LCG Election Monitor Blog

Any day now, I expect ESPN and the Food Network to each have its own 2008 Electoral Vote Map.  Why not?  Everyone else does.  No fewer than half a dozen websites devoted to analyzing the 2008 EV map have cropped up in the last 60 days.  Almost every media organization, political website and pundit has their own map.  The truth is they are all just educated guesses. 

Two reasons: first, there is not enough McCain-Obama trend data in key states to be truly predictive and second, there has not been enough time for voters to grapple with the dynamic of a McCain-Obama race. 

These two limitations notwithstanding, we too will launch our own “best-guess” EV map next week. 

Today marks the first day of the first full week of the general election campaign.  By the middle of the week we should start seeing some new national polling data.  As we said more than a month ago, we suspect that Obama will take a 10-15 point lead over McCain by late June.  The pendulum will swing back, but how far?

Interestingly, McCain is the first candidate to air a general election commercial.  This spot is running in swing states and the campaign has reportedly put $3 million behind the buy.

Our take on the spot is as follows:

1. This is a solid bio spot that highlights who McCain is and what he stands for in a pretty concise fashion.
2. The ad puts the focus on national security…presumably a McCain strength.  The less this election is about domestic issues the better it is for McCain.
3. As the Clinton campaign proved, however, this election will NOT be won by the candidate with the better resume.  Yes, messages like this will sway some voters to go with McCain because it paints him as the “safer” choice, but it is our belief that the majority of swing voters will need a better reason than that. 

Tags: 2008 General Election, Campaign Spots, Hillary Clinton, John McCain //