If the election were held today the polls say:

Obama: 273
McCain: 265

Only four states are leaning states:

VA (13), OH (20) and NV (5) lean McCain.  McCain cannot be President unless he wins both Ohio and VA.  NV is much less important.

NH (4) leans Obama.  But, there is no point in trying to win that state since it is so small and is surrounded by states that McCain has no chance with.

The four closest states that are not "leaning states" are PA, MN, Mich and Wisconsin (McCain is behind by 3 to 5 points). 

I think that the only way McCain can win is to win one of those four states.  He does have a shot since he has been virtually tied at times with Obama in all of these states.  Even if Obama wins NV, if McCain wins any of PA, MN, Mich or Wis -- he will be President.  (assuming McCain loses no current lean states except NV).

Colorado and New Mexico are not as close as these states -- neither is Iowa. (both about 8 or 9 points).  Even though Colorado has gone Republican most of the last 40 years and Iowa and NM both went once for Bush in the past 8 years.

Again Colorado (10) and NM (5) have less electoral votes than any of PA (21), MN (10), Wis (10) and Mich (17).

Assuming nothing very dramatically happens in the next 5 to 6 weeks, I think it comes down to winning one of those four states for McCain.

Previously I have written that Biden’s claims to a working class background are not supported by the reality of someone being elected to the U.S. Senate at age 29 (one must be 30 to serve, Biden turned 30 after his election but prior to being sworn in). Consider that Biden was less than 5 years out of school when he began his U.S. Senate campaign.

Biden has quite a record of lies and outright thefts of intellectual property (in particular plagiarism). 

However, this posting is not about those points. It is about his arrogance and bigotry.

First, Biden was a poor student. The relevance of this point will be obvious as this posting continues.

Biden graduated from the University of Delaware (a decent school, but by no means a great school). I also was accepted to that school. I chose to go to a school that was slightly more prestigious.

Biden was a terrible student in college. In fact, he was in the bottom 20% of his class. I was not a terrific student – but I was in the top 1/3 or so in my class and had very good grades my last year.

Biden was able to gain acceptance to Syracuse University’s law school (a decent school, but by no means a great school).  Once again, he graduated in the bottom 20% of his class. On top of that, Biden was caught cheating. I had post undergraduate education – and had decent grades.

After being elected to the Senate at age 29, Biden eventually obtained a seat on the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. While on that committee Biden met with Clarence Thomas when he was tapped to become a federal appeals judge.

By that point, Clarence Thomas had been an attorney with various public and private sector positions including nearly a decade at the helm of the EEOC.

Biden told Thomas when he met privately with him as part of the confirmation process that he would be an acceptable candidate for the federal court of appeals, but the Supreme Court is a different story.

The reason that Biden saying this is both arrogant and bigoted is because Clarence Thomas (unlike Biden) had a distinctive academic and legal career.

Clarence Thomas graduated from Holy Cross – and excellent university – much more competitive than the University of Delaware (personally, I would not have been admitted had I applied to that school).

Clarence Thomas, unlike Biden, was an excellent university student. He graduated at the top of his class at Holy Cross.

Clarence Thomas was admitted to both Yale and Harvard law schools (in my opinion, the two best law schools in the country). Of course, because of affirmative action his admission carries a stigma (an unfair one as it seems at least possible that he merited acceptance based upon his high grades at a very good university).

Clarence Thomas chose to go to Yale.

With Biden’s limited academic achievement it is at least questionable whether he can actually determine whether someone with a vastly superior academic background is qualified for the Supreme Court or not.

Biden was not talking about Clarence Thomas being “too conservative” for the Supreme Court. Biden voted for Scalia when he was up for the Supreme Court.

It is true that Clarence Thomas was a relatively young Supreme Court appointee – but his academic and real world legal experience was certainly fairly similar to many Supreme Court Justices (and clearly superior to some).

What kind of person would deign to say something like what Biden said when he had (1) very little legal experience (2) the scant amount of experience was at best mediocre and at worst embarrassing?

Could anyone seriously make the point that Biden has even remotely an intellect as high as Clarence Thomas? Clarence Thomas actually came from a real working class family – one that was raised in the segregated south.

Despite his difficult upbringing, Clarence Thomas was able to (1) get into Holy Cross and (2) graduate at the top of his class.

