Obama Toast?

This article by Malstrom, a guy i had never heard of till today, has got some seriously juicy bits on why the polls are so far off. He is predicting a crazy upheaval on election night. Saying all the pundits have it wrong. It's long but I recommend the whole thing. He focuses on Pennslyvania, where the candidates are appearing on the stump. It's a big blue state about to turn red, he says. Here is one paragraph that jumped out at me as directly relevant to Aussie politics:

Lying to pollsters is frequent and a necessity in Pennslyvania due to the unions. Many union bosses will call their members, posing as a ‘pollster’, and if the member gives the wrong asnwer, a thug is sent to the house. The Teacher’s Union there has sent strict orders to vote for Obama “or else”.

I just watched Insiders on-line and am saddened to see Alexander Downer predicting an Obama victory. I guess that's why he was never PM. He's not suspicious enough of other's motives. Too much of a gentleman I suppose you could say.


So what are my feelings at this late hour? I'm exhausted. It seems like only last week, it was last November, that we fought our own election here and i had to ignore polls for a year prior to that to keep from going insane. I'm not game to make a prediction to the contrary of the polls now. I've been burned.

I will say however that the legacy media bias in this election for Obama has been unprecedented. A few years ago I, like Downer probably, would had dismissed it a quarter-arsed conspiracy theory. No longer. It's a deliberate attempt to "break the spirit" of the conservative voters. My guts fell out last year when the OZ started pulling for Rudd. I've seen the media line up candidates before. I've seen it in Britain with David Cameron's bid for the conservative leadership. I've seen it with Rudd. Now i'm seeing it with Obama. I desperately want to believe that the unelected ideologues in the MSM can be kept in check by the people. I hope tomorrow this is shown to be so.

Maybe i should not be so melodramatic. My girlfriend is more upbeat. She said something yesterday that had not occurred to me because I was living in Britain for the 2004 campaign here. She said "This whole Obama thing is just like what happened with Latham." I didn't realize the media had lined up Latham in the same way as Rudd, and been denied. Nice.

I guess the difference between the 2004 and the 2007 Federal elections was the sustained poll advantage Rudd had in the lead up. But the article at the link above debunks all the current US polling, and towards the end says stuff that can easily be compared to the Latham case:

America is right of center. While Carter and LBJ were the last Democrats to win over 50% of the vote, LBJ didn’t bother to run for a second term due to how despised he had become over Vietnam, and Carter was flushed out during the election of 1980. The point is that there is an acceptable level of leftness the electorate will accept. Clinton campaigned and acted a little left which was acceptable to the electorate. But LBJ and Carter went way too far and the electorate sank them. Obama has likely gone too far left which is why the ’socialism’ charge is sticking to him.

The Aussies ditched Latham for being too far Left. He freaked everybody out. The ALP had to put the (false) safe face of Rudd on their lefty agenda. Are the American political and media establishment about to learn a lesson in political reality they they could have got from watching us Aussies? For the US equiv of the ALP, the Democrats, the moderate candidate is Hillary. She won the primaries in the rust belt states like PA that Obama now stands to lose.

If Obama does lose it will be the end of the far Left for another generation. It will also be the end of the legacy media's special status as truth providers. They have staked so much on predicting an Obama victory that no-one will ever believe them again. I mean that here in Australia too. The falsity and bias will be exposed, but that is too much to hope for.

Still, if I were religious i'd be praying for it. I am not religious but i love hymns. So maybe i'll sing instead of pray. These lines are from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which became an anthem for the Union (Northerners) during the American Civil War. I may not be in the mood to quote it tomorrow, so in the hope of a McCain victory, i'll do it now. For "the Lord", read "The People".

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

Bit too passionate for ya? Is so, feel free to get lost.