I'm going to make a couple of predictions here and no doubt a lot of you are going to be skeptical. First off, Obama is going to win the electoral college. handily. Second, Obama is going to lose the popular vote. Again, handily. Possibly by as many as five points.
Anyone who's followed this election has by no doubt heard of the Bradley Effect. Joe Trippi's diary on the rec list right now goes into considerable about what kind of factor we can expect the Bradley Effect to play in this election, along with other numbers that could unexpectedly skew in one direction or another.
But there's one thing that Joe didn't touch on when discussing the national polls and that's the possibility of running up huge victories in certain parts of the country. Specifically, the south.
I'm no mathemetician but think about it like this. The combined population of Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas is around 13,000,000. Let's say half the population in these states decides to vote and in all three John McCain wins by huge margins, maybe even as many as 500,000 votes. That would give him a 1.5 million net gain in popular votes and a grand total of 25 electoral votes.
Now let's say Obama wins Florida by a narrow margin, say 50,000 votes. That does absolutely nothing to cut into McCain's popular vote totals but gives him 27 electoral votes.
What I'm getting at here is that McCain's margins in the south will be unprecedented, especially with a united and charged evangelical vote in favor of Palin. The rest of the country will be much, much closer. The question for me is, are his numbers in the south so big that they are actually skewing the national polls. In other words, could we be seeing a "McCain effect" (or Obama effect if you must) where Obama is and will continue to be behind by several points in national polls and still win the election? Are his numbers in the south so lopsided that they are creating the illusion of a national McCain lead?
If I'm right ( remember you heard it here first), this country is gonna be in for a lot of soul searching when this thing is over. Not only will there be questions about the continued validity of the electoral college but it could also mark the return of a true Mason-Dixon divide. I won't elaborate further, lest I arouse the ire of our southern members (note, I'm one of you) but I think we should be prepared for something like this to happen and the likely challenges that will result.