Winners, Winners, Chicken Dinners

No need to watch TV tomorrow night to find out who won and who lost. Here's what's going to happen. Or not. I was wrong one time before, about 14 years ago. It does happen.

President
It appears not "who," but "by how much." I'm not really feeling the 350-plus predictions for Obama, and think he'll do better than the slightly panicky 320 predictions. Let's say he'll get around 330-335 Electoral College votes, a very good haul. The much tougher question is whether or not Obama can declare a mandate with over 50 percent of the total vote. I think he'll just barely make it. But barely.

U.S. Senate and Congress
Locally, John Kerry and John Olver will cruise, each with over 60 percent of the vote. It's worth noting that Kerry's opponent raised something like $2 million, but had to pay $1.75 million to his fundraising consultants. The Globe wrote a story about it last week, and wrote a larger story on Response America over the summer. Nathan Bech was loudly badgering Olver over the summer, but my inbox is lot quieter now than it was in August. Which is weird. Anyway, not much heat in these elections.

State House, Senate and the rest
Heavy boredom, with unchallenged races and down-ballot seats that don't require any attention.

Question 1
It'll fail. I'm not sure it will reach the high-50s that polls have it at. I'm guessing it will be pretty close to 2002, when it failed about 55-45. If the question's proponents were smart, they'd drop it and consider an income tax reduction in the future to 4 percent or so. Then we'd really have something to talk about.

Question 2
Polls have this question exceptionally close. All kinds of police chiefs and other law-and-order types are opposed. I'm guessing, but I think it'll fail. In the end, people will feel like they're making marijuana more OK, and will automatically think that is bad.

Question 3
I think this will fail also, but it will be close. And I wouldn't be surprised if it passes. But I think the emotional argument loses out to voters who wonder just how badly someone would treat their money-makers.

Question 4
This one came out of nowhere. It's non-binding, and encourages green technologies. Fitchburg is one of 11 House districts that have it on the ballot. I got my first press release on it last Thursday night/Friday morning. If people read the question, they'll probably vote in favor of it, but who knows?

So, there you go.