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From what I have read, Barack Obama is absolutely positively going to win California, New York, and Illinois. These three states comprise 22.5 % of all voters. Assuming a current lead for Barack Obama of 8 percentage points, the bigger the current polling margin of victory for Barack Obama in California, New York, and Illinois, the better for John McCain in the remaining 47 states!
Yes, up is down, and down is up.
Lets say that Barack Obama has an overall 8 percentage point lead in national polling of all the states. Lets also say that Barack Obama is leading in California, New York and Illinois by 20%. That means that in the remaining 47 states Barack Obama is only leading by 2.5% of the vote.
But what If the lead in California, New York, and Illinois is even bigger but Barack Obama's overall lead is still 8 percentage points? What if the lead in these three states is actually 33%, then in the remaining 47 states, the two candidates are basically tied in the popular vote!
While it is possible that Barack Obama could win in a landslide, it is also possible that John McCain could win several key states by a very small amount each, and in the process actually win the nomination even while losing the popular vote by several million votes.
What MSNBC is desperately trying to do is demoralize the John McCain base so they don't even bother showing up to vote.
The race is close enough for John McCain to still win, it's just the liberal media trying to get you to give up and not vote that might make Barack Obama a landslide winner instead of a very, very close, loser who wins the popular vote by a few million while losing the electoral college vote to John McCain.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
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25 comments:
Great analysis. I was wondering about that, too. I noticed that this is a very polarizing election, and John McCain has huge numbers in some of the smaller states. His margins are HUGE. Same deal with Obama in his states. And since the electoral college favors smaller states, it's actually to the advantage of McCain.
Electoral college used to bug the heck out of me, but now I'm grateful for it.
I'm a registered Republican, and though I agree this is theoretically possible, you haven’t proven anything. I had hoped when I read the thread title on that hypocritical, zealots-only club "Hillaryclintonforum.net" that you'd have facts to back up the assertion, not just supposition. Under your theory, Obama may be leading by a margin of 50% in California (if we're going to muse absurdly, let's really do it), New York and Illinois ... under that scenario, it'll be a LANDSLIDE electoral college victory for McCain.
It isn't happening. McCain was a flawed candidate from the get-go for our side. Romney was the one we should have nominated. Wouldn't he look reassuring right now in the midst of a recession and a credit crisis?
In addition to not making a more factual argument, you are losing credibility by following the sheep at Hillaryclintonforum.net down the rabbit hole as they blindly affix to McCain in a clearly Machiavellian effort to push an agenda. I find it the height of hilarity that they stubbornly insist McCain is going to win. Of course, the thought police there won't allow a dissenting opinion, so I suppose that's why.
You should consider the notion that not everything is a conspiracy. It may just be that your candidates (Hillary Clinton initially, John McCain now) ran poor campaigns and were ultimately deeply flawed candidates.
Romney would be the one measuring for drapes right now if reason and rationality prevailed in the electoral process.
I'm dealing in numbers. If Barack Obama is leading in the overall popular vote by 8 points, then the larger the portion of votes in California, Illinois and New York that Barack has, the LESS votes he has elsewhere.
That is something that MSNBC does not seem to want to admit. Barack Obama can have a 100 electoral college lead, but if Ohio shifts to McCain, that lead has almost shrunk in half.
Hillary Clinton lost because Barack Obama cheated in the caucus contests. Hillary Clinton actually won the delegate count in all of the primaries, even when Florida and Michigan are not counted.
Your buddy won because he as people behind him with billions to spend. The gall of the Barack Obama team to accept any donation without properly documenting where it came from is the height of arrognance, not change.
"But what If the lead in California, New York, and Illinois is even bigger but his overall lead is still 8 percentage points? What if the lead in these three states is actually 33%, then in the remaining 47 states, the two candidates are basically tied in the popular vote!"
Why do you insist on speculating when there are actual state polls that will answer your question? The current averages of the state polls at RealClearPolitics show that Obama is up by 23 points in IL, 21 points in CA, and 25 in NY. So your assumption that Obama may be leading in those states by 33% is not borne out by actual poll results.
I specifically gave two examples for analysis. One was for a 20% spread, the other was for a 33% spread.
Apparently the average spread is around 23% which is within the two parameters I have set up. So outside of these three big states, Barack Obama has about a 2% lead.
