Why Obama must win by at least 10% in every state

[yesthattom]

Before you get all excited that Obama's polling numbers are looking good, or that Intrade is predicting he'll win, or that FiveThirtyEight's mathematical simulations involving every poller's data in the world claims that Obama is doing well, please remember this:

Any state that the Democrats are predicted to win "by only a few votes" is a state Democrats will lose.

• The kind of voter fraud and disenfranchisement that Republicans are good at only work in close elections, like Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004
• When Dem candidates are doing well, we tend to not volunteer or donate; it starves our candidates right at the end of the campaign when they need it most. That's also when Republicans get scared and start donating like crazy.
• When Republicans think they are going to lose, they Swiftboat so outragiously that Dems can't defend themselves against it.

The best way to fight voter fraud at this stage in the game is to assure that every state we win we do so by at least 10%. That's big enough to make both of those problems go away. That means when it seems Obama is doing well, you have 2x the reason to donate, volunteer, and get your friends to the polls.

Remember: Register to vote at www.voteforchange.com
Remember: Make sure all of your friends have checked to see that their registration is still valid. Remember: Make sure your friends go to the polls early in the day. Drive them to the polls if you need to. Tom Update: Can someone us a tool like this and figure out what the Electorial College results would be if we assume the "close" states went McCain?

Comments

[mrfantasy.livejournal.com]

I was recently thinking this same exact thing--and not only do I appreciate the call to action, I hope the Obama campaign gets it and is preparing an onslaught that will put the race in their favor.

[tactisle.livejournal.com]

Should we tell pollsters we're voting for McCain? ;)

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I gave opposite answers in polls in previous years.

This year I decided to be completely honest. My theory is that I'd rather they have accurate numbers to work with. For example, in Polling Point's polls, when they ask if I'm a Democrat, they then ask how strongly I feel about that. I don't mind them marking me as a "strong democrat" because that helps them stratify their answers and, for example, not include my answers when they are studying how to reach out to fence-sitters.

[baerana.livejournal.com]

that's what i keep saying to third party voters, but no one really gives a fuck

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Show them this video

here ya go

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

I don't know if your first point holds up to scrutiny. Here are the 11 closest states in 2004:
1. Wisconsin, Kerry, 0.38%
2. Iowa, Bush, 0.67%
3. New Mexico, Bush, 0.79%
4. New Hampshire, Kerry, 1.37%
5. Ohio, Bush, 2.11%
6. Pennsylvania, Kerry, 2.50%
7. Nevada, Bush, 2.59%
8. Michigan, Kerry, 3.42%
9. Minnesota, Kerry, 3.48%
10. Oregon, Kerry, 4.16%
11. Colorado, Bush, 4.67%

Kerry and Bush split them pretty evenly with Kerry winning 7 and Bush 6.

In 2000, they went this way:
1. Florida, 0.0092%, 25 electoral votes, Bush
2. New Mexico, 0.06%, 5 electoral votes, Gore
3. Wisconsin, 0.22%, 11 electoral votes, Gore
4. Iowa, 0.31%, 7 electoral votes, Gore
5. Oregon, 0.44%, 7 electoral votes, Gore
6. New Hampshire, 1.27%, 4 electoral votes, Bush
7. Minnesota, 2.40%, 10 electoral votes, Gore
8. Missouri, 3.34%, 11 electoral votes, Bush
9. Ohio, 3.51%, 21 electoral votes, Bush
10. Nevada, 3.55%, 4 electoral votes, Bush
11. Tennessee, 3.86%, 11 electoral votes, Bush
12. Pennsylvania, 4.17%, 23 electoral votes, Gore

Again, they split them 6:6. If the Dems really need 10% in polls to take a state, why are they winning 50% of the close states?

Now, I would agree that there were suspicious dealings in both Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, but it wouldn't surprise me if you could find similar dealings in Wisconsin for Gore in 2000, and in Pennsylvania in 2004 for Kerry. (Although I would agree that many of the mis-dealings in Florida in 2000 occurred after the election, not before)

[knell.livejournal.com]

I was surprised not to be able to find a full transcript on the net of a speech from 1983 by Neil Kinnock which I always think about when pondering the upcoming US election, so I dug it out of the Penguin Book of Twentieth Century speeches and retyped it:

http://uffish.net/static/warning.txt

(Unfortunately, Thatcher won anyway, on a tide of patriotic fervour after winning the Falklands war)

[jayeye.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any efforts by the Obama campaign to deal with the unreliability (to put it politely) of DER voting machines, which are very likely to be a source of election fraud.

[shandrew.livejournal.com]

Other big factors that will hurt Obama's actual results vs polls:
- Polling looks at everyone, but in the actual election old people tend to have better turnout than the young.
- Racism is still strong in the US; people tend lie in polls if the reason they are not voting for Obama is due to their racist stereotypes