The Last Debate

Here’s the deal. When Obama was talking I felt confident and comfortable. When McCain was talking I was looking for cover because I thought he was about to hit me!

Talk about an angry young man. Sheesh! I’m sure his combativeness will make his under 100 IQ trailer park base yell YE-HAH! Unfortunately for McCain, the rest of us would prefer a President with a little more control over his emotions.

McCain made some good points and Obama sidestepped some specific questions such as the question of nuclear power. But the fundamental problem, and it has been a problem in all three of the debates, was that while Obama addressed what McCain said in real time, McCain addressed straw men.

This was especially obvious during the health care conversation. Whatever plan McCain was attacking, it wasn’t the plan that Obama was articulating at that moment and, as far as I can tell, has described fairly consistently since the beginning of the Presidential debates. It’s fairly obvious to almost anyone when one candidate says my plan is A-B-C and the other candidate criticizes plan D-E-F.

As far as Joe the Plumber is concerned, if he’s in a position to buy a business which nets $250,000 a year, the cut off point in Obama’s tax scheme, I’m not sure why any of us should be worrying much about him. Hell that’s like feeling sorry for the poor executives at AIG who will have to forego their free company paid hunting trip this year.

I’d also like to know what the hell McCain was thinking about when he implied that folks coming out of the armed forces could immediately become teachers without having to go through the certification process that most states require. Teaching is not simple. I know. I tried it with mixed results. My wife is a teacher. Trust me; it’s a lot harder than it looks and teacher training and certification are definitely needed.

Ignore the pundits; I’m keeping an eye on the Intrade market. After last night the price of an Obama becoming President share, which had been holding around 77, jumped to 86. The price of a McCain share, which had been holding around 22, dropped to 13.8 so that makes it pretty obvious who won the debate.

Despite McCain trying to give the election away I still feel this thing is something of a toss-up because there are large portions of the American electorate I just don’t trust. According to a report this morning McCain has pulled out of all the Blue states other than Pennsylvania (however, it appears that report was incorrect and apparently McCain is still contending New Hampshire and Wisconsin in addition to Pennsylvania). That means he’s essentially conceding 231 electoral votes and by any reasonable estimate he has 174 votes locked up. That brings us to the 112 electoral votes in states that went Red last time but are on the edge this time and the 21 electoral votes of Pennsylvania.

Obama needs 39 of those 133 votes. McCain needs 96 of those 133 votes. Iowa (52.8% for Obama, 41.0% for McCain), Colorado (50.4% to 44.6%) and New Mexico (50.7% to 42.3%), with coincidentally a combined total of 21 electoral votes, look like long shots for McCain. Assuming those states are lost, that brings Obama up to 252 votes so McCain must win Pennsylvania along with everything else.

At the moment McCain is trailing in Pennsylvania 53.6% to 40% and they’re pushing for, and will probably get, a much high voter turnout in Democratic Philadelphia. I guess the McCain camp figures that concentrating on Pennsylvania rather than going after Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico would be more efficient.

I see no way he can swing Pennsylvania with a 13 point Obama lead. Every week I get requests from the Obama camp to drive down to Pennsylvania and help out so they clearly still have their eye on the ball.

That gives Obama 273 votes and that’s the most I believe he can expect. Maybe 278 if Nevada holds. I don’t for one minute believe that Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Missouri or Ohio, regardless of what the polls say, is going Blue.

So Obama needs Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa and either New Mexico or Nevada. He can also win if he loses either Colorado or Iowa and wins both New Mexico and Nevada.

Like I said, it’s going to be close.

One very definite potential issue I see is Obama may have peaked a tad too early. From where he is at the moment, he has no place to go but down. Call me an alarmest but the news that Sarah Palin is going to be on Saturday Night Live concerns me a great deal.