OK folks, we now officially have a trend:
Dixville Notch, NH (AHN) – The town of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, with a population of around 75 people and only 21 registered voters, has picked Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to be the next president of the United States. Obama defeated Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by a margin of 15 votes to 6.
I figure the election is going to be essentially over by 6:00PM Pacific Time: if Obama takes Pennsylvania and Virginia, McCain is pretty much out of it, and if you throw in Indiana it’s all over:
“We could know Virginia at 7,†he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.â€
For a rundown of the early states to watch, see Nate Silver in Newsweek.
It’s a shame that McCain has to lose so decisively, because he’s obviously a decent man with many admirable qualities. If he had only spent a little more time on his VP pick, he could have saved his reputation. But he’s bound to have already realized that, and probably tried to get Palin to graciously step down. She’s not the sort of person to do “gracious,” of course, and I look forward to reading the full story in the weeks to come.
Obviously in the heat of the campaign a lot of things are said.
For McCain, it wasn’t just Palin, or, in a way, it was all about Palin.
The idea that you can take an attractive less experienced politician, and say that is the equal of Obama is to do violence to the truth.
Obama, wasn’t just that. Obama was – hopefully still will be after today – a gifted community organizer, with a brain, as well as guts.
McCain got less decent as this campaign wore on; he needed to do a “Sister Souljah” movement with the lunatic fringe in his party, and instead he embraced it.
The fact that his traveling road show included both the oily Joe Lieberman as well as the disastrous Carly Fiorina shows that his Palin pick and the Wall Street bailout out stunts were not isolated gaffes.
The Frontline special on the candidates underlined the strength of the Obama organization, as well as his ambition. McCain insulted the RRs back in 2000 when he called them the agents of intolerance, so in this election he had to play nice. But he sealed his fate in S. Carolina in 2000 when he didn’t fight back strongly against the Bush smears.