1) The Democrats pick up 4-6 seats net in the House.
2) What little there is left of the Blue Dog caucus for the Democrats in the House is further decimated.
3) Gary Johnson does better than any other Libertarian candidate ever, but still falls short of 5%.
4) Obama is still incredibly vulnerable for all his unkept promises and the economy. He needs to win the debate tonight.
4a) If he does win the debate, he wins very narrowly, and the Mittens margin of defeat in several states is less than Gary Johnson's vote total in those states. haha!
4b) If Mittens has a repeat of Debate 1, it could get out of hand and actually be a more decisive Mittens win that I could have imagined.
4c) If nothing changes from today, it would be an election not decided until recounts were done. I think most polling has overestimated Democrat turnout. Young and minority voters aren't going to be turning out in nearly the same volumes as last go around.
5) Regardless of the outcome --- the country loses. Four more years of total abject failure at the top.

Dems will pick up more than that, but still short of the 25 necessary.

Most polls aren't weighing for any kind of predicted turnout (except Rasmussen). They generally weigh for Census demographics to get a demographically representative sample.

No #3?

(10-22-2012 02:40 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Regardless of the outcome --- the country loses. Four more years of total abject failure at the top.

Absolutely. The real tragedy in this whole process is that nothing really will change.

(10-22-2012 02:53 PM)Smaug Wrote:  No #3?

Fixed

(10-22-2012 02:40 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  3) Gary Johnson does better than any other Libertarian candidate ever, but still falls short of 5%.

Hope I'm wrong and it's even higher, but I think he lands somewhere around 1.5%. Unfortunately, Johnson never seemed to take off and become a semi-household name in the manner than Ron Paul did. It's a shame, as I think Johnson is one of the more electable candidates the LP has ever thrown out there. He might do a little better than previous candidates, but it doesn't seem like he got much traction.

I think Johnson will be back in 2016. And with Ron retired by then, I think his chances of getting traction may be higher. I've had a couple of conversations with him, and he's not said so directly, but I get this sense that he's running this time to set the stage for something bigger later. I don't know that he could ever get more than 5-10%, and I'm not sure what impact that would have. But I do think that's his plan.