Diageo/Hotline: Proves yesterday was an outlier, back to a six point Obama lead.
Gallup: Steady as she goes, still up 11.
R2K: Flat at +11
Rasmussen: Closes a point for McCain, no new information, though.
OK, OK, I give up. There are two new tracking polls, and I'll add them to the list for now at least, despite serious doubts as to methodology, though I might take them right back off again. I've been watching the GWU/Battleground poll for a little while, and it still makes me scratch my head a bit, but it's there and people treat it as if it were serious, so I suppose I will too. And I hate to take much of anything with Zogby's name on it seriously, but because it's being paid for by Reuters and C-Span, again, people will think it deserves a seat at the grown-up table, so here we are. Plus, they release numbers early in the morning, so I don't have to keep hitting Safari's "refresh" button the way I do with Hotline until they finally get around to it. Battleground I like even less, it seems to be stratified between people who identify themselves as conservative and liberal with very few "moderate," which goes against the grain. It also overweights women, I believe, at 54/46--yet, with most polls showing women preferring Obama by a high single digit margin, the race is curiously close. Voting by age is according to 2004 numbers, which as we've discussed often, is probably a hideously bad idea in 2008, particularly for 18-29s. Given all that, I'll include the numbers in the chart, but I'm not going to talk about them unless there's some change in the way they do things, and even then I may change my mind again and take it out. They also don't release on weekends, so if something important happens today, don't expect it to show up until the following Monday. It's really pretty useless. I think I'm going to regret this.
So let's talk about Zogby a bit. It's a slim margin for Obama, four points, but a consistent one, in which he leads McCain in all age groups except 70+, which, if true, would be very bad news, as is the fact that Zogby has them tied among families with at least one member in the military (see IAVA ratings on veterans' issues below for a possible explanation why). My issues with Zogby are exactly what they were yesterday; that the poll seems to weight Republican and Democratic party ID equally, which is at best poor trial design and at worst idiotic. However, the two point opening up today after one day of post-debate polling may be even more striking in a poll that overweights GOP voters so heavily; this is borne out by the survey result that Obama moved from a nine to a 13 point advantage among independents; on a three-day rolling number, we would expect that to increase over the next few days if, as polls show, Obama won the debate so significantly among independent and undecided voters. If it doesn't, he didn't.
Oops, She Did It Again, Senior Citizen Dept.
John McCain has made it clear that he would go after certain aspects of various entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare, where massive reimbursement cuts over $1.2 trillion would pay for the $5,000 family tax credit (while your current employer-paid benefits will be taxed and withheld, like your FICA. If you receive benefits from your employer, your withholding will go up. No extrapolating here; it's in the plan.). This is in McCain's own platform, it's not opinion. Sen. McCain said last night in debate he will cut Social Security benefits as well, saying "we will not be able to provide the same benefit for present dayworkers that retirees receive today." Again, it's a quote from the debate. I'm not talking about what's right or wrong in my opinion, just what McCain has said or is in print as his campaign platform and economic policy. Gov. Palin, however, said at a rally yesterday that John McCain would "protect entitlement programs that Americans depend on particularly social security, and will keep America's promise to senior citizens." OK, here's the opinion part, and it's nonpartisan. I don't know that I've ever seen this disorganized a campaign, even from Democrats who have raised disorganization to an art form. One is reminded of Will Rogers' comment "I'm not a member of an organized political party, I'm a Democrat." Except now it's the other guys.
Guess Who Must Be A Terrorist Sympathizer, Billionaire Nixonian Department
I've tried not to talk about the Bill Ayers crap; if any of you believe Barack Obama helped bomb the White House when he was eight years old, there's a Thorazine malted waiting for you at the nearest drug store soda fountain. But let's talk for just 30 seconds about the board Obama and Ayers served on together: it was to administer the funds awarded by the Annenberg Challenge; yes, that would be media billionaire (and Nixon's Ambassador to the Court at St. James's) Walter Annenberg; the check to fund the project was personally handed to the group by Annenberg's daughter Wallis. Senator, do you mean to suggest--or rather, have your running mate suggest-- that the Annenbergs support terrorism? Pretty high-powered board that approved the grant to Ayers and his board of respected Chicago educators, including Walter Annenberg himself. When Ayers' group won the Annenberg Challenge Grant, he worked on the proposal with, among other people, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Is Mayor Daley a terrorist sympathizer?
