Decision 2012

Remove all ads!

OK - it's election day - the year long process of determining who will be the president of the US for the next four years mercifully comes to an end tonight.

Polls for the last week or so have been moving in Obama's direction. Now most polls have Obama ahead by 2-4 points, and even the Republican leaning polls are showing a tie. The only way that I see Romney winning is if all the polls are wrong, and all wrong in the same direction. (There is some historical precedent for this. Sometimes, like 2008, some polls miss high, while others miss low. Other years, like 2000, all the polls overestimated Gore's advantage by about 1.5 percent. That's not a ton, but in a very close election, it can make a difference. That's the kind of miss Romney needs to come through tonight.)

So my personal prediction here is that Obama wins a total of 310 votes. For that to come to fruition, the only swing states that go for Romney would be North Carolina and Florida. So yeah, I think Obama wins Ohio, along with Virginia and Colorado. That alone is enough, but I think he's taking a lot of the other close ones as well, like Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.

If anything, I think my estimate is a bit low, as Florida is very much in play. If that happens, Obama's total goes to 339, and I'll be way off, even if it is all because of one state. In other news, I don't think LKD will be dining on hat tomorrow night.

 

Most polls I've read show Obama with less than a percent lead and they have been heading in Romney's direction. Obama does show a 2-4% advantage in Ohio.

The Gallup poll is the interesting one -- Romney with a 1% lead in the category "voters most likely to vote". This would explain the "get out and vote" campaign by Obama for the past few days. If he can overcome the young voter apathy he will certainly win -- if he cannot draw enough youth to vote it could quite easily go to Romney.

I thought the random chance in elections article (and random vote generator was cool). It would be interesting to see this applied to the current polls.

 

Well, I've plugged this site before, but 538 has a listing of all the national polls as of Monday evening. There are 12 national tracking polls, and 10 of them show a lead for Obama. The two that don't are from polling firms that have been historically Republican leaning. Romney would have a better chance if it was just a total popular vote count, as Obama's main advantage is in the electoral college. (Most major polling firms predict Obama was receive between 50.5% - 51.0% of the vote, so certainly not an insurmountable deficit, and well within the polls' margin of error.)

538 also runs simulations - about 25,000 per day in fact, and lists the results on the website of these mock elections. Obama is winning about 90% of them in the electoral college. Of course 90% is not 100%. Romney could win the election today, but I maintain he is very unlikely to do so.

 

I predict that Obama will win. Thank you.

 

You're welcome.

 

Thank goodness that circus is over now. Can they all go back to the real jobs they're paid to do now (ie run the country)? Who's been doing that while they've taken the last year or so off work, debating and campaigning?

 

Romney was very gracious in defeat. I did like his speech last night.

 

It's actually been more like 2 years, when the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and decided they were more interested in bringing down Obama than they were in actually doing their jobs (i.e. running the country).

 

Yeah, and while the Dems made gains in the Senate and House, the Republicans still have the majority in the House. So they could potentially continue to block any legislation. So the stalemate could continue. Elections should matter. Perhaps this one won't matter much.

In other news, I can't add. There was no way that Obama could have received 310 as I predicted, because the states I predicted he'd win don't add up to 310 votes. They add up to 303. That said, it looks like Obama is also going to carry Florida, which would bring the total to 332.

All told, Obama had very little to worry about, and the election was wrapped up and called for him considerably earlier than I had anticipated. While I thought that Romney faced some pretty long odds going into the night, I did expect that he'd win some of the swing states. Turns out he'll win North Carolina - which barely qualified as a swing state - and that's it. There are recounts in Virginia and Florida ongoing, but assuming those numbers hold up, Obama will end up carrying Florida, Viriginia, Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Wisconsin. (The last two weren't really swing states IMO. They were swing states in much the same way North Carolina was, in that if they went the other way, chances are the candidate losing them was in for a very bad night in other parts of the nation as well.)

 

The one hope I see is that Republicans don’t need to focus on bringing Obama down since he’s done in 4 years anyway. Given the low public approval ratings for the House (I heard recently that it’s something like 11%), the Reps might actually be inclined to compromise this time if they don’t want to be seen as obstructionists, as that image could hurt them in both the next mid-term and presidential elections. While they have been obstructionists for the last 2 years, Obama couldn’t use that in his campaign because it could have easily been turned around by the Reps that Obama simply couldn’t get both sides to work together, which would have fed right into Romney’s claim that he would be able to get that cooperation.

Then again, given the stranglehold the Tea Party has on the Republican Party as a whole, maybe I’m hoping for too much.

That's not news.

 

I've already thought about that too. While the obvious answer to who will run in 2016 would be Joe Biden, he's getting up there in age. Biden turns 70 later this year, meaning that he would be nearly 74 for the 2016 elections. That's two years older than McCain in 2008, and even a few months older than when Ronald Reagan won his second term as president.

My top two choices (in order) would be Andy Cuomo and Martin O'Malley.

 

Biden won't run in 2016, I don't think. He's had too much fun as VP and his heart's not in 8 years of campaigning and fighting. I think he's gotten such ambitions out of his system. But I could be wrong.

Personally, I'll go out on a limb right now and say that I think the smart money is on Hillary Clinton running in 2016 with someone like Julian Castro as her running mate. Perhaps Andrew Cuomo as a number two, though he may indeed try for the top spot. We'll see.

Also of note - Nate Silver made dumbasses out of a LOT of people. Which was delicious.

