Daily Polling Update, Sample Error Edition

Ah, OK. So we've got another day of post-debate vote, and the left-leaning Research 2000 poll adds two points to Obama's margin, and the right-leaning Rasmussen closes it up by a point, Diageo remains flat day to day, which means that more people remain undecided than before the debate despite continuing improvements in net favorables for Obama vis-a-vis McCain (go on, say "huh?", I did) and Gallup remains flat at 50-42, arguing that opinions on the debate may have been formed earlier than most would have expected.



I'm sorry, there are reasons i'd really like to believe the R2K poll, as you all know who I'm voting for, but today's curious internal is that according to R2K, Obama gets 62% of the vote in the Northeast compared with 29% for McCain. The Northeast includes Pennsylvania, a large state which is running very tight. DC isn't exactly going to make up for that. If you want us to take your poll seriously, at least don't give the appearance of being quite so in the tank. An Obama net favorable of +29 compared with 0 for McCain beggars the imagination as well. C'mon, dewds, srsly.

Rasmussen continues to show a slight uptick in favorability ratings for both candidates, with Obama a few points ahead on favorables, but not releasing a net number, so it doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. They also show that the two candidates are in a dead heat among white women, a constituency that I would argue it would be impossible for McCain to win the election without. Obama now also, according to Rasmussen, has slightly more support among Republicans than McCain does with Democrats, but not enough either way to move the needle--if anything is important, it's just that for most of the year the pattern had been reversed. If there's anything I take away here, it's just that Sen. Obama is being viewed somewhat more positively by people who may not have been quite sure how they viewed him. Now, remember that that does not necessarily translate into a vote, but it's more likely to become one than a negative, anyway.

Diageo's debate poll shows, in addition to a significant Obama "victory", by 41%-24%, with 27% calling it a draw, both candidates scored over 50% when asked about the quality of their performance, though with a significant difference: Obama rated excellent by 23% and good by 44% more, for a total of 67% vs 30% negative, while McCain was rated excellent by 10% with 44% good, for 54% vs 44% negative. In sum, the result of the debate is about consistent with what weve' seen elsewhere, with 43% saying it made them more likely to vote for Obama, 33% for McCain, and 23% didn't know or couldn't say. Which, incidentally, probably means nothing, especialy as this is the only one of the polls where McCain is closing the gap on Obama on the issue of who is better equipped to handle the economy.

SOS Or No
The economic rescue plan continues to generate controversy in inverse relation to how well it's understood by those making the biggest noise about it. Gallup has a survey out today showing that the public is unhappy with the conduct of Washington in handling the plan. Yet, I'd still be willing to venture that most of this opinion falls on partisan ground. The only leader with more approval than disapproval in the study is, however, Sen. Obama, and that only by a three point margin. President Bush comes in for the worst drubbing, probably because he's seen as powerless, dilatory, and vacuous in his statements on the situation. Democrats are a bit more kind to Obama than Republicans are to McCain, though members of each party naturally think their candidate has handled the crisis brilliantly and the other has been little more than a buffoon. Independents generally disapprove of both candidates' handling of the situation by a wide margin. Honestly, i'm not sure how much sense that makes; first, neither candidate is in a position to put on the mask and cape and fly in to save the day singlehandedly. However, the response on the part of each couldn't have been more different, and if independent voters reject both by roughly a 2:1 margin, either it's a different third of independents that approve of each or they're going to be a lot harder to please than anyone thought. I'm writing this at about 12:30pm, before the vote, though as Gallup releases its presidential tracking poll at 1:00pm and Diageo/Hotline whenever they damn well please, we'll certainly have had a vote in Congress on the rescue plan by the time this series of nuggets reaches your virtual desk.


Source: Gallup

Anyone who doesn't have a good handle on the bill and is interested in not being part of the 97% of the populace that doesn't have a clue what the bill's about, Henry Blodget has a pretty good summary at http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/9/analyzing-the-bailout-what-s-in-it-anyway- . As I write this, House Minority Leader Boehner has given rather a stirring little appeal in favor of the bill. He was against it before he was for it, but still.

Trust Department
Rasmussen has an interesting poll relating to voter trust after the debate, in which Sen. Obama is now trusted more than Sen. McCain on ten major issues, though usually by quite a small margin. If this survey is accurate, though, the fact that voters trust Obama more on such issues as Iraq, Immigration, Trade, Taxes, Social Security, Healthcare, and Abortion could be significant, and very bad news for the McCain campaign, particularly given the fact that it's a Rasmussen poll. They do caution,and I would agree, that trust issues are volatile; and with two debates left, I certainly would not want to suggest that these numbers will hold through November. It's pretty clear that they're losing on narrative (remember Peggy Noonan's hot mic comments a month or so ago?), but if they're going to lose on the issues as well, there's not a lot left to campaign on. In a separate survey, a small majority thought Obama won the debate, in line with Rasmussen's typical less-Democratic weighting than other pollsters in this election cycle.

But Wait, There's More!
Turns out there's more Couric-Palin footage CBS hasn't aired yet. One hears it's not more flattering to the governor than what has already been shown. One will see, as the network asked questions to both candidates to air in conjunction with the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday. As a result, no Bizarre Quote Of The Day but there may be several from both running mates later in the week. Darn that CBS, ruining the comic relief.

Vote is going on now, and it looks sure to fail. Question in my mind was whether Speaker Pelosi gets the 100 or so Republican votes she was hoping for, and is able to live with Democrats who feel they'll lose their seats if they vote yes. That's now impossible, the GOP vote against is a major rebellion against Boehner if his pleas to vote yea were sincere, which we'll presumably find out later. Note to Sen. McCain: If you want to see what putting Country Above Politics actually means, ask the Republicans who voted yes. They've got guts.

A demain, les copains!

John
Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day Wages have increased, the cost of living has decreased. The job of every man and woman has been made more secure. We have in this short period decreased the fear of poverty, the fear of unemployment, the fear of old age; and these fears that are the greatest calamities of human kind. (Campaign speech, 1928)

Daily Polling Rundown, Keep A Lid On It Edition

There's a surprising amount to say on a day when I thought I'd be hard pressed to say anything at all, but it probably cuts back on what there is to discuss the next few days; lots of info from the pollsters today and some of it is even important.

OK, OK, the numbers continue to favor Barack Obama as the first debate recedes into whatever it's receding into, and it seems like I'm saying "it's too soon" to something every day, but it has appeared that in these three-day rolling tracking polls, you don't really see the impact of a significant event until day two. So while today's results generally show the continuation of the trend towards Sen. Obama, probably safer to wait until tomorrow or even Tuesday to get some early comfort as to the public response to the first debate. I say "early comfort" because feeling about the winner of a presidential debate has sometimes in the past taken weeks to resolve. That being said, three of the four daily tracking polls now show Obama with 50% of the vote, while McCain runs between 42-44%; the gap remains the same in Diageo/Hotline and Rasmussen, but grew by a point in Research 2000 and fully three points in Gallup (the largest and, at least to me, the least comprehensible of the four). So, on with the show:



Not a lot of movement in internals, where we have internals, though a slow shift in independent and unaffiliated voters continues in the R2K poll, where Obama now leads 48-42 among independents and 48-40 among the elusive "other" category. The R2K poll does include Barr and Nader, but seems to be pushing a little too hard to force responses out of subjects, as only 1% are considered undecided. There's such a thing as including leaners, but this seems a little extreme. The weighting in R2K is also apparent in the net favorables, where Obama is at +27 and McCain only +1. Sorry, that probably shouldn't make sense, even to the Obama partisan. Of the 39% that consider themselves independent or "other/refused," one wonders exactly where on the political spectrum they were recruited, particularly as that segment gives 4% of the vote to Ralph Nader, which argues that there might be too much of this sample that comes from significantly left of Obama.

Rasmussen has readjusted its weightings again, but only from a 5.5% Democratic advantage to 5.6%, so there shouldn't be much to discuss, or much of a shift in the results themselves as a result of the weighting shift. Diageo is a little baffling, not because of the five point difference between the two candidates, exactly the same as yesterday, but because it would appear that each candidate has lost a point, and I'm not sure if anything legitimately would have caused people to drop away from a candidate and into the undecided column, so I'm going to assume it's sample error and see if the total is back where it was later in the week.

Gallup had a couple significant findings, most notably that Sen. Obama has opened up an eight point lead, two of which comes off McCain's score after the debate, which would tie in with their poll showing Obama as the debate winner by a 46-34 margin. I'd probably be closer to the 20% that didn't pick a winner, but between expectations being exceeded by Obama in the foreign policy debate and some unpleasant personal actions by McCain, I can see why more people moved the way they did. 30% of respondents said they had a more favorable view of Obama after the debate, while just 21% said they did of McCain; the negatives were equally striking, as 12% said they had a more negative view of Obama afterwards, compared with the same 21% of McCain. This was considerably magnified in a question regarding whether respondents had more or less confidence in each candidate's ability to deal with the economy, where Obama had a net posltive of eight points, while McCain's favorability on the economy dropped by 14% (23% saying they had more confidence in his ability and 37% less). And there's your victory, particularly among independents.

