See video and story at OpinionTimes.com

Crossposted at OpinionTimes.com

Yes, I have weeded through as many polls as I can, studied carefully all the various situations in each state, and I have come to the conclusion that we just don’t know what will happen today.

Clearly Barack Obama is the odds on favorite to become President on January 20, 2009. But there are trends out there which suggest that John McCain has some momentum coming into today. Here are some factors to consider as you watch the results come in tonight:

1. Early Voting is becoming a more important factor in elections than ever. What was the mind of voters in the last month as they submitted their ballots? Did Obama’s strong lead during that time give him the edge? Did young voters vote in greater numbers? What was the ACORN effect if any?

2. Will Pennsylvania materialize for McCain? If so, he still may not win the election.

3. If Obama wins Florida or Ohio, the election is over. I don’t see any way for McCain to pull out a victory without these two states.

4. But there is no guarantee McCain wins if he grabs Florida and Ohio. Virginia will likely fall into Obama’s hands. Then Pennsylvania becomes crucial for a McCain victory if he can pull out a surprise win in Colorado.

5. Polls in Minnesota, which does not have substantial early voting, began to tighten this last week. McCain may have a chance there. If McCain wins a stunning upset in independent minded Minnesota, he will likely win the Presidency.

6. Republican turnout will be better than expected. There is something happening which is organic in the conservative grassroots for which the media never accounts. And McCain’s campaign came so late into the grassroots game, their organization is merely riding the wave that the Sarah Palin nomination whipped up. This will bring Ohio and Florida into McCain’s grasp. Will it also bring states like Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia into play?

So, without further ado, here is my electoral map projecting Barack Obama grabs 291 electoral votes on his way to the White House. McCain gathers a respectable 247. But I am crossing my fingers for good things from Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia.

Check out the map at OpinionTimes.com

That’s the upshot of tonight’s first presidential debate in Oxford, MS. The debate cannot be judged, though, without taking note of the drama behind whether it was going to take place to begin with.

McCain took a gamble this week and suspended his campaign so he could fly back to Washington and broker a deal on Hank Paulson’s bailout plan. Obama throws a grenade on the table by ineptly calling Republican doubts about the plan a product of their misunderstanding the “need for the rush.” McCain takes the wise course–he listens. Some tempers flare when the Republican congressional delegation in the room express doubts about the plan. President Bush attempts to bring it back in line then Barney Frank starts screaming, the meeting adjourns. Obama failed. Democrats walked out in disgust over Republican concerns.

McCain then agrees from a weak position (Obama has gained in the polls since McCain stepped off the trail) to attend the debate anyway. One felt going into it that McCain needed to address his reasoning for his decision and back it up at the debate. He didn’t do that.

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That’s the upshot of tonight’s first presidential debate in Oxford, MS. The debate cannot be judged, though, without taking note of the drama behind whether it was going to take place to begin with.

McCain took a gamble this week and suspended his campaign so he could fly back to Washington and broker a deal on Hank Paulson’s bailout plan. Obama throws a grenade on the table by ineptly calling Republican doubts about the plan a product of their misunderstanding the “need for the rush.” McCain takes the wise course–he listens. Some tempers flare when the Republican congressional delegation in the room express doubts about the plan. President Bush attempts to bring it back in line then Barney Frank starts screaming, the meeting adjourns. Obama failed. Democrats walked out in disgust over Republican concerns.

McCain then agrees from a weak position (Obama has gained in the polls since McCain stepped off the trail) to attend the debate anyway. One felt going into it that McCain needed to address his reasoning for his decision and back it up at the debate. He didn’t do that.

Read More →

Crossposted at www.opiniontimes.com:

Harry Reid is attempting to sneak in a renewal of the ban on offshore drilling into spending legislation sources tell Opinion Times. Reid is offering an “economic stimulus” amendment to the Homeland Security section of the bill which would extend the decades old offshore drilling ban.

The continuing resolution which came to the Senate from the House yesterday had all oil exploration provisions removed by a vote of 370-58. It was a major victory for proponents of expanding energy exploration. the nearly 1 trillion barrels of oil available through oil shale reserves in the mountain states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah was also lifted.

Reid’s motivation is unclear, but it brings to mind Mitch McConnell’s question put to Colorado Senator Ken Salazar “at what price for gasoline would you open up energy exploration?” See below.

