2008: McCain vs Obama, with no stockmarket crash

[Landslide Lyndon]

Joke thread.

[Bo]

Obama/Clinton-311 EV
McCain/Palin-227 EV

Without the financial crisis, Obama drops Biden for Hillary since he is afraid he might lose.

lol no

Do people take this Rochembeau creature seriously?

This is an unfair personal atatck. Anyway, there was some speculation that Obama might have done this in 2008 if he did not establish a solid lead in the polls (which he did after he fianncial crisis). If there would have been no financial crisis, the race might have remained very close (unless Palin would have still made some gaffes, which would have been a different matter). Consider how badly Obama wanted to win and that there would have been very little or no downside in switching Biden for Hillary, I could see Obama doing this if and only if the race between him and McCain would have remained close (or if he would have been trailing McCain in the polls). Since the financial crisis created a solid lead for Obama, he didn't have to do this in RL and thus, he didn't switch VPs.

No downside? what about the attacks that would come against him for "doing anything to win"? It would never, ever happen.

Many people (including Hillary supporters) would have viewed it as a clearly politically motivated move, but I don't think they would have voted against Hillary if she was on the ticket (even if they were planning on voting for McCain before). Thus, I think that if there would have been no financial crisis and McCain would have still been leading in the polls in early-mid October, doing this might have been a net plus for Obama.

[Psychic Octopus]

Obama/Clinton-311 EV
McCain/Palin-227 EV

Without the financial crisis, Obama drops Biden for Hillary since he is afraid he might lose.

lol no

Do people take this Rochembeau creature seriously?

This is an unfair personal atatck. Anyway, there was some speculation that Obama might have done this in 2008 if he did not establish a solid lead in the polls (which he did after he fianncial crisis). If there would have been no financial crisis, the race might have remained very close (unless Palin would have still made some gaffes, which would have been a different matter). Consider how badly Obama wanted to win and that there would have been very little or no downside in switching Biden for Hillary, I could see Obama doing this if and only if the race between him and McCain would have remained close (or if he would have been trailing McCain in the polls). Since the financial crisis created a solid lead for Obama, he didn't have to do this in RL and thus, he didn't switch VPs.

No downside? what about the attacks that would come against him for "doing anything to win"? It would never, ever happen.

Many people (including Hillary supporters) would have viewed it as a clearly politically motivated move, but I don't think they would have voted against Hillary if she was on the ticket (even if they were planning on voting for McCain before). Thus, I think that if there would have been no financial crisis and McCain would have still been leading in the polls in early-mid October, doing this might have been a net plus for Obama.

It still is incredibly unlikely.

[The Mikado]

McCain had already started coming off his highs by that point, and the Palin mess would've hurt crash or no crash.  However, Obama's margin would've been much narrower.  I'm thinking Kerry states plus NM, CO, IA, and VA, with a decent but not guaranteed shot at NV and OH.  In other words, McCain wouldn't have lost IN, NC, or FL.

[Psychic Octopus]

McCain had already started coming off his highs by that point, and the Palin mess would've hurt crash or no crash.  However, Obama's margin would've been much narrower.  I'm thinking Kerry states plus NM, CO, IA, and VA, with a decent but not guaranteed shot at NV and OH.  In other words, McCain wouldn't have lost IN, NC, or FL.

I don't see Virginia happening, and I think McCain would have narrowly won there had the stock market not crashed. I'm going to go with this:

Obama: 278
McCain: 260

[Derek]

Virginia and Colorado both looked blue even before the financial meltdown. Those may very well have gone to Obama by very close margins. If not both, at least one of them.