Has McCain actually already LOST?(Yes he has)

[Tribun]

I just saw a paradox.
While national tracker polls have dropped to roughly Obama +3-6 (which WAS expected), state polls actually show Obama much stronger. I admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics behind this. Is this normal?

[Edi]

I just saw a paradox.
While national tracker polls have dropped to roughly Obama +3-6 (which WAS expected), state polls actually show Obama much stronger. I admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics behind this. Is this normal?

You not understanding polls is taken for granted these days. Since you don't understand them, why the fuck do you keep looking them up? You get nothing out of them and all you manage to do is pester everyone here. However, in this case the actual asking of what's going on is an improvement over the past when you pretended to know what you were talking about while having no idea.

[apocolypse]

I just saw a paradox.
While national tracker polls have dropped to roughly Obama +3-6 (which WAS expected), state polls actually show Obama much stronger. I admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics behind this. Is this normal?

You have to take into account that the national polls will include sections where Obama does not have a majority. Take for instance Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. All those states have McCain 10 to 20 points or so ahead of Obama.

[Max]

I've asked my mom why she's voting for McCain. Find a chair, sit, brace yourselves...

Less government. And If I want to redistribute my wealth, I will choose to redistribute it to the agencies or people that I WANT to give it to.

Why are you voting for Obama?

I'm still thinking of how to tackle this without pissing her off and reinforcing her decision. Any help would be appreciated, lol. Minnesota is most likely going to Obama anyway...and no, she's not the woman in the video calling him an arab.

[Samuel]

Point out that the last three Republican presidents have INCREASED the size of the government.

Or you can ask her what is wrong with "more government". Want better schools? More cops on the street? Those are both "more government".

As for wealth redistribution... she is basically saying "I got mine, screw them". I have been told we need to put it more diplomatically though... how about "not everyone is as altruistic as you and some will hoard it"? Or you could mention the free rider problem. Or you could mention the fact that Europe uses said system and it works better than private charity for health care.

As for why to vote for Obama, point out he isn't a theocratic maniac, is extremely intelligent, doesn't intend to increase the tax burden on the middle class, wants to socialize our medicine (er... use a different phrase. However, given how well socialized medicine works, it shouldn't be an insult. Only in America.), doesn't want to discriminate as much as McCain based on sexual orientation, etc. Just go to his website to get his stances and positions.

Such a question is better put in debating help though.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I just saw a paradox.
While national tracker polls have dropped to roughly Obama +3-6 (which WAS expected), state polls actually show Obama much stronger. I admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics behind this. Is this normal?

You have to take into account that the national polls will include sections where Obama does not have a majority. Take for instance Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. All those states have McCain 10 to 20 points or so ahead of Obama.

One of the other things is polls will often put a State in one persons camp Despite what the polsl say due to state history. In Arizona for instance, Obam and McCain are essentially tied, thus one would "Think" we'd be a toss upstate, but due to the fact that, well, McCain comes from Arizona, every large Electrol map shows Arizona as "Strongly Republican"
Likewise other long time Republican states such as Indiana, Virgina, etc... Obama is ahead in most of these sates, yet most maps will have them at the most "Tossup" or usually "slightly leaning Republican"

[RedImperator]

I just saw a paradox.
While national tracker polls have dropped to roughly Obama +3-6 (which WAS expected), state polls actually show Obama much stronger. I admit that I don't fully understand the mechanics behind this. Is this normal?

You have to take into account that the national polls will include sections where Obama does not have a majority. Take for instance Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, etc. All those states have McCain 10 to 20 points or so ahead of Obama.

One of the other things is polls will often put a State in one persons camp Despite what the polsl say due to state history. In Arizona for instance, Obam and McCain are essentially tied, thus one would "Think" we'd be a toss upstate, but due to the fact that, well, McCain comes from Arizona, every large Electrol map shows Arizona as "Strongly Republican"
Likewise other long time Republican states such as Indiana, Virgina, etc... Obama is ahead in most of these sates, yet most maps will have them at the most "Tossup" or usually "slightly leaning Republican"

Part of the reason Arizona was "strong Republican" for so long was because nobody bothered to poll it until recently. As far as Virginia and Indiana, Pollster has Virginia "Strong Democrat" and Electoral-Vote has it "Weak Democrat" (reflecting their differing methodologies and different criteria for "strong"), while E-V has Indiana "barely Democrat" and Pollster calls it a tossup--both approppriate, as Indiana is a statistical tie. Independent electoral maps are generally showing more Obama states, while the news organizations seem to be using a more conservative model (we'll ignore Fox News completely, because they're just plain lying).

