Stuart Rothenberg tells us:
Democratic desperation and other compelling evidence strongly suggest that Democrats may well lose the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in Tuesday’s special election. Because of this, we are moving our rating of the race from Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.
The Democrats, belatedly wise to the very real chance they’ll lose what should have been a slam-dunk seat for them, are flooding the airwaves with negative ads. (Creigh Deeds did the same thing in Virginia, which only served to confirm that he had no message of his own.) Rothenberg is skeptical that this will work:
Late Democratic efforts to demonize Republican Scott Brown, to make the race into a partisan battle and to use the Kennedy name to drive Democratic voters to the polls could still work. But the advertising clutter in the race works against them, and voters often tune out late messages, which can seem desperate.
What several weeks ago seemed like a conservative pipe dream — a Republican win in Massachusetts — is now a real possibility. And if it should come about, prepare for a tsunami to hit Washington D.C. The realization will surely sink in for each incumbent Democrat: if the Massachusetts’ Senate seat isn’t safe, then neither is theirs. And those who want to vote for ObamaCare and the rest of the Left-leaning agenda had better consider the political consequences.
“If he gets 90 percent of the votes cast in the primaries, he will begin election day with 33 million votes in his pocket.”
A corresponding number of non-Ivy League whites will show up on Election day and vote for John McCain. Once again, this is all about self preservation. They are not particularly in favor of McCain—as they are against Obama.
I doubt the “shellackings” of Obama in West Virginia and Kentucky say much about the general attitude of independent voters, since his race was a large factor in each. 50 000 Kentucky voters admitted that they plumped for Clinton because Obama is black. He doesn’t have a “working-class whites” problem – he has an Appalachia problem.
So perhaps the question of the hour is, to what extent is Appalachia like America?
John, I don’t see how the millions of new voters — many of whom came out b/c the Dem race was hotly contested — translates into electoral victory for Obama. Dems usually vote in higher numbers in primaries than Repubs, and especially so when the primary race is tight. Do you think that Obama is going to win in those red states where he won caucuses where incredibly small numbers turned out? It’s very doubtful. McCain is today — five months before the election, when Repubs typically are far behind the Dem — ahead or even in most battleground states. That does not bode will for Obama.
Democrat primaries have larger turnouts than Republican ones. This create the impression that Democrat candidates will automatically have an advantage in the general election. They don’t.
McCain can win most, if not all, of the swing states and some of the Blues ones. Obama cant win any of the Red states.
I don’t see why McCain needs an opportunity. I predict Republicans, Independants and moderate Democrats will be galvanized to vote in record numbers this November. That’s what happened when that anti-American phony John Kerry ran in 2004, and he was nowhere near as dangerous a candidate as Senator Obama.