#86 The Race is Tightening, As Expected, Near the End

Everyone's talking about it, so it must be so. Even the polls show it's happening. The race is tightening. And Race is one of the major reasons.

Jesse Washington's AP article in today's newspapers begins, "What's more scary: a bleak economy or a black president?" That sums it up pretty bluntly.

In Lafayette, Louisiana, Charles Palmer, a 74-year-old retired oil company manager and registered Democrat who is voting for McCain, is quoted in the article as saying about Barack Obama: "I do think he has that minority thing probably in the back of his mind, deep down. He's not going to hurt 'em, let's put it that way." Later, he adds, "It's just the attitude blacks have toward the whites in this country. It's very negative."

Maybe the way Louisiana and the Feds have treated blacks in Louisiana during and after Katrina has something to do with it, Charles? Maybe the way southern (and northern) blacks have been treated for, oh, ever has something to do with it? And maybe Charlie's view is colored by his generation's background, living through the twentieth century civil rights movement in an area of the country that, a hundred years earlier, lived through the Civil War.

But we digress. Not really. Racial issues are beginning increasingly to surface in the polls, and the polls are beginning to show a tightening in the presidential race. Such tightening has happened before. The last week of campaigning often shows the candidate behind making up some of the ground. In one of the most furious election-last-week finishes, Hubert Humphrey almost made up enough ground to defeat Richard Nixon forty years ago.

However, I believe the current shifts in poll results actually point to less of a surprise come election day this year, since the race issue is now being discussed more openly (it was always underneath the discussion; now it IS the discussion). While my own view is that a candidate's race is irrelevant compared to his policies and the people with whom he surrounds himself, I live enough in the real world to recognize that my view is not universally held. Thus, it is good to get the racial issue out in the open, where it can be examined and, one hopes, rejected by enough people that the major party candidate who will actually do the better job can be elected.

Here's how I still think next Tuesday will work out.

Obama will win New England, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE. That's a broad swath of Blue to start with. If Obama actually loses PA, then "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" (thank you, William Butler Yeats). Obama may win Ohio, though I don't really feel confident yet that Ohioans will provide him with majority support. If he does win Ohio, the election is, for all practical purposes, over. Obama will win the northeastern part of the Midwest (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan), and the West Coast (WA, OR, CA).

I think Obama will win at least one traditionally Red southern state, probably Virginia; Colorado; New Mexico; and possibly Nevada. In other words, I'm sticking to my recent projections, despite the tightening in some of the polls. Even without OH (which Obama could win), FL (some polls show him ahead, others have him behind), MO (depends on voter turnout in St. Louis), and NC (where it's been fluctuating between Obama and McCain), Barack Obama would have enough electoral votes to become president.

I see 271 to 284 electoral votes for Obama, without OH and FL, with the possibility of more if either OH or FL swings his way. Of course, something could happen to cause upsets, especially if there's high voter turnout in Georgia, moving it into the Democratic column, for example, but I'm not counting on too many surprises.

You heard it here first. If I'm wrong, you don't remember where you heard it. The campaign has been a long, wearying process, not just for the candidates but for all of America. Let's all now put our heads down on our desks, close our eyes, and take a long enough nap that we can get through these final days until the results are known.

-- triton --