Sunday, October 12, 2008

Prediction Five

UPDATE: below

The trend is steady, i.e., fatal for Republicans:


source: FiveThirtyEight.com

Though there's probably less there than meets the eye, the Alaska legislature's preliminary finding of Palin abuse of power in "Troopergate" can't help. But the underlying reason for the trend is so obvious that even high school senior Arjun Modi could grasp and graph it:


source: State of the Union (graph covers Sept. 25-Oct. 9)

According to Modi, "the correlation between the two data sets is a robust 0.77."

To be fair, correlation isn’t causation. It’s possible (even probable, at least to some extent) the stock market declines reflect fears an Obama presidency--working with a Democrat-dominated Hill--will raise taxes and impose costly energy and environmental regulations. (One analyst I spoke with called last-week's sell-off "Prophet profit-taking," though with the entire market at 52 week lows, there's little profit left.) Still, I’m skeptical Obama-induced sell-offs were the prime engine in the recent losses. And I can't figure out why McCain refrains from tying Obama to the problem.

But whether cause or effect, the Dow and McCain's polls are dropping together. In contrast to last week, Obama's now ahead in Nevada and Florida. Colorado, New Jersey and Iowa are solid blue, and New Hampshire looks increasingly likely to join Democrat New England. Even this typo isn't enough to swing New York to McCain. Virginia appears lost in view of the fact that the Democrat running for Senate, who could win by 30 points over his widely-hated Republican challenger, will increase Democrat voter turnout in the state.


source: RealClearPolitics

Obama's got nearly a 70 vote cushion. I still think Nevada and Florida might move Republican near the end of the month--but that's only 32 votes. So, with the stock markets still falling, I don't see the current trend changing. And it appears likely that Republican losses will turn the next Senate veto-proof for Obama.

MORE:

On the other hand, this poll seems crazy.

1 comment:

OBloodyHell said...

The real problem is that there are all too many GOP-backing morons who are writing it off. Since it should be close, the real problem lies in the fact that such attitudes depress GOP turnout, in a time when they most definitely SHOULD not be depressing them

The number of idiots allowing imbecilic arguments like "I'm not voting for McCain because Palin isn't experienced enough yet" to go flying by unchallenged is mind boggling (Simple response: "So you're instead willing to hand over the reins *directly* to an equally inexperienced actual PotUS whose policies should be diametrically opposed to everything you believe in? What the hell was that mental hospital you say you escaped from?")

I dunno. There appear to be too many imbeciles willing to hand off the whole thing to the Left, apparently knowing just how badly they are going to screw everything up (much like the last time we had a Dem backed by incompetent hack academics take over in a crisis), because appareently they think they're going to be able to get it back after a single term of incompetence.

Since they get to spin it, and the Media will swallow every lie they tell unchallenged, you can count, very much, on EVERYTHING bad which happens, for the next 10 years, being blamed on "Republican mistakes".

You aren't going to hear Rush any more -- the "Fairness Doctrine" is going to be rammed down our throats once again, and conservative radio is going to disappear. Odds are, they'll then take steps to try and cut down on conservative blogs and podcasts and such, using the same tactics that they've used in places like Missouri.

It's going to be a good three terms before the GOP can get anything going again, if they just roll over and play dead on this.

And that includes anyone who reads this. It doesn't frigging matter if the GOP is struggling, or if you don't frigging like McCain. If you allow either of those things to affect your efforts to reverse things.

With the conservatives we have around us, who the hell needs the Democrats? The conservatives are doing everything they can to lose this.

>:-/