What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

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In summary, the key factors for victory in the 2008 Presidential Election were the candidates' ability to connect with voters, the state of the economy and the overall political climate, and the use of effective campaign strategies. Barack Obama's strong message of hope and change resonated with many Americans, while John McCain struggled to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent president, George W. Bush. The economic crisis of 2008 also played a significant role, with many voters looking for a candidate who could offer solutions to the financial struggles facing the country. Additionally, Obama's effective use of social media and grassroots organizing helped him secure a strong base of support and ultimately win the election.

Who will win the General Election?

  • Obama by over 15 Electoral Votes

    Votes: 16 50.0%

  • Obama by under 15 Electoral Votes

    Votes: 6 18.8%

  • McCain by over 15 Electoral Votes

    Votes: 4 12.5%

  • McCain by under 15 Electoral Votes

    Votes: 6 18.8%
  • Total voters
    32
  • #736
Another "oooops, did I say that out loud moment"

File this one under “real versus unreal America.”

Politico picks up on another uh-oh moment from a Republican representative up for re-election. Rep. Robin Hayes, during a warm-up act for John McCain this weekend in North Carolina, remarked to a rowdy crowd that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

McCain and his traveling press corps had not yet arrived at the venue when Hayes made the remark. A spokesperson for the congressman, who is locked in a razor-tight reelection rematch with Democrat Larry Kissell, initially denied to the Politico that Hayes uttered the phrase, but audio of the comment has since surfaced.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/21/1575853.aspx
 
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  • #737
Evo said:
Another "oooops, did I say that outloud moment"



http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/21/1575853.aspx

Yes, how about that!

I posted this in the Palins America thread as well. The right wing, and esp hate radio - the likes of G Gordon Liddy - have corrupted the minds of millions of Americans in an attempt to create a nation of hate mongers; much like Hitler did.

I never realized that Liddy was actually inspired by Hitler!

I tracked down an excerpt from one of Liddys shows. The idiot is still ranting against people called to testify at the McCarthy hearings! Unbelievable!
 
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  • #738
Evo said:
Another "oooops, did I say that outloud moment"

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/21/1575853.aspx

It seems that Republicans have had a plague of these kinds of moments - Representative John Murtha and Joe Biden notwithstanding.
 
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  • #739
LowlyPion said:
It seems that Republicans have had a plague of these kinds of moments - Representative John Murtha and Joe Biden notwithstanding.

There is a difference between a slip, or a comment that doesn't go over well, and the denigration of half of the country. Again, Hitler comes to mind.

They say, "liberals hate you" in the effort to make you hate liberals. They are saying that liberals are evil.

Hitler Hitler Hitler.
 
  • #740
Zobgy Poll shows Obama with about a 12 pt lead over McCain with about 7.5% prefer someone else or not sure.
Code: 
Week Three
Tracking Poll    Obama   McCain   Others/Not sure
 Oct-20          50.3%    42.4%    7.3%
 Oct-21          51.6%    42.0%    6.4%
 Oct-22          52.2%    40.3%    7.5%

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1605
 
  • #741
With early voting in Florida now open, MSNBC is reporting over 750,000 have already voted there. This is roughly 4% of their eligible voters already.

Big turn out => Not good for McCain.
 
  • #742
The two latest polls show Obama up by 12 and 14 points in OHIO! That is a larger lead than the latest poll gives McCain in Texas.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html
 
  • #743
Ivan Seeking said:
The two latest polls show Obama up by 12 and 14 points in OHIO! That is a larger lead than the latest poll gives McCain in Texas.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/latestpolls/index.html

Maybe Texas will become a battleground state?
 
  • #745
mheslep said:
Curious: would this post be considered disturbing as well?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1170361&postcount=133

You had to go back two years to find one comment? Wow!

Oh yes, Obama never attacked a country - the wrong country. The comment about Bush was motivated by his actions. The effigy of Obama was "hung" because Obama is black.

Do you understand the difference?
 
  • #746
mheslep said:
Curious: would this post be considered disturbing as well?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1170361&postcount=133
You went back 2 years to find a post by someone that no longer posts here? If I had caught that post then, it would have been deleted and the member warned as we don't allow such suggestions, not even jokingly.

What that has to do with psychos publicly carrying out a mock hanging , I do not know.
 
  • #747
Ivan Seeking said:
Oh yes, Obama never attacked a country - the wrong country. The comment about Bush was motivated by his actions. The effigy of Obama was "hung" because Obama is black.

Do you understand the difference?

My reading of the article is not exactly to think it's such a big deal.

Likely hung by a student. Likely hung for ignorant and immature reasons and likely without quite the sinister malice that it is interpreted. Getting attention is likely the real reason. Youthful bad decisions are not the real problems. They need educating, but then they are in school and hopefully they will learn.

