October 22, 2008 06:30 PM
When has WV or NC ever been considered a Battleground State?
CNN's The Situation Room released some great new battleground state poll results which included NV, VA, OH, NC and WV. No mention of FL, CO or PA. It's great that Obama has a 4 pt. lead in NC at this time, but this election is not going to turn on NC or WV.
OH, FL, VA, PA are the big ones...What is CNN doing? Here's some of the latest battle ground polling.
And here....
The polls are looking pretty good right now, but until the votes are counted I'm fighting all the way.
Joe Sudbay discusses the flawed new AP poll.
Not in my lifetime and I am one old MoFo.
probably around 1854....
By changing the "reality" or what are battle ground states they hope to do two things. One make it seem like mccain isnt failing so hard, and two is to make the election more confusing hoping to steal it easily.
She got all of that crap out in the open and it was already beaten to death and she still lost. wright, ayres, rezko, muslim, black, white voters - she brought all that crap to the fore and was still beaten.
It was suicide to think that it was reuasble. but we always knew that repugs were not smart. we just never believed that that many americans were that stupid.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Acorn, Ayers, Wright. They were the major ballbusters of Obama. Then came the economic meltdown. Now that reality hit then in the face, plus Americans angst, they started to do thier jobs. That's why McCain is so pissed. Instead of fawning reviews of him and Palin, they have to stick to the facts. They must be shaking in their $1000 suits.
to any of us here. do a search on Wolf Blitzer or Glenn Beck.
Some stuff you can't make up!
using the Internet
the 50-state strategy of the DNC in 2006
the repeat of the strategy in 2008
the red-state challenge by the Obama campaign
the true grassroots Obama campaign
the netroots
the blogs and their open challenge to SCLM
AirAmerica
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Keith Olbermann
--add item here---
they have all gone to make america more purple than red.
I love it.
Some stuff you can't make up!
the 1860s :-)
nothing is over til it's over please vote, vote early, ask your friends to vote and vote early, if you're in a "battle-ground" state take the day off bring your video camera and keep the process honest. This is all way to serious to sit back and relax with a lead we should know better just ask Al Gore via 2000.
got mains water after 50 years of their council saying NO.
they live 200 feet from the main water pipe, but they were denied access to water for 50 years, until a white family moved into the neighbourhood and miraculously had water, it still took a court case to get theirs tho, and the Ohio Supreme court ruled on the discrimination and awarded them $10 million dollars for the half a century of denial of basic human rights.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,859...
she and her family had access to lots and lots of lovely water.
But of course it helps if you are Republican and white.
someone had to know about this story.
CoIntelPro.PronktasticlyAgainst.SCLM.E-Voting.Incumbents
Some stuff you can't make up!
It could burst the bubble of reality that everybody is equal in the US, so shock horror, dont mention it on air, dont print it in the newspapers, keep it quiet.
Fifty years to get pipes run 200 feet from the municipal supply to a bunch of homes, disgusting.
And then the comments by that woman !!!!!!!!
And Anybody making too much of a fuss locally would have been beaten tasered or worse by the LE thugs too.
This needs to be gotten to Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart, and the others.
At least Time got hold of the story, so the horror of it should get spread wider.
IOKIYAR piss on the Republicans and their tame Faux style journalists, damn them all to hell.
Sounds like Georgia in the 50's when I was a kid.
Pockets of black families living in utter squalor side-by-side with rapidly expanding white suburbia.
Eventually, using Federal Funds from LBJ's Great Society, local governments moved the black families into Public Housing, thus removing ALL pockets of black families from the expanding white suburbias AND freeing up that land for development by real estate interests.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Let's make a commitment that after this election we won't let up on Electoral Reform until Diebold and their proprietary software aren't in control of our Elections anymore. Eh? That would be awesome.
Guardian UK: McCain 'gives up' on Colorado
Awwww ...
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
one or two others I believe
...but he's still ahead in West Dakota, South Virginia and New Maine.