I did a bit more research and saw that John McCain does lead several states by wide margins as well, that can actually hurt him as that will to some degree neutralize the large leads Barack Obama has in California, Illinois and New York.
I find it odd that Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin in Illinois (aka 67%-33%) but only has a 23% lead against John McCain.
I understand your "numbers" theory, but it's a flawed one. The state polls segregate ALL the states, and to date, there's a hell of a lot more blue electoral votes than red ones. It doesn't matter that the metrics of your argument have statistical validity. It's basic statistics 101 that if the margin is +16 in California and +8 nationally, the overall margin in the other 49 states must be less than +8.
http://www.pollster.com/
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
State by state tallies show the electoral college portending a landslide.
With respect to the "cheating" comment, you'd know more about that than I. Again, I'm a Republican. It didn't matter to me who won between those two. Having said that, I hope you can support your claim better than you're supporting your argument that McCain can win the electoral college. From everything I read, your buddy Hillary underestimated the caucus states, did little to shift resources and ultimately lost the primary because of that failed strategy. The vanquished generally claim they were "cheated" out of victory.
Lastly, Obama isn't my candidate, Romney was. However, I don't use specious reasoning to support McCain, unlike the PUMAs.
"I find it odd that Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin in Illinois (aka 67%-33%) but only has a 23% lead against John McCain."
It's two different subsets of voters. The primaries cannot be compared to the general election.
So now you're agreeing with my original theme but still trying to ridicule it anyways??? A national poll is a national poll. If a national poll shows Barack Obama winning by 8 points, and I know that Barack has three big states that make up 22.5% of the total population favoring him by a wide margin, then I also know the race is much closer in the remaining 47 states.
I think you are now agreeing with that premise. It is a premise that won't be revealed on MSNBC because it thwarts their plan to create additional momentum for Barack Obama that is not actually there.
The shifting resources argument is a spin. The Primaries represent the way people will vote in the fall, the caucuses didn't represent any type of voting that will happen in the fall.
If McCain would have reached out to the Hillary Clinton voters in a more effective fashion he would be winning right now.
You're mixing apples and oranges. It's all about the electoral college, and as every map shows (even Karl Rove's), Obama is poised to win. It doesn't matter that the textbook argument of statistics and weighted averages has some validity, for two reasons: one, the state-by-state polls predict a landslide, not a "much closer" race, and two, you've already pointed out the other fallacy: there are plenty of red states with large margins the other direction that offset the large Democrat margins in those three states.
So no, I don't agree with you, other than in the most theoretical of senses, if we had no knowledge of state-by-state tallies. In actuality, it flies in the face of real poll results in all 50 states.
As I said, I don't care about the Democratic primaries, but I'm sure the argument of "spin" goes both ways. Regardless, Hillary Clinton should have taken them more seriously. Not doing so cost her the nomination.
I do agree with your final comment about McCain. Almost everything he's done in this election has been handled clumsily, including reaching out to disaffected Hillary Clinton voters.
I'm not mixing apples and oranges, MSNBC is everytime they use a national poll to try and prove that John McCain has no chance of winning. Even though McCain has some lopsided leads as well, there are still enough swing states in play for McCain to win.
However, MSNBC is USING the NATIONAL POLLS to try and prove electoral college superiority, and that is mixing apples and oranges.
Alessandro, you're an idiot. You show absolutely zero capacity to understand an argument and respond to it in a logically consistent manner. No matter how many times people tell you you're wrong, you just keep saying the same things over and over again.
Let me just say it clearly: everyone who is arguing with you understands your argument. They also understand that your argument is wrong. You are making an argument based on incorrect mathematical assumptions.
First, I've stated this at least twice before in my posts on your previous thread: National polls are loosely considered a pretty good ballpark estimate of how the electoral college will shake out. There is mathematical support for why this works as a rule of thumb. In this case, it appears likely that the spread in the EC will be far greater than Obama's spread in the polls. At any rate, overestimating McCain's chances requires a gigantic leap of logic, something you seem perfectly comfortable making.
To use some numbers, Obama is polling nationally with an 8 point lead. Now we all know that it is mathematically possible to win the popular vote, and lose the electoral vote, something you are predicting for McCain. This has happened twice in history, first in 1888, and next in 2000. The 2000 election is obviously the instructive one for our purposes. In 2000, In the final stretch before election day, Gore was polling approximately even with Bush; typically within the margin of error, at any rate. Gore ended up winning the popular vote by less than 0.5%, though of course, he lost the electoral vote. Given the mathematics of the situation, it just doesn't matter where Obama's big leads are and where McCain's big leads are. An 8 point popular spread, even if it tightens up a little bit, is far too wide of a margin to overcome in the electoral college.