[Vendetta]

As for wealth redistribution... she is basically saying "I got mine, screw them". I have been told we need to put it more diplomatically though...

The trouble with this attitude in modern America is that unless you are seriously rich, you are the one that is going to get screwed.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Here's another way to look at the election, with information pulled from fivethirtyeight:

Obama has, as of today, these seventeen states locked in until election:

Massachusetts - 12 EV
Connecticut - 7 EV
Maine - 4 EV
Rhode Island - 4 EV
Vermont - 3 EV
New York - 31 EV
New Jersey - 15 EV
Maryland - 10 EV
Washington, D.C. - 3 EV (Alright, it isn't a state - so sue me. )
Delaware - 3 EV
Michigan - 17 EV
Illinois - 21 EV
Iowa - 7 EV
California - 55 EV
Washington - 11 EV
Oregon - 7 EV
Hawaii - 4 EV

Just these states alone, all Kerry states and all states which Obama will carry come hell or high-water, are worth a combined 183 electoral votes. He needs only 87 more from outside these states to win the election, and will almost certainly carry Wisconsin and Minnesota's collective 20 electoral votes in addition to these (Nate calculates his odds of victory in these two states as ~99%). That would leave him simply 67 shy.

Now let's look at McCain's 14 solid states:

South Carolina - 8
Texas - 34
Alabama - 9
Louisiana - 9
Tennessee - 11
Kentucky - 8
Oklahoma - 7
Arkansas - 6
Kansas - 6
Nebraska - 5
Utah - 5
Idaho - 4
Wyoming - 3
Alaska - 3

Texas is large, but the rest of these states combined are only equivalent to Illinois and California together in electoral votes. These fourteen states give McCain only 117 absolutely guaranteed votes in the electoral college - he needs to scrounge up more than double this number, 153 votes, from elsewhere. Now, he will carry Mississippi, West Virginia, Arizona, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana - but all of these states combined have only 21 electoral votes, leaving him still off 132 votes. If he succeeds in taking Pennsylvania, he'll have 111 to go. If he carries Ohio with that, even though odds are against him there, he'll need 91. Taking Indiana, North Carolina and Missouri would leave him grasping for 54 votes, about a California's worth. And this is the best possible scenario for him.

Sorry if the above is a bit confused, but I've been doing a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations and I really can't see how he gets the electoral votes he needs even if the next week turns into a disaster for Obama. I hate to encourage complacency, but I just don't think he's going to win.

[ArcturusMengsk]

Correction: Giving McCain his guaranteed 117 electoral votes, he needs 153 from elsewhere to win, or he needs to effectively double his guaranteed votes. Or something.

[Surlethe]

ArcturusMengsk, I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations a few pages back in this thread very similar to what you're saying. I pulled my numbers from electoral-vote.com. My method was simply to take the swing states -- i.e., those that are "weak Democrat", "tied", or "weak Republican" -- and see, out of the total number of combinations, how many grant a McCain victory. Overall, we have right now Obama locking up 264 EVs (the dark blue states), McCain with 118 EVs (the dark red states), and 85 weak or tied. Those are: NV, CO, MT, ND, SD, MO, MS(!), IN, WV, OH, VA, NC, GA(!), FL. Oh, and AZ. Obama needs, out of those 85 EVs, a mere six to win. That means he loses only when he loses all of them, wins only NV, wins only MT, wins only ND, wins only SD, or wins only WV. In other words, out of the total of 2^15 combinations, Obama loses 6 times.

More realistically, I'm going to discount the possibility of Obama winning in ND, MT, GA, AZ, or WV. That leaves NV, CO, MO, IN, OH, VA, NC, FL as the toss-ups. Obama loses in these two cases: either he loses all of them, or he wins only NV. That's 2 out of 2^8, or a 1-in-128 chance of losing, without weighting the states by who they're likely to go for (for example, CO is very likely Obama territory now).

[The Yosemite Bear]

Ok just because we are geeky enough for this.

Han McCain: Never Tell me the odds

[Garlak]

I think never tell me the facts would be more appropriate?

[Darth Wong]

I've asked my mom why she's voting for McCain. Find a chair, sit, brace yourselves...

Less government. And If I want to redistribute my wealth, I will choose to redistribute it to the agencies or people that I WANT to give it to.

Why are you voting for Obama?

I'm still thinking of how to tackle this without pissing her off and reinforcing her decision. Any help would be appreciated, lol. Minnesota is most likely going to Obama anyway...and no, she's not the woman in the video calling him an arab.

She's a moron. Lost cause.

To elaborate, she's the kind of person who listens to "talking points" and does not consider those talking points subject to criticism or rebuttal. If you blather about how the Republicans actually tend to increase the size of government, she will just ignore it as a lot of jibberish and repeat her claim that Democrats want to increase the size of government, because the McCain-Palin campaign keeps saying that so it must be true.

