In to the home stretch now with seven days left in the election. The latest Zogby has Bush 3 points ahead, but the states polls show a much different picture. As Jamus points out, those are the ones to watch, given the electoral college. Chief Justice Rehnquist’s admission to Bethesda Naval Hospital (or whatever it’s called) for thyroid cancer treatment comes as a shock (?) at this point in the election. I’m sure this is news that neither party wanted to hear since it’s a bit hard to strategize over it. Also, consumer confidence hit a 7 month low. Seems obvious, given violence in Iraq, oil prices and a lack of a clear victor next Tuesday. A federal judge also ruled that the new electronic voting machines in Florida don’t have to keep a paper trail, which is awful considering the security issues that have been reported by the community regarding commercial voting machines.
The Journal ran an interesting article in today’s paper about amateur election modeling by political junkies, fueled by the existence of blogs. Various professors, computer scientists, etc have wired up Excel spreadsheets or Matlab equations to pull the latest poll data and run through the possibilities. In one simulation, the end game was whoever won Florida had an 88% chance of taking the election. It can’t be forgotten that nobody has won an election without winning Ohio (in recent memory — whatever that means). Also in today’s Journal is in interesting piece on the Colorado senate race, with the state’s Attorney General Ken Salazar holding a narrow lead over Pete Coors (yes, that’s right — Coors of Coors Beer). Apparently, Coors (the company) has hired Mary Cheney (the Veep’s gay daughter, in case you missed it) in order to help the company’s image in the gay community; however, Coors (the Senate contender) favors the anti-same sex marriage constitutional amendment. Pete Coors still holds the position of Chairman of the Adolph Coors Brewing Company, but is currently on ‘hiatus.’