I have no idea how many people even visit this site any more (besides Russ).  However, I have been posting my opinions to President-Elect Obama like crazy on Change.gov.  Suddenly, it occured to me (mere moments ago, in fact), that I should also post those comments here.  Well, I’m sorry that you have missed several of them that I now cannot remember (though the first two were just versions of my letter to Barack already posted on this site).  Here is the one I wrote today:

On Health Care Reform:

I believe this should be included in the economic stimulus package.  That may seem like over-reaching but this is a critical issue and it is the one Republicans will fight the hardest against– if you make adequate health care available to the rural South, the Republicans will lose their last stronghold in this country.  So, Health Care must pass when this new administration is at its strongest (during its first 100 days) and with the wide mandate the American people have given you to fix the economy.

I would like to see a radical change in health care, with the Federal Gov’t picking up all or most of the costs.  Individual employers would still facilitate the legistics of connecting people to their providers but then would be reimbursed by the Gov’t for all/most of the cost.  Employees would pay nothing.  The system would look effectively the same from the average person’s point of view: they would keep the exact same provider with the exact same services facilitated by their employer in the exact same way.  Except they will see more money in their paycheck.

As there is no additional cost to them, employers could then be expected to extend COBRAs indefinitely (or at least for a significant amount of time) until former employees found other work.  Chronically unemployed people could get their insurance directly from the State/County.  They would have access to all the same providers as we currently do but the local Gov’t would act much like our employers do.  As the sole purchaser of health insurance, the Fed could force costs down.

While, some of that would take time, where this would be an immediate stimulus for the economy is on the employer’s end.  Freed of the huge burden of health care costs, employers could spend that money on job creation, program development or expansion.  In fact, they could be mandated to do so (rather than on executive bonuses) for X amount of time (eg 24 months).

I think this could be sold to the American people: though it is a huge change, most of it occurs behind the scenes (ie health care functions exactly the same way on a day to day basis for most of us).  American’s like familiarity.  The change they will see will be the increased money in their checks and the increased health care benefits for the unemployed.  And they will understand the value of putting money in employer’s pockets.  In fact, big business would probably love the idea.

So, the only question is… can we pay for it?  Well, if you don’t change your mind on repealing Bush’s tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, that would help.  But, I’m not an economist, so I’ll leave that up to you folks.

Below the fold, I have include a copy of the letter I will be sending to our future president.  It contains two long-standing suggestions I have for him.  I have no idea if he will ever see it but, at least now somebody will.  As I have not yet sent the letter, suggestions are welcome (though likely ignored). Continue reading Dear Mr. President:...

Remarkably, it appears that Sarah Palin is actually dumber than we thought.

I guess the fun just never ends.  Perhaps, she can run in 2012 on a platform of inviting the president of Africa to join NAFTA.

i want to give a tip of the hat to Scout Finch at DailyKos for finding this one.

what will they say about this election and why John McCain lost? 

Well, here is my answer (entirely unchanged from when I wrote it on October 19th): Continue reading When the history books are written……

BARACK OBAMA WINS!!!!!

CNN declares President Obama the winner at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time exactly on November 4th, 2008.

For more info on how the night went (and how accurate I was), check out the newly named “Final Outcome” tab at the top of the page.  I will keep updating it as the last few races & CA ballot measures are decided.

According to Nate Silvers at FiveThirtyEight, there has been some tightening in the national polls after all, bringing Obama’s lead to about 5.4% on average.  As this matches almost perfectly my prediction on October 16th that “Obama’s lead will drop to about 5 points just before election day,” I would love to agree with him. 

However, I haven’t really seen the same tightening.  When I look at the last 7 days of polling (again 9 polls, although 4 of them done by CBS for some reason), I find Barack’s average lead to be 8.55, which is exactly in range with the last averages I did.  In fact, the average of those 3 sets of averages is 8.63.  So, the polls I look at find no change in Obama’s lead at all.

