If Obama wins the election (and I estimate about a 60% chance that he will), he’ll take office with larger Democratic congressional majorities than Bill Clinton had during his first two years in office. After the 1992 election, the Democrats had a 260-175 margin in the House and 57-43 in the Senate. If current estimates are correct, the Democrats will have about a 270-165 margin in the House and possibly 58-61 votes in the Senate. To paraphrase Bob Dole on the night of Clinton’s election, “The Democrats will have the whole enchalada now.”

Politically, that will be a good thing for Republicans. Ever since that ill-conceived fly-over of New Orleans and the sloppy and slow response to Katrina, it’s been one PR disaster after another for the GOP. Think about the chronology:

• Botched response to Hurricane Katrina

• Harriet Miers nomination

• Dubai Ports World fiasco

• Jack Abhramof related scandals

• Slow response to escalating violence in Iraq in 2006

• Soaring Gas Prices

• Mark Foley

• US Attorney firings

• Falling home values

• Larry Craig

• Financial Crisis

Rightly or wrongly, the Republican party has been defined in the eyes many Americans by those issues. To that end, the word Republican has become almost anathma to many. It seems that about 60% of the American people tuned President Bush out forever in late 2005. Even Republican successes during this period (most notably the surge) were essentially ignored.

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Last evening, I wrote about the fact that I expect to see a surge towards McCain based on the history of similar campaigns. Tonight, I’d like to discuss whether or not polls might be overstating Obama’s support…

We’ve all heard the stories in recent days and weeks about the Bradley effect (which essentially means that white voters are racists and might not vote for a black guy) and the possibility that Republicans are being undercounted in polls. It’s also true that polling is harder than it used to be. There are more people with no land line phones and more people who are likely to vote for the first time in this election.

I think that there might be another issue that is skewing poll results in Obama’s favor as well — especially in states like Pennsylvania. That issue is political correctness. It is assumed when people lie to a pollster about their choice by declaring support for Obama while secretly intending to vote for McCain, that it’s based on race.

Well, I do believe that there are people out there who are lying to pollsters but not because of race. They’re lying to anonymous pollsters about their candidate of choice because it’s habit. They have to lie to people they know about their candidate of choice. If a liberal declares support for Obama among a group of conservatives, the conservatives will probably just ignore that person. However, if a conservative declares support for McCain among a group of liberals, then the liberals will usually accost that person… The level of the liberal outburst would vary, of course, from good natured ribbing among friends to screaming and fighting.

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I think most conservatives and Republicans are bracing for defeat in two weeks. They’ve seen the polls and they’ve resigned themselves to an Obama Administration. Others are putting on a false bravado and hoping for a miracle. I don’t think it will take a miracle. I still think McCain has a really good chance.

The best predictor of the future is similar events of the past. In this election, we have Republican McCain who is a member of the Presidential party and has, by and large, been a supporter of the President on most issues. In addition, he’s been involved in almost every issue for the past 10 years and I doubt if there’s been a single week in this decade when he hasn’t been in the news. He’s a known commodity and, in this race, he’s at least a quasi-incumbent. He’s up against a lesser known, somewhat mysterious but charismatic challenger and, two weeks out, it looks as if it’s all over but the voting. Well, hold on!!! We’ve had situations like this before and here they are…

In 1960, JFK led Republican incumbent VP Nixon by about 16 points with 2 weeks to go before the voting. Nixon ended up losing the popular vote by about 0.15%. He lost Illinois by 4,000 votes (after Chicago precincts were turned in 2 hours late). The Chicago ballots were destroyed two days later — so much for a possible recount. There was also mischief in Minnesota, Texas and even Hawaii. Nixon lost the electoral vote 303-219 and graciously conceded but he very nearly won.

In 1976, Republican incumbent Pres Gerald Ford trailed Jimmy Carter by about 9 points with 2 weeks to go. Ford ended up losing the popular by 2.0% and the electoral college 297-241. However, he lost Ohio by 11,000 votes and Missouri by 9,000. All in, a shift of 10,000 votes in those two states would have swung the election to him. Ford also graciously conceded the morning after the election as well.

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