I believe this election is on the cusp of becoming a landslide for Obama, and I believe that's why the McCain campaign panicked and chose Palin at the last minute without vetting her.

We keep seeing diaries with the latest Gallup, Rasmussen, CBS, etc polling showing a tightening or expanding race. But one thing I have not seen anyone do yet is put this in historical perspective.

Once you do that, you see just how strong Obama is in this election cycle, and why the republicans are so dispirited and downtrodden.

This, more than any other election in my 31 years, is ours to lose. We MUST keep fighting, not only to win, but to utterly decimate the republican party nationwide.

The one thing I take away from all of these polls is that an additional 2 million democrats were registered between 2006 and January of this year. The republicans lost almost half a million from their rolls.

Add on top of that the millions of new registrations of blacks, hispanics, and young people during the protracted democratic primaries, as well as the further reduction of republicans during the same time, and you have a lot of new voters in the pool that aren't typically captured in this polling.

Now as far as polling goes, I like Gallup and Rasmussen for national numbers because they do rolling averages and poll over a thousand people per night. I look at Real Clear Politics, Five Thirty Eight, Electoral Vote, and Pollster to look at the state-by-state numbers, since those are far more important than national numbers anyway.

With Obama ahead nationally by anywhere from 2-7pts depending on the poll, and ahead by a substantial margin in the electoral vote count on a state by state basis, it would take a gaffe of catastrophic proportions, or some other enormous game changer, to see McCain win. Taking into consideration all of those newly registered voters and the sheer ground game the Obama campaign has built up over the past couple of years, and I think there's a hidden cushion there that isn't necessarily shown in the polling.

I'm not saying it's a done deal and that people can sit back and relax, but the numbers are just not in McCain's favor by any stretch of the imagination.

Pollster, Five Thirty Eight, and Electoral Vote are all pointing to a 300+ EV victory for Obama going by the state polling. That is thus far translating to roughly a 3-5% popular vote win.

At this stage of the election season, it's actually comparable to what happened in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was the insurgent candidate and Carter was the incumbent. John McCain isn't the incumbent President, but he is the incumbent party. At this point Reagan was actually tracking weaker #s than Obama. Once the debates happened, however, it turned from a relatively close election into a landslide.

That's why I think the debates are going to be so crucial. Obama needs to show the american people that he can not only stand toe to toe with McCain in the debates, but that he is in fact in charge of all of the knowledge McCain and the republicans accuse him of having no knowledge of.

Given responses such as this, I have complete and utter faith that this will happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L31go6-LAs0

As we get closer and closer to election day, I believe that this will turn away from a 300+ EV victory with a 3-5% popular vote victory to something closer to 6-10% and possibly even 320-350+ EV.

The precedent for this kind of election (right track/wrong track, sour economy, sour mood of the country) does exist in history. The only precedent that I believe could keep this from being a real laugher is, unfortunately, the color of Obama's skin.

But in the end, I don't think that will be anywhere near enough to cause Obama to lose.

Now that said, let's look at some other historical information. WAPO article found, courtesy of dansac's recced diary, shows that the Obama campaign registered 49,000 new voters in Virginia, in August, alone.

Almost 260,000 new voters have registered there courtesy of the Obama campaign GOTV ground game since the primaries began. 142,000 during the primaries and another 114,000 since June. If they hold pace that will be another 90-110k registrations in September and October. They're saying that could add another 1-2% to his popular vote totals in VA and be enough, along with the general indicators that are pointing toward movement in that state, to put the state in Obama's column.

When you look at the fact that Bush won VA by 9pts in 2004, that's an enormous turnaround for Obama to even be ahead right now by 2-3pts in VA.

Here are some others. #s courtesy of Pollster, Electoral Vote, and Five Thirty Eight.

North Dakota: Bush won by 27pts. Obama tied to ahead by 3.
South Dakota: Bush won by 22pts. Obama's within 4-6.
Indiana: Bush won by 21pts. Obama's within 2-4.
Montana: Bush won by 20pts. Obama's tied to ahead by 3.
Georgia: Bush won by 17pts. Obama's within 6-7pts.
North Carolina: Bush won by 12pts. Obama's within 3.
Virginia: Bush won by 9pts. Obama's ahead by 1-2 or tied.

