Election day, November 4 2008
This blog will be updated as the evening goes on.
7:50 PM
It might have been normal weather for November here in Portland, but in Driggs, Idaho, at the head of the Tetons, it was a little grizzly.
The following photo comes to me courtesy of a website that will be very interesting to follow tonight, www.turnmaineblue.com which has a Google map of the Maine towns where Presidential and Maine Congressional results will be posted as they. (You can select other states or the entire Nation.)
Thanks to the site’s Gerald Weinand for permission, and thanks to the photographer, Mike Zahan.
As I noted earlier today, a fact seemingly missed by most pundits (but probably not by the two campaigns) is that the first time voters most likely voted a straight ticket across much the country given that much of their enthusiasm focused solely on the Presidential race.
Thus, if Obama wins, this straight ticket voting by this group is likely to sweep in down ticket candidates simply because they have a (D) after their name.
After posting my earlier blog on this, I was informed by a Californian political science Professor that the straight ticket voting occurred in the 2004 election in those states influenced by the Rove inspired Evangelical vote.
And, while there has been much talk lately of the strong liberal turn that a Congress controlled by the Democrats would take, this fear flies in the face of the fact that many of the Democrat Representatives that were first voted in in 2006 were more conservative than the leaders of their party.
Thus, based on a thorough analysis of those likely to join the House for the first time in January, I predict that many of those will be like the 2006 class, fiscally conservative but socially liberal.
8:25 PM
As I have noted in my earlier blogs, the size of the National Presidential popular vote total and $2 will get you a small coffee at Starbucks.
It is the Electoral vote that decides the election, so basically, if you were a Democrat in Texas, a “Safe” state for McCain, your vote was wasted, it would NOT help push Obama across the line.
Likewise, if you were a Republican in New York, “Safe” for Obama, you might as well have stayed home. Your vote couldn’t impact the Electoral College.
This is how the Electoral college robs people of their vote.
Because Electoral votes are (except in a few states) are “winner take all,” the value of the minority party vote in each state is lost.
The race will be decided in the toss up states of Florida (27 EV), Indiana (11), North Carolina (15), Indiana (11), Ohio (20), Virginia (13) and Missouri (11).
Pennsylvania has been called for Obama which some pundits say was one Kerry state McCain had to turn Republican.
New Hampshire has been called for Obama, and although it has only 4 EV, it figured in the McCain “Electoral College Tie Plan” which saw McCain and Obama drawing even in the EC and the Electoral vote of otherwise conservative New Hampshire throwing the election to McCain.
Palin’s repeated late October visits to Maine’s Second District were also part of this “Electoral College Tie Plan” because Maine awards an Electoral College vote for winning each Congressional District. In a close EC vote, that one vote from the Second District could have given McCain the Presidency. (Nebraska is the other state that so allocates Electoral Votes.)
9:25 PM
Ohio has been called for Obama (CBS, NBC).
Thus, Obama has turned a 2004 Red state Democrat Blue.
The 20 EV in Ohio will be hard to make up unless McCain is able to regain them by taking several 2004 Blue states.
9:30 PM
Based on the National Presidential projections, many of the full time pundits and even a senior vice president of CBS News division stated that by this time (9:30 PM) or even earlier, the race would have been called for Obama.
As I have noted, the assumptions amongst some of these pundits appears to have been that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that somehow the 7 or 8 point lead Obama showed in the National Polls would impact the toss up states.
I explained last week:
“Let’s say that California, Illinois, and New York are safe for Obama, and suppose that last week he was collectively ahead in those states by 10% (solid Democrat states). Now, if the UNDECIDEDS in those three states are polled and are deciding for Obama the vote total will go up for Obama.
Likewise, in the safe McCain states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, let’s say the pollster finds that the UNDECIDED voters are breaking for McCain.
The increase in support for Obama or McCain in these safe states contribute only to an increase in the popular vote, not to an increase in the Electoral college vote.”
And each of the toss up states is comprised of a few large cities (projected to go for Obama) surrounded by rural areas that have traditionally gone Republican.
A RISING Democrat TIDE will work in those states only if the cities go heavier for Obama than they did for Kerry, and if the 2008 vote totals in the Republican rural areas are less than it was in the 2004 election.
