Diageo/Hotline opens up a point for Obama, whose support among Republicans is double McCain's among Democrats (12-6, so lets' not get excited), 62% call economy most important issue, Obama leads by 18 among them.
Gallup closes up by two points, but newer voters remain more enthusiastic about Obama
GWU/Battleground closes back up by the five points it opened yesterday, suggesting the 13 point lead was an outlier
R2K stays where it is, big whoop
Rasmussen flat for fourth day running, Obama sounding more presidential to a majority of voters, but a majority of voters for each candidate can still be swayed
Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby closes by two and a half points, independent lead drops from 21 to 8 in two days. Look up "outlier" in the dictionary, tell me why I should even keep it in here
The subtext in the Rasmussen numbers is that according to their poll, support for either candidate is a little shaky; both men need to solidify their vote in the next fhree weeks. When you look at voters who say they are certain who they'll vote for, the numbers drop to a slim 42-40 margin for Obama. Given that this margin was seven points a week ago, I would say one of those is a bit of an outlier, because there's very little reason for either candidate's solid support to have changed that much in a week. It may also change again after tonight's debate. Half the voters in Rasmussen, fewer than other polls, cite the economy as the most important issue, and other polls show that McCain's new, more Obama-like, economic plan is viewed at least as much as politics as policy. I think an awful lot is riding on tonight.
GOP-leaning Rasmussen also notes that Sen. Biden's net favorables are considerably higher than Gov. Palin's, +15 vs +6. Palin does poorly among women, but quite well among men (which says all you need to know), but also suggests that support may be wide but it'd be shallow.
CBS News Poll Shows Highest Obama Lead Yet
A CBS News/NY Times poll released last night shows a 14 point lead for Sen. Obama, 53-39, up from a three point advantage a week earlier. The word "outlier" does keep popping up in this note, doesn't it. That being said, the poll does show a 18 point lead among independents, more or less in line with other polls, but up from a 10 point McCain lead a week ago, which just seems odd. The key here is how solid that support is, and I don't think there's really any way of telling just yet. However, it's clear again and again that McCain's negative campaigning has been turning off independent voters, with 21% of all voters in the last few weeks saying their opinion of Sen. McCain has changed for the worse. Part of the problem is that he began with a reputation of being above the fray, however undeserved it might have been, and the last few weeks in particular have changed a significant number of people's minds about that. 61% of people surveyed thought McCain spent more time attacking Obama than talking about what he would do as president, while only 27% said the same about Obama. On personality and temperament, Obama's tactic of staying cool and under-responding to attacks seems to be working; now 69% say he has the personality and temperament to be president compared with only 53% for McCain. Obama's lead on the economy has also grown since the last poll a week earlier as well, even on taxes. Strikingly, more people in this survey say McCain is more likely to raise their taxes than Obama. This survey also shows a distinct lead for Obama among both men and women, while some others still have men going for McCain. Most importantly perhaps of all, in this poll 63% of voters casting their first presidential ballot are voting for Obama. The weighting in this poll seems a bit heavier than most on independents, at 38% Democrat, 30% Republican, 31% Independent, but the eight point Democratic advantage is about in line with most. I do wonder, though, how those independents differ from the ones who just a week ago came up with results 28 points more favorable to McCain.
SUSA Reports Early Voting Is A Landslide, But It's Just Early Voting
There's an interesting piece at www.fivethirtyeight.com about polling from the highly reputable Survey USA on people who have taken advantage of early voting in a handful of states, showing huge Obama advantages. I'm not sure what conclusions you can draw from this, if any. It's possible that it's a sign that the Obama campaign has motivated new voters, minority voters, and more casual followers of the process, which would translate to surprisingly large margins; it's also possible that people who felt they may have been shut out of the process in 2000 and 2004 simply felt there was a better chance they wouldn't be told the machine wasn't working in their district if they got their vote recorded in October. The GOP in particular in many states is challenging hundreds of thousands of new registrations as part of a coordinated strategy; the problem with it being a coordinated strategy is that it in and of itself makes the case that it's not necessarily an honest effort in response to actual abuses instead of a campaign to eliminate votes from people more likely to vote for the other guy. SUSA has Obama up by five in Ohio, but up by 18 among people who have already voted; that lead is seven in New Mexico, but 23 among those who have already voted. Other SUSA state polls show a 15 point lead in PA, 16 in WA, 17 in OR, and a 14 point McCain lead in South Carolina. Oh, surprise surprise, he's up by 33 in New York.
