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From WMAZ:

A campaign visit from Barack Obama would sway more voters in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff than John McCain’s visit on behalf of Saxby Chambliss, according to a 13WMAZ-SurveyUSA poll.

The poll of 550 registered voters says 30 percent would more likely to vote for challenger Jim Martin if Obama came to Georgia to campaign on his behalf, but 29 percent would be less likely.

&

- 45 percent of the voters polled said they had favorable opinions of Chambliss, the Republican incumbent. 29 percent had unfavorable opinion, 19 percent were neutral, 7 percent had no opinion.

– More voters had unfavorable than favorable opinions of Martin: 34 percent liked him, 37 percent didn’t, 18 percent were neutral and 10 percent had no opinion.

– 87 percent of the voters said they’ll vote in the runoff. Eight percent said they wouldn’t, and 5 percent they weren’t sure. Ninety-five percent of Republicans were sure they would vote compared to 85 percent of Democrats.

The poll did not ask people how they intended to vote.

Nate Silver interprets these numbers:

“The tricky thing for pollsters will be in figuring out just which of these people are lying about their intent to participate and which of them aren’t. Pollsters like to root their models in recent precedent, but things like runoffs and special elections happen so rarely that there’s just not very much to key oneself off of. The point is … if the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn’t be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn’t be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20. This will be a return to the high margins of uncertainty that we saw in the primaries.”

I tend to agree.

But there are two big “X” factors that remain to play out in the race:

1. Whether Obama comes to Georgia to campaign for Martin

2. The outcomes of the Senate races in Alaska & Minnesota. If both Democrats prevail there (which is not looking impossible at the moment), look for higher turnout among GOP voters trying to fend off the magic number 60.

Who do you think will win the runoff? Post a comment!

~~~August 31st~~~

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~~>the Sunday after McCain picks Palin<~~

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[IN TERMS OF POLLING, NEAR THE HIGH WATER MARK OF McCAIN'S CAMPAIGN]

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How did state polls move in the next 3 months?

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Click here for the answer.

What’s going on?

In this post, which will remain up until Tuesday night, I’m pulling back the curtain & showing you exactly what news about campaign 2008 I am checking throughout the day.

The most recent entry will be at the top; to start from the beginning, scroll to the bottom.

& I want to hear what you think! Click here to post a comment.

Calvin Can’t Stop Talking about McCain’s Tennessee Stop

Amazing on a day when his beloved Tennessee Vols are in the news.. Calvin says he’s got a better idea for McCain’s strategy in winning NC & VA than stopping in Blountville:

A campaign stop in the Tri-Cities was bad strategy for McCain, trying to woo SW Virginia and Western NC voters.. True, two of the three TV stations with strong VHF signals (WCYB-TV, Channel 5 and WJHL-TV, Channel 11), do indeed blanket all of SW Virginia and part of Western North Carolina.

But SW Virginia voters work and shop in Tri-Cities, Tennessee. As a result, they are usually politically aligned with their neighbors in Upper East Tennessee.. SW Virginia voters are mostly Republican, voting the same way upper East Tennessee has voted for generations, and this includes absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day-of voting.

A Republican visit by a presidential candidate and covered heavily on Tri-Cities TV, only reinforces the way SW Virginia voters are going to vote anyway.

AND, Tri-Cities stations only get marginally viewership from Western North Carolina counties, and even then, mostly along the TN-NC border, because the mountains cut the signals off.

A much better media consideration for McCain would have been, a stop in Asheville, North Carolina, and then one in Roanoke, Virginia.. The 3 main reasons being:

1) Only two years ago, Western North Carolina elected Democrat Heath Shuler to Congress, and Tri-Cities station signals simply don’t reach that far down into that state. 2) The Roanoke TV market. A McCain visit in Roanoke would have had more of an impact on Central Virginia voters that all watch WSLS-TV, WDBJ-TV and WSET-TV from Roanoke-Lynchburg, and would have given McCain double-coverage, because Tri-Cities TV stations, mindful of their SW Virginia audience, would cover it extensively for their SW Virginia viewers anyway.

3) WLOS-TV, Asheville. With a transmitter signal coming from atop one of the highest points in the Eastern United States, and blanketing ALL of Western North Carolina, a McCain visit would have saturated the western third of the state, including that Democratic pocket that elected Heath Shuler, and also have been covered extensively by the rest of the North Carolina media.

Thanks, Calvin! .

Election Day Times

Mon/2:07pm

Click here for a full rundown of election times in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama & North Carolina.

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Mor McCane Mispellingz

Mon/1:49pm

Think Progress has discovered three instances of misspelled words in McCain’s ads that have aired in the last month.

Come on, guys! Do you really have to get them out that fast?

