Surprising Polling Data via WSJ:
Source:
Gap Is Narrowing in Battleground States
McCain Chips Away At Obama’s Lead In Four Key Races
SARA MURRAY
WSJ, July 25, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121689893266880737.html
WSJ-NBC Poll: Surprising Data
They’ll be many more polls before the election and big media will be looking for nuances to turn into stories.
If the Republicans were smart, they would convince McCain to bow out of the race (say because of a reoccurrence of his melanoma or recently diagnosed heart problems) and then nominate someone with a chance of winning.
Meanwhile, where can I bet than Obama wins by a landslide?
Just a question, but with Murdock owning WSJ can their polls be taken seriously?
Pollster.Com shows several other states slipping from the grasp of the right. This kind of change will go on until the election.
This election is replaying 1948, and McCain ain’t Dewey.
“McCain as trusted on background by 58% to 47%”: can the WSJ even add? Either 53% or 42% surely?
I don’t necessarily think that Murdoch controls the polling at WSJ but I am suspicious. BTW, my BiL (who is a demographer who comments on politics) is saying that the pollsters are screwed up in that they are weighting the republicans too heavily using the same ratios from 2000 and 2004 which he says is a mistake. Many Reps have left the party due to W. Also they are counting young voters less in their analysis even though they are energized and I might add very diverse. My BiL says the pollsters are going to look stupid come November.
Barry,
There as many problems with pollsters as there are with stock analysts, so many little changes in methodology can produce wide swings in results. For example, estimate the turnout of D’s vs R’s. Now apply that to your survey results. There are many tweaks like that can move results. Probably safer to use polling.com’s average of many polls to get a better picture of what’s going on!
@ Jojo
Tradesports.com offers 2:1 odds in favor of Obama. Play it anyway you like. Personally, I love the exchange. 10:1 against George Bush for re-election last election day comes to mind as one of the exhange’s finer moments
I agree with the first commenter. The GOP could actually win this election, but not with John McCain.
Once again the American people are being given no viable choice.
Geez, Barry, you scared me there. I thought the video was going to be about McCain leading in the polls. Don’t do that again! I would think about it this way: On November 5, the day after we elect Barack Obama, we will marvel at the realization that we have made a black man the most powerful man on Earth. That’s what the fuss really is all about (background and values, my butt). If Barack Obama were not black, the Presidential election would be no contest as John McCain is making George Bush look like George Washington. But then again, if McCain were not so weak, there would be no way an African-American President could get elected, with as many uneducated racists as we have in this country. (The country is not all Manhattan, folks.) In a way, I am glad that John McCain is the Republican offering in 2008 so we can get the right man Obama in the White House. The fear is the catastrophe that can take place if the wrong man is elected by an ironic and tragic combination of the ultra-rich and the low-information poor.
Heres a good poll question not original though, but still seems to stand the test of time: “Are you better off than you were…”
Not only is turnout hard to predict, when I was in Virginia Doug Wilder was 10 points ahead in the polls and barely won. I think folks are reluctant to say they are not voting for the black. And who answers the phone for polls anymore anyhow?
What I find unbelievable is that both parties started with about a dozen candidates and these two chumps are what we get to chose from.
This was a non-story if ever there was one. I haven’t looked at the fundamentals of all the four state polls, only MN which shows some moving of the goal posts from the earlier polls by the same organization. They have Obama winning the 18-29 year olds very narrowly for example which I find a bit hard to swallow. Maybe I’m imagining things but I’m starting so see some subtle shift in the slant of the reporting pages at the WSJ which historically have been a model of objectivity. For example on their NBC/WSJ poll story the other day they headlined with the fact that McCain was ahead in one of the subsets. It took quite a lot of reading to find that actually Obama was ahead six points overall, Bush’s approval was at the lowest in the history of the poll, and wrong direction was also at a record. Maybe the fact that Obama is likely to win isn’t news.
“uneducated racists”
I know many educated bigots, including some of my good friends. Their bigotry, previously hidden is now being fed by the Republican machine. It’s very sad to see, but a definite reality. Right now the meme is that he will give everything to the blacks, if elected. My response is “what is there left to give”. Other commenters are correct in saying that we are not ready to elect a black unless you have some out of touch boob like McCain as the opposition candidate.