For the next couple debates, Sen. McCain is going to have to keep his obvious contempt for his opponent in check. This is not personal opinion: in-debate tracking showed that people's feelings about McCain dived every time he told Sen. Obama "you don't understand" on one issue or another. If there's anything at all i'm prepared to take out of this, it's that the nation is not buying the "country before politics" meme that Sen. McCain has been repeating non-stop for months; as he has only stepped up his politicking while saying it, the American public may not be so easily gulled.

The McCain campaign's tactical flip-flopping (oh, that word) continues unabated, even after the "will I or won't I" stunt fades: the senator was on This Week this morning denying any responsibility for the House Republicans holding up the financial plan until and during the time he swooped down and injected himself uninvited into the proceedings; as he had not attended a roll call vote in the Senate since April, I might suggest the business of the nation continued unabated without him. I remain convinced that there should have--and would have--been a deal on Thursday otherwise, as the Senate Republicans were generally onboard with a modified plan including the restrictions and checks on Treasury power that both parties (and the American public) wanted. Instead, we have a public that believes that there is a plan being forced down their throats that will cost them money and give the Treasury unlimited power--a Rasmussen poll shows 50% of the public are against the plan, though if 5% of them could actually tell me what the plan comprises, I'd be stunned.

He Said, She Didn't Said (Again)
Gov. Palin seemed to approve Sen. Obama's support for strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists if necessary. "If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should," Palin said, when asked. Seems fairly straightforward and, truly, sensible. It's that last adjective that can't be allowed to stand. On This Week this morning, Sen. McCain, ummm, retracted his running mate's statement, apparently on the grounds that it's scary and unfair to ask the Vice Presidential candidate questions she hasn't been fed in advance. I quote the GOP Presidential candidate directly: "In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitve policy statement made by Governor Palin." In point of fact, sir, with all due respect, many of us do actually think that the answer to a question on policy is not entirely unlike a policy statement.

Jerry Springer For President?
The Times of London--a not disreputable rag, despite its ownership--reports that the McCain/Palin campaign may try to shift the narrative by having the Bristol Palin (and I know I promised myself I'd never mention the name) wedding before the election. See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4837644.ece if you don't believe me, and honest to gosh there's no conceivable reason you should. That being said--are you seated comfortably?-- “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.” Shut down the race for a week. Yes, shut down the race for a week. Hands up who doesn't believe they're out of touch. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Rumors that catering of the reception with Old Milwaukee and pork rinds are unsubstantiated at press time but a virtual certainty all the same.

Quote of the Day
Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker on the Palin/Couric interview: The whole thing reads like something rendered from the Finnish by Google Translate.

It looks like there's a deal in Congress. Oh, ye of little faith.

And, last but not least, the Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day (TM):
The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment... has no place in the gospel of American progress. (Campaign speech, 1928)

September 27, Daily Polling Update, Mississippi Mud Edition

Let's bear in mind that yesterday's polling was done before the debate, but even so it would appear that, to a degree, John McCain's "will he or won't he" maneuvers were viewed at least moderately skeptically by a public all too willing to view politicians all too skeptically. R2K moves up a point for Obama, as, perhaps more importantly, does Rasmussen, to the greatest advantage he has held yet in that poll. Diageo narrows from a 7 to 5 point lead with no other information. Gallup, however, which had been tied as recently as Thursday, has now opened up to a five point lead. The only thing I can take away from this is what we already knew: that it's too early to pay too much attention to the dailies, and even the trends sometimes don't make a whole lot of sense. Either because nobody felt like bothering because the whole game would change in the aftermath of last night's debate or because it was Saturday and employees of the polling firms are all big time college football fans, there's next to nothing in terms of internals released today, so the heck with the lot of them.



We're beginning to get to crunch time, though, as the first state-level tracking poll, in Pennsylvania from the morningcall.com http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/state/all-a1_5poll.6604193sep26,0,1738520.story has begun to come in. It's a little too early to bother other than to say that Obama has a four point lead, and that the site is great for Allentown/Bethlehem birth and tag sale notices.


Two Guys Walk Into An Auditorium In Mississippi
The debate itself was generally judged to be a modest Obama victory (personally, taking out expectations, I'd call it "tie goes to the runner" , but that may translate into greater Obama gains, as 1) it was questioned as to whether he would be able to hold his own in the foreign policy debate, 2) he seemed cool and collected, looking his opponent and the viewing audience in the eye while McCain seemed tetchy, occasionally smarmy and contemptuous, according to commentators and instant polling results and 3) Obama was able to score the two biggest shots of the evening (Spain and "you were wrong") despite taking far fewer of them. That being said, as the debates move into domestic policy, more viewed as Obama's home field, McCain has the opportunity to be viewed as the winner just by hanging in. The bracelet exchange (not that they traded jewelry or anything) seems to be generating a lot of day-after comment as well, mainly in Obama's favor; I found it a stirring moment on both sides, but Obama's response carried more weight, especially with parents. Other than a few digs, I found it informative but relatively uninspiring. That being said, I think that's what Obama wanted, and McCain didn't. Also, the level of discourse in general on both sides probably reached a level last night which will be impossible to attain for Sarah Palin in the VP debate, assuming she is still on the ticket by the end of the week (and if she's going, it's going to happen before the debate).

Post debate surveys were as follows:

Obama McCain CNN 51 38 including a 21 point lead on the economy, 25 on "more intelligent," and 27 on "expressed views more clearly," while McCain "spent more time attacking his opponent" by 60-23. Perhaps more importantly, Obama scored a 12 point lead on "was more sincere," a full 35 points head on "was more likable," and biggest of all, beat McCain by 49-43 on "seemed to be the better leader."
CBS 39 24 Poll of uncommitted voters, no surprise 37% thought it a draw. 46% said their view of Obama improved, while 32% said the same of McCain. 66% said Obama would make right decisions on the economy, while 42% said McCain would. Respondents noted McCain as being "angry and bad-tempered" and "didn't control himself well under pressure" while Obama won style points for poise.

Here, There, And Everywhere
Personally, I felt that McCain's moves seemed more erratic than heroic, and let's not discount the Letterman effect--it's not, as his campaign said, a function of feeling it inappropriate to go on a comedy show during a crisis, as in fact McCain more or less announced his candidacy on the same show, implying that that was a moment of comedy? Even those who agree with his policies can not but accept that the McCain campaign once again is showing itself to be consistent only in its inconsistency. Historically, and particularly when we are looking for a break with the last eight years, the American public likes its presidents to be, well, Presidential, and if that includes a touch of the stolid, well, so be it. McCain's a gambler, both in life and politics, but there may be a point at which we would prefer our leaders not roll dice. The next few days will give us some real feeling, for the first time.

I'm going to do something I've been threatening to do almost since day one and hit send before it gets twice as long as I intended. See you tomorrow!

Best,

John

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day (miss it yesterday? I did)
Words without action are the assassins of idealism. (NY Times, 29 April 1920)

September 26, Daily Polling Update, Deal Or No Deal Edition

Well, this is interesting, though I don't think anyone should either take or lose heart from it. A fairly significant day of gains for Sen. Obama, though it's hard to say when the Thursday part of the three-day polling was done, and whether it reflects the White House meeting and what passes for its aftermath. I would argue that it's not just Sen. McCain that's taking a gamble here--with the Senate GOP on board to make some kind of deal to avert cataclysm (and make no mistake, this hits Main Street in moments if nothing happens and could be hitting already had Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan not stepped up to buy WaMu assets last night, which coincidentally also will now allow me to take money from an ATM in LA without paying a $2 fee, for which alone I approve of the transaction), the Republicans in the House are staging their own last stand. The risk they're taking is that this could be like when Newt Gingrich shut down the government over the budget and discovered to his great surprise that while people love complaining about it, they also rather like having it around. I wonder if the world financial system is in an analogous position.

My gut feeling, such as it is: there will be a debate tonight (and I'm not counting the prospect of Barack Obama debating a cardboard cutout of John McCain, or McCain saying "Well, I'm just too busy in Washington, so I'll send my running mate to deputize, as that's the role of the Vice President"), there will be some kind of deal in the next few days, and the public will eventually be educated as to what it involves--well, duh, of course people will be against it if they think that it's a $700 billion payout to make Morgan Stanley's bonus pool. On the bailout, polls show that a majority of Americans want legislation, but not bills that reward investment bankers. Problem is, there is no proposal out there that rewards investment bankers, but certain people, particularly Congressmen, are scaring the public by claiming that was the purpose of the Paulson plan. That being said, anyone who thinks that hasn't read the plan (as had not McCain as of a couple days ago, by his own admission), and anyone in Congress who is trying to make people believe that's what it's about is beneath contempt.

