Time for some (cautious) optimism

Happy Monday, with four back-to-back posts from Political Wire:

Democracy Corps: Obama Up By Six in Ohio

A new Democracy Corps poll in Ohio finds Sen. Barack Obama now leading Sen. John McCain, 49% to 43%.

Obama’s lead is built “on an impressive 48% to 35% edge among independent voters. McCain’s attempt to seize the mantle of change is falling on deaf ears in Ohio as by 24%, voters in the Buckeye state believe Obama, not McCain, is the reformer and by 18%, Ohioans believe Obama will bring the right kind of change. And in a state where the economy is king, Obama’s aggressive positioning of the economic contrast with McCain has produced an 11-point Obama lead on which candidate will do a better job on the economy.”
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| October 06, 2008

Suffolk Poll: Obama Crushing McCain in Virginia

A new Suffolk University poll in Virginia shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by a stunning 12 points, 51% to 39%.

Said pollster David Paleologos: “Barack Obama has built a coalition of suburban DC area progressives from the north, African-American voters from the south, and young voters statewide. That broad-based support suggests a 44-year Republican run in the Old Dominion State, dating back to Lyndon Johnson’s victory in 1964, is in jeopardy.”

Key finding: “The poll shows last Thursday’s vice presidential debate was a net plus for the Democratic ticket. Exactly three-quarters (75%) of likely voters watched and scored Joe Biden (46%) the clear winner over Sarah Palin (26%), while 20% said neither won the debate. When asked if the debate affected their presidential selection, 32% said it made them more likely to vote Obama, while 18% said the debate moved them to McCain, and 47% said the debate didn’t affect their decision.”

0 Comments | Share | October 06, 2008

SurveyUSA: Obama Way Ahead in New Hampshire

A new SurveyUSA poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Barack Obama leading by an astonishing 13 points, 53% to 40%.

A little history: “New Hampshire voted Republican in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 2000. New Hampshire voted Democrat in 1992, 1996 and 2004, but no Democrat running for President in New Hampshire has received more than 50% of the vote in the past 44 years.”

Key findings: Obama holds a 22-point advantage among women, 29-point advantage among young voters, 21-point advantage among Moderates, 18-point advantage among those who consider themselves an intellectual, 24-point advantage among lower-income voters, and 23-point advantage among college graduates.

10 Comments | Share | October 06, 2008

SurveyUSA: Obama Pulls Away in Virginia

A new SurveyUSA poll in Virginia shows Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by ten points, 53% to 43%.

Since a similar poll conducted just after the Republican convention, McCain has gone from up by 2 to down by 10.

Key finding: McCain no longer leads in any region of the state.

36 Comments | Share | October 06, 2008

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My friends, the wheels are coming off (updated)

Earlier today, Elizabeth Bumiller of the evil New York Times reported:

“Senator John McCain said Wednesday that he would temporarily suspend his presidential campaign on Thursday to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis and the $700 billion bailout package now before Congress.”

Mavericky stuff there, lookin’ all post-partisan. But wait, there’s more!

“Mr. McCain said he told Senator Barack Obama that he was asking the Commission on Presidential Debates to postpone the debate scheduled for Friday night.”

These debates are long-planned, long-prepared events. The financial crisis is here today, it’ll be here tomorrow, and if we’re lucky for the rest of our lives. McCain called this a matter of “patriotism;” by now we should know not to trust any Republican wearing a flag. Postponing the debate over the weekend is a shallow ploy to appear statesmanlike while diverting attention away from a floundering campaign. A McCain campaign source noted:

– McCain called Obama before he made the statement and told him he was going to suspend his campaign and move back to DC until the economic crisis has been figured out.
– McCain wants to create “a political free zone” until a deal is reached between now and Monday.

Given the campaign’s inability to manage Palin properly, their decreasingly coherant blame-the-media strategy, and their recent Wall Street problem…

(Pew Poll, September 23)

…it wasn’t surprising to hear them calling for an urgent political moratorium. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell quotes the McCainiacs’ hysteria:

“[McCain advisors] deny that there is a political calculation in this and say without action the country could slide into a Depression by Monday and added “we’ll see 12 percent unemployment” if action is not completed.”

Our economy has apparently sunk so low that a 90 minute Presidential debate on Friday night could double the unemployment rate. Ben Smith over at Politico questions the urgency, noting: “The only thing that’s changed in the past 48 hours is the public polling.”

And Obama? “No dice:”

“The debate is on,” a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News.

Assuming the debate remains on, (and I’d put my $1 on it,) McCain will at least suspend his ads. What this has to do with anything is beyond me. Senator McCain isn’t writing the ads himself, nor spending any personal time planning them instead of dealing with financial policy. This too-cute-by-half gambit reaffirms McCain’s motive: A temporary stop to the campaign bleeding, rather than an actual solution to the financial crisis.

