One More Day

One more day of campaigning before this Presidential election is over. News junkie stations like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc. are already showing retrospectives of the 2 year long period. The Sunday news shows have already made their prediction of an Obama landslide.

As a news junkie, it will be quite a respite to have this over with. It's captivating to see the race unfold - watching McCain try to pierce Obama's steadiness. The race has gone from the daily attack/response game to more of a rolling narrative. McCain has thrown all they can, but the economy has made it almost impossible to have impact. Like Bush in 2004, Obama has had a steady message of Change while positioning McCain as a 3rd term of Bush. While it may not have worked in the beginning with a maverick like McCain, over time message consistency + money make all the difference. In 2004, Bush labeled Kerry as a member of the waffling elite. It didn't work at first, but over time it catches on.

Obama has elicited an incredible level of energy and enthusiasm. Turnout is estimated at over 60% of the registered electorate with a massive level of new registrations. With early voting, last minute surprises are diminished. It will be hard to have last minute breaks, so polls are likely to be more accurate vs. previous periods.

Howard Dean is going to be seen as a hero for the Democrats. As the DNC head, he was originally criticized heavily for building an organizational footprint in all 50 states. Augmenting this was the Democratic proportional apportionment system forcing Obama and Clinton to run in all 50 states. Turnout is always higher when you are engaged during the primary.

Now I will be up during the night to see how those 14 odd California propositions fared. I wish we did not have so many of them, but hope most of them are shut down. We need to let our elected officials do their job.

On Wed, November 5th, I'll have no excuses. The race will be over, and I'll have to find something new to obsess over... well at least until 2010.