Dems see electoral ‘earthquake’

Two Democratic pollsters and strategists predicted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will win the presidential election in a landslide, and that there will be no Republican infrastructure left standing after Election Day. 

{mosads}“There’s basically going to be nothing left standing,” strategist James Carville said Friday.

Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg, talking to reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, said Republicans are poised to not just lose an election, but lose a generation as well.

The two well-known Democratic players also said the 2008 election will, from top to bottom, mirror the Democratic wins of 2006.

“We haven’t had two wave elections like this,” Greenberg said.

A new poll that Greenberg conducted shows Obama up nine percentage points with 11 days to go before Election Day, and both men predicted an “earthquake” election with Obama getting 52-53 percent of the vote.

Carville and Greenberg both argued that Obama’s and Republican rival Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) very different reactions to the financial crisis were the main reason why the Illinois Democrat is on the verge of a big win.

Carville said his initial reaction to the news that McCain was suspending his campaign in September to be in Washington to address the crisis was that it was “a practical joke.”

But Carville added that he thinks McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as a running mate will come to be viewed as the biggest mistake of the campaign.

“I think the Palin pick was just out and out really dumb,” Carville said.