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Meanwhile, back at the polling ranch… [Updated]

...yeah, there's an election.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  September 17th, 2008 at 08:46 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

[UPDATE: Right on schedule, +2 Obama from Gallup. Good: now I can go vacuum the rug.]

Reuters/Zogby reports +2 Obama (no crosstabs yet), while Rasmussen is steady-as-she-goes with McCain +1. Based on language in yesterday’s Gallup, expect a shift towards Obama in their tracking today – which should no doubt relieve our Democratic colleagues, and even possibly make them decide to stop playing Concerned Christian Conservative Commenters on other people’s websites.

All in all, a nice little bounce for us: we got our base number up, Obama got his down, and hovering around the tied mark with short-term boosts for McCain is a marked improvement over hovering around +2 Obama with short term boosts to tied. On to the debates, I suppose.

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  • Jerminator
  • Moe_Lane

    …but it’s good advice in its own right. :)

    Moe Lane

  • DFLer

    Moe, the other thing to look at is the generic congressional polling over at RCP. The GOP has closed most of the huge gap of last summer.

    This may take a while to show up in polls for specific House and Senate races, but the bump from the Republican convention and the Palin nomination is definitely having a down-ballot impact.

  • jdripper

    McCain had Obama dead to rights and pulled back his attack commercials and would not respond to individual attack ads. They knew how to get ahead but it looks like they were lost once they got there.
    They are still refusing to answer attack ads against them. Mitt Romney had to be told today by the media that Obama was the second largest recipient of Fannie/Freddie money.
    With the financial crises going down everywhere not one ad talking about Obama receiving all of that money. No ads about the fund raiser in California and Obama being out of touch.
    There is more then enough time for Obama to turn this into a 45 State rout.

  • Robert1

    I agree that the lipstick comments were handled badly, McCain and Palin should have shrugged it off. Go back to the spirit of the Celebrity spot, people love a good laugh, especially at the Big O’s expense.

  • PaRep

    Are you ranting about??

    “THE CHOSEN ONE” is still behind & the debate coming up focuses on Foreign Policy(McCain’s Strength) & Obama’s weakness combined with the fact that without his Woobie(TelePrompter) he is an stuttering Umming & Ahhing fool

  • SeanH90050

    Since the convention we’ve really seen a poor job of it, as Jerminator’s link suggests. We seem to be missing the point the Democratic playbook/ad machine is in its full formulaic swing now. That formula being:

    Focus Group Buzzword + McCain quote/vote + Bush image = ad

    From the ads and talking points from the Democratic surrogates I’ve seen/heard the past 10 days, the buzzwords that elicit a negative response from the margin are the same they’ve always been: negative ads in general (the he?s running the nastiest campaign ever argument), big oil, and lobbyists. That’s why we see shifts in the polls, while still well within the margin or error, towards Obama. Those buzzwords work on the undecided/unsure/independent voter that will be the difference in the campaign.

    What I have not seen (and I am teaching during prime time this semester so maybe I’m missing it on tv) is a strong principled response from McCain on the air. The same ideas that got us a bounce from the convention, and looked so positive on tv during that time can do so once again. But we have to stay strong with the message, and with our attacks – just make them about stuff that will interest people. For instance, Obama’s stance on education, and his ties to the NEA can easily be attacked – we don’t have to focus on something like sex ed for kindergartners when school choice and basic curriculum reform is on the table. We need to talk about how Obama?s tax ?cuts? are really anything but. How the Democrats bear responsibility for the current economic crisis, and how capital gains and business tax increases will only make it worse. These issues are there, and will resonate in the middle. I just have not seen them played effectively to date by the McCain team.

  • Joe_Cor

    1. Being blindsided by the tactics of Charlie Gibson. He’s a confirmed leftist. If Obama has the brains to tell Bill O’Reiley no editing, the McCain people should have been able to do the same.

    2. Not fighting back fast and hard against Palin attacks. If they don’t do a better job and run some ads and do some very aggressive refuting in interviews, this could get very nasty.

    3. New Tone: McCain saying Obama had a fine record as a community organizer. And Karl Rove “admitting” both sides have gone too negative in the campaign.

    4. Why no mention of Born Alive? I thought picking Palin might be a sign Obama might actually have to answer for this.

    I’m afraid Republican political dim-wittedness might be striking again.

  • Martin_A_Knight

    All too often, the GOP has made an artform out of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.

  • kyle8

    or the stupid party, this has been going on for a long time. They always seem to bring a knife to a gunfight.

    I wonder what it will take to change the REPUBLICAN tone to one that wants to win?

  • dld1717

    Its been a tough few bad days for McCain due to economy which sadly will hurt him and all the press stories on how nasty McCain campaign has been

    The McCain camp needs to stay on offense and start hitting Obama as being friends with corrupt people like Ayers, mocking people in rural towns with his words on god and guns, and how he was against surge in Iraq which has proven to be a success.

  • jdripper

    PaRep the chosen one is no longer behind. As far as the debates go remember Bush/Kerry? There will be two debates watched with great interest. The first McCain/ Obama and the Veep debate.
    Hasn’t anyone noticed how Obama has gone to the town hall concept and how he is on TV doing more interviews? He is practicing for the debates. He is sharpening his responses. His attacks. This man wants to win. He is eaten up with it.
    He before O’Reilly to get slapped around to get him ready for the main event. He knows how badly he performed at Saddleback. He is correcting his mistakes.
    We are now trailing. We are not trailing because Obama has gained but his attacks have eroded McCain’s favorability. If we don’t go on the attack we will lose.

    Jack

  • PaRep

    Behind Rasmussen is the Best has McCain with a 1 point lead & Bigwig Democrats say he is even further behind because of the Bradley Effect, So “THE CHOSEN ONE” is at least 4 or 5 points behind now

  • rmj

    Just a few days ago everyone was chattering about what a bunch of geniuses were running the McCain campaign.

    The post convention bounce was expected to come down, that’s why they call it a “bounce”.

    We are 48