Election Predictions (Not So Bold Edition)
Now that I've gotten my endorsement out of the way, it's time for some rather, er, conventional predictions. Check back this time tomorrow to see how accurate they are.
1. Obama will win all of the Kerry states plus Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and in a surprise, North Carolina (by a whisker)
2. McCain will eek out victories in Missouri and Indiana
3. Democrats will not lose any incumbent Senate seats, and will gain in Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Alaska, and New Hampshire. Norm Coleman will be re-elected in Minnesota, due to the presence of third-party candidate Dean Barkley. Republicans will keep Mississippi, Georgia, and Kentucky rather handily
4. Democrats will gain 25 seats in the house and have an 89 seat majority.
5. Joseph Lieberman will be stripped of his leadership position in the Senate and caucus with the Republicans, thus giving Democrats an effective 56-44 majority.
Final score- Obama 353- McCain 185
Final Election Thoughts
Four years ago at this time I sat in Lianyungang, China, constantly searching for the latest polling data and hoping, against my gut-feeling, that somehow John Kerry would pull it out. This year, I'm still in China, now in the slightly more hospitable city of Kunming, hoping the exact same for Barack Obama. There are, though, a few differences between this year and 2004. There are more reasons for optimism; few expect Obama to lose. Furthermore, I feel that I back Obama because I want him to be president more than I don't want his opponent not to be president. Four years ago, I just wanted Bush gone; now, I want Obama in.
A confession. I didn't vote in 2004, and won't again this year. This isn't a principled decision, but rather a reflection of a busy lifestyle and the inherent difficulty of obtaining and processing absentee ballots from inland China. In the presidential election, my vote likely won't tip the scale as California is a safe Democratic state. Yet I do want to urge all of my American readers to vote, and to vote wisely.
My top reasons for supporting Barack Obama:
1. A repudiation of the anti-intellectualist strain of the American right, exemplified by President Bush and Governor Sarah Palin. These two figures believe that knowledge and expertise are dangerous, that intelligence is elitist, and that ignorance is virtuous. As someone who lives in a country in which these sentiments (repudiation of civilization, intelligence, and learning) caused massive misery and destruction as recently as forty years ago, this stands out as my top reason for opposing the Elephant ticket. (No, I don't think Palin and Bush are on par with Chairman Mao, but the similar disdain of intellectualism is a chilling parallel).
2. A foreign policy tilted toward engagement and internationalism. Neo-conservatives (of which McCain largely is one) subsist on the fantasy that the US won the Cold War by telling Mikhail Gorbechev to "tear down this wall", and that negotiation with enemies represents "weakness" or "appeasement". This is absurd and ridiculous, and our policy of brinkmanship has only strengthened regimes we hoped to isolate and weaken. McCain seems to relish regenerating an adversarial relationship with Russia and China, two important powers with whom the US relationship is far more important than with states such as Georgia and Ukraine. Obama isn't perfect on this score (he supports the ridiculous inclusion of the two latter states into NATO, for instance) but he would be far more reasonable on these questions of foreign policy.
3. A commitment toward fostering middle-class growth. Nominal GDP growth in the US has belied the fact that middle-class wages (adjusted for inflation) have stagnated since the mid 1970s. Obama's embrace of a tax and spend regime reveals an understanding that the backbone of American prosperity is in the growth of opportunity and economic security of the middle-class, not the spectacular earnings of CEOs.
4. Skin-color. I'm a little uncomfortable with this rationale, as one's skin color or ethnic heritage ultimately has very little to do with his capacity to govern. Then again, an Obama victory would symbolically present a diverse, dynamic America in which swarthy men (and women) with funny names are not excluded from obtaining the highest office in the land.
There are many who would find my reasons spurious or disagreeable, and hey- that's fine. I do believe, however, that electing Barack Obama is in the best interests of not only liberal Democrats but of the United States as a whole.