A friend and I were talking this morning and he mentioned that if you use the RealClearPolitics electoral map calculator, things don’t look so great for John McCain. In fact, it looks nearly impossible for John McCain to win the 2008 Presidential election, barring a serious Obama misstep in the next few days. This reminds me of Jonathan Alter’s prophetic Newsweek article way back on March 4th (Hillary’s Math Problem) discussing how Hillary Clinton could win the next 16 states and still lose the primary.
Well things look just as dire for John McCain. Today is one week out, and here is where the electoral map stands in terms of average polling numbers:
Source: RealClearPolitics.com (10/28/2008)
Changing every single toss up state to McCain AND giving him Ohio and Virginia (both leaning Obama) would still yield a 273-265 Obama victory:
Source: RealClearPolitics.com (10/28/2008)
John McCain has been known to pull rabbits out of his hat before, but this would have to be his fattest rabbit yet. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how this all pans out on Election Day, but in light of the above math (and the gamblers over at the Iowa Electronics Markets currently betting an over 86% chance of an Obama win), I’d say that come January, America will be getting a fair dose of Hope and Change.