Discussing the General Election map

Map courtesy of Electoral-vote.com…

A great post from Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic that we’re about to cuss and discuss over beers in the PoliSci House this afternoon:

Here’s the first Atlantic Election Map of the cycle based on interviews, reportage, polling and guesswork. In this map, I’ve pushed as many as tossups as I can possibly justify: Virginia, and Nevada to McCain, and Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire to Obama; these five states, with their 56 electoral votes, are tossups masquerading as leaners, so for all intents and purposes, our map has eleven states and 128 electoral votes up for grabs. As polling and information warrant, watch for these states to move out of the lean column and into the tossup column.

McCain’s base states + his leaners: 245 electoral votes.
Obama’s base states + his leaners: 221 electoral votes.

McCain’s base states — 175 electoral votes.

Texas (34), West Virginia (5), Georgia (15), South Carolina (8), Kentucky (8), Tennessee (11), Alabama (9), Mississippi (6), Louisiana (9), Arkansas (6), Wyoming (3), Idaho (4), Utah (5), Arizona (10), Alaska (3), Oklahoma (7), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), South Dakota (3), North Dakota (3), North Carolina (15)

Tilt McCain states — 70 electoral votes.

Indiana (11) — competitive House and GOV races; Obama’s college force multiplier; state borders IL
Virginia (13) — polling shows McCain with lead; McCain will over performing in Tidewater; Obama will overperform in NoVA. Probably will be tossup by the summer as Mark Warner’s popularity will stoke Dem enthusiasm.
Missouri (11) — lack of McCain enthusiasm in rural (Huckabee) areas; state borders IL; Obama overperformed among suburban whites and inner city African Americans in primary.
Montana (3) — Schweitzer’s army and state legislature trending Democratic; probably safe McCain by November.
Florida (27) — McCain’s very popular in South Florida and North Florida; whether Florida is competitive depends a lot on his appeal to Latinos and his overperforming with Jewish voters
Nevada (5) — Unusual for Latino voters to be up for grabs, although state has more Dem energy than GOP energy (and plenty of infighting on both sides.)

Tossups: Pennsylvania (21), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (7), Ohio (20), New Mexico (5), Colorado (9) — 72 electoral votes.

Obama’s base states — 172 electoral votes —

Washington, D.C. (3), Maryland (10), California (55), New York (31), Vermont (3), Massachusetts (12), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Rhode Island (4), Illinois (21), Hawaii (4), New Jersey (15), Maine (4)

Tilt Obama States — 49 electoral votes

New Hampshire (4) — everything trending Dem, including independents. If McCain’s maverick image endures, NH becomes an easy tossup.
Michigan (17) — An economically depressed Dem union state with an active GOP base and that primary problem;
Minnesota (10) — If Pawlenty is McCain’s veep the state is marginally more in play; the GOP gets the force multiplier of the convention. Else, the state would be safe Obama.
Washington (11) — McCain campaign wants to contend here
Oregon (7) — McCain campaign wants to contend here

Pew Study: Informality of electronic messages seeping into schoolwork

A new Pew Internet and American Life Project study suggests that as e-mail messages, text messages, and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers (and college students), the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork.

While we haven’t seen it in research papers or essay exams (Thanks be to God!), we have gotten e-mail messages from students (and others in the community) that utilize the pidgin English-like qualities of SMS text messaging.

UGTBK… W/E

Video from the earthquake in Sichuan 四川地震现场

This video was shot via camera phone by a student in his dorm room at Sichuan University’s Jingshan Institute in Chengdu:

Commencement Week Humor, Part I

John Deering,The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Congrats, Professor Grandpa!

Congrats to our colleague, Professor Rick Young, on the birth of his first grandchild on Saturday morning –  Landon John Sugalski, who weighed-in at 7 lbs., 8 oz.!

Rumor has it that his parents have already sent in the kiddo’s application for A&M’s Class of 2030…

Fun with the Electoral College map…

Here’s what the Obama and McCain campaigns are now thinking about: What combination of states will get them to 270?  What states will become battleground states going into the fall?  What states can either  campaign unexpectedly put into play this year?

