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Exit Polls 2008—Reading Between the Lines
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2008 Comment (22)Hmmm.
The nets are being cagey with their exit polls, but James Carville is grinning and laughing at CNN, and saying this race has been locked in place with a big Obama lead since mid-October.
"This is going to be a big night. A really big night," says JC.
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Best and Worst From Election 2008
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2008 Comment (3)Awww. Why not? There are award shows for everything else.
And so...to while away the final hours...
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McCain or Obama—and Their Supporters—Will Experience the Agony of Defeat Tonight
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2008 Comment (3)Both sides probably really do believe they're going to win tonight. And in a few short hours, a lot of partisans will feel an exquisite form of existential grief.
I'm reminded of some interviews I did working on my book, White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters. A couple of George H.W. Bush's speechwriters recalled for me the moment they knew it was over. "When you're in the bubble...you feel momentum and the crowds are lively and you know in the outside world you're behind, but in the inside world, you're thinking, 'This is going to be 1948 all over again,'" Steve Provost, Bush's last top speechwriter, told me.
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Don't Forget the Ballot Initiatives—Barack Obama and John McCain Have Company Today
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2008 Comment (6)Because the mainstream media have already declared Barack Obama the victor, the presidential race has become, well, less of a race and, therefore, less interesting to write about. Having spent the better part of the last few years writing this story, tonight's results will feel more like having a long-needed tooth pulled than popping a champagne cork. But then, I haven't spent two years raising money or knocking on doors or giving speeches as surrogates as many of my friends have. However, today's extensive voter turnout, high-energy attitude among Democrats, and long faces in the GOP camp signal what sure looks at this point as an Obama victory
The outcome seems less certain, however, for some of the more significant ballot initiatives that will be decided today.
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National Polls Favor Obama, State Polls Trend Toward McCain
Tweet Share on Facebook November 4, 2008 Comment (21)Looking at the latest polls on the morning of Election Day, I see two contrary trends. On the one hand, the national polls seem to be trending toward Barack Obama. On the other, polls in seven battleground states with 114 electoral votes—Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania—seem to be trending over the last several days toward John McCain. Possible explanation: In the past week, there has been something closer to parity between the campaigns in ad saturation compared with earlier weeks, when the Obama campaign was far outspending the McCain campaign.
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The McCain Campaign's Incompetence About Barack Obama's War on Coal-Fired Power Plants
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2008 Comment (42)For a sense of how ineffectively managed the McCain campaign is, consider the last-minute flap over coal. In a January 17 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Barack Obama declared war on America's coal-fired plants, pledging to regulate the industry so aggressively that "it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
Obama's comments had the potential to hit him hard in states like West Virginia (leaning McCain), Ohio (tossup), and Pennsylvania (leaning Obama, and critical to the McCain campaign), and McCain's people are milking them for all their worth.
The wonder, however, is that Obama's comments are only now getting attention from Republicans, 10 months after they were posted online and just a day before the election.
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Optimistic Election Night Scenarios for Barack Obama and John McCain
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2008 Comment (26)Looking ahead to election night, I thought I'd offer some optimistic assessments of how it might go, hour by hour. Obviously, it's a lot easier to do an optimistic Obama assessment than an optimistic McCain assessment, given that realclearpolitics.com gives Barack Obama a significant lead in states with 274 electoral votes, four more than are needed to win, and John McCain a significant lead in states with only 132 votes. But if this election at this point seems less close than 2000 or 2004 did at this stage, it also seems closer than 1988 or 1992 or 1996 did at this stage.
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John McCain Should Have Touted Divided Government Sooner
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2008 Comment (2)Sen. John McCain's rallying cry to his troops as the campaign comes to a close has been, "Elect Republicans or else." McCain is trying to instill fear in voters that if Democrats win the White House and gain seats in Congress, they will raise taxes, weaken the economy, and create all manner of political ills.
It's not a very persuasive battle cry, if you consider what Democrats are, in turn, saying about the current Republican occupant of the White House. One Democratic strategist told me recently that Democrats will spend the next two decades campaigning against Republican governance, believing President Bush has wrecked the economy, impaired the nation's military prowess, and crushed America's prestige as the world leader—some of which he accomplished while his party ran Congress and some of which he did while the two parties shared power.
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Last Chance to Prove You're Smarter Than the Political Pros
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2008 Comment (1)The real polls open tomorrow, but our polls close at midnight: This is your last chance to play in our Are You Smarter Than the Pros? game. I've made my picks, as has Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Jack Farrell. Don't miss your turn—make your selections by midnight.
And then go do the real thing tomorrow at your polling place.
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John McCain's and Barack Obama's Billion-Dollar Election
Tweet Share on Facebook November 3, 2008 Comment (52)If nothing else is obscene about this presidential election (and plenty is IMHO), then the fact that together the candidates will be spending $8 per vote to win the White House clearly meets and exceeds the obscenity descriptor.