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The Dog That Didn’t Bark

Mon/1:23pm

The Politico’s Jonathan Martin speculates what the 2008 campaign would look like if McCain & surrogates used Rev. Wright as an issue more:

“Conversations with a number of veteran GOP consultants indicate that using Wright may have helped McCain with one set of voters — but would have hurt with others and not ultimately proved decisive in a contest subsumed by larger external forces such as the economic crisis and the unpopularity of President Bush and the Republican Party.”

McCain deserves credit for not ‘going there.’

As Liddy Dole is about to find out, attacking someone’s faith only ends up hurting the attacker in the end.

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Why’s He in Tennessee Today?

Mon/1:18pm

He’s stopping in Blountville - you can be assured I’ll be looking for clips to post later today.

But why Blountville? He’s got the Volunteer State wrapped up.

Marc Ambinder says:

So why is Sen. McCain campaigning in Blountville, TN?

It has nothing to do with Blountville.

It has everything to do with the parts of rural North Carolina and rural Virginia that share its media market.

NewsChannel9 anchor & expert in all things ‘upper-east Tennessee’ Calvin Sneed says:

“I already knew that.. One-third of the audience that WCYB-TV and WJHL-TV reach are in Southwest Virginia up to Roanoake, and Western North Carolina, within a 70 mile circumference of Asheville. Too bad Kentucky is not a swing state. Those two stations also blanket Eastern-Southeastern Kentucky. I also knew two weeks ago, he’d be coming to Tri-Cities before the end of the campaign.”

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Good Gravy!

Mon/1:12PM

As if Georgia’s not enough (scroll down), check out North Carolina’s polls, which have tightened as of today.

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Mapping a McCain Win

Mon/11:48am

Nate Silver looks at several computer models. His top projection is above.

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If You’re Reading This, You’re Part of the Revolution

Mon/10:47am

Look at these numbers from Pew, which shows internet usage has TRIPLED this year, while TV & newspaper usage remains static.

Truly amazing.

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“My Wife Made Me Canvass for Obama”

Mon/10:40am

Read what a former Bush voter in North Carolina found out about voters while canvassing with his wife.

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The Five States to Watch on Election Night

Mon/10:34am

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com (one of the true internet stars of Campaign 2008) says the states to keep an eye on will be:

1. Virginia

2. Colorado

3. Pennsylvania

4. Ohio

5. Nevada

Read why here.

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Does Obama Realistically Have a Shot at Arizona?

Mon/10:30 am

Marc Ambinder speculates & has some things to watch in the Grand Canyon State tomorrow night.

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Not All TN Polling Times Are the Same

Mon/10:16am

The election director in Polk County, TN just e-mailed NewsChannel9:

Please have Channel 9 broadcast Polk, Meigs, and McMinn County Polling Hours on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, to BEGIN AT 9:00 A.M. AND CLOSE AT 8:00 P.M. Your viewers hear Hamilton County hours and assume ours is the same. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

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“Phone Gap” in the Polls?

Mon/10:12am

“The cellphone polls have Obama ahead by an average of 9.4 points; the landline-only polls, 5.1 points.”

- Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com

. Click here to view the embedded video.

Obama in Cincinnati

Mon/10:03am

Above: Obama in Cincinnati yesterday.

I’m keeping an eye out for clips of the candidates today, so check back later.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

McCain in Florida

Mon/10:01am

Above: a midnight rally in Miami, last night.

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Where the Race Stands

Mon/9:54am

Above: NBC’s Chuck Todd maps out McCain’s path to victory.

From Chuck & others at MSNBC’s First Read blog:

*** Obama has a clear lead: With just a day left until Election Day, Obama holds an eight-point lead over McCain among likely voters, 51%-43%, according to the final national NBC/WSJ poll before the election. That’s down slightly from Obama’s 53%-to-42% advantage from almost two weeks ago. Still, to put his current lead into perspective, the last NBC/WSJ survey before the 2004 presidential election showed Bush with a slim one-point edge over Kerry, 48%-47%. Bush went on to win that election, 51%-48%. Looking inside the crosstabs, Obama’s advantage is largely based on his overwhelming success with African Americans (winning them 90%-3%), Latinos (68%-27%), and 18 to 34 year olds (59%-38%). It’s about as solid of a three-legged support stool as any candidate could ask for. Obama also wins independents (48%-38%), blue-collar voters (51%-44%), suburban voters (49%-44%), and Catholics (49%-46%). McCain, meanwhile, has the advantage among evangelicals (78%-19%), those 65 and older (53%-40%), white men (54%-42%), and white women (48%-47%). One more thing: 30% say they’ve already voted, and those voters break by an identical 51%-43% margin. One thing that might keep the McCain folks somewhat hopeful about our numbers: We have Democrats with a +10 advantage on party ID; McCain’s team believes the electorate won’t produce that margin tomorrow.

