HUH?!
It could happen. Check out this fascinating article of a potential electoral college doomsday scenario (excerpts):
If that doesn't make your head spin, nothing will! Check out the full article for any number of ways that this tie could happen. Even if a split White House happens, it will ultimately be better for the Democrats, of course, because Obama would be the one making the appointments and policy decisions. It's hard to imagine what -- if anything -- Palin would be able to do in an Obama administration, but it would certainly make for an historic term.
Personally, I don't buy the fact that we're quite as 'dead even' as the polls say right now. I think that the MSM is pushing so hard for Obama that they're willingly skewing polls to show him as better off than he really is (I'm looking for something I heard recently about how a Gallup poll was weighted in a very suspicious manner, and will post that if/when I find it). Add that to the known Bradley Effect, and I think that McCain probably has a significant lead at the moment. Another factor in my opinion is that the Left is already setting things up so that the only possible reason that Obama could lose is if the American voters are racist. While I understand them trying to backstop their candidate, it also shows that they feel the need to fall back to an unassailable position to justify their loss. I think most people will see the assertion as threatening and insulting, and will ultimately reject it. If the election were to be held today, I think McCain would win by several points.
Just a gut feeling, and a whole lot can change in the next five weeks, but as long as we're hypothesizing, I thought I'd throw it out there for you to think about.
There's my two cents.
It could happen. Check out this fascinating article of a potential electoral college doomsday scenario (excerpts):
President Obama, with Vice President Palin? President Biden? President Pelosi? Call them the "Doomsday" scenarios -- On Nov. 5, the presidential election winds up in a electoral-college tie, 269-269, the Democrat-controlled House picks Sen. Barack Obama as president, but the Senate, with former Democrat Joe Lieberman voting with Republicans, deadlocks at 50-50, so Vice President Dick Cheney steps in to break the tie to make Republican Sarah Palin his successor.
"Wow," said longtime presidential historian Stephen Hess. "Wow, that would be amazing, wouldn't it?"
"If this scenario ever happened, it would be like a scene from the movie 'Scream' for Democrats," said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. "The only thing worse for the Democrats than losing the White House, again, when it had the best chance to win in a generation, but to do so at the hands of Cheney and Lieberman. That would be cruel."
Sound impossible? It's not. There are at least a half-dozen plausible ways the election can end in a tie, and at least one very plausible possibility - giving each candidate the states in which they now lead in the polls, only New Hampshire - which went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, each time by just 1.5 percent - needs to swap to the Republican column to wind up with a 269-269 tie.
There are currently 10 tossup states, according to RealClearPolitics.com, which keeps a running average of all state polls. If Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain wins Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Indiana - not at all far-fetched - and Mr. Obama takes reliably Democratic states Pennsylvania and Michigan, and flips Colorado (in which he holds a slight poll lead), with the two splitting New Mexico and Nevada, the electoral vote would be tied at 269.
Absurd? Possibly, and there is not complete agreement among constitutional experts on whether a newly elected Congress or the currently sitting House and Senate would make the decision.
So try this scenario: The newly elected House, seated in January, is unable to muster a majority to choose a president after a 269-269 tie, but the Senate, which is expected to be controlled by Democrats, picks Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. from the Democratic ticket. If the House is still deadlocked at noon on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mr. Biden becomes acting president.
Or try this one on for size: Neither the House nor the Senate fulfills its constitutional duty to select the president and the vice president by Jan. 20, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, becomes acting president until the whole mess is sorted out.
"That would cause all kinds of lawsuits: We would have 50 Floridas, and we might not know who the president is for two years," said Judith Best, a political science and Electoral College specialist at the State University of New York in Cortland.
...
"The probability of a tie in 2008 is about 1.5 percent, which is slightly higher than we calculated at about the same time back in 2004," said Mr. Sracic, who enlisted the help of the university's math department to come up with a possible 1,024 combinations with the current 10 states now considered tossups.
"What really strikes you is how easy it would be for a tie to occur. Take the 2004 map and switch Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado into the Blue column, which is what the poll numbers indicate. Then, take New Hampshire and give it to McCain, which is what two recent polls suggest is going to happen. There is your tie."
"Wow," said longtime presidential historian Stephen Hess. "Wow, that would be amazing, wouldn't it?"
"If this scenario ever happened, it would be like a scene from the movie 'Scream' for Democrats," said Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh. "The only thing worse for the Democrats than losing the White House, again, when it had the best chance to win in a generation, but to do so at the hands of Cheney and Lieberman. That would be cruel."
Sound impossible? It's not. There are at least a half-dozen plausible ways the election can end in a tie, and at least one very plausible possibility - giving each candidate the states in which they now lead in the polls, only New Hampshire - which went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, each time by just 1.5 percent - needs to swap to the Republican column to wind up with a 269-269 tie.
There are currently 10 tossup states, according to RealClearPolitics.com, which keeps a running average of all state polls. If Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain wins Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Indiana - not at all far-fetched - and Mr. Obama takes reliably Democratic states Pennsylvania and Michigan, and flips Colorado (in which he holds a slight poll lead), with the two splitting New Mexico and Nevada, the electoral vote would be tied at 269.
Absurd? Possibly, and there is not complete agreement among constitutional experts on whether a newly elected Congress or the currently sitting House and Senate would make the decision.
So try this scenario: The newly elected House, seated in January, is unable to muster a majority to choose a president after a 269-269 tie, but the Senate, which is expected to be controlled by Democrats, picks Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. from the Democratic ticket. If the House is still deadlocked at noon on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mr. Biden becomes acting president.
Or try this one on for size: Neither the House nor the Senate fulfills its constitutional duty to select the president and the vice president by Jan. 20, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, becomes acting president until the whole mess is sorted out.
"That would cause all kinds of lawsuits: We would have 50 Floridas, and we might not know who the president is for two years," said Judith Best, a political science and Electoral College specialist at the State University of New York in Cortland.
...
"The probability of a tie in 2008 is about 1.5 percent, which is slightly higher than we calculated at about the same time back in 2004," said Mr. Sracic, who enlisted the help of the university's math department to come up with a possible 1,024 combinations with the current 10 states now considered tossups.
"What really strikes you is how easy it would be for a tie to occur. Take the 2004 map and switch Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado into the Blue column, which is what the poll numbers indicate. Then, take New Hampshire and give it to McCain, which is what two recent polls suggest is going to happen. There is your tie."
If that doesn't make your head spin, nothing will! Check out the full article for any number of ways that this tie could happen. Even if a split White House happens, it will ultimately be better for the Democrats, of course, because Obama would be the one making the appointments and policy decisions. It's hard to imagine what -- if anything -- Palin would be able to do in an Obama administration, but it would certainly make for an historic term.
Personally, I don't buy the fact that we're quite as 'dead even' as the polls say right now. I think that the MSM is pushing so hard for Obama that they're willingly skewing polls to show him as better off than he really is (I'm looking for something I heard recently about how a Gallup poll was weighted in a very suspicious manner, and will post that if/when I find it). Add that to the known Bradley Effect, and I think that McCain probably has a significant lead at the moment. Another factor in my opinion is that the Left is already setting things up so that the only possible reason that Obama could lose is if the American voters are racist. While I understand them trying to backstop their candidate, it also shows that they feel the need to fall back to an unassailable position to justify their loss. I think most people will see the assertion as threatening and insulting, and will ultimately reject it. If the election were to be held today, I think McCain would win by several points.
Just a gut feeling, and a whole lot can change in the next five weeks, but as long as we're hypothesizing, I thought I'd throw it out there for you to think about.
There's my two cents.
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