With that, on to the numbers, provisional as I believe them to be.



And I'm confused. The Democratic leaning R2K poll takes a point off Obama from yesterday, while the under-Democratic-weighted Rasmussen opens the lead up from 3 to 5 (remember, it was 2 on Wednesday and tied on Tuesday). 39% of respondents in the R2K poll do not identify themselves as either Republican or Democrat (30% independent, and 9% refuse to say, implying that whatever they are, they're embarrassed of it, which really doesn't narrow things down much). In Rasmussen, only 27.5% of voters are considered Unaffiliated. Given that Rasmussen reports that now Obama has as strong a showing with Democrats as McCain does with Republicans, one might argue that Obama is not doing as well with independent voters as he might hope. However, on the bright side for the Democrats, one major complaint voiced by disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters is that Obama would lose a lot of Democrats; this seemed like little more than sour grapes at the time, and now seems like sour grapes that may have numbers to disprove it. The difference is, in fact, in the polling--Rasmussen has Obama up by 5 among unaffiliateds while R2K only has him leading by three. Diageo has Obama moving up a point and McCain down one, to 49-42, with Obama's lead on the economy increasing. Gallup's numbers, at 48-45, reverse yesterday's baffling tie scoreMcCain's gambit on the bailout gains in importance to the future of his campaign by the minute.

There's a very interesting story at www.fivethirtyeight.com about Ann Selzer's polling. She's had a great record, and while she doesn't poll cellphone-only users (which takes his estimate of the hidden advantage to Obama down to 2.3%, closer to my own 1.5-2.0% idea), she has what seems like an excellent handle on youth and minority voting. Check it out at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/ann-selzer-on-youth-minority-turnout.html
or if not, here's a quick rundown. Her polls generally show much more favorable numbers for Obama than the others, and she is taking a gamble, weighting young and minority voters much higher than other polling organizations. For example, while other groups have their knickers in a twist over Michigan, she's got Obama up 13. It's a significant gamble and staking of her credibility on the idea that, for example, significantly more than 17% of the electorate will be 18-29, as it was in 2004, which is most other pollsters' starting point. This makes sense to me, as the Obama campaign seems to have galvanized younger voters in a way that John Kerry never did. Nate Silver points out that this makes sense, as youth voter turnout in the Democratic primaries was up 52% over 2004, and that pollsters may double-undercount, as they'll take the 17% number and then factor in younger voters propensity to turn out in lower numbers than others. The difference could be significant. Worth keeping on the chalkboard somewhere, though we're unlikely to know how prominent an issue it will be until November.

Morning Updates, While We Wait For Gallup And Diageo To Do Whatever It Is They Do Dept.
11:00AM. Harry Reid, showing the toughness he reportedly had as a Las Vegas mob prosecutor but appears to have left in Nevada when he went to the Senate, is, as I write this, stating firmly that a deal will get done, that the addition of Presidential politics has been harmful to the process of the bailout, calling out McCain to let the country know where he actually stands on the issue. Reid is saying flat out that House Republicans did not even want to attend meetings, particularly since McCain rode into town. Dodd is now speaking, and sounding a lot tougher than Reid, so forget half of what I just said. He's annoyed, but makes it clear that there are many Republicans that are willing to work things out, that there will be no excessive executive compensation, that taxpayers will potentially be able to benefit, that there will be accountability, and that the Democratic leadership will work with any Republicans who "are interested in working on it." Oh, he's pissed. This is definitely a shutdown moment for the Republicans in the House, and it could go either way for them, for the markets, and for the country.

11:15 update. This just in, House Republicans are coming back to the table at 1130AM--this won't reach you until after that, as Gallup doesn't release numbers until 1 or so, and Diageo whenever they feel like it, but as I write this at 11:15, Boehner has finally let his troops march. Speaker Pelosi wants 80-100 Republicans for political cover, and she doesn't have that right now.

11:30 update. McCain will attend debate. Duh. One can only assume he read the polls, which showed overwhelming popular support for the idea of keeping it going (see yesterday's note for examples of bigger crises than this that didn't stop debates) He was for it before he was against it before he was for it.

1:00pm update: Reps. Boehner and Blount are telling America that they're holding out for a bill that doesn't hurt Main Street. Gee, sounds like what Reid and Dodd said a couple hours ago. Oh, what's different is that Boehner is saying that the White House was ganging up on him. Poor guy. At least he's being snotty to the press.

Dr. Strangelove Quote Of The Day, from Gov. Palin's interview with hard-hitting investigative journalist Katie Couric, who totally appears to have made her hard-hitting investigative journalist bones by trying to pin the Governor to answer to a question, any question, this time on the old "creepy dude next door" issue, particularly relevant as Gov. Palin appears at another point to have questioned the diplomatic acumen of Henry Kissinger: "it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there." Calling Slim Pickens...

September 25, Daily Polling Roundup, Suspended Animation Edition

Well, we're moving left, right, and center today, despite the fact that the semi-comprehensible McCain strategic moves from yesterday really won't be included in today's numbers. Diageo and Democrat-leaning R2K remain steady with yesterday's tally, Republican-leaning Rasmussen adds a point for Obama, and who-on-earth-knows-what-they're-doing Gallup now has the race, of all things, tied. Go figure. Waiting for the Letterman effect to kick in, as well as the debate, and yes there is going to be one because 1) Obama quite rightly didn't take McCain's demand seriously (and you wouldn't either if you were in a deathmatch and scented fear and disarray from your opponent) and 2) there will--repeat will--be a bailout, probably before Senator McCain can tear himself away from all the non-Letterman interviews and find the train to Washington (hint, Senator: it's the same one Sen. Biden takes every Monday morning.) Honest to gosh, it doesn't matter if the bailout stinks, 1930 would stink more, and there are your choices. You decide. No, srsly. Do. Please. Also, did anyone else think Sen. McCain looked, umm, unwell, yesterday?



So what have we got here? A whole bunch of not a whole bunch. Maybe it's interesting that Rasmussen, with the least Democratic party ID weighting, continues to show Obama inching ahead. Maybe it's not. I find it curious that their poll has both candidates viewed favorably by over 50% of the electorate (Obama by 56%, McCain by 55%), but if I were to list everything I find curious in these polls every day, this note, which is already probably longer than it should be, would just get ridiculous. Rasmussen has its own Intrade-type thing, which now shows a 58% chance of an Obama victory. I'm inherently skeptical of unregulated markets (can't imagine why), and would do my best to ignore all this, I think the rapidly shifting probabilities at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com do a better job of tracking the trends in how voter attitudes are changing so far ahead of the actual election.

Diageo continues to show an increasing number of respondents saying the economy is the most important issue (58% now, up two points from yesterday); I think we need to have a chat with the other 42. Also, Obama leads by an increasing number in this poll when asked who would do a better job of handling the economy, though the lead is still just seven points, at 45-38. They also show an increasing number agreeing that government needs to take a larger role in oversight of financial markets, even if people in general are buying politicians' (on both sides) pseudo-populist claims that this is a terrible deal for Americans. Populism wins votes in 2008, so everyone's a populist. Get over yourselves, and fast.

In general, it seems (looking at some other polls that aren't dailies as well) that Republican-leaning polls have positive early returns for McCain's comments yesterday, while others track in the other direction. We'll see how that plays out over the next few days. If I'm McCain, I probably want to cancel the debate: first, though it's supposed to be about foreign policy, where I'm supposedly strong, I really don't have a lot of credentials in the area, which may become apparent in a debate and second, everyone's just going to ask about the economy anyway, where I've gone out of my way in the past to say I have no credentials, however much I try to create a new context for those remarks now. Also, if I can push the debate back a week, that coincides with the Vice Presidential debate, which I can then "postpone" permanently because I have a pretty good idea by this point how my running mate will show when asked questions alongside someone who's made a career of answering them. Problem is, some people might get wise to this. Yeah, some people.

On the state side, Rasmussen has a poll in North Carolina (see yesterday's note regarding a potential Reverse Bradley Effect), showing Obama with a two point lead in the normally solid red state, a three point lead in Pennsylvania, and McCain ahead mid-single digits in Florida and Ohio. A couple other Pennsylvania polls showed varying results for Obama, with Strategic Vision (typically with a few point GOP lean) having him just up one point, but CNN (with a couple point Democratic lean) up eight. Mason-Dixon confirms Rasmussen in Virginia, up three. Colorado looks decent for Obama in three polls released yesterday, with leads of three to nine points. Other states are about as expected, and we dont need to spend a lot of time talking about McCain's 21 point lead in Alabama or Obama's 41 point advantage in Hawaii, do we? Nah, didn't think so.

