Abu Hatem أبو حاتم

More on Obama’s Chances in the Fall

Writing by abuhatem on Sunday, 25 of May , 2008 at 10:07 pm

Another Republican congressman has decided against reelection according to the Washington Post, thus there are about roughly 27 republican incumbent congressmen stepping down. The democrats congressional chances are higher than ever.

As to the White House, if you put some states in play such as North Carolina and Virginia, then Obama’s chances are looking better than ever in the fall. However, NC and VA are real long-shots. That is not to say they are impossible. Bill Clinton picked up Georgia during his re-election run, a very traditionally republican state, as well as Louisianna twice and Tennessee once. Moreover, George W. Bush picked up very blue West Virginia two times.

If you give the following states as swing states, which are followed by the last time they voted democrat, then Obama has a real shot: Nevada (1996), New Mexico (2000), Iowa (2000), Colorado (1992), Ohio (1996), New Hampshire (2000). This does not include the possible Obama pickups in Virginia (1968), North Carolina (1976), or even possibly Georgia (1996), or a possible McCain pickup in Pennsylvania (1988).

If we include those swing states: Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, and New Hampshire then there are 9 possible ways for Obama to win and 9 possible ways for McCain to win. However in an overwhelmingly democratic year, with democratic house seats on fire and a recession and badly managed war, the tie tips in favor of Obama.

270towin.com gives the following possibilities at an Obama victory

1. OH + CO
2. OH + IA
3. OH + NV
4. OH + NM
5. OH + NH
6. CO + IA + NM + NV
7. CO + IA + NV + NH
8. CO + IA + NM + NH
9. CO + NM + NV + NH

Thus it is crucial that Obama win either Ohio or Colorado, and both are semi-difficult for him bearing in mind that Colorado has not gone blue for a while, and he has a hard time with blue collar workers in Ohio. If Obama loses both Colorado and Ohio however, all hope is not lost, because if he wins Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Iowa he can tie McCain for 169 and thus win because the election would go into the House of Representatives.

270towin, based on past elections and current polling (which is not the best this early on) gives the chance of an Obama victory using the aforementioned swing states (including Ohio and Colorado as swing states) to be 33%, with a 37% chance of tie, and a 24% chance of a McCain victory. A tie is an Obama victory, thus the map favors him overwhelmingly, with a 76% chance of an Obama victory not even counting Virginia and North Carolina.

Although this is based on extremely early polling, it is clear that this is a democratic year.

And before someone asks how I am a conservative rooting for the democrats, I will just reply that the democratic party is much more conservative than the republican party. War is the biggest of all big government programs. Although inverventionist statists such as Hillary Clinton are worse than McCain and Bush, the fact is that a Barack Obama presidency would be much stronger for individual and civil liberties, and relatively less foreign intervention, than a McCain one. Obama even beats McCain on the economic freedom front.

The smallest government in the past three decades actually was democrat Jimmy Carter (even with his creation of the Department of Education), who was also the most pro-peace non-interventionist president we have had in a long time (although Zbigniew Brzenski’s inciting the communists to invade Afghanistan and enter a quagmire was hardly pro-peace, but international politics is realpolitik), and pro-life.

Carter’s draconian tax rates were ridiculous, and thank God Reagan cut them, but Reagan was no conservative saint either. However the man passed away and I truly believe he was an honest man, so I will not speak ill of the dead.

Compare the government and economic and civil liberties under Clinton and Bush and you find that Clinton was far more conservative.

The democrats are also a horrible party, perhaps worse than the GOP, but the GOP has done absolutely nothing in the cause of conservatism either. The days of Ronald Reagan and Robert Taft are long gone. We always knew it’d be hard to find a non-interventionist pro-peace man in the White House from either party, but at the very least the GOP (or the democrats for that matter) could give us some of our economic freedoms back. The antipathy both parties have towards capitalism and tradition is amazing. Anti-capitalist corpratist interventionism is the model of the day.

UPDATE (05/27/08 2:09 AM): Karl Rove on Fox News has moved Colorado from toss-up to strongly leaning Obama, and thus Obama is leading for the first time in the polls for general election electoral college against McCain.  New Mexico also leans Obama, while New Hampshire polling is a toss-up.  Nevada is leaning to McCain.  This makes a scenario of Obama taking CO, NH, and NM and thus tying up the electoral college more likely.

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Category: American Politics

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