The One and a Half Reasons I Believe John McCain Will Win Tomorrow
I was going to write a really long post today about the “Three People Who Would Win the White House for John McCain” but I decided not to. You’ve already been bombarded with plenty of stuff like that and you don’t need another blogger telling you why the whole Joe the Plumber incident has hurt Barack Obama far worse than he or the media reckon.
But there are a couple reasons – well, one reason and a half – that give me reason to believe that Barack Obama and his follower are not going to be happy on Wednesday morning.
Reason One is the youth vote We keep hearing how the young demographic, which Barack Obama rules in nearly every poll, is going to carry him on Election Day. What you don’t hear, though, is how dismally the youth vote fails to live up to the hype its given before Election Day. In 2004, which was supposed to be a watershed election for the youngest demographic, they turned out in exactly the same percentage of the population as they did in 2000. Indeed, in Florida and North Carolina early voting thus far, the youngest voters just aren’t showing up in greater numbers than they did in 2004. Even the incredibly pro-Obama posters at Democratic Underground are noticing the problem.
Which leads me to the half-reason. Remember Obama Girl? She was the first real internet sensation of the election season, the booty-shaking strumpet whose love for an engmatic Chicago politician launched her 15 minutes of fame and propelled him to the viral video heights. Obama Girl was supposed to be the wave of the future – emblematic of the hip youth who were internet savvy and would harness their technological know-how with their youthful enthusiasm to lead the charge for hope and change.
Except something happened to Obama Girl on the way to the polling place. She got distracted by a party elsewhere and didn’t make it to the voting booth. Yep, Barack Obama’s most visible supporter didn’t actually vote for Barack Obama. Indeed, there were plenty of Obama Girls in the battleground states during the primaries where we were told that this new phenomenon of charged-up, tech-savvy new young voters were going to push Obama well over the top in the key battleground states. They didn’t. Barack Obama lost Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, New York, California, and the caucus in Nevada. He managed to lose every single battleground state out there even though there were plenty of young, energetic voters hopping on the Hope and Change Wagon.
I read an anecdote last week, and I wish I could find it so I could link it for you, of a blogger who lives in the same apartment building as six frat boys who are all crazy about Barack Obama. They had shirts and stickers and everything. They were all set up for early voting. You can guess what happened next. Yep, not one of the six remembered to vote. You can bet that story is going to be repeated all over the country tomorrow. The Obama campaign has been running largely on emotional appeals and little else for the past two years and when the campaign slows down, so does its support. That’s because the emotional appeals that the youth vote requires to stay energized doesn’t last long. it’s quick energy, which is fine when you need a cheering crowd and some great quotes at a campaign rally but not so good when it comes to holding onto that enthusiasm for a couple weeks and turning it into concrete action.
Anyone who’s been to a revival meeting has seen the same dynamic in action. Folks get fired up over a captivating speaker giving a riveting message in close confines with fellow true believers. They leave fired up and, for a few days, they’re ready to charge the gates of Hell singing “Onward Christian Soldiers”. But check on them in a week or two. Chances are, you’ll be lucky to even find them coming to church regularly. That’s because they, like Obama Girl and the frat boys, were running on the sugary breakfast cereal of emotion instead of the steak and potatoes of thought and conviction.
So what does that mean for tomorrow? I think it means that we’re going to see some ticked-off Democrats at the end of the day who have been sold a bill of goods by a partisan MSM that have ignored the history of the last several elections. They, and Obama, are is counting on the youth vote to do what it has never done and they’ll be disappointed as Democrats were in 2000 and 2004. Come Wednesday morning, I believe we’re going to be calling John McCain our President-Elect and it won’t even be close enough for the usual suspects to scream “fraud”.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Joe Biden Smears John McCain over “race” and “terrorism”.
- Is John McCain Putting Country in Front of Campaign Again?
- Yes, Mr. Smith. Oregon is Blue.
Category: Featured, Johnny Mac, The Obamessiah
There's a fine line between optimism and delusion. I think you've taken a few steps over that line. We'll see tomorrow. I would agree that young voters will vote at lower rates than hoped for, but Obama doesn't really need those votes to win. He's already ahead in most demographic categories. He's hurting among the older white voters, so he probably will lose Florida. Pennsylvania will be tighter than 9% margin Obama has now, but Obama will still win it. McCain might win Ohio on a poor youth turnout, but that's still not enough without Pennsylvania.
Overall, what will really count is the ground game. Here in Colorado, McCain's ground game is pretty much nonexistent. He doesn't even have a Boulder office (Obama has three near Colorado Springs). And his offices elsewhere only work six hours a day, five days a week. And 'working' is being mighty generous. The offices consist of two or three people not making phone calls. The Obama campaign has come to my house six times already and I've received more than a dozen phone calls. And that's not counting today. I'm getting a call every hour now from the Obama campaign today. And that pace will surely pick up. The Obama campaign has so far spent more effort at making sure I vote than all of the previous political campaigns from my entire life. With that kind of ground game and enthusiasm, both Gore and Kerry would have won.
You may be right, but the trends are runnin away from Obama right now. All the races are tightening. Will they tighten enough? Well, the performance of pre-election polls in 2000 and 2004 suggest that they're already tighter than we've been told.
Trends. McCain will win. Interesting info: http://tinyurl.com/5qwe8e
The previous link gave an error. Here is the straight link:
http://www.marstonchronicles.info/index.php?optio…
"You may be right, but the trends are runnin away from Obama right now."
The polls always tighten a little before the election. Always. This is nothing unusual. And turnout for the favored candidate always drops a little. We're seeing that. But I've never seen a candidate make up 7 points in the last week. That's what McCain needs. If McCain had the kind of slick ground game that Bush had, I'd give him a chance if Obama had the usual Democratic ground game. But McCain's ground game is anemic at best, and Obama's is the best ever in US politics. I'm just not seeing a McCain win. And let's put this in perspective, I never thought Gore or Kerry could possibly win. And they both came close. I was highly skeptical of the Clinton wins (but still went that way), and he won by solid margins. In short, I've predicted the winner in every presidential election in my lifetime, starting with Nixon in 1972. And I'll keep my perfect record. I'm not even remotely worried.
As this article notes, John Kerry was up by ten in the biggest swing states just 16 days before the election in 2004.
And that didn't work out so well for him.
I'm just saying that the polls have been really wrong before. It's not out of the question to suggest that they're really wrong again.
Any individual poll can certainly be very wrong, as that article demonstrates. But the poll aggregates never showed such a lead for Kerry. What we see now is more than 500 polls over the past two weeks showing an Obama lead and zero showing a McCain lead. In the 2004 aggregates, Kerry never had a lead after two months before the election. He got within three points in the last two weeks, but never went above that. Aggregate polling has shown to be quite accurate, as the 2004 results show. And it doesn't bode well for McCain.
That said, good luck. May the best candidates win.
Still feeling optimistic Jimmie? I voted a little while ago. Walked right in, took all of 10 minutes. It was heavier this morning though.
It's over. Eat it, mofo!
Spoots, take your crap elsewhere.
Why spoots, you shock me! I would never have expected such a lack of class from you.
*snicker*
Fuck you, scumbag.
Yes, indeed, the graciousness of a sterling intellect. Well done, spoots.