Palin's Eisenhower Moment
Gov. Palin's interview with Katie Couric is probably worth seeing, but it's really not my place here to discuss it. However, there was one moment that I found incredibly telling, and drew a parallel in my mind to 1960. When asked over and over again by an increasingly exasperated (if you can believe that, and I couldn't) Couric to name one area in which Sen. McCain has been in favor of regulation in 26 years in Washington, the governor finally got all spunky and said that she'd get back to Ms. Couric on it. Did anyone else think of Eisenhower in 1960 being asked to name a single policy initiative that Nixon had been responsible for and replying, "If you give me a week, I might think of one?" May have done more damage to Tricky Dick's campaign than televised five o'clock shadow and Joe Kennedy's money in Illinois combined. She's not going to be compared to Eisenhower that often, so if you're a fan, take it when you can.

OK, Exhale
You know, I realize I sound partisan up there, and honestly I work very hard not to be, but if there's one service a "behind the numbers" sort of note can provide, it's to cut through the layers of confusion, sample design error, and just outright bulls--t that all surveys, and particularly those with politicians involved, can pile up on a bizarrely unsuspecting populace. I say this because I find it very diffcult to see the ostensible suspension of the McCain campaign (and in what way are you suspending the campaign if you're spending the entire time of the suspension being interviewed and giving speeches?) and insistence that the debate not go on as planned just plain dishonest. I was going to say "disingenuous," but that wont' cover it. Reagan and Carter debated in 1980 when hostages were being held in Iran, Bush and Gore debated in 2000 in the aftermath of the bombing of the USS Cole, there was a presidential campaign in 1932 in the depths of the Depression, so why do you need to suspend a campaign because some other people are working out a plan to save the financial system from collapse? Seriously, if you buy that, you deserve what you get. Media, even outlets such as the not-typically-flaming-left-wing Wall Street Journal, are choking on it. The dirty but quite large secret here is that the Journal, better than most, knows that while markets like tax cuts, what they like most of all is stability, and that is the one thing that the McCain/Palin campaign is not giving them.
Anyway, apologies for a bit more of what appears to be rant than usual, but if I can't call "bulls--t" when I see it, and explain why and how, this is probably a waste of time. I'll call it on the other side one day too, I promise, it's just that he keeps doing annoying things like acting calm, collected, and what used to be called Presidential, darn him.

Tune in again tomorrow for another exciting episode, and as always, thanks for the kind words and referrals to friends, neighbors, enemies, etc. and perhaps most of all for keeping the unkind words to yourselves, fragile male ego being what it is and all.

John

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day (TM):
Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

September 24, Daily Polling Roundup, Red-Eye Edition

More jockeying for position ahead of the debates, though as we saw yesterday, there is fairly significant evidence that presidential debates don't typically move the needle that much. Oh, every so often you get Richard Nixon looking like the face on a wanted poster next to matinee idol JFK, or Gerald Ford saying there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, but it's the exception rather than the rule. We do have a shift of a point in Obama's favor in Rasmussen, which is interesting; whether it reflects the modest shift in party ID weighting I'm not able to say, but I'd guess that moving it from +5.1% Democratic to +5.5% isn't going to give you much
other than a different sort of rounding error. R2K moves the other way, and I'd say the same thing, at least so far. There's really no identifiable reason for it, so I'm not going to try and make one up. It's still all mostly noise, so if you want to look at the table and skip the next three paragraphs til you get to the bit about Gallup's polling on Palin and white women, I wouldn't blame you in the least. Honest to gosh, I might have done the same, and I wrote the damn thing.



If there's one clear place where support for Obama seems to have a direct correlation, it's in concern about the economy. Despite the bailout, Rasmussen's polls show a steady though modest increase in respondents' concern and feeling that the economy is the biggest issue facing the nation; this seems to show up in improved results for Barack Obama. Rasmussen also reports favorables for the Vice Presidential choices today. I'm going to mention them and move the hell out. We've noted the party weighting in Rasmussen is perhaps a few points less Democratic than we feel it ought to be in 2008, and nowhere perhaps is the difference between Rasmussen and R2K's weightings (and one would assume, questioning style and overall survey design) more apparent than in the net favorables for the VP candidates. In Rasmussen, Palin is a +12, Biden +8. The undecideds are low, which suggests that people were forced to make a decision (there were only 3% undecided about Palin--polarizing candidate though she surely is, it's still September, guys)--this is also true in the Presidential poll, where there are only 4% undecided. I know they include leaners, but they're pushing too hard.

In R2K, the movement was all within independent voters, and voters between 30-59. Independents make up 30% of the survey, and picked up 2 points in McCain's direction. You can either see that as utterly momentous or complete random noise; I tend to the latter in the absence of further information, especially given that McCain's net favorables in this poll did not change at +1 (compared with much higher results in Rasmussen) and Obama's dropped by 2 points from +21 to +19. I've talked myself blue in the face about how I feel there's design error in both these polls, so I don't think I can face it again. To sum though, the poll where the net favorables massively favor Obama just moved one point in McCain's favor, while the one where the favorables seem to be even just moved a point in Obama's favor. Go figure.

Diageo moves a point towards Obama; in sum, "it's the economy, stupid." They polled regarding Sarah Palin's preparedness, and the numbers, if they represent a trend, may have the Republicans putting Mitt Romney back on speed dial. Gallup is flat a 47-44, and there's not a whole heck of a lot to say about that, is there?

Gallup does have a much more interesting poll out today asking whether the Palin choice has helped McCain among white women, and their poll suggests there has been minimal change. I like this result, mostly because it's what Iv'e been saying all along. Their data shows that McCain had a 9 point lead among white women before the Democratic convention in August, which expanded to 11 points during the height of Palinmania, but which has now settled at an all time low of a 2 point advantage, the biggest difference being that undecideds have moved towards Obama as more is discovered about who the GOP running mate is. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest gains for the Palin/McCain (oops) campaign are among non-college-educated white woman aged 30-49. If they think it's because Sarah Palin is like them, they should consider paying more attention to someone who isn't Sean Hannity. When I say Sarah Palin is a polarizing figure, that doesn't just mean she solidifies the base on the right.

Back to what i swore I wouldn't talk much about any more, but now feel forced to, Party ID. I have two good reasons for this; three if you consider that I'm probably still a little groggy from being on a plane overnight as one of them. First, Gallup yesterday released a poll showing that in their large sample, 49% of respondents identified as Democrats, while 39% did as Republicans. This 10 point difference is in fact higher than even the 9.1% difference in the R2K poll. This 10 point advantage had shrunk to 5 after the Republican Convention, but with the bloom off the rose and petals flying around everywhere getting into awkward difficult-to-reach places, the number is back to a steady state situation.

The final reason I mention it is that party ID seemed to be the one thing the McCain campaign hadn't complained about yet. Well, strike that one off the list. Bill McInturff, McCain's own pollster held a conference call (first red flag, remember the conference call we discussed yesterday and how it didnt' exactly HELP matters much) to suggest that the latest ABC News/WaPo poll overcounted Democrats. ABC addresses the issue at some length at http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/. Looks like they were using a number of about +7 which is where McInturff himself had suggested the election was likely to turn out, not that I'm suggesting that just because a McCain staffer said something one day that it obtains the next (that's what YouTube is for, guys). McInturff, who should have known a lot better himself, and should have known that ABC's pollsters would know better, was focusing on one not terribly relevant way of looking at voters which favored Democrats more and which would have been more pro-Obama had it actually been the methodology ABC used in deriving their results. ABC includes on their page their breakdown through the polling season; the McCain campaign has never discussed their own internals--surely it's easier to have a discussion about two divergent points of view if the other guy tells you what his point of view is rather than just that yours is kind of sucky? Dewd, whateverrrrrr...

OK, I'm going to work on adding graphical material here now that I'm on my home system, such as it is, and cutting back some things that need cutting back. If I have to learn a new email program to do this, you owe me. Have no fear, though--the Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day will not perish from the earth.

Groggily,

John

And now...the Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day (TM):
It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

September 23, Daily Polling Rundown, Leaving On A Jet Plane Edition

Oh, nothing really. R2K remains dead flat, just the most random of movements in individual sectors too minor to mention, other than net favorables, where Obama gained a couple and McCain lost a couple, but if one candidate is really +21 and the other is +1, then the race isn't this close, so skip it. Rasmussen has moved from a statistical tie to an absolute one, but again, big whoop, we're in a holding pattern until the debate or further bizarre comments. Gallup has another point move back into the undecided column, as Obama moves down from 48 to 47 with no increase in McCain's numbers. Could just be rounding. Obama has slipped three points in Gallup since he reached 50% on Saturday, but McCain hasn't gained over that time. I don't want to put too much faith in any single number, but I am curious as to why and/or how Obama has lost a point in each of the last three days. They don't discuss internals on a daily basis, so there's no way of figuring it out.

