After many, many months of grueling campaigning this election is over. Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama. He ran a spectacular campaign from beginning to end. It’s been said many other places but let me add that this is proud moment for America. Even though I didn’t vote for him, I do take pride in the fact that my country has elected an African-American as its president. It’s an accomplishment that we can all take pride in as Americans even if we didn’t all vote for him.

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Polling has been conducted at an unprecedented level during this election cycle. As of today, margins between the two presidential candidates are anywhere from two to sixteen points depending on which survey you read. But what if we’re heading for another election where the polls are totally wrong? I’m not referring to 2000 or 2004 where there were most famously problems with the exit polls. I’m talking about 1980.

 

Time Magazine conducted a lengthy analysis of the opinion polls following Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter. (Hat tip: The Corner) Two trends jump out from this analysis. First, there were estimates that many voters changed their minds in the last 48 hours. These voters broke towards Reagan because they were unsure about how the Iranian hostage crisis was being handled. As a result, they changed their minds late and affected the outcome of the election.

 

The other trend they noted then is one that certainly seems to fit today: pollsters oversampled Democrats. My guess is that’s exactly what’s happening now as pollsters have been guessing that turnout will be higher among Democrats but fail to take into account other factors that can affect how they vote.

 

Making matters worse is that current polls have had a tendency to overstate support for Senator Obama. This is because he draws a lot of younger voters but they tend to be notoriously unreliable in showing up at the polls on Election Day. Also, blue collar voters that make up substantial portions of the electorate in key states are very difficult to poll because they don’t respond to pollsters.

 

The bottom line is this: go out and vote today. Don’t let the pollsters or the media or anyone else tell you that this election is over. We could have a long night ahead of us and some very surprising results in the end.

Let me get this straight. Cindy McCain pays for a house for her aunt and gets rakes over the coals about how many houses she owns. But Barack Obama has an aunt living in the U. S. illegally and in public housing and he does nothing to help her?

 

Who’s really selfish?

One of the ongoing story lines in this election season is the preponderance of positive media stories for Senator Barack Obama. The latest example was Time’s Joe Klein gleefully speculating what an Obama presidency might look like. (Hat tip: Newsbusters)

 

Articles such as these should be seen by readers as what they really are: propaganda for Obama. To be more precise, the media are engaging in a technique known as the bandwagon:

 

Bandwagon is one of the most common techniques in both wartime and peacetime and plays an important part in modern advertising. Bandwagon is also one of the seven main propaganda techniques identified by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in 1938. Bandwagon is an appeal to the subject to follow the crowd, to join in because others are doing so as well. Bandwagon propaganda is, essentially, trying to convince the subject that one side is the winning side, because more people have joined it. The subject is meant to believe that since so many people have joined, that victory is inevitable and defeat impossible. Since the average person always wants to be on the winning side, he or she is compelled to join in. However, in modern propaganda, bandwagon has taken a new twist. The subject is to be convinced by the propaganda that since everyone else is doing it, they will be left out if they do not. This is, effectively, the opposite of the other type of bandwagon, but usually provokes the same results. Subjects of bandwagon are compelled to join in because everyone else is doing so as well. When confronted with bandwagon propaganda, we should weigh the pros and cons of joining in independently from the amount of people who have already joined, and, as with most types of propaganda, we should seek more information.

(Emphasis mine)

Various media outlets will point to that unshakeable gospel of public opinion, the polls, as proof that their candidate, Senator Obama, has an insurmountable lead and Senator McCain should just go ahead and save everybody time and effort and concede the race now even though the voting doesn’t take place until November 4. Even Senator Obama can’t help himself from thinking ahead until after the election. (Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt) Perhaps that’s why he is charging admission to the media for his big victory party on Election night.

 

The fatal flaw in this logic is that polls are far from perfect. In fact, there is growing evidence that they are totally unreliable. Even though some media outlets will use an average of polls as a truer barometer of public opinion if each one of the polls that is figured into that average is, in and of itself, imperfect then the average of those polls is also imperfect. You can at least be certain of this much: journalists probably aren’t asking any questions to determine the validity of the poll results.

 

At least signs point to voters realizing by an overwhelming margin that journalists want Senator Obama to win. (Hat tip: Newsbusters) Maybe voters are a whole lot smarter than the media thinks.

For ninety minutes tonight, Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden will square off in the one and only vice-presidential debate of this campaign season. While there’s been lots of hangwringing over how Governor Palin will do in the debate, I think the worry is unnecessary. In fact, the debate may actually work in Governor Palin’s (and ultimately Senator John McCain’s) favor.

