Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Presidenting
As we turn into the homestretch of the race to Election Day 2008, things are looking bad for the Republicans. After two presidential “debates” and another between the vice presidential candidates, state after state is bluer than it was yesterday. And yesterday was bluer than the day before.
Whether you follow Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight or Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com, or local number cruncher Darryl Holman of Hominid Views, it’s looking good for the good guys.
Many states won by Dubya is 2004 (some of them quite comfortably) are now nicely in the Obama column. Iowa has been bright blue all year, and New Mexico solidly Democratic for months. We’ve been seeing Obama in the lead for the last couple of weeks in Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina. And Nevada, Missouri, and West Virginia seem to be joining the fun as well. Even a rock-ribbed Republican bastion like Indiana may be within range!
With the disastrous choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, with his horrendous performance in last night’s “town hall” debate—supposedly his strongest format—and with a gutter campaign of negative attacks, Senator McCain is finding that his erratic gambles are falling flat at every turn. He’s long been known as a coarse and impetuous man, prone to sudden decisions without much forethought. As I understand it, he’s a high roller at the craps tables in Las Vegas (though he doesn’t report gambling winnings or losses on his tax returns).
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign continues to operate at a high level of competence and intelligence. One metaphor is that they’re playing chess while the Republicans are playing checkers (though it’s looking more and more like Go Fish or even 52 Pickup these days). The contrast between the two campaigns is ever more visible, ever more definitive.
In honor of the current state of the McCain candidacy and the down-home folksy Joe Sixpack g-dropping diction of his unqualified running mate, I’ve taken the liberty of slightly adjusting their campaign logo for them. I hope you find it at least slightly amusing.
