Amy Klobuchar anyone?
The most disappointing for result for Obama is probably in Indiana, where SurveyUSA has John McCain pulling into a 6-point lead after having trailed by a single point last month. Why so disappointing? Because Obama has been investing heavily in Indiana while McCain has not. A couple of caveats, though. Firstly, investments in the ground game may not show up in the polls in the first place. And secondly, the partisan leaning of the sample has shifted a fair bit more Republican than the last edition of this poll. It's possible that, as McCain enthusiasm grows (and Bush fatigue wanes), more Republican-leaning independents are now willing to identify themselves as Republican. It's also possible that we're just looking at some static.
It is officially time for Obama to be worried in Minnesota, where SurveyUSA marks the third consecutive poll to show him with a lead of only 2-4 points? Our model says ... maybe not qute yet. There has certainly been a pretty big shift in the raw numbers in the Gopher State, but there aren't really any demographic explanations for it -- Obama hasn't lost much ground in demographically similar states like Wisconsin and Iowa. So our model is going to need a little more coaxing before it considers Minnesota a toss-up. It might be close enough, however, that there is an electoral rationale for McCain to pick Tim Pawlenty.
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Nate Silver does the knowledge, but with precision. He finds bad news for Obama. Not all bad, but bad enough that the worst could happen:
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Right after I send in my absentee ballot, I'm going to have myself put into an induced coma until mid-November, to avoid the strain on my heart from watching the campaign.
Maybe you could do a post on this. I really love it, except for the awkward double-time Nas verse
http://thefader.com/articles/2008/8/20/freeload-young-jeezy-f-nas-my-president
This post by dday over at digby's blog should give us cause for some guarded optimism. Guarded of course.
I still don't understand what's happened in the last month to have such a shift in polling towards McCain. Old Dude seems more and more like a raving right wing lunatic every time he opens his mouth.
Oh. Maybe that's what accounts for the shift. If so, we're doomed.
Logically, McCain should have been panicking from June through now. (RCP has him up in the EC vote, but Politico does not.) Instead he appears to have been trying to win the election, something that helped his campaign a lot last summer, too. Yet in this close but not fluid race, Obama is always at 44 or above, and McCain at 44 or below in daily tracking polls. As always in the summer, I believe, neither candidate can break 50%, which is what will really matter come late October.
I'll wait until at least mid-September to become concerned about polling trends. Let's get through the two conventions and at least one debate, and see what narratives are working or failing at that point.
The last 2 elections were close; likely this one will be as well. Bush isn't running for a third term unless McCain fulfills our dreams and nominates Cheney for vice-president, so the idea of voting against the unpopular Bush will only get you so far--those people are already on board. Either side has 2 1/2 months to pull some brilliant or boneheaded maneuvers.
In the words of Harry Truman
The only poll that counts is taken on election day.
I think Obama won't have much trouble on election day. He's running against Burgess Meredith for god's sake. The real question is who is ahead in Missouri. Missouri generally is the weather vane on who will win the election. As votes Missouri so votes the rest of the country.
I am of the belief that Obama will get a bigger bounce out of the convention than McCain. McCain is a lousy speech giver, so the format of the conventions will favor Obama. Also, polling data still shows greater intensity in Obama backers, which would probably mean a greater likelihood of his people showing up to vote.
I also think it is possible McCain got a bounce out of the Georgian episode
Missouri's not really a weathervane anymore, but if it were, your guy would be in trouble. McCain's led by an average of four in the last six polls there.
I'm officially worried.
McCain is spending more. I understand that he has to eliminate his primary cash but Obama should be able to match him. It seems like it would be easier to sway people early in the process rather than later.
It also seems like the celebrity idea, stupid as it is, is working. David Brooks column (minus the apologizing for JSM) regarding the effectiveness of McCains more traditional Repub campaign strategy via Schmidt, is allowing him to gain traction.
When I see the narrowing poll numbers, I feel a little queasy. Are Americans going to make their choice for president based on a bunch of stupid ads and stereotypes in the same way that they did in 2004?
It is said that in a democracy, you get the leader you deserve. I am beginning to fear for the worst.
@br:
From what I've read, McCain is shoring up his base but driving off independents, Obama is gaining independents but has a little softening among Dems. So your point about sounding like a raving right wing lunatic every time he opens his mouth is right on.
And which position would you want to be in for the fall, leading in the polls but needing to convince a few wavering Dems not to vote Republican, or trailing in the polls and needing to convince Independents that you didn't mean any of the things you said last month?
Panic is premature. And as Giordano points out, Obama does somewhat better (as does McCain, and as did Hillary) as underdog rather than frontrunner. There may be nothing wrong with embracing the narrative "Obama is only a few points ahead, which is the same as losing! Can he come from behind, or will McCain cruise to victory?"
It's probably going to be a tight race for the next 2 months, I predict, barring a stunning gaffe from one side. I think "a move so brilliant the candidate moves up 10 points in the polls" is impossible, but "a move so idiotic the candidate moves down 5 points in the polls while the other guy manages not to screw up" will be very much alive.