Diageo/Hotline Obama 47 McCain 43 (47-42)
Gallup Obama 47 McCain 44 (48-44)
R2K Obama 49 McCain 43 (49-43)
Rasmussen Obama 48-McCain 48 (48-47)

Diageo has a fractional increase for McCain with no decrease for Obama, pointing out that the economy continues to rise as the most significant issue in survey respondents' minds and that Obama's view of the origin of the financial crisis resonates more than McCain's. I've been on Wall Street for 20 years and I'm not sure I understand what McCain is saying, so I can see how it might not resonate. Srsly, though, could be in part an articulateness issue, if not The Vision Thing. At the same time, Diageo's polling on who would do a better job handling the economy has now moved into a virtual dead heat, so I'm probably spending too much time talkinga bout Diageo. Feh.

Rasmussen has some state polling out showing Obama still up 8 in Minnesota and the Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and intermittently comic Al Franken in a dead heat. Coleman isn't terribly popular in his state, and the campaign has become increasingly bitter. I've seen other commentary suggesting that Dean Barkley, the third party candidate with strong name recognition in the state (he served the remainder of the late Paul Wellstone's term after he was killed in a plane crash in 2002) was polling in double digits because Minnesotans were fed up with the level of discourse. Not so sure about that, but Rasmussen tends to discount third parties, so I'd take it with a shaker of salt. Could Franken get an SNL bump from Tina Fey's Sarah Palin shtick? After all he's good enough, he's smart enough and doggone it, people like him!

More state polling trending modestly Obama's way, particularly in Virginia and, surprisingly, North Carolina. If there's a kind of reverse Bradley Effect in the south, and African-American voters can come out in numbers proportionate to (or even greater than) white voters, some southern states with particularly high numbers of black residents such as North Carolina (21.7% black compared with 12.8% nationwide) could possibly be in play. McCain is worried; the GOP has allocated additional resources to what is ordinarily considered one of the reddest of the red--other than Jimmy Carter in 1976, NC has gone Republican since 1964. McCain continues to poll strong in PA and OH, though The Keystone State has a recent history of closing strong for the Democrat. It's also down to 21 electoral votes, the fewest it's had since James Madison won his first term. Well, I thought it was interesting.

Speaking of bizarre comments, I can't really post a Surrogate Quote Of The Day because it was a 45 minute conference call senior McCain staffers had to bitch out the press for doing what looks like quoting their candidate. Unfortunately, as reported on politico.com and a whole bunch of other places, the examples they tried to give of really really really bad things Obama and his people and his people's people have done were riddled with easily verifiable errors. After writing that, certain members of the fourth estate were treated to scathing private communications from the selfsame staffers, which they immediately made public. Duh. If you have an ear for comedy, the whole call is posted at http://blip.tv/file/1284017/ . If you have an ear for how NOT to manipulate the press, same site. Jeez. Maybe attacking Russia (viz. yesterday's note) was a better idea after all--they might catch them on a weeklong Stoli bender. If you'd just like to read Ben Smith's take at politico, and it's worth a look, here 'tis: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=8B938576-18FE-70B2-A85A7409BC2461BC .

I've said before that we're in a holding pattern for the debates, and I'm sure people think that polls may move significantly after Friday night, but there's an interesting survey out of the University of Wisconsin ( http://election08data.blogspot.com/2008/09/debate-effects.html ) suggesting that in the last 20 years, the impact has been no more than a few points. That being said, sometimes a few points can change the outcome of an election, so I wouldn't entirely discount the impact of a three point swing. I would suggest that what matters about the first debate is that, because it's the foreign policy debate, it will be Obama's chance to show that he can speak and act like a Commander In Chief. McCain will need to be very careful not looking like a petulant old guy if Obama is successful in this effort. If he's unsuccessful, McCain could gain significantly. It's all in Obama's hands this time round.

Some highly regarded conservative commentators still seem to be slowly inching away from the McCain reservation, though I'm sure if it turns out not to be a train wreck, they'll have inched right back again. No worries; it's what partisan commentators on all sides do. Just wash your hands after reading them and check for your cufflinks after shaking hands. Oh, and if you have them to dinner, I'd urge against the good silver.

Right. Fingers, paws, and fins crossed, I'm heading home from a month in LA tonight, which means nothing to any of us except that this email will be better formatted once I'm off my hotel's internet connection. Til tomorrow, then, and thanks for the kind words,

John

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day
The American people from bitter experience have a rightful fear that great business units might be used to dominate our industrial life and by illegal and unethical practices destroy equality of opportunity. (1928)

September 22, Daily Polling Rundown, Bailing Out The Bailout Edition

It feels as though Obama's bump last week was due largely to the growing economic crisis. As public perception over the weekend was that the administration had moved to stave off disaster, some voters, whether they approved of the moves or not, may have shifted slightly in McCain's direction. With gathering resentment over what is being viewed as a taxpayer financing of bankers' greed (a viewpoint with which I only concur in small part) and renewed declines in the equity markets on Monday morning, it remains to be seen if there is a shift back in the other direction as today's surveys begin to be reflected in tomorrow's numbers. I would think that if they do, we won't really see it until Wednesday or Thursday. There is, however, one significant move today--at a time when other polls are settling in with a slight erosion to Obama's recent gains, Diageo/Hotline comes in with a full two point bump in his direction, which also argues against my suspicion that the bailout, however unpopular with sections of the electorate and the commentariat it might be, has made people more comfortable that we're not heading towards utter financial cataclysm. There's no change in the Diageo polling on the economy, 55% on Sunday felt it the most important issue, up from 53% on Friday. That being said, they continue to confuse me with a closing of the gap in perceptions of which candidate is better equipped to handle the economy--if McCain is gaining there, surely he shouldn't be losing in the overall poll, unless their survey thinks Obama is better equipped to handle everything else, which would be significant indeed. Dont' know much about the methodology of this one, but it seems awfully inconsistent.

Additionally, Obama seems to score additional points when the McCain campaign is recorded saying something mindbogglingly stupid or transparently mendacious; they managed to avoid that particular Scylla and Charybdis over the weekend (or at least nobody watches the news on weekends during football season), and McCain's numbers climb slightly as a result. I'm still not discounting the Bradley Effect, whatever Nate Silver says. Finally, I would suggest that pretty much everything this week is noise until the first debate Friday night. Next Sunday's note might be an interesting one.

So here are the numbers, and not a whole lot of further commentary on a slowish news cycle, other than a two point Obamaward bump in Diageo/Hotline which I can't begin to explain so I won't bother trying unless we see a lot more of it:

Diageo/Hotline Obama 47 McCain 42(45-44)
Gallup Obama 48 McCain 44 (49-45)
R2K Obama 49 McCain 43 (49--42)
Rasmussen Obama 48-McCain 47 (48-47)

Some interesting state polling has been filtering through lately--PPP and Rasmussen both have the race in North Carolina having narrowed to being too close to call. Barring voter fraud, there are some states in the South where a possible reverse Bradley Effect might obtain, assuming the Obama campaign's voter registration efforts are as successful as their supporters claim. Obama's getting a crowd estimated locally in the area of 25,000 in Charlotte really doesn't surprise that much; he has been drawing huge crowds in any big city. If anything, people in the major media centers are surprised that Charlotte is a big city, and that's their damn problem. It is, and it's also a big city that largely grew into one on the back of the banking industry. If NC is truly in play, this would be bad news indeed for McCain, though the fact that he has begun to reallocate resources into the state implies that it is a threat his campaign is taking very seriously indeed.

R2K and The Miami Herald have McCain with razor-thin margins in Florida, while ARG has Minnesota having closed from being safely Obama to within the margin of error, even at a time when Al Franken has dramatically closed the gap on the incumbent Norm Coleman (with a third party candidate with excellent local name recognition in double digits) in the senatorial race. ARG also has, on the other side, Virginia as only a 2 point lead for McCain; he appears to have got a huge post-convention bump in the commonwealth, which has equally quickly dissipated--in fact, PPP and SUSA published polls last week showing Obama in front from 2 to 4 points. With so many key states in a state of such flux, it's probably safe to consider things in a holding pattern circling over Andrews AFB until after the debate.

Whither The Paleo-Conservatives?
While a lot of talk is tossed around about how McCain has solidified his conservative base with his running mate choice, how his military positions are also appealing to the right, what we're really seeing there is an appeal to the New Right, the neo-conservatives on foreign policy and Evangelicals on social issues. Although I don't know how relevant they are any more, I'm intrigued by the number of old-fashioned Reagan conservatives who are moving off the reservation. This weekend's commentary by George Will on ABC's This Week were particularly striking:

"I suppose the McCain campaign's hope is that when there's a big crisis, people will go for age and experience. The question is, who in this crisis looked more presidential, calm and un-flustered? It wasn't John McCain who, as usual, substituting vehemence for coherence, said 'let's fire somebody.' And picked one of the most experienced and conservative people in the administration, Chris Cox, and for no apparent reason... It was un-presidential behavior by a presidential candidate....John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful."

Again, I'm just not sure how relevant to a generation of no-expense-spared-if-its-for-our-cause self-proclaimed "conservatives" people like George Will are, but it's striking to see this sort of statement on national television from a commentator as well respected and consistently intellectually honest, whether one agrees with his opinions or not.

