Obama is up by four points, in FLORIDA. I guess that means he doesn’t need Clinton to make it competitive.

He’s up by five in Ohio and up 12 in Pennsylvania. Sweet lord, that’s awesome. If he can win all three of those, the odds of McCain still winning the White House is less than 1%.

In fact, not taking these polls into account, fivethirtyeight.com has Obama with a better than 67% chance of winning and a nearly 32% chance of a blowout. Hopefully the media will catch up and stop talking about a horse race.

Exactly. That is a claim that is impossible to prove or disprove with the limited experiments we were able to run. (One.)

We’ll never really know, will we?

I contend that Lieberman is not an asset to ANYBODY.

I think McCain will have trouble in North Carolina as well.

Huh? Bush only won over Kerry by 5%. Clinton won in 1996 by 6%. With Lieberman on the ticket it was closer to Kerry than Clinton, so you can’t claim Lieberman was any help in 2000.

“Under normal circumstances, Michigan is a Dem gimmie.”

What? Are you on crack? Gore won by 5%, Kerry by 3%. Again, your assertions don’t match reality and there’s little point in accepting your analysis.

Michigan is kind of a perfect storm for Democratics this year, with the abundance of blue-collar whites (one of Obama’s weakest constituencies) and the whole “not counting your votes” snafu. Under normal circumstances, Michigan is a Dem gimmie. And IMHO if Hillary had been the nominee, it still would be. But events have conspired to put in play what would otherwise be a safe haven for the Dems in November.

The last Republican candidate to win Michigan was George H.W. Bush. Sen. Kerry won the state by about 160,000 votes. Since 1983 they’ve had 12 years of Republican governorship and 13 years Democratic. The Republicans hold a 9-6 advantage in the state’s representatives, but both of its Senators are Democrats. And, as C.S. pointed out, Sen. Obama is leading in Michigan.

Why would anyone think Obama doesn’t ‘have a chance’ in Michigan? Are certain among us overestimating the importance of disaffected Clinton supporters?

you live in Florida, right? Can you say what happened to Florida? The entire country it seems moved left since 2004. Why not Florida?

Don’t be so sure. The site I posted above has his with a nearly 40% shot at it. That’s hardly worth of such a declarative statement.

“I would not trade FL and MI for VA and Colorado. Better get on the phone to Hillary if you want to have a chance in either state.”

Obama is leading McCain is Michigan, so I think your analysis is less than reliable.

Obama can win Michigan.

Ohio is still up in the air, since Obama and the white male blue collar workers have not connected. Too close to call.

I would not trade FL and MI for VA and Colorado. Better get on the phone to Hillary if you want to have a chance in either state.

I know I shouldn’t underestimate the “0000H, he’s black” fear factor facing Obama, nor the smears and dirty tactics waiting to be played, but still…

Goldwater and Bob Dole looked so much better by comparison.

That said, if McCain doesn’t win Ohio, there is almost no chance of him winning the White House. For that matter, it is the biggest ‘Must Win’ state for 2008. (Check out the numbers here…fivethirtyeight.com) So the best way to stop McCain is to stop him from winning Ohio.

On the other hand, I think once Obama starts campaigning in Florida, he will close in on McCain and it will be too close to call in the final days of the election.