Dead friggen heat!

[Valvilis]

The election, if held today, is projected by several of the top US polling agencies at Kerry 269, Bush... 269. That's a little closer than I'm comfortable with. Ohio and Pennsylvania are really close to evenly split but are being given to Kerry in this projection. A pending vote in Colorado (a Bush state) would give four of the state's electoral votes to Kerry, this is very likely to pass. Remember, a candidate needs 270 votes to be elected. If it ties at 269 each, the house decides... that's bad, Bush derives his EC votes from more states that are worth less votes, but if the house decides, Bush wins. If the Colorado vote passes and Kerry wins, we can expect a long drawn-out legal battle for the office.

However, Kerry gained 8% in the popular after the first debate, if the next two go even remotely as well, some of the weak Bush states might revert to undecided and be up for grabs.

I also expect Bin Laden or some other Bush cabinet ploy to surface in the next few weeks. Stupid Americans will be quickly won over by this, but the southern states are alrady voting Bush and I don't think it will have the impact the elephants are looking for.

[profdunebastard]

The Bush administration is already playing tricks and picking out Kerry's "global test" remark, of course, entirely taking it out of context of his speech and singling out only two words. Cheney hit Edwards with this tonight. I also really wouldn't be surprised if volcanos and hurricanes scare some of the more religious minded people out there into thinking maybe the end times are nigh upon us and would want their Crusader in for another four years. Of course, the people who think this would vote Bush anyway, so it really wouldn't swing anything, but fear , especially of wet wind and pyroclastic ash, can instill irrationality. If anybody is playing with nature though, my money is on Poseidon and Hephaestus.

[ebonywnd]

Wasn't Zeus the storm god though? Hephaestus was the god of the forge and technology.

[profdunebastard]

Poseidon, as a sea god, could very well cause hurricanes. Zeus was god of sky, lord of heaven, and wielder of thunder, so yes, I suppose he could use hurricanes too. In his original function, Ares was the greek storm god, but it eventually evolved into the storm of strife and ruin-war. Hephaestus was the god of fire and responsible for volcanoes. He was also given the role as god of smiths and craftsmen and mettalurgy, and his role was to man the forges and create weapons and tools for gods and heroes alike. In Greek mythology, most gods had tons of roles, elemental, social, and simply as elements in stories and myths. Upon their aquisition by Rome, their roles were smewhat reduced to figureheads and symbols, their role in allegory lessened.

[FishBait]

Ian: I told you it was more important for me to vote in pennsylvania than in michigan,
now if we could get the excess kerry voters in states like california and new york to move to the south or one of those states like wyoming with no people in it we'd be set

[profdunebastard]

I'm still not sure how safe a bet Michigan is, something still tells me it will be close. That something, of course, is knowing how the majority of West michigan votes. Grand Rapids has it's fair share of city based liberals, but the majority of the suburbs are very conservative. Polls may say otherwise, but I have a feeling.

[the anti-myrmidon]

Ohio is still pretty shady at the moment. On the bright side, voter registration has increased at a higher rate in Democratic areas than Republican areas since the 2000 election. It comes down to voter turnout though, and that can be problematic.

Ohio seems to be going with paperless e-voting machines that lack any sort of backup accuracy and verification that votes are being counted. The company supplying the machines ends up counting the votes, and the lack of a paper trail is a cause of concern. One major company that supplies these machines is Diebold, an Ohio-based company with well-established ties to the Republican party. The CEO of Diebold has not only donated considerable sums to the GOP, but has also held GOP fundraisers at his home and even pledged last fall to help deliver Ohio to George W. Bush in the 2004 election. Other major Diebold executives have similar ties to the party.

Obviously, these men have the right to donate to political causes as they see fit, but when their companies are essentially the overseers of the voting process, I have to question the conflict of interest involved in this situation.

Susan "waiting anxiously for my absentee ballot" Wise

[Valvilis]

Yay! Between the debates and the Iraq report (and DeLay a little, maybe), we're in the good. www.race2004.net/ has the race at Kerry 311, Bush 227. That's a lead I'm a little more comfortable with. I'd imagine by the time Rumsfeld's admission speech sinks in, we might grab another undecided state or two.

I was thinking about it yesterday and said to myself, "Hey, do you think Bush isn't doing as well as he was in 2000 partially because he was able to buy out the 2000 election, but has WAY less money than the Heinz-Kerry fortune?" In 2000, Bush could have kept the Iraq report hidden until after the election, if we ever got to see it at all.

[FishBait]

according to the happy colorcoded map valv just provided us with, michigan and pennsylvania are both leaning kerry, but pennsylvania has more electoral votes, , and if you're curious about the voting of michigan, i've been making phone calls for students for kerry and more than half of the people on a list of people who previously responded that they were undecided are now planning to vote for kerry

[Seany-D]

Kudos to you, Carolyn, for taking your extra time to work for the loyal opposition to the current president.