Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Fear


I have spoken with so many Obama supporters that are afraid of something. Some fear the mythical Bradley effect, some a sudden slip in the polls, some assassination. I even had a student say to me "What if Obama wins and he is not good? What happens then?"

Democrats, and unaffiliated progressives have been bullied for years by Republicans. I have been saying to anyone that will listen that one of the primary weakness of the progressive movement in this country is that liberals don't take the time, for a variety of reasons, to learn how their political enemies think. In many cases they don't think of them as enemies either. These have been two fatal mistakes. (I should point out that Bill Clinton, the last Democrat to win AND take office, did not make this mistake too often, and when he did, he paid dearly for it.)

However, these are not mistakes the Obama campaign, which has been nearly flawless, has made thus far this cycle. Not to mention he raised 150,000,000 USD last month. He could and should probably just buy Fox News for the next two weeks with that kind of cash.

Baring anything unforeseen, Obama will win. The mythical Bradley effect only accounts for undecided voters (and McCain will probably get most of those racist bastards), and Obama does not need, according to the math, a single one of those at this point. He could lose all the remaining undecided states and still win by 16 Electoral votes. Yes, he could lose Florida, Ohio, Indiana (which he will) Missouri (where 100,000 people came to see him speakyesterday), Nevada, and N. Carolina at this point and still win. Please note, he is ahead in all of those states (Indiana aside) and could very plausibly walk away with 364 Electoral votes. Remember, all he needs is 269 to win, because a tie goes the House and Obama is POTUS 44.

Obama is going for the throat right now and hopefully, something big aside, he is going to go for the conservative movement's soul by Nov. 4.

This is about political capital at this point--and the more he wins by--the more of it he will have.


Fear not! At this point, and baring anything unforeseen, the worst case scenario on Nov. 4 is a slim Obama victory of 286-252 (someone check my math- I went to an American public school).

- On a separate note, please visit our friends over at Zombo.com during the next 2 weeks if you get tense. Once you do you will understand why.

- Ticketmaster is evil. More on that after the election.

1 comment:

SagaciousHillbilly said...

Gotta admit Sal, all those fears run through my mind now and then. . . even when I'm trying to calm my friends and family and telling that it's ok, we've got this thing licked as long as we stay on track.