Its only about 50 days until the 2008 general elections and, as many have anticipated, the race is extremely tight. Barack Obama looked once to be a sure thing to win the election, but a number of factors, mostly negative, have tipped the odds towards a John McCain election. But with seven weeks left, much can still change. As many suspected, the choice of Alaska governor Palin has helped the McCain campaign at least for the short term as questions continue to rise about her qualifications and background. The Obama campaign has seemed sluggish since the end of the Democratic Convention in late August, but this is probably only a temporary lag. With so much at stake for citizens across the nation as well as for mankind and the future globally, one can expect a continued robust campaign which unfortunately will contain elements of negative campaigning, slurs, pointless jabbering, and just plain blather by the candidates themselves at times, supporters of the candidates regularly and all fueled by the hapless and inane mainstream media trying to distract the public from all the real issues and problems in the nation. All in all, it cannot end soon enough as this 2008 campaign has been going on since December of 2006 for all intents and purposes. That is a long stretch of time and it has resulted in strong political fatigue for many and varying degrees for everyone, particularly with all the incessant political ads in the media that are all plain disgusting, deceitful, and/or irksome.-
The Electoral College outlook at this moment slightly favors McCain. Latest polling and analysis shows ten states that are real close and could go either way. Five of these states -- WA, MN, MI, PA, and CO -- are leaning towards Barack Obama. My estimation is that these current trends will stay the same when the numbers count for real on Tuesday 4 November. The other five states -- NV, NM, IN, OH, and VA -- are showing a small edge for supporting John McCain. These five states are ones I think could wobble back towards support for Obama, particularly NM, NV, and OH. There are some other states that could also wobble back to Obama in spite of current numbers showing them to be supporting John McCain. These states are WV, NC, FL, TX, MO, AZ, MT, ND, and SD. I think at least one or two of these states will end up going for Obama, more likely ones with smaller amounts of electoral votes. Among states that are showing a weak level of support for Obama, NH and WI are most possible to switching over to support for McCain. Today the numbers add up to 270 for McCain and 268 for Obama. That means that any and all states in play are critical and the switch of just one state could turn the election one way or another. Today I think in the end Obama will win with between 275 and 290 electoral votes, with 300 not out of the question.
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The most important factor looming for the remaining weeks will be the upcoming presidential candidate debates, of which three are scheduled starting on Friday 26 September at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. The other two debates will be on Tuesday 7 October at Belmont University in Nashville, and on Wednesday 15 October at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, on Long Island. Tens of millions of prospective voters will view these debates and the debates will go a long way in swaying opinions and helping voters make decisions. Beyond the debates, there are other factors that will be influential, but many of these factors cannot be anticipated. What will happen is largely anyone's guess...
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