Well, here comes the prognostication... ...one of the worse aspects of american political coverage/conversation/journalism, etc, is our temptation and tencency to fret more about who will win the election than over who should win the election. Maybe other countries have similar problems.

That said, let's clear out a little space to irresponsibly fret over who's gonna win this thing:

Who do you think will win the 2008 election -- John McCain or Barack Obama?

What kind of victory -- Landslide? Close call? Electoral college madness?

What states do you think will turn from one party to the next this year?

Obama over McCain in a very close election. Not much to say about the states in particular. Maybe a few of the solidly Republican southern states might go Democratic, given the lukewarm support for McCain among the Religious Right.

Who do you think will win the 2008 election -- John McCain or Barack Obama?

Obama.

He has actually energized some of the usually republican voters to vote for him. Every day I am amazed to hear guys I think of as hard core republicans say "I am voting for Obama"

What kind of victory -- Landslide? Close call? Electoral college madness?

Barring MAJOR mistakes or stumbles on Obama's part- or even McCain's part- I believe a landslide for Obama still.

What states do you think will turn from one party to the next this year?

I can only speak for my state- possibly one of the strongest republican, though libertarian republican, and I am betting it will go Obama.

The dissatisfaction is that deep with 27 years of failed republican policies.

And the corruption- whew- makes us wish we had back ol' Dan Rostenkowski.

I had wished that the republican party would do what it normally does best- reinvent itself, hopefully, sometimes, it makes itself better- this time, no deal. In Alaska- we have a AA++ governer- who IS conservative, who IS ethical, who IS smaller goverment.

And she is pragmatic and not all insane ideology like the national republican leaders. And, she is not afraid to call her fellow republicans to the carpet when they are screwing up.

Too bad the republicans couldn't find a candidate with those qualities.

Who do you think will win the 2008 election -- John McCain or Barack Obama?

What kind of victory -- Landslide? Close call? Electoral college madness?

What states do you think will turn from one party to the next this year?

It's going to be a pretty close contest I think, but in end, McCain can win if he runs a really smart campaign. As far as states go, I think they will all pretty much break the way they have in the past with one MAJOR exception, and I do mean MAJOR - California. I think John McCain can win in California, particularly if he can tap into the Arnold vote. If he can pull that off, the election is over. Republicans can win national elections without winning California, Democrats can't.


Aquilla

I wonder about California, too... we'll see.

However, I think if the election were held tomorrow, Obama would win on turnout. His get out the vote effort has been enormously successful. He got more votes in South Carolina than every republican combined. Voter enthusiasm for Obama is, right now, miles higher than it is for McCain. His goal for the next 8 months i to snuff Obama flame, to kill his enthusiasm.

Maybe its just a function of the dem primary ending after the GOP primary, but Obama won the independent vote in just about every contest since NH. That is, independents in places with open primaries voted for Obama in greater numbers than McCain.

Also, news to be worried about for McCain supporters: McCain beat Obama 3:1 in Wisconsin... among Republicans. Geesh.

So, I don't know where this election heads. I can imagine a race where McCain is a bit of a tortoise, plodding along safely while Obama's hare pulls a hamstring up ahead. It's going to be hard for Obama to attack McCain... it may also be hard for McCain to attack Obama, we'll see. But, if Obama goes into November nearly as likable, trusted, portentous a candidate as he is right now, then I think McCain will be toast.

Sometimes, I wish these contests were 6 weeks long. This is going to be an exhausting campaign. I know I should turn my head for a few months, check back in after the convention, but I can't.

IF the match-up is between McCain and Obama, Barack Obama will win.

Obama's victory will be substantial, but not necessarily a blowout.

I have no idea which states will flip from red to blue or vice-versa.

I believe many of the same trouble signs for the Republicans in 2006 are still in play in 2008. The war drags on with no end in sight. McCain will make the case that things are getting better in Iraq, but the country is nowhere near to "standing up so we can stand down." The economy is still in the toilet. The incredibly unpopular George Bush (18 percent approval rating?) will be of no help to McCain on the campaign trail. Bush will be given the job of raising money and staying as far away from McCain as possible.

The party out of power has a far easier time mobilizing and energizing its base and with the turnout in the primaries and the advantage in fund-raising this year in both the presidential and Congressional races, the Democrats have significant advantages over the already depressed and fractured Republicans. Bush is poison even to his own party and other Republicans will be putting as much distance between themselves and him as possible. They won't be successful.

McCain's flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts (I was against them before I was for them) will not be overlooked, nor will his zealous support of the Iraq War. It won't be difficult to make the case that a vote for McCain is a vote for another four years of Bush policies.

McCain is going to hit Obama as being too young, too inexperienced and too unprepared. He will present himself as a guy hardened by battle and ready to defend the nation. Fine. If McCain wants to portray himself as the war hero, tie the Iraq war around his neck. If he wants to pick up where Bush left off with the War on Terror, tie McCain's sucking up to Bush over the last eight years around his neck.

"There's going to be other wars. ... I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars." --- John McCain

If the GOP wants to sell the American voters a candidate who promises them there will be more wars, go right ahead. The promise of still more preemptive, perpetual and permanent wars is not something people are very enthusiastic about. It didn't sell in 2006 and it won't sell any better in 2008.

Not even in California.