Considering hate groups, McCain himself has far more troubling connections than a man who was a violent student radical in 1968-72 and has not been so much as accused of a crime committed in the last 36 years and, until a black man from Chicago ran for President, was considered a rehabilitated criminal and respected education reformer. (See, I'm not running for anything or being paid by anyone for this, damn it all, so I can say that.) And as ever, McCain's connections to fringe organizations and fraudsters are on film, in papers, and quotes from Republican colleagues. And lord knows, all over the Internet. Gotta love multiple sources. I should be used to hypocrisy by now, but this one makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
Dude, Where's My Aricept?
Does McCain think Petraeus is really Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Or that he has already begun his new assignment as commander of CentCom? Or, most worrying, that the people he spoke to at a campaign rally yesterday are in fact his "fellow prisoners?" There's misspeaking and sounding a little dumb, like Obama suggesting he might be a Martian, being green behind the ears, or Palin saying the campaign was "at the halfway point" yesterday, which are pretty meaningless, but there are also some worrying misstatements of fact, "fellow prisoners" in particular.
Let's You And My Wife Fight
Cindy McCain is now doing her husband's dirty work, talking about how chilled she was to hear about Obama voting down funding the troops, although her husband also voted no on the bill, Obama because the first bill had no timetable for withdrawal, McCain because the later iteration had a timetable for withdrawal. Ultimately, though, they both voted no at one point on the same gosh-darn bill. Must have made for an awkward dinner table conversation one night chez McCain the day he voted down funding for her son in the military. Personally I think her suggestion that Sen. Obama change shoes with her is impractical. He's a lot taller than she is, and they'd certainly give him blisters on the basketball court. Plus the rhinestones aren't really his look. Is it a little odd that McCain is sending women out to do the poo-flinging? No potential First Lady has ever in the history of presidential campaigning has done something like this. Doesn't it begin to kind of look like a war hero is hiding behind his wife's and running mate's respective skirts? If you think it doesn't, find me another example of a candidate's wife making this kind of attack during a campaign. Go back a couple centuries if you want to. I'll be here.
Pop Quiz: Who Do Vets' Organizations Support?
It's also curious that McCain, whose own service record is, we believe, beyond reporach, received a grade of D on veterans' legislation from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association (IAVA), noting six failures to vote for expanded veterans' benefits. Votevets.org is also targetting him for his no votes on veterans benefits. IAVA give Obama and Biden a B. Many other senators get A's. IAVA pointed out that McCain missed more votes on veterans' benefits than Tim Johnson, who missed most of this year because of a cerebral hemorrhage. IAVA does not endorse candidates or make contributions to any candidate.
The Senate, With Jokes
Rasmussen has a new poll from Minnesota, showing Al Franken opening up a 6 point lead over incumbent Norm Coleman. Neither man is terribly popular in their home state, and it's been an ugly campaign. I'd be more inclined to look at it as an outlier except that independent Dean Barkley has gained to 17%, which I had thought possible when I wrote about this race a couple weeks ago. Barkley has good name recognition in the state, and had hoped that by running a clean campaign could let the two major party candidates club each other to death. If he's really approaching 20% with four weeks to go, this could be a horse race--remember, this is the state that sent Jesse Ventura to the governor's mansion. Of course, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson.
We'll look for more debate findlngs to seep into the polling tomorrow; I'd think for the most part we'll see a bit of a drop off in undecideds, with Republicans who don't much care for McCain convincing themselves that he won and falling into his camp; the question will be whether unaffiliated voters will act as the post-debate polls suggested they would and tend to Obama or not. Saturday's numbers will be the first with three days of post-debate info.
See you tomorrow!
John
Herbert Hoover Quote Of The Day
What this country needs is a great poem. John Brown’s Body was a step in the right direction. But it’s too long to do what I mean. You can’t thrill people in 300 pages... The limit is about 300 words. Kipling’s “Recessional” really did something to England when it was published. It helped them through a bad time. Let me know if you find any great poems lying around.
No comments:
Post a Comment