Well... any fool with a working understanding of Google Docs and the U.S. electoral college can play that game. And I am nothing, if not a fool.
Here now is bloviation!
| McCain | Obama |
As the guages clearly show, Obama is currently beating McCain. The obvious reason for this is that 232 is a larger number than 220. Because this number represents Obama, he is winning. Because you are so smart, you know that winning does not mean win. To win the US Presidential election, your score has to be 270 electoral votes or more. You caught me!
Okay, Mr. Pundit Man will now show you the secret of the numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!) and then you will have lots more information.
The states highlighted in gray mean that I don't think the other candidate can win the state but the candidate who I think will win it, can lose the state if that states voters' irrational dislike for their party's nominee overcomes their party loyalty.
The "battleground" states are the states where I think the most campaigning needs to happen for both candidates. During the Republican primary, McCain went out to the midwest and told unemployeed factory workers "Those jobs are gone and they ain't coming back. And my government won't give hand outs. Tough noogies. Straight talk!" Well, I'm not actually sure what he said, but I think I overhead somebody saying that they read about him saying something like that on the internet. Anyhow, if its a fact, I believe it. One would think that telling your constiuencies that you are dead set against them would be poison, but McCain is not you. For example, McCain was one of the most vociferous critics of the farm subsidy bill and Obama was one of its biggest backers (its rumored that Obama actually has a corn car), but all of the plains region farm states except Minnesota are almost certain to go to McCain.
McCain's biggest problem with the battleground states is that there are so many of them, he can't write any of them off, and he is woefully short on cash. Of the various different options on how to deal with this, the one currently rumored to be the favorite of McCains' strategists involve the merging of Ohio into Michigan and New Mexico into Arizona.
Obama will really need to win Missouri. This is because Missouri is neither in the mid-west nor in the southwest and therefore my punditry seems to be more geographically balanced. Also, I haven't talked much about what Obama needs to do win the election, so there you go.
Finally, although I believe that the midwest will decide this election, the future of both parties really depends on the outcome in Colorado, Neveda, and New Mexico. Why is this? Because