This election is Obama vs. Not-Obama. McCain does not drive the issues, the coverage or the polls. Obama does. The McCain people are smart enough to know that and their only real hope is to drive up Obama’s negatives in any way they can so that Not-Obama can eek out an electoral college win.
The potential “Black Swan” of the election can be read about in Seymour Hersh’s recent piece in the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh
Under the direction of Dick Cheney we are conducting covert military operations in Iran. Will Ahmadinijad take the bait and create a “casus belli”? What’s the betting line on that?
the time has come for a true third party.
might be time for a write in candidate, is
T. Boone Pickend available ?
@larster: The odd bit is that I was one of those educated racists. I thought this election was the most important one ever to prevent a black, liberal candidate with an apparently Muslim name from taking the White House. Then, I started watching CNBC, realized how dangerously myopic, misinformed, and slanted the “establishment” has become (yeah, I have been living in a cave), and then the coup de grace: John McCain became the presumptive Republican nominee. The closest that guy should ever come to the White House is maybe to paint it. I didn’t all of a sudden started loving black people in becoming an Obama supporter, but my survival instincts have now blown away any racial prejudices I may have had. Please ask your friends to do as much research as they can, because I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest that a Republican Presidential candidate worse than George Bush and without the adult supervision of Dick Cheney could really do some damage to their lives and their children’s lives.
I am so tired of the generalization regarding voters who do not support BO as president(read racists). There are many people in the US who do not support BO because of his political leanings, lack of experience, weak legislative accomplishments, strange bedfellows and other completely viable questions about the man himself…his strength of character, his principals and his judgement.
I feel the racism card is used to deflect the content, direction and nature of the political discourse when any critical/ unflattering info on BO is discussed. Scary stuff.
I would have been comfortable with either Hillary or McCain getting elected…….They are known commodities with extensive voting records, we know who they are warts and all. They both also are centrists in their respective parties with a history of actually working across party lines for solutions. Can’t say the same for BO, no matter how often he says he is a uniter.
Talk is cheap BO.
Not in the slightest, as my counterparties to bets placed months ago will attest. As a newcomer to national politics, Obama can’t win without building trust outside his base, i.e., convincing voters of who he is and what he stands for. His “inartful” positional shifts and his campaign’s Stalinist control of access and information aren’t helping him. The (probably apocryphal) story of Pauline Kael saying she didn’t know how Nixon could have won in ’64 (since nobody she knew voted for him) applies: are you intellectually prepared for an Obama loss? [Whether you’re emotionally prepared doesn’t interest me.]
“They are known commodities with extensive voting records, we know who they are warts and all. They both also are centrists in their respective parties with a history of actually working across party lines for solutions. Can’t say the same for BO, no matter how often he says he is a uniter.”
McCain is not a centrist despite what his press releases say – he voted with Bush 95% of the time.
Hillary could still be on the ticket – and while she is a centrist, if she was the candidate we’d be reliving all the crap of the Clintons – so while some people talk about how much better Hillary would have been they have to remember the onslaught of negative press that would have come out, and her position on the war would have made it difficult for her to battle McCain.
Lastly, there is little to no correlation between experience and the success of a President – this comes not from me but from Presidental historians. There have been a ton of cases where experience people have become President and been disasters.
As for the poll itself – this is a long, long campaign season and no doubt we’ll see different polls should different results. Anyone here looked at the predictive power of this?
I don’t know if I am intellectually prepared for an Obama loss, but I am logistically considering my survival-instinct immigration options in case “known commodity” McCain (he is known to get his plane shot down and surrender) wins.
@fred: I think “Darth Vader” will stay out of this one because (a) he knows McCain is more dangerous to OUR Empire than anyone and (b) he would need to establish martial law to rig a fullproof “Black Swan” against Obama, or risk legal retributions for any and all past sins that wouldn’t otherwise come from a President Obama in a relatively fair election. I don’t think even a war with Iran would guarantee McCain victory, so if certain people want to do something like that, they probably need to go all the way. And martial law is risky because I don’t know if the full military would go with it. I know all this stuff sounds far-fetched for the USA, but somebody did bring up black swans.