Back tomorrow with the packing up and heading back east edition, darn it all.

John

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day (TM):
We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. (1928)

September 21, Daily Polling Rundown, Blaming The Even Older Dude Edition

This is my first daily update that includes polling done on a Saturday, so I'm not sure if the fact that the news cycle is slower makes the polls a little softer; I hope not, given that they're three-day running totals. A fractional dropoff in R2K, a one point move towards McCain in Gallup, stability in Diageo and Rasmussen. All in all, nothing that looks more than random noise right now, but let's see what happens over the course of a few days.

So away we go....

Diageo/Hotline Obama 45 McCain 44 (45-44)
Gallup Obama 49 McCain 45 (50-44)
R2K Obama 49 McCain 42 (50-42)
Rasmussen Obama 48 McCain 47 (48-47)

Gallup has the most significant move, which is pretty insignificant. Their daily consumer confidence numbers have also moved less negative by a point, though that must means it goes from 81% negative to 80%, and the positives drop from 5% to 4% at the same time. R2K looks like Obama loses the point in various demographics he gained yesterday, which means absolutely nothing unless he continues to slip; just quite literally a couple people checking one box instead of another. What I'd watch for is how direct the correlation is between bad news on the economy and gains for Obama vs stability and gains for McCain. There probably is some sort of correlation, and in fact more than there should be, which would raise the specter of the Bradley Effect--my personal opinion is that it continues to exist, but can be overridden by disasters in the financial markets and overall economy. An AP/Yahoo News poll shows some alarming--though hardly surprising--racial attitudes among white voters, and suggest a 6 point "racial cost" to Obama in the polls. I want to believe this is nonsense, but if I think about it, I suppose there's more to it than I wish there were (that story can be found at http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race ). This poll shows a much lower figure of support for Obama among non-Hispanic Whites than Gallup, roughly 70% vs 77%.

Also, if a day goes by without someone from the McCain campaign saying something breathtakingly idiotic, does that increase his polling? It would appear to.

Rasmussen, which has a much smaller weighting in favor of Democratic ID than R2K, although interestingly MORE independents, remains flat day to day. Rasmussen has also announced changes in weighting which tilt the polling slightly more Democratic:

Rasmussen Weightings Old New Change

Democratic 38.7 39.0 +0.3
Republican 33.6 33.5 -0.1
Unaffiliated 27.7 27.5 -0.2

While this is a move from +5.1% Democratic to +5.5%, it remains to be seen if this is still too conservative.

There's been some very interesting state polling in the last few days, the results of which are just coming out today. R2K for two Florida newspapers shows that race is now a tossup, with South Florida going 58% Obama. Whether this reflects unease regarding aspects of Sarah Palin's background can't be established, I would think, but her affiliation with millenarian Christian groups and the campaign of Pat Buchanan will not serve the ticket well in areas with a significant Jewish population. Only a third of voters in that poll suggested the economy was the most important issue, compared with totals closer to 50% nationwide. McCain, however, does quite well in more rural and military Northwest Florida, which comes as no surprise.

Nate Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com has corrected his cellphone bias survey from yesterday; it turns out that one of the polling agencies that he had been led to believe included cellphone only voters yet was the most GOP-oriented of the ones in the study in fact does NOT poll people with no landline. Taking them out of the survey moves his estimate of the unreported advantage to Obama from 2.2% to 2.8%. While anyone on the Democratic side in this campaign should be cheered by those numbers, I still have trouble, despite the extremely high quality of his work (which I followed for years at baseballprospectus.com too), getting past my back of the envelope concept that it's more like a point and a half. Either way, it's a big deal in a very close race.

Blowback on the Treasury's bailout plan is louder and harder than I had expected, as voices are raised in opposition to the idea that the government may buy $700 billion in mortgages at what some consider above-market prices. The question for me comes down to whether the prices are high because it's really a bailout for mortgage speculators or they seem high because when you mark to market at a time when there's really no market, values look artificially low. If the public perception becomes that this is either more welfare for bankers or, as Paul Krugman put it, "Commissar Paulson [seizing] the means of production" the uproar from both left and right could scuttle the plan. Personally I'm not nuts about it, but I'm even less nuts about Great Depression 2: Electric Boogaloo. Besides, the overweening irony in all this is that should disaster be averted, round about year 3 of the next administration, the government could start turning massive profits on what it owns. The nature of the administration will, of course, ominously, determine how those profits are used. So right now, it only looks like the biggest piece of central planning socialism inflicted on the world since the last Five Year Plan, but there's always a chance it'll be a good buy-and-hold (remember those? the equity markets don't) investment.

I also feel a moment of vindication here. Not that i want to spend all my time picking on the elderly, but I fell off the Alan-Greenspan-Is-God bandwagon around the time of, ohhh, the Russian Debt Crisis 10 years ago. My gosh, did I get a lot of funny looks from people when I would suggest that his last term as Fed Supremo was somewhere between a mitigated and unmitigated disaster or even just that, "well, he's OK on a good day, but he's no Paul Volcker." Now, all of a sudden, he's carrying the water for everything that's going on here, and despite not changing my opinion on him one iota, I sound like the voice of moderation. He messed up badly and on a long-term basis, by putting the market cart before the economy horse for a decade, but everyone who signed on for the ride bears his fair share of the blame.

Signing off on my last overcast Sunday morning before heading back to the Nutmeg State (TM) on Tuesday night,

John

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day
About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

Daily Polling Rundown, Bailout Edition

The trendline continues to show a steady, measured shift towards Barack Obama; again, I would urge people not to pay too much attention to the actual numbers, which have six-plus weeks to shift and could include fairly significant sampling error or just plain poor design, but to trends and momentum which play out over a more extended period. That being said, two of the polls have Obama at 50% of the vote, which would be enough for a win, given that Bob Barr and Ralph Nader (at least I think that's his hame) will probably siphon off 2-3% of the total vote, though most likely in states where the outcome is in no doubt. It's probably not unfair to call this the end of the worst week in John McCain's career since his release from a North Vietnamese POW camp.

Diageo/Hotline Obama 45 McCain 44 (45-44)
Gallup Obama 50 McCain 44 (49-44)
R2K Obama 50 McCain 42 (49-42)
Rasmussen Obama 48 McCain 47 (48-48)

Today's 50% in Gallup matches his record high just after the Democratic Convention. Not only has the Republican Convention bump disappeared, within two weeks Sen. Obama has managed to regain the levels he enjoyed after his own extremely well-received acceptance speech. Gallup notes that survey participants are noting more worry both about the economy and their own finances, which dovetails neatly with Obama's gains. They infer from this that Obama may be generally viewed as being better for the economy than McCain.

In R2K, it's across the board. Obama gains a point among men, women, white voters, all age groups, and perhaps most importantly, Democrats. His lead among members of his own party in this poll is now 86-10, which if true would argue that very few disgruntled Hillary supporters (who I've always assumed to be extremely few in number--I've met two and they've since changed their minds) remain off the reservation. This compares with McCain's 88-6 lead among self-identified Republicans. It's hard to see Obama losing Democrats once he's got them in the fold. Oddly, everybody's favorables drop a point or two. I would suggest that argues for nervousness about the overall financial situation and slightly less willingness to trust any politician.

Rasmussen has some new state polling suggesting a four point Obama lead in Maine and two in Indiana. My gut feeling is that those are both wrong--I think Obama should win Maine by more than that and I'd be surprised if McCain were behind in Indiana right now-- the aggregate score from www.fivethirtyeight.com has McCain up 3 or so, which seems more reasonable. The Rasmussen Consumer Index is steady, down nine points from a week ago, with fully 73% of Americans surveyed thinking the economy is getting worse, with 10% saying it's getting better. Efforts to reach that 10% failed as my cellphone does not reach the planet Neptune.

There have been a couple studies lately on the "cellphone effect" which may add even more inaccuracy to the polling process; the fact that many polls do not include cellphone-only users, estimated at 10-12% of the overall population. As these likely skew younger and often, though by no means always, poorer, probably meaning significantly pro-Obama, not including them in the polls could take away measurably from his actual tally. ABC/Washington Post had data suggesting the difference is about a point; Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight aggregates pollsters that do call cell-only users and compares them with a control group that do not and finds a difference of 2.2 points. It all comes down to how much cellphone-only people prefer Obama. I estimate that if it's 60/40, it's about 1.3 points. At 66/34, it's closer to 2. Silver points out that his findings are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Which gets me to something else that bugs me. Rasmussen, which I feel is slightly biased towards the GOP in its survey design, calls today's results "statistically insignificant." There ain't no such animal. Perhaps it's just sloppy writing, but saying things like that raise a red flag for me. You test for statistical significance; if you fail, what you've got is nothing. Not "insignificant," just "unable to show significance." Someone with a whole bunch of statisticians on staff ought to know this. Srsly, dewd.

