Like Goldwater, Like McCain

I have been saying this for weeks. (I rest my case!!!)

(SOURCE: http://www.electoral-vote.com/)

Today's Polls

Polling is starting to get very intensive as we move down the homestretch. The University of Wisconsin released a batch of polls in eight key Midwestern states yesterday. Barack Obama is leading in all of them by 10 points or more. His worst state is Indiana, where he is leading 51% to 41%. If Obama can win red states like Indiana by 10 points, this is going to be the biggest Democratic landslide since Johnson crushed Goldwater in 1964. Virtually none of today's polls have good news for John McCain. He is behind in all the states Kerry won plus Florida, Indiana, and Ohio, the latter by 12 points in one poll and 14 in another. There is every indication that the economy is taking McCain down.

State	Obama	McCain	Start	End	Pollster
Arkansas	36%	51%	Oct 01	Oct 21	U. of Arkansas
California	56%	33%	Oct 12	Oct 19	Public Policy Inst. of Calif.
Florida	49%	42%	Oct 20	Oct 22	Polling Company
Florida	49%	44%	Oct 16	Oct 21	Quinnipiac U.
Georgia	46%	51%	Oct 22	Oct 22	Rasmussen
Iowa	52%	39%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Illinois	61%	32%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Indiana	49%	45%	Oct 21	Oct 22	SurveyUSA
Indiana	51%	41%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Kansas	41%	53%	Oct 21	Oct 22	SurveyUSA
Kentucky	39%	55%	Oct 19	Oct 21	Research 2000
Louisiana	41%	57%	Oct 21	Oct 21	Rasmussen
Maine	56%	35%	Oct 16	Oct 19	Critical Insights
Michigan	51%	37%	Oct 19	Oct 22	EPIC-MRA
Michigan	58%	36%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Minnesota	50%	40%	Oct 16	Oct 20	Financial Dynamics
Minnesota	56%	41%	Oct 22	Oct 22	Rasmussen
Minnesota	57%	38%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Montana	44%	40%	Oct 16	Oct 20	Montana State U.
Ohio	52%	38%	Oct 16	Oct 21	Quinnipiac U.
Ohio	53%	41%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Oregon	48%	34%	Oct 10	Oct 20	Riley Research
Pennsylvania	51%	41%	Oct 16	Oct 20	Financial Dynamics
Pennsylvania	52%	41%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
Pennsylvania	52%	42%	Oct 18	Oct 22	Muhlenberg Coll.
Pennsylvania	53%	40%	Oct 16	Oct 21	Quinnipiac U.
Pennsylvania	53%	41%	Oct 21	Oct 22	SurveyUSA
Texas	44%	54%	Oct 21	Oct 21	Rasmussen
Washington	54%	43%	Oct 22	Oct 22	Rasmussen
Wisconsin	53%	40%	Oct 16	Oct 20	Financial Dynamics
Wisconsin	53%	40%	Oct 19	Oct 22	U. of Wisconsin
West Virginia	44%	49%	Oct 20	Oct 21	West Virginia Wesleyan U.

Be very careful how you vote November 2008

(SOURCE: Forwarded to me by a conservative)

TRADITIONAL VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and
dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper
has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself.


MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press
conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
;
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome. Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, John Kerry & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ACLU represents the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Be very careful how you vote November 2008

Early voting 'boosts Democrats'

Early voting 'boosts Democrats'

A huge surge in early voting across key states appears to be helping the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama.

In one swing state, North Carolina, Democratic early voting is up 400% in the first week, with similar patterns in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico.

Early voting now takes place in 34 states, although votes are only counted on 4 November.

Up to one-third of all ballots are expected to be cast before election day, compared to one in five in 2004.

In the past, Republicans have tended to benefit from early voting.

"This is like a mirror image of what we've seen in the past," says Paul Gronke of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College. "This cannot be good news for John McCain".

Overall, early voting is running about twice as high this year as in 2004 in many states.

In states that register voters by party, the party affiliation of early voters is known - though it is not certain that all registered Democrats will vote for their presidential candidate, and the data does not give information on how independent voters will cast their ballots.

Voting problems

One reason for early voting has been the fear of long waits at the polls on election day - which may be an even bigger problem this year because of higher turnouts.

The Democrats seem to be bringing out early voters in key swing states.

In Clark County, Nevada, which covers the largest city, Las Vegas, Democrats outnumber Republicans in early voting by a two-to-one margin, higher than the 52% majority for the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, in 2004.

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which covers the city of Cleveland, there have been 45,000 early voting Democrats and only 10,000 Republicans, far above the two-to-one margin by which Mr Kerry won in 2004.

In New Mexico, which was won by George W Bush by 6,000 votes in 2004, twice as many Democrats as Republicans are voting early.

And in North Carolina, which has been Republican but is now a swing state, of the 480,000 people who have voted early, 54% were Democrats, 27% Republicans, and 16% independents.

Michael McDonald, a voting expert at George Mason University, said the data from North Carolina was stunning.

"North Carolina, in particular, is off the charts," Mr McDonald said. "This is outside of what we expected."

The Republicans discount the importance of these early voting figures, saying that they just reflect the most partisan voters who would have voted for their party anyway.

"They only get to vote once," says Rich Beeson, political director for the Republican National Committee.

And not all the early voting trends are favouring the Democrats.

In Florida, absentee ballots are running three to two in favour of the Republicans, while in Colorado early voting is running roughly in line with overall voter registration.

October surprise

With some evidence that election polls are tightening, the big increase in early voting is making it more difficult for Senator McCain to close the gap.

In past elections, up to one in five voters have decided in the last weeks of the campaign, and sudden events, such as a foreign policy crisis, could alter the outcome.

"If there's a last minute surge because of some event to the trailing candidate, well, the train has left for an awful lot of people these days," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Centre, which carries out election polls.

The latest Pew polling suggests that 24% of people are likely to vote early, while 9% said they had already voted.