The End Zone Predicts: McCain Is Going To Win

McCain is funny (starting 1:45 in). He gets Hillary to genuinely laugh - a difficult thing. Hillary is more relaxed, as if the weight of the world has been lifted off her shoulders.



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I'm upping my McCain prediction from "solid chance" to "will win". I look at conditions, and I say the conventional wisdom is wrong. Why?

Overriding reason:

Barack has no resume of professional accomplishment, thus voters do not have a feel for who he truly is.

The voting booth is a lonely place. Americans vote for people whom they can trust to take care of the nation. Democrats ought not have nominated Barack this year.

Lesser reasons:

The public's economic fear is lessening. Before the credit crisis, McCain was tied with Obama and was gaining ground.

Many undecideds are about to focus on Wright, Rezko, Ayers, ACORN, and Barack's extreme liberalism for the first time. Barack's words to Joe the Plumber finally shine a light on the extreme liberalism which Barack and the media have been hiding. James Pethokoukis:

If the contest is perceived by the voters as a contest between a wealth redistributor and a wealth creator, then it could be a long night come Nov. 4. This is still a center-right country, gang. Note this Gallup poll from June:

Americans overwhelmingly—by 84% to 13%—prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.

Pethokoukis anecdote:

A while back I chatted with a University of Chicago professor who was a frequent lunch companion of Obama's. This professor said that Obama was as close to a full-out Marxist as anyone who has ever run for president of the United States. Now, I tend to quickly dismiss that kind of talk as way over the top. My working assumption is that Obama is firmly within the mainstream of Democratic politics. But if he is as free with that sort of redistributive philosophy in private as he was on the campaign trail this week, I have no doubt that U of C professor really does figure him as a radical. And after last night's debate, a few more Americans might think that way, too. McCain's best line: "Now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes. We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around."

The McCain Campaign believes 75% of remaining undecideds will decide in the final 10 days of the campaign. McCain has specific campaign roll outs designed for that 10 day period.

Today's polls have bumped another point in McCain's favor, despite Monday's polls having already bumped a couple of points in McCain's favor.

The only things anyone remembers from last night's debate are:
1) Joe
2) McCain telling Obama "If you wanted to run against Bush, you should've run 4 years ago."

The only memorable things Barack said were memorable b/c they were lies. That debate helps McCain. McCain is going to win.

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Blog roundup of interesting stuff:

Zombietime writes about The Left's Big Blunder, the Clever Hans Effect, the Asch Experiments, and more.

Jim Geraghty has his ear to the ground, and is hearing encouraging things.

A. J. Strata:

I have been saying for weeks now that Palin would be the magic bullet, that she was pulling in crowds that rival or beat Obama’s. And I keep going back to the hard data that shows her debate was the all time most watched debate in election history (if you add in C-SPAN and/or PBS viewers).

And I can point to other indicators as well. The Battleground Tracking Poll shows Obama losing half his lead in the span of 3 days (from +13% down to +6%). If McCain can gain 3% a week running up to the election Obama loses.

Rassmussen’s Daily Tracking Poll shows the same sagging support for Obama over the last week, going from +8% to +4%.
[...]
As I noted yesterday the key is turnout. All these polls assuming the right will stay home, Sarah is not a factor in energizing new voters.... [...] Obama may have peaked too early and come off too aloof to hold the magic. McCain-Palin are taking the anti-DC movement from him piece by piece.

We are a nation of Joe The Plumber and Sarah Palin voters, and Obama has ceded his mantle as the agent of change for these regular folks.