# 77 The RNC, the Polls, and the Final Debate

Today's headline from the AP on Yahoo! News:

"RNC out of Wisconsin, Maine; focuses on red states
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer"

The Republican National Committee is not actually pulling ALL of its funding out of Wisconsin quite yet: it's still buying air time until October 26. But, as with Michigan, it is a major concession that John McCain doesn't have a realistic chance of winning these states, and doesn't have a realistic chance of gaining even one of Maine's four electoral votes (which possibility I had discussed in a previous post).

It is putting the displaced funding into Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, all states that voted for dubya four and eight years ago. Right now, Obama leads the polls in four of these states (CO, MO surprisingly enough, VA, and FL incredibly enough!), is tied with McCain in North Carolina, and is behind in Indiana. If Obama holds on to all the states that John Kerry won in 2004, adds Iowa and New Mexico (as I have quite awhile ago predicted he will) and wins either CO, MO, VA, or FL, he'll be the next president.

However, all of these thoughts are based on current polls. Here is the heart of the problem with polling in general, and with polling this year in particular: what are their samples, are they of adequate size, and are they representative of the folk who will actually cast ballots? This year, we need to add one question (which is virtually unanswerable until after November 4 when the pollsters hit the fan): to what extent does latent racism, or its opposite--fear of exposure that one is actually voting for a part-African American--not show up in the polls?

Is part of the undecideds--or part of the alleged Obama voters--actually folk who don't want others to know that they can't vote for a black person solely on racial grounds? or are some of them folk who, in the sanctity of the voting booth, will vote for Obama but claim to vote for McCain, because in their social circle they would be ostracized for doing otherwise?

Aside from these considerations, and based on the movement in the polls, Obama could be expected to garner more than 300 electoral votes and probably 52 to 53% of the popular vote. But this year, even more than in the last two elections, the polls just may not be very meaningful.

And tonight's debate will probably have little effect: unless Obama messes up mightily (and so far, at least, he seems too much in control of his emotions and abilities to do so) and McCain exceeds any politicking savvy he has shown thus far (and so far, at least, he seems too little in control of his emotions and abilities to do so), we should not expect much movement in favor of McCain as a result of this final debate.

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