Posts Tagged ‘prediction’

My election night prediction

Here's how the reporting will go on the election on November 4th, barring massive voting-machine meltdowns in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and other states.

9PM EST — We'll be told that with the close of polls on the East Coast:

Barack Obama has secured the electoral votes of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Washington D.C., and Virginia, for a total of 130 electoral votes.

John McCain will have captured West Virginia, North Carolina (in an “upset”), South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, for 60 electoral votes.

10PM EST — Polls close in the Central time zone, and the reports will try to stoke the sense of drama as they report the following outcomes:

Barack Obama has won in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois, bringing his total to 195 electoral votes.

John McCain, we'll be told, has narrowed the gap dramatically. He'll win in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, bringing his total to 161 electoral votes — “within striking distance of Barack Obama's lead.”

11PM EST — The Mountain states close their polls. And then, we'll be told by some talking head on FOX News, “the race has shifted!”

Barack Obama, we'll be told, has won New Mexico, bringing him to 200 electoral votes.

John McCain, FOX News anchors in search of ratings will crow, “has taken the lead!” Winning in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona, he now has a “commanding” 258 electoral votes. Whoopity-doo.

Midnight EST — The anchors will do their best to drag it out, and they'll fill their airtime talking about the genuinely important Senate races and other downticket contests, but sometime shortly after midnight it will be all over, and they'll have to call it before 1AM EST:

Barack Obama has won the West Coast: California, Oregon, and Washington. He now has 273 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 EV mark, and winning the presidency.

Nods will be made to Hawaii and Alaska, but it will be a purely academic interest, as it's all but a foregone conclusion that Alaska's three votes will tip into John McCain's column, and Barack Obama will handily claim Hawaii's four electoral votes.

My prediction of the final tally on Election 2008: Winner, Barack Obama, with 277 electoral votes, over John McCain, with 261 electoral votes.

 

A prediction…

I’m going out on a limb here. I’ll try making a political prediction: Before the November 4 election, John McCain will replace Sarah Palin on his ticket.

It will probably happen just before or just after the VP debate on October 2.

Some excuse will be proffered, probably a variation on, “Governor Palin needs to spend more time with her special-needs infant.”

Rather than replace her with some well-known figure, McCain will choose another obscure female candidate.

Why? As Chris Matthews said on The Rachel Maddow Show, “razzle-dazzle.” Every time the poll numbers and the media narrative have turned against McCain, he has responded with a wild Hail Mary action to steal back the narrative.

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech electrifies the nation? Name Sarah Palin as VP.

The Palin novelty factor wears off and the economic crisis highlights McCain’s weaknesses? Faux “suspend” the campaign “for the national good.”

Now, as pundits and people seem to say that Obama was the winner of the first presidential debate, McCain’s numbers continue to erode in key battleground states, and the New York Times has just published an article detailing McCain’s troubling links to the gambling industry, it’s time for a new Hail Mary pass.

What would be big enough to change the media narrative again come Monday morning? Replacing his campaign manager with Rudy Giuliani? Maybe.

But if he doesn’t replace Palin before her Thursday debate with senate veteran Joe Biden, his campaign could be looking at a crippling gut-punch. What better way to forestall the pain than to have Palin recuse herself from the campaign on Wednesday, leaving no VP debate on the schedule?

Then all McCain has to do is pick another mystery Veep and let the media “run out the clock” for him, vetting this new cipher, giving him weeks of free air time, and all but shouldering Obama and Biden off the stage.

It would be erratic, insane, and unsettling. But in our ADD culture, it just might work.

I hope I’m wrong, and that McCain keeps this Alaskan Albatross around his neck, and that they lose.

But we’ll see.