October 10 Daily Polling Update, Scatter Grenade Edition

It looks as though the slight closing in polls we saw with the amplification of the 100% negative message strategy from the McCain camp (high school drug use? per-leeze.) is being negated by post-debate reaction, but we need at least one more day of polling to see for sure. At the same time, Rasmussen has some state polling a little more favorable to Sen. McCain, which we'll have a look at down below somewhere. The Obama campaign has bought half an hour of TV time on October 26 (Fox may balk because it's during the World Series; we can assume that Sen. Obama either has inside knowledge that the Series won't get to a Game Six or that this is the revenge of a disgruntled White Sox and/or Cubs fan.) General Petraeus acknowledges that "you do have to talk to enemies." Oh, and the Annenbergs seem not to be terrorists after all. Who knew?

So, with no bias other than alphabetical, we see:

Diageo/Hotline adds a point for Obama, back to 48-41, Obama voters rallying behind their candidate
Gallup has Obama losing a point, and McCain doing better in the Thursday night polling
GWU/Battleground seems to be 51-43, but the web site isn't updating. I really hate this poll.
R2K opens up to 12 again, a point each way.
Rasmussen stays flat at a five point Obama margin--remember, other than Zogby, this is the least Democratic-weighted poll.
Reuters/CSpan/Zogby at 4.2 up from 3.6--in its bizarre way, this could actually matter, because the poll seems not to be party weighted at all.



In the Rasmussen poll, 66% of respondents now believe the US economy is in recession; just 6% say it's getting better while 78% say it's getting worse. Note to six percent: your prescriptions are due for refill. The race as clearly broken down now between voters who think the economy is the biggest issue and those who think there is another one--in Rasmussen, which I believe underweights Democrats, Obama leads 65-31 among voters who put the economy as the biggest issue, while McCain is up by a similar 60-36 margin among other voters. Rasmussen makes the important point that Obama is leading in all of the states John Kerry won in 2004; I would be surprised if he lost any of those. Of the states George W. Bush won, ten are in play right now, McCain is behind in four and five are considered toss-ups.

Diageo's poll on whether voters "enthusiastically support" their candidate has some interesting implications. The smear campaign and poor debate showing from McCain does not move the bar with Republican voters, but Democratic voters are noticeably more enthusiastic on Obama. As the McCain campaign continues its scattershot approach to running a campaign, with a new accusation, proposal, or policy several times a day, people who are not in the McCain camp may, according to the data, find the strategy somewhere between confusing and distasteful

Looking at some state polling, there is a potential glint of optimism for the McCain camp coming from Rasmussen, which shows traditionally Republican North Carolina a toss-up (other recent polls had shown it turning Democratic for the first time since 1976, and Kay Hagan remains up in her challenge against incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole) and a seven point GOP lead in Indiana. On the other hand, Obama has a seven-point lead in Minnesota. On the other hand, Strategic Vision has a Florida poll showing Obama opening up an eight point lead, compared with three at Rasmussen. In North Carolina, Civitas has a survey showing a five point Obama lead, pointing to the efficacy of the massive advertising blitz in the state.

AP Survey On Voter Registration Striking
The AP has done some digging into new voter registrations and has discovered that new registrations where party ID is declared favor Democrats by a 4-to-1 margin. Historically new registrants have, oddly, turned out in elections in relatively low numbers, but the galvanization and polarization of the electorate this year may reverse that trend, at least once. As of Oct 1, according to the survey, registered Democrats have grown by 5% while Republican registrations have actually declined by 2%. In states that record the race of registrants, African-Americans have registered at nearly twice the rate of whites. Finally in the eight battleground states where voters register by party, Democrats have gained approximately 1,000,000 voters in the last four years, while the GOP has lost 125,000. In Florida, since the beginning of this year, 360,000 people have registered as Democrats, compared with just over 253,000 independents and over 190,000 Republicans. What's important here is that many of the polling agencies use the prior election's turnout as a guide to designing their surveys. If party registration has changed that much in the last four years--and it is a fairly fluid thing, shifting in both directions over time--there could be undersampling of potential Obama supporters. It's an AP story, so it can be found in dozens of papers, but here's the link the AP site directed me to: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NEW_VOTERS?SITE=NEYOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

You Don't Need A Weatherman...Srsly Dewd, You Really Really Don't.
So now the lead federal prosecutor of the Weather Underground has weighed in on the idiocy in a letter to the New York Times , which you can find at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/l10ayers.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink and you probably should. Anyway, in it, the former prosecutor, William Ibershof, says that he is
"amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.
Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen. Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago."
I mean, honestly. You can insult people without insulting the intelligence of the entire American public. Oh, and Sterling Morrison, former guitarist with the Velvet Underground said "Anyone who needs Bob Dylan to tell him which way the wind is blowing is a serious mental defective." Issue closed.

Yesterday In Nuremb Wisconsin (With Video, You'd Better Watch It Whichever Party You Support)
At a rally in Wisconsin yesterday, a McCain supporter unleashed a bizarre rant blasting the "socialists taking over our country" (apparently including President Bush, Chairman Bernanke, and Secretary Paulson, none of whom consider themselves men of the left, if the truth be told) and called Obama and Speaker Pelosi "hooligans" (which seems a bit contradictory--either you're a latte-drinking, arugula-eating elitist or a tire-iron wielding gangsta-rap blasting thug, but not both--kind of like being a Muslim with a radical Christian pastor...). While the candidate isn't responsible for the screw-loose beliefs of his tinfoil-helmet-wearing supporters (unless he is), what I find troubling is that Sen. McCain, who started dealing with the whackjob with good humor, then agreed with the man as the crowd chanted "USA USA." Yes, agreed. This goes well beyond the bounds of the political discourse any of us are used to, but as I've hinted at before, is not without precedent in the 20th century. It's just that we once fought a war against people like that. Check it out for yourself, courtesy of the interwebs, YouTube, TPM, and Fox News, just so nobody thinks some liberal media outlet edited it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNYCo4wyNRA

It's Only The Quote Of The Day Because I Said It Yesterday And The Day Before Dept.
All of the things they said about Barack Obama on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube...John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him...In my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him." --Joe Biden

Not being married (yes, girls! he's single!) I wouldn't have known this for sure, but apparently you don't send your wife.

Second Quote Of The Day, Veterinary Dept.
"In this [the economy] context, the McCain-Paln attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seems surreal--or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, 'like being savaged by dead sheep.''-- George Will

Just to be pedantic, that was Labour Chancellor Denis Healey's comment on being criticized by mild-mannered Geoffrey Howe. Sheep jokes have a glorious history in British politics--Winston Churchill once referred to his successor (and predecessor) as Prime Minster, Clement Attlee, as "a sheep in sheep's clothing."

Til the next one,

John

Rather than Hoover, this popped up as my email signature, from his predecessor, and it seems as though today is as good or better than any other to stick with it (candidates note):

There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing.
--Calvin Coolidge