Light at the end of the tunnel: The 2008 Election, its aftermath and the future

We've reached the final weekend of an interminable process. Election Day 2008 is at hand and the country is about to definitively learn who will be in charge in the coming years. Some of us have been talking about this election since shortly after the conclusion of the 2004 process. Others joined in after the 2006 mid-terms and still others sometime after that. Everyone has a stake in Tuesday's verdict, and that's what we're here to talk about.

A few useful sites:

538.com

RealClearPolitics

First Read

electoral-vote

Pollster.com

So, in what will be the final 2008 election thread, let's get to it. We know where the battle lines are, and we're about to find out the winners and losers. That's only the beginning of the story, of course. What happens afterward will have as much bearing on the future as who wins and loses on Election night.

 

All I can say is finally.

 

I hope just for the sake of preserving some sense of integrity in the process that the final election result doesn't come down to a court ruling. I understand that Kerry fought with the idea of a court challenge in 2004 but ultimately rejected it. If Obama wins then I think it will be a truly magnificent moment in US history just for the fact that the people elected a black president. From an outsider's perspective, I think this will improve America's image in the eyes of the world. If McCain wins then I wonder if the Democrats will ever win office in a post 9/11 world.

 

Can we make a law forbidding two-year-long election seasons?

Please?

Seriously?

 

I'm going to miss it, actually. The political blogs, the shifts in the polls, the 3-4 daily email fundraising requests from the Obama campaign, the local Obama campaign volunteer emails and phone calls. My block's total saturation with Obama yard signs.

 

I'd like to add electoral-vote.com to the 'useful site' list.

 

Added .

 

Hmm, prediction time.

I'm going to go out on a relatively strong limb here and predict Obama landslide. Call me crazy, but I'm going to predict 378-160, for That One. That's right, I'm predicting that Obama will win North Dakota. His victory in North Dakota will be challenged by the McCain campaign, on the grounds that no one from North Dakota is actually willing to admit that they voted for Obama, but it'll stand against recounts.

Having said that, I also feel that I'd rather safe in saying that the victory will be for Obama, and somewhere between a 391-147 disaster for the Republicans, and a 291-247 slugfest victory for the Democrats. But at this point, McCain could somehow win Colorado and Virginia and still lose the election when it goes to the tie-breaker.

 

I'll miss it too. I'm just sorry that I don't have as much time to post as I need.

But here's a little sompin to keep you guys entertained while I go to make the money!

 

I'm with Stackpole here. Two years is too darn long.

My prediction - Obama by a small majority. There will be Republican protests and calls for investigation that will continue into the first few months of Obama's presidency and then they'll start making things up to harass him for the next 4 years.

 

One of the blogs I read (John Rogers, screenwriter) has an interesting comment on the whole socialist scare-tactic. Nothing tremendously insightful on that front, just what most rational folks already know -- that for all the cries of "socialism!" Obama's policies are really going to be either pretty much what we've got, or moderate improvements in most cases.

But what I really thought was interesting is his take on the Obamamercial that aired on Weds. I heard a lot of people say it was kind of dull, and that was honestly my feeling as well. Basically, Rogers' theory is that the infomercial wasn't really meant to sell Obama's policies. Everyone's heard that by now. It was to show the undecided -- and yes, probably just a little racist, or at least prejudiced -- voters of America that Obama isn't a scary black man, and to make the idea of a black President so non-threatening that even they are bored with it by now.

I've been thinking that this may have been at the heart of Obama's "image crafting" since the beginning. He caught some flack for the Greek columns in the stadium -- which looked, through the camera, as though he were speaking on the White House lawn. He caught flack for having a logo that looked a heck of a lot like a Presidential seal on the podium of one of his speeches. Even the infomercial he took a bit of a ribbing for doing his little "policy" vignettes in something very similar to the Oval Office.

But all of this, I think, has been done not so much out of hubris or presumption, but because they've been working to get Americans used to the idea of seeing a black man standing in those places, and seeing that it's not that scary.

