This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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On July 9th we had an update that just BARELY moved Florida out of the swing state status by increasing McCain’s lead in my five point average to exactly 5%. (I call swing states the states where the candidate in the lead is ahead by LESS than 5%.) Well, a new poll today pulls McCain’s lead in Florida back under 5% (to 3% actually). And so Florida moves from “Weak McCain” to “Lean McCain” and once again Florida is looking like a swing state.
Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 389, McCain 149
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Florida is a big state (27 electoral votes) so the status of Florida is a big deal.
At this point, assuming that each candidate were to indeed win all the states where they are currently ahead by more than 5%, we are left with 11 swing states. Eight of them currently lean McCain (Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Nevada, Montana and North Dakota) and three of them lean to Obama (Ohio, Virginia and Colorado). With just the states he is ahead by more than 5% in (plus DC) Obama is only 6 electoral college votes away from winning. So he only needs to win ONE of the three states he is ahead in right now to win.
Meanwhile, for McCain, out of the swing states NINE of them are now “must win”. (He can afford to lose Montana and South Dakota but that is it.) He has to get ALL of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, South Carolina and Nevada in order to win. If he loses ANY of those states, then Obama wins. And Obama is ahead in three of those states.
As I’ve been saying… if McCain wants to actually try to win, rather than just try to avoid a landslide, he needs to start doing something… or Obama needs to start majorly screwing up. McCain should be putting major effort into Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. He needs all three of them, and Obama has the edge right now. He needs to start pulling those back in his direction.
Of course, it is still summer. Many people won’t start paying attention “for real” until the fall. So there could well be (actually probably will be) major changes to how things look as we get later in the season. But McCain can’t just take the summer off and expect to recover in September or whatnot.
Sam and Ivan talk about:
- Nation of Whiners
- Bank Failures
- Mental Recession
- McCain’s Bad Week
- Aware of the Internet
- Reporting on Nuts
- Obama’s Lead
- Ivan’s Money Laundering
- Iraq Security Deal
- Sam’s Temperature Control
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McCain’s lead in South Dakota drops to less than 10%, so the state moves from “Strong McCain” to “Weak McCain”. It is only 3 electoral votes, and it is still a long way from McCain actually losing the lead, but still… the trends are still moving against McCain. One would assume that at some point this Obama “bounce” has to peak, but it doesn’t seem to have happened yet.
The summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
By the way, after about 5 days, I went back to Firefox.
And JungleDisk was 25% done, but still said six days remaining after those five days. I needed to reboot for something unrelated. I haven’t started JungleDisk up again, but I probably will.
Obama’s lead in Wisconsin strengthens to more than 10%. Thus the state is now “Strong Obama” rather than “Weak Obama”.
The summary stays the same though:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Yeah, today is iPhone day. Well, it started yesterday overseas, but I could go get one right now at my local store if I wanted. But I am still waiting. Here are my current reasons:
- We’re on Sprint, switching will still be a pain
- I want a 32GB model
- I want a SlingPlayer app and there isn’t one yet
- It just ain’t at the top of the list to spend money on yet
I was going to try to figure out a few more reasons, but those are the main ones. But at the lower price point and higher speed, and with the app store and everything, it is getting harder and harder to resist.
Edit seconds later: Oh yeah, I forgot another reason, I really would prefer to buy one online, have it delivered by mail, and activate it at home, and they have removed that option, which really ticks me off.
The vet thinks it is PROBABLY just a sprain or strain. Roscoe is now on some pain killers that have basically knocked him out, and he is supposed to take it easy for the next few days. (No running around like a maniac in the back yard or long walks that is.) If he isn’t all better by the end of the weekend, we are to bring him back in for X-rays. But the vet thinks that is unlikely and he probably won’t need that.
We don’t know how, but Roscoe hurt his leg. We noticed him limping a bit last night. This morning he was limping worse. So we have a vet appointment for this afternoon. I’ll have to leave work a little early for it. Hopefully it isn’t anything serious.
I screwed up yesterday transcribing the results from Zogby Interactive in Iowa. Oops. Sorry, there were 36 states yesterday, I was in a hurry and got a little sloppy. The end result is that while Obama’s lead in Iowa has indeed diminished based on the Zogby results, once I corrected the numbers while they got close (5.2%) they didn’t quite fall below the 5% threshold for me to switch the state from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama” and thus into the swing state category. So I’m correcting that today. Apologies for the error. Of course, this makes yesterday’s results even more glum for McCain. More on that in a bit.
In the mean time, there was also a new poll in New Jersey showing tightening there. Obama’s lead in the state drops under 10%, moving it from “Strong Obama” to “Weak Obama”.
New summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 277, Obama 261
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
OK, so now with Iowa back out of the swing state category, lets look at this again… McCain’s BEST CASE… McCain winning all the swing states… that is all the states where the leading candidate is ahead by less than 5%… he has 277 electoral votes. Of course, that is giving McCain DC since it (still) has no polls. That will never happen. So take DC away, and McCain has only 274. Ouch.
Looking at this another way, without ANY swing states (but giving him DC) Obama already has 264 electoral votes. He only needs SIX electoral votes to win. All he has to do is manage to carry any ONE of Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado or South Carolina. If he managed none of those (or Montana or North Dakota) but did win Nevada, we’d have an electoral tie.
But Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, South Carolina, and Nevada are now MUST WIN states for McCain. He needs to win ALL of those swing states in order to win. He is currently ahead in five of those states, but he is behind in three of them. And he needs ALL of them.
Of course, that is where the polls stand today. They can and will change quite a bit between now and the election. That is assured. But really, when is McCain going to start making a race of this?
The FISA revision passes as expected.
Senate OK’s New Wiretapping Law
(Andrew Tilghman, TPMMuckraker, 9 Jul 2008)
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a new federal wiretapping law this afternoon by a vote of 69-28.
After last month’s approval of a similar measure in the House, today’s vote essentially clears the way for the bill to go to the White House for a final signature.
The bill approved includes sweeping and retroactive immunity for telecom companies that provided information about customers to government officials without a warrant as part of the Bush Administration’s surveillance program imposed after September 11, 2001.
…
So what does that mean? It means that the nations largest telecom companies no longer have to worry about a batch of multi-million lawsuits filed by customers angered that the companies turned over their personal information to the government without a warrant.
It also means that if you are at home making an overseas phone call to a suspected terrorist, the government can monitor that call without a warrant.
And it’s not clear how intel agents define who is a suspected terrorist.
(via Talking Points Memo)
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