Is There a Chance?

For the last month, the news for the McCain campaign has been mostly bad. The media trumpets polls (although there are a few contrary indicators) showing Obama with a big lead. So here's the question: is it over?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Ugh. It doesn't look good. And yet, despite all the polling, the media that is more than twice as negative about McCain, despite the hype, I am stil holding on to at least a little bit of hope. Here's why:

1) Nobody really knows what the voter turnout is going to look like. Gallup is putting out THREE different sets of numbers. Every pollster makes assumptions to weight their responses. And this is such an unusual election. First black candidate...first GOP woman candidate...first election since 1952 not to have either an incumbent or a VP on the ticket...war...economy in a mess...the list goes on. All of it adds up to a great deal of uncertainty about what the voting pool will look like. And that means the polls may be way off. Using historical numbers, it's a margin of error race still.

2) Far left candidates don't usually do very well in national elections.

3) Here's an odd fact from Colorado. This is a state Bush won in 04, and one McCain desperately needs. Polls show an Obama lead (on average) of six points. Yet according to the Secretary of State, early voting is almost exactly 50-50 Republican and Democrat. Of course that doesn't account for independents, and no one knows how many crossover votes there will be between the parties. But we've been hearing about this massive early-voter turnout operation for Obama. If he's really ahead and they're really bringing out the vote, wouldn't there have been a bigger spread?

Regardless of what you hear, I beg, urge and plead with you to vote anyway. It's my firm belief that there is an intentional effort being made to depress Republican turnout. Don't fall for it. We may not win, but don't let it be because we stayed home discouraged.