*** Liking McCain but loving Obama: The poll also shows that McCain and Obama are pretty well liked by voters. McCain has a 47%-39% fav/unfav rating, while Obama’s is larger at 56%-35%. But what’s striking is the intensity gap — almost twice as many respondents (44%) rate Obama “very positive” than they do for McCain (24%). In short, McCain’s supporters like him, but Obama’s LOVE him. Think about that 44% number for a minute: Obama’s overall ballot number is 51%, meaning that 86% of Obama’s supporters have a VERY positive view of him. Not since Reagan in 1980 has a base of supporters loved its nominee so much. Also, for the second-straight NBC/WSJ poll, Palin has a net-negative fav/unfav (39%-48%), while Biden has a net-positive one (50%-30%). In fact, if you add up Obama’s and Biden’s favorable scores, you get 106; for McCain-Palin, it’s 86.

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Good Grief!

Mon/9:45am

Georgia has become THE state to watch.

Just look at those polls!

It’s quite possible (& I chose it as such in the pool) that it could be the state with the closest margin of victory for either candidate.

The Senate race, I believe, is still Saxby Chambliss’ to lose.. but that prediction gets upended, I think, with an Obama upset.

What do you think?

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Where They’re Headed in the Final Stretch

Mon/9:39am

From the AP: “UNDATED (AP) - As if today’s fever-pitch campaigning weren’t enough, the presidential candidates will break tradition and stump on Election Day. John McCain goes to Colorado and New Mexico. Barack Obama swings through Indiana before returning to Chicago. McCain rallied Latino voters just after midnight in Miami. Later this morning, he takes his message to Tampa, then to Tennessee, where he’ll be able to hit the Virginia media market. Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona also will see McCain. Running mate Sarah Palin is trying to woo conservatives in Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. Obama’s route is geographically less demanding. He rallies this morning in Jacksonville, Fla., and later goes to Virginia and North Carolina. His running mate, Joe Biden, is going to Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.”

Tennessee? Yes, McCain will be in Blountville. Read more here.

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What’s Gonna Happen?

Mon/9:32am

Click here for a post I added featuring questions for an election night pool that I’m taking part in.

Feel free to register your predictions in the comments section!

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When Polls Close Tomorrow

Mon/8:43am

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

This all gets tossed out the window if lines are long.. which may be why we may not know results of the states on that map until well after the polls are supposed to close..

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Joe the Plumber Questions Obama’s Patriotism

Mon/8:42am

Above: Joe the Plumber on the Fox News Channel over the weekend.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Palin “Punk’d”

Mon/8:38am

Above: two Canadian comedians fool Palin into thinking she’s talking to the President of France.

. Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s a New One

Mon/8:35am

Above: South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, saying the polls demonstrate Barack Obama is “the virtual incumbent,” & thus can’t win in this environment that’s hungry for change.

. Click here to view the embedded video.

New Anti-Biden Ad: “Lies & Sighs”

Mon/8:28am

This ad is effective, but made slightly less so by the misspelling on the screen, 0:56 seconds in:

. Click here to view the embedded video.

Pennsylvania Republicans Bring Up Wright in New Ad

Mon/8:20am

(Warning: blasphemous language)

Why is Pennsylvania such a battleground? Voters don’t vote early there.

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Obamacan Update

Mon/8:13am

Roger Cohen:

“Lifelong Republicans turning to Obama has been one of the themes I’ve picked up in this campaign, ever since, back in January, I ran into Bryant Jones, an Idaho-raised Republican who’d volunteered for Obama in South Carolina.For Jones, it was disenchantment with “my-way-or-the-highway politics and the same old faces.””

“My-way-or-the-highway” politics. That’s a major reason President Bush was such a failure (read more of my thoughts on that here, in yesterday’s post). & I hope that both Democrats and Republicans heed the lesson in this: no matter who is president - but particularly if a President Obama finds himself with a Democratic majority in Congress - we can’t afford to discount a person’s idea because they aren’t a member of the right party. Obama will fall, & fall hard if he tries this. This is the singular reason President Bush did such a bad job - all recent presidents from all recent parties recognized they’d never succeed by paying attention to the needs of just one constituency. UPDATE: Mon/10:23am: More Obamacans explain themselves here & here. .

Why a McCain Win Would Be a Good Thing for Liberals

Mon/8:09am

The conservative New York Times columnist (who bears quite a bit of responsibility for bringing Sarah Palin to the world, not to mention the Iraq war) writes liberals should think the world has ended if John McCain wins, for reasons including:

“It would be a victory for an underdog. Liberals are supposed to like underdogs. McCain is a lonely guy standing up against an unprecedentedly well-financed, superorganized, ExxonMobil-like Obama juggernaut. A McCain upset victory would be a classic liberal happy ending.”