Seriously, there are plenty of people out there who subscribe to the logic that "they wouldn't keep saying that if it wasn't true."

[Illuminatus Primus]

I hate this rhetoric, because its not as if McSame-Retard support a flat tax or some other radical thing. They're still supporting the progressive income tax system, and Barbietard actually runs Alaskan government like a Chavezista. What a joke

[Duckie]

An interesting light on McCain supporters:

Mediacurves mesures peoples' reactions to commercials in real time. Watch this video of a Pro-Obama ad talking about visionaries who want to change the world.

Pictures of Einstein and other famous people cause the credibility of the ad to rise. But when Republicans (red line) see Martin Luther King, it stops rising when Independents and Democrats do. It drops at two other times: Seeing another black man, and seeing Bill Clinton. It rises hugely after seeing Ghandi from its Clinton low.

Mediacurves

It's almost like they react negatively to even seeing black men.

[Adrian Laguna]

I've asked my mom why she's voting for McCain. Find a chair, sit, brace yourselves...

Less government. And If I want to redistribute my wealth, I will choose to redistribute it to the agencies or people that I WANT to give it to.

Why are you voting for Obama?

I'm still thinking of how to tackle this without pissing her off and reinforcing her decision.

If your mother has an income of less than a quarter million dollars, individually, then kindly remind her that Obama wants to give her a tax break.

[Darth Wong]

An interesting light on McCain supporters:

Mediacurves mesures peoples' reactions to commercials in real time. Watch this video of a Pro-Obama ad talking about visionaries who want to change the world.

Pictures of Einstein and other famous people cause the credibility of the ad to rise. But when Republicans (red line) see Martin Luther King, it stops rising when Independents and Democrats do. It drops at two other times: Seeing another black man, and seeing Bill Clinton. It rises hugely after seeing Ghandi from its Clinton low.

Mediacurves

It's almost like they react negatively to even seeing black men.

Of course they do. You act like that should be a surprise.

The Republican party's hardcore "base" is people who thought Jim Crow was a pretty good idea, and that the South should have won the Civil War.

[eyl]

On another board (which has a fairly strong conservative leaning) someone argued that there are two populations which are significantly underpolled - the 19-29 age group and the military, the latter especially being disposed to vote for McCain, skewing the numbers in Obama's favor.

A) Is this true?
B) If these two sectors are underpolled, would that be enough to turn the election in McCain's favor (or narrow an Obama victory to the "too close to be clear" territory you had in 2000)?

[The Yosemite Bear]

the former aren't very likely to vote as per the last 30 years of statistics have shown.

The latter often have difficulty exercising thier democratic obligations, and legally can't comment on how they will vote. (someone keeps using them as props)

however as for supporting McCain, if their votes are where their donations have been this year, they are more likely to support Obama or Ron Paul.

[Dark Hellion]

The 19-29 year olds have been going Obama like its going out of style. Where do you think he is pulling so many campaign volunteers out of? Even if both are underpolled the 19-29s are going to be able to more than make up for the military vote, especially because some more informed military voters are going to see things like McCain's continuous resistance to better health care, psychiatric care and retirement benefits as a massive betrayal.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hellion, as I pointed out the majority of military donations have already been for Obama and Ron Paul, as the whole health care, no GI Bill for YOU!, and a few other policies have pissed off the military severely.

[Dark Hellion]

Sorry, was responding to Eyl, not you. Shoulda put quotes.

[Mr Bean]

Fun fact:The military Donates to Obama 8-1 to McCain. The military "polls" I've seen are bullshit. Yes retired service-members vote for McCain. Retired DISABLED service members vote for Obama and comparing responses on Active duty is silly bad. McCain is getting trounced in the servicemen vote there too.

The problem is of course it's always tricky to pool the military because your not supposed to, and the few surveys out there are self selecting "we are conducting a poll, can military people contact us to respond to questions"

As everyone with any bit of statistical background knows, self selecting polls are worth almost nothing.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Well sorry, I get spam mail from Vet. affairs groups, as I have donated for CARE packages, my stepdad and stepsister suffer from cancer as a result of my stepdad's time in the military, and while I have never had a yellow ribbon bumpersticker, I have done some things to directly support our soldiers and their families. I've been very sickened by the official mistreatment of our service personell and their families, which I liken to the Spanish American, or Civil War era policies.

The point being that official apperatus have been targeting me saying that I have to vote for McCain, because I am pro-soldiers. Funny, while he did serve in Vietnam, his actions over the last eight years have been too dishonerable and disgracefull.