Electoral projections

Watermark said:
It all really hinges on Ohio again. But Ohio is likely to go Obama. If Obama manages to pick up Virginia or Missouri it would make up the difference and he could win without Ohio, but in an electoral performance so poor he didn't win Ohio, I doubt he could win one of those two either.
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From the states that Bush won, I think he picks up IN, OH and CO. I think he loses MI. But obviously he will have enough in that scenario to win the election.
 
Watermark said:
426 to 111 with 47% of the vote indicates that he lost a ton of the states by the skin of his teeth. He just didn't run a good campaign. I seriously doubt McCain can repeat H.W's slam dunk.
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A win is a win is a win, especially in the Electoral College. I beat you by only a hundred votes, I still win all the state's electoral votes. While I believe awarding electoral votes based on the popular vote in each congressional district merits serious consideration, we play by the rules we have.

Remember, one doesn't have to win the popular vote nationally to be elected president, padawan.
 
The Bare Knuckled Pundit said:
A win is a win is a win, especially in the Electoral College. I beat you by only a hundred votes, I still win all the state's electoral votes. While I believe awarding electoral votes based on the popular vote in each congressional district merits serious consideration, we play by the rules we have.

Remember, one doesn't have to win the popular vote nationally to be elected president, padawan.
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A win is a win but it wasn't a crushing defeat. Dukakis lost by the skin of his teeth, and could have easily won if he would've ran a decent campaign. Is it wrong to learn from the past? Of course not. If Dukakis would've ran a better campaign and gotten a few percentage points, the electoral vote would've reversed, because few of H.W.'s defeats were crushing.

It DOES matter that the election was close, you can't pretend that it doesn't. It undermines the presidents credibility and makes it apparent that he isn't going to stay in power much longer.
 
Watermark said:
A win is a win but it wasn't a crushing defeat. Dukakis lost by the skin of his teeth, and could have easily won if he would've ran a decent campaign. Is it wrong to learn from the past? Of course not. If Dukakis would've ran a better campaign and gotten a few percentage points, the electoral vote would've reversed, because few of H.W.'s defeats were crushing.

It DOES matter that the election was close, you can't pretend that it doesn't. It undermines the presidents credibility and makes it apparent that he isn't going to stay in power much longer.
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Interesting theory, but highly flawed. Your assumption is based on static conditions.

The victory was narrow, so the likelihood of re-election is small? While it sounds good on paper time and history waits for no election. George W. Bush lost the popular vote, so applying your logic he would naturally not be re-elected in 2004.

But wait! First there is September 11, 2001, the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq. All of these were significant factors in the Republicans retaining control of Congress in 2002 and Bush successfully defeating Kerry. All three events led to a resurgence of nationalism that generated a corresponding rally around the President effect. Accordingly, the credibility gap, which more accurately should be described as political capital, was erased.

Approach it from the reverse perspective. Bush wins in 2004 and enjoys a Republican-led Congress. He states that having won both the Electoral College and the popular vote he now has considerable political capital.

In the spring of 2005 he proceeds to spend that political capital in his efforts to reform Social Security. Based on your logic, he should have succeeded. However, even though he did a cross-country tour and gave numerous speeches, a Republican-led Congress wouldn't have take up his proposals.

As I tell my students, while it may look good on paper, sometimes it just doesn't quite jibe in the real world.
 
uscitizen said:
The real world cannot be properly portrayed or explained in a book or formula.
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Actually it can. Everything can be represented mathematically. It would just be ridiculously complicated to do. The problem with normal humans trying to make equations about life is that they usually leave a lot out.
 
I dunno. In the middle of the last century a pair of realist philosophers (Hilary Putnam and John R. Searle) tried to map out the world with mathematical and linguistic universals and ended up giving up and branching off in to differing sub-schools of thought...
 
Threedee said:
I dunno. In the middle of the last century a pair of realist philosophers (Hilary Putnam and John R. Searle) tried to map out the world with mathematical and linguistic universals and ended up giving up and branching off in to differing sub-schools of thought...
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I don't think that humanity is intelligent enough to even approach it, honestly. There are some things we just aren't smart enough to conquer. I was just saying that it was technically feasible if you had all the time in forever and an IQ of 1000.
 
Watermark said:
I don't think that humanity is intelligent enough to even approach it, honestly. There are some things we just aren't smart enough to conquer. I was just saying that it was technically feasible if you had all the time in forever and an IQ of 1000.
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Well, crap. How in the hell are we ever going to master space travel and hyperspace if we can't even do that?!!?
 
Hyperspace travel isn't nearly as complicated as coming up with a concrete set of equations for human life. Even though it may seem it is.

It's like in the ancient world people thought they'd be able to turn lead into gold or make a perpetual motion device long before they would be able to get to the moon.
 
Watermark said:
Hyperspace travel isn't nearly as complicated as coming up with a concrete set of equations for human life. Even though it may seem it is.

It's like in the ancient world people thought they'd be able to turn lead into gold or make a perpetual motion device long before they would be able to get to the moon.
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Yeah, well, the ancients, like ourselves, lacked that scorpion device from Captain Marvel, otherwise there would be a shitload of gold today...
 
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