The Sunshine Empire

I’ve had very little sleep this weekend, and from the college football, whiskey and birthday parties I need a weekend for my weekend. But no rest for the weary. Saturday I drove to Gainesville for the Florida vs. Kentucky, then had my sister’s birthday party today. We now move into outdoor cocktail party week here in Northern Florida with the Florida – Georgia game, which will have huge BSC ratings implications, and I’ll most likely drink a great deal this coming weekend. Then that Tuesday after that, Election night in America. Campaign 2008 is almost at an end.

With the election coming to a close soon, the polling is not making the tightening that I believed it would. The national polling is widening for Senator Obama, and the electoral math is looking worse. Right now, as Chuck Todd has said, McCain can’t win without Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Obama can win without Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. McCain discusses Harry Truman much more often on the stump, and that is the harbinger of a loss. This daunting situation has cause Republicans to start the backbiting and self loathing of a political civil war, and pundits have started to look for what went wrong and what ifs even though the election is not even over. But driving to Gainesville I had the thought about Joe Lieberman. It is a fact that Senator Lieberman was John McCain’s first choice for his Vice Presidential pick, and he was expressly refused by the GOP establishment. McCain’s fractious relationship with the right wing of the party would have collapsed if he had brought on a pro-abortion former Democrat onto the Republican ticket. Yet how much better or worse would McCain have been in the polls if he had chosen Joe instead of Governor Hotness?

I do believe that choosing Lieberman would have caused a collapse in his internal party support. These people would not have voted for Obama, but they would have simply refused to vote. Yet assuming that did not occur, you have to feel that Lieberman would have garnered more support from the independent swing voters than Sarah Palin has. By all polling Governor Palin did drive up political support from right wing Republicans and SNL’s ratings, but has totally alienated independent voters. This was supposed to be the group McCain could specialize in more so that the last guy. Too many people want to credit the stock market collapse and the credit crisis as what is the main reason for the huge surge in Obama’s numbers, but they fail to see other factors at work. As Palin’s numbers went through the floor, so did the ticket’s. The overwhelming money advantage that Barack Obama has over John McCain would have meant something even without Sarah Palin as well. Obama may still be in front if Joe Lieberman was the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, but by a much lower margin.

Under ten days until the election.