E!!

It should be acknowledged that The Pew Research and Rasmussen Reports polls had the presidential race right at 52 to 46 percent, a 6 point spread.

The polls at Gallup and Reuters/Zogby had the race at an 11 point spread which is outside the margin of error so problematic.  ABC/Washington Post and CBS had Obama up by 9 which is just at the +/- 3 point margin of error. 

NBC/WSJ and IBD had a spread of 8 which isn’t bad, and CNN and FOX had the spread at 7 points which is/was close enough for me.

Source:  Newsmax

Most people who follow election day results know that poll closing times drive news coverage throughout the afternoon/evening.  Below are how the closing times fall (all times are Eastern) along with some notes.  Electoral votes are in parenthesis where indicated.

6:00 – Most of KY and IN – Indiana is a battleground state this year.

7:00 – Remaining precincts in KY and IN + VT, half of NH, VA, SC, GA, FL – This is the “first wave” of election results.  Kentucky (8), South Carolina (8), and Georgia (15) are red states.  Vermont (3) is blue.  Eyes are on Indiana (11), New Hampshire (4), Virginia (13), and Florida (27).  I’ve seen polls in these states that have the candidates virtually tied and polls that have Obama up by 3 to 5 points.  I predict FL and NC for McCain; not sure on NH and VA.

7:30 – OH, WV, NC – Ohio is huge with 20 electoral votes.  West Virginia (5) is red, but North Carolina (15) is in play.  I predict McCain will win NC, but Ohio is anybody’s guess.  Obama could win without Ohio, but I’m not sure McCain can.

8:00 – ME (4), the other half of NH, MA (12), CT (7), PA (21), NJ (15), DE (3), MD (10), D.C. (3), MI (17), TN (11), AL (9), MS (6), IL (21), MO (11), SD (3), KS (6), OK (7), TX (34) - The battleground states on this list are NH, PA, MI, and MO.  Mchigan will go blue.  I think Missouri will go red.  I would have called PA for Obama up until a week ago, but now I’m not so sure.  PA is second in importance behind Ohio, and no matter what McCain can’t lose both of them and win the way things are looking.

8:30 – AR (6) – Arkansas is red.

9:00 – RI (4), NY (31), LA (9), WI (10), MN (10), parts of ND (3) and SD (3), NE (5), WY (3), CO (9), NM (5), AZ (10) – The only real question marks here are Colorado and New Mexico.  All the polls say Colorado will go to Obama and the margin seems to make that likely.  The race in New Mexico is closer.  Strangely enough, the way these things work, McCain really needs New Mexico’s five electoral votes.  (And I noted that he spent some time there today so his campaign concurs.)  I ran quite a few scenarios earlier including one in which McCain won NH, IN, OH, VA, NC, FL, MO, and lost PA, MI, CO, NV, and NM…which resulted in a tie:  269 electoral votes each.  Moving NM’s 5 to Obama’s column resulted in a 274-264 Obama win.

10:00 – IA (7), MT (3), ID (4), UT (5), NV (5) - Iowa is blue.  The rest are red except Nevada which is in play this year.  Based on registration rolls, many people are calling Nevada for Obama, but the predicted Dem wins in the primaries (for the same reason) didn’t happen.  So, we’ll see.  

11:00 – WA (11), OR (7), CA (55) – “Yawn”:  The most boring poll closing since all are blue.

12:00 – AK (3), HI (4) – Alaska is red; Hawaii blue.

As Jay Nordlinger would say, some pointlets:

Joe the Plumber, forget owning your own business:  you are now teed up for your own hit reality show.

Obama is now “Senator Government.”  Brit Hume said he thought it was a slip.  If so, what a great slip.  If not, brilliant.

Schieffer asked a couple of pretty good, hardball questions tonight.  And stayed quiet when he should have.  He was way better than the other two moderators, I thought.

Loved McCain’s “I am not George Bush” bit.  About time.  But too little too late?  Why has the McCain team been so poor at communicating?  Ironically:  they share that failure with the Bush administration.

On economics and taxes, why didn’t McCain mention his new thing this week:  cutting the capital gains tax to 7.5% from 15% plus a bigger capital loss write-off – ?  They are pro-growth policies and important.

Obama gave ONE example of something specific he would cut, and I can’t even remember what it was now.  McCain listed at least half a dozen things.  Brownie points there for having thought about it.

Loved it when McCain bashed the very bashable ethanol subsidies.  He did well on energy, I thought.  Liked the detail on nuclear energy and reprocessing plants.  Liked that he called Obama out on “we’ll look at it” comment re: drilling (which in polspeak means we’ll do absolutely nothing).

McCain FINALLY hit Obama on all the false/negative ads on his health care plan.  A $5,000 tax credit is more than anyone’s getting now, and the benefits tax would be nominal in comparison.

Why did Obama keep smiling and laughing when McCain was hitting him hardest?  It seemed odd.  A serious, indignant look would have been more effective.  And normal. 

McCain listed a few of Biden’s wrong judgments on foreign policy including the “cockamamie” idea of splitting Iraq into three parts; good.

McCain brought up ACORN, and that was good.  But he should have given more specifics.  ACORN has been investigated, and has had employees indicted and incarcerated, for the same kind of voter fraud they are perpetrating this year, yet Obama’s camp still gave them big bucks, and still defends them.  There are other ACORN ties as well, and I bet most voters don’t know about them.

I wish McCain were better at narrative.  There are connections that could be made, a story that could be told, of who Obama is and where he came from and where he will surely lead us.  It’s clear to most of us who have been reading and doing our homework, but the average American probably does not have a cohesive picture of the whole thing.  (I’ll try to find that flow chart thingie I saw the other day.)

Sum up:  McCain did much better than in the other debates because he had some fire and said things we hadn’t heard umpteen times and went after Obama more on legit points; and Obama did a little worse than previously because he reverted to talking points when flustered and because of the weird laughing thing. 

I think McCain won by a little, but not sure it’s enough.