When most pundits offer up their opinion regarding the fall election, I barely look once much less twice. However when a highly regarded astrophysicist predicts that McCain will beat Obama, but would lose to Clinton, it makes me just a tad nervous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06tyson.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Neil+DeGrasse+Tyson&st=nyt&oref=slogin

A considerable amount of the criteria employed is based upon a large cross-sample of polls and prior Electoral College results, which seem rather fallible yet correctly predicted the results in 49 of the 50 states in 2004. It seems so very improbable to anyone who is actually familiar with the candidates, their policies, their sanity, etc. Yet it makes a great deal of sense considering how significant a number of Americans have simply not progressed enough socially to vote for a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Even if his name were Joe Simpson Smith, he would still have a difficult time picking up votes from people who probably thought twice about voting for a Vice President named “Lieberman”. The mistake the Democrats continue to make every four years is that they actually have to get back into the White House (or Uncle Barack’s Cabin, according to a German newspaper) again before they can continue down the progressive path of equality; unfortunately both cannot likely be accomplished at once. No matter how dire the situation in America gets, the Republicans can always rely upon a substantial number of voters to make their decision based upon non-substantive matters. Thus no matter how incoherent, inconsistent and insane John McCain really and truly is, he’s an old white guy-war hero that sounds like he knows what he’s talking about and most importantly, he ISN’T an elitist Muslim terrorist.