I just can’t imagine that a lot of those polled supporters of John McCain are actually going to turn out at the polls on election day. He generates as much enthusiasm as Wonder Bread.
It can’t be understated how much enthusiasm in the Republican base was generated by the Republican Slime Machine in 2004, manipulating the fervent homophobia in that base. By placing anti-gay marriage amendments on ballots in 11 states, Karl Rove turned the election on that one issue by mobilizing a gigantic voter turnout effort by appealing to the base’s hate. According to CNN, the single most important issue to voters in 2004 was so-called ”moral values” at 22%, unbelievably trumping the Iraq War at 15% and healthcare at 8%. I gotta believe close to 100% of those voters who voted based upon moral values voted Bush. They are not going to turn out in 2008 like in 2004. Red State America has learned a very harsh lesson that you can’t vote on nonsensical issues like this, and choose a President on who you’d rather drink a beer with or go hunt with. What do you wanna bet that a vast majority of those 22% values voters in 2004 are suffocating under the weight of filling up their gas guzzling pickup trucks these days and won’t be willing to spend the $15 gas money to go to the polls to vote for McCain?
As an aside, I want to take offense to the phrase “I don’t think it’s hyperbole to suggest that a Republican Presidential candidate worse than George Bush and without the adult supervision of Dick Cheney….” WTF?!?!? Dick Cheney is as close as you can get to putting the Fox in charge of the chicken coop. Jeez Louise. I do however agree with the characterization of George W. Bush as a child. Every time I see one of his Rose Garden press conferences I half-expect to see him start stamping his feet and jump up and down.
Any time someone starts telling me what a shoe-in Obama is, I remind them to never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.
Only in America would McCain have even a snowball’s chance in hell afer eight years of Bush.
I have been pushing my so to get the euro region citizenship to which certain specific laws entitle her. The reason is specifically because the future of this country is in doubt. The bottom line is that McCain would be a disaster on every front. I think the likelihood of McCain turning severe economic problems into a depression is high. Then there is Iran, health care, inflation, etc. If you dummies elect this temper freak, I’m out of here.
BR, I generally try to keep overt political stuff out of my comments here (with only partial success), but since you’ve opened the door I’m charging in.
I fully intend to vote for Obama, but it’s not out of some ridiculous expectation that he’s going to deliver us to the promised land; it’s solely because I think his policies and decisions will be incrementally better for a greater slice of the country than the top 1% who will primarily benefit from McCain’s.
Unfortunately, I’m very skeptical of Obama’s chances, even given the remarkable ineptitude of John McCain as a retail politician. As Democrats have tended to be in Presidential elections over the last 40 years, they are amazingly unaggressive, slow to react, and continually get caught with their pants down on a variety of silly but hot-button issues that the GOP is expert at exploiting. Over the past month John McCain has put his foot in his mouth repeatedly, and yet in most polls continues to hang close to Obama, and in some polls recently has narrowed the gap. Given the huge percentage of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track, this is an amazing achievement.
While there’s no doubt that some of this can be attributed to Obama’s racial background, I think the far larger factor is the fundamentally different approach to communication with the voting public and the media between the two campaigns: McCain’s campaign is aggressive when it needs to be with the former, and solicitious when it needs to be with the latter, while Obama’s campaign is unaggressive and standoffish with the two groups respectively.
Over the past month or so, the McCain campaign has been outspending the Obama campaign by 3:1 in TV advertising in a variety of swing states, such as Missouri. The primary focus of this advertising has been to raise questions about Obama’s background, character, and political orientation, with the subsequent benefit that the broadcast media, notably Fox News, then treats these questions as newsworthy, regardless of how flimsy or downright deceptive McCain’s charges may be. The fact that the Obama campaign—which is flush with cash—has chosen to not respond in kind during this crucial period after he clinched the nomination may well go down as one of the greatest strategic mistakes in the last century of American Presidential politics. That a campaign whose candidate is largely unknown to a wide swath of the American voting public chose to do essentially nothing while a well-known opponent established the critical first—and very negative—impression of Obama in minds of millions of voters is astounding, and reflects the insular, arrogant myopia that afflicts the Obama campaign “brain trust.”