Do I condone such acts? Of course not. Should the student or students be held accountable? Most definitely. And a suitable penance undoubtedly would be some community service in a minority area.
 
  • #748
LowlyPion said:
Likely hung by a student. Likely hung for ignorant and immature reasons and likely without quite the sinister malice that it is interpreted. Getting attention is likely the real reason. Youthful bad decisions are not the real problems. They need educating, but then they are in school and hopefully they will learn.
They guy who hanged Obama in effigy is an "adult" who has owned that house for years. There was an interview with a few of his neighbors, and they didn't think it was funny. The video was posted on Huffington Post, so I didn't link it. One of the neighbors said that she had always considered the guy an OK neighbor, but she made a comment about instability, "what else would he do" or something to that effect. I'll see if I can dig up the interview.

Edit: that didn't take long. Notice the star of David on the effigy's head, and the misspelled Hussein. This guy is a piece of work.
 
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  • #749
Along those lines:
The Asheville (N.C.) Citizen Times reports, "A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said."

Maintenance workers at 7:45 a.m. found a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police. “It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head,” Johnson said.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003875872
 
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  • #750
The guy is a typical racist. "Make no mistake, he doesn't want an African American running the country... Only white Christians should be in power". [Does it sound like anybody from history, like, oh, say, Hitler?]

But I was confused. I thought the post referenced this Obama effigy hanging by "Christian" Republicans.

NEWBERG, Ore. - Students and school leaders at a small Christian university expressed outrage Wednesday at the discovery of a life-size cardboard effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hanging from a tree on campus.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26872774/
 
  • #751
My bad, Ivan. I hadn't seen that "lynching", but since it was accompanied by a statement urging the dissolution of an affirmative-action program that gave scholarships to minority and low-income students, I find a hard time dismissing it as a joke or a prank.
 
  • #752
It is racism, pure and simple. And the person who did it clearly understands the racial implications of lynching. There is nothing innocent about this.
 
  • #753
turbo-1 said:
They guy who hanged Obama in effigy is an "adult" who has owned that house for years.

That one is different. And it apparently reflects a regrettable lifetime of acquired intolerance for the differences between people.

I was making my remarks solely about the Oregon Campus incident, which was apparently a cutout of Obama hung with fishing line to a branch in a tree. I rather think that was an immature student looking for inappropriate attention.
 
  • #754
It is time to declare that "liberal haters" and blatant racists are freaks and outcasts. But instead, the Republicans intentionally fuel the fire.

If some kid thinks this is a joke, then it speaks loudly of the local environment.

Btw, I have spent many hours in Newberg. Yes, this is indicative of the area. Oregon is blue, but we have many fiery red parts of the State.
 
  • #755
Ivan Seeking said:
It is time to declare that "liberal haters" and blatant racists are freaks and outcasts. But instead, the Republicans intentionally fuel the fire.

Again I don't see the profit in countering their intolerance and divisiveness with more of the same.
 
  • #756
My white nephew is a lifer in the Navy, and is being commissioned as a Chief Warrant officer this month after having been selected "Sailor of the year" at more levels than I can count (ship, carrier group, etc). He is white. His wife (also Navy lifer) is black, and his step-daughter from a previous marriage is black. I love those people, and when I see overt racism and hatred like the most radical elements of the GOP are fomenting, it makes me burn. How can I feel any respect for those psychopaths? I almost called them "animals", but that would have been wrong. Animals would never act with such hatred and evil intent.
 
  • #757
Evo said:
You went back 2 years to find a post by someone that no longer posts here? If I had caught that post then, it would have been deleted and the member warned as we don't allow such suggestions, not even jokingly. ...
Obviously all PF Mentors do not agree with the policy you state here, even now, as the reasons or political viewpoint of the post are to be considered.
 
  • #758
LowlyPion said:
Again I don't see the profit in countering their intolerance and divisiveness with more of the same.

Intolerance of intolerance is always acceptable. And this isn't about political profit. This is about truth. You can't whitewash these hateful acts and expect them to stop.

The Republicans have married themselves to racists and zealots, and then they fuel the fire. And while there are many good Republicans, they are all guilty as long as they allow this to continue.

Senator McCain appeared on Liddy's radio show last November and said, "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family... It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

That should be the end of McCain's career right there. But no, to many Republicans, this is apparently acceptable.

How many Republicans here would not vote for McCain, for this statement alone?
 
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  • #759
Wow, my favorite candidates Obama and Ron Paul are going to tag team McCain in Montana. Latest poll is O +4 (thanks to Paul).

What is going on?

http://www.newwest.net/city/article/ron_paul_to_be_on_montana_ballot/C8/L8/
 
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  • #760
Ivan Seeking said:
It is racism, pure and simple. And the person who did it clearly understands the racial implications of lynching. There is nothing innocent about this.