Law School is more competitive than it used to be – and it is at least somewhat questionable that someone in the bottom 20% of his class would get into any accredited law school (such a person would not get into Syracuse today).

If the election were held today, I am afraid that McCain would likely slightly win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote. It seems that McCain might cut margins of victory in several states – but at the same time he could lose some of the Bush 2000 and/or 2004 states.

Here is McCain’s problem.

Right now, it appears McCain will lose New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico. If that plays out, Obama gets 284 electoral votes – that is it.

Here is what I would do if I were McCain:

Have a 3 pronged strategy (1) a West strategy, (2) and East strategy and (3) a Florida strategy. On economics, he needs to push energy independence hard.

West strategy

Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. McCain probably has to win 2 of these 3 states if he is to be elected President.

Fortunately, these states all border his Arizona home state. So, he has connections in those places. His weak immigration stance may help him in those states (where Mexican Americans might at least 1/3 vote for him). Also, those states have limited access to public transportation – so pushing energy independence will help in those places (it will help everywhere – but in non-urban places where people often have to drive great distances it will especially help).

I think that he has a decent shot of holding on to these states. McCain especially needs not to lose Nevada and win back Colorado (NM has the least electoral votes of these 3 battleground states).

However, he needs to concentrate on those states.

East strategy

Call this, if you will, the Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia strategy.

Here is where McCain is helped in those states – older people. Putting this another way, McCain will probably not be president if he loses either Virginia or Ohio – but if he wins either Michigan or Pennsylvania that could be enough to put him over the top.

Michigan and Pennsylvania are within reach. They have older “Hillary Clinton” democratic voters. Also, there are many people in these states that cling to guns and religion.

McCain is hurt in these places because of manufacturing job losses. However, McCain can promise these people good jobs in the energy industry. That is, if he says that he promises that we will be building more and refining more – those good blue collar jobs could actually replace other lost blue collar jobs. The key to energy independence is constructing more nuclear power plants, getting more coal, exploring for natural gas – all of which will benefit these people with (1) lower energy prices and (2) a potential expansion of good blue collar jobs.

Many Democrats in these states care about pro-life issues. McCain needs to push this in a smart way – Obama’s comment about his daughters being punished with a baby and his opposition to the late term abortion law is where he should concentrate. Of course, he needs to do this in a way that suburban women will not be turned off. 

Obama being in favor of banning all handguns effectively (as per a 1996 candidate guide) also needs to be exploited.

If Obama succeeds in knocking off both New Mexico and Colorado winning either Michigan or Pennsylvania will offset such a loss.

Virginia is a different issue (though geographically close – so it makes sense to put this state in the East strategy). Democrats have done well recently in Virginia (Jim Webb and the last two governors). The turnout for black voters is critical in that state (they compose a large amount of the electorate in that state).

McCain cannot afford to lose Virginia – the same is true of Ohio.

So, in summary on the East Strategy, McCain needs to hold Virginia and Ohio (and if he holds them, he will likely keep West VA) and to try to win one of PA or Michigan.

Lastly, McCain needs to shore up Florida. It looks like McCain will win Florida because of the combination of (1) older voters, (2) military issues and (3) religion issues.

If McCain really concentrated on NH he might win it – but it is surrounded by states McCain simply will not win no matter what. So, it makes little sense to dedicate any resources to that 4 electoral vote state.

However, NH does pose one big problem.

Should McCain hold Colorado and Nevada out West, and hold Ohio, VA and West VA in the East – at this rate he may end up with 269 electoral votes (he actually WOULD assuming the current status of the states remains what it is in 6 weeks).

So, what can McCain do? It is a conundrum. In essence it stems from the fact that Bush one year got New Hampshire and the other year got New Mexico. 

If McCain starts to lose a national hold of things, it really will not matter. I don’t anticipate Obama suffering a big crash – I cannot imagine much worse stuff coming out (he will not have any more typical white people, bitter or Wright/Ayers issues – those issues are terrible – yet they have not had any real traction – if they actually did Hillary Clinton would be the nominee). 

Some suburban whites could (with the help of the media and the fact that they are often moderates with more than a touch of political correctness) be turned off by McCain bringing this issue up. The media will be very quick to call McCain a racist (after all – it happened to Bill Clinton).

