Also that youth may not get out to vote if they think Obama has it in the bag.

Another unknown: his televised thingamabob on Wednesday. That could work for him, or it could work dramatically against him. On MSNBC this morning, some people were saying they were put off by the very fact that Obama took over TV one night; never mind the content. Seems like many other people could have that same reaction. And again, if the content is bad, well yeeesh...lotsa people will have seen it.

I'm sorry, but neither you nor Mr. Judis can convince me here.  I'm holding out until I hear from Nate Silver.

Only a damn fool would be celbrating an Obama victory at this point.  It's good that he's ahead, but a week is a long time in a campaign.  Just ask Jimmy Carter.

I think everyone voting for the McCain/Palin ticket should be ashamed to admit it.  Because of this, I suspect that at least some of these people have the good sense to cover up their irrational behavior by either hanging up on pollsters or saying "undecided"/"Obama."  I'm hoping that number is less than 4% and that many unlikely voters defy expectations.

This makes me think of Billary - they would never for one second let an opponent screech about terrorists and socialism for weeks on end without whacking back. Hard.  

I know I know, all  the arguments for Obama's passivity, but I'll never get used to it.  

Especially when it starts to have a bad effect.  He doesn't refute this stuff effectively at all.

And I couldn't even read the 'Pop the Corks' thread, it was too scary to even open.  Please cease with such arrogance.

I agree. I think Obama needs to deliver the definitive smackdown to the socialist crap. that could be part of the network roadblock ad, or it could be a tag-team effort later that night with Bill Clinton. they've got to call McCain out more on his 2001 position, and on the absurdity of thinking the tax rates of the 90s--when jobs, wages, housing values, and stocks all grew at healthy rates--are in any way socialist.

I will sweat until the moment McCain concedes.

I would be sweating it if the polls had Obama up 20%.  At this point, there's nothing I fear more than complacency.

I'm not sure I understand your argument about traditional polls reflecting older information than the trackers, or at least not how it's supposed to apply to the Pew Poll.  The Pew Poll was in the field October 23-26, essentially the same time period as the most recent trackers.  What's inherently different about the Pew Poll?

Also, it's simply not true to say that the Gallup tracker has shown recent movement toward McCain.

Yeah, there's lots of stuff that *could* go wrong, but Obama is exceedingly unlikely to lose.  It feels like much more of a possibility than it actually is.  Reminds me a little bit of a team having a 3 run lead in the ninth inning of a baseball game; it's certainly nerve-wracking as a fan, and teams pay guys millions of dollars so they can feel more comfortable in those situations, but in reality, the team with a 3-run lead wins about 98% of the time.

Could you imagine how unbearable it would get if Macker pulled it out of the fire?!

There is worrying over polls the right way, and there is worrying over polls the wrong way.  The wrong way is to average only the trackers you trust on a daily basis.  The right way is to check in on the Pollster.com and RCP averages on an hourly basis.

But seriously . . . if you follow the poll averages at Pollster.com and RCP, you will see that on 10/19, Obama had an average lead of 5 points (Obama 48.8, McCain 43.8).  This actually went UP over the following few days (the Powell effect?) until, one week ago today, Obama had  a 7.2 lead, as Obama went up to 5.2 and McCain went down to 43.  On average, Obama's nubmers have stayed up, in fact grown slightly.  As of today (I'm still awaiting the last tracker, the WaPo), Obama is down slightly to a seven point lead, but both Obama and McCain are higher--Obama 50.6, McCain 43.6.

What this suggests is that Obama is at or near his ceiling, about 51, maybe 52, while McCain has room to grow, an entirely predictable phenomenon (think Jimmy Carter in '76).  The final result will be, as I have long maintained, a 3 point lead in the popular vote, and 300+ in the electoral college.  Nate is a hair too optimistic.  Look for Obama 51 (maybe 52), McCain 48 (maybe 47), 3rd parties altogether 1.

Obama wins, 309 to 229, 51% to 48%.

He takes the Kerry states minus NH and plus IA, VA, FL, NM, and CO. NV isn't officially still red until the weekend (no matter).

Obama's GOTV overcomes tightening polls and a mild Bradley effect (1%-2%?). Youth vote lags. African-American vote does not. Lack of coordination is apparent in the GOP GOTV. In the room the lawyers come and go, talking of John and BHO.

But cspencef is correct. We must wait for the reappearance of the Silver Deity, like the Monolith of "2001," amongst us mere hominids.