As we had expected, Palinmania (catch it now at a theater near you!) is subsiding; what we had not expected is just how quickly and precipitously it would subside, nor how much the candidate herself would assist in bringing it to an end. There is a hard core which will never admit to believing anything wrong of her or the ticket, just as there is on the other side as well. Well, that's fine--their votes were, despite a lot of speculation regarding McCain's need to shore up his credibility with the far right, never in doubt. Seriously, show of hands; who thought that what an earlier generation would have called John Birchers (and the picture of Wasilla Council Member Palin in 1995 with a copy of the--yes, they're still going!--John Birch Society newsletter on her desk is making the rounds--even if she was never a member of the organization, this shows poor judgment) were going to vote for the liberal black guy if the GOP running mate weren't sufficiently extreme? If you do, I've got this bridge to nowhere (tm) to sell you...

The McCain campaign seems to be in one of those annoying mud patches where you keep shifting from first into reverse and back again and only seem to get you stuck a little deeper in the mud (for those of you in sunny southern California, we have rain in the Northeast. The ground gets wet. Really.). Sen. Obama noted with some amusement yesterday that his fourth-term opponent is now criticizing him for being too tied in with Washington insiders. This seems a little inconsistent. Either you're too inexperienced or too entrenched. Saying someone's both is kind of like calling him a Muslim under the influence of a radical Christian pastor.

It's also instructive to look at the two candidates' responses to the week's economic upheaval. By Friday, Obama was holding a press conference, supporting the administration's efforts to prevent the next great depression, and asking for Americans to come together; McCain was excoriating Obama for lecturing us. One of these responses sounds more like what an actual real-life President would do. I don't think the subtlish effort to paint Obama as some sort of ivory tower egghead is going to work--actually, we already know that he graduated top of his class at Columbia and Harvard and was a lecturer in Constitutional Law. Doesn't seem to bother most people. Obama paints McCain as out of touch; the meme sinks in so well that McCain starts using it about Obama. This "I'm rubber, you're glue" approach of Sen. McCain could work, but it seems unlikely. You sort of need to tell the stories about the other guy before he tells them about you.

Should the McCain theme song, now that Heart has enjoined them from using "Barracuda" be "Oops, I Did It Again?" One supposes Britney herself was too young to be on the ticket.

Off to enjoy the start of my last weekend in LA before heading back to the only Congressional District in New England with a Republican representative. And thanks for all the kind words! Keep telling your friends, more than happy to add anyone to the list who cares to. To quote the great John Blutarski, "Grab yourself a beer. Don't cost nothin'."

Til the next one,

John

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day
When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

September 19, Daily Polling Rundown, Resolution Trust Edition

With apologies for length--they will get shorter, as after today I'm done complaining in detail about existing weightings until the next set of changes.

R2K Obama 49 McCain 42 (49-43)
Rasmussen McCain 48 Obama 48 (48-48)
Gallup Obama 49 McCain 44 (48-44)
Diageo/Hotline Obama 45 McCain 44 (46-42)

A little more movement in Obama's direction and into statistical significance in two polls, though I still fear that R2K overweights Democratic ID just as I'm pretty sure Rasmussen overweights to the GOP. It will be interesting to see next week how Rasmussen re-weights, having cut the advantage of Democrat over Republican from 7.6% to 5.1% for this week. It's a 9 point advantage in R2K's poll, with more independents as well. I'm cool with the higher proportion of independents if I have to be, but I'd probably be more comfortable with a party ID number somewhere between the two. The trends are as they've been all week, the occasional one point move in Obama's direction in many of the demographic categories, most notably female voters, where he has a large lead in R2K. Nothing you'd pay attention to on a one-day basis, but give me a couple hundred data points and you begin to get something that looks like a pattern.

I also have a lot of difficulty figuring out the Diageo numbers today, showing a one point swing away from Obama and a two point swing towards McCain, while at the same time showing nearly half the respondents saying the economy is the most important issue, up ten full points in a week, and Obama holding a ten point lead among voters rating that issue most important. Something just doesn't seem right with the other 53% and this poll doesn't release internals, so we haven't a clue what the composition of the sample looks like, but that 53% is only about 160 people, which makes it awfully easy to introduce potentially significant sampling error in an opinion-based survey. Just a couple tinfoil helmets and your results are sunk for three days.

R2K continues, by virtue of its party weighting, to show extremely low net favorables for the McCain/Palin ticket, with Palin's now a -5 and McCain dead even, while Obama is +22 and Biden +16. Intuitively that would seem skewed even if we didn't have party ID numbers. Ethnically, R2K may overweight minorities, though that likely shows up in the Democrat/GOP weighting, with 13% African-American and 13% Latino in the sample. IF the Obama campaign's voter registration drives, particularly in urban areas, are as phenomenally successful as they have been claimed to be, and if the people they register show up to vote, the tallies on Election Day may certainly be more diverse than in the past, but I have trouble believing those figures will be reached. While pretty much everyone getting this note knows who I support in the election, I'm just not comfortable with aspects of the R2K survey design, as much as I'd like to be. That being said, on the other side, if Rasmussen is right and the race is tied after a week where the McCain/Palin (or Palin/McCain, depending on which of the candidates you ask) campaign has piled up an stunning string of blunders, missteps, gaffes, and just plain scratch-your-head-and-say-what-the-hell weirdnesses, I'd be just as surprised. And I've got things I don't like about Gallup and Diageo also. So there.

It will be interesting to see how the public likes each candidate's response to this week's financial crisis, and particularly how they respond to Sen. McCain reversing a couple decades' worth of well-publicized record against regulation of markets. I think the essential irony of the fact that Phil Gramm, one of the prime movers in the repeal of financial regulation late in the last century, is his chief financial advisor, is probably not going to register with most people, who wont' remember who he is or ever knew what Glass-Steagall was. What will register is quotes from the candidate, many of them from just a few months ago, talking about his general opposition to regulation.

That being said, Gallup has a poll out showing the public divided on the wisdom of the (to my mind absolutely incontrovertibly but sadly necessary) AIG bailout--interestingly, both Republicans and Democrats favor it, while Independents are strongly against-- and Rasmussen notes that nearly 50% of their survey sample fears the government will move too aggressively in preventing financial armageddon, which to my mind just shows how financially illiterate the public is. Personally, while I'm not crazy about this particular application of Your Tax Dollars At Work, it's like the government is creating a mess to avoid a cataclysm, and I'll take that trade. I'm not sure how good it is soundbite-wise for a candidate who was one of the Keating Five to have the Resolution Trust Corporation revived a month and a half before the election. If it were I, I'd really like them to call it something else.

There are other areas, though, such as the bans on short selling, that seem more like panic, overreaching, and cheap opportunistic populism. While there was some reason to look at short selling, and particularly to enforce existing laws regarding preventing naked shorting of stocks, the obvious question is really along the lines of "Uh, guys, if it's always been illegal, and some of the financial companies were brought to the brink of insolvency because shorting of shares set off solvency triggers, why the hell weren't you enforcing the damn law in the first place?"

If we were to ask how much of all of this is a result of deregulation and truly frighteningly lax administration of the rules that remained, we may have our answer as to why such a radical and potentially random jolt had to be administered here now.

Bizarre Quote Of The Day, courtesy of the Jacques Cousteau of the campaign, John McCain (and if anyone can find something stupid Obama or Biden says, please send it to me and I'll be happy to post--they're making this feature look really partisan by sounding intelligent):
And by the way, on that oil rig — and I’m sure you’ve probably heard this story — you look down, and there’s fish everywhere! There’s fish everywhere! Yeah, the fish love to be around those rigs. So not only can it be helpful for energy, it can be helpful for some pretty good meals as well.

Screen Crawl
On Bloomberg TV : "Fed Historian Meltzer Calls Paulson Action 'Social Democracy At Its Worst." OK, I have a couple bones to pick with that statement. First, "Social," yeah, OK, you're on the brink of a planned economy there. Next, I'm not sure I'd say "worst," because while there may be a fair bit of overreaction and politics in it, things were pretty dire and a shock to the system had to be administered. Finally, I'm damn sure it's not democracy.

As always, if you like this, tell your friends; if you don't, keep your big mouth shut.

Til next time,

John

Weekend web trawling recommendation: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials . Presidential campaign commercials going back to 1952. They wrote songs back then, though i think a more sophisticated consultant might have urged the Stevenson campaign not to push the absent-minded professor angle so hard in the jingles. The I Like Ike song, though, gets stuck in one's head.

Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day:
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. (1936)

September 18, Daily Polls Remain Amorphous, Despite Slow Obamaward Shift

More modest movement in the vaguest Obama direction, though the polls party ID weighting is beginning to become more apparent. As mused on yesterday, ex-economic spokesperson Carly Fiorina appears to have been disappeared. She should be getting used to that by now. The data consistently shows that the economy is rated the most important issue by roughly half the electorate, despite the fact that what may well be a majority of Americans do not feel the last few weeks' financial crises have affected them. That being said, Rasmussen reports in another poll that consumer confidence is falling off the proverbial table. I would think that whichever candidate is able to persuade the public that he is the one who can be trusted to lead the country through this time of uncertainty will win the election.

