I haven't seen any mention of this Washington Post item featuring "Pundit Predictions for Election 2008" including our own Markos Moulitsas along with everyone from Arianna Huffington, Nate Silver, Bill Maher and Eleanor Clift through Chris Matthews and Juan Williams and on the likes of Fred Barnes (Weekly Standard), Ed Rollins (Reagan's campaign chief), Erick Erickson (Red State) and Ed Morrissey ("Hot Air").
Morrissey and Barnes seem indeed, to be full of hot air, because each predicts that McCain will win. The other twelve of these fourteen assembled worthies predict that Obama will carry the day on Nov 4.
Markos is the most optimistic about Obama's EV count, which he pegs at 390, Barnes, however, thinks Obama will just get 252, which whittles him down to just the Kerry states, I guess. Fred, have you given any thought to Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, or Virginia?
Everyone else is somewhere in between. If you click on the pundit's name, you get the details of their pick, along with info on their House and Senate projects, their estimate of the popular vote, and other goodies.
Interestingly, the pundits are divided between "Old School" figures like Tweety, Clift, Barnes and Rollins and "New School" figures like Nate, Markos and Arianna, who are mostly bloggers.
A few more observations about this pundit roundup, before the poll.
One is that the other Republicans in the group concede that Obama will win. For example, Erickson gives Obama 311 EVs and Charles Mathesian agrees on 311. After that the remaining ten see it this way:
Chris Cillizza: 312
Arianna H: 318
Juan Williams: 326
Tweety: 338
Nate Silver: 347
Eleanor Clift: 349
Ed Rollins: 356 (highest GOPer projection)
Bill Maher: 375
Mort Kondracke: 379
Markos: 390
I don't see my own pick, 364 EV, in this mix, but there's a sort of consensus between Tweey, Nate, Rollins, Maher and Kondracke that I personally think is going to be pretty close, though I'd be glad if Markos's number carried the day.
We also see each pundit's picks of the House and Senate totals. Only Ed Morrissey claims to believe that the GOP will actually gain seats in the House. The consensus seems to be that the House will end up with about 260 Dems, a pickup of about 25, but suprisingly Red State's Erickson's figure, 267 Dem seats, and Markos's 268 are just one apart, and there are others up in the mid to high 260s.
The Senate graphic is a bit misleading. The claim is that "14 of 14 think the GOP will dash Dem hopes of a 60-seat Senate majority," but this doesn't account for the 2 independents who have caucused with the Democrats. If we count Sanders and Leiberman (who will be stripped, I hear of his chairmanship but not expelled) then 5 of the 14 think we get 58 Dems + 2 indies and reach 60 and five others get us to 57, which puts us in armtwisting range of 60 on particular votes.
Now on to the poll. Which of these pundits is closest to right, based on their total package: Electoral votes, Popular Vote, House, Senate, and the two tossup Senate races? If you think they're all wrong, or if you want to expand on why you agree (perhaps with provisos) with a particular pundit's package, give us your own estimates in the comments. I'm going to list the pundits from fewest EVs to most for Obama.