigan to that. Virginia is becoming more of a battleground state every year, it isn’t a guaranteed GOP state anymore (it’s always been a state where the Dems frequently win state-level elections, but it has usually gone the way of the GOP in Presidential elections.)
Yes it is, so long as you don’t re-define success to mean “only slightly less horrific death than last quarter”.
Obama by a blow-out.
And Colorado. Colorado is all but a guaranteed flip if Obama wins the nomination.
This is the fundamental problem with how liberals look at the war. The success of a war has virtually nothing to do with the “amount of horrific death.” Death is one of the defining characteristics of warfare, without it, war isn’t war. One of the primary things that soldiers do during war is die. Typically a lot of civilians die, too.
No, you have to look at the strategic big picture to fully appreciate how a war is going. More American soldiers died in 1944 than they did in 1942, but 1944 was by far a better year, strategically, than 1942 was.
In Iraq, most of the groups which have been fighting against stability are far weaker now than they used to be. AQ in Iraq is far weaker than it used to be. Iraq has even started to hit important political benchmarks, one of the key necessities for long-term stability in Iraq.
I know Democrats want Iraq to fail, to be quite honest, considering their rhetoric over the past five years, they need it to fail. But even the media, which has long been definitively against the war, have stopped talking about it precisely because it has been going so well ever since the surge.
I believe the huge black turnout (and the huge youth turnout) Obama generates could potentially put some Southern states in play. I’m thinking particularly of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. It may sound crazy, but maybe even Mississippi, given the size of the black population there (37%), and the fact that McCain doesn’t exactly light fires under Southern conservatives.
Part of me hopes the primary campaign between Hillary and Obama continues to be fought through the Mississippi primary, since that would encourage a lot of voter registration there.
Irony in the extreme, Martin. It is Bush who has re-defined the war to be measured in American casualties, not the Democrats. We’re the ones arguing all along that success should be measured in factors like political reconciliation. If you believe that too, then you’re on the wrong side man.
:eek: Why is her party still letting her run? :smack:
That’s never been the case. I’m sorry, but this is still great debates. Show me where Bush has said “we are going to define success and failure in Iraq based on our casualty figures.” Just because he may mention that they have improved in X period doesn’t mean he is “redefining” the success metrics for the war.
Primarily, when Democrats rail against the war the first thing they mention is how many of “our boys” (who they don’t care about anymore than Bush does) are dying and then secondly they talk about the political instability. Don’t pretend the Dems haven’t been waving the body-bag count for five years now.
It’s long been my understanding that the key to winning Louisiana is being pro-life, at least that’s how it has been explained to me by people who are from there.