McCain’s Hope

by digby

Although I’m not sure about Stoller’s prediction of a landslide (I’m superstitious about such things) I’m pretty sanguine about Obama’s lead. I’ve been pretty positive all year that the Democrats would win except for the scary period in the late summer and early fall when McCain’s character assassination seemed to be gaining traction. (That little economic hiccup in late September seems to have sobered everyone up.)

However, it’s important to keep focused and not lose sight of just how divided this country actually is. There are still some people out there who could be swayed the wrong way at the last minute if certain things happen.

Anonymous Liberal gives a clear eyed rundown on what could go wrong in this post. It will make you sit up a little bit straighter. It probably won’t happen. But it could and that should make all of us work a little bit harder to make sure it doesn’t:

First, I don’t think the early voting numbers are nearly as favorable to Obama as various stories have made them out to be. The most comprehensive data on early voting that I’ve seen comes from the Obama campaign itself. If you look through the numbers, Democrats appear to be voting at a higher rate than they did in 2004 in North Carolina, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, but not by ridiculous margins. We’re talking 5-10 percentage points. Given that Bush won Colorado by 5 and North Carolina by 12, that may not be enough. And in Florida (where Bush won by 5 in 2004) the ratio of Democrat to Republican early voting is unchanged from 2004 levels. Moreover, the increased Democratic numbers could just be the result of increased emphasis on banking votes, i.e., the Obama campaign using its resources to convince its strongest supporters to vote early.

So while there are some potentially encouraging signs on the early voting front, the data is somewhat ambiguous and not uniformly in Obama’s favor.

Secondly, while the blue states are looking increasingly safe, the overall electoral map is starting to look a lot like it did in 2000. Obama has a solid lead in most national polls and has leads at or above his national lead in nearly every blue state (except New Hampshire, which has closed a little lately). He also looks likely to bring Iowa and New Mexico (states which Gore won but Kerry lost) back into the Democratic fold.

But that’s not enough.

Read the whole thing. It isn’t pessimistic. Anonymous Liberal is an enthusiastic Obama supporter from Illinois who believes this is going to be a major win. But he’s not willing to ignore the possibility that if things all break a certain way this last week we could find ourselves in an electoral college situation close to what we had in 2000. It’s unlikely but possible and where Republicans are involved, it pays to watch your back and be prepared for anything.

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