When you add in the Oabama campaign’s unnecessarily antagonistic and self-destructive attitude towards the working press that Namazu mentioned, it shouldn’t be surprising that McCain—who has overtly courted the press for years—can make gaffe after gaffe with little mention of them made by anybody other than the liberal blogs.
The most recent “controversy” arising from the Obama trip overseas is a case in point. The plans to vist Germany were obviously in the works for quite a while, and the main priority for Obama should have been to visit the American base at Landstuhl, including visiting wounded servicemen and women there. If the Obama campaign had had any brains at all, they should have anticipated that the McCain campaign would be extremely interested in interfering with such a visit, due to the potential positive response that Obama would get from visiting the wounded GIs as a Presidential candidate. The obvious way around that would have been to schedule the visit as a Congressional delegation visit with Senators Hagel and Reed, which would have made Pentagon interference far less likely, since it would have not been an ostensibly partisan visit by Obama. Instead, the Obama campaign committed itself to a visit by the candidate himself with only campaign aides available, thereby giving the Pentagon, obviously with the encouragement of the GOP, the opening to deny the visit. Now the McCain campaign is charging in new TV ads that Obama didn’t care enough about the wounded troops to visit without cameras. It’s irrelevant, politically speaking, that this charge grossly distorts the facts of the situation; millions are going to see this ad, and so far the only response from Obama is a high-minded written statement released to the press.
So we have an Obama campaign that was putting all its focus on a grand speech in front of 200,000 Germans—something that the vast majority of American swing voters couldn’t give a crap about—while allowing itself to be completely outfoxed by McCain, Rove, Bush, and the Pentagon on something that was far more important politically, visiting US servicemen at Landstuhl. It’s this retail political incompetence, reinforced by an arrogant high-mindedness, that leads me to anticipate an extremely tight McCain win in November. George mentioned earlier that McCain ain’t Dewey; the other part of the equation is just as important: Obama ain’t Truman, either. I sure as hell hope I’m wrong, and it’s certainly not too late for the Obama campaign to come to its senses, but so far I see nothing to indicate it will.
The typical response of Obama partisans is that the campaign is spending its money on building a ground organization across the country, and you can’t criticize that alone. However, the idea that a get-out-the-vote effort on election day along with a late ad blitz is going to counter several month’s worth of relentlessly negative advertising is extremely questionable.
And as far as Obama’s “strange bedfellows and other completely viable questions about the man himself…his strength of character, his principals and his judgement,” making him somehow less admirable than the man who summarily dumped his loyal and injured first wife in favor a much younger blonde heiress bimbo? Making him more suspect than the man who chased after the right-wing Christianist nutball preacher who eagerly looks forward to nuclear armageddon in the Middle East as a ratification of Biblical prophecy? Making his judgement more suspect than the man who fought tooth-and-nail against the Jim Webb-sponsored GI Bill and then tried to act as though he supported it when it was passed overwhelmingly by Congress?
Don’t make me laugh.
Just to be clear I am no fan of either candidate. Once again I am stuck between two horrible candidates and a couple of 3rd party candidates that do not have a chance.
I have done a lot of reading about BO, going through archived articles from his hometown newspapers and various non-partisan websites.
BO has a rice paper thin resume and his accomplishments mirror his resume.
McCain is clueless on the economy.
One thing I will hope for, all the people who promise to leave this nation if their candidate is not elected to actually do it.
We need a viable third party to break the cabal in Washington D.C.
@ bluestatedon: a few comments
– Nice job if a bit depressing
– I think the days of separating business from politics are over. I always discounted politics myself in thinking about business, but show me an industry that operates in a truly politics / government free environment. If you don’t get engaged actively in politics as a businessperson, then someone else is just eating your lunch and you don’t even know it.
– Yes, the Democratic Party is the “nice guy” party. I know because as a Republican turned Democrat, I am amazed at how naive and idealistic most Democrats are. The Republicans have formed a truly formidable political machine, impervious from truth, justice, and whatever’s left of the American way. I would love to think that if McCain were to win, the Republicans and America would be getting what they deserve and I can just slink away out of the country. But alas, there will be nowhere to run and hide from the troubles of the world if the worst US Presidential candidate ever gets elected at the worst moment in time ever.
– I think the differences between Obama and McCain are more than “incremental”. The scope of THAT debate is beyond this thread, but in general, Obama’s policy positions are MUCH more thoroughly considered and WAY better articulated than McCain’s.
– That said, I still believe in my country. I still hold on to the hope that Americans will make the obvious right choice. If Obama wins, I think the world will see again America’s ability to surprise and do incredible things. If you or any of the smart, affluent people on this blog who agree it’s absolutely critical that Obama wins aren’t already donating time or money to the Obama campaign, then I would encourage you to do so right away.
@ David,
You keep harping on Obama’s resume. CLEARLY, you must have some other axe to grind with Obama since some of our greatest Presidents have either had “paper-thin” political resumes or were criticized for their prior experience. I was a Republican and so I will cite my favorite Republican Presidents:
Ronald Reagan: was indeed Governor of California, but was criticized by many for having been a Hollywood actor
Theodore Roosevelt: was Vice President, Governor of New York, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy for a cumulative total of 4 years
Abraham Lincoln: yes, he was a great lawyer, but was in the House of Representatives for 2 years
So, David, what do you REALLY have against Barack Obama?
“Theodore Roosevelt: was Vice President, Governor of New York, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy for a cumulative total of 4 years”
I believe that was FDR.
However, your point is still very much valid. David is basically just a Republican that’s pissed that his party can’t find a decent candidate, and he’s just making up shit about Obama to make it seem like he’s being impartial. Here’s an easy chart to follow:
Bad Republican Candidate – we need a third party and better candidates
Bad Democratic Candidate – everything is just great
Anyone that thinks that Obama isn’t an immensely better candidate than most of what we’ve seen in the last 30 years is full of crap, not paying attention, or both. Anyone that inspires people like he does is probably a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. And anyone that says that this won’t translate into better governance is not paying attention. All indications are that he will be at least as good as Clinton was, without all of the side shows.
Obama is one smart m-f-er, and his ability to get things done is evidenced through one small observation – watch how other lawmakers of all stripes that have worked with him both talk about him and come to his defense when others attack him. He is *very* good at concensus-building, and that’s how you get things accomplished in our government. People respect the man.
For those above who are fearful for our future, we survived eight years of Clinton, 12 years of the Bushes, Nixon, Johnson, and lots of others, too. Regardless of who wins the election, we’ll still be living in the best place on earth.
PS…Ohno..Teddy Roosevelt was indeed all those things. And a tough cookie, too.
“Ohno..Teddy Roosevelt was indeed all those things. And a tough cookie, too.”
Thanks for the correction. They’re careers were somewhat similar, so I always get them confused. :-)
Damn, that should be “their”, not “they’re”.
ohnonotagain is right–I also think Obama will act as a magnet for bright people to move into government from higher paying private enterprise positions.
With McCain, we will only get the same professional politicians we got with Bush. Namely, whores in dark suits with red ties.
Maybe some day the Dems will learn to stop defending and start attacking. They always fall for the bait and look lame and confused when defending their guy. Fox News knows that it’s all about attack.
Ah, who cares? President McCain will lower taxes for the rich, invade a few more countries, and absolutely destroy the dollar and budget once and for all.
“ohnonotagain is right–I also think Obama will act as a magnet for bright people to move into government from higher paying private enterprise positions.”
There are, and have always been, smart, ambitious people in government. One reason is that government jobs often lead to high-paying private sector jobs, e.g., the SEC attorney who leapfrogs from that job to a partner-track position at a top-tier law firm with a securities law practice, etc.
Treasury, at least, can usually attract those who have already had successful careers in the private sector (e.g., all three of President Bush’s Treasury secretaries, President Clinton’s Bob Rubin, etc.). Getting your signature on the currency is a perk no money can buy.
I am a sixtyish lifelong Republican who will definitely vote for Barack Obama. I will probably go ahead and abandon my Republican party affiliation as well.
Until Bush, I never thought that there would be another president in my lifetime who was as bad as Jimmy Carter. But I am convinced that George W. Bush is far worse than Jimmy Carter ever was.
If the best my fellow Americans can do is put an idiot like John McCain in the White House, I plan to become an expatriate and leave this godforsaken country before the inauguration.
“I am a sixtyish lifelong Republican who will definitely vote for Barack Obama. I will probably go ahead and abandon my Republican party affiliation as well.”
I also was a die-hard Republican for the first 12 years of my voting life. Bush (2000) was my last Republican vote, and I switched in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq. The invasion was so misguided on its face that all of the other distractions didn’t even matter. I trusted what H.W. Bush and Powell said regarding Iraq, not what some half-cocked bunch of neo-cons were saying.
“If the best my fellow Americans can do is put an idiot like John McCain in the White House, I plan to become an expatriate and leave this godforsaken country before the inauguration.”
I completely agree – people keep making this election a referendum on Obama – to me it should be a referendum on McCain. This is where, as another writer stated, the Dems are weak. The fact that the Dems are left defending themselves from lame attacks on Obama while McCain is in the Cheese aisle is just amazing. They really have to remind America of what his plans really are.
Thanks all and to BR for a lively discussion. We need more – not fewer – threads on politics. Final thoughts from me:
– The days of taking a superficial look at two Presidential candidates, saying they both are unattractive, and wistfully pining for a third-party option in a two-party nation are OVER. It’s the easy way out that frankly only obfuscates the issues. If you haven’t figured out yet why John McCain should not be in the Senate, much less in the White House, you haven’t tried. Here is a man who suggests that Russia should be removed from the G8. Uh, good luck with that, BUD. He advocates excluding China from the G8. Again, good luck, PAL. When Al Gore challenged America to switch 100% of its electricity to renewable energy, how did McCain respond? “If the vice president (Gore) says it’s doable, I believe it’s doable,” McCain said. Great analysis and thoughtfulness on only the most important issue of our time, GENIUS. On nuclear energy? “Clean and safe”, he says. Why don’t you do us all a favor and walk into the core of a nuclear reactor, John McCain?
– Just as I was a racist, I also used to be a member of the “America: Love It or Leave It” crowd. Well, I hate to tell you but (a) my survival instincts are alive and I have options, so leaving IS an option and not an entirely unattractive one anymore, (b) if you think America is still ahead of the rest of the world, you haven’t been outside the United States (and that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it?), and (c) it’s not unusual in history for patriots to go into temporary exile – even self-imposed exile – when things go bad in their countries so that they can wait and fight again another day. I mention this option only to demonstrate how negatively I feel not about my country (heck, I still even defend Bush and Cheney, for Pete’s sake) but about John McCain. That said, I really don’t know if I would want to go through (assuming Pickens, Simmons, etc. are correct) peak oil with a US dollar that could rapidly and dramatically devalue under a destabilizing McCain regime. If some of you aren’t smart enough to figure out such an obvious choice, then why should I suffer the consequences of your intellectual shortcomings with you?
– It’s not quite time to abandon ship. The election is winnable for Obama. The country can be turned around and restored to her rightful place as economic and political leader of the world. It will take years of hard work and ACTIVE engagement, but it’s doable, and honestly, political engagement is required by democracy and it can be rewarding, even fun. For any of you who agree that Obama should be the next President and haven’t registered at BarackObama.com, I highly encourage you to do so and see how you can get involved, or at least connect with other Americans. I love the way the Web site works and the way the Obama campaign integrates you into the process through the Internet.
Quit whining about the past. Forget about the leaders of this country. It is time all of us take back our country and forge it into to forms found in our heads. BTW, I like both McCain and Obama. I would prefer a joint ticket. BTW, I have walked inside nuclear reactors. Apparently I’m not dead yet. Feel free to analyze and synthesize with respect to fields you actually know. Later, JDub