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Crossposted at OpinionTimes.com

The recently converted McCain supporters (once disaffected members of the Republican base) should be excited about the current McCain bump. But it will be all for naught if the McCain campaign doesn’t focus that energy on a strong effort to get like-minded voters to the polls. Just kiss it all goodbye without a grassroots effort which eclipses 2004. And Karl Rove (love him or hate him) isn’t running that show this time. Rick Davis is. He’s doing an excellent job with media response and has made some great decisions at the convention and with how to message the pick of Palin for VP. But his candidate is out there talking about setting up a commission to study the recent crisis among Wall Street firms as well as regulation of financial institutions. But he should be troubled that the ground game is only now forming with just a few weeks to go, and the McCain is once again drawing upon ideas which serve only to depress the base.

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Crossposted at OpinionTimes.com

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar spoke to an energy forum of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States. He called for a “balanced national energy policy” and dismissed claims he is against drilling and exploration in the United States. He told his critics to just turn it “down a couple decibels.”

He pointed to the fact that when he became Colorado’s natural resources director in 1990, there were 11,000 energy jobs in the state. He claims we have been successful in building the energy industry in Colorado because now there are 36,000 such jobs.

The response from oil and gas companies: “I think the industry feels he could be more helpful,” said Doug Hock, spokesman for EnCana Oil & Gas (USA).

But here are the facts:

1. Ken Salazar with Congressman Mark Udall and Governor Bill Ritter worked to block leasing for natural gas exploration on the Roan Plateau.
2. Ken Salazar has been persistently working to block development of Colorado’s vast oil shale reserves. He sponsored a bill that attempted to block the release of final regulations on oil shale development. There are an estimated 800 billion barrels of oil locked in the ground here in Colorado.
3. In July, Salazar wrote a Washington Post editorial called The Heedless rush to Oil Shale in which he argued that we should put off oil shale development because the energy companies developing methods to extract this oil are “still years away from knowing whether this technology can cost-effectively produce oil on a commercial scale.” What he didn’t note is that the reason they are so far away is because Senator Salazar, Congressman Mark Udall and others have been blocking regulations which would free up oil companies to do more research.

It is disingenuous for Senator Salazar to claim his is for drilling when he is against it. A recent YouTube video makes it very clear that his true agenda is to block all energy development under any circumstances.

Crossposted at OpinionTimes.com

It was surprising that Charles Krauthammer on FoxNews felt Obama looked relaxed and confident. That wasn’t the case at all. Obama looked tight and worked harder to avoid mistakes than to give confident answers. His choices of heroes were nice sounding and “safe” but lacked thoughtfulness. He remains canned and vapid in his responses even in this relaxed forum. His most poor response was to choose Darfur and the streets of America as the prime examples of evil in the world. Evil? Yes. But are these the most critical problems of evil in the world?

McCain seemed very comfortable and relaxed. His response to the question of his three heroes was pretty good. His choice of Petraeus was marvelous. John Lewis was a good choice. We should honor Lewis for his personal sacrifice on behalf of civil rights though he is a horrible liberal. And the CEO of Ebay was good but kind of gives one the response of “Eh! Ok.” He showed confidence on the most difficult questions. And he was clear and decisive on his responses to questions of national security and international conflict. And McCain in answering the question of what should be done about evil in the world said that he would go “to the Gates of Hell” to track down Bin Laden. This was a stark and favorable contrast to Obama on the same issue.

Rick Warren was pleasantly surprising. He did grapple with the abortion issue, and I was personally pleased that he mentioned the horror of 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. And he took on the marriage issue. I don’t know that we should have expected Warren to go hard at either candidate. And the questions asked smoked out the real positions of the candidates.

Overall, this was an excellent forum and proves why Obama doesn’t want to do Town Hall events with McCain. This is McCain’s forum of choice because he does it very well. And the fact that McCain can comfortably work within this framework will continue to emphasize his readiness for leadership as opposed to Obama’s novice understanding of the issues.

George Bush was convinced (apparently by West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall) not to call Congress back into session to write an energy bill. This is a strange twist on the effect of the “Lame Duck” presidency. Congress, it is true, will tend to ignore the policy priorities of an outgoing President when it has other priorities of its own, but shouldn’t the freedom from personal political consequence inspire principled action by that same President when no political price is to be paid by him at the polls?

That George Bush will not call Democrats to account for skipping town instead of coming up with an energy bill wreaks of “propriety” and “fair play” unduly given to congressional leadership which is guided by improper and self-aggrandizing political motives.

Read my lips, “No new energy policy for America.”