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Why She’s Failed to Catch Fire

Mon/8:02am

Of course she’s caught fire among members of the Republican base. But she’s certainly not winning over independents or moderate Republicans (scroll down for a new poll for more on that).

Peter Beinart suggests it may be that her appearance came at the end of the ‘Culture War:”

“Why has America turned on Sarah Palin? Obviously, her wobbly television interviews haven’t helped. Nor have the drip, drip of scandals from Alaska, which have tarnished her reformist image. But Palin’s problems run deeper, and they say something fundamental about the political age being born. Palin’s brand is culture war, and in America today culture war no longer sells. The struggle that began in the 1960s — which put questions of racial, sexual and religious identity at the forefront of American politics — may be ending. Palin is the end of the line.” .

Strategic Strengths & Weaknesses

Mon/7:57am

Great summary of what went right for Obama & wrong for McCain from E.J. Dionne:

ON McCAIN:

“In state after state during the primaries, McCain drew heavily on the votes of independents, moderates and Republicans who were unhappy with Bush. But instead of carrying on as the un-Bush who defied conservative orthodoxy, McCain embraced the right for fear of losing it. He chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, which finally earned him cries of approval from the GOP base but sent moderate voters scurrying Obama’s way.”"

ON OBAMA:

“He saw an opening for a young African American senator with brief Washington experience, realizing that the very unlikeliness of his candidacy would enhance its attractiveness.

He did more than give Americans a chance to ease the burdens of race. He invited them to embrace his very newness and thereby move past the 1960s, the ’80s, the ’90s and the Bush era all at once. “It’s time to turn the page,” Obama would say, and there were many pages Americans wanted to turn.

His post-everything candidacy, wrapped in a powerful rhetoric of hope, was immensely attractive to the young. They became the happy warriors of campaign manager David Plouffe’s meticulously organized national machine. It worked its magic in neighborhoods never before blessed with even a precinct captain.”

Pretty much the race, in a nutshell.

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ABC Poll: He’s a Net Positive, She’s a Net Negative

Mon/7:53am

From the Washington Post:

Respondents’ reactions to Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, are also closely linked to how much they factor age into their preferences: Sixty percent of those who said age is an important consideration said Palin lowers the odds that they will vote for the GOP ticket. Overall, nearly half of all respondents said they are less likely to vote for McCain because she is on the ticket, a sharp increase from previous polls.

By contrast, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a net positive for Obama, even as nearly six in 10 respondents said the senator from Delaware does not influence their views one way or the other.

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ABC Poll: McCain’s ‘Socialist’ Attacks Aren’t Sticking

Mon/7:50am

From the Washington Post:

The new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll puts Obama well out in front over Republican John McCain and finds that Obama has firmly reestablished his advantage on handling the economy, beaten back a challenge on taxes and has an edge in terms of perceptions about which candidate would better deal with an unexpected major crisis.

The McCain campaign, meanwhile, has countered with improved outreach into the tossup states, neutralizing what had been a big advantage for the Democrat 10 days ago. More than a third of all voters in the six states The Post calls “up for grabs” — Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, Missouri and Indiana — said they have heard from the McCain campaign in the past week. That is up sharply from the third week of October and on par with the number who have been contacted by Obama’s campaign.

Obama and McCain roughly split the vote in the six states combined — 51 percent back Obama, and 47 percent support McCain. Overall in the tracking poll, Obama holds an 11-point advantage, at the top end of the seven-to-11-point range he has held since the final presidential debate in mid-October.”

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Live from New York

Mon/7:39am:

Watch McCain’s funny Saturday Night Live appearance here. Check this Vote08 post to see a clip of an earlier SNL McCain appearance (he sings Streisand!).

UPDATE/Mon-10:09am

James Fallows says this SNL appearance shows that McCain has accepted defeat.

]]> http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/11/03/live-blogging-the-final-day/6335/feed/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/11/01/3-days-out/6140/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/11/01/3-days-out/6140/#comments Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:46:19 +0000 Dan Lehr http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/?p=6140

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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***Reminder: You Have Until 5pm Today to Vote Early in North Carolina***

Early voting’s been extended, too; read more about it here.

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Obama in Nevada

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McCain & Ah-nold

Above: Columbus, Ohio, last night.

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Palin in Pennsylvania

Above: a home-video from Latrobe, last night.

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Biden Home-State Stumping

Above: Joe Biden in Delaware, at his alma-mater

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Chutes & Ladders in the Senate

The Tennessee Senate race (between Alexander & Tuke) has nowhere near the excitement as Georgia’s or North Carolina’s on Tuesday night.

But you should pay close attention to the degree of GOP losses in the Senate.

The more losses there are, the more freshman Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has to gain on the Senate hierarchical ladder. He has the potential to climb a few ‘bonus’ rungs if experienced GOPers like Alaska’s Ted Stevens or NC’s Elizabeth Dole or KY’s Mitch McConnell find defeat.

