It's over

[Seymour]

This race is going to be a blow out in terms of electoral votes - this race is going to be determined by results and not guns or Jesus.

Kerry has locked up Wisconsin and Pennslyvania, he is leading Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and Missouri - only Fox News has Bush leading Florida and every other poll shows Kerry ahead there too.

I hate to see my taxes go up but it looks like the only chance Bush has is if Osama is found soon.

Bush and Cheney should have resigned for the good of the GOP and let Powell run with Guilliani or McCain.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Not so quick Sey. There's a long way to go. Kerry can't be trusted during a time of war. I see Bush winning fairly easy. They said the same BS when Reagan ran. If you think so, load up on Kerry. Pinny will take your action, you're throwing money away if so.

 

[D2bets]

You're both wrong. It's going to be very close -- decided by less than the 20+ electoral votes up for grabs in each of Florida and Ohio and probably by less than 10,000 votes in one or both of theose states. Bush needs to win both Florida and Ohio, Kerry needs just one of them. All the rest is just theater really. It comes down to Florida and Ohio. If Kerry does win both he'll ene dup winning more than 100 electoral votes. I'd say Ohio and Florida are both tossups but naturally I'd rather bet the guy that only needs to win only one of them, not both.

 

[GAMEFACE]

D2,

Bush wins fairly easy, don't believe the polls.

 

[WildBill]

I read one polling expert point out that the key for Kerry's people is just to get out the vote in Florida. A huge block of voters that tends to get underepresented are Puerto Ricans. In most of the states they live in large numbers the Dems are solidly in control and get solid support from this block, but Florida is the one where their vote could be the difference. Some of them tend to move back and forth from PR to Florida and end up not registering to vote or leaving their registration so they can vote in PR. If the Dems can convince them of their importance and get them registered and to the polls this could equate to a very important block of up to 100,000. This year that could easily be the difference.

 

[Oceans11]

Its going to be a bit boring without Mr Monkey and his greater christian colonisation initiative programme.

Taxes will be higher too, golly.

Life sounds dead tuff.

Once he's been nixed the rest of us normal humans have got to try and pick up the pieces, while Mr Slaphead trundles his sorry ass around the golfcourse.

If he's re-elected, taxes will be the last frigging thing on yer minds. Heh.

 

[D2bets]

Here's how I break the map down....

Gotta start with the 2000 results which, based on current numbers, give Bush a 278-260 lead to start. In my opinion, you can stick 42 of the 50 back in the same columns as last time (Bushies will argue PA, MI and OR are in play -- I don't think so). Of those 8 tossup states, 5 of them went Bush last time (61 of 83 electoral votes). They are:

Florida 27 (Bush)
Ohio 20 (Bush)
Wisconsin 10 (Gore)
Iowa 7 (Gore)
Nevada 5 (Bush)
New Mex 5 (Gore)
W Va 5 (Bush)
New Hamp 4 (Bush)

OK, so working off that list, Kerry needs a net gain of 10 votes (260 to 270). Let's say wBush takes BOTH Wisc and Iowa. That's 17 votes, so he'd need to get 27 the other way. Low and behold, Florida has exactly those 27. That alone, even without any of the others, would get Kerry to 270. In other words, IMO IF Kerry wins Florida Bush has virtually no chance to win. None. So if I was betting Bush I'd just bet Florida knowing that he might lose even with Florida but can't win without it.

More realistically though, let's say Bush takes only 1 of Wisconsin or Iowa, more likely Wisconsin with the higher 10 votes. That gives Kerry 20 votes to make up (10 behind + Wisc 10). Low and behold Ohio has exactly 20.

OK, now let's say we assume Kerry loses both Ohio AND Florida, can Kerry still make up the 10? It's tough. First of all, he needs to hold both Wisc and Iowa. Then he needs to win 2 of the other 3: NV, WV and NH. Of those, NH (4) actually looks best. I think NV is also very much in play. Interestingly enough, NH and NV would add 9 bringing us to a 269-269. So the possibility of an electoral TIE is actually not that hard to imagine. Could happen. Again, all we need to do is start with the 2000 results and shift only NH and one of NM or WV to Kerry.

That's my analysis.

 

[wilheim]

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic challenger John Kerry this month overtook U.S. President George W. Bush among voters in swing states and nationwide, according to a poll conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.

The senator from Massachusetts leads Bush 47 percent to 41 percent in states where the November's presidential race is expected to be closest, the Pew organization said on its Web site without specifying the states. That compares with an 11 percentage- point lead held by 58-year-old Bush last month.

Nationwide, 46 percent of the 1,568 registered voters questioned by Pew said they would vote for Kerry if the election were held today, compared with 44 percent who said they would pick Bush. The president last month led by 4 points. Kerry's lead falls within the poll's 3-point margin of error.

The poll comes as the Democrats prepare for their July 26-29 convention, during which the party will endorse Kerry's candidacy. Pew began polling on July 8, two days after Kerry announced his choice of North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his vice president, a decision that boosted the Democrats' chance of winning the elections, according to some political analysts.

The choice of Edwards, 51, is ``good'' or ``excellent,'' according to 49 percent of those polled, compared with 31 percent who said it was ``fair'' or ``poor,'' Pew said.

Kerry, 60, also leads Bush in perceptions among the general public on who can best deal with issues including the economy, health care, education, the environment, Iraq, foreign policy and gun control. The Republicans led on morality, homosexuality and terrorism, according to the center.

War in Iraq

Those polled told Pew the ``most important problem'' is the issue of war and the war in Iraq. The economy was rated the next most important issue, followed by terrorism and unemployment.

Pew interviewed 2,009 adults across the country overall, including the registered voters, from July 8 to 18.

The margin of error for the telephone poll ranged from plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for questions using the total sample, to plus or minus 3.5 points for other questions. Questions using the registered-voters sample had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points.


Bloomberg.com

 

[xpanda]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by eek:
Its going to be a bit boring without Mr Monkey and his greater christian colonisation initiative programme.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

LMAO.

 

[GAMEFACE]

D2,

The media is trying to build Kerry up and make it look as if he will win these battle ground states, I don't see it. Remember the last Gov race in Florida the media and the polls had it very close and Jeb won in a landslide 59%-40%. Same thing happens in Nov., the media is trying to make the race close when it's not. Bush loses one or two battle grounds and it's much easier than expected. Remember the last Senate races? Same thing the media, polls and dems were high on how many seats they were going to gain and they lost miserably. Why do you dems fall for this every election?

This is just one mans opinion we will see in Nov.

 

[Seymour]

Bottom line is things can always change but Bush is down big time and has already lost two battle states in Wisconsin and PA - those are over - done - Kerry turf - and all the polls have Kerry leading the other battle states but by a very narrow margin - I don't see what could really swing anything at this point other than the capture of OBL - a democracy in Iraq is years away if possible at all - the economy has slowed from the run it was making - the troops are not coming home in the next 3 months - I guess WMD would really help but at this point we would need to bring in Mark Furman for that.

Down here in Miami and I plan to sit this one out - I have alot of properties to sell the next 5 years and Bush's small business taxes would really benefit me by hundreds of thousands but I can't vote for leadership that has taken our country and most importantly our kids to war under these pretenses - everytime I think I want to vote for Bush I remember we have 11K troops in Afganistan and 150K in Iraq - and catchy cliches like "Freedom isn't free" and "Support the troops" got old as I watched little boys coming home and being fitted for Halos and prostetic limbs all in the name of Bush's "Preemptive strike".