I think that Obama is not at the flip-flopping stage like Kerry but he is moving towards the center.
Anyone who thinks Obama can win Texas… come on. I’m kind of waiting to see if either caves on the no drilling for oil offshore or in ANWR.
If the price of oil goes much higher there will be serious ass kissing from both of them to reconsider their opposition despite the environmentalist.
Well, I doubt the people changed, but I can’t say if the parties changed all that much. Looking at US politics and political parties from abroad, outside the hoopla, I don’t see that they’ve really changed much at all if any. I remember the first Republican governor since Reconstruction, Bill Clements in 1978, but Texas was still largely a Democrat state and voting Democrat in most presidential elections (I remember it went for Nixon, though). I left Texas before it became well and truly regarded as a “red state,” I guess is what they’re calling it now.
Obama will suffer a statistically significant Black Guy disadvantage. You wait and see; the pre-election polls will prove to be 3-4 points higher than the actual results.
People who will not admit racism in a poll will happily exercise it in the voting booth.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Some think that indeed Texas can tun blue./QUOTE]
Some think Wichita is the capital of Kansas. They don’t know what they’re talking about.
Obama will probably win, but he’ll have to do it without Texas.
IF he spends a lot of time or money trying to win here, that will be an indication that either
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His campaign managers are freaking idiots, or
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He’s so comfortably ahead that he thinks it would be fun to go for an utter landslide.
gravitycrash and astorian, would either of you care to offer some analysis rather than pronouncements of revealed truth? astorian, if you read the quoted section of the cite, let alone the cite itself, you’d appreciate the fact that even the authors of that article agree that “there is no realistic prospect that, barring a national landslide, Obama can carry Texas” … but laying the groundwork to turn Texas blue over the next decade is another story. As has been pointed out, Texas was once even more of a Democratic stronghold as it has been a GOP one in recent years.
I am alone apparently in my absolute stupidity: I believe that it is not an impossible longshot although longshot it may be. Yet the modest investment that will be made as part a long term view on building upon areas of strength in the state have an outside chance of a surprisingly big pay-off. Ten to one against? Maybe. Maybe a bit less … tell you what. I’ll take a bet - proceeds to go to charity of the winner’s choice if you’d prefer - give me seven to one odds on a ten dollar bet for an Obama victory in Texas. Smart select media buys and feet on the ground can sneak a win there while no one is watching. The formula: a big Hispanic turn-out, a big Black turn-out, a big youth turn-out, a big urban turn-out, a big Dem turn-out in general, while Texas BushCo Republicans fail to rally for McCain enthusiastically and a lack of McCain ground forces also conspires to produce a lower than average GOP turn-out. Or if you are so sure then make me an offer of odds that show how sure you are.
The McBomb “turnout” is the wild card. As I mentioned upstream, Texas is the home of the most extreme subcults of the Forces of Darkness (outside of a few deranged enclaves in the Northwest). Texas is their citadel. Here you will find the Republicans for whom McCain isn’t conservative enough, Bush isn’t conservative enough, Otto von Bismarck just barely makes the cut. And they are not happy* kampfers*.
They will need to be motivated, Obams is coming for their guns, Obama will force Eagle Scouts into gay Muslim marriages, something. Which motivation, I have little doubt, will be supplied. Funny thing is, I don’t honestly think race is it anymore, these guys would surely vote for Alan Keyes over Al Gore any day and twice on Sunday.
Change is coming to Texas, the thunder may be distant, but the thunder is real.
It took Democrats years to lose the South - it’ll take awhile to get even a decent-sized chunk of it back.
I don’t think McCain will win by a big margin in Texas, but by enough.
Yep, all we need is for the “boomers” to die off, which will usher in a bold new era of racial harmony, love and understanding, free of the stigmas of the past, glory hallelujah. :rolleyes:
They’re not that obvious, always, sometimes they “fly under the radar”. Stealth boomers.
I think there’s a third possibility: Obama spends money in Texas, just to force McCain to spend money in Texas.
I don’t think Obama can win Texas. But, he might be able to get the polls close enough to make McCain nervous, and make McCain feel like he has to actually campaign here. So, Obama might be in a position where he thinks that, if he spends $5 million here, he can make McCain spend $5 million here. If Obama has a money advantage, he might figure that’s a net win for him.
Interesting option there, for a game of “chicken”. Obama spends money, McCain doesn’t, figuring he doesn’t have to. Obama’s numbers go up, and he spends more money (Hell, I’ll send him another $5, $10 if he promises to spend it in Waco…)
McCain sticks to his guns, and squeeks by
McCain sticks to his guns, and Obama squeeks by.
McCain panics, starts spending money hand over fist.
Most likely: Texas tighty righty moneybags start to spend money like water, federal finance laws are publicly buggered, and they get away with it.
Forget it, Jake. Its Texas.
:dubious:
The people didn’t change, the parties didn’t change … It’s all random?
Of course the parties changed. In the south, they completely changed places on social issues.
He’s doing the same in Georgia. Obama has held rallies here the past couple of days, forcing Republicans to counter with (half-assed) rallies of their own. With Barr in the mix, and with anticipated high turnout by Democrats, Georgia could be close. (The polls are divergent on whether Barr will get a significant percentage of the vote.) At least it could be close enough to make the Republicans work for it. And more to the point, spend money here.
The other thing about challenging McCain in the South is that it could force him to choose Huckabee as his VP to try to shore up his support there. And Huckabee, while he might shore up the South, could cause McCain problems with fence-sitting voters in other states.
Along with that portion of the population not currently under medication.
I agree very much with your last sentence but don’t agree that this effect affects the polling. Closet racists won’t lie about their candidate of choice but would lie about their reasons. They’d just say that they are voting for McCain because they prefer his policies rather than saying they they are voting for McCain because they don’t want a black guy in the White House.
If I remember correctly, in a previous thread you were proven wrong. Black candidates have historically polled higher than election results showed. For some reason I think it was Brainglutton that supplied the link, but I might be wrong.
I must have missed that. I did a search and found that I made that same claim back in March but no one refuted it. I’ll try a different search in 465 more seconds.
I predict the exact opposite will happen in Southern states (including Texas). Obama will perform better than pre-election polls predict. That’s what happened in the Democratic primaries in the South. The reason: much higher black voter turnout than expected. Pollsters just haven’t figured out how to account for that yet.
Democrats… You mean Dixiecrats. There were a lot of them in the past.
Not exactly. There were liberal Southern Democrats, and there were conservative Southern Democrats, and ideological battles between the two factions were fought in the primaries instead of the general election.
And “conservative” is really a misnomer anyway. The “conservative Democrats” were conservative on racial issues, but there was a thread of economic populism that was common to most Southern Democrats. Even George Wallace had a populist streak.