Brad's election prediction

With the election tomorrow it's time for predictions. Based on using The Political Machine's issue based predictions and looking at polling data and trends, this is what I'm concluding:

Kerry victory with 306 electoral votes to Bush's 232.  This is a much clearer victory for Kerry than any of the polls and pundits are showing here. But then again, they don't have The Political Machine.

So what do I base this on?

1. The Iraq war isn't a positive for Bush but in fact a negative.

2. I think the Democrats are better at mobilizing their base. This has to do with demographics. It's easier to get people to the polls in urban areas than rural/subburban areas. As I explained to a neighbor, there's roughly 200 people in our neighborhood. It would take hours to pick us all up and take us to a precinct to vote. By contrast, there might be 500 voters in a single building in Cleveland.

3. I think fraudulent voting is going to be a real issue. It's a lot tougher to challenge fraudulent voting than it is to try to preserve the sanctity of the system. It's disappointing to think that my vote might be counter-balanced by someone's cat or "Dick Tracy" but our sensational media has clearly decided that it's better to have 1000 fraudulent voters get through than to prevent a single legitimate voter from being turned away. I disagree. I think there should be a balance because a fraudulent voter is effectively taking away the voting rights of someone else by canceling out their vote.

4. The "early voting" mechanism is going to be the big story this year. Early voting favors less committed voters which tends to favor Democrats.

5. That ridiculous "missing explosives" story from last week that looks to have not had any reasonable basis in fact (latest news on that is that a US unit actually removed the explosives at the end of April). But the media ran on that for a full week which may have been enough to tilt the balance in Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa to go for Kerry.

But in the end, if Kerry wins, it will be that first Bush debate that caused Bush to lose. The momentum was in Bush's favor and he so blew that first debate that it shifted momentum that he has not been able to recover from.

So there's my prediction. Not nearly as close as the pundits are predicting.

That said - EVERY informed voter should go out and vote. So even if you're in a blue or red state, go and vote tomorrow. I think the good news out of this election would be that we may have record turn-out which I think would be fantastic regardless of who wins. 

You Republicans who are hoping Bush wins better do what you can to get your friends and neighbors and family out to vote. Because you can be assured that the NEA (teachers) and other unions and other organizations are way ahead of Bush and his allies in organizing get out to vote on election day drives.

This election is going to come down to a handful of votes. Particularly in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.