Coming soon from us: Our preliminary predictions based on our Presidential election predictive model…

From the New York Times:

From Five Thirty Eight:

Nota Bene: Today’s Additional Reading Assignments

• Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship — Ian Urbina, New York Times
• President Apostate? — Edward Luttwak, New York Times
• Seeds of Destruction — Bob Herbert, New York TImes
• Seige Mentality: How Impeachment Explains The Clinton Campaign — Michael Crowley, The New Republic
• Party Like It’s 2008 – Frank Rich, New York Times
• Neo-Nazis looking for you — Joe Swickard, Detroit Free Press
• Could Obama Be Another Dukakis? - Susan Estrich, Fox News
• Questions for John McCain - George Will, Newsweek
• Accepting the Costs of a Life in Football — George Vecsey, New York Times
• Newt’s midnight basketball — Dallas Morning News
• Karl Marx Predicted Hannah Montana Would Go Nude — Steven Rybick, Jewcy.com
• School Administrator Files Lawsuit Over Facebook Profile — Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus Blog

Sichuan Quake

A major earthquake hit just south of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, PR China this morning at 2:28PM China time (1:28AM Houston time).  According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, the Chengdu quake was a magnitude 7.8 and likely caused massive casualties. Sketchy news reports suggest at least 3,000 - 5,000 dead, with many thousands more likely injured.

Recall the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake.  That one was a magnitude 7.2, killing over 5,100 people in a city with a vastly more “earthquake proof” urban infrastructure than that found in Chengdu and Sichuan Province.  My guess is that this one could be much worse than the Kobe quake.  While I am concerned for my friends and colleagues at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu, I’m much more concerned for the people living north of Chengdu toward the Minshan Mountains.  According to both the USGS and China’s State Seismological Bureau, the epicenter was in Wenchuan County (which I visited in 2007):

This area is about 100 kilometers or so northwest of Chengdu (roughly 60 miles) and is the home to a substantial number of both Tibetans and Qiang living in Sichuan Province’s Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

Update (12:15PM): The USGS has revised the magnitude up from 7.8 to 7.9. Xinhua, CNN, and the New York Times report deaths are now in excess of 8,500 and climbing…

Second Update (3:20PM): NPR’s Andrea Hsu’s onsite report of the scene from a Middle School in Dujiangyan:

We are just leaving the horrific scene at the Juyuan Middle School outside the city of Dujiangyan. Hundreds of parents are still standing in the rain as the army works to find children trapped in the rubble. One parent told us she could hear her son calling. A scene of utter desperation. Back a couple hundred feet was an area where rescuers — peoples armed police — were bringing bodies that had been retrieved. Families were rushing over to see whether the child was theirs. Under tents are families burning incense and candles and paper money next to the shrouded bodies of their loved ones. A terrible, terrible scene.

Nota Bene: Today’s Reading Assignments

• Campaign U.: Is Ralph Nader Poised to Raid the Democrats’ Youth Vote? — Chronicle of Higher Education
• NSU professor loses job in dispute over grades — Bill Sizemore, Virginian-Pilot
• Evil in Burma — James Fallows, The Atlantic
• Campaigning Mom — Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review
• Subsidizing ethanol was a mistake — David Frum, National Post
• So Tuesday was a pretty good day… — Daniel Drezner, Daniel Drezner Blog
• Vote Like Thy Neighbor — William Galston and Pietro Nivola, New York Times Magazine
• In Dixie, Signs of a Rising Biracial Politics — Jack Bass, New York Times
• Hillary’s Bitter Win: How the Dems’ Campaign Became a Culture War — Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
• A Boon for T. Boone — Sanhita Sinharoy, In These Times
• Slate’s Delegate Calculator — Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson, Slate
• Editorial: State needs innocence commission — Dallas Morning News
• The Puma Song – Chance McClain and Frank Bullington,1560 AM KGOW The Game
• The Ugliest Uniforms in College Football — Johnny Utah, Smoking Trees in Belize Blog
• Poor Tom: No respect — Rick Casey, Houston Chronicle
• Your side, my side and the truth — J.C. Watts, Las Vegas Review-Journal
• Republicans forced to turn to their nemesis: John McCain — Albert Hunt, International Herald Tribune
• The Left’s Stupid Anti-McCain Messaging — Patrick Ruffini, Patrick Ruffini Blog
• Can Money Buy Happiness? — Arthur Brooks, The American.com
• Study: Stay-at-Home Mom Worth Nearly $117,000 a Year — Fox News.com