James Pedrick’s Blog

Wow. I almost nailed the electoral college exactly… except it looks like Obama might take Omaha, Nebraska. Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split their electoral votes by congressional district, though neither state has ever had to before. But this year, it looks like Obama might narrowly take Omaha. If so, he will end up with 365 electoral votes… my prediction was 364. My popular vote total was a little more off. I guessed an 8% margin, but he will have to settle with +6.3%.

By the way, look at my life now:

This morning, it became clear that the 2012 presidential race has already taken off. Candidates use leaks to the press to create political narratives. And overnight, Palin’s closest allies used the popular Politico to begin reestablishing their candidate by attacking the McCain campaign’s mishandling of their VP nominee. I doubted Palin would run for the top spot in 2012, but numerous reports have indicated that Palin is extraordinarily ambitious and hungry. Perhaps she already had her eyes set on a national spotlight, and John McCain simply helped introduce her sooner than planned. Read the rest of this entry »

Sad day. The debates are now all over, and we have 20 days before election day. This may have been McCain’s best performances. In actuality, he has had good moments in each debate, but he has been uneven. For every good moment, he seems to have two bad ones. And like Gore in 2000, McCain made in error in not controlling his reactions and body language.

According to CNN, debate watchers say Obama won by a margin of 58-31. 40 percent of these watchers were Democrats (37% of America currently leans Democrat) and 30 percent were Republican (27% of America is Republican). If you assumed these folks each sided with their nominee, Obama would have won the middle by an 18-1 margin. Not good for the candidate who is behind 6-14 points in the polls.

So where is the election today? On October 7, Obama had an 85% probability of winning 269 electoral votes (270 needed to win) and McCain had 150. Today:

If Barack Obama is elected, would he be the first president propelled to the White House by younger people? In reflecting on the earlier stages of this long process, I remembered that even African Americans were leaning toward Hillary Clinton before Obama won the Iowa Caucuses. Young people were the first and only national demographic to line up behind Obama before he won a contest.

This says something about Obama’s campaign, but it says a lot about the Millennial Generation. Supposedly, Millennials are the first civic-minded generation since the GI Generation of World War II. But with this election, Millennials might actually be the leaders and first movers of the political dialogue. Below are some funny video clips to demonstrate how Obama and other groups are encouraging young people to influence the votes of their parents and grandparents… as well as some anecdotal evidence that it might be working with older Jewish voters in Florida.

And check out this CNN article… this kid pitches his grandparents in Florida on Obama and it leads to him giving a talk to more than 100 seniors in their retirement community. Best quote from his pitch:

As Bender told the crowd that Obama was not a Muslim and that Obama was a staunch supporter of Israel, he was met with heads nodding in agreement throughout the room. However, Bender felt the need to drive the point further. If Obama was elected, he said, then Bender would not worry so much about politics and “would have more time to find a nice Jewish girl to marry.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/13/great.schlep/index.html