Nate Silver (Fivethirtyeight.com) now projects the race to be a dead heat

[Ronnie]

http://fivethirtyeight.com

What do you think McCain is doing so well in the polls now?  Saddleback might have caused a slight bounce with the conservative base, but other than that I can't see why McCain is doing so well.

Give some insight, oh wise ones.

[Bay Ridge, Bklyn! Born and Bred]

Barry will get a small bounce from the convention, and if he picks Joe Biden things will start going downhill around mid-September, once the GOP smear machine paints the ticket as the 1st and 3rd most liberal members of the Senate (according to the National Journal ratings)....and both of whom, I might add, are to the left of the socialist dude from Vermont. 

You don't think the GOP will bring up that neat little tidbit of info?   LOL

[Lunar]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

[Beet]

Ronnie- CARLHAYDEN posted a pretty good summary of some possible reasons over in his "Calm Down" thread.

Mike- Alcon and I have already deconstructed that statistic numerous times. It's simply misleading.

[Jacobtm]

Whatever the reason(s), it's not something that just happened this week; since the race settled on Obama v. McCain, Obama's numbers have been slowly, steadily, trending down.

[Jacobtm]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

I think the rankings are directly proportional to status as Democratic nominee.

[Ronnie]

Barry will get a small bounce from the convention, and if he picks Joe Biden things will start going downhill around mid-September, once the GOP smear machine paints the ticket as the 1st and 3rd most liberal members of the Senate (according to the National Journal ratings)....and both of whom, I might add, are to the left of the socialist dude from Vermont. 

You don't think the GOP will bring up that neat little tidbit of info?   LOL

I just have to say right now that the National Journal survey was trash.  There was hardly any methodology or what they considered a "liberal" or "conservative" vote.

Plus, Obama has only been a senator for a couple years from when they conducted the research that they did.

[Eraserhead]

I thought this post would have been from Winfield.

[Lunar]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

I think the rankings are directly proportional to status as Democratic nominee.

Insert random figures slightly below said Democratic nominee.  Remember 2004's "More liberal than Ted Kennedy?"  I think I heard Obama being accused of being more liberal than Bernie Sanders in a similar fashion already.

I mean, a good portion of what those rankings measure is how often you vote with your party.  Candidates in the middle of a primary aren't about to side with the opposing party on any issue.  Note how John McCain went from voting with Bush ~70% of the time to 95% in 2007.  Biden is rated much higher because he was also running for president in 2007 too.

Anyway, yeah, 538 has it tied.  Cool.

[Sam Spade]

I still think Obama holds the slightest of leads, but it's within the PV/EV split range, i.e. somewhere in-between 0.5% and 1.0%. 

Or at least that's what my figures are telling me. 

[Bay Ridge, Bklyn! Born and Bred]

Of course that list is trash, but that's not the point.   Coming from a somewhat nonpartisan publication, however, its just more ammo the GOP will use to paint a negative composite portrait of Obama and his running mate that will be extremely difficult for him to shake.    And with Biden's 35-year voting record, I'm sure they will be able to find some pretty juicy evidence on how he hates America and wants all babies to die.

Which is why I've never been a fan of legislators as presidential candidates.  

[Jacobtm]

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Barack Obama (D)
Most Liberal Senator, Most Inexperienced Senator, Terrorist First-Jab?

[Alcon]

I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a story about how stupid I am.

I was looking at FiveThirtyEight's shaded electoral map, where the deeper colors are stronger.  I was thinking to myself, "damn, look how polarized things have become lately."  I was just about to start an article on this and its ramifications in respect to a close popular vote race.  I had some fancy graphics rigged up, an intro written, and everything.

Then I noticed that my laptop's LCD monitor was tipped back, which makes everything darker and more saturated.

lol me.

[War on Want]

I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a story about how stupid I am.

I was looking at FiveThirtyEight's shaded electoral map, where the deeper colors are stronger.  I was thinking to myself, "damn, look how polarized things have become lately."  I was just about to start an article on this and its ramifications in respect to a close popular vote race.  I had some fancy graphics rigged up, an intro written, and everything.

Then I noticed that my laptop's LCD monitor was tipped back, which makes everything darker and more saturated.

lol me.

lol that's great.

[ottermax]

Is Nate Silver Jewish?

Anyways, I still think Obama will win in the end. It's sort of hard to imagine that people support McCain because I've met less than five people who support McCain and probably somewhere around 50 or more people who support Obama. I guess I'm just surrounded by Obamamania here... if only it were that way everywhere else.

[HardRCafé]

Chicagoland and the Seattle-Tacoma metro area are actually not all that representative of the rest of America.

[opebo]

What do you think McCain is doing so well in the polls now?

Come on, we all know why he's doing so well in the polls, and he will creep upwards as the election gets closer.  Finally he will win more votes than the polls indicate, also for obvious reasons.  This election will be entirely decided on race, folks.

[ottermax]

Chicagoland and the Seattle-Tacoma metro area are actually not all that representative of the rest of America.

Quite true, but I live in an area of the metro which is supposed to be a swing area.

[JSojourner]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

When Joe Lieberman was running with Gore, he was among the ten most liberal.  I remember Rush Limpbaugh whining about Lieberman's New England elitism.

I wish we could get the most liberal people nominated and elected.  I'd have voted for a Wellstone/Sanders ticket in a heartbeat.

[Torie]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

When Joe Lieberman was running with Gore, he was among the ten most liberal.  I remember Rush Limpbaugh whining about Lieberman's New England elitism.

I wish we could get the most liberal people nominated and elected.  I'd have voted for a Wellstone/Sanders ticket in a heartbeat.

What would be the value of your antique inventory after all the leveling is done?  Have you thought about that!

[opebo]

I wish we could get the most liberal people nominated and elected.  I'd have voted for a Wellstone/Sanders ticket in a heartbeat.

What would be the value of your antique inventory after all the leveling is done?  Have you thought about that!

American liberalism doesn't do any leveling, Torie.  It implements demand-led Keynesian economic policies which, while they do increase the income of the working class, do nothing to reduce the wealth of the owners.  True, they may have a slightly less enormous percentage of the national income, but they will still have plenty to bid up the price of some antique furniture.

[JSojourner]

Those rankings are suspicious.  I thought John Kerry was the most liberal senator!

When Joe Lieberman was running with Gore, he was among the ten most liberal.  I remember Rush Limpbaugh whining about Lieberman's New England elitism.

I wish we could get the most liberal people nominated and elected.  I'd have voted for a Wellstone/Sanders ticket in a heartbeat.

What would be the value of your antique inventory after all the leveling is done?  Have you thought about that!

Since most of my customers are middle class folks, I suspect I'd be doing great.  The Bush years have been the worst for my business.  Granted, dealers with high end inventory -- the five thousand dollar and up items -- are loving it.  But most of my inventory prices out at between $25 and $2000.