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Unintentionally Transparent?

Senator Saxby Chambliss, (R) Georgia, yesterday:

“There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said.

Careful with that “our side,” Senator.

Check the latest polls in the GA Senate race here.

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How He’ll Win, by McCain’s Chief Strategist

Read Rick Davis’ memo here, with Marc Ambinder’s observations in italics.

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McCain’s Horrible Month

Charles Blow recaps.

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Any Surprises Left?

Several pollsters weigh in here.

Keep in mind the impact of any “late surprise” is diminished by early voting.

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A McCain Endorsement the Obama People Were Happy to Disseminate

Above: Dick Cheney stumps for McCain in Wyoming.

JUST 6 MORE DAYS

The Infomercial

I thought it was well-done. It certainly beats Ross Perot’s informercial from 1992.

He kept it positive - didn’t mention the word “Bush” once.

Watch & tell me what you think.

Read McCain’s ‘prebuttal’ to the infomercial here.

A lot of you have voted already. As of Monday, more than 50,000 people have voted in Hamilton County.

Which way are early voters leaning? Marc Ambinder:

Obama leads by 16 points among likely voters, by 17 points among independents, by 13 points among men, by 20 points among women, is tied among whites, and is up eight among white Catholics. Of the 15 percent of the sample who’ve already voted, Obama leads by 19 points (although this subsample has a fairly large MoE). 74% of Obama’s backers say they support him “strongly,” which is 20 points higher than the percentage who say the same about their support for McCain.

Click here for the full Pew results, as of Tuesday.

Here’s a site where you can see the early voting numbers already in from around the country. Very useful.

From that site I glean:

The number of early voters so far in Tennessee is 45% of the total number of votes in 2004. (wow.)

&, 36.4% of the ENTIRE number of votes cast in Georgia in 2004 have been cast already this year. (again, wow.)

The Peach state is turning into one of THE states to watch this year - & I had written that state off months ago, back when Bob Barr’s Georgia support started dropping off.

But now - look at this chart over at Pollster.com. We have ourselves a real nail-biter, folks.

& not just the presidential race. The battle for Saxby Chambliss’ Senate seat remains intense.

The two latest polls come from polling firms that lean either way.

The left-leaning InsiderAdvantage poll has Saxby Chambliss & Jim Martin at 46-44%, That same poll also shows McCain leading by just 1 point).

The right-leaning Strategic Vision poll has Chambliss up by 2, & McCain up by 6.

& it’s possible that Georgia may be the last Senate race called - as in called several weeks after election night. MSNBC’s First Read blog explains:

“If Martin wins, he’ll have Obama to thank because the surge in African-American turnout is clearly benefiting the Democrat. By the way, Georgia could be the state that is the final race called in the country. Why? The state has that quirky runoff law, and a third-party candidate in the race might hold one of the major party candidates under 50%. The last time Georgia hosted a Senate runoff was the last time the country elected a new Democratic president: 1992, when the election of Clinton ended up helping the Republicans pull the Senate upset (Paul Coverdell defeated Wyche Fowler). This time, however, Republicans fear that an Obama victory will only energize African Americans in the runoff and make Chambliss’ path to victory even more difficult.”

Speaking of African-American turnout, it’s huge in Georgia - check it out. Georgia’s Secretary of State reports that 35% of early voters are African-American - more than double the percentage of the state’s population.

& there seems to be a correlation between a state’s African-American voting population & percentage of early voter turnout. FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver has the details here. In short, the higher the percentage of blacks in a state, the higher early voter turnout is. The states with the highest turnout are Georgia, North Carolina & Louisiana.

Can McCain count on voters who make up their minds in this final week? The trends (from Pollster.com) from past Presidential elections, in terms of their numbers, don’t look promising:

Click this link (again, to Pollster.com) to find out which way those last-minute voters swing.

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But still, interestingly, yet probably unsurprisingly, Obama still faces a major disadvantage with voters down here in that long-GOP stronghold, the South, per ABC News:

Obama is outperforming any Democrat back to Jimmy Carter among white voters, getting 45 percent to McCain’s 52 percent. But in the South, it is a very different story. Obama fares worse among Southern whites than any Democrat since George McGovern in 1972.

Whites in the East and West tilt narrowly toward Obama (he’s up 8 and 7 points, respectively), and the two run about evenly among those in the Midwest. By contrast, Southern whites break more than 2 to 1 for McCain, 65 percent to 32 percent.

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SIX DAYS.

Barack Obama

His informercial appears on most of network TV tonight… except for ABC (read why here). Needless to say, I’m ashamed of my parent network about this. It’s airing “Pushing Daisies” instead, & running some frankly offensive promos about it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: wet, wet wet conditions in Chester, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Doesn’t look fun at all.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: Obama making calls to undecided voters in Colorado.

