If it was 40% black, there would likely be no Republicans elected statewide.

Another thing of note is that the median age for blacks is slightly lower because the life expectancy is several years shorter. This means the population curve has a higher proportion of blacks under the age of 18 then among the white population, skewing the numbers for eligible voters slightly more.

It doesn’t appear that the 35% number is even commensurate with the general population statistics.

http://politicalvine.com/politicalrumors/political-boxers/my-dearest-janekidd/

How much did each of you have to drink for that to happen?

Decaturguy wussied out of the list! Whoo-hoo!

I’d definitely let Obama run my business. He seems pretty good at keeping personnel together and focused. He also keeps his eyes open and watches for strategic problems and shifting conditions. Definitely CEO material.

I forgot to add. And if you didn’t hate women, you would know this.

I don’t think either side is doing to well. Would you select any of these people to be in charge of your company or oversee your retirement as a trustee, or take care of your children if you died? I have no illusions that any politician is looking out for my interest, or is going to fight for me, or will do the right thing unless a bright light is there to make sure his activities are fully transparent.

But, the tightening national polls have to come from somewhere, but there has been little evidence of that in the state by state polls. So then where is the support coming from? If the total is not equalling the sum of the parts, either the parts are wrong or the total is. Historically national polls are more accurate than state polls, which are only slightly better than a dart thrown at a board. But, I am not willing to trust either. In the end, some poll is going to claim to be the most accurate, but that is only because the spread in polls, along with the margins of error, have the range of a 52-48 McCain victory to a 61-39 Obama victory all covered. I would hardly consider that accuracy.

We might wake up with Obama winning 49 states, we might wake up to a McCain squeaker, or anything in between. Anyone who says that they know which one it will be does not fully appreciate the problems in polling this year, particulary when there is still a week to go and last minute movement happens in a great number of races.

Even in 2006, at least 3 Senate seats were to close to call all night long, and a handfull more could have been classified that way based on final polling. A great number of house seats were that way as well (there were 2 here in Georgia alone).

The election is still an eternity away, and stranger things have happened.

To each their own, Rugby. At least…until Obama’s “structural feminists” become in charge of what men can ogle.

This isn’t attractive?

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Womens%20Page/she_men_1.jpg

Don’t let the URL fool you.

That is somewhat misleading. McCain has only led the race once, for a few days, which immediately followed the GOP convention and naming Sarah Palin (who is a joke. Even the people handling her are saying she is “a whack job” and unqualified &c. &c.) as VP, which routinely give candidate bumps in the polls.

Now, the right leaning RCP says Obama has a 154 vote lead in the Electoral College. Perhaps he isn’t doing too well nationally. He has to do something monumentally egregious to lose the election with that sort of lead. Moreover, Obama’s trend lines in every poll average, in every swing state, have been on the upswing since the middle to end of September, while McCain has only declined. A couple outliers here and there wrongly suggest a tightening of the polls but there is no reason to believe McCain could overcome his deficits.

And this is to say nothing at all of the increase in voter registration for the Democrats, while Republicans have lost number of registered members nationwide.

Ultimately though, if you saw the 2006 elections, you would know, Republicans aren’t doing to well at all. Not the label, not the policies, not even their tactics have worked for three years. So unless partisanship is deluding you into thinking McCain still has a chance, you can clearly see, the Republicans never had a shot. Hell, even Erick Erickson has already conceded the election, to say nothing of the top elected officials within the Republican Party

Maybe this is an overblown downturn in the economy (I can’t seem to think of anyone seriously looking at the situation and dismissing it so casually). However, voters always flat out reject the incumbent party which, rightly or wrongly happens to be the Republicans right now.

I don’t see how anyone can buy a homeless person’s vote. They could pay that person to vote, but with a secret ballot how could they know who got that person’s vote? It doesn’t make any sense.

On the other hand, it’s easy to see how you could buy someone’s vote with mail-in absentee ballots, for which the GOP has favored loosening restrictions. (Older people who tend to vote GOP prefer mail-in.) That’s why I call hypocrisy on the GOP for the whole “prevention of voter fraud” argument for tougher ID restrictions.

that would not infringe on anyone’s rights and would surely make it harder to “vote early and often”

And note, I say that just to get under your skin, much in the same way that you seem to post things like the above.

Just throwing out dismissive comments about certainties that you have no way of knowing makes you look like a hack. “The Republicans never had a chance to win this election”? Really? Obama is outspending McCain 4-1, McCain is a hapless nincompoop, and McCain was in the lead until and exaggerated economic crisis shifted 5 or more points Obama’s way. Even then, it is still not out of reach; no matter how certain you are about the outcome.

But if you didn’t hate women, you would understand that.

Of course, you state it and it is true. You need to put away the crack before the crack puts you away.

Just because you hate women doesn’t mean that Palin is a joke.

The GOP and Republican label is in absolute tatters. McCain has been a god-awful candidate. He picks a VP who is an absolute joke and no one takes seriously in addition to alienating voters.

Oh, and then the economy tanked.

Generally in a poll, blacks would be 80D-10R-10? in the polls at this point, but will normally break 92D-8R in the election. Currently, the polls are pretty much around 95R-3D-2?. That means that in a normal poll in a state like Georgia, the polls would have 30% x 80% = 24% raw support from the black candidate alone, but will get 27.5% of raw support in the final election.

This year, there is no such election day boost that will cut Obama’s way in that regard, since there is no inflated GOP support, or inflated undecided. Could this add to the uncertainty of the final numbers (3.5% in this case, 1.5% in Ohio or the average state)?

Further, the last state by state polls in “battleground” states over the last two Presidential election, have been off by an average of 5% from the actual result. For 2/3rds of the time they under-reported Republicans and 1/3 of the time underreporting Democrats for an average of about 1.5% over-reporting of the Democrats.

Lastly, each poll reports a M.O.E of 2-4%, depending on the sample size. This, of course, is not a measure of the error in the spread, but on the individual support numbers. The error in the spread is actually double, since the two numbers are not independent. (If they were independent, then a reduction in Obama support would not mean an increase in McCain support). So that means 4-8% raw error on the margin of victory.

Taking these into account does not lead one to conclude with any form of certainty that Obama has it nailed down. It may be likely, but the over-confidence from his camp and his supporters is unwarranted.

The thumbprint thing would work, as long as it was the State and not the Fed running it. It would also prevent criminals from voting.