In a similar vein to Killgore I’m going to at least say there’s 50 percent chance that Obama will win the election. One of the most important contributing factors is this. There’s close to a 100 percent chance that Republicans will vote for the Republican regardless of who is chosen in the end. Then you get the independents and then the Democrats. It’s tough to gauge which way the independents will go. It could be 50/50 or it could be 33/67 in either direct with variation at or above or below.

Which leads me to my main point. The Democrats and the left. The problem here is the current stream of anti-Obama sentiment from the left regarding the signing of NDAA, and other neo-libertarian concerns. There’s a strong anti-Obama sentiment occurring now with the left. The rhetoric has finally attained the same base level as it was with Bush. While I may have joked about this here recently with the Bush-Obama parodies it is in fact true. It was there last year and it has grown rather substantially.

I think that sector is by and large lost. The key to an Obama victory are the indepents. While the far-left represents a significant portion of a potential vote the independent base is much larger. And at the same time indpendent voters tend to be more reliable. But, the number are more important. Obama has to work to gain the independent vote. So counter to the message from the far-left Obama will swing further to the center, or some would say towards the right. Keeping in mind that far left already sees Obama as “just another Bush.”