Well, I'm for McCain (aculimic, smooch tuchas), and I think timeteeter has it about right.  Somewhere between 3-6% and over 300 in the EC.

For some reason, this thread has gotten "No sleep till Brooklyn" stuck in my head.

You guys are overlooking one HUGE aspect of all this: early voting. Obama leads by about ten points among those who have already voted, and that accounts for nearly twenty percent of registered voters, according to Gallup. For McCain to make up that kind of deficit, he has to do much more than break even with Obama on election day. McCain will have to beat Obama by at least five points just to get back in the ballgame. And there's absolutely no evidence - none - that McCain can do that. Especially when you factor in the massive turnouts we're already seeing and the incredibly wide gap in advertising dollars and the GOTV effort between the two camps.

I understand the inclination to remain worried. But don't deny the obvious: The chances of McCain winning are miniscule.

butchie,

I'm for Obama but I hope McCain takes NH. It bothers me that we see these broad swatches of red or blue defining entire chunks of the U.S. Would that the map be more of a checkerboard instead of entire regions constipated by like thinking. A little red in New England, a little blue in the South--fiber for the nation's discourse.

Yes! -- if Obama takes a southern state, say NC, then NH for McCain.  But only if.

I respectfully disagree, Bill.  If the GOP had not floated an appallingly (and proudly) ignorant and unqualified nincompoop as VP candidate, I would favor a little red in there to keep things interesting.

Nope.  No more.  Bring the blue.  Sea to shining sea.  Manifest destiny.  The more repudiation the dog-whistling, camera-winking, race-baiting shitheads get, the better.

Yes -- please relax.  The chance of an Obama blowout (>350 EVs) is, rightly, low.  The chance of a win at this point (>270 EVs) is extremely high.  Too much is happening --> good poll numbers for weeks; very strong GOTV operations (with massive redundancies to correct any errors in its first run); very strong ad momentum; a very intelligent Obama campaign thus far; and an environment that couldn't be any better for a Dem these days.  Obama is not going to paint the whole country blue; don't sweat that.

P.s. I would be shocked if the campaign blew that half-hour block.  They're not idiots.  Don't forget that they got a lot of guff from the cable folks about the Invesco Field speech that everyone thought was a massive success afterwards (except for the Repubs and others with sour grapes).  Moreover, what is the point of the ad buying at this point?  Not persuasion, of course, but getting out the vote!!!  Don't you think that is an easier sell for those who have already expressed openness to the campaign??  Well they get criticized from snarksters on Morning Joe and elsewhere?  Of course.  Does this outweigh the benefit of pushing all of those Obama/Dem voters to vote that otherwise might forget or not be sufficiently motivated?  The answer is rather self evident.  

Maldini, I'm not sure where you are getting your early polling info, but most states don't even release that information until after polls are closed.  I know in my state the early mail-in ballots are not opened until polls close on election day.  

I've been on the road a lot over the last two weeks, and all I have heard about the election have been the following two things: concern about Socialism and concern about having Congress and the White House all in the control of liberal Democrats.  Even moderates who were leaning Obama are a bit concerned about that scenario.  I think he'll win, but if this gets close, it will be because too many of his supporters in the media are talking up all the radical changes that the new regime will bring.  Americans tend to favor evolutionary, not revolutionary changes.

I'm going to repeat my prediction, first made on this site in back May or maybe even April.  (If TNR had a functional search function, I could prove it.)

Obama wins by a popular vote margin of 6-7%.  He takes the Kerry states plus IA, CO, FL, OH, NV and maybe VA and NC.  

(I'd now say *definitely* VA and probably NC, but here I'm trying to recreate my original prognostication.)

I'm not sure I often agree with drdannyu, but on this one he and I think as one.  I want not just NH, but the entire eastern seabord, including GA but with the possible exception of SC.  I want a northern tier of blue from Maine through OH, IN and on to ND, MT and then the entire west coast (no chance at Idaho, I suppose)  I want NV, NM, CO and even Arizona (oh, how sweet it would be!).