You know what, Nighttimer is right. Now that the primaries are just possibly over, the Iraq war is about to raise up from the muck and reassert itself as the dominant issue of the 2008 campaign. For McCain to win, he's going to have to win the war in time for November. Americans want the h out of there, and that's not an issue he's willing to move to the center on. Stubborn candidates lose elections.

What's more? Obama being somewhat 'unknown' is going to work for him, big time. We know what McCain is going to come after Obama on... national security, national security, tax cuts, national security, Obama=most liberal senator communist terrorist sympathizer Hussein.

Thing is, though, Obama is a thoughtful and crafty synthesizer of ideas, I've read his books, and I feel certain he has his philosophy of response planned out ever before McCain gets started. When he was watching Kerry from the sidelines at the 2004 convention, he was thinking about how he would respond in Kerry's shoes. He's ready for McCain, he's been mulling over how democrats should respond to a Rove-style attack, and I trust his thought process to lead us to a victory.

But, man, I'm not sure McCain is ready for Obama. I see nothing in the republican playbook to anticipate a guy like this. Attacking Kerry or Gore was all about insinuation... It's going to be very hard for McCain to insinuate anything about Obama without getting the kind of backlash that swept the clintons out of south carolina.

I agree. It's pretty foolish to speculate about who will or will not win the POTUS slot come November.

But hey, the news outlets do it all the time, so here we go . . .

Colorado will swing from purple to blue. There's too much fed land grabbing going on here, and people don't like it. Soon there will be exploratory rigs popping up near Monument just in time to irritate those locals, while the Western Slope has been hammered for a few years now. Alternative energy has become a focus in this state. Only one small city is benefiting from the Iraq project. Eastern ranchers are ticked about another kind of land grab for Fort Carson maneuvers. It all adds up.

Upper Midwest will swing all blue. It's the economy again.

Midwest will see more purple. It's a little slow around there, but the Iraq project has had an impact.

The Gulf Coast states will likely show some form of change. It does not bode well for redness. I think it will manifest as torpid voter turnouts.

Arizona? Right.

This one won't be as close as the last two. I don't think it'll be a landslide either, but there's potential for it.

One thing I would like to add- if the voter turnout trends remain the same, with dems turning out in droves and the right all demoralized ( as they should be, they should be hanging thier heads in shame over thier behaviors since 1994)- it will be the largest landslide, possibly historical in size.

Even my Pa, who is a veteran of 2 wars, that has voted in every election he has been eligible for- found a reason NOT to vote in the primaries.

I think he will find a reason to skip the general election as well, by his comments.

At least he is a little more savvy than my Ma, who believes everything she hears on right wing radio, and swears that Obama is a "communist muslim plant"- no foolin'.

1.) Obama.

2.) I believe it will be a close-call.

3.) I think Florida's going Republican. We're a little PO-ed at the DNC this election cycle. I think Ohio's going Democrat and Texas'll stay Republican. California can't go any way but Democrat. Pennsylvania will be interesting.

1) I think McCain can win.

2) I think McCain will win with significant electoral vote margin.

3) I still think the upper Mid W, the far West, and the Northeast--traditional Dem strongholds--will be the source of support for Obama. I think most whites, by the time November rolls around, are going to get cold feet for Obama. The Bradley effect will take over, coupled with a general fatigue with Obama's feels-good-but-no-substance message. (If this "longest campaign" were shorter, this would be to his advantage; you can only ride the emotional wave so long....)

There are 120 million white registered voters; there are 16 million black registered voters--and over 9 million Hispanics. This is based upon Census Bureau data for the 2004 elections. If this is approximately accurate, there will have to be lots of racial crossover, and the Bradley effect tends to run about 20%, according to Robert Novak.

The key will be determining how many whites are for Obama now, and then calculating the Bradley effect, and then extrapolating this by state to account for electoral votes.

I believe the first black president will be a moderate Republican. Colin Powell easily could have been it already, if his wife had not vehemently opposed his candidacy.

Of course it would be nice if there were any Black moderate Republicans in the pipeline.

There are no Black moderate Republican governors. No Black moderate Republican senators. No Black moderate Republican congressmen. No Black moderate Republican Cabinet members.

All n' all, trying to find a Black moderate Republican of presidential timber is like trying to find a teeth in a chicken's mouth.

I agree with NT. All my little life I've heard that prediction, that this first black president will be a moderate republican. And mathematically, it makes sense. If you could nominate a black guy moderate enough to draw away black support from the democratic party, voila, you have all the makings of a 52 percent electoral victory.

Still.

It doesn't hold up to scrutiny because the american political landscape is going to change faster than young black republicans are going to come up the pipeline. The conservative party can't continue to count of the support of lower middle class rural and suburban voters forever, one because an increasing number of lower middle class rural and suburban voters are hispanic, which drives a big wedge right through the base; two, because at some point, the big tent collapses from it's internal contradictions. Same thing happened to the democrats. Parties modify stances and shed constituencies in the process. Happens recurrently.

So my personal prognosis is that you're looking at a generation before any serious contender to the presidency is "feeling like a black republican," if only because Condeleeza Rice is not running. And for John McCain to give her the VP slot would be like John McCain pouring cement on his own toes and jumping off into the Potomac.

Unless, of course, an astroid hits.