I live in Virginia. Very close to "communist" Northern Virginia. I sure to see an awful lot of McCain/Palin crap. It's scary. It far outweighs the Obama stuff I see. I live in the Shenandoah Valley, which is closer to DC than it is to Richmond. So, the voters in Tidewater must be going blue . Well, except for Norfolk.
Crystal Blue Persuasion.
Maybe not the original meaning of the song, but in the context of today's political contests, I have found it inspiring from time to time.
Meant to put that under today's Late Night Music Club.
Funny that NC came up in your post as not a 'turn the election state'. In running some numbers today I found 20 states that are all but total locks for Obama using data from various poll collection sites like www.fivethirtyeight.com - CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, IA, MD, ME, MA, MI, MN, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA, WI. These are states were Obama has at least a 10 point polling rolling lead - so safe states. They total 255 EV.
So any other state or states totaling 14 EV and Obama has it.
Of the next 10 states Obama potentially could win, IN (11) and VA (13) close their polls first (7pm EST) but both states would be needed to get over the top.
NC (15) and OH (20) close next (7:30pm EST) but considering OH's history of vote counting I wouldn't expect results for awhile ;)
Therefore, unless both IN and VA return victories for Obama quickly I'd expect a victory for Obama in NC would be one that officially but him over the top.
Not 'an election changer' definitely but when combined with the interesting NC senate race it could be the state to watch!
FWIW, the State of Georgia is on the cusp of going blue if early voting is an indication, though it may not actually happen. Early voting is on different dates for the counties, so there's no stable way to interpret the voting to date. But here's one person's analysis:
The voting patterns may not follow racial lines as much as this author states. The Republican legislators are seen to have supported Bush and are responsible for getting us into this financial mess. There is also a lot of bitterness about Saxby Chambliss's nasty campaign against Max Cleland, and Chambliss is flighting for his political life against a Democrat.
Well, I don't expect Georgia to turn blue this time around since I've seen so many McCain-Palin signs, but I'd love to be surprised.
The press is running out of things to write about that contain no substance evidently, so they are merely making crap up?
Oh that flawed AP poll... the one that's the lead story on every MSM news site today. Oh my, but the corporate shilling is nearly as transparent as it is disgusting.
The WP maintains a page called Political Landscape 2008.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics...
I was looking at the page on 10/13 and found that there is some incredible math going on there. Isn't a "Battleground State" (swing state) a state where a poll shows the candidate's lead by a margin within the margin of error of the poll (normally 3-4 points). I may be mistaken.....
The "Political Landscape 2008" page showed 14 "Battleground States".
Looking closer, I found that 10 (ten) of the states that were labeled "Battleground States" to have Obama leading by more than 4 points (%) by the WP's own accounting:
Obama +13.8%: Battleground state (PA)
Obama +10.4%: Battleground state (NH)
Obama +10.0%: Battleground state (NJ)
Obama +9.5%: Battleground state (IA)
Obama +9.0%: Battleground state (OR)
Obama +8.2%: Battleground state (MN)
Obama +8.2%: Battleground state (MI)
Obama +8.8%: Battleground state (WI)
Obama +7.3%: Battleground state (NM)
Obama +5.1%: Battleground state (VA)
However, when one looked at McCain in their poll results, every state he lead in, regardless of points he lead by, was "Leaning Republican":
McCain +2.2%: Leaning Republican (WV)
McCain +3.8%: Leaning Republican (IN)
The above two are clearly "Battleground States" and the list above that should all be "Leaning Democratic". Is this a bias, or just an error. It is obviously incorrect and should be corrected immediately as it gives a false impression.
Furthermore, the conclusions drawn, presumably on the data presented, are all skewed due to this "error".
