Clinton won about half of Missouri counties in '96, with broad support along the Mississippi and the North.

McCaskill won the state with five counties: Jackson, Boone, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, and Nodaway (which was a little weird). Obama replicates the numbers in 2006 and he wins without anything outside of the cities.

Clinton won about half of Missouri counties in '96, with broad support along the Mississippi and the North.

Almost half of us believe that 9/11 was an inside job

Who am us anyway?

Almost half of us believe that 9/11 was an inside job, but no one is calling for an independent investigation.

Speaking of tin foil hats...

Our elected public servants are no longer listening to us. The bank bailout is not the only issue. The vast majority of American citizens have been against our continued presence in Iraq, against amnesty of illegal aliens, against more H-1B visas, against the continued shipment of our jobs offshore, and against more government growth and spending, but the government continues to support these things with legislation and to grow and spend. Almost half of us believe that 9/11 was an inside job, but no one is calling for an independent investigation. We want to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil, but Congress and the Senate play with renewable tax credits like they are a volleyball. Who they are listening to is not clear, but it can only be surmised from looking at their lists of campaign contributions.

Not Listening

It would not shock me for New Mexico to go either way. I also assume the "Focus on the Family" types will come out en masse in Colorado to vote because of Palin.

I am not certain it will be enough for McCain to win, but I suspect the electoral map is going to look a lot more red than most people think right now.

Obama wins MO by keeping it close everywhere else in the state.

I respectfully disagree. As Michael mentioned, turnout is the key in two places: St. Louis City/County and Jackson County. McCain can play this game in the exurbs and Springfield too, but the republican base has always turned out there, so I don't know how much he can realistically increase it.

McCain's best bet is to keep turnout low. See references to Acorn.

This is not 100% true -- Gore was several points behind Bush at this time in 2000, but won the popular vote.

E.g.: Saturday's CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll of likely voters showed Bush with gaining on Gore with 51 percent support to Gore's 40 percent.

Throwin' a bone to those who do trust the polls, no inconsistency. This thing is too close to call and there a two weeks left.

I don't think that means anything. Kerry won over 80% of St. Louis in 2004;

Yes, but 80% of what? Like Billy said, turn out matters now, not percentage of the win. If turnout in democratic strongholds doubles this year*, then even if Obama gets only 60% of those votes, he still gets more than Kerry got in 2004.

(*) Not saying it's going to double, I went in an order of magnitude higher to illustrate the point more easily.

The idea presumably is that eastern PA is Obama's, central is McCain's, and western PA -- bordering OH and WV -- is up for grabs if McCain goes all-out with Rev. Wright, "God damn America," scary black guy, etc.

It will be brilliant if it works & desperate if it doesn't.

It also requires McCain to hold OH FL MO NV NC. I tend to agree that it's hard to see MO really going Obama, and individually you can say that about all those states -- but Obama has a good shot at winning *one* of them, esp. if his national margin stays 4-6 points come 11/4.

it was always going to be an uphill battle for Senator McCain since the self appointed referees have been something less than neutral all along

I think it's clear the McCain campaigns 4th quarter strategy to work the refs is backfiring on them, yet they stubbornly continue to do so.

That he drew 100,000 in STL and 75,000 in KC this weekend is an indication of the strength of his brand right now.

I don't think that means anything. Kerry won over 80% of St. Louis in 2004; it has a more solidly Democratic voting record than cities like Boston or NYC. KC is also reliably Democratic. Obama wins MO by keeping it close everywhere else in the state.