 

Here’s how I got there: the debate will allow the voters to see both candidates completely unfiltered. There’s no spin, no helpful media covering up one candidate’s gaffes, no exploitative media blowing the other candidate’s gaffes way out of proportion. People will get to see them both as they really are and be able to make up their minds about which one they like better.

 

In the end, I don’t think that who wins the debate will matter all that much. As Rich Galen points out, Dan Quayle had a horrible debate in 1988 and it didn’t stop George H. W. Bush from being elected.

 

Just as an aside, I think his over-under of three and a half is on the low side.

 

Back to my original point: voters will get to see the candidates as they really are without the influence of any media spin (positive or negative). That’s the real value in having a debate.

 

Governor Palin, when she is relaxed, comes across as very real. For many voters that’s incredibly appealing.

Senator Biden, while being very intelligent and experienced, has one major flaw: he talks too much.

Governor Palin has to have the same kind of performance she did during her acceptance speech at the Republican convention.

 

Senator Biden has to tread carefully so that he doesn’t (a) say something really stupid and ultimately damaging to the campaign and (b) doesn’t come across as condescending towards Governor Palin.

 

On balance, I think Senator Biden is the one who is under more pressure going into this debate.

 

There’s also the issue of moderator Gwen Ifill. I don’t watch PBS as a rule so I can’t speak with any confidence as to how well she’s going to do. The consensus of opinion I have heard is that she will do a fine job.

 

But I don’t think she should have ever accepted the job in the first place. Her book deal has what lawyers like to refer to as the “appearance of impropriety”. It’s not that you can say with certainty that it’s wrong for her to moderate the debate but it certainly looks bad. Her credibility will no doubt be damaged. However, this little controversy is likely to drive up ratings for the debate even further as viewers will be curious to see how she handles the questioning of the two candidates.

Regardless of the actual outcome of the debate, the media will declare Joe Biden the winner as they are making no secret of the fact they are in the tank for Senator Barack Obama. They did their best to declare Senator Obama the winner of the first debate even though it was clear to just about anyone who watched the entire thing that Senator McCain had the better night.

 

While I don’t expect the debate tonight to make that much of a difference in the outcome of the election the two candidates’ performance will say something about the men who selected them as their running mates. As it should.

During this election cycle, much has been made of the possibility that Virginia could turn blue in November. But Senator Obama’s success in the state will likely depend on how well he can do in Southwest Virginia. A fascinating piece in The New Yorker examines the challenges he’ll face in this part of the state.

 

Although the New Yorker piece suggests Obama might have a pretty solid chance at winning here Jim Geraghty’s analysis seems to be far more realistic. Senator Obama is farther to the left philisophically than Mark Warner or Jim Webb and is going to have a harder time making significant inroads here.

 

One other thing to note here: although polls show Obama ahead here (Rassmussen has him up by 3 points today), the state is politically diverse and support for each of the candidates runs stronger in different parts of the state. Most internals to polls will talk about party affiiliation, gender, race, and other demographic factors. But to really determine whether a poll here is accurate you need to know where the respondents live.

 

When election day rolls around, don’t be surprised if Virginia becomes the state that ultimately determines the outcome of the election. It may go either way but it’s not as much of a lock for Democrats as they would like to make it out to be.

One of the big questions in this election is what was going to be the combined effect of Senator Barack Obama’s snub of Hillary Clinton (18 million plus votes, remember?) and Senator John McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be on female voters who, incidentally, make up a majority of registered voters. Based on this article by Tammy Bruce, it appears that there may be a huge swing of voters that previously would have voted for the Democratic ticket to the Republican ticket:

 

In the shadow of the blatant and truly stunning sexism launched against the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and as a pro-choice feminist, I wasn’t the only one thrilled to hear Republican John McCain announce Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. For the GOP, she bridges for conservatives and independents what I term “the enthusiasm gap” for the ticket. For Democrats, she offers something even more compelling – a chance to vote for a someone who is her own woman, and who represents a party that, while we don’t agree on all the issues, at least respects women enough to take them seriously.

Whether we have a D, R or an “i for independent” after our names, women share a different life experience from men, and we bring that difference to the choices we make and the decisions we come to. Having a woman in the White House, and not as The Spouse, is a change whose time has come, despite the fact that some Democratic Party leaders have decided otherwise. But with the Palin nomination, maybe they’ll realize it’s not up to them any longer.
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