Barack Obama campaigning today in Tampa (congrats, Rays, the 1969 Mets of 2008) at the (excuse the expression) Yankees' Spring Training facility, now called....Steinbrenner Field. May be the first time a Democratic candidate has ever campaigned at an arena named after a man convicted for illegal campaign contributions to the GOP. Maybe not.
ABC/WaPo is now a daily tracker, and a nine point lead on day one
Diageo/Hotline closes to a five point Obama lead, claims McCain has a 9% advantage among white voters, seems high, 67% saying economy biggest issue
Gallup widens to nine among likely voters, noting Palin's SNL appearance and one day of effect of Powell endorsement
GWU/Battleground stays flat but may not have any Powell effect because it takes the weekends off
IBD/TIPP is now in the chart also, but it stinks so I won't talk about it
Rasmussen giveth and taketh away but sayeth nothing of note
R2K whacks a point off McCain, now an eight point lead
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby doubles its Obama lead today to 5.4% and still just makes no damn sense to me
Rasmussen surveyed voters just before the Powell endorsement of Obama which showed the General was viewed favorably by 80% of the population, in line with other polls; Powell may in fact be the most highly regarded public figure in America. I would guess that the preponderance of the unfavorables are on the left as well, and his approval on the right would be even more stratospheric. In a separate poll, Rasmussen has Obama up by 10 points in Virginia. We'll have more on this tomorrow, along with results from Rasmussen on Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri.
CNN has a new national poll out showing that their prior eight point lead has contracted to five in two weeks (six including third-party candidates); this makes perfect sense to me and is in line with the contraction in the trackers. CNN suggests that the poll shows McCain's support has firmed a little because voters may be less inclined to believe he will follow George Bush's economic program. Issues results are about what you'd think, Obama wins the economy, 53-38, and on "helps the middle class," by 63-32.
ABC News/WaPo Poll Now A Daily Tracker, So We'll Start Here
ABC and the Washington Post have a poll out today, their first daily tracking poll, which we will be adding to our tables, giving Obama a nine point lead, 53-44. As usual, over half say the economy is the biggest issue, and Obama wins those voters by a 55-39 margin. The temperament issue seems to cancel out experience, with Obama winning on "able to handle a major crisis," by 49-45, and Obama wins on taxes by 10 points, 52-42. This is a four-day rolling survey, including cell-phone users. I wish I had more internals, things such as party ID etc, but I'll see if I can find them and figure out what it all means later.
On the issue and character questions, the poll suggests what we all already knew--a significant majority (60-37) say the Bill Ayers issue is annoying. A smaller plurality (49-40) are not concerned about ACORN's voter registration efforts, showing that the GOP has done a reasonably good job demonizing the organization (notwithstanding the fact that Sen. McCain himself used to support them). Want more evidence that Palinmania has been replaced by Palin fatigue? In this poll, 52% said that the choice of the Governor as McCain's running mate made them less confident in his judgment, compared with only 38% who said it made them more confident. Just after the choice in early September, the numbers were almost exactly the opposite, 50-39 saying they were more confident in his judgment. What a difference a month and a half makes. On the other hand, when asked the same question about selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic running mate, 56% said it made them more confident in Barack Obama's judgment, with 31% saying it made them less so; probably safe to assume the negative is nearly all partisan.
Looking on the bright side, Obama wins 62-30 on "more optimistic," which is a word that probably has deeper meaning in an election than the dictionary definition. Ronald Reagan was also viewed as being significantly more optimistic than Jimmy Carter, because he had a vision of an America that transcended the difficult present moment. Whether one agrees with Reagan's positions or not is irrelevant; voters responded at the time to that deeper optimism, and that aspect of Sen. Obama's message also seems to be resonating. Independent voters see the optimism nearly the same way, giving the vote to Obama by 57-31 and better suited temperamentally for the presidency than McCain by 52-36.
Racists Suggest Powell Endorsement Is About Race
Pat Buchanan--surprise, surprise--is the first to go the third-rate human being route and claim Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama is because of race. Anyone who's shocked Pat Buchanan is a third-rate human being please call me, because I have some Lehman Brothers stock you might like to pay a hundred bucks a share for. Rush Limbaugh does the same, but "third rate human being" would be several steps up for the amoral, mendacious, drug-addled megalomaniacal demagogue, so we'll skip him. And yes, before you ask, I am looking down my nose at him. I only wish my nose were longer.