For the record, my polls have included: CBS, Pew, CNN/Opinion Research, FOX/Opinion Dynamics, NY Times, ARG, Diageo/Hotline, NBC/Wallstreet Journal, USA Today/Gallup, and many others.  In other words, all the big name polls, I believe.

So, why the difference?  I have no idea but I have to concede that I have nothing of the tracking capacity or head for stats that Nate does.  So, perhaps he has access to more studies than I do or he looks at variables I don’t.  Either way, I don’t think it’s worth debating because the national poll numbers aren’t that important.  State-by-state polling is much more important at this stage in the race and these polls are clearly showing there is now tightening in some state races.

Taking this tightening into account has caused me to scale back my prediction for Obama’s margin of victory from 364/174 to 353/185.  I shifted Missouri to the McCain column.  I think Indiana is probably out of reach but Arizona is now in the Indiana range.  Florida and North Carolina are also now less certain but I still include them in the Obama column because I think voter excitement and early voting are on his side.

So, my amended prediction for Tuesday:

Obama           353

McCain           185

For my full predictions, check out my “Final Predictions” tab at the top of the page.

Sorry, but not very…

As I listed last Wednesday, the 9 polls over the previous week had Obama leading by 7.77% on average.  In the week before that, he had lead by 8.45% on average.

Well, it would appear that the 7.77% i reported was disproportionately effected by the 1 point AP-GfK poll.  The 9 polls that came out over this past week give Obama the lead by an average of 9.625 points.

So, is the race tightening?  As best I can tell it is not.  Incidentally, this matches what folks like Markos and Nate are saying.  As I said last week, I’m surprised but folks appear to have settled in on their decisions.

I’ll be curious to see how the Obama ad tonight effects the polls.  My guess- not at all.

I’ve got some for you right here.  From a myDD diarist, a list of historical points  you might be hearing form the  talking heads Election Night when it becomes clear Obama has won (though i thought Carter just won over 50% of the Popular Vote– can anyone help me with that?):

Assuming Obama wins, the networks will offer you some facts about him as president-elect right after they declare him the winner.  Here are some they may include:
*America’s first African-American/biracial president (duh)
*First African-American/biracial person to lead a majority white nation
*First Democrat to win 50% of the popular vote since 1964 (LBJ)
*First senator elected president since 1960 (JFK)
*First Northern Democrat to be president since 1960
*First Midwestern president since Gerald Ford (MI)
*First Midwestern president elected since 1948 (Truman-MO)
*Voter turnout is likely to be the highest in over 40 years–young, new and black voters will be key.
*4th youngest president (47; after Bill Clinton at 46, John F. Kennedy at 43, and Teddy Roosevelt at 42)
*First Democrat to win NC since 1976, and/or IN, ND, and/or VA since 1964.

This is just some interesting trivia for you geeks out there:

During the Twentieth Century, there were only 3 presidents who won with less than 300 electoral votes:

1900   McKinley (R) 292 to Bryan 155

1916   Wilson (D) 277 to Huges 254

1976   Carter (D) 297 to Ford 240

During the same time period, there have also been 3 presidents who have gotten over 500 electorals:

1936   Roosevelt (D) 523 to Landon 8

1972   Nixon (R) 520 to McGovern 18

1984   Reagan (R) 525 to Mondale 13

I point this out just to say that we have gotten used to low victories and I think this serves as proof of how polarized our electorate has gotten in the last couple of decades.  In fact, Clinton’s 370 and 379 wins respectively were slightly below average.  14 of the 25 elections in the 20th Century saw victories above 400, while only 8 were in the 300 range.  So, Obama’s Clinton range victory will not be earth-shattering by the standards of the last 100 years but may be as good as it can get in this very divided country.

If he can pull off any portion of what he is promising, maybe Obama can have a breakout win in 2012.  It is worth pointing out that all 3 500+ wins were for 2nd terms.  Their first terms were:

Roosevelt  472

Nixon        301

Reagan      489

Chances are Obama’s going to beat Nixon’s first term victory, so who knows what 2012 brings.

Do you think I’m getting ahead of myself…