last night
October 8, 2008 by jamespedrickelectoral map: colorado
October 1, 2008 by jamespedrick
Obama undoubtedly has gained ground against McCain over the last couple weeks. The national polls have swung into pretty significant leads but are still volatile What is often less volatile are some of the state polls that give a glimpse of what the political map looks like. Even before the latest trends, Obama started to bank quite a few “red states” into his column, but two of these states now look solidly in his column: Iowa (7) and New Mexico (5). Of Kerry’s blue states, the only true toss-up for Obama is New Hampshire (4) – which remarkably puts Obama right where Al Gore was in 2000 – with a current value of 260 electoral votes… just nine votes from victory.
While there are a few competitive states, the closest toss-ups now are Florida (27), Ohio (20), Virginia (13), Colorado, Nevada (5), and New Hampshire (4). ALL of these are currently trending toward Obama, but the state that is running away the most is Colorado. Value? 9 electoral votes. If this state runs away and goes to the point of no return, like Iowa and New Hampshire, McCain is in real trouble. He’ll have to simultaneously defend these other big states, while trying to somehow pick up ground in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These are tough states.
On the national polls, Obama’s lead ranges from 4 to 10 percent. Of course, polls are volatile, but they should become increasingly less volatile as we get closer to the election. In addition, Obama’s bounce over these last two weeks have been more because of McCain’s undoing than anything Obama has done… not good news for McCain and more likely to stick.
Note: Two good websites to check out on the electoral map: FiveThirtyEight.com which has the latest poll snapshots, trends, and projections. And 270towin.com which allows you to test out your own thoughts.
absent from reality
September 30, 2008 by jamespedrickProof that Fox News is absent from reality…
And Sarah Palin…
life in d.c.
September 28, 2008 by jamespedrickIt was fun having Erica out here in D.C. this week. I had a bit of a cold and the weather wasn’t perfect, but we had a good time anyway. We kept very very busy… but some highlights included running into Speaker Pelosi and our Senator Patty Murray while touring the U.S. Capitol (ask me off line what I told Pelosi), visiting tons of museums and monuments, enjoying the driving privileges of having a deceased relative at Arlington National Cemetery, seeing the new 9/11 Pentagon Memorial for the first time, and learning that I am just blocks away from the coolest Catholic church and shrine in the country… come on out to D.C. and I’ll show you a good time too!
Erica also got to learn a few things about my new life out here. My apartment is AMAZING and my land lady is pretty darn cool… while visiting, she delivered some pretty cool new furniture for the pad. And Erica learned just how addicted I now am to Diet Ginger Ale – surprisingly the new settled champion brand is Giant’s Sterling.
Chris will be here come Wednesday. I hope to check out the Newseum for the first time and Colonial Williamsburg, as well as find some places to check out the next two debates at…
Speaking of debates, check out this clip and post at Talking Points Memo.
I think people really are missing the point about McCain’s failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear–look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior–low ranking monkeys don’t look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.
take that aaron sorkin
September 26, 2008 by jamespedrickWith Palin and now the bailout suspension and potential debate delay, John McCain is showing he is a much more exciting writer of political drama than West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin… but who below is looking more like President Bartlett?
Embedded video from CNN Video
Meanwhile, McCain’s bailout/debate gambit has overshadowed the latest questions over Palin’s readiness:
Forget Aaron Sorkin, what if Disney got ahold of this election – what about Disney?
We’ll see if there’s a debate tonight… and what SNL has to say about it tomorrow…
biden
September 5, 2008 by jamespedrick
gross
September 4, 2008 by jamespedrickhistoric week
August 30, 2008 by jamespedrickWow! This has been quite a week for both politics and American history! The drama of this election has now easily rivaled and even succeeded the excitement of Aaron Sorkin’s “West Wing” – a series which I wished I owned.
We’ve had the finale of Hillary’s historic run, the nomination of the first African American candidate for president, and now the second time a woman has been nominated for Vice President.
With just over 60 days to go in this campaign, the drama surely won’t end there. Just this week, we’ll have the Republican Convention colliding with a real-life Hurricane reminder of Katrina. And then, of course, we’ll have the debates. Aaron Sorkin could not have written this thing better.
Question: If this were a television sitcom, what would it be called?
