Mark Steyn
The one prediction I can make with confidence is that we won’t get the result we should get — which is a McGovern-esque candidate going down to a McGovern-sized defeat. Instead, we face three options: an Obama landslide or a narrower Obama win, both of which would be bad for the nation and the world; or a narrow McCain victory, which would be bad for our already diseased politics and seems likely to unhinge even further the Democratic Party base, which isn’t good for civilized political discourse.
So I can’t really see any happy endings on Tuesday night. I don’t think it’ll be an Obama landslide, and, if I have to flip between one or other of the 51-49 scenarios, I guess I’m more or less obliged to plump for a narrow McCain-Palin victory. Not a lot of science behind that hunch. Obama will do worse than polls suggest in the Appalachians and rust belt, which is just as well, because I’d say either Virginia and/or North Carolina will go blue. Which I guess is my way of saying the Eastern time zone will determine how the night goes, and everything else will be just mopping up.
In the Senate, Norm Coleman and Susan Collins will survive in Minnesota and Maine, but not Elizabeth Dole down south. And the Democrats won’t get to 60, but with the Maine ladies and other soft-spined Republicans, who says they’ll need to?
The one prediction I can make with confidence is that we won’t get the result we should get — which is a McGovern-esque candidate going down to a McGovern-sized defeat. Instead, we face three options: an Obama landslide or a narrower Obama win, both of which would be bad for the nation and the world; or a narrow McCain victory, which would be bad for our already diseased politics and seems likely to unhinge even further the Democratic Party base, which isn’t good for civilized political discourse.
So I can’t really see any happy endings on Tuesday night. I don’t think it’ll be an Obama landslide, and, if I have to flip between one or other of the 51-49 scenarios, I guess I’m more or less obliged to plump for a narrow McCain-Palin victory. Not a lot of science behind that hunch. Obama will do worse than polls suggest in the Appalachians and rust belt, which is just as well, because I’d say either Virginia and/or North Carolina will go blue. Which I guess is my way of saying the Eastern time zone will determine how the night goes, and everything else will be just mopping up.
In the Senate, Norm Coleman and Susan Collins will survive in Minnesota and Maine, but not Elizabeth Dole down south. And the Democrats won’t get to 60, but with the Maine ladies and other soft-spined Republicans, who says they’ll need to?
No comments:
Post a Comment