Zero-hour predictions

I have kept prett quiet about the pending Presidential elections so far. I’ve already voted by mail in Pima County, Arizona, but I want to give the election its due just once before it’s all said and done.

First: I am a Barack Obama supporter and donator, and congratulate him on what really should be a historic and groundbreaking campaign, in terms of the use of technology and ground-game, grassroots organization the likes of which have never been seen on such a scale as this. I also want to congratulate John McCain on carrying his campaign this far, despite the problems he’s had and the mistakes I think he’s made.

Now the good stuff. My personal prediction: Obama 367, McCain 171. This is just a guess, with lots of basis on the statistical polling-based predictions out there, and a little bit of gut feeling about some of the remaining toss-ups. I think Obama will get Florida and keep Pennsylvania and Virginia, which on top of the other states he has a significant or insurmountable lead in will give him well more than the minimum 270 required. He could also make a serious play for Arizona, and if he’d made a campaign trip here in the last few days he could possibly have even carried Arizona’s 10 electoral votes, which would spell absolute doom for McCain, but I think many Arizonans will vote on the job McCain has done as a Senator for this state, which is a just reason. There are scenarios where McCain comes from behind in multiple states to carry them over Obama and win the election, but it’s a real stretch to call any of them at all likely. Early vote in states, like Colorado and even Georgia, where more than half of the total electorate of 2004 has already voted, will matter, and if any of those states have a significant gap before the polls open tomorrow then a come-from behind win is unlikely. When all is said and done though, Obama will win with more than 300 electoral votes.

In the Senate, the Democratic Party will not win a 60-40 majority if Georgia isn’t decided by the end of the night. If they can man up and have the sense to take advantage of a majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic President, we might actually see something happening on Capitol Hill for once.

Closer to home, Arizona will move into the territory of a Democratic-majority state in the House. Gabby Giffords will keep her job in my home district of AZ-08, AZ-01 will flip to the Democratic side after Rick Renzi’s mess, and John Shadegg could still lose by a narrow margin to make Arizona primarily Democratic in the House, 6 seats to 2. Not much will happen in the state legislature though.

Arizona propositions: all but three of them will Epic Fail. 102 (same-sex marriage ban) will come closest to passing of the ones that won’t pass; 200 (payday loans reform) has the best chance of passing; and 202 (further sanctions on illegal-immigrant hirers) is a toss-up. 105 is a terrible proposition, counting registered non-voters the same as those who do vote (”if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch about it” should be in the US Constitution), as is 201 (allows “potential homebuyers” to sue homebuilders—without actually defining a “potential homebuyer”). A 40x (local) proposition in Tucson would give the Tucson Unified School District a bigger maintenance budget, which it desperately needs, but levies a new real estate tax so it’ll fail, as will prop 300 for higher state legislator salaries.

Looking ahead to 2012: my dream contest is Obama/Biden versus Mitt Romney/Joe Lieberman. Either way we’d be guaranteed to have a good combination of sensibility, level-headedness, experience, and genuine concern for the American people in the White House for another four years. Look at how well Romney ran Massachusetts—as blue a state as there ever was—and I think between those four men we would see the cleanest Presidential campaign ever. Obama has been able to keep the issues at hand limited to the real issues while enduring constant attacks from all sides—nary a retaliatory attack in sight—and the people will remember that in four years’ time and expect the same from both parties.

I got nothing else. Get out there and vote tomorrow; yes, it does matter—and remember what I said above: if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch about the outcome.