By most election modeling, McCain has already lost.

[tmarket]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0138628820080801

McCain can thank GW Bush for another election loss, this time the one in Nov, 08.

It really is the economy, stupid! Economic models that have correctly predicted the winner of almost all post-war U.S. presidential elections say recession fears will secure a victory for Barack Obama in November.

Three separate studies showed the Democratic presidential hopeful winning between 52 and 55 percent of the popular vote on November 4, based on current gloomy economic estimates.
....

The third work (election modeling) is a "Bread and Peace" model devised by Douglas Hibbs, a retired economics professor from the University of Goteborg in Sweden, who remains a senior fellow at the Center for Public Sector Research there.

He finds that U.S. presidential elections are well-predicted by just two fundamental forces: the weighted average per capita growth of real disposable income and the number of U.S. military deaths in foreign combat.

"Average per capita real income growth probably will be only around 0.75 percent at Election Day. Moreover, cumulative U.S. military fatalities in Iraq will reach 4,300 or more," he said in a June update of his model.

"Given those fundamental conditions, the Bread and Peace model predicts a Republican two-party vote share centered on 48.2 percent."

 

[nutmeg]

McCain can thank GW Bush for another election loss, this time the one in Nov, 08.

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I love it. "Blame Bush"

No matter who wins, four more years of "Blame Bush".

 

[TraderZones]

Quote from tmarket:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0138628820080801

McCain can thank GW Bush for another election loss, this time the one in Nov, 08.

Funny; I thought the election was held in November...

1988 election

The Dukakis/Bentsen ticket lost the election in an electoral college landslide to George HW Bush. His 17-point lead in opinion polls completely disappeared...

George H. W. Bush/Dan Quayle (R) - 48,886,597 (53.4%) and 426 electoral votes (40 states carried)

Michael Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen (D) - 41,809,476 (45.6%) and 111 electoral votes (10 states and D.C. carried)

 

[tmarket]

Quote from TraderZones:

The Dukakis/Bentsen ticket lost the election in an electoral college landslide to George HW Bush. His 17-point lead in opinion polls completely disappeared...
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American voters vote their pocket book primarily and opinion poll a few months ahead of election generally means nothing. The 1988 election proves the point entirely. GHW Bush won the 1988 election because the economy was still in good shape by election date.

Perhaps the only way McCain can win the Nov 08 election, short of a major blunder by BO, is for the US personal income to jump to 2%+ by November coupled with a major drop in inflation/oil.

AS the 1988 election campaign draws to an end, the evidence is accumulating that the American economy is slowing down. This week the Commerce Department reported that the index of leading indicators dropped one-tenth of 1 percent in September, the third decline in five months. Real gross national product, the broadest measure of the economy's performance, slipped to an annual growth rate of only 2.2 percent in the third quarter from 3 percent in the second quarter and 3.4 percent in the year's first quarter. The business mood has grown cautious: A Dun & Bradstreet survey of plant managers reports expectations of slower production and orders in the fourth quarter.

Will the slowing economy have any effect on the Presidential election? It seems unlikely. The economic expansion that began in November 1982 -the longest peacetime expansion ever - is continuing, and that is probably the strongest factor working for George Bush's election.