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Has Obama fudged his “no tax increases for those making under $250,000″ promise this week? Marc Ambinder does some fact-checking.

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Michelle Obama appeared on Jay Leno Monday. Click here to watch.

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Why the Right’s ‘Kitchen Sink’ Philosophy is Failing

From the Toot:

“…once you’ve made a narrative choice, you do have to stick with it - you can’t just keep bouncing around, or people become confused. If you are telling the story of a scary vampire, you can’t decide in chapter 2 that he’s also 500 feet tall and radioactive and bent on destroying Tokyo, in chapter 3 that he is actually a giant man-eating shark, and in chapter 4 that he is all this and a super-terrorist trying to plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. All of these things are, indeed, scary, but taken together they add up to a muddle.

This is the problem. It’s not just the McCain campaign’s problem - although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it is a special kind of inexcusable - it’s a problem for the entire wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties. It makes no sense. It’s a jumble sale of fears and scary associations from 50 years of wingnut witch hunts and smear campaigns, a flea market of pre-owned and antique resentments, and if one does detect a semi-consistent 1960’s motif running through it all, that’s because that’s when most of these ideas were coined.”

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John McCain

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: at a joint rally with Sarah Palin in Hershey Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

He also appeared in North Carolina..

…but, interestingly, without incumbent GOP Senator Elizabeth Dole. (this may be why)

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Speaking of absences, someone’s face appears to be conspicuously absent from his own party’s website.

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Is the ‘Divided Government’ Argument Going to Work?

It’s the major card McCain has left to play. But Newsweek’s Andrew Romano is pessimistic. Former Bush staffer Peter Wehner hsays the party needs to return to its reformist roots [which, I'd add, is what John McCain should have pushed harder for - challenging his party to return to its fundamental principles - instead of blatantly pandering to its base, which has spent the past year essentially rooting for the status quo, or at least is blind to why the status quo is in such a sorry state].

Here’s a ‘Silver Lining’ for Republicans, though:

Single-party government rarely works for very long. It tends to overreach when there are no limits to those in power (see Congress/President Bush, 2002-2006). If this plays out, that will bode well for the beginning of a comeback for the now-battered GOP. [though I will say that if you sat on your hands & approved of how things were run under Republican leadership, you have a smaller rhetorical leg to stand on.]

& here’s a reason Democrats might prefer divided government:

['divided' here being less than a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate]

If this crazy year ends the way the trends are looking - that Obama will be elected - Obama’s historical standing would improve if he brought about change with the help & support of the minority party.

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The Keystone State Conundrum

Why is McCain behind Obama in the Pennsylvania polls? Michael Barone hazards a guess:

“My hypothesis is that that is because places like the Philly suburbs are places where the recent decline in household wealth has been most conspicuous. Housing prices mean a lot more to you when your house started off at $400,000 and declined to $290,000 than they did when you started off (as may be typical of Scranton or a blue-collar town in metro Pittsburgh) at $140,000 and declined to $110,000. Newspaper coverage of our current economic distress focuses on the very poor (like a recent Washington Post story on North Carolina, which focused on an ex-convict in a cheap motel in Charlotte), but the people who are getting hurt most visibly in their lifelong project of accumulating wealth are the more affluent. They’re the ones whose house values have most visibly and spectacularly declined, and whose 401(k) accounts and stock portfolios have tanked in the last few months as well. Folks in Scranton or in the cheap motel in Charlotte didn’t expect to live comfortably ever after off their increased house values, 401(k)’s, and Merrill Lynch accounts; a $700 monthly check from Social Security is about what they have long expected and that’s not in danger (yet). Folks in the Philly suburbs did expect to live comfortably off such assets.”

& he concludes

“The irony here is that voters motivated by anger at the decline in their wealth seem about to elect a president who has promised to embark on wealth-destroying policies.”

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What Hath Karl Rove Wrought?

The exodus of a chunk of voters - Libertarians - who traditionally vote Republican, that’s what.

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Joe Biden

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a view-from-the-crowd at a Joe rally in New Port Richey, Florida on Monday. He remained in Florida on Tuesday.

Sarah Palin

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, appearing with McCain.

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Sadly, there appears to be quite a few reports of ‘ugly Americanism‘ at her rallies, & that’s a shame for Palin & her supporters, who in my opinion should quickly & forcefully speak out about those who would tarnish her image, especially if you are hoping she becomes the Republican party’s standard-bearer after the election.

That’s it for now! I know it’s a lot to digest, but please feel free to comment on anything mentioned above. ALL views are welcome here.

& check back later in the day, as I’ll provide more info in this post. Let me know what you think of the ‘one-post’ format. I think I’ll stick to doing it this way through the home stretch.

