About the Author:  Coyote is a salty dog. Fed up with the media's shoddy reporting on this election. Owner of the Coyote Blue Jay blog. Read more from this author

Stumbled across this random blog post today as it had an attractive title: Relax, Democrats. Obama Will Win. Oh, really? Hmmmm……this is interesting, and contrary to current wisdom…So I click on it to find out why. Wait til you hear.

First we are told to forget the national polls. The swing states are all that matters. So if the nationals are getting you down, focus on the state polls to feel better. We will let that advice pass without comment.

Next we are told that state polls will also be off. Which is why if you are looking at them to feel better, and they don’t make you feel that way, not to worry, they aren’t accurate either. Why are state polls off? Why, because of the young cell phone voters that aren’t being phoned.

Our cheerleader tells us, “Add this to the unprecedented 50-state voter registration drive being carried out by the Democrats, and we will see some unexpected results on November 2nd compared to previous polling.” Everytime I read this, I can’t help but think of chickens and eggs and hatching. Yes, it looks impressive when you have registered X amount of people to vote. But it always turns out that a percentage of those registrations are screwed up, and become invalid, sometimes for nefarious reasons but mostly for stupid ones. And then you have another percentage that just won’t bother to vote, no matter how many follow-ups you do with them. They just tell you what you want to hear to get you to leave them alone. So by the time polling day comes around, the amount of those new voters who actually show up, and statistically, the young ones tend not to, are much smaller than the amount registered. Any political organizer who is relying on those voter registration numbers as close to the actual number of votes they will get is delusional. The real trick is figuring out which of those new voters will be the ones that you will actually get to the poll, and work on them. And even that whittles down the percentage of actual voters down further, as you will not always pick the right voters to focus on. Thems the brakes. So to be attempting to reassure your base with increased voter registration numbers is not actually a strong place to be reassuring from.

Next, our cheerleader moves onto community organizing: “What’s the difference between a small-town mayor and a community organizer? The community organizer knows how to get out the vote in urban areas across the nation with a vengeance.” And who, pray tell oh wise one, is that community organizer getting the vote out for? Why, might it be in some cases, the mayor? Ya think an elected mayor might have equal if not better experience in terms of running a campaign than a community organizer who participated in the campaign to get them elected? Hmmm?

The rest of that paragraph can go without comment but is worth sharing:

America’s favorite community organizer in particular will bring out a record number of Democrats, and specifically minorities and young people without land lines, on election day. Much of this will be the courtesy of the most powerful political tools ever created on the World Wide Web, which Obama gets and McCain still does not. At this time it is impossible to accurately quantify this effect. Of course, the Republicans will be working very hard to recruit new voters as well, but this effort will fall far short. There is simply less energy on their side this year.

Bwhahahaha!

On his next point, I agree with the general sentiment but do think he got the detail wrong:

Sense of Urgency. As the election gets closer, if the polls remain neck and neck, we will see one presidential candidate get flustered, angry, and desperate. The other one will remain cool. Could it possibly be because one of them is 47 and will have at least four more opportunities to run for president, while the other is getting his very last shot at age 72?

I do believe we are seeing that sense of urgency, yes. And age and wisdom just may well be playing a part in who is able to keep their cool and who is not.

Next our man plays the race card. He basically says we have moved on from race being an issue, except for all those old white guys in the Republican party who are a minority voting for McCain and all those blacks that will be voting Obama.

All bad news, he claims, is all Bush’s fault so therefore will make Obama look better. And then he says Sarah Palin is just another Dick Cheney, so, like, you know, people will see through her pretty soon, too. And, like, if they don’t, well, like, the debates are coming up, you know. And that is their ace in the hole:

Before our eyes, Obama has grown up from a bumbling lightweight in early 2007 who could not separate himself from talk of identity politics, to America’s most effective speaker, debater, and politician over the last 18 months. His raw intelligence will ooze. McCain meanwhile hasn’t really changed: he is still the same crabby, uninformed man who is trying to change his platform to “change” at the last minute, ditching “experience.” He is trying to play the game on Obama’s chessboard. However, to do so, one must actually have policies of change in mind, without alienating the right wing who still adores the Bush wing of the party. The Sarah gambit was supposed to help, but she must face Joe Biden. I like grandpa Joe’s chances in this one.

Well, I don’t know about you Democrats, but I certainly feel better. If this is the sort of ground-level thinking going on in the fringes of the Obama campaign, they are fucked. If it is the thinking of Obama’s base because that is the message being filtered down, they are really fucked. Perhaps I am being unfair. I probably am being very unfair. This was just some random young dude on the internet and not reflective at all of the thinking going on with Obama supporters and their campaign leaders. Right? Bad Coyote, bad.