By including the electoral votes for Obama for the current "Battleground States" where he was above 4 points ahead of McCain, listed above, the true "Electoral Votes" for Obama were 75 additional to the total depicted or *282! *By subtracting the electoral votes from McCain for the current "Battleground States" where he was below 4 points ahead of Obama, as listed above, the true "Electoral Votes" for McCain were 16 less than the total depicted or *142!
The swing state total also changes to 114!*
Is this is an example of the WP's inability to admit that Obama is over 270 electoral votes, no matter what polling indicates, or just an error?
I think the answer was that the WaPo started with these "battleground" and "leaning" states and never changed the original statuses as the campaign continued.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I subcribe to the Bradley Effect (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/... ). We need to be leading by at least seven, preferable ten pts on election eve. Given the sorry state of affairs we should be leading by fifteen. I've little or no confidence in Fla, & MO, and absolutely none in Ohio, NC, VA. Wish I were more confident - polls are moving in Obama's favor which is very good. Love see the margin move up in these ( http://www.electoral-vote.com/) in particular and in general.
If we come to election eve with margins of <5% in Ohio,VA,NC,MO and FL, we lose.
I think that Ohio is not listed as a battle ground state because McCain could win it, Florida, AND PA and still lose.
... and NC. And MO. All at once.
To recap, McCain could still lose if he wins Florida, PA, Ohio, NC and Mo.
So, if Obama wins CO (ahead there), NM (way ahead) and NV (this one is tight) he will redefine what is needed to win an election.
John,
West Virginia was deemed a "battleground state" in 2004, with both candidates hotly constesting it almost to the very end and Kerry pulling out at the end when it became obvious he hadn't a prayer.
In the current round, I suspect the designation has been applied to "Wild, Wonderful, Almost Level" West Virginia simply because Obama has become competitive here even after all the pointy-heads said he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell because of WV's massive racist population. It turns out he has a chance; not a great one, but a respectable one, and making Lumpy McHoover and Gawdzilla from Wasilla spend money to save a state they thought was a "lock" increases his chances elsewhere, since Lumpy's resources are stretched mighty thin at present.
The meme is extended by the stories of dummied up voting machines that continue to emerge from WV's primarily Repiglicken counties (Putnam and Jackson). We're also seeing large early turnout, so that, taken together, West Virginia has, in many ways, put itself in play.
Our paltry five electoral votes seem insignificant until one realizes that if WV had done in 2000 what she historically had done, i.e. vote Democrat, the Florida recount would've been rendered meaningless. "For want of a nail . . . "
Why is NC not important, but VA is? VA only has 13 Electoral College, where NC has 15.
...to be considered a battleground state. There are several electoral strategies that would have NC put Obama over the top, and part of Obama's battle plan right now is to make it clear that NC is very much in contention. James Taylor (yes, THAT James Taylor) has been singing his way across the state, giving free concerts in support of the Obama campaign, and part of his message is that we might actually make a difference in this presidential election. African Americans and students are using the early voting system in huge numbers, and it is not the least bit irrational to think that NC may go for Obama, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate will have taken the state since '76. John, you're entitled to your opinion that "this election is not going to turn on NC," but those of us who live here are going to keep working and fighting as though it just might.
As a longtime resident of North Carolina which now has 15 electoral college votes compared to Virginia's meager 13 I have a problem with the language in this post. Why is Virginia treated better than NC? What have they got that we don't?
We actually have more votes, so there, Virginia! And John!
All joking aside, I am a bit ticked that people are always biased against NC. That said, this is probably the most exciting election I've ever witnessed. We've had real candidates visit our state! And people aren't writing us off as another GOP southern red state. It gets my blood boiling to think that's how people view us. It's is tremendously satisfying for me to know that my state actually matters this election and that the residents of this state have woken up (at least somewhat) to the lies of the Republicans of the last 8 years.
NC hasn't gone blue in 3 decades. I think it's high time we had real change in NC too!
(Furthermore, did you people know that NC is sort of unique, politically? By registration most residents are democrats but they mostly vote republican in the national election. Odd, no?)
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