Jay Cost has an excellent post which summarizes the state of the race just about as I see it (hey, that's what makes it excellent!).
Here's the heart of it:
(1) The macro conditions favor the Democrats in a way we have not seen in at least 28 years.
(2) In response, the Democrats nominated a candidate with relatively little governing experience and a background quite different from white voters, who swing presidential elections.
(3) The Republicans nominated a candidate who built a national reputation by disagreeing with George W. Bush in particular and the Republican Party in general, in the hopes that this man is immune from the public disaffection with the GOP.
(4) The public now gets to choose a man with little experience and a different background, or a semi-Republican. They're not sure which one they want. And because there are two wars on, a credit crisis, a weak economy, and high gas prices - they're taking their sweet time in deciding.
(5) Anybody who tells you what is going to happen is probably trying to sell you something....
We can build a model that predicts presidential vote outcomes based on macro conditions. We can profitably take that back to 1948 or thereabouts. That gives us fifteen previous elections to work with.
But this is an open presidential election, one where the big dog is not running for reelection. Those are very different, and there have only been five of them since 1948.In those elections, you'll usually see the vice-president running on behalf of the incumbent party. There's been just one exception.
That year was 1952. Structurally speaking, this year has a lot in common with 1952.
But the candidates have nothing in common with 1952. Instead, they are much more like the candidates from 1976. Barack Obama reminds me of Jimmy Carter - he's relatively inexperienced and his background is such that a segment of this country is probably going to balk at voting for him. John McCain reminds me of Gerald Ford, though I suspect he would have let Nixon go to jail.
Unfortunately, we've never had a previous presidential election where the structure is 1952 and the candidates are 1976.
Bottom line: we're in unchartered water here. History is still useful, and it establishes that the Democrats are favored. But the limitation of history is that we don't know how heavily they are favored.
I'd add two points:
1) In the five open seat elections since 1948, three (1960, 1976, and 2000) have been razor-close. There's no reason to assume this one won't be.
2) With so many undecideds, the debates might well make a difference--as they arguably did in 1960, 1976, and 2000 (and 1988, for that matter; there was no debate in 1952). So after the conventions, the big day to focus on is Friday, Sept. 26--the first debate, in Oxford, Miss.
