My final pre-election post, set for Monday, is currently at 1,175 words. And counting.
Since Monday will be our last chance to either (1) sound incredibly precognitive or (2) look like complete bozos, I'm inviting you, the Maggie's Valued Readers™, to publicly have a say. Along with my article, I'll also post an article with any predictions you leave here in the comments.
My only request is that you put your official prediction in quotes, to differentiate it from anything else in the comment you'd care to blather on about. If no quotes are used, I'll post the whole thing. Management reserves the right to correct any blatant typos. I'll collate them Sunday evening.
There are actually a handful of predictions in play. In regards to the presidential race, you could predict the outcome by states, by Electoral votes, or just wimp out and resort to safe phrases like "landslide" or "barely squeak by".
There's also the question of the congressional races, both locally and in Washington. We presume we'll keep the House, but the pundits say we won't have enough to take back the Senate. Is this true? Could the much-anticipated October Surprise turn into a November surprise?
Do you remember what happened in 2010?
Then there's the side issue of Obama's so-called 'firewall' states; states that are so heavily 'blue' that there's no sense even campaigning there. Or is there? Are Pennsylvania (Obama 54% in 2008), Michigan (57%) and Minnesota (54%) actually in play? We'll discount California (60%) and New York (62%) outright, but it all adds up.
And then there's my current home state of Florida. While Ohio has gotten the most press as the official 'swing state' this time around, of the four states with the most Electoral votes, Florida is the only one in play. It was 50.9% for Obama in 2008 compared to McCain's 48.4%, which is damn close. The fourth state is Texas, which went 55.5% for McCain, so we'll figure that one's already in our column. Florida will be the one to watch this Tuesday.
So have it, Maggie's Valued Readers™. This could be your 15 minutes! I've seen some fairly opinionated, vociferous comments in Bruce's and my political posts, so here's your chance to prove to everybody how right you were.
Your predictions, please!
