Grand Old Fascists...

... or, at least, more evidence of a disturbing trend in Republican ground game.

Reporter assaulted by Palin supporter in North Carolina

Here's the consequence of the Republican line that reporters and "the media" are the enemy: not only do you end up with nobody's story except the GOP propaganda, but you encourage people to strike out at "the enemy among us."

(Found at Ben Smith's blog at politico.com .)

Grand Old Fascists...

... or, at least, more evidence of a disturbing trend in Republican ground game.

Reporter assaulted by Palin supporter in North Carolina

Here's the consequence of the Republican line that reporters and "the media" are the enemy: not only do you end up with nobody's story except the GOP propaganda, but you encourage people to strike out at "the enemy among us."

(Found at Ben Smith's blog at politico.com .)

My Prediction on the States

Yesterday I did an analysis based on FiveThirtyEight.com's statistical predictions of the Presidential campaign. Although they called both Republican and especially Democratic primaries almost perfectly, I still think they're currently running a little bit too strong in Obama's favor.

If they're right, GREAT, but here's my own prediction, partly based on the polling, partly gut feeling.

First, I really believe that the racist vote will be considerably stronger than the polls show- the Bradley effect. It won't be that way nationwide, though- only in the most ignorant, backwards regions of the nation, which is to say Appalachia and the deep South (including my own Texas).

In Pennsylvania and Virginia the urban and suburban areas have grown too large for the Appalachian counties to overrule them; Obama will almost certainly win those states. North Carolina might break either way. Florida has more retired northern liberals, to be sure, but it also has more retired conservatives, and quite a number of racists, retired or not- I'm going to predict, in the face of current polls, that McCain carries it, along with the rest of the Confederacy except for Virginia.

I also include Ohio here; Cincinnati and the counties bordering Pennsyltucky are extremely unlikely to go for Obama, and there are enough people there to outweigh Cleveland and the Rust Belt counties to the north. McCain will hold Ohio.

Outside the above areas, I don't believe race will be an issue, and I'll go by the polls... with the proviso that the race will close a couple of points between now and Nov. 4.

The entire ACELA corridor and beyond, from Maine to DC and Virginia, will go for Obama, as will the Rust Belt except for the aforementioned Ohio and Indiana. He'll also pull in Iowa, which McCain lost on one of the few issues on which he's correct- corn ethanol subsidies. McCain opposes, Obama supports. Missouri, the ultimate border state, is too close to call, as North Carolina is.

McCain will take most of the interior West... but most of that area is uninhabited. Obama will take Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, and in all three cases the margin will be broad enough to leave us wondering why we ever thought any of them were swing states. North Dakota, somewhat surprisingly, is too close to call.

Finally, on the Pacific Coast, only Alaska goes to McCain; everything else goes to Obama.

To sum up: Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada are the only states I expect to flip from red to blue. Nothing flips blue to red. North Dakota, Missouri and North Carolina are too close to call. Anything beyond that- Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana- will be gravy if they flip, but I don't much expect them to.

That's a 32 electoral vote swing away from the GOP to the Dems, with 30 electoral votes that could go either way.

And you know what? 32 electoral votes is enough. If only Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada flip, Obama wins 291-247. McCain has to hold Virginia and Colorado and either Nevada or New Mexico- and lose nothing else that Bush won in 2004- to win.

So... if Obama wins Virginia, color it over.

OK, given my prediction:

Obama wins Kerry 2004 + VA, CO, NV, NM - 291-247

... my pessimistic, worst-case scenario has Obama winning by margins pretty much the same as 2000 (271-266-1) and 2004 (286-251-1), except for a reversal of the parties. It would also be a Carter-Ford victory (297-240);

Let's add the other states that are currently considered possible flips, in order from most to least likely.