Not likely, but I can dream in between my cold sweats, can't I?

cal80, Like I said, I'm getting my info from Gallup, which polls early voting:

www.gallup.com/.../Early-Voting-Now-18.aspx

And Pew today also reported that the difference in early voting is in the double digits:

people-press.org/.../mccain-support-declines

I think McCain will gain +3 over the final averages and he could grab another point in some states. If that means Barack needs to win without OH and FL in my point spread and I want to go to bed with a win? Well, VA, CO and NM are a must and NC and MO have been too volatile for me to be thinking of 300+.  My best case for an early night gives Obama OH and FL along with VA and CO but he'll have to pad the numbers in the polls because I'll be sweating till it's official if he doesn't have +4 going into Ohio and Florida.

I'll give you some of these, but Rasmussen has been aamzingly consistent. Obama is ahead 51-46. Thats the same as yesterday, and exactly within the range they've had for more than a month (obama 50-12, mccain 44-46). Kos is also unchanged from yesterday and the ig elephant in the room is pew.

Oh William,

Those broad red swathes (I work in the middle of one of them, in Wyoming) don't represent so many people, after all.  I think Tx could eventually turn blue again.  Wyoming has just over 500,000 people.  We are a giant red square, but don't let the geography fool you.

I'm also a bit scared, esp that young folks won't show up to vote (apparently that's what happened to Obama in NH during the primaries, he had been ahead in the polls by a comfortable  margin, and he lost.. I really really hope this does not happen to Obama nationally....    wonder what we can do to convince young folks to go out and vote..  case in point: my roomate is in her 20's, when I asked her a few months ago if she would vote, she said, nah, I'm not into it...  (yes, that's what she said....)   but just the other night she said to me, gee, I hope Obama wins.. but she still won't go out and vote, I don't think she's even registered...  (we live in NJ, fortunately, where it looks like Obama will win handily..)   it seems like some Americans still haven't made the connection betw. voting and what candidate wins...;)   PATHETIC....   In most other countries in the world there's never a need for "get out the vote" operations, since EVERYONE VOTES, no one has to tell folks to vote....

I have no doubt McCain is gaining some traction with his redistributionist attack.  Every old clip they turn up of Obama musing about spreading the wealth is like manna from heaven.  It reminds me of the punchline of an old political joke:  McCain is telling lies about Obama and proving them.

Earlier this afternoon I worried that Obama was turning magnanimous a little prematurely. Well, ask and

"talking up all the radical changes that the new regime will bring."

Cal, good to have your talking points back ;-) ... now, just for the record, exactly what "radical changes" are we talking about here?  An additional $200 a year for someone making $250,000?  SOCIALISM - MARXISM - RUN TO THE HILLS - THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Or is it perhaps expansion of health care to the $47 million of your own fellow citizens?  RADICAL! UNFATHOMABLE! REVOLUTION!  Let me see, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and enhancing investments in Green technology?  THE REDS ARE COMING, THE REDS ARE COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!  Or is it perhaps the insistence that instead of bombing countries and lying to the world about intelligence that we do not have, or insulting allies and pissing on friends, there is an actual foreign "policy"?  THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!  AMERICA'S END WILL COME WITH GREATER DIPLOMACY ABROAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, yeah, people are really concerned about Obama the Socialist, even as Bush the Capitalist is buying a $250 billion stake in the nation's banks?  I gotta wonder, who writes these idiotic posts for you?  "Ive been doing a lot of travelling ...".  Reminds me of the old Penthouse Forum letters: "I'm a college student in a small mid-Western town.  You would not believe what happened to me last week; I can still hardly believe it myself ...".  Aha.

I, too, am sweating this one, simply because I'm a Democrat.  But I don't see any sort of dramatic tightening right now.  I'm bewildered at the claim that Gallup is shifting toward McCain; Gallup itslef says that the pattern it's seeing is one of almost eerie stability, and both candidates fluctuate within a narrow range.  Sometimes that fluctuatiion widens the lead, sometimes it narrows it; but until McCain actually breaks out of his range, there's no reason to see this as any more than noise.  Obama is averaging over 50 percent in the RCP average [a point he reached only five days ago], while McCain has hovered between 42 and 44 percent for the past three weeks [Again, he's at the top of that range right now, but he was higher a week ago, and was near the bottom just 4 days ago; fluctuastion isn't tightening].  On Pollster.com, Obama is still at his high of over 50; McCain has bounced off his low of 42 reached two weeks ago, but has gained all of one and one half points since then.  And Blumenthal, Franklin and Co. will immediately tell you that the "nose" of their trend lines has little if any predictive value; it wobbles like crazy.  I, like most, expect the race to tighten up a little in the final going, and I suspect we may be seeing that--nobody's deserting Obama, but McCain's picking up some support from remaining undecideds.  And there are enough imponderables [turnout by first-time voters, the cell phone factor, voting problems] to make narrow margins look vulnerable.  But Noam's concerns here look over the top.

