Thoughts 25 Days Out...

Some thoughts in the days leading up to the election:

I think it's pretty clear that the financial crisis has hurt McCain. I tend to subscribe to Jay Cost's view of it, that McCain was most affected by the crisis b/c he's a member of the Republican Party, the party that is historically associated with banking interests, not because of media talking points or because of his own impulsive desire to get himself in the thick of policy-making.

I hate to say that "it's over," because I think that a LOT can change in 3 weeks. But I think that the collapsing Dow is a reasonably proxy for McCain's electoral prospects. If the Dow is at 6500 on November 1, can anyone envision McCain winning the election? With all the fear that's floating around about retirement incomes, 401Ks, etc? I can't see it.

The truth is, I have no idea where the bottom is on this crisis. The fever may be breaking right now, or it may be getting far more severe. A market rebound (to, say, 10,000 in the next few weeks) would do a lot for McCain's campaign, but I'm not seeing that at all. McCain needs something to turn undecided voters his way; polls show Obama ahead by at least a small margin among decided voters. As far as I can tell, those things are:

- major national security issue
- economic stability/reduction of economic fear

The other thing is the electoral map. I think the worst case for McCain is something like a 364-174 loss. The most optimistic map I can possibly construct for McCain is a 321-217 win, and that includes Pennsylvania and Michigan going red (not happening). Obama has a massive committed-state cushion:

- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Vermont
- Rhode Island
- New York
- New Jersey
- Maryland
- Washington DC
- Delaware
- Pennsylvania
- Michigan
- Illinois
- Wisconsin
- Iowa
- Minnesota
- California
- Washington
- Oregon
- Hawaii

That's 255 electoral votes.

So really, a McCain best case scenario is 283-255. The map favored Obama this year before the crisis. After the crisis? It's difficult to see him winning it.

It's hard to predict these things, but my intuition is that McCain will pick up some ground from where the polls are between now and the election, simply because I think it's easier for undecideds to see him in the Oval Office than it is Obama. But I don't think it would have been enough.