Law Of Unintended Consequences The Reason For Inciting To Riot? Pfft.
Some whackjob sends an envelope of white powder to an Obama campaign office in Philadelphia, and McCain loses a few more votes in PA. More official GOP offices are forced to take down signs and web sites calling Obama a terrorist or worse, and calling for him to be tortured, or worse (Sacramento County's GOP web site called to "Waterboard Barack Obama." Roger Simon at politco.com thinks that the fact that nobody seems to be manning the bridge is the reason why the McCain campaign has become so ugly, particularly at Sarah Palin appearances. I don't think it's quite so unintentional. See for yourself: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14555.html
More Talk About The (Non-) Bradley Effect
There have been many credible reports, both academic and popular, that the Bradley Effect no longer exists, and that may be. What concerns me is the sputtering of independent and undecided voters, who seem to me to be looking for a reason to support McCain. With each reason (for them) not to support him, they move to the Obama camp, and with a few days of nothing new, some seem to drift back to McCain. I think if there is such an effect, it's time to modify it in that way. It's no longer about polling error introduced by lying survey respondents, but has moved into a new, more overt phase where it's not a polling "effect" at all, but a deeper look into many Americans' deep-seated attitudes towards issues of race. In that sense, I hope that's what it is, because it's too important to be considered just another part of sampling error. I think this election is going to be so rife with survey design error to begin with that you'd expect the significant shifts in some polls that we see on a daily basis, particularly among undecided or unaffiliated voters. It's easy to make disingenuous arguments in both directions; I want to see the results of this election and how things break over the last couple weeks in the polls before I feel comfortable saying for sure. We know that African-American voters are supporting Obama by roughly a 95-5 margin, but what we don't know is whether a black candidate can galvanize black voters to turn out in signficantly greater numbers than usual. It's also safe to say that a substantial number of white people do not want a black president; we'll know how many in three weeks. Here's a story that was just sent to me; though I have some problems with it, mostly that it doesn't take into account all the other ways that polls could have more error than usual introduced (cellphone only, more young voters, more African-Americans, more first-time voters) , but it sets out the negative case decently: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/
The View From The Corner, John Hussein McCain Division
Speaking of the debate, right now Obama has a bit of an upper hand, counter-intuitively because he's forced McCain to keep talking about Bill Ayers. By calling McCain out on his unwillingness to mention the name to his face at a time when the American people are making it clear that they find it a non-issue, painting McCain into a corner where he either looks like a coward or wastes time. Look for multiple uses of the phrase "my friends." As mentioned above, it's been reported that William Timmons, the head of the McCain presidential transition team, not only worked as a lobbyist for Saddam Hussein , but "the two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government." Emphasis on Senator Obama's middle name may drop off.
Obama Campaign Makes A Mistake, Film At Eleven
There just haven't been a lot of these to talk about. But today the Obama campaign shows it can blunder too, if in fact it was a mistake, faxing the campaign's debate talking points to reporters. If anyone's looking for surprises or scandal, though, they'll have to look elsewhere; they're actually very similar to the public memo the campaign issued this morning and a lot of what we've heard before. We'll see, though, if there's anything the McCain people can use in it. Of course, it also might have been intentional, just like the timing of the www.keatingeconomics.com web site a day before last week's debate and the challenge to talk about Bill Ayers to Obama's face when the public is sick of hearing about it.
We'll talk about the recession tomorrow. It's kind of a big deal, but I'd rather wait for after the debate. Remember, though: Jobs, jobs, jobs.
John
The well's about run dry, so we're going to have to recycle Herbert Hoover Quotes Of The Day for the next few weeks, so we'll go with the essential first:
Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs. (Speech, 1932)
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