People, all these calculations don't take into consideration the FACT that, today, John McCain picked up the endorsement of the one, the only, Joseph T. Plumber.

That I had to learn this from an AP story that Google picked up doesn't speak well for TNR's reportage, frankly. I'd have thought Der Foer-ers would have been all over this.

BTW (and something for TNR interns with nothing better to do to look into--or maybe Nate Silver?), I note that Barr and Nader together continue to get four percent.

That's right.  Not just in the averages of RCP, which uses only occasional data for third parties, but also the R2K tracker internals on Kos show the same 4 percent.  Thus the 50 for Obama, 43 for McCain of the R2K tracker would be accompanied by a 4 or five for third parties.  Taken together, that's 97 or 98 percent.  Is it really possible that there are (at last!) only 2 or 3 percent undecided?  If so, then this election really is over.

Posts like ca180's remind me (as if I need reminding) of how constitutionally incapable modern Republicans (butchie exempted) are of taking responsibility for ANYthing.  EVER.

Everything is about the awfulness of their opponent, how Republicans are magically never responsible for the shit that comes out of their own rumps.  How many people did Bush fire again?  Oh yeah - zero.

So they've been shoveling every possible subsidy to corporations and millionares while the middle class rotted, so they exploded the debt more than any socialist could ever dream of doing, so their economic ideology has blown up the entire economy just as many said it would, so they screwed up two wars costing thousands of lives - who cares?  

Hey - Obama is a "socialist" for wanting to make Larry Summers Sec of Treasury and go back to Clinton tax rates.  The combination that gave us the longest sustained uptick in the economy in our history.

Give me a break!  Such stupidity I cannot stomach any longer.  

Let's be clear: every bit of the nonsense barfed forth from team McCain the last three months is infintile, irelevant, insulting nonsense.  I have no idea why Obama hasn't just come out and said so.  I stand with those call center people who walked off the job - why in God's name isn't Obama standing in front of that call center shaking thier hands live on the 5:00 news?  He's way too passive.

If McCain somehow appeals to the very worst in people, yet again for a Republican, and pulls this off - he'll have bazillions of bitterly hostile, uncompromising citizens and a sickened fed up world to welcome him.  

Nate commented on this yesterday in his update. There is al least an order of magnitude more data coming out of the daily state polls that continue to show Obama with increasing leads. The national trackers are just noisy and as others have pointed out have been all over the place this month. The state trackers are daily as well and should not be any less current than the nationals. Bottom line is that Obama is fine. Add the early voting plus the GOTV operation plus Stevens plus the hugemungous leads he has in all the state trackers (see Greg Sargent from earlier today: tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/.../_rcp_2004result_2004rcp_now.php) and it all adds up to a 350+ EV total. I could not care less what the popular vote total is. And Noam, if you still have your panties in a bundle, tell me how McCain gets to 270 without winning PA where the RCP average is still about 10 and the worst numbers for Obama show him with a 7 point lead. If you sort the RCP battlegrounds by the average lead for either candidate, the list goes, IN (O+0.3), MO (O +0.6), NC (O+1.6), FL (O+2.7), MT (Mc + 3.3), NV (O+3.5), GA (Mc + 5.3), Az (Mc +6.0), and then CO, OH, VA, and NH all Obama >7. Even if you start by giving McCain all those (which would require the national numbers to move >7 pts in McCain's Favor), Obama would still win (assuming he wins PA and NM) by taking back just one of any of CO, VA, or OH. And that is the doomsday scenario. I am with Judis. Pop the cork. We are in landslide territory.

If you guys are sweating it that much then get off talk back and call ppl.  I just called 5 Floridians Unfortunately they were all old people so I doubt they'll listen to a yungin like me.  yall on the other hand... ;)   It's so easy to do with obama's website.  anyway check it out!

Aeromonas writes,

"I'm going to repeat my prediction, first made on this site in back May or maybe even April.  (If TNR had a functional search function, I could prove it.)"

You can search TNR with google if you just include site:tnr.com in the search.  And it was May 23

blogs.tnr.com/.../hillary-for-veep.aspx

I'm with yard. I want to see more red in the places now colored blue.