In short, they may be paid well, but they all talk to the same people, and thus many of the full time cable pundits were simply WRONG about timing.
The key, of course will be Florida.
The senate races in New Hampshire and North Carolina have been called, and the incumbent Republicans (Sununu and Dole) have been defeated.
9:40 PM
New Mexico (5 EV), another 2004 Red state was called Blue.
It looks like when the West Coast 2004 Democrat states come in (73 EV), the Electoral College vote will be decided.
10:10 PM
Iowa has been called for Obama (Fox, ABC), another 2004 Republican state turned.
Electoral Vote Count at 10 PM
NBC Obama 207, McCain 135
ABC Obama 207, McCain 135
CBS Obama 206, McCain 135
CNN Obama 207, McCain 95
Fox Obama 207, McCain 135
The race in Connecticut has been called, and another Republican incumbent is out: Chris Shays.
10:40
Two more 2004 Republican states, Virginia and New Mexico, have been called for Obama.
Technically, unless the continental divide splits tonight and California, Washington and Oregon fall into the sea, McCain CANNOT win this election.
In an analysis of Obama’s win in Pennsylvania, The New York Times states:
“Specifically, Mr. Obama swept the suburbs, 58-41 (in 2004, Mr. Kerry won 54-46). In the Northeast, Mr. Obama won 57-42, compared with Mr. Kerry’s 51-49. How to explain the sweep in the more liberal suburbs along with the sweep in the more culturally conservative Northeast? In the suburbs, the Republican ticket may have been TOO CONSERVATIVE; also, the financial collapse was an issue there because home values have been high.”
[Emphasis Mine]
I think there is a real jewel in these comments, and it strengthens a line I have argued since the Republican National Convention — by selecting Palin and by appealing to the Republican right, McCain neglected the broader Republican Party. Again the NYT comment: “the Republican ticket may have been too conservative.”
The Republican Right might not have selected McCain in the primaries, but it is highly unlikely that the Republican Right would sit on their (voting) hand in this election. They would have been McCain’s if he simply promised them a Supreme Court justice.
Instead, as I argued in an earlier blog, Obama/McCain — What If?, McCain probably would have WON if he had chosen a mainstream VP and if he had directed his campaign, not to the Right, but to the Republican middle and to moderate Independents.
NO President has EVER been elected without the Independents.
With McCain’s demonstrated experience (and conversely, with Obama’s lack of experience), I believe that a Republican ticket of McCain Romney or Pawlenty, etc., would now be leading in the Electoral College.
With Romney’s business experience, McCain would not have fallen as he did when the economy tanked.
Indeed, McCain would probably have retained the Reagan Democrats and gained Clinton’s “Lunchbox Democrats” and maybe even a sizeable portion of Clinton’s female army.
11 PM
Now that the West Coast has closed (but not counted), the networks have stated that Obama will win — Crowd goes wild in Grant Park, Chicago, where one estimate states that 3/4 of a million are waiting for Obama. (I don’t buy that estimate having lived in Chicago — that many downtown, but Grant Park simply is not that big).
The AP reports that McCain has called Obama to concede.
Apparently, Obama is being polite and will wait for the West Coast to be “counted” by means of exit poll analysis before he appears.
At about 11:10 the networks called the election for Obama.
AT 11:08, The New York Times splashed this headline on its online page in what looks like 48 point text:
OBAMA
Racial Barrier Falls in Heavy Turnout
The lead to the New York Times article Obama Wins Election:
“Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.”
Mr. Obama’s election amounted to a national catharsis – a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country. But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.”
The current electoral vote projection:
Obama, 338 McCain, 156 with 46 still unallocated.
At 11:57, President Elect Barack Hussein Obama appears on the stage at Grant Park with his wife and children; part of his message:
“Change has come to America — this victory is a chance — let us summon a new spirit — we rise and fall as one nation, one people — a new dawn of American leadership is at hand — the true strength of out nation … comes from our ideals — America can change, our union can be perfected — if our children should live to see the next century, what progress will we have made — out of many we are one — yes we can.”
Oh, and yes, Oprah is deep in the mass of the crowd, just like everyone else.
Peter B Hayward
