The Last Last Election Thread II about the Last Election

[Lancer]

This ought to do it.

In Oregon, Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkeley for senate is still out.

[Lancer]

I find myself thinking about the election as regards my friend Zkrib alot. He must be a happy man about the way things went yesterday and that's a really good thing because he's a great guy. Congrats pal.

[Darius871]

I really wish I could consider this day so "historic," but the sad fact is that a sack of potatoes could have won on the Dem ticket in a year like this with the most unpopular incumbent President in history, an opponent who sided with said incumbent 90%+ of the time, an unpopular war, and the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression popping up just weeks before the election (until which there was a dead heat).

In other words, the question of whether America could bring itself to elect an African-American to the highest office - without his/her happening to stumble upon a pre-existing tidal wave - is unfortunately still up in the air. But I'll take it any way I can get it.


(sorry to be the buzzkill but there it is)

[Arrian]

I have a similar opinion, Darius (that this was an election the Dems should have won), except for two things about the pre-financial meltdown "dead heat"

1) If that was the "state of nature" of the race before the crisis, a dead heat wherein one guy is black says that America was willing to elect a black man. He was certainly not rejected out of hand.

2) That dead heat was the peak of the GOP convention bounce. Before and after, Obama had a solid lead.

edit: besides, America listened to all the boogeyman stuff (Wright, boo! Ayers, boo! Socialist, boo! Muslim*, boo!) and still voted for him.

-Arrian

* - and, as we know, Muslim = terrorist or otherwise undesireable. Remember, when McCain decided to say something about the Obama's a Muslim thing, he said "no, he's a decent family man" or something to that effect. Note the difference between that and what Colin Powell said. There is bigotry at work there too, and yet we still elected the guy.

[KrazyHorse]

I think Obama won a bigger victory than Hillary would have done given the exact same circumstances. That says something both about race relations as well as those two candidates.

[KrazyHorse]

I also agree with Arrian tht the "dead heat" comment is misleading.

Remember, that was before people looked at Palin and realized that she was borderline retarded.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Arrian
I have a similar opinion, Darius, except for two things about the pre-financial meltdown "dead heat"

1) If that was the "state of nature" of the race before the crisis, a dead heat wherein one guy is black says that America was willing to elect a black man. He was certainly not rejected out of hand.

I didn't say he'd be rejected out of hand, I just said that yesterday's result proves nothing. Without such massive forces propelling waves of people to his side, race could have been more of a factor once they actually get to the voting booth.

Originally posted by Arrian
2) That dead heat was the peak of the GOP convention bounce. Before and after, Obama had a solid lead.

There is no reason to be certain that "bounce" would have abated, no matter how stupid Palin was. The bounce's collapse was perfectly timed with the financial collapse. If the economy had been in an overall steady-state (or even slightly growing), there wouldn't have been much to make countless millions defect except the war, which has been relatively quiet lately.

And even if the financial collapse hadn't happened, and even if the war were doing better now than it has, that doesn't change the fact that the GOP has utterly discredited itself in a dozen different ways I shouldn't have to repeat here, meaning any prominent Democrat (save Kucinich) probably could have won this year. I'd be more excited about the "historic" change in race relations if the result wasn't already inevitable.

[Lancer]

Those are good points Darius. Still, there's a black man at the helm. He has the chance now to make it or break it.

It will all come down to 2 years from now. That will be the litmus test for how he's doing. I hope he does a great job from the center that pisses off the extreme left and the extreme right but firmly gets the country behind him.

Also near and dear to my heart are the the American boots on the ground and in harms way around the world. I hope Obama realizes that he just became the commander in chief and that every person in the field under his command have more on the line every day than...well I was going to say he does, but he put his butt on the line by achieving such prominance. Still, you get what I mean. If it turns into open season on the US military, he will fail and lose the center, as well as the lives of servicepersons put at risk.

So, hope he's got some guts. I'm into giving the guy a chance. He's a motivator and that's what both the country and the black community need imo. This could be good.

I just hope the conservatives on the supreme court can hang in.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Darius871
There is no reason to be certain that "bounce" would have abated, no matter how stupid Palin was. The bounce's collapse was perfectly timed with the financial collapse. If the economy had been in an overall steady-state (or even slightly growing), there wouldn't have been much to make countless millions defect except the war, which has been relatively quiet lately.

This isn't true, though. If you look at the polling trends, McCain's numbers were sliding before the Lehman Brothers **** hit the fan. Considering that before the GOP convention, Obama enjoyed a relatively steady lead for a long time, and it's simply a fact that most parties get a bounce after a successful convention, there's more reason to believe McCain's numbers would have gone down regardless. If anything, the financial mess created an artificial depression of McCain's numbers, if you follow the trends. Prior to the conventions, Obama had about a 51-45 average lead on McCain. That's pretty close to how it ended up.

[Darius871]

A 1-2% dip between the convention and the meltdown doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the utter landslide that we know happened after the meltdown. It could have just as easily been the start of a zig-zag pattern all the way to the 4th as seen in all close elections.

Let's also not forget that it was total desperation after the meltdown that pushed McCain's camp to the littany of negative hail-marys that ended up only pushing their poll numbers down. Without that desperation they might have maintained a positive race, which would have itself preserved votes.

Anyway I'm not going to waste time arguing about "what-if" scenarios since none of us can ever know for sure.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Darius871
A 1-2% dip between the convention and the meltdown

Again, just as people were starting to realize that Palin was a ****wit.

That pick gave him a huge boost for a few weeks, then started to become a huge liability.

I don't doubt that it would have been closer without financial mess, but I think it's pretty obvious Obama would still have pulled it out.

[Boris Godunov]

GA-Sen is definitely going to a runoff.

MN-Sen will be a recount. Coleman is up 725 votes. Not likely to change at this point, though.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse I don't doubt that it would have been closer without financial mess, but I think it's pretty obvious Obama would still have pulled it out.

Not once did I ever say that Obama would have lost but for the financial collapse; my only point from the start was that any prominant Democrat could have won in light of not only the financial collapse (note: I cited several other reasons) but also the extent to which numerous aspects of the last 8 years totally discredited the GOP and McCain. Ergo, because any prominent Democrat could have won, Obama's victory says more about the unique year than it necessarily does about race relations generally.

Seriously, if Palin had had a (D) after her name, even she probably could have squeaked in a victory.

[GePap]

I don't know about the idea that ANY Democrat could have won. Kucinich would have gotten killed in an election, for example, nor say Jesse Jackson.

Obama didn't just win because he was a Democrat - the increase in turnout was crucial, and a regular Democrat might not have been able to increase turnout as high as it went. Also, Obama put together a very good ground campaign - a little credit should go to Dean for his moves to expand Democratic party offices and organizations to all 50 states, which likely helped Obama some in his organizational victory. A Democratic candidate with a weaker organization might have still won, but squeaker, as opposed to a blow-out.

Obama turned out to be an extremely good campaigner, better than most, and I think that is what accounts for his overwhelming victory as much as saying that this was a given Democratic year.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Sam Adams in Jerusalem