Lack Of Candidates' Health Records Raised In NY Times; Biden Agrees To Limited Release, No Response from McCain Or Palin Yet
There's a feature story in the New York Times today (by Lawrence Altman, a columnist who has written on the health of presidential candidates since 1980 and is an MD himself; this isn't a quick hatchet job on anyone) regarding the lack of public health records of three of the four candidates. (Sen. Obama released a letter from physician giving him a "clean bill of health" and has released test results from physicals in 2001, 2004, and 2007) seems to have an impact; Sen. Biden's will be released for inspection by his travelling press corps. While Biden had released a similar doctor's note, the documentation did not say whether he had been scanned for possible recurrence of the aneurysms he has had treated in the past. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin have not yet commented on their own as some army physicians suggest McCain's melanoma may have been more later stage than claimed. A Palin spokesman had previously said that the Governor would refuse all requests for records or interviews on her health. I'm usually on the side of privacy, as any of you who have ever tried to get me to tell them something might remember. I think, though, that when we are electing a President and Vice President part of the calculus should be one's assessment of those candidates' physical ability to serve their terms out. While Obama's release of his records is commendable, and Biden is falling into line, I should note that none of the four have acceded to the Times' request for interviews on the subject, and the McCain campaign in fact refused to allow the Times to ask a question during the one brief health-related conference call it held several months ago. Story is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/us/politics/20health.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
NFL Notes
Well, I have trouble paying attention to football before the World Series is over, and it's not always easy afterwards. However, we have a bit of a political football being tossed around now, which, public-minded sort that I am, I figured I'd bring to your attention. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, universally beloved in and around his hometown, is campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio with OH Governor Ted Strickland and Steelworkers Union President Leo Gerard. On the other hand, and if there are any Miami fans out there, raise your flippers, Dolphins' owner Wayne Huizenga, universally loathed in Miami, Wall Street, and pretty much everywhere else, says he'll sell the team if Obama wins. Huizenga is so detested in football-crazy Florida that the prospect of new Dolphins management could be what puts Obama over the top for keeps in the Sunshine State.
A Bad Day For GOP Consultants Who Would Prefer Not To Go To Jail
Hoo boy. So what have we got? As mentioned above, the first person arrested for voter registration fraud is in fact not connected with ACORN but instead a Republican operative, Marc Jacoby, who fraudulently registered himself in California so that his firm would be allowed to register voters and collect petition signatures in the state. Apparently his firm, YPM (Young Political Majors, believe it or not) duped people into registering as Republicans by telling them they had to do it in order to sign a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters, managing to trivialize several issues at once. The firm is also under investigation in Florida and Massachusetts, and was the defendant in a lawsuit in Arizona. He might have been better off filling out registration forms for Mickey Mouse. From the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fraud20-2008oct20,0,3842357.story
Further Freddie, Fannie Follies
Once again, the McCain campaign seems to be considerably deeper involved themselves in an ugly issue than the other side. While castigating Barack Obama for supposed connections to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, people now aligned with the McCain campaign were allegedly taking loads of cash to scuttle reform of the agencies. The AP reports at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/THE_INFLUENCE_GAME_HOUSING?SITE=WWL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT that the GSO "secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse." This legislation, incidentally, was introduced by Nebraska GOP Senator Chuck Hagel, who has also been an outspoken critic from the right on the war in Iraq and has not endorsed John McCain's candidacy. This is more striking because it turns out that the CEO of the lobbying firm, Doug Goodyear, was hired by the McCain campaign to manage the GOP convention this year. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and his firm have also taken over $2 million from Fannie and Freddie since 2000. McCain has called the collapse of Fannie and Freddie one of the "real catalysts, really the match that lit the fire" of the global credit crisis. Well, frankly, given the amount of money that passed around here, and his involvement in the last huge financial scandal in the U.S., the senator should know.
OK, too long. That's because I've used a lot of tomorrow's information waiting for the ABC numbers. If they're really coming out at 5pm every day, they're always going to be a day behind. See you tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
John
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