Electoral Maps Again
Here's an updated electoral map.
The best recent data (in my opinion) comes from Sep. 13th Zogby polls taken in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
There have also been polls by other organizations, taken during the last ten days, in seventeen other states. But no one's recently checked the other states; notably South Dakota may be closer than expected.
Here's the map:
A glance here will show that McCain has gained a lot of ground, notably in the swing belt from Virginia to Ohio. Some of this is due to post-convention bounce, but personally I think the Democrats are talking far too much about Sarah Palin for their own good. There is practically nothing a Democrat can say about her, good or bad, that doesn't wind up helping the McCain ticket. I don't mean that I think she's a particularly good candidate; I mean that expending energy criticizing any vice presidential candidate is a pragmatically stupid thing for the opposing party to do. It's McCain, not Palin, that Obama has to beat.
Of course the media is focussing a lot on Palin too, and, as usual, it's on irrelevancies. (It drives me bananas that the reporting on candidates for important offices always winds up being about their personal lives, or about individual gaffes they've made, or about whether every last statement in every last speech is 100% true. I oppose the McCain-Palin ticket, but my choice certainly isn't influenced by Palin's children or upcoming grandchildren, or whether the supported or opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" in exactly the way she says she does; I mean, really!)
The electoral votes in the close races (the ones in peach or baby blue :) ) are more than enough to decide the outcome of the race at this point. And there are, of course, a lot of weeks left.
More later.
The best recent data (in my opinion) comes from Sep. 13th Zogby polls taken in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
There have also been polls by other organizations, taken during the last ten days, in seventeen other states. But no one's recently checked the other states; notably South Dakota may be closer than expected.
Here's the map:
A glance here will show that McCain has gained a lot of ground, notably in the swing belt from Virginia to Ohio. Some of this is due to post-convention bounce, but personally I think the Democrats are talking far too much about Sarah Palin for their own good. There is practically nothing a Democrat can say about her, good or bad, that doesn't wind up helping the McCain ticket. I don't mean that I think she's a particularly good candidate; I mean that expending energy criticizing any vice presidential candidate is a pragmatically stupid thing for the opposing party to do. It's McCain, not Palin, that Obama has to beat.
Of course the media is focussing a lot on Palin too, and, as usual, it's on irrelevancies. (It drives me bananas that the reporting on candidates for important offices always winds up being about their personal lives, or about individual gaffes they've made, or about whether every last statement in every last speech is 100% true. I oppose the McCain-Palin ticket, but my choice certainly isn't influenced by Palin's children or upcoming grandchildren, or whether the supported or opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" in exactly the way she says she does; I mean, really!)
The electoral votes in the close races (the ones in peach or baby blue :) ) are more than enough to decide the outcome of the race at this point. And there are, of course, a lot of weeks left.
More later.