What has seemed like an interminably long presidential election
cycle is just a few short weeks from being over. Voters—who
likely feel like the proverbial kids in the back seat of the family
car asking "Are we there yet?"—will reach their destination
Nov. 4. What that destination means for the U.S. and the roofing
industry depends heavily on whether voters elect Illinois Sen.
Barack Obama (D) or Arizona Sen. John McCain (R).
By all conventional measures, this should be the Democrats' year
to capture the White House.
Democrats won the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in
2006 with an 18-point edge in the exit polls, and despite their
minimal performance during this Congress, generic ballot tests
since then (in which pollsters ask respondents which party they
would vote for absent specific candidate names) have continued to
give Democrats the edge.
Compounding the Republicans' problems is President Bush's
consistently low approval ratings. And rarely has voter
satisfaction with the country's direction been so low, with those
believing the U.S. is on the "right track" polling only in the
midteens. The last two times this measure was so low—in 1980
and 1992—the White...
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