A theme that’s come up several times during Obama’s candidacy has been his appeal to young voters, and the numbers he is likely to draw in to the political process. Short-term the talk is about how this will affect the election, but the longer term implications are interesting too.

Anything that gets people involved in politics is a good thing, I think, even those things that might appear prejudiced or otherwise undesirable; challenging people’s ideas isn’t a guaranteed way of showing them that other valid ideas exist, but it’s one of the best ways. And if that involvement has been based on an inspirational figure like Obama (and whether he’s right or wrong, he’s certainly inspirational) then there’s the chance for the sort of life-long commitment that JFK inspired, and which to a lesser extent Reagan did too.

The problem I see is that Obama is a politician, and the single thing politicians do more than anything else is disappoint*. They make promises to get elected that they can’t keep. They might make these promises with the best of intentions (or not), but they’re offering things that even complete control of government won’t let them guarantee. Obama might very well have great and heartfelt intentions, but such is the adoration surrounding him that he’s likely to fail more roundly than average. Failing more because you aspire higher is nothing to be ashamed of, but when it provides the first experience many people will have of politics it has the potential to disappoint in a way that could take a generation to heal.

*This isn’t just a wild generalization – almost all politicians get voted out eventually, it’s the nature of their job

I’ve heard a number of right-leaning commentators talk about the various paths to victory McCain might have, usually including Florida or Ohio, plus perhaps Missouri, North Carolina and others. Here’s the interesting thing. If you check out this map based on recent polling you find that Obama has 264 electoral votes pretty much tied up. What that means is that McCain can win all 4 of the states I just mentioned (which seems unlikely, but possible) and others that look more likely to go to Obama. All Obama needs is 7 votes, which he can get from a single state like Colorada where he’s ‘only’ leading the polls by 7%.

Polls can be wrong, so wrong in fact that it’s better to talk about how wrong rather than whether they are or not. And electoral-vote doesn’t get round that by aggregating many polls (they were wrong until the day before the election in 2004, for example). But listening to pundits can make you think that McCain can win if he plays his cards well; in fact it appears that he can win, but he’ll have to play all of his cards brilliantly.

(For reference, I used electoral-vote because its breakdown of states between parties is easy to grasp visually. Perhaps the best forecasting site is FiveThirtyEight, run by a guy who knows numbers).

Interesting article from Scott Ritter on the choice of candidates for November.

the sad reality is one of two deeply flawed men, the byproduct of a deeply flawed political system, will serve as president for the next four or eight years

Many on the right will point out examples of hateful behaviour on the left. This isn’t hard to do; there are a great many moronic, disgraceful people on the left who I happily (or unhappily, depending how you look at it) reject. What doesn’t receive so much attention is that the same sort of people exist on the right as well. That’s because being a moronic disgrace is a characteristic of people, not of the left or right.

One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

(AmericaBlog).