Putting it a different way, if McCain cannot win at least one of the following states: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan or New Mexico – it looks like the most amount of electoral college votes that he will get will be 269 – with Obama getting 271.

Maine and Nebraska do things differently than any other state. Is it possible that McCain can win one of the Maine electors? That is not clear. Could Obama win a Nebraska one – maybe since he is doing well in Iowa (well enough that I am not sure McCain should use his resources there).

To me, it simply makes no sense when the media attacks Palin’s lack of qualifications. Factually, Obama has debatably less experience.

Obama was sworn into the U.S. Senate in 2005. Keep in mind he has been running for President since 2007 – so in essence he has had perhaps 2 years in the U.S. Senate.

Being a U.S. Senator, while a prestigious job, does not really equate to experience running anything (other than the Senate office – which is no larger than many small businesses). In reality, mayors run the lives of more people and often have many more job responsibilities. I admit that I am not that familiar with the specifics of Sarah Palin’s number of town employees – but it probably is fairly comparable to employees of a U.S. Senator. 

Of course, being only 1 of 100 Senators also means that, at least in the beginning of a Senate career, a person really has that much direct responsibility. Many more senior Senators Chair large committees with important oversight functions – Obama does not (and would not be expected to). Besides, since he has been running for President for a while his Senate role has been curtailed.

Interestingly, the vast majority of U.S. Presidents of recent years had executive experience.

LBJ – Vice President for nearly 3 years. 

Nixon – VP for 8 years/

Ford – VP for about 1 ½ years.

Carter – Georgia Governor

Reagan – California Governor

Bush – VP 8 years

Clinton – Arkansas Governor

Bush – Texas Governor

The last time we had a President with no executive experience was with JFK. But, with JFK one could argue that he did command a small ship in a war (which does entail some real world direct supervisory experience). He also had been in the U.S. Congress, as both a Member of the House and U.S. Senate for a total of 14 years – a fairly decent amount of Washington experience.   Of course, life with his father – who had many important government appointments did actually probably provide JFK with more experience to consider.

Like JFK, McCain has had significant Washington experience (dating about 25 years). However, his executive experience in the military – as a Navy Captain with about 25 years of service in the military – which included being commanders of various flight units for a few years of his later Navy career should count for something.

Over the past 56 years, we have had many other Vice Presidential candidates who were  either younger than Palin and arguably less experienced.

Nixon when chosen as Vice President was only 39 and he had been in the U.S. House and Senate for a combined period of only 5 years. He had two young daughters at the time.

Agnew had been governor of Maryland for less than 2 years – and had limited prior experience in political affairs.

Quayle was only 41 – and had Congressional but no executive level experience.

Ferarro was 49 and had been in the U.S. House of Reps for 6 years when elected.

Obama, for whatever reason, is claimed to have experience by virtue of running for president (which sounds more like having experience for a job because you are trying to get a certain job – which makes no sense).

What exactly would have made someone like Mitt Romney that much more qualified than Palin? He was a governor for 4 years – that’s it. He also was governor of Massachusetts – which meant that he had to hold multiple positions that are totally opposite to the positions of many Republicans (pro-choice, gun control, gay rights and government health care).

Romney did go to very good schools (Harvard Grad School) and did very well academically – but that is not really “experience.” Romney inherited a great deal of money – and while he may have some business talent it is not anything like that of Bill Gates or Ross Perot – who really built a business.

What actual foreign policy experience did Nixon in 1952, Agnew or Romney have? 

Palin, just by being governor of Alaska had to deal with all sorts of international affairs issues with both Canada and Russia.

Also, isn’t it obvious that the U.S. has some energy issues now? Doesn’t she have a lot more real world energy experience than almost any national politician?

The attacks on Palin for “family issues” are clearly sexist. Just compare her with two of the most popular Democratic politicians over the past 50 years. Ask about their family situations.

John F. Kennedy ran for President with a pregnant wife and two toddlers. His special needs child died shortly after he was elected. JFK, while he ran, was 43.

Robert Kennedy ran for President with 10 children and 1 child on the way. Four of the children were 5 or under. Robert Kennedy was only 42. Of course, had he lived longer he would have possibly had another two or three young children.