I've received emails critical of me for the way I've been evaluating all the polls and where we might be heading on election day in the race for the White House. I guess I chalk it up to Lessons Learned.
Again, I will go back to this year in New Hampshire. Obama was supposed to win big over Hillary Clinton in early January. He was going to knock her out of the race. The only question was "how much" would he win by.
Instead, Hillary spun an upset.
In the days leading up to the New Hampshire Primary, Obama led in every single poll. And he didn't lead by just a few points - the average was an over 8 point advantage. He lost by 2.
Is the same thing going to happen on Tuesday? The odds are against it, but you cannot simply ignore what happened earlier this year and blindly accept that the polls are right 10 months later.
Let's go back four years ago. At this time, John Kerry was ahead in some polls. He didn't win. (And I haven't even gotten to the exit polls as yet.)
Another of my Lessons Learned comes from 1989, and the election for Governor in the state of Virginia, which I watched from Washington, D.C.
Democrat Doug Wilder, the Lieutenant Governor, was leading by 9 points in the polls before that election. He was cruising his way to a historic victory that would make him the first African American Governor of Virginia.
Something happened on the way to the polls. Instead of winning easily, Wilder won by less than a percentage point.
I filed that away in my mental rolodex and it still makes me wonder about this election. I know that people say there is no "Bradley" effect anymore, and they may well be right.
But I'm still cautious about how much racial attitudes could hurt Obama's candidacy in any number of states.
This is the first time a black candidate has ever run nationally. Just as there would be people who would not vote for a woman at the top of the ticket, one must assume the same thing could happen with Obama.
Even if it's just a drop of one or two percent, that could be a big deal in a hotly contested battleground state.
No one really knows how race will affect the outcome. In the "perfect" America, it wouldn't matter obviously.
On the other hand, many factors are working in the favor of Democrats, and those cannot be ignored either.
You have an unpopular President weighing down the GOP candidate and a playing field that is clearly tilted in favor of the Democrats.
The Democrats have registered more new voters since 2004. Barack Obama's field organization is clearly better than John McCain's. Voters backing Obama are much more energized, and that is reflected in the polls.
We could be on the verge of a blowout for Obama and the Democrats.
I do think Democrats will gain a chunk of seats in both the House and Senate.
Now we can wait and see what happens in the race for the White House!
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