We’re in the home stretch, twenty four days out and former Reagan political adviser, ED Rollins suggest we can embrace the ‘L’ word – Landslide.
McClatchy
Daring to utter the ‘L’ word: Obama on track to a landslide
WASHINGTON — Barring a dramatic change in the political landscape over the next three weeks, Democrats appear headed toward a decisive victory on Election Day that would give them broad power over the federal government.
The victory would send Barack Obama to the White House and give him larger Democratic majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — and perhaps a filibuster-proof margin there.
That could mark a historic realignment of the country’s politics on a scale with 1932 or 1980, when the out party was given power it held for a generation, and used it to transform government’s role in American society.
Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, is now well positioned to win the Electoral College. He’s comfortably holding most of the “blue” states that went for Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry in past elections, polls show, and he’s gaining momentum to take away several “red” states that have voted Republican in recent elections, including Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Virginia.
The Democrats are also widely expected to take big gains in House and Senate races. Like Obama, they’re reaching deep into once solid Republican territory. Even such stalwarts as North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, could be in jeopardy.
Former Reagan political adviser Ed Rollins likened today’s landscape to that in 1980, when voters were angry at President Jimmy Carter and the Democrats and turned to Reagan in droves once they felt comfortable with the idea of him as president.
“Barack has met the threshold,” Rollins said. “Once Reagan met the threshold, people wanted to get rid of Carter and they did in a landslide. This is going to turn into a landslide.”
“This election right now is exclusively about economy,” said independent analyst Charlie Cook. “Despite the fact that the House and Senate are in Democratic hands, Republicans seem to have total ownership of the problem. Fair or not, it’s true.”It’s also made it much more difficult for Republican John McCain to score with his escalating attacks on Obama for his ties to such controversial figures as William Ayers, a former member of a violent Vietnam-era protest group. “You can’t break through with the economy being so overwhelming,” Rollins said. “No one cares.”
Related: Election Maps at The Cook Political Report
Current Outlook at October 8, 2008:
“It would take a major external event, the proverbial October Surprise, to shift the spotlight to national security or some other subject that would allow McCain to highlight his strengths. At this stage, the most relevant question would seem to be: “How big will the train wreck be for the Republican Party up and down the ballot in November.” Obama currently has a 260 to 163 Electoral vote edge, with 115 Electoral votes in the Toss Up column. 270 are needed to win.”
FiveThirtyEight Daily Electoral Projections at 10/11
In my view, we’ve had our October surprise. WMFDs – weapons of mass financial destruction – otherwise known as Derivatives. A small handful in the category of CDS toxic bonds – credit default swaps – exploded. BushPaulson allowed the Lehman Investment Bank to fail, now seen as a huge mistake, that left unintended consequences.
What could be more scary than total financial collapse, the stock market crashs with world leader floating the likely closure of banks and stock markets for one week, pensions and jobs at peril? But I digress.
Many, including moi, are outright skeptics. How reliable are these Polls.? How will the issue of race play in the voting booth?
Last week we received heavy doses of hate and incitement from Mr. and Mrs John George Wallace McPalin.
You bet apologies are in the mail.
But let’s keep your eye on `That One’
Never underestimate a Community Organizer.
It is said Jesus was a community organizer; he stirred the you know what. Pretty soon he had twelve team members that grew to thousands and then millions.
As Wapo observes, even from Karl Rove, our No:1 enemy, there are a few useful lessons.
MSNBC links
Obama camp relying heavily on ground effort
Campaign borrowing from top GOP strategist Karl Rove’s 2004 playbook
In 2004, Democrats watched as any chance of defeating President Bush slipped away in a wave of Republican turnout that exceeded even the goal-beating numbers that their own side had produced.
Four years later, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign intends to avoid a repeat by building an organization modeled in part on what Karl Rove used to engineer Bush’s victory: a heavy reliance on local volunteers to pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas.
But in scale and ambition, the Obama organization goes beyond even what Rove built.
The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers.
A few days ago BooMan called us to own a piece of history. Don’t be a spectator.
You can help without leaving home. Or even in your neighborhood
I’m leaning to the view, we need not be concerned over the Diebolds and the vote count. Events have unfolded as they should. This is one election the Repugs are praying they’ll lose. They own this financial meltdown and haven’t got the stomach or the nugs to clean it up. It’s at saturation point as only Bush knows how.
World trade has been disrupted.
Next up. Shortages.
This economic mess won’t be resolved before November 4, 2008. It exploded on Bush’s watch and on January 20, 2009, it’ll become the burden of ‘That One’