Prognostication: Democratic Victory on Tuesday

The 2008 Presidential Election concludes on Tuesday evening, and not soon enough. Frankly at this point, I couldn't care less. All of the ballots will be cast, and viewers everywhere will watch as the numbers flow in from all over the country. Expect most of those states to be red, expect most of those big cities to be blue, and expect there to be griping about Floridian geriatrics still looking for Hubert Humphrey on the ballot.

But the middle man, the swing vote, the undecideds in the country are who really count in this and any election, and the number of those in that category is quickly dwindling. Very simply, the question is this: Obama or McCain?

The answer will be Obama, and I pledge that I will not delete this should I be proven wrong.


Looking back at 2006, people were already rolling up their sleeve ready to back hand anybody associated with Dubya, which unfortunately includes the entirety of the GOP. Sure, there are plenty of Republicans — John McCain included — who didn't agree with a lot President Bush did in his tenure, but by sticking that 'R' in front of their state abbreviation, there was a tacit understanding by the public of "this is my boy, G-Bush." Political analyst Charlie Cook also recognizes the angst toward the Elephant Men (and Palin) saying this:

"Usually, when voters kick the heck out of one party, their anger is satisfied and they move on. Voters rarely come back the very next time and kick the same party hard again." -Charlie Cook

Everyone seems to be hating on Republicans, and it's very likely that they are convincing the previously unconvinced so far.

The title of the article highlights a victory on the Left. But don't worry about me, this title still covers me even if Obama somehow loses the election. The very fact that John McCain is the Republican candidate for President is already a Democratic victory. Another such victory would have been devotedly pro-choice and cross-dressing Rudy Giuliani. These guys are very nearly R.I.N.O.'s (Republicans In Name Only).

John McCain was indeed a maverick, but two problems arose during his campaign that tainted all of the authenticity of this claim. First off, people like Sarah Palin drove this pithy moniker into the ground like it stole their lunch money. "He's a mayaverrick, and I'm a mayaverrick, and we're gonna do all sorts of mayaverrickish things." This battle cry or anthem becomes a little more than mundane and just slightly less maddening than a campaign lawn ornament being driven through my ear hole.

The fact of the matter is that he was a bit of a maverick. He did reach across the aisle and he did piss off a lot of Republicans. If you need any reassurance of this, look at who's been sitting in the Oval Office since 2000. McCain lost in those primaries for not being conservative enough, which ultimately led to a Bush Administration in the first place.

Can you begrudge him for not falling for the same trick twice during this primary season attempt? McCain hit a snag, though, as a two-year primary season (far too long, in my opinion) that consisted of posturing towards and for far-right leaning constituents eradicated the rest of his entire bi-partisan Senate career. Two years out of the 164 years that he's been in the Senate was more than enough to ruin his chances in this race, which was more left-leaning than the 2000 presidential season, especially in this What Have You Done for Me Lately society of ours.

Speaking of What Have You Done for Me Lately voting, I'd discuss McCain's being hamstrung by this faulty at best economy at the worst possible time, but the discussions have already run him into the ground and I've never been one to kick a man while he's down. Well, that's not true, but it's safe to say that the economy ended up being the October Surprise, and McCain was the victim.

So Tuesday will happen. Unless this Bradley Effect — under which Obama may be polling better than people will actually vote, on the basis of racism being unpopular — is as bad as some pessimists forecast, which I don't; I feel pretty comfortable with that prediction. Whether or not I'm comfortable with that outcome is yet to be determined. There's not a lot of governance that we've seen out of this Obama fellow, but it's very possible that we may have just seen too much governance from John McCain.