At a glance, I don’t quite follow the methodology, but this professor says that if the election were held today, Kerry would have a 90% chance of winning.
At any rate, there’s a pretty cool map illustrating each state’s relative electoral college importance.
What I’m finding interesting, if I’m reading that map correctly, is that the prof’s projecting a Kerry victory while at the same time projecting Kerry losing both Ohio and Missouri. IIRC, it’s sort of conventional political wisdom that a president “needs” to win those states, apparently Missouri’s only voted against the winner of a presidential election twice in recent memory, and Ohio’s gone for the loser only once in the same period, or something like that…..
Not to mention that the map shows Tennessee as a blue state. Granting that TN’s still in play, I’m not at all convinced it’s going to be in the blue column when the votes are counted (just call it a hunch). Still, I’ve been surprised before….
Yeah… it was TN that struck me as well. Without that, Kerry falls one electoral vote short of the necessary number. I’m not sure how anyone can honestly put it in the Kerry column at this point.
And I don’t think it’s a great leap to say if an election were held after just one party’s convention… than that candidate would have a great chance of winning.
What’s his next study going to prove… water is wet?
Sorry, but I can’t resist this one… Any study that concludes that water is wet is a flawed study, pereformed under limiting conditions that are not reflective (sic) of real conditions. Water can also be proven to be dry (and rock-hard solid) or dry (and a wispy gas like the air we breathe).
But seriously, the point is well taken that this type of projection is utterly useless. All it can hope to provide (and in fact does provide) is a guide as to which candidate is on message and resonating with America, and which one needs to change his message. We’ve already seen that Bush has, in fact, changed his message. So after the Republican convention, it is my prediction that his message will once again change.
As for TN, I would like to think that my homestate and birthstate has at least SOME people in it who are able to think for themselves, and that maybe those people are waking up to the nightmare of Bush, and his economic and foreign policies has played on the state.
jeff… you got me. Water is not always wet. That’s awesome 🙂
How bout this… the sun is hot! Now there’s a challenge!
CJ: You may have a leg up now. If we consider Steven Hawkings recent reversal on black holes, though, it just may be possible that a sun, in time, does cool off….. BUT! As that is only controversial theory, it could be that suns do remain hot. Of course, with the newest theory that the universe is ever-expanding, all things, even suns and black holes will cool off eventually. I suggest a more esoteric approach, like saying that as long as humanity exists, love and sex will exist. That is a certain truism that meets all conditions for this line of reasoning.
Thankfully though, for us policical/policy wonks, things always change! If it didn’t, we’d all get bored pretty darn quick. That’s why I love republicans and am proud to be a democrat.
Wait, I could be wrong about love and sex as well. Does anyone remember that silly flik, “Demolition Man”? Sex was outlawed…
It is hard to come up with an absolute truism.