McCain is spending more. I understand that he has to eliminate his primary cash but Obama should be able to match him. It seems like it would be easier to sway people early in the process rather than later.
They're just spending money differently. McCain is blowing his cash on ads in hopes of defining Obama on a national level. Obama is investing in ground operations in key swing states. McCain is making short-term investments, so it is obviously going to pay off in the polls for now. We won't see the return on Obama's investment until election day. It may seem riskier, but he's building one of the biggest ground operations in history, and he's hoping that 1) people will be more persuaded by face-to-face interactions than ads, and 2) his turnout will be higher than McCain's.
Obama's two greatest strengths are organizing (which he's focusing on) and addressing the American public directly (the big speeches). He isn't as good at getting his message across through television ads or media filters, but that's ok. His biggest speech of the year is coming up next week.
I don't like the tightening of the race, but I don't think we should worry until after the conventions.
is this enough evidence that obama's nice guy act is not working?
is the fact that obama and his advisors are toughening up their ads evidence enough?
as i've been saying for a long time, obama is blowing it. he's allowing mccain to make inroads in places like minnesota, where he should have been cruising, by virtue of his ridiculous no-negative-campaigning-against-my-honorable-opponent nonsense.
let's hope that the current crop of polls knocks some sense into the collective heads over at his campaign and that he stops listening to all of the confirmed losers and idiots who keep telling him that he cannot criticize war-hero mccain and that he can allow the campaign to be about himself, and not about bush/mccain.
it's time for hillary and her gang of thugs to come on board and show bambi how the game is really played. (but first they have to jettison mark penn!)
and the polls tell us all we need to know about that reality.
Obama has a good sense for political tai chi. If he's holding back on attacks and spending until post-convention, I think that's because of a thought out strategy.
Arguably, Clinton (and her team) was her own worst enemy in the primary, not Obama.
McCain might be throwing the Right Wingers Red Meat at the moment, but the Independents will decide this election. I say let him keep talking up his commitment to pro-lifers and signal a tougher military stance than the Bush administration has. Go for it. Keep providing the soundbites.
Ebb-and-flow is normal in politics. So while the trends referred to above aren't positive for Obama, it's hardly cause to start freaking out. It's not normal for one candidate to stay in the lead all the way through.
And SUSA hasn't exactly been the beacon of accuracy this electoral season so far. Nate Silver has been though, so I do think if he's concerned about certain trends, we should be too. Just not having a meltdown -- no cause for that.
This was never going to be a secure election, folks. It was always going to be close.
I dont think there is a need to panic.
I think Obama just needs to keep focusing on the economy up until the election day, pointing out the relevant differences between his policies and McCain's, linking McCain's policies with Bush's, and vividly reminding people of the disasters of the last 8 years. There are so many to choose from. Here's just a few:
2000 Elections - Florida
Iraq
Preemptive War doctrine
Funding for maintenance of New Orleans levees cut
Katrina
Suspension of Habeus Corpus
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo
US Attorney Scandal
Valerie Plame Outing
Illegal Wiretapping
9/11. Ignored warnings. August 6 Memo.
No Child Left Behind
John Ashcroft
Harvey Pitt
Alberto Gonzalez
Blackwater
Halliburton
No Bid Contracts
Abstinence Only Sex Education
Downsizing of FEMA
Limiting Stem Cell Research
Patriot Act
Escape of Osama Bin Ladin from Tora Bora
Yellow cake
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules in favor of energy companies that
manipulated CA energy prices
EPA downplays Ground Zero health risks
Lie about the cost of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit
Suggestion that McDonalds workers whould be classified as manufacturing jobs
FDA blocks RU-486
8.8 Billion vanishes from Iraq Budget
Jack Abramoff Scandal
Walter Reed
SubPrime Mess
CEO Pay
The assault on science and the assisted rape of
our natural resources:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-alphabetical.html
Obama's taken his trip abroad to show that he looks presidential. He's been on vacation. Now its time to focus on tapping the deep vein of anger and contempt for the policies of the current administration and its supporters.
He will get a bump next week. The way the planning is going at the Republican convention - i.e. dominated by neocons and theocons - he'll get another bump. People are just not as delighted as the thecons by the prospect of the neocons causing a nuclear holocaust in Middle East.
The Republicans will try to scare people into voting McCain to protect us from Communism and Terrorism. The Democrats need to try to scare people into voting against McCain/for Obama to protect us from McCain.
On the Tim Pawlenty speculation, my opinion is that if McCain chooses him as the Veep, that will solidify Minnesota for Obama.
Two reasons: first, the Lt. Gov. is an absolute disaster (she ran the Dept. of Transportation -- remember the 35W bridge falling into the Mississippi?) and nobody wants her to assume the Governorship. Second, he's never come close to winning an majority for Governor -- I think that he's won his two races with numbers in the high 30's or low 40's, percentage wise.
Pawlenty does not equal a MN win for McCain. No chance.
Plus the poll released here in MN today had Obama up by 10 points.