Obama could pull his ads as well, if he wants to match McCain charade for facade. (*I’m aware it don’t rhyme.) Alternately, Obama could release a statement explaining that the campaigns themselves are absolutely central to America’s financial future, while hammering on a “failure of conservatism” narrative. Friday’s debate is on foreign policy, so let’s expand it beyond war-gaming. Let’s have a talk about free trade. Let’s have a talk about the interconnectivity of international markets. Let’s have a talk about blowing American taxpayer money to save foreign banks.

Bring. It. On.

Update: The reviews are in and they’re horrible:

First poll results are trickling out.  The very good Survey-USA asked:

“The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama is scheduled to take place in two days. Should the debate be held as scheduled? Should the debate be held, but the format changed to focus on the economy? Or, should the debate be postponed?”

And the results:

Held as scheduled:  50%

Held with focus on economy:  36%

Postponed:  10%

Not sure:  4%

Nor are Americans buying the campaign suspension gimmick.  Question:

“Is the right response to the turmoil on Wall Street to suspend the campaigns for president? To continue the campaigns as though there is no crisis? Or, to re-focus the campaigns with a unique emphasis on the turmoil on Wall Street?”

Answers:

Suspend campaigns:  14%

Continue campaign:  31%

Re-focus the campaign:  48%

Not sure:  7%

My unscientific guess is that the wording may have pushed some people both towards the “re-focus” answer and away from the “continue” response; the former because it sounds nice (“unique emphasis”) and the latter because it sounds dismissive and naive (“as though there is no crisis.”)  Consistant, though, is the fact that less than one in eight Americans are buying McCain’s used car.

(S-USA polled 1,000 people, margin of error 3.2%.  Crosstabs here.)

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The issues that matter

Had the following exchange on gmail:

Jonathan: mischa i’ve been very depressed about domestic politics lately

you know what’s really sad

reading this article today made me very very happy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_el_pr/ap_yahoo_poll_football

10:44 AM me: oh good lord

this , as i’ve said too many times in the past, is no way to pick the leader of the free world.

10:45 AM some days I think we should ban polling. forever.

At least Vermont has it right.

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Fuck the 24-hour news cycle

I swear, on CNN right now, Jeannie Moos is reporting on “Obama’s sniffles: Spreading germs on the campaign trail.” Really really. “The threat of Presidential candidate cooties didn’t deter this crowd,” and pictures of little kids putting their fingers in their mouths. Even better, they’re now showing months-old footage of Obama blowing his nose at a rally. Blitzer returns us to the studio with “gesundheit to all of you.”

And when I turn on WETA instead, I get Fred Kagan’s analysis of Georgia. Yes, that Fred Kagan. I swear, if I wanted jowls with my dinner I’d call Blankley. To be fair, Kaptain Kaganroo is on with a guy from Council for a Livable World. But then, Quinnipiac just found that twice as many Americans (55%-27%) trust McCain to deal with the crisis in Georgia rather than Obama. So I remain in agreement with the Sage of Baltimore:

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

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Maps

No, not Rock Band.

This.

I concur with Beaudrot that there isn’t really any pattern to the state-by-state trends. Obama is performing above expectation in some understandable places (New Mexico, Wisconsin) and some twilight zone states (North Dakota, Indiana.) On the other hand McCain is looking good in Florida. If you don’t quite get the methodology, Bowers’ original piece with the full data is here.

The more useful element is that terrific interactive map. I’m a little more negative on our chances than most Democrats I’ve spoken to, mainly because I’m counting on a break towards McCain based on negative campaigning as election day gets closer. Hit the “2004 results” tab on the map menu. Look at the numbers and tell me which states we flip this time. I would never count on Florida (do you trust Charlie Crist?  We’ve seen this movie before…) and Ohio appears to be a crapshoot – PPP had Obama up 8 within a week of Rasmussen showing McCain by 10. if we don’t win either of those, we’ll need some combination of Virginia plus grab-bag, Iowa plus New Mexico and Colorado, Iowa plus Montana plus Nevada plus Alaska, and it gets increasingly ridiculous to follow. If we were to lose Michigan or Pennsylvania, we’re in deep shit. (The former is a serious possibility if McCain picks Romney, though the latter seems increasingly unlikely as beet-red central and northern Pennsylvania shift from 20-point Bush country to something more competitive.)

Point is, for all the talk about redrawing the electoral map we’re still fairly reliant on grabbing either Florida or Ohio. On the bright side, Obama’s Iowa composite is better than +5, and the Hawkeye state opens up many of those other random combinations. At some point I’ll do an excel chart of this…

Take a few fun minutes clicking around the map and see what combinations you can come up with.

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