 

QFT

 

It's been a very long two years. I've gone through senior year of high school, freshman year of college, halfway through sophomore year of college, and I've gotten two new cousins since the 2008 campaign started.

I predict (hope) that Obama wins.

Regardless of who wins, this CANNOT be a repeat of 2000. We NEED a decisive, undisputed winner to come out of this election. If Obama wins or if McCain wins, we cannot have one side thinking the other stole this election. In 2000 things were different, the world seemed like a much better place. Now in 2008 we have so many problems to carry on from the Bush years, our nation is extremely stressed out and divided. We need to at least start out on a good note, with no one having any reasons to challenge the winner, no matter who it is.


Summary of the main points of the election:

This is how the Democrats started out:
Hillary Clinton: for universal healthcare
Barack Obama: for foreign policy judgment
John Edwards: for helping the poor
plus Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Gravel, and Kucinich.
They ended the primary season divided between Clinton and Obama camps, but have managed to unite and come together after the convention. Hillary's main argument was for "EXPERIENCE," and Obama's main argument was for CHANGE. Other mottos Obama has used a lot are "HOPE" and "YES WE CAN." Obama had upset some of his more liberal supporters with his support on the FISA bill, concerning the government wiretapping controversy. The main setbacks against Obama during the primary season were the revealed past sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, causing some to question Obama's patriotism, as well as Obama's comment on how in hard times people tend to be bitter and cling to their guns and their religion. Those two missteps would go on to be the focus of McCain's campaign against him, while Obama would try to tie McCain and Palin to Bush and Cheney. There were upset Hillary supporters for Obama not picking her as Vice President, and Joe Biden has had gaffes (including one predicting the next president would be tested in the first 6 months), but Democrats are overall happy and optimistic about the Obama-Biden ticket. The financial/stock/housing crash, troubled economy, and government bailouts have made the economy the #1 issue for Americans, helping support for Obama. He proved to be cool and steady during the crisis, and through the three debates. Many "red" states that voted for Bush in 2004 and 2000, even longtime Republican strongholds like Virginia, have the potential to become "blue" states on November 4th.

This is how the Republicans started out:
John McCain: for how to handle the wars
Mitt Romney: for how to handle the economy
Mike Huckabee: for the conservative Christian movement
Rudy Giuliani: for how to handle national security in a post-9/11 world
Ron Paul: for how to be small-government and true to the Constitution
Tom Tancredo: for how to deal with illegal immigration
plus Thompson, Hunter, and a few others.
They started off with McCain as the frontrunner, but he became unpopular after being thought of as weak on immigration issues, and Giuliani took the spotlight. The GOP seemed to be very divided. Giuliani failed in his big-state strategy, Fred Thompson proved to be a dud, and Huckabee pulled a surprise. Huckabee and McCain worked together to take down the Romney machine, and then McCain beat Huckabee. McCain became the clear winner, the party seemed united, but did nothing as Clinton and Obama fought it out. After McCain picked Sarah Palin (some say the embodiment of the Republican shift to anti-intellectualism), the party became divided again. She was originally picked to bring in Hillary supporters, but her strong conservative views and perceived ignorance scared them, as well as many other moderates and independents, away. During the campaign she has even been found guilty of abusing her power as Governor of Alaska, and she also takes away McCain's argument of experience. Even Republicans like Colin Powell endorsed the Democratic ticket, a

 

DG

Good stuff. I will say as I said before, that Giuliani is done as a national candidate. If it's Obama, Palin and Romney are the clear frontrunners in 2012, with Jindal as a darkhorse. If McCain wins, it'll be Hillary, with perhaps a Mark Warner or Jim Webb as a darkhorse.

 

This is my official prediction (at least as of tonight). Other than Georgia, I feel confident about my state picks (except maybe for North Carolina).

So, maybe everyone here can submit their predictions .