First, my "can't call" states- North Carolina, North Dakota, and Missouri are my order of probability:

Obama wins above + NC - 306-232 (1968 Nixon 301, Humphrey 191, Wallace 46; 1960 Kennedy 303, Nixon 219, Byrd 15)
... + ND - 309-229
... + MO - 320-218

And now for the others, ordered by poll margins:

... + FL - 347-191
... + OH - 367-171 (1992 Clinton 370, Bush 168, Perot 0)
... + IN - 378-160 (1996 Clinton 379, Dole 159, Perot 0)
... + WV - 383-155

(and these last three are, put bluntly, fantasyland)

... + MT - 386-152
... + GA - 401-137
... + MS - 407-131 (1988 Bush 426, Dukakis 111)

No one-sided landslides like Reagan '80 and '84, Nixon '72, or Johnson '64 this year, of course. McCain has at least eighteen states sewn up beyond all shaking.

(Have your own fun using CNN's electoral vote calculator: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/calculator/ )

(Historical results from http://uselectionatlas.org/ )

My Prediction on the States

Yesterday I did an analysis based on FiveThirtyEight.com's statistical predictions of the Presidential campaign. Although they called both Republican and especially Democratic primaries almost perfectly, I still think they're currently running a little bit too strong in Obama's favor.

If they're right, GREAT, but here's my own prediction, partly based on the polling, partly gut feeling.

First, I really believe that the racist vote will be considerably stronger than the polls show- the Bradley effect. It won't be that way nationwide, though- only in the most ignorant, backwards regions of the nation, which is to say Appalachia and the deep South (including my own Texas).

In Pennsylvania and Virginia the urban and suburban areas have grown too large for the Appalachian counties to overrule them; Obama will almost certainly win those states. North Carolina might break either way. Florida has more retired northern liberals, to be sure, but it also has more retired conservatives, and quite a number of racists, retired or not- I'm going to predict, in the face of current polls, that McCain carries it, along with the rest of the Confederacy except for Virginia.

I also include Ohio here; Cincinnati and the counties bordering Pennsyltucky are extremely unlikely to go for Obama, and there are enough people there to outweigh Cleveland and the Rust Belt counties to the north. McCain will hold Ohio.

Outside the above areas, I don't believe race will be an issue, and I'll go by the polls... with the proviso that the race will close a couple of points between now and Nov. 4.

The entire ACELA corridor and beyond, from Maine to DC and Virginia, will go for Obama, as will the Rust Belt except for the aforementioned Ohio and Indiana. He'll also pull in Iowa, which McCain lost on one of the few issues on which he's correct- corn ethanol subsidies. McCain opposes, Obama supports. Missouri, the ultimate border state, is too close to call, as North Carolina is.

McCain will take most of the interior West... but most of that area is uninhabited. Obama will take Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, and in all three cases the margin will be broad enough to leave us wondering why we ever thought any of them were swing states. North Dakota, somewhat surprisingly, is too close to call.

Finally, on the Pacific Coast, only Alaska goes to McCain; everything else goes to Obama.

To sum up: Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada are the only states I expect to flip from red to blue. Nothing flips blue to red. North Dakota, Missouri and North Carolina are too close to call. Anything beyond that- Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana- will be gravy if they flip, but I don't much expect them to.

That's a 32 electoral vote swing away from the GOP to the Dems, with 30 electoral votes that could go either way.

And you know what? 32 electoral votes is enough. If only Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada flip, Obama wins 291-247. McCain has to hold Virginia and Colorado and either Nevada or New Mexico- and lose nothing else that Bush won in 2004- to win.

So... if Obama wins Virginia, color it over.

OK, given my prediction:

Obama wins Kerry 2004 + VA, CO, NV, NM - 291-247

... my pessimistic, worst-case scenario has Obama winning by margins pretty much the same as 2000 (271-266-1) and 2004 (286-251-1), except for a reversal of the parties. It would also be a Carter-Ford victory (297-240);

Let's add the other states that are currently considered possible flips, in order from most to least likely.

