Newsweek: Why McCain won…
The conventional wisdom, which I share, is that Barack Obama will win this election, perhaps by a healthy margin. But Democrats are nervous wrecks; they’re having nightmares that defeat will be snatched from the jaws of victory.
To add to their misery (and guard against complacency), here’s how that horror film could play out:
In the end, the problem was the LIVs. That’s short for “low-information voters”, the three-fifths of the electorate that shows up once every four years to vote for president but mostly hates politics.
These are the 75 million folks who didn’t vote in the primaries. They don’t read news magazines or newspapers, don’t watch any cable news and don’t cast their ballots early. Their allegiance to a candidate is as easily shed as a T-shirt.
 |
Robert Gates, interviewed by Newsweek |
I entered the CIA 42 years ago, and I think that the world is as complex and in a real way more dangerous than at any time since then 
Several million moved to Obama through September and October; they’d heard he handled himself well in the debates. Then, in the last week, the LIVs swung back to the default choice: John McCain.Some had good reasons other than the colour of Obama’s skin to desert him; many more did not.
In October, a study by the Associated Press estimated that Obama’s race would cost him 6%. The percentage was smaller, but still enough to give the presidency to McCain.
Obama’s field organisation was superb, so it was no surprise that most of the 18 million Hillary Clinton voters came home to the Democrats; the person-to-person voter contact (and significant resentment about the selection of Sarah Palin) made a big difference.
But the huge swathe of more than 30 million independents broke heavily for McCain. By piling up overwhelming margins in big blue states like California, New York and Illinois, Obama carried the popular vote, but he ended up like Al Gore in 2000 - denied admission to the Electoral College.
Swinging states
The first ominous sign was largely missed amid the Democratic euphoria after Obama outclassed McCain on the financial crisis.
While most of the country moved toward the Democratic nominee in early October, Ohio did not. Obama could never close the sale there. In a repeat of the Democratic primary, his big totals coming out of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) weren’t enough to offset larger-than-expected losses in the suburbs around Cincinnati and Columbus.
Read the rest of the story here
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Low Information Voters, those that don’t drink the Kool-Aid, but do read and follow the events and speak (or vote) when it’s required.
The voice was heard prior to the 1st vote on the House Bail out package, and those elected officials listened. They also listened when the LIV spoke about the last reincarnation of the Immigration Reform.
Besides, I disagree with the LIV tag, I more prefer to describe it as SBD, Silent But Deadly.