Friday 10 October 2008

McCain may take Macedonia

And that's about as much good news as can be found for the Republican candidate right now.

McCain is still within 6 points in RealClearPolitics' poll of polls, but the InTrade futures market now gives Obama a 76.6% chance of victory with McCain back to 23.3%. The dramatic slump in his prospects over the last month is also captured by PoliticalBetting's graph of the UK betting markets.

Meanwhile in Macedonia, McCain's appeal is holding up a little better, according to The Economist's totally unscientific Global Electoral College based on reader's online votes.

This would be fun, but election night isn't going to be cliffhanger. Only Georgia has John McCain on its mind, where the Republican has 68% of the vote at time of writing, while he was hanging on to 53-47 leads in both Macedonia and Andorra. And that's it. In a much expanded worldwide electoral college, Obama's current lead is 8501 to 16

This web-based self-selecting methodology may well have a pro-Obama bias: The Economist gives him an overwhelming lead in the US too. But there are similar messages from conventional worldwide opinion polls. Obama had a clean sweep in a 22-nation BBC poll and Reader's Digest global Presidential poll.

Obama also edged ahead in Israel this summer, though another poll found McCain ahead in the Palestinian territories: both somewhat counterintuitive results.

Only Americans get to vote on November 4th. These global polls are never too good for the Republicans - and they can be more of a headache than a boon to the Democrats. But George Bush was more popular than John Kerry in 2004 in Poland, the Phillipines and Nigeria, and tied his opponent in India. All four countries have now swung behind the Democrat contender in 2008.

Its unfair to say that McCain is less popular than Bush. But Barack Obama's distinctive global appeal suggests that he could yet make the world fall back in love with America again.

Cross-posted from World After Bush.

No comments: