HOLY BAT CRAP!!!! Is that North Dakata - BLUE???!!!!

[LynneSin]

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

[Liberalboy]

1. That's what I said this morning...

I nearly spit my coffee out!

[lisa58]

2. I'm waiting for Arizona to turn blue - how much fun will that be?

[PBS Poll-435]

3. If Harry Mitchell's race in 2006 taught us anything....

It is possible.

[AzNick]

7. It may happen, I am telling you!

We have lots of Midwestern and California transplants over here, many younger people as well, more open minded to Obama than the traditional red necks. And of course the hispanic community is very strongly on our side.

Still, many active conservative communities, such as the LDS, but we can drown them with out votes.

I know a lot, I mean a lot of people who switched to Obama.

Wait and see. Even a defeat by less than a point would be a victory.

[caledesi]

10. Wheeee!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[DesertRat]

32. Here's an Arizona poll to DU

If the election were held today, who would you vote for?
John McCain 55.61%

Barack Obama 40.85%

Undecided 3.54%

Total Votes: 989
http://www.azcentral.com midway down the page, on the right

[Occam Bandage]

4. Ah, I don't buy it

any more than I do ARG's poll showing WV blue. I reckon they'll swap back next poll.

[LynneSin]

18. It's pale blue barely but the fact that Obama could be competitive in North Dakota

has to have the McCain people crapping their pants.

McCain is wasting all this time in Pennsylvania, which is solid dark blue but for his strategy of stealing PA back into the Red column would mean he has to win all those previous red states first. And that looks pretty slim. Perhaps ND will go Red on election day but hell what about states like Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and North Carolina - he needs to keep those states too.

[MadBadger]

19. We were very close there in June...McCain pulled away after his convention

Well, Obama now has a big lead nationally, so hes up there.

[Barack_America]

5. I'm skeptical. That's got to be within the margin of error.

But that it's even a toss-up is mind-blowing.

[Vote2008]

6. That IS a good sign!!!! Even close is a good sign!

[AzNick]

8. Credit Ed Schultz for a few %

He is very popular up there and he draws a good crowd of red meat listeners who fall for his red neck charm and his middle of the road approach.

[caledesi]

16. I like "Big eddie." nt

[renate]

27. I do too

I've seen people here say they don't like him--I don't get it. His voice sounds a lot like Limbaugh's, but the words are the complete opposite. Maybe it's the excessive football and golf talk that turns some people off, but that seems to have subsided as the election gets closer.

[AzNick]

28. He talked against Air America's business model

He said it should not be funded by the listeners but instead make money.

He had a point, although the advertisers were not keen on buying advertisement on AAR on partisan grounds.

He has also invited T. Boone to talk on his show and accepted to run his ads, while T. Boone was one the primary funders of the swift boat crap.

Ed said 1-he needs the money to run his show and meet payroll, plus T. Boone's message is pro-energy independence and 2-he took the opportunity to address T. Boone on the subject.

[KSDiva]

29. Love the guinea pig in your sig!

n/t

[Hansel]

20. I would agree. Ed knows how to talk to these folks.

It might be annoying to some of us, including me, but he is dead on target on how to reach them.

I also would give a % pt or 2 to McCain's over-the-top negative campaigning. It just doesn't play well in the upper mid-west. It's just too blatant for a cultural area that tends to like "nice people". Many of these people cringe at meanness.

[AzNick]

26. Well I am one of these folks...

Red-meat eating, hunting, fishing, dirt-bike riding, you name it, and not always a good friend of the welfare state, yet I am a Democrat and when I turn on Ed Schultz I feel that he talks to me.

I like listening to other LW talkers, but they are often too much to the left for me, sometimes downright socialist in my view. I listen to them but do not always agree and do not feel that I can completely connect with these people.

[Hansel]

33. I understand completely. You are the people I grew up with.

I've always been somewhat of a "non-conformist" in their minds, the odd one out, but they still love me anyway.

In my younger years I was a red-meat eating, beer drinking, fishing, dirt-biking, football playing tom-boy girl myself, but I've never been able to get into hunting. I can't kill a spider either, but that's just me. And I do see a genuine need for welfare on a short-term basis for some cases, but at the same time have been very critical of people who abuse it.

I love Ed because I know he is reaching the people I grew up with and knows how to relate to them in the way that most other LW talk show hosts don't. Just like you said. That has been missing from the left for a very long time. I think he is one of the best things to happen to Progressives even though at times he still annoys me. There needs to be more Eds.

:toast:

[stranger_with_candy]

9. Read the comments about that poll

He calls it either "astounding or wrong". Similar to the recent WV poll it seems to be an outlier.

[WillyT]

11. WooHoo !!! - K & R !!!

:woohoo:

Next up... Missouri !!!

:kick:

[DesertRat]

12. That's an encouraging sign!

But what's happening with NC? They were tied now it's going back to red.

[Norrin Radd]

13. West Virginia, pretty surprising, too.

[Celebrandil]

14. Many smaller states have hardly been polled recently.

[jpljr77]

15. AND West Virginia???

I certainly hope it's true, but saying I'm a little skeptical is understating it at this point.

[Chan790]

17. While I love the thought of it...

Nate Silver over at 538 says that he thinks it's an outlier as it's inconsistent with any other recent data out of ND.

Never the less, add it to MT and WV on the list of places McCain needs to defend now that he didn't have to defend last week. Even if we win none of them, it's a war of attrition on McCain's limited purse.

[MadBadger]

23. Nate Silver is wrong

There are numbers to back it up. When Obama was up pre conventions, he was down 1-3 points according to the three polls taken. When he was down after the conventions, he was down 10-15 according to (R)asmussen, and their two polls, the only ones taken. Now, Obama is up 5-10 points, his biggest lead of the election, and he is up 2, still in the MOE. WHy is that so hard to believe?

[chascarrillo]

30. Good points, well taken.

[Chan790]

31. Because...

the previous data in ND put Obama down between 9-14 points (Rasmussen 9/8 McCain +14; ARG 9/16 McCain +9; R2000 9/17 McCain +13) so this represents a 15-point swing in the period between 9/17 and 10/7 and a significant break from trending. It exceeds Obama national shift over the same period by a large margin in a state where such a margin shift would be highly unlikely.

Two polls would be a trend and would factor the predictive index significantly...one poll on its own is likely an outlier.

I'm just saying this poll should be assumed to be questionable until there is a second poll with similar results...this race has tightened...but it almost certainly has not shifted that much.

[hogwyld]

24. McCain has lots of cash

The GOP backing investment banks just got 700 billion of your money, and I am sure a lot of that will be funneled back to the RNC.

[dbmk]

34. He didn't quite say that.

He said that the model does not support the idea of it as a swing state.

But at least this could trigger more polling there to tell whether it was a fluke.

[LSK]

21. uh oh!!!

I think he better send Palin and try to save it!

:rofl:

[asdjrocky]

22. Welcome to bizzaro world.

[yellowcanine]

25. You betcha it is!