The Landslide, Part II

So, what would a new blog be without a electoral vote prediction. I have chosen to be optimistic; probably foolishly so, and over the next 12 hours we shall see. But, after 8 years of Bush and 2 years following this bitch of an election process, I got a right.

I predict Obama 375 to McCain 163. Yes, that's right I'm predicting an official landslide. To make this prediction I relied mostly on Slate.com and fivethirtyeight.com and their excellent prognosticative abilities. I gave Obama everything Strong Democrat and Leaning Democrat, the same for McCain (though, can McCain lose his home state? Nah, but it’s nice to think about. Com’on, Phoenix!)

So, that leaves the Toss Up states. I gave everything to Obama, with the exceptions of Montana, North Dakota and Georgia. I just can’t picture those going Democrat; I think they are just teasing me. The others, with higher urban populations I think are going Obama.

Why? Well, I don’t really believe in the Bradley Effect despite all the efforts from the (rightly) paranoid Left and the hopeful Right to turn it into this year’s boogie man. I’ve seen little efforts of the racists to hide their racism this cycle, so I doubt there’s much lying to pollsters going on. However, I think there are two other effects I do believe in at work.

First, I think the Cell Phone Only portion of the population has been under-polled and is going to swing OH and FL for sure, and probably VA and IN, to Obama. Haven’t seen too much reporting on this, probably because it could be good for the dems (again, left paranoid; and why would the right bring it up?), but what I have read suggests anywhere from a two to four percent swing in certain states. In a swing state that's huge.

Second, I think there is a bit of a bandwagon effect going on everywhere that will help people get over the trepidation of casting their vote for the tan man with the funny name.

Besides, FL & OH have screwed us all twice now, and if they mess this up, well...

So yep. Optimism. First time ever. Feels weird.

Anyway…