]]> http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/29/6-days-out/5817/feed/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/28/barack-obama-7-days-out/5786/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/28/barack-obama-7-days-out/5786/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:20:27 +0000 Dan Lehr http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/?p=5786

[above: Obama the Cabbage Patch candidate]

Above: the “One Week” closing argument speech given in Canton, Ohio yesterday.

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Figuring Out What Those Undecideds Will Do

The Weekly Standard’s Arnon Mishkin dubs it “the Obama Effect” in an attempt to crack the nut that is this year’s undecided voters:

Where there is a perception that there is a “socially acceptable” choice, respondents who do not articulate it, are likely not to agree with it. Are they lying? Or just genuinely torn about taking that route or another? I am not going to psychoanalyze what is going on in their heads, but in the end, the pattern tends to be that those undecided voters vote against that “socially acceptable” choice.

Nate over at FiveThirtyEight.com refutes this theory by Bill Greener at Salon.com, who says Obama cannot win if his numbers are under 50%, & he uses Tennessee’s 2006 Senate race as an example:

“Problem #2: Greener cherry-picks his data in literally every race. He isn’t even subtle about it. Here is a good example:

How about Tennessee, where black Democrat Harold Ford was up against white Republican Bob Corker for Republican Bill Frist’s old U.S. Senate seat? Harold Ford did slightly better than Steele and Blackwell. The day before the election, he was within a point of Corker, 47 to 48 with 5 percent undecided, according to OnPoint Polling. On Nov. 7, Corker got 50.7 percent of the vote, Ford got 48 and an assortment of independents took 1.3 percent. Ford was able to pick up one out of every five undecided voters.

OnPoint was the only polling firm to show the Tennessee race within 1 point on the eve of the election. Meanwhile, Gallup showed a 3-point lead for Corker, Rasmussen showed a 4-point lead for Corker, SurveyUSA and Pollmetrix showed 5-point leads, and Mason-Dixon showed a 12-point lead. Corker eventually won by 2.7 points, smaller than the margin predicted by all firms but OnPoint.”

If you’re interested in trying to figure out 2008’s undecideds, I recommend clicking on all the links provided above.

What do you think?

]]> http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/28/barack-obama-7-days-out/5786/feed/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/26/sarah-palin-9-days-out/5575/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/26/sarah-palin-9-days-out/5575/#comments Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:05:49 +0000 Dan Lehr http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/?p=5575

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: a home-made video of a rally in Des Moines, Iowa.

Why Iowa? The latest poll has the state a deep shade of blue!

Perhaps.. someone’s thinking about the year 2012? ..Maybe?

What do you think?

Palin’s Poll Plummet

The Washington Post:

“In polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.

The declines in Palin’s ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.”

(also after the jump: “Battle of the Robocalls”)

AP: Obama 44, McCain 43. Read more here.

Fox/Opinion Dynamics: Obama 49, McCain 40. Read more here.

More numbers - LOTS more numbers - from Pew, here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Battle of the Robocalls

From Talking Points Memo:

The Obama campaign plans to unleash a robocall in Wisconsin tomorrow that hits back hard against John McCain’s robocalls in the state — it features a small business owner from Green Bay, Wisconsin, that says she’s been turned against McCain by his “sleazy” roboslime campaign against Obama.

Listen to the call here.

ABC has a slew of transcripts of McCain’s “robocalls” here.

Do they work? The Toronto Star tries to answer that question.

I know these types of calls are offensive to most people - much like a telemarketer’s offensive, but I have to admit, political junkie that I am, that I’d love to get one. Careful what you ask for, right?

Tonight on NewsChannel 9 at 5:30 we’ll meet a man who quit his job as a “robocall” voice, & find out why he did.

Hamilton County Early Voting So Far

27,054, as of yesterday. Click here for daily totals.

Nice going, folks! Let’s keep it up! You have no excuse, if you’re registered. Early voting continues through October 30th, & you can do so at the Hamilton County Election Commission, Northgate Mall, or the Brainerd Rec Center.

TODAY’S EPISODE: Will McCain Do the Wright Thing?…On the Stump in the Granite State…An Interview with Don Imus…His Biggest Weakness…On the Stump in Pennsylvania

Cavalry Apparently Not Coming: Not Doing the Wright Thing

From Politico:

For the GOP, the cavalry apparently isn’t coming.

Republicans attuned to conservative third-party efforts say that with less than two weeks to go until Election Day, the prospects for any 11th-hour, anti-Obama ad campaigns are highly unlikely.

Many in the party, including inside the McCain campaign, have held out hope that a deep-pocketed benefactor would emerge to bankroll ads in the campaign’s final days — spots that might, for example, resurrect the most incendiary clips from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But thanks largely to lack of passion for McCain within the conservative base, diminished hopes that he can win and a sharp decline in the stock market that has badly pinched donors’ pockets, veteran Republican operatives say it appears almost certain that what could be the most damaging line of attack against the Democratic nominee will be left on the shelf.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In New Hampshire Today

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - John McCain returns today to the state whose primary he won in 2000 and again earlier this year.
