Just 72 hours until V-Day 2008. And it is finally time for Blanca to do her prediction for the election.
Tonight, I will focus on the Presidential race.
And to just prove that I am not pulling all this from my ass like my gal pal Ann Coulter and my fuck buddy Sean Hannity do, I am providing pretty graphs, all to prove I know how to post pretty graphs.
Let’s start with the perennial conservative polling outfit Rasmussen Reports.
Currently they have 313 for Obama and 160 for McCain. They have a total of 65 toss ups in this scenario.
While I agree with their status of Missouri, Montana, Indiana, and North Carolina, I think they are being too generous with Florida, and not generous enough with Ohio and Nevada. Florida is a pure toss up, while Ohio and Nevada are leaning very strongly for Obama and Biden.
USA Today is much more conservative with their projection. They are giving Obama just 248 while they give McCain 135.
It is pretty clear that this map is very out of date. USA Today has been very out of sync with the rest of the media this year. If you notice they still have states like New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana as toss ups. This is why I only trust the USA Today to catch the poo coming out of my Shiatsu’s ass.
And this brings us to the news outlet of the Tiffiny Network: CBS News.
CBS News has another rather conservative map, which favors McCain, in that it doesn’t afford Obama all the states, which are in all likelihood going to be in Obama’s column in three days. In their scenario, Obama has 259 with McCain coming in at 163. They have 116 toss ups on their map. This is far too many toss ups.
But the important thing you should be taking away from this lesson in clip art and cutting and pasting is what these three maps have in common. Please keep that in mind as we move on in our jaunt through the electoral maps of the news media.
This is CNN’s map. Notice anything interesting? You should. Not only have they added more pretty colors, they also have added shading to indicate how much a particular state is leaning in one candidates favor.
Even though they give Obama a strong advantage with 291 to McCain’s paltry 160, they seem to be less generous with their margins than other outfits.
If you take note, they have Pennsylvania in a lighter shade of blue than New York. Likewise they have Minnesota at a light shade of blue. Meanwhile, Michigan and Illinois are deep blue.
Now I will grant them that Illinois is deep blue, but the polls I have seen have indicated that Minnesota and Michigan are currently in Obama’s camp by the same margin. Likewise, Pennsylvania, although fluctuating, is a pretty safe Democratic state, having last voted for a Republican President in 1988.
Which brings us to MSNBC’s latest map. They, too, seem to think that Pennsylvania is light blue, but look at what else they think is light blue: Michigan.
MSNBC also gives Obama a victory with 286 to McCain’s 163.
But they also have South Dakota as a toss up. At least they don’t have Oregon and Washington in light blue. Considering Oregon is 100% vote by mail, we should know shortly after they stop accepting ballots who the winner is.
RealClearPolitics has another blowout for Obama, even if they are not as generous with Pennsylvania as I think they should be. Obama takes 313 and McCain pulls in 132 with a total of 95 toss ups on their map.
What is important is which states are deep blue for RealClearPolitics. All of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes states are deep blue. If this is true, then why is Pennsylvania light blue? Wouldn’t it be a toss up?
RealClearPolitics has been very good at taking the poll of polls this year, but they sometimes make assumptions, with which I cannot agree.
And this brings us to probably the most convoluted and complicated site on the Internets, FiveThirtyEight. These guys have to be the wonkiest wonks on the Innertubes.
Although their map looks like it was drawn by a spastic drunk three-year-old, they more than make up for crappy refrigerator art with a cool distribution graph, which is the real story of the election.
This guy runs a bunch of simulations all day long, coming up with a thousand different outcomes, graphing probability, and then coming up with a statistical analysis of who will win on November 4. In other words, this guy lives in his mother’s basement and has no sex life. But I have to admire his spunk. Oh, that might have been a poor choice of words considering how he spends the rest of his day when not running electoral simulations.
I also have to love his pie charts. Mmmm, pie. They are so simple, even a West Virginian could understand them, albeit they use decimals and percentages, which are usually above the third grade education required for incest and snake handling.
Do you think I am making any fans in the Mountain State with my sharp witticism? Oh, for you people from West Virginia, that means humor.
No matter how you slice it–West Virginians, this is what is called a pun–Obama comes up the winner on this guy’s site. But what I find most interesting is how he treats each of the states with subtle shading, indicating how much they lean for one candidate or another.
According to this guy, Pennsylvania is deep blue, just like the rest of the Northeast, or as this guy calls them, the Acela States. Note to my new friends from West Virginia, the Acela is a train. A train is like a car, but on rails. If you can find an intact book not currently being used to wipe your ass in an outhouse, it might have a picture of one.
Damn, I’m a bitch.
Finally we have Electoral-Vote, who has Obama at 353 and McCain at 185. His map uses less shading than outlines and colors. His map is probably the most generous to both Obama and Mccain, as he doesn’t really believe in a toss up.
Once again we have Pennsylvania in deep blue. This time, New Mexico is also deep blue. Add to that the quartet of Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado in light blue, and it is clear Obama is ahead.
If one thing is clear from surfing all of these sites, it is that Obama is way ahead, and McCain is screwed. Now he knows how his first wife must have felt when he left her for the beer bitch.
Averaging out these maps, and adding my patented genius, Blanca has come up with two maps. The first is the worst case scenario, while the second is the bestest of all possible outcomes for Mr. Obama. Let’s visit the worst case scenario first.
As you can see, in this bummer for Obama, he still walks away with 273 to McCain’s 265, and Michelle is picking out new china patterns while Cindy is smashing every plate in the hutch. Well, at least she can take solace in all those prescription drugs she steals from her charity.
This makes a couple of assumptions. First, that all the leaners are going to go for McCain. It also assumes that anything Kerry had in 2004 is safe. I think this is a good assumption. To believe in a year in which red states are falling into the Obama camp some blue states would turn red is not just fantasy, it is retarded. Not Sarah Palin retarded but Trig Palin retarded. Man, I really need to work on those anger management issues.
Now let’s assume everything goes super for Obama on November 4, and the landslide everyone expects occurs. My best case scenario is even more generous than anyone else’s. And I will tell you why.
If the groundswell is taking place in places like Indiana and Missouri to make them possibly blue, then Montana, the Dakotas, both Virginias, and Georgia are blue. I throw in Arizona and Arkansas just to piss off McCain.
Now somewhere between these two is going to be the results on November 4, 2008. Blanca is going to go out on a limb and predict that the final Electoral College count will be between 350 and 400 for Barack Obama. I think America will give Obama something Bush hasn’t has since his fraternity days: a mandate!
Don’t forget to watch Saturday Night Live tonight. John McCain will be rearing his ugly, tumor-filled head like Putin over the steppes of Alaska. I also have an inkling Obama may just show up unannounced. It should be real fun.
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