Chicago Tomorrow
“And
I swore I’d be in Chicago tomorrow, and made sure of that, taking a bus
to Chicago, spending most of my money, and didn’t give a damn, just as
long as I’d be in Chicago tomorrow.”
– Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” (thanks to 538.com)
It's enlightening to hear what Americans with the privilege of voting and electing the leader of your country have to say.
I've lived in the States a long time and opted to not renounce allegiance to Canada in order to have your privilege.
Just the same I've followed the past couple of elections and been active to one degree or another in an attempt to effect positive change.
I'm pretty appalled at some the comments I've heard Americans make today. I hope they were made out of simple ignorance and the individuals who made them opt to sit this one out.
Today's Polls, 11/3 (PM Edition)
more after jump
Far more important, of
course, is the race for 270 electors. It appears almost certain that
Obama will capture all of the states won by John Kerry in 2008.
Pennsylvania, while certainly having tightened somewhat over the course
of the past two weeks, appears to be holding at a margin of about +8
for Obama, with very few remaining undecideds. Obama also appears
almost certain to capture Iowa and New Mexico, which were won by Al
Gore in 2000. Collectively, these states total 264 electoral votes,
leaving Obama just 5 votes shy of a tie and 6 of a win.
Obama
has any number of states to collect those 5 or 6 votes. In inverse
order of difficulty, these include Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio,
Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. Obama is the signficant
favorite in several of these states; winning any one of them may be
fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as
John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible.
McCain's chances, in essence, boil down to the polling being significantly wrong, for such reasons as a Bradley Effect or "Shy Tory" Effect,
or extreme complacency among Democratic voters. Our model recognizes
that the actual margins of error in polling are much larger than the
purported ones, and that when polls are wrong, they are often wrong in
the same direction.
However, even if these phenomenon are
manifest to some extent, it is unlikely that they are worth a full 6-7
points for McCain. Moreover, there are at least as many reasons to
think that the polls are understating Obama's support, because of such
factors as the cellphone problem, his superior groundgame operation, and the substantial lead that he has built up among early voters.
McCain's chances of victory are estimated at 1.9 percent, their lowest total of the year. (thanks to 538.com)
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