Two Possible Wins for Barack Obama, One for John McCain

I can picture Barack Obama winning the election in two dramatically different ways. One possibility is the landslide. Young people and African Americans turn out in record numbers. The Obama campaign's Get Out the Vote effort is unlike anything in history. As a result, Obama could win all the toss up states, possibly including such improbable places as North Carolina, North Dakota, and Montana. This would be a electoral vote victory in the range of 338-378.

The other road to victory for Obama is the narrow win. The polls would need to tighten, young people would need to disappoint him, and finally, the undecided would need to break heavily for McCain. In this scenario, Obama only wins the states where he is currently polling over 50%. He would fail to win Ohio and Florida, but would still piece together a victory with Iowa, Virginia, and/or the mountain west states. Under this path, Obama is declared president late in the evening with between 272-286 electoral votes.

For John McCain to win, the stars would all need to align. Not only would the polls need to tighten, young people need to stay home, and undecided break heavily for McCain, but a massive wave of infrequent rural white voters also need to turn out in large numbers. Even if all that happens, it would be highly unlikely that John McCain would win a single state John Kerry carried in 2004. McCain could still lose Iowa yet pull off a very narrow between 270-279 electoral victory. If John McCain wins the election it will make for a very, very late election night.

40 Years in the Wilderness?

The Republican party until recently has been a three-piece coalition. The first piece is the cultural conservatives-- primarily evangelicals who support "family values." They are the pro-life, pro-heterosexual marriage, anti-gay marriage voters. This is the Sarah Palin branch of the party and still the most loyal.

The second piece of the coalition is the muscular neo-conservative wing. They are pro-military voters. Since 9/11, they have been willing to create massive increases in government power to combat terrorism. They not only believe that America should use force to promote democracy around the world but that we have a moral imperative to. The Iraq war has completely discredited the neo-conservatives. The fast, cheap war of liberation we were promised never materialized. Instead we got a long, bloody, and expensive occupation. After 5 years and nearly a trillion dollars, we may be able to leave Iraq as a highly divided semi-stable country.

Finally, there are the small-government fiscal conservatives. Over the past eight years the Bush administration has managed to turn a budget surplus into a huge deficit. Two expensive foreign wars have drained our treasury. While these moves have bothered the fiscal conservatives, they could be explained as necessary consequences of 9/11. But in the past few days the Bush administration has destroyed the Republican moral authority to small government and sound fiscal policy. The federal reserve just spent $250 billion to nationalize our banking industry, along with another $500 million to be spent buying up bad loans from large financial institutions. A president which only a year ago claimed we couldn't afford to (or just shouldn't) spend $35 billion to provide health care for kid is willing to spend a trillion dollars bailing out AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and the financial sector.

The Republican party has not just failed independent and moderate voters but its own party faithful as well. Many planks of its platform have been discredited or abandoned. While evangelical voters remain loyal, they are neither numerous enough nor geographically diverse enough to support a national party on their own. It is known that the Republican party is headed for its second straight election of huge losses. What is not known is how long the Republicans will be lost wandering in the minority party wilderness. The Republican party needs a Moses to create a new coalition to lead them into the promised land. Who their Moses will be and what commandments he will bring will be the political question of the early 21st century.

The Wrong Messenger of Safety

In yesterday's debate, John McCain attacked Barack Obama for his tepid (even Clintonian) support of nuclear power. He claimed, "I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean." On this point I agree with John McCain. Nuclear power has a strong track record and is one of the few sources of energy which can start reducing our dependence on fossil fuel now.

My problem is that John McCain is using his time aboard a nuclear-powered Navy vessel as anecdotal proof of nuclear safety. John McCain has had 4 bouts with lethal skin cancer.