But that's because I want to go back to the pre-2004 tradition in which the incumbent party is shown on the map in blue, and the opposition party in red. Which, this year, would make McCain states blue, and Obama states red.

But then, I also want the Washington Nationals to switch from wearing red at home and blue on the road to the reverse if Obama wins the presidency, so I'm kind of funny about the whole political color thing.

Oh please Noam, you know where you can stick this pseudo liberal defeatist crap.  You're just still mad because your girl Hilary got wiped off the map by the Obama machine, a machine which ran a tougher, smarter and far more ethical campaign than the Clintons were ever capable of running.  Face it, the Clintons are all done, and just like John McCain they're part of a past that will never return to darken America's doorstep again.

The Obama campaign is the American people's wake-up call to all the scumbags politicians who made their careers by deceiving and manipulating the public into supporting unqualified individuals of highly questionable character.  Obama and his people have proven that you can run a clean ethical campaign that speaks to the highest aspirations of Americans instead of going that other ugly route, which all of us who've been paying attention were fed up with decades ago.  Americans have been screaming for this change for years, Obama was just the first politician to actually listen to us, and sincerely offer what we've been begging and pleading for, for so so long.

McCain and the Republicans are going down, and they're going down hard.  They'll be lucky to recover by 2025. No doubt they'll do their best to block everything President Obama initiates, but with a marginalized minority in the House and Senate they will be easily shoved aside like the corrupt punks and small minded morons we've always known them to be.

I don't want to see America become a one-party system, but these creeps who care nothing for the American people, and who've have done a stupendous job of destroying their own party, must be crushed, mercilessly crushed and driven out of American politics, as a requisite for this nation's survival as a free Republic.  Let's just hope that they've learned their lesson and that the real conservatives will finally have the guts to take back their party from the wretched gutter trash that has hijacked the GOP agenda.  And on November 4 the American people are going to speak with one massive voice, and the hurricane force wind that issues forth is going to blow the doors off the pseudo American Republican Party for good and all.

Obama 08, YES WE CAN!

My early vote is cast.  Oddly enough, I also got my first robocall tonight and there was a flyer stuck in our storm door.

I'm thinking of putting up a sign on my door that reads, "We've Already Voted.  Now Go Away."  Too much?  

Aaron I don't think Noam was for HRC. But maybe I'm projecting.

I'm a nervous wreck, even though I know Obama's going to win. I'm still volunteering on election day and all. I am a pile of jitters, though. I can't stand it.

cspencef, you should totally put that sign up, it'll save some Obama volunteer a little bit of time.

I remember what Everett Dirkson (51-69) said to a reporter on the election night of his last election.  The reporter told him that the exit polls showed that he wasn't doing well.  Dirkson, with that sonorous voice, said he doesn't pay attention to exit polls.  They reminded him of a man who fell out of a 20 story building.  When he got to the 11th floor, someone yelled out the window to him, "How are you doing?" and he yelled back "Fine so far!"   That said, I feel that if McCain wins we're going to get down pretty close to the ground before we smash into it.

Thanks, Alan.  Your link confirms that I was on record with my prediction *at least* as early as May 23, though if you read my post in the thread to which you linked, I indicate that I'm repeating a predicition I'd made even earlier.

What I want to know is, when Obama wins the popular vote by 7%, sweeps the "traditional" swing states, and ropes in CO, NV, IA, VA and NC to boot, is somebody going to give me a prize?

(I have $100 on Obama on intrade.  I bought in when he was at his polling nadir in September and McCain's intrade price had for the first--and last--time edged on top of Obama's.  But that's still only a one-to-one payoff.  I should've looked for a bookie who'd give me odds on the electoral college breakdown.)

As a former die-hard Hillary supporter who plans to vote for Obama, I know a thing or two about 'inevitability.' If anything at all, 'inevitability' has not been kind to any candidate who's worn that mantle this election cycle. Therefore, be complacent at your  own peril!. Remember that McCain was all but gone in the GOP primary, and then just like that (snapping the fingers) he did his Lazarus act and wo0n the nomination...It ain't over until it is over so be ready to drag your neighbor to the polls on 11/4!

dcshungu: welcome back and welcome to the Cult.  Agree with you entirely.  It ain't over until Obama is sworn in.

Noam Scheiber is trying to displace me as the office grinch, and in this case I'm going to let him