The story continues in every other republican stronghold.

Additionally, look at the election simulations from Five Thirty Eight:

What do you see? The highest proportion of simulations ends with McCain receiving roughly 260 electoral votes. The highest proportion of simulations ends with Obama receiving 310-330 votes.

But beyond that, you notice that the standard deviation from the magic 270 EV count EXCLUSIVELY favors Obama. You see no blue below 270 and no red above 270.

As I said at the beginning, I believe this election is on the cusp of becoming a landslide for Obama, and I believe that's why the McCain campaign panicked and chose Palin at the last minute without vetting her.

Again folks, in short this is our election to lose.

So please join with me in phone banking if you can. Join with your fellow Obama supporters in canvassing if you can. Donate to the Obama campaign if you can.

I'm phone banking and I've setup a fundraising drive just a few days ago. In that time I've been able to raise $855, so please click this link to go to my personal fundraising page and help me reach my goal of $5000.  We are on the cusp folks. Let's keep this rolling.

Two months ago I was so embittered by Obama's lack of support for our constitutional rights that I withdrew my $450 donation to his campaign, removed myself from all of the campaign mailing lists, and vowed to myself that I was not going to vote this November.

Last week the DNC, and in particular Obama's speech, touched me so greatly that my vote for him was restored.

On Tuesday, Joe Lieberman touched me so greatly that I decided to start calling every state I can on every weekend from now until the election passes.

On Wednesday, Sarah Palin reopened my wallet and restored my full-throated support to Obama.

I listened as Sarah Palin, without establishing who she is and what she stands for, insulted community organizing as a trivial activity. Rather than say what she was for, she let us know that she was against anything Obama.

Instead of going after the specifics of Obama's proposals, Palin attacked Obama's patriotism. Instead of answering the critics charges of graft and corruption in Alaska during her watch as Mayor of Wasilla and Governor, she attacked the media's right to do its job. Instead of trying to win over the vast swath of independents and women who have already been put off by the scandals and the lack of vetting by the McCain campaign, she appealed directly to the base in a speech that can be best described to these ears as bitter, partisan, angry, and unbelievably sarcastic.

That speech right there is why I can no longer sit, half-in and half-out, on the sidelines of this election. We as a nation cannot afford another 4-8 years, and with Palin potentially another 12-16 years, of this kind of divisive, petty, us-against-them politics.

<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/2/223046/0372/410/545729">I am still quite upset with Obama over FISA as well as with those supporters who were so willing to go republican-lite in their drive to prop up anything he does as gospel, inviolate to criticism.</a>

But I can put that aside just enough to work for him and donate to his campaign, full bore, while offering that criticism and continued dissent. I will never stop believing that politicians should be held accountable, no matter what their political affiliation. But what I saw last night reminded me in full why the McCain-Palin ticket must be defeated come November 4th.

It's not just a defeat for them politically or the republican party. It's a defeat of the smallness of politics that George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the republicans have driven us to over the past 8 years. It is a defeat of a politics that would rather see this country continue forward divided, not for the sake of the country, but for the sake of power.

Last week, Obama said that John McCain loves this country and wants to do the best thing for it even if they disagree on how to do it. After last night's speech, I cannot believe that they have any desire to truly help this country in anything but to encourage the growth of our deepest divisions, hatreds, suspicions, and wedges.

That cannot happen. And I'll be damned if I let that happen while having the power to make even a small dent.

So today, I not only returned the $450 I retrieved from the Obama campaign, I added another $200 on top of that. In another few weeks I will make another donation of $350 to bring my campaign contributions to $1,000 for the cycle.

I have created a fundraising page with a goal of $5,000 that I will be spreading to friends and family. I ask that you help me reach that goal.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/mgpfundraising

Cross posted at <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/4/133425/4110/293/586518">Daily Kos</a> and MyDD