First, my "can't call" states- North Carolina, North Dakota, and Missouri are my order of probability:

Obama wins above + NC - 306-232 (1968 Nixon 301, Humphrey 191, Wallace 46; 1960 Kennedy 303, Nixon 219, Byrd 15)
... + ND - 309-229
... + MO - 320-218

And now for the others, ordered by poll margins:

... + FL - 347-191
... + OH - 367-171 (1992 Clinton 370, Bush 168, Perot 0)
... + IN - 378-160 (1996 Clinton 379, Dole 159, Perot 0)
... + WV - 383-155

(and these last three are, put bluntly, fantasyland)

... + MT - 386-152
... + GA - 401-137
... + MS - 407-131 (1988 Bush 426, Dukakis 111)

No one-sided landslides like Reagan '80 and '84, Nixon '72, or Johnson '64 this year, of course. McCain has at least eighteen states sewn up beyond all shaking.

(Have your own fun using CNN's electoral vote calculator: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/calculator/ )

(Historical results from http://uselectionatlas.org/ )

So much for Prez... how about a 60 Senate?

There's talk about getting a 60 vote Democratic majority in the US Senate.

Now, counting independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, the Democrats currently hold the Senate 51-49. Most pundits are assuming that Lieberman, despite his speech at the GOP convention and his loud and loyal support for John McCain, will remain aligned with the Democrats in the next Congress. My personal bet is that Lieberman gets told politely come Jan. 3 to decide who his friends really are, and that Lieberman will declare as a Republican- so that takes the count to 50-50 to begin with. The Democrats need a pickup of ten seats total to get a filibuster-proof Senate.

At this point we can be pretty much certain of four Democratic pickups. The Republicans have fielded second-string opposition and negligible material support in three contested races- John Warner's vacant seat in Virginia (he's retiring) and the Udall brothers' Democratic runs for Senate in New Mexico and Colorado. Mark Warner is cruising to victory in his race to replace his unrelated namesake. Add to this New Hampshire, where Junior Sununu is getting his ass handed to him by Jeanne Shaheen, and that takes the balance to 54-46. Six to go.

The rest of the six, though, are not going to be so easy. Here's the breakdown.

55. NORTH CAROLINA - Elizabeth Dole, wife of 1996 GOP Prez candidate Bob Dole, seemed safe and secure as recently as three months ago. A combination of aggressive advertising by Democratic candidate Kay Hagan and the economic downturn has changed that- to the point that the last three polls released on the race show Dole marginally behind. Barring either a massive silent "Nobama" vote with coattails or some economic miracle, the Dems probably pick this one up.

56. OREGON - Republican Gordon Smith is one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate- and a significant possibility to cross party lines to break a filibuster in any case. That said, he's having very serious difficulty with State Senate leader Jeff Merkley. Even if the Dems lose this race- and right now they're narrowly ahead- they'll have Smith on their side now and again.

57. ALASKA - Ted Stevens today wrapped up his testimony and cross-examination in his own corruption trial. That, plus the Bridge to Nowhere, has him in a statistical tie with his opponent, Marc Begich. The only reason it's a tie is Sarah Palin's VP candidacy; Palin is still very popular in Alaska despite her own corruption investigations, and took Alaska from a battleground state back into McCain-safe territory. The outcome of this race will essentially depend on whether the verdict that comes in is innocent or guilty.

Now we get into territory where the Democrats will need help, and lots of it, to get any further gains:

58? MINNESOTA - Norm Coleman barely defeated a dead man for his seat- he won election when his incumbent opponent Paul Wellstone died in that airplane crash. (On paper, his final opponent was former VP Walter Mondale- so, he beat one dead man and one nearly dead man, but barely.) He should have been seen as eminently vulnerable... but the best the Democrats could come up with was Al Franken. Al Franken, who wasn't even really funny on SNL, much less Air America. Franken was hopelessly behind until the past month or so, when the economy finally caught up to the Republicans; now Franklin and Coleman are tied, with a third-party candidate polling about 5% of the vote.

