The election is over

Sorry Joe, but the election is over. Theoretically, the economy is a strong predictor of who wins -- if it's doing well the incumbent party does well. If it blows, like this one that just plummeted another 700 points (so net loss of roughly 2200 points in a few weeks), then the out party does well. Additionally, given the low approval of Dubya, most likely the policy mood in America is leaning liberal because of dissatisfaction with the current conservative reign. For further proof, this is just the error correction mechanism in response to the 2002 elections (Erikson et al 2002). And how do you make manifest that liberal mood? Voting Democrat in this two-party system we're resigned to by Duverge's Law.*

So in a typical cycle, the economy would dominate as the most salient issue. There'd be some random secondary issue that would help split the vote a bit better, but right now it's not. The economy is, as always, the most salient issue and right now the ONLY salient issue for the mass public. Because of the stupidity of the American voter, they believe that the President is responsible for the economy's status. I don't care who you say really is, the public doesn't get it. They think the President is in charge and they vote along party-lines based on that. And that's why Obama will win. There is so much data on this that you can't deny it.

Plus, we can also go into momentum theory. Look at the fact that NORTH DAKOTA is now not a solid red state. This is going to be a landslide unless Osama bin Laden comes out within the next 72 hours with his head on a stick. It's all about bandwagonning and cascades. Forget about the Bradley Effect, the margin is entirely too large if it's really at 14.

Sigh, if only people listened to political scientists... Or if only I had wagered money on Intrade in February.

By the way, I LOVE that this election disproves the political-business cycle!

*For full disclosure, the economy and mood theories are the big ideas from one of my advisors, and I had to reread the book cited last night for my MA proposal draft. So this idea has been dominating my thinking for the past 24 hours. Hopefully I didn't fuck up Macropolitics too much in this cursory description of it.