[StBernard] How McCain Can Win -- The Arguments

[Westley Annis]

How McCain Can Win -- The Arguments
22 Oct 2008 06:47 pm

Here is the argument that some McCain campaign advisers are making right now
to donors and others who ask for a single, plausible scenario by which Sen.
John McCain wins the election.

It rests on certain assumptions about the electorate that seem almost
provably false at this point, but not provably false enough so as to render
them completely bizarre.

The goal here is to give people a sense of what the candidate is being told
by his advisers, nothing more.  Think of what's below as a set of Republican
talking points.

The Republican Party has built a presidential election machine that is
tested and proven, the argument begins. Its voter database, Voter Vault, has
150 million potential Republican voters listed, each with dozens of
psychographic datums appended.

The Party knows how to turn out Republican voters in red states. The
Democratic Party has no record of turning out sporadic Democratic voters in
presidential years in red states. It is not reasonable to assume, therefore,
that Democrats can really turn out the voters they say they will, while
Republicans have a record of turning out habitual Republican voters. How can
Democrats build good and accurate voter lists in these red states?

Take Indiana: Gov. Mitch Daniels leads his Democratic opponent, Jill Long
Thompson, by a healthy margin.  Can you imagine Mitch Daniels voters
choosing Obama?

Obama's in trouble in Pennsylvania. Why else is Ed Rendell begging Obama to
return there?

In 2006, the Republican base was depressed after "Macaca" and Jim Webb still
only barely managed a victory there.

The GOP will spend $70 million on GOTV in the next 13 days.

Obama isn't breaking 50% in Ohio and Florida. It's hard to imagine a big
shift to him in the final ten days, when the mind is concentrated, when
imponderables come into play.

Colorado is tough... but Pennsylvania is doable. 

Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri will all revert to partisan
form. Already, McCain's campaign has factored in census + 1 turnout for
African Americans, and there are plausible scenarios under which McCain
wins.

Several polls -- including McCain's internal polls -- show that some white
male voters who broke away from McCain [ed note: but did not support Obama]
are coming back to McCain's fold.

Oh, and all this talk of  Barack Obama leading in the early vote?  So did
John Kerry.