World Leaders Blog

The third presidential debate came and went. Nothing really new happened. McCain had to do something radical to regain momentum. He did show more agression, but he also looked like a grumpy old man. As for Obama, it wasn’t his best debate, but in the end he won just by keeping calm. That’s all he had to do and he did it.

So, what now at less than three weeks from the election ?

Obama, barring some really unforseen circumstance, has won. All the polls give him a 6 to 10 % margin in the popular vote and even more in the electoral college. As of today Realclearpolitics.com gives Obama 286 electoral votes to McCains 158 with 94 as a tossup ( 270 is the number needed to get elected).
As far as I can see all McCain can do is to try and hold the solid republican states which Obama is trying to steal, and lose with some dignity.
More important, even though the Republicans won’t admit it, are the other races, Senator, Congress, Governor, etc. They have to try and minimize the losses. It’s inevitable that a Democratic Presidential victory will flow down to the lesser elections, so even if McCain is lost he will try to do as well as he can to help stem the bleeding.

Ok, we’ve got through two presidential debates and one VP debate.

First of all an interesting fact. The VP debate was the second most viewed debate in history, 70 million viewers ( Carter/Reagan debate in 1980 drew about 80 ). More people watched it than the 2 presidential debates. An obvious explanation for this oddity is that people are more interested in entertainment than in politics. A lot of viewers tuned in to see what new goofups VP republican candidate Sarah Palin might make. Well, they were disappointed, she might not have answered all the questions asked, but she didn’t mess up as in some previous interviews. So, back to politics.

As to the presidential debates, most polls gave Barack Obama as the winner or tie. As Obama is ahead in the national polls, a tie is a win for him. Senator McCain had to pull some rabbit out of the hat, but no rabbit.

At this time Obama has the election sown up, hes ahead in “electoral votes” and in the general national polls. How much ? The place to see polls is realclearpolitics.com, but he’s from 4 to 8 percent up. Worse for McCain, Obama is eating away at some previous “safe” republican states.
So, there being only one more debate next week and about three weeks to go, the future looks grim for McCain. Obama has only to hold, although he seems to be trying to get farther ahead, not holding.

The Republicans still might win, if in the next three weeks something unforseen happens. As Obama is a pretty cool character, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that he might do or say some gamechanging thing. Another possibility is some outside event that would impact on popular opinion, like a 9/11 attack that might make everyone run to McCains side for supposed security ( McCain is seen as tougher in this respect). Lastly, but even more unlikely, if some harm came to Obama. There are still quite a few people in the US that have hard racist ideas. This last would be a disaster for the US democracy, but America has a very violent history regarding presidents.

Next week we have the third and last presidential debate, we’ll see what that brings. My bet, not much.