What will an Obama blowout mean?
By Nick Ragone | Related entries in NewsAt some point, the conversation about this election will begin to shift to “what does an Obama route mean”?
The simple mathematics show that if Obama maintains his 6-8 point lead, and picks up key red states (where he is already leading) such as Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico, Missouri and Colorado, it will be a full on blowout, similar to the one that George H.W. Bush enjoyed over Michael Dukakis in 1988. In that election, Bush won the popular vote by eight points, which translated into a whopping 426 electoral votes (to the Duke’s 111).
A route of those proportions would certainly mean big gains in the House and Senate for Democrats. While voters tend to be smart about ticket splitting and preserving divided government (poll after poll shows that most voters prefer that each party control one branch of government), this is clearly a change election, and there’s no doubt the Democrats will have entrenched majorities.
With that, Barack Obama will have a mandate — and a long honeymoon — to get things done, particularly on the economy and Iraq, the two biggest issues. He won’t receive any Congressional roadblocks to enacting his economic plan (whatever that is … I’m still not sure) and summarily pulling the troops out of Iraq (irrespective of how close they are to the finish line). It will be his ballgame, and the Republicans in Congress will be in a similar position to the ‘93 Congress, where they played loyal opposition to President Clinton.
It’s way too early to begin forecasting how this will play out, but it’s not too early to begin thinking about the impact of an Obama blowout.
www.nickragone.com
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:13 am
ROUT. not routE
October 9th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Nick, I’m too cautious about the accuracy of polling to get overexcited about an Obama landslide (see this article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27084438/).
However, one thing some pundits have been talking about is that even in the case of an Obama loss, the political landscape is changing, and the GOP is terrified about the next twenty years - not just the next four or eight.
I do wonder if what we’re seeing here is a sort of changing of the guard, as young voters - who were raised in a somewhat less prejudiced society than their parents and especially their grandparents - come into their own and are demanding more than what they’ve seen so far.
I expect that, if Obama does win, we’ll see a lot of rhetoric from the socially conservative right about a loss of values and a culture of permissiveness & moral relativity. We’re seeing a lot of that rhetoric *now*, but the difference will be that fewer people will pay attention to it.
In terms of what policies Obama will be able to enact, I think a lot will be determined by the course of the economic downturn. He’ll have a sympathetic (though not terribly effective) Congress, but the public will probably balk at some of the initiatives Obama is proposing if its collective wallet is ailing.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Stocking up on food and buying gold. Obama’s policies mirror FDR’s and we’re headed for another extended Great Depression.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:32 am
[...] about how close the elections will be and starts talking about Barack Obama’s big lead and the potential for a rout. So, should Obama supporters start ordering the cake and balloons for their November election-night [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Current state-by-state polls suggest that 375 is a reasonable upper bound forecast on Obama’s electoral vote tally. Obama has already gone ahead in almost every close state, so it’s hard to see him doing better than that unless he captures places like Georgia and West Virginia. This IMO is pretty unlikely even if he continues to trend slightly upward. More likely, he crests a little and the race tightens somewhat at the end. It sb a decisive but perhaps not landslide victory.
Eager Obama partisans will however be utterly unable to refrain from such a characterization if he’s over 300 EV. If current numbers hold up, I’m comfortable with calling it a mandate especially given how many folks called 2004 a mandate for Bush. I’d guess on about a 315-350 tally.
If and when Obama wins, a few things seem pretty likely. #1, he appoints 2 or 3 scotus justices and stabilizes the liberal balance of power there. #2, any reform of social security slants strongly to the democratic approach. Any chance of Americans being able to monitor, manage and invest their own pool of set aside money is off the table. How could one think otherwise given current circumstances?
Instead, what we will see is the removal of the upper limit on SS contributions, an increase in the retirement age along a sliding scale (retire sooner, get less money per month, waiting is made to be a more attractive deal), slower growth in payouts, lower dollar payback committments to younger workers, and in general an approach which extends the solvency of the program over the intermediate term so that we’ll be right back at it again in another 10 or 20 years with the same problem. We’ll also see democrats and probably Obama himself preserve the pretense that social security has a “trust fund” which means that the program is solvent for much longer than it is in reality.
One thing I hope we get is policies in regard to new programs which are deeply disappointing to the most eager of liberals. If Obama can do math like he suggests (I’ll go through the budget line-by-line!), This is inevitable. No free college educations. A tiny token pilot program for domestic national service. No big increases in federal aid for education. No ponies.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
After Obama wins and the Democrats establish a filibuster-proof congress, trust me, if things go wrong in the world, the Democrats will find some way to blame Bush for it, even if its 4 years after this election.
The ball is completely in Obama’s court. He has promised us ‘peace in our time,’ and I expect nothing less.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
What amuses me the most is that the tax policies Obama is proposing hit the Blue States the most! Call it self-flagellation, I suppose.
Can’t wait for the 60% total tax rate to his us here in California. That’ll turn us into a Red State pretty quickly…