59? MISSISSIPPI SPECIAL ELECTION - Trent Lott resigned so he could become a lobbyist a year early. Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to the vacancy, but now he has to defend his appointment in a special election against former governor Ronnie Musgrove. As of this writing Musgrove is substantially behind, and will need serious help indeed to win.

60? GEORGIA - Saxby Chambliss won his seat in 2002 by portraying his opponent- a Vietnam veteran with three amputated limbs and a long legislative history of supporting veterans and soldiers- as unAmerican. He's now facing another Vietnam vet- Jim Martin- in a state which, although still quite red, has drifted significantly blue as more people move to Atlanta. Chambliss still holds a lead, but it's a narrow one... and the Democrats are pouring money into Martin's heretofore underfunded campaign. The question is, are they too late? The Republicans are pouring their own money in now, too.

61? KENTUCKY - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell... well, he's the Senate Minority Leader, and that probably explains why two polls in the past month have showed him statstically tied with Bruce Lundsford, a man best known for losing twice in gubernatorial races (2003 and 2007). No public polling has been posted in the past two weeks, so the best knowledge we currently have is of September polls that averaged McConnell with a five point lead. The Republicans are going to fight like hell to keep McConnell in the Senate...

62? TEXAS - And ending on the longest shot... but one that might pay off. Republican John Cornyn is not only unpopular among many Texans, he's unpopular among his colleagues for being possibly the biggest supporter George W. Bush has. Only that can explain how, in a state McCain is predicted to carry by double digits, against a candidate (State Rep. Rick Noriega) who can at best be described as second-string, Cornyn only holds a single-digit lead. Noriega still needs some major help to upset Cornyn- but it's just barely within the realm of possibility at this point.

And that's it- every other Republican seat is nailed down solid, with polls showing not less than a 12% advantage over the Democratic opponent (if any).

So, of the ten seats needed for a filibuster-proof majority, the Democrats have four for certain; three more are better than 50% probabilities; but in order to make it the rest of the way they have to take three out of five in which they are still behind.

My prediction? Dems fall just short- 59 seats, NOT counting Lieberman.

Lieberman could make 60, but given the choice between bribing him with a committee chairmanship and other perqs or handing him his walking papers, I'd settle for an almost filibuster-proof majority.

So much for Prez... how about a 60 Senate?

There's talk about getting a 60 vote Democratic majority in the US Senate.

Now, counting independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, the Democrats currently hold the Senate 51-49. Most pundits are assuming that Lieberman, despite his speech at the GOP convention and his loud and loyal support for John McCain, will remain aligned with the Democrats in the next Congress. My personal bet is that Lieberman gets told politely come Jan. 3 to decide who his friends really are, and that Lieberman will declare as a Republican- so that takes the count to 50-50 to begin with. The Democrats need a pickup of ten seats total to get a filibuster-proof Senate.

At this point we can be pretty much certain of four Democratic pickups. The Republicans have fielded second-string opposition and negligible material support in three contested races- John Warner's vacant seat in Virginia (he's retiring) and the Udall brothers' Democratic runs for Senate in New Mexico and Colorado. Mark Warner is cruising to victory in his race to replace his unrelated namesake. Add to this New Hampshire, where Junior Sununu is getting his ass handed to him by Jeanne Shaheen, and that takes the balance to 54-46. Six to go.

The rest of the six, though, are not going to be so easy. Here's the breakdown.

55. NORTH CAROLINA - Elizabeth Dole, wife of 1996 GOP Prez candidate Bob Dole, seemed safe and secure as recently as three months ago. A combination of aggressive advertising by Democratic candidate Kay Hagan and the economic downturn has changed that- to the point that the last three polls released on the race show Dole marginally behind. Barring either a massive silent "Nobama" vote with coattails or some economic miracle, the Dems probably pick this one up.