Second, there is no mystery to state-by-state polling. The national polls do not exist in a vacuum, nor do the predictions of an Obama win. The vast bulk of polling, both national and in individual states, indicates that Obama is sitting in a rather comfortable position. The reason for this is *not* strictly because Obama leads in the national polls. An electoral victory for Obama is looking highly likely based on the consistent results of state-by-state polling.
What this means is that in addition to your argument being wrong, it is also completely irrelevant. Even though national polling *does* indicate an extremely likely win for Obama, we do not need to rely on it at all to parse out how the EC is likely to shake out, because state-by-state polling is instructive to these ends. With state-by-state polling, we see a very likely Obama victory, and by what is likely to be a very sizeable margin.
You're very quick to call others idiots, not a useful trait actually although you seem to use it as a crutch.
I noticed the Obama overvote phenomenon early on this year, the one where he piles it on in certain areas that defy logic, and then loses close races when the voting is done more legitimately.
He did this over and over with Hillary Clinton. Winning by wide wide margins in caucus states (that also defied the polls), then not being able to close the deal in any of the swing states when people had all day to vote in the privacy of a voting booth, also called a primary. In the primary scenario, Hillary Clinton won more delegates than Barack Obama did, even when Florida and Michigan are not counted.
I'm not saying it is going happen again. However, winning by 25% in California is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to how other states will do, yet such a large margin of preference will skew national polling numbers.
Now lets keep on point here. MSNBC loves to trot out national polling numbers and beat John McCain over the head with them. I've have yet to hear that McCain holds a large lead over Barack Obama anywhere from MSNBC. I have yet to hear that McCain is doing well in any state, from MSNBC.
John McCain actually does have some large leads, but MSNBC constantly mentions that Barack Obama has a large lead in the polls and then they go on with how McCain is losing in some of the key states. They never seem to mention anything about McCain winning anywhere, whereas Fox news has been much more balanced than MSNBC.
There is no idiocy in this point, only in calling it idiotic. Anymore idiot attacks from you will be deleted, because I'm not into being called an idiot, from an idiot.
One more note to anyone else reading these comments. I really haven't written anything controversial. I would consider it more insightful than cotroversial, yet in typical Obamabot fashion, the mere idea that Barack Obama could win the popular vote but lose the electoral college vote sends them into hate, name calling mode.
Our future elections are in peril because of what George Soros has orchestrated this year.
chris: You can't reason with an unreasonable person, so don't bother trying. Save your energy for people that are actually interested in exchanging opinions.
ps: don't call people idiots.
I agree with Alessandro in that calling someone an "idiot" for their opinion shouldn't be tolerated.
I appreciate the discourse. I just think you are pushing a faulty analysis and making suppositions based on very little grounding. You are also likely slanted by your own bias (you mention the "Obamabot" bias) toward Hillary, against Obama and thus, by substitution, toward McCain. What I've found fascinating about the Hillaryclintonforum.net posters is that they do the same thing they claim "Obamabots" do, to a tee. However, somehow it's justified because they feel screwed over.
The reality is this, with respect to Hillary Clinton: she didn't have the "game" to go all the way, this cycle. Call it underestimating her opponent, arrogance at the perceived inevitability of her candidacy, tactical blunders or (as you say) a conspiracy orchestrated by the DNC, but whatever the reason, it wasn't going to happen.
What I have never understood is the PUMA's willingness to toss their entire belief system down the drain (abortion, the war in Iraq, etc.) in what obviously (based upon the polls) is a misguided effort to "punish" the Democratic party. It isn't going to work - McCain just isn't electable in these times, particularly with Palin on the ticket. Meanwhile, the PUMA's remind me of a microcosm of the current state of the Republican party: divided, leaderless, unsure of their next move or how to push a perceived tide back, armed with nothing more than a push broom.
Hillary is even a microcosm of John McCain: a leader for yesterday's world, not necessarily today's. She's not nearly as flawed as McCain, but one can make the argument that the world as it currently stands is more within Obama's wheelhouse than hers. I realize that's opening up the potential for a much larger argument and given that I'm a Romney fan I'd rather argue his merits, but the "Clinton love" of the 1990's is now long gone. The world has changed.