 

I think Obama keeps all the Kerry Sates and takes Florida, Virgina, Nevada, Colorda, Iowa and possibly Arizona, if it's still close on Monday. If McCain wasn't from Arizona, I think Obama would be ahead there.

 

I hope Giuliani is done, but I think he may try one more time even though I'm sure he would again die out in the primaries. He's been a very enthusiastic supporter of McCain, even though I haven't heard of him campaigning much, he probably would have been used by the campaign more if they actually had a shot at any of the blue states though. I forgot about Jindal, I think he may definitely have a future. I think if McCain was smart, Charlie Crist would have been his VP, but that's my opinion. I don't think Huckabee will come back.

Hillary Clinton won't run again in 2012, and definitely not in 2016. She doesn't look it, but she is 61 years old. In 2012 she will be 65. In 2016 she will 69, nearly as old as McCain is now. Not only that, but Obama's primary victory basically said the time of the Clintons is over, that it's time to move on. I doubt we would move back in four more years. Maybe Chelsea Clinton will run in a decade or two, but even that is unlikely.

I could maybe see a Virginia Democrat running in 2012, if Obama were to lose, but there really doesn't seem to be a long list of people for the Democrats like it was for this campaign. Edwards is done. Hillary is done. Biden can't succeed at the top of the ticket, for whatever reason. Richardson has a small chance of trying again. I just cannot picture any serious candidate running for the Democrats in 2012, if Obama were to lose. Obama may try again if he loses, if the base would even forgive him for losing.


Because, really, IF Democrats lose this on Tuesday, how in the world can we ever hope to win again, like, ever? So many people I know, including myself, would just be devastated and crushed if Obama loses.


Which is why I was saying, no matter who wins, it needs to be decisive. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind, there had better not be any alleged voting machine errors, or voting fraud, or people unable to vote, or votes not being counted, or anything like that. If it's close and there's even a reasonable hint of someone illegally messing with the election, on either side, whether true or untrue, these next four years will start on an extremely bitter and hyper-divisive note and we may even see riots. Both sides are heavily invested in this election, there needs to be no question on who the winner is and that he won it fairly. I say that not as a Democrat-supporter or as an Obama-supporter, but as an American.

 

My prediction - Obama by a small majority. There will be Republican protests and calls for investigation that will continue into the first few months of Obama's presidency and then they'll start making things up to harass him for the next 4 years.

You forgot the part where they will equate what they make up with the war in Iraq as just as bad or worse.

For 2012, the GOP front-runners to challenge a President Obama will probably be Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Sarah Palin.

There is no WAY Palin will hold her own against those two, let alone other challengers that will come to the fore. She can dream on about 2012: not gonna happen.

 

My map.

 

My prediction: the Kerry states, plus Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, and Nevada. Those last two are iffy, and so is Ohio, but I think that's what I'll go with as my prediction.

The states to keep an eye on Tuesday night are Virginia, Pennsylvannia, Colorado, Ohio, and Florida. When we know how those states go, we will know who won the election, barring a big surprise. Not that it's impossible, in such an unpredicatble campaign I'm ready for one more giant surprise to finish it off in a bang!

Here's an appropriate theme song for this thread!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZkllM8znx4



Here's my map, KW.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/14310/

 

Just make a map, Ghost .

 

Triple Three
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/14308/
My Realistic Map


An Obama Landslide-420
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/14314/
This if McCain has a really bad night.

 

My map.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/14311/

Wouldn't place money on it, but Obama is going to win and there isn't anything anybody can do to stop it. (Which is also might be a reason for some to vote for McCain, just to let Obama have a little humility when he gets in)

 

McCain was the old McCain on SNL...self-deprecating and funny. It's too bad what some people have to become in order to run for President.

My map is basically the same as Jabba's minus Florida. I think McCain is going to eek out a victory there.

Gonk

I disagree. Palin is more popular, especially with the base, than Rudy.

 

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v17/DarthBreezy/mymap.jpg]

Did it a few weeks ago... If pressed, I'd say Montana, ND and MO are potential flips back to McCain.