Electoral College: Obama Pre-Bounce Bounce?

There are four states that change categories today. One brings good news for McCain. But bucking recent trends, three are good news for Obama. In order of electoral college votes...

Michigan, with 17 electoral votes, which two weeks ago weakened for a "Weak" Obama state into a "Leaning" Obama swing state, now moves back into "Weak" status as Obama's lead once again breaks the 5% mark in the state. This makes Michigan no longer a swing state, which is potentially a very big deal for the Obama camp, as they don't have to play as much defense there.

Virginia, with 13 electoral votes, which 9 days ago moved from leaning Obama to leaning McCain, now moves back to leaning Obama. (Either way, it is a very close state and could very easily go either way... the movement here is from McCain being ahead by 0.2% to Obama being ahead by 0.4%.)

Mississippi, with 6 electoral votes, sees McCain's lead move from the "Weak McCain" category to "Strong McCain" as McCain's lead grows to 10%. (This is the one state that is good news for McCain, but it will make no difference to the summary numbers, because it does not affect the swing states in any way.)

Nevada, with 5 electoral votes, moves from leaning McCain, to leaning Obama. Once again it is important to note that which side of the line the state is on right now may not be really be very relevant. We are moving from McCain ahead by 0.6% to Obama ahead by 0.2%. Either way, this state is very close and could go either way.

New summary:

McCain Best Case - McCain 281, Obama 257
Obama Best Case - Obama 384, McCain 154

If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) - Obama 291, McCain 247

The changes today can't of course be attributed to a convention bounce, but perhaps Obama merely coming back from vacation and starting to campaign again was enough to start blunting the recent McCain momentum. Or... or it could just be random variation in polls pushing states that are right on the line between my categories back and forth over those lines.

Texting Fail

Complete fail to the Obama team on the "be first to know via text message thing". Total crap. The text messages haven't gone out yet, and anybody paying attention already knows. Fail, fail, fail. He should have sent out the page on Friday.

Yup, tis Biden. All the news outlets are all over it now. (And I am home again.)

He was my preferred Presidential candidate back pre-Iowa, although I never had any illusions that he had a chance.

And I've always liked Biden a lot.

And he can certainly do the attack dog thing.

I expressed doubts back in June about Obama picking Biden though, because it did not mesh with the anti-Washington, change change change thing. Because after all, Biden is definitely a Washinton insider. He is not change.

But he is good. And he is very competent.

This will be fine.

Obama-Biden

No links because I am posting from my phone. But ABC News is reporting that a Secret Service protective detail has been sent to Joe Bidens house. No text messages yet, but that probably means it is Biden.

(via Brendan Loy)

Once again no Bayh

Now everybody is saying not Bayh (despite the bumper stickers) and not Kaine.

So Biden?

Vacation Time!

I am at home now for basically two weeks of vacation... well, except that I have a meeting I'm going to on Tuesday. And two conference calls on Wednesday. and I'm going in all day long on Friday for two planning meetings. And the following Friday I'll go to work to catch up on email and such before I *really* come back the following Monday.

But I'm basically on vacation... Woo!

My plans:

• Non Stop Gavel to Gavel watching of both conventions (the primary reason for the precise timing of this vacation)
• Catch up on putting financial information into Quicken
• Catch up on old email
• Do a bunch of reading
• Catch up on some genealogy stuff
• Work on a handful of different projects I've had on my list for a long time, but haven't had any time for
• Sleep
• Spend some time with Brandy and Amy
• Have Fun

Looks like Bayh?

Bumper Sticker Could Indicate Bayh Is Obama's Veep
(KMBC, Kansas City, 22 Aug 2008)

After weeks of speculation and days of intense rumors, the answer to who Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would name as his running mate may have come down to a bumper sticker printed in Lenexa.

KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported that the company, which specializes in political literature, has been printing Obama-Bayh material. That's Bayh as in U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. Word leaked out about the material as it was being printed up by Gill Studios of Lenexa. The Obama campaign had said it would make the announcement by text message on Friday.

Gill Studios would not confirm information about the material. They would not deny it either.