For now, I really could give a monkey's. The Presidency is in good hands for a while longer and I'm more than happy to breath a sigh of relief and ignore politics again for the near future. Especially when Dead Space 3 is coming out in February, The Hobbit is coming out in December, Skyfall is coming out this weekend, and my long-lost beloved Sim City is making a major comeback next summer.

Future looks bright indeed.

Also - utterly blown away that pot is now legal for recreational use in two American states. Perplexing, however, is the fact that it passed in Colorado but not in Oregon. OREGON!!!

Guess I'll have to sit and think about that one for a while. You know, just, sit right here. Ponder it. For a while. Like, all the way, just. Sit here. Think about it, man. Yeah.

 

Well, Hillary is no spring chicken either. She'll be 69 in 2016. Which means, if she wins, she'd be the 2nd oldest ever 1st term president. Hillary took a calculated risk in 2004 when she decided against running. I think that was a year that she definitely would have won the nomination. As to whether or not she would have won the presidency, who knows? We know Kerry lost, but I'd have to imagine the dynamics of the race would have been significantly different if she was on the ticket.

But the second question I had was, "Who the hell is Julian Castro?" After a quick google seach, I found two people with that name, one is the present mayor of San Antonio, and the other is a former president of Venezuela who's been dead for over 100 years. So I'm going with the former. And I don't think there's any chance of him being a VP candidate - at least not in 2016. Going from mayor to VP isn't something you see too often at all - the normal jump is mayor to governor. I just don't see him as someone with the resume and bona fides necessary for a politician to run for VP. (And let's face it, it's not like the Dems are hurting when it comes to Latino voters.)

While my first choice would be Cuomo, I think O'Malley might be more likely, as it's the next logical step in the progression. He served as mayor of Baltimore for eight years, and he's presently serving his second term as Maryland's governor. Maryland elects their governor on the midterm years, and because of term limits in Maryland, he can't run again, even if he wants to. So there's not exactly anything on the calendar after January 2015. About the only other reasonable option I'd see for him is if he decided to run for Sentor. (Barbara Mikulski's current term is up in 2016, and seeing as how she's 80, I'm not sure she's going to run again.)

Yeah, he's been saying for a LONG time, that Obama is the favorite in this election - that it would be a closer popular vote than in 2008, but one in which he would likely win. He got blasted by a lot of pundits when he came out a couple weeks before the election and stated that the election was definitely NOT a tossup, that Romney needed quite a few things to break his way in order to win.

 

I saw some articles on it, isn't trade and maybe possession still illegal by federal law? It looked like the vote for legalization may create a fair mess .

Anyway, at least now it's over and everyone can get back to business before the 2014 election mania kicks in, right?

 

@Aldeth,

I suggested Castro because he was one of the breakout stars at the Dem convention this year, in much the same way that Obama was the breakout star in the 2004 Dem convention. He wasn't talked about AS much in the immediate wake of the convention because most people were talking about how Bill Clinton brought the house down. Keep in mind that at this point in 2004 most people were saying "who the hell is Barack Obama?!" too.

And you're right, Dems aren't hurting with Latino support. All the more reason for them to elevate popular and well-respected (if young) Latino leaders like Castro to cement that support permanently, because the Republicans have already started trying to stem that tide. There's already talk of Marco Rubio being the instant front-runner for 2016. Also - my new Senator, Ted Cruz - a tea party god and wingnut of the highest order whom I've heard described as "the conservative Obama."

Hillary will be older, but she's aged fairly well, and now after having been a very well-regarded Secretary of State for 4 years, she has iron-clad experience to run on, whereas before she was seen by many as clinging to her husband's coat tails. I think it's unwise to count her out.

 

Ohhh ... god ... no.

I don't think she'll be a viable candidate, but then I don't see many up and rising choices right now. I think Sebelius shot herself in the foot when she took the HHS job.

 

I just meant that she is healthy and doesn't look like a shriveled old prune zombie.

Wasn't saying she's a hottie. Weirdo.

 

All fair points. I just think that there are more qualified candidates out there. We'll see. I think it took a perfect storm of events for Obama's rise to eventually become the nominee in 2008. And I don't think it's something that can be easily replicated. And also keep in mind that at least Obama had become a senator before being president (even if he didn't actually spend a lot of time on the legislative side of things, being so busy with the campaign).

Just one point on the "aged fairly well" part. Up until about two years ago, I would have agreed with that statement. She looked remarkably good for age. But for whatver reason, it's like she started aging in dog years. And yes, while I think it's unwise to count her out, I actually think she's sincere when she says that she's done and wants out. Sure, she can walk away for a couple of years and decide she wants back in the game, but I really think she wants to retire.

 

Perhaps. We'll certainly see. If she doesn't run in 2016 though, IMO she never realistically had a shot at being President. I think the conditions now couldn't be better for her.

I still contend today - as I did 4 years ago - that the over-the-top anti-Clinton fervor, now largely forgotten by most people, was still far too palpable in 2008 for her to have beaten John McCain, even with Snowflake Snooki on the ticket. In 2004, it would have been worse. She wouldn't have represented real change then the way Obama did. Today, the rabid, irrational Clinton hatred the right once thrived on has been repurposed into rabid, irrational Obama hatred and cranked up to 11. She's been "Hillary the Senator" and "Hillary the Secretary of State" long enough for the whole "she killed Vince Foster!!! Whitewater!! She's just the meanest meanie ever zomg she was RUDE once to a secret service dood!!" stuff to have faded from the public consciousness. In other words, she has completely and successfully re-branded herself.

I still think she has ambitions to be America's first Iron Lady. And now she has a golden resume entry to parley into the chance. But we'll find out.