Dear One and All:
PBH is undergoing a lot of design updates and we’re also planning on moving to [yet] another server this coming week. Apologies for the lack of consistent updates but a lot has been going on behind the scenes.
Love always,
The Admins
We just hit 1 million hits. Thank you thank you all readers and contributors to Prose Before Hos, this is a milestone we never expected.
We had a wildly popular past 2 months with over 500k hits in that time span. To celebrate, our most popular posts since September to the present:
1. Al-Jazeera Exposes Racism At Sarah Palin Rally in Ohio
2. Ashley Todd Fail
3. The Pyramid of Capitalism
4. Calvin and Hobbes on War
5. The Price of Encouraging Political Violence
6. Even Rednecks Have Had Enough
7. US National Debt In The Past 25 Years
8. Ever Ready Horton: Vintage Porn Cartoon
9. Creationist Science Fair
10. The Busheviks
It’s been a very unexpected 2 months of popularity. We’re on the cusp of hitting 1 million hits for the blog. This has come at a toll of all parties involved as we’ve been straining to keep up the blog while also switching hosts and creating a new design.
Add all of this with the election and you have your protagonist on severe blog burnout. I think I’m going to scale back for the next couple of days and refocus my energies on redesigning the blog and churning out quality over quantity.
Presidential Election: Obama will win the election decidedly due to higher than anticipated 18-30 year old and African-American turnout, both of which are not being captured by current polls. Nationally, Obama will come away with a 6-8 percent margin in the popular vote, and will pull off some electoral surprises on the way.
Obama will carry 2 of 5 of the following states: South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, or Arizona. Georgia is the greatest possibility while Arizona is the least likely to flip, and if Obama does lose Georgia, it will be by less than 2 percent, leaving some to question the wisdom of pulling out his ground game following Palin’s nomination. South Dakota and Montana both have been trending positively towards Obama and upticket support from popular Democratic Senators will also help in providing an upset in one of these two states.
Among battleground states, Ohio and Florida will be split between McCain and Obama, with Obama more likely to pick up Ohio and McCain Florida. Obama will pick up Nevada while McCain will hold onto Missouri, though by the slimmest of margins. Similarly, Indiana will be a contest decided by less than 2 percentage points that goes to John McCain.
Other surprises will include the margin of victory in Virginia, where Obama will win by high single digits to low double digits, much due to the up-ticket swing provided by Democrat Mark Warner (who will win his Senate race by approximately 30 percentage points). Less of a surprise will be Obama comfortably winning North Carolina in the 7 to 10 percent range.
Other non-surprises will include Obama sweeping the Midwest except for Indiana, including a double digit victory for Obama in Pennsylvania, despite recent polls showing tightening. Obama will also win Colorado and New Mexico by high single digits and will pull away in New Hampshire with a double digit victory.
Predicted Final Electoral College Outcome: 343 for Barack Obama, 195 for John McCain. Map below:
Senate Races: In my estimation, there will be two Senate “surprises”.
One is in Georgia, where incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss will be defeated by 2 to 3 points by Democratic challenger Jim Martin. I attribute this to two factors: the eventual commitment of African-Americans to the Democratic brand and the continuation of current momentum that sees Jim Martin picking up 2 to 3 additional percentage points, namely from independent whites voting for McCain and yet ‘undecided’ African-Americans.
The other will be in Minnesota, where Democratic challenger Al Franken will lose in the high single digits to incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman, with Independent Dean Barkley taking approximately 20 percent of the vote. Democrats will be kicking themselves for putting up an unprepared, novelty nominee in a state where Obama will win by double digits. This will be especially bitter as they will sit on 59 Senate seats, just short of the Super Majority, for the next 2 years because they didn’t run a serious candidate in Minnesota. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Republicans will hold onto the Kentucky and Mississippi Senate seats more comfortably than expected.
Some other things to watch will be Elizabeth Dole’s campaign come crashing down in flames, contributing to much up-ticket resentment against the Republican brand. I’m currently foreseeing her losing by 8 to 12 percentage points — much higher than currently polled. Similar (very foreseeable) things will be occurring to the Stevens and Sununu campaigns, with both losing in the low-to-mid teens, percentage wise.
The final composition of the Senate is estimated to be 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans, and 2 Independents.
Some things to note: The election in general is highlighted by a strong rejection among right-centrist voters for the Republican brand. As such, I am expecting a significant decrease in straight Republican voters, especially in typical conservative strongholds, leading to wider margins of victory for Democrats in both national and senatorial races. Conversely, Democrats will be kicking themselves on Wednesday morning for overreacting to Palin’s nomination by pulling out of Georgia and not vetting out a stronger candidate for the Minnesota Senate race.