Recent polls have shown Barack Obama with a lead no smaller than 7 percentage points in New Hampshire. That has prompted speculation McCain may have to surrender the state’s four electoral votes and focus elsewhere if he hopes to cobble together the 270 needed to become president.
A senior adviser is having none of it. Mark Salter says McCain is visiting New Hampshire because, in his words, “we get a charge out of it. We think we’re competitive there. They get it.”
New Hampshire was the only state to vote for Democrat John Kerry in 2004 after going for Republican George W. Bush in 2000.

Interview with Don Imus

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - John McCain says some polls may show his opponent is ahead, but he says indicators show his campaign is “coming up.”
McCain spoke this morning on the “Imus in the Morning” radio show. He admits he may be an underdog candidate, but says Barack Obama’s lead appears to be within the margin of error.
Overall, the Arizona senator tells Imus he feels “very confident” and says his campaign is “doing fine.” He says they’ll continue working hard and “having fun.” McCain says that goes for running mate Sarah Palin too.
He says, “We understand what a tough battle we have and she understands it better than anybody.”
McCain is campaigning today in New Hampshire, before heading to Ohio for two rallies with Palin. Next stops will include Florida, where Obama also is ahead in the polls.

Here’s a link to the audio of the Imus interview.

His Biggest Weakness

Palin, according to a new NBC poll.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: in Bensalem, Pennsylvania yesterday.

How bad are things for McCain in terms of the polls right now?

Click here to see the current state of the polls in West Virginia, a state where Clinton cleaned Obama’s clock earlier this year.

FURTHER READING: “Working Class White Voters Ditching McCain“

A Senate Race Suddenly Worth Watching

At left: Georgia Democratic Senate Challenger Jim Martin.

At right: Georgia incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss (R)

Polls Taken a Month Ago (September 7-9)

Chambliss: 57%

Martin: 28%

Polls Taken This Week (October 5-7)

Chambliss: 47%

Martin: 44%

Yes, Chambliss did vote for the Wall Street bailout.

& it looks like he’s paying dearly for it.

& this is probably partly why Chambliss is buying ad time on NewsChannel9.

Electoral Map Update:

Check out this map from RealClearPolitics. It shows that if McCain were to take all the toss-up states.. Obama would still have an electoral majority of 277.

George Will today:

“Obama is competitive in so many states that President Bush carried in 2004 — including Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico — it is not eccentric to think he could win at least 350 of the 538 electoral votes.

If that seems startling, that is only because the 2000 and 2004 elections were won with 271 and 286, respectively. In the 25 elections from 1900 to 1996, the winners averaged 402.6. This, even though the 1900 and 1904 elections — before Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma attained statehood, and before the size of the House was fixed at 435 members in 1911 — allocated only 447 and 476 electoral votes, respectively. The 12 elections from 1912 through 1956, before Hawaiian and Alaskan statehood, allocated only 531.

In the 25 20th-century elections, only three candidates won with fewer than 300 — McKinley with 292 in 1900, Wilson with 277 in 1916 and Carter with 297 in 1976. President Harry Truman won 303 in 1948 even though Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrat candidacy won 39 that otherwise would have gone to Truman. After John Kennedy won in 1960 with just 303, the average winning total in the next nine elections, up to the 2000 cliffhanger, was 421.4. “

]]> http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/09/the-ground-game-october-9th/4723/feed/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/01/new-battleground-polls-giving-the-gop-jitters/4121/ http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/01/new-battleground-polls-giving-the-gop-jitters/4121/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:49:31 +0000 Dan Lehr http://vote08.freedomblogging.com/?p=4121

All new, all from Quinnipiac:

Pennsylvania: Obama 54, McCain 39

Ohio: Obama 50, McCain 42

Florida: Obama 51, McCain 43

Advice for Obama supporters: Don’t get too giddy. There’s still a long way to go, & polls have certainly been all over the map this election.

Advice for McCain supporters: Don’t get too depressed. There’s still a long way to go, & polls have certainly been all over the map this election.

An Israeli folktale is apt here:

“King Solomon once searched for a cure against depression. He assembled his wise men together. They meditated for a long time and gave him the following advice: Make yourself a ring and have thereon engraved the words “This too shall pass”. The King carried out the advice. He had the ring made and wore it constantly. Every time he felt sad and depressed, he looked at the ring, whereon his mood would change and he would feel cheerful.” - &, of course, it would follow that every time he felt too happy, he would look at the sign & be tempered a bit.

Shall this pass, though? A new poll finds Sarah Palin’s popularity is slipping among Democrats & Independents.

UPDATE: More new polls reflect what appears to be a new trend.