56. OREGON - Republican Gordon Smith is one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate- and a significant possibility to cross party lines to break a filibuster in any case. That said, he's having very serious difficulty with State Senate leader Jeff Merkley. Even if the Dems lose this race- and right now they're narrowly ahead- they'll have Smith on their side now and again.

57. ALASKA - Ted Stevens today wrapped up his testimony and cross-examination in his own corruption trial. That, plus the Bridge to Nowhere, has him in a statistical tie with his opponent, Marc Begich. The only reason it's a tie is Sarah Palin's VP candidacy; Palin is still very popular in Alaska despite her own corruption investigations, and took Alaska from a battleground state back into McCain-safe territory. The outcome of this race will essentially depend on whether the verdict that comes in is innocent or guilty.

Now we get into territory where the Democrats will need help, and lots of it, to get any further gains:

58? MINNESOTA - Norm Coleman barely defeated a dead man for his seat- he won election when his incumbent opponent Paul Wellstone died in that airplane crash. (On paper, his final opponent was former VP Walter Mondale- so, he beat one dead man and one nearly dead man, but barely.) He should have been seen as eminently vulnerable... but the best the Democrats could come up with was Al Franken. Al Franken, who wasn't even really funny on SNL, much less Air America. Franken was hopelessly behind until the past month or so, when the economy finally caught up to the Republicans; now Franklin and Coleman are tied, with a third-party candidate polling about 5% of the vote.

59? MISSISSIPPI SPECIAL ELECTION - Trent Lott resigned so he could become a lobbyist a year early. Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to the vacancy, but now he has to defend his appointment in a special election against former governor Ronnie Musgrove. As of this writing Musgrove is substantially behind, and will need serious help indeed to win.

60? GEORGIA - Saxby Chambliss won his seat in 2002 by portraying his opponent- a Vietnam veteran with three amputated limbs and a long legislative history of supporting veterans and soldiers- as unAmerican. He's now facing another Vietnam vet- Jim Martin- in a state which, although still quite red, has drifted significantly blue as more people move to Atlanta. Chambliss still holds a lead, but it's a narrow one... and the Democrats are pouring money into Martin's heretofore underfunded campaign. The question is, are they too late? The Republicans are pouring their own money in now, too.

61? KENTUCKY - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell... well, he's the Senate Minority Leader, and that probably explains why two polls in the past month have showed him statstically tied with Bruce Lundsford, a man best known for losing twice in gubernatorial races (2003 and 2007). No public polling has been posted in the past two weeks, so the best knowledge we currently have is of September polls that averaged McConnell with a five point lead. The Republicans are going to fight like hell to keep McConnell in the Senate...

62? TEXAS - And ending on the longest shot... but one that might pay off. Republican John Cornyn is not only unpopular among many Texans, he's unpopular among his colleagues for being possibly the biggest supporter George W. Bush has. Only that can explain how, in a state McCain is predicted to carry by double digits, against a candidate (State Rep. Rick Noriega) who can at best be described as second-string, Cornyn only holds a single-digit lead. Noriega still needs some major help to upset Cornyn- but it's just barely within the realm of possibility at this point.

And that's it- every other Republican seat is nailed down solid, with polls showing not less than a 12% advantage over the Democratic opponent (if any).

So, of the ten seats needed for a filibuster-proof majority, the Democrats have four for certain; three more are better than 50% probabilities; but in order to make it the rest of the way they have to take three out of five in which they are still behind.

My prediction? Dems fall just short- 59 seats, NOT counting Lieberman.

Lieberman could make 60, but given the choice between bribing him with a committee chairmanship and other perqs or handing him his walking papers, I'd settle for an almost filibuster-proof majority.

Obama endorsements today:

( Wow, I'm really bored tonight, aren't I? Lots of quotes under the cut... )

Obama endorsements today:

( Wow, I'm really bored tonight, aren't I? Lots of quotes under the cut... )