Some general thoughts about the election
- Looks like race wasn’t a negative for Obama after all (like I had mentioned previously), exit polls showed race ending up as a net positive for Obama.
- We didn’t see such a big increase in turn out after all – probably because of a depressed GOP morale or maybe supporters on both sides thought the election was in the bag for Obama.
- Polling is erratic – The Alaska Senate race is a wonderful example of this. Mark Begich was leading with double digits leading up to election. Begich is holding onto a very narrow lead (although Stevens led by a few thousand votes on election night) with some absentee ballots still left to go.
- There is a big generational gap in America right now. Obama’s huge victory margin in California and the passage of Prop 8 is an excellent example of this. The passage of Prop 8 also shows that the Democratic coalition is complex and quite broad (It also shows Republicans have potential to make inroads using social issues as a driving factor).
- Pennsylvania was never really close. It’s possible that the McCain camp knew this but wanted to at least appear as putting up a fight.
- The networks were fairly conservative in their projections. None of the networks would dare call the election for Obama even though they had projected he had won Ohio and Pennsylvania (although John King came fairly close when he pointed out, winning all of the remaining battleground states would not give McCain the election).
- McCain’s concession speech was very gracious. I felt that we saw the McCain of 2000 return. So why the heck did his campaign try to mould him into something he’s not?
- Barack Obama appeared extremely tired.
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