Agree.
 
  • #761
And what the heck is this? McCain can't even count on the racists to fall in line now days. Don't read it if you are easily offended by racial overtone.


Why 3 out of 4 White Supremacists Support Barack Obama

Who: Chairman, American Nazi Party
Likes: Hitler, white people
Dislikes: Jews, immigrants, multinational corporations
Career highlights: Being widely quoted bemoaning in the fact that so few Aryan-Americans had the cojones of the 9/11 hijackers: “If we were one-tenth as serious, we might start getting somewhere.”

“White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals -- basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women -- when usually negroes who have ‘made it’ immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize -- that’s the kind of negro that I can respect. Any time that a prominent person embraces their racial heritage in a positive manner, it’s good for all racially minded folks. Besides, America cares nothing for the interests of the white American worker, while having a love affair with just about every non-white on planet Earth. It’d be poetic justice to have a non-white as titular chief over this decaying modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”

http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2008/10/32648.php

538: On the Road: Western Pennsylvania
So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

In this economy, racism is officially a luxury. How is John McCain going to win if he can't win those voters? John Murtha's "racist" western Pennsylvania district, where this story takes place, is some of the roughest turf in the nation. But Barack Obama is on the ground and making inroads due to unusually strong organizing leadership.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-western-pennsylvania.html
 
  • #762
An interesting poll discussion yesterday reported by NPR showed that Bush was actually not preferred by most voters even in 2004, but those who did prefer him were more likely to vote. So he won not by being the choice of more voters but by more who voted. Of course we know that in 2000 he was not even the choice of most who did vote.

So we are getting those presidents who are supported by the most active people, not the most people. This is relevant to this election as well. It does not matter if Obama is the clear choice of more Americans, as the president will be chosen by the ones who show up and whose votes are actually counted. That is apparently a different ball game in most elections from polling the favorite. I.e. those more likely voters have tended to be older and whiter.

Also here in georgia there is a concerted effort by the Republicans who control state office to challenge as many new voters as possible, conjecturally since those seem to be largely Democrats. Indeed the practice of early voting, which was initiated by Republicans in a period when it tended to favor them, has lately been criticized by those same Republicans because it is now being used by new Democratic voters.

So it may be that this election possibly like some recent ones, will be decided by who is mobilized best to actually vote, and who is excluded by technical considerations. Even the justice department has asked Georgia why they are challenging far more voters than any other state, and requested that they stop this practice.

Although fraud in voter registration has been revealed as existing, there are also less credible challenges here to such practices as "motor voter" registration, i.e. attempts to allow people to register when they take out a drivers license. The only logical reason for opposing such practices is to restrict voting to those people privileged enough to be able to register even when it is not made convenient.
 
  • #763
phoenixy said:
But Barack Obama is on the ground and making inroads due to unusually strong organizing leadership.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-western-pennsylvania.html

Yeah. How can a Community Organizer hope to win an election?
 
  • #764
You've got to start worrying about your chances when you brand your opponent a muslim terrorist sympathiser and yet both the Nazi party and Jewish groups (http://jews4change.com/) prefer him to you!
 
  • #765
I hope some of you West-coasters will TIVO the NBC news tonight and load the Palin/McCain interview onto YouTube. McCain just said that the Weathermen were terrorists who intended to destroy America. He said a bit earlier that they wanted to kill Americans. It is well-known that the Weathermen were radical vandals who went to great lengths to AVOID hurting or killing people, but wanted to make political statements against our county's rampant killings of the people of Southeast Asia.

The real domestic terrorists are the McVeighs - the people of the radical militia movements who will re-emerge if Obama is elected. And McCain/Palin are laying the groundwork for them with their divisive, hate-filled lies.

Edit: corrected spelling of little Timmy's name
 
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  • #766
Funny! Scott McClellan just endorsed Obama.
 
  • #768
McCain's antic is begging the news organizations to do a report on Gordon Liddy. I'm calling it now. Countdown to mega backlash all the way to backfireville 3..2..1..
 
  • #769
turbo-1 said:
The real domestic terrorists are the McVies - the people of the radical militia movements who will re-emerge if Obama is elected. And McCain/Palin are laying the groundwork for them with their divisive, hate-filled lies.

The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured. It was the first major terrorist attack and until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Shortly after the explosion, Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and arrested him for that offense and for unlawfully carrying a weapon.[1] Within days after the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both arrested for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that they were sympathizers of a militia movement and that their motive was to retaliate against the government's handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (the bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

What did McCains good friend, G. Gordon Liddy, have to say about this?

In 1994, after the feds stormed the branch Davidian compound in Waco, Liddy said on his radio program, "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."
http://www.keloland.com/custompages/kelolandblogs/madvilletimes/index.cfm?c=2313
 
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