Sometimes it takes new people to adapt to the changing environment.
Quote "What I've found fascinating about the Hillaryclintonforum.net posters is that they do the same thing they claim "Obamabots" do, to a tee. However, somehow it's justified because they feel screwed over. "
That's exactly the point, the Obama crowd has this sense of unearned entitlement, whereas the Hillary Clinton crowd saw a candidate in her prime, wronged. The HRC crowd has a much more compelling case to present.
As for implying that Hillary Clinton or John McCain are old school and Barack Obama is new school, the school is out on which way is better.
I tend to see the stock market crash as being caused by new school methodologies rather than old school ones.
What always interested me was the ridiculous notion that HCF members seem to think the path to 2012 starts with McCain? If elected the same person they are rooting for now would be bad mouthing HRC if she decided to run again in 2012. I have to agree with the above poster about punishing the Democrats because they feel there were cheated out of this election.
This is isn't about Obama, it's about George Soros. If Soros succeeds in installing Obama this year, then 2012 will be the year of billionaire influence peddling before the people have voted.
Alessandro, it sounds like a thousand excuses: the media hated Hillary, Obama cheated in the caucuses, the DNC was/is against Hillary, Soros bought Obama's candidacy, ad infinitum. When do the excuses end and the realization that Hillary screwed up her own candidacy begin?
When they write about this race, that's what will undoubtedly be concluded by unbiased pundits. As long as you display the exact same lemmings-into-the-sea mentality that the HCF members embrace with respect to being anti-Obama, anti-DNC and thus pro-McCain (ignoring the fact that his stance on the issues is nearly the exact opposite as most of their personal viewpoints), you're going to have difficulty being taken seriously.
Don't get me wrong, I think you're making a serious effort at discussion and you have been very good about fielding opposing viewpoints. I think you are just unwilling to consider the possibility that it's not one huge conspiracy.
Hey, one serious question - any idea why the HCF membership will NOT tolerate a single post that isn't pro-Hillary/anti-DNC/pro-McCain? Aren't message boards for free expression and communication of thoughts and ideas, as long as it is done politely and respectfully?
Hillary Clinton Forum.net is a safe haven from Huffington Post, MYDD, Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and the myriad of Obamabot run forums that ban anyone who opposes Barack Obama.
But then again, there was no conspiracy by George Soros against Hillary Clinton, yeah right. I even give links on the side of this blog. Huffington had it out for Clinton two years and is hooked up with Soros.
Soros bought MoveON.org in 2004, an organization specfically founded as a way to protect future democrats from the witchhunting Bill Clinton went through. Soros then used this Bill Clinton inspired group, MoveON.org, to derail Hillary Clinton's candidacy. That action alone is the work of a billionaire sociopath at work, and all of you who follow that type of behavior and think it is acceptable, have indeed swallowed the Obama kool aid.
I'll pass.
Infiltrating HCF is really easy (not any more because registration has been closed since early sep.) However I was lucky to get in a while back, and trust me it's pretty entertaining, and considering I'm a Presidential Member = >1000 Posts, very easy too. Just talk down to "obots" alot! :)
Assuming the elections go the way the polls predict, I'm going to find HCF highly entertaining on Nov. 5th.
"Infiltrating HCF is really easy (not any more because registration has been closed since early sep.) However I was lucky to get in a while back, and trust me it's pretty entertaining, and considering I'm a Presidential Member = >1000 Posts, very easy too. Just talk down to "obots" alot! :)"
Indeed. I did that for a while, but they sniffed me out since I couldn't contain myself and didn't say something glowingly positive about McCain. I thought (erroneously) that they wouldn't necessarily care as long as I was pro-Hillary and anti-Obama (allegedly), but I was wrong. If you don't support McCain - ban city.
"Assuming the elections go the way the polls predict, I'm going to find HCF highly entertaining on Nov. 5th."
As will I. It'll be very entertaining, indeed.
Sounds like you two will be entertained no matter what happens.
Sunday night, Pat Buchanan was on with Chuck Todd and brought up the possibility that if John McCain can "thread the needle" in many of these toss up states, he could actually win the electoral count, and lose the popular vote by millions.
So do any of you want to explain why you are trying to bust my chops because I wrote the same thing, just one week earlier?
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