R2K Obama 49 McCain 43 (48-44)
Rasmussen McCain 48 Obama 48 (48-47)
Gallup Obama 48 McCain 44 (47-45)
Diageo/Hotline Obama 46 McCain 42 (45-42)

Gallup points out this is the first statistically significant lead for Obama in two weeks. 1) Just. 2) Seven weeks to go, MAYBE a 20 point lead would do it. Maybe. Not four. Diageo shows that in five days the percentage of people thinking the economy is the biggest concern has grown from 36% to 44%.

I'd note that R2K includes Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, who each poll about 2%. I don't know if that's more than they'll get in real life, but I think it's probably better statistics to have them in there. As they're good enough to publish their internals, let's tear them apart a bit. They have Obama polling 85% among Democrats, compared with McCain's 90% GOP vote, which is close to where he needs to be to win. They're in a dead heat among independents in this poll as well. By ethnicity, Obama leads among Latinos in this poll 67-26, which is also getting to what he needs to win. I think this poll may overrepresent Democrats, just as I believe Rasmussen's latest weighting may overweight identificaition as Republicans. McCain's net favorables in this one are flat, while Obama is +21, Biden +18 and Palin -4; despite an across the board shift downwards in favorables for the GOP ticket in the last week, either this disparity is markedly overstated or the race isn't even close. I don't buy it. Not yet, anyway.

Looking at a few other polls, there's a Quinnipiac poll out with Obama 49, McCain 45, with both candidates gaining, taking 5 points out of undecideds. It leaves Barr and Nader out, with a generic "someone else" option, which I think is unfair. It shows a nine point lead for McCain among white voters, compared with the R2K lead of 17. The favorables are a little odd as well, with everyone being markedly positive, Obama +23, McCain +20, Biden +17,and Palin +10. This poll seems strangely partisan in both directions, somehow. I also don't buy it.

A CBS-NY TImes poll shows Obama up 48-43. Obama leads among women, including a 2% lead with white women, up 21 points from their week-earlier poll. While I'm trying to look for trends rather than at the raw data so long before the election, intuitively one or both of those data points can't be right. I seem to be saying that an awful lot lately, which implies what we already knew: this election has more variables, more uncertainties in it than any that I can remember, and it's probably even less possible to poll accurately.

SUSA has Obama up 52-44 in New Mexico, driven by a 69-28 lead among Latino voters. If true--and their state polling was the most accurate in 2004--that's a data point worth hanging on to.

Well, he's backed away from his own positions so fast this week he looks like a junkie fleeing a burning meth lab, so we'll give John McCain his own Surrogate Bon Mot Du Jour.
"The chairman of the S.E.C. serves at the appointment of the president and in my view, has betrayed the public’s trust...If I were president today, I would fire him." He hasn't won yet, so they haven't given him the Presidential Owner's Manual, but the President can't actually fire the head of an independent regulatory commission. Checks. Balances. Balances. Checks. FDR tried it once and got slapped down by the Supreme Court.

Hey, if you like this, tell your friends. I'm actually adding a couple names a day here, while those of you who know me have been far too polite to ask me to remove you. If you don't like it, tell me. Just remember my fragile male ego.

Best,

John

Herbert Hoover Quote of the Day (TM):
Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

September 17, Today's National Polls

I know, I know, it's still too early to care, but let's keep an eye out for incipient trends, not the raw data. Stability seems to be the rule of the day, though any reaction to yesterday's curious comments from a couple highly placed McCain people (and not, to be sure, the candidate himself) regarding business acumen and Thomas Edison-like abilities would not yet be incorporated into the data. That being said, I think the last time anyone paid the slightest damn bit of attention to Carly Fiorina was when HPQ was my favorite short idea.

Today's data, with yesterday in parentheses:

Gallup Obama 47 McCain 45 (46-45)
Diageo/Hotline Obama 45 McCain 42 (46-42)
Rasmussen McCain 48 Obama 47 (48-47)
R2K Obama 48 McCain 44 (48-44)

McCain gained 3 points on "who handles the economy better" in Diageo/Hotline today, though still down 44-39--will be interesting to see how those numbers change over the next few days in light of both candidates' positioning vis-a-vis the continuing meltdown in the financial sector and the fact that with the AIG bailout, it's finally hit Main Street. Rasmussen also shows McCain ahead on the economy 47-45. I'm not quite sure how to interpret that at a time when the laws of the universe no longer apply in the economic arena and Rasmussen also reports that non-investors' confidence is actually climbing, implying that a substantial portion of the electorate isn't paying a lot of attention because it hasn't hurt their pocketbooks this week. They think.

Some bizarre socio-economic data from Rasmussen. McCain leads handily among Walmart shoppers, Obama even more handily among those who don't. (Disclaimer: I refuse to shop there, but that's because of Abu Ghraib-like conditions in their pet departments). That being said, Obama leads among voters with incomes lower than $40,000. This makes very little sense to me, as the two data points seem to be contradictory. Among white voters, he only leads among those making below $20,000 I would wonder if that last figure reflects a lot of young people not quite in the job market, as the lead is only four points. If it's much broader than that, and he's actually made a breakthrough among poor white people, his campaign has a lot to be optimistic about. That being said, it's too early and too small a sample to have genuine significance.

The AIG bailout is a little worrisome on several levels, but absolutely necessary, as all other options were exhausted first, including trying to get NY State to do it and cajoling, coercing, and downright begging a group of banks to toss the company $75 billion to tide them over til payday.

Stupid Future Ex-Surrogates Department
It's all McCain today, between the economic advisor giving him credit for inventing the (Canadian) Blackberry and the wife of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild calling Obama elitist. Oh yes, and so Carly Fiorina says neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin could run a large company. Then several hours later, with a gun to her head, she says Barack Obama couldn't either. Given her record of nearly scuttling one of the greatest business success stories in American history through her own appallingly poor strategic vision, one might well think few know more than she about being unable to run a large company (hey, whatever happened to Lucent? Oh yeah, it started to go south a few months after she left, didn't it...) . In March of this year, Warren Buffett, whose batting average is ohhh, just a shade higher, said of Obama and Hillary Clinton, "I'd put either of them in charge of a business." (CNBC, March 3).

OK, I'm going to follow my own advice and go get some sun now.

John

No one can rightly deny the fundamental correctness of our economic system. --- Herbert Hoover, 1928

September 16 Daily polling, crash du jour, and stuff

Due to semi-popular demand, rather than repeat and contradict myself on a daily basis to a bunch of people who for some unknowable reason want my opinion on these things, I may make this a semi-regular note, so I might have to start writing in complete sentences. I'm combining some mailing lists I've talked to about this stuff here, so if any of you don't give a crap, let me know and I'll take you off the list and see if I can sign you up for an online gift subscription to Garfield Classics instead--I understand on the best of authority that that wacky kittycat STILL hates Mondays!

As usual, don't expect serious analysis; there are plenty of guys out there who do it better than I do, so I'll stick to raw data and marginal witticisms. Second day in a row of slight shift to Obama in all four polls, which may mean something because it's all of them, but It's still all well within the sampling error (which I believe is generally underestimated, making it even harder to decipher, but don't have my fourth semester stats text on Experiment Design with me at the Chateau to prove it!). Here they are, with yesterday's in parentheses:

Rasmussen McCain 48 Obama 47 (49-47)
R2K Obama 48 McCain 44 (47-44)
Diageo Hotline Obama 46 McCain 42 (44-43)
Gallup McCain 47 Obama 46 (47-45)

As always, forget the pinch and take with a whole damn shaker of salt. Palin's net favorables are fading fairly dramatically (though still well in positive territory, where I expect they'll stay), but all that means is that she'll probably become a non-issue and like every other presidential election ever, it will be a race between the two Actual Candidates. If Dan Quayle didn't hurt George HW Bush, Sarah Palin isn't likely much to hurt the old dude, though watch out for the nickname "Slick Sally" being bandied about corners of the press--if that turns into a meme, could be trouble.

Today's political hot potato will be the bailout or not of AIG; having picked up the tab for BSC and then refused to do the same for LEH, it's a sticky situation (if a potato can simultaneously be both hot and sticky--if you know, please keep it to yourself). AIG is much more of a Main Street issue, as opposed to the strictly Wall Street nature of the former two. If AIG shatters, everyone gets hit by flying glass. Paulson/Bernanke found out just how far their ability to persuade, cajole, and coerce goes when they asked the banks to pony up $75BB to tide AIG over for a bit and the banks told the administration and Fed to go piss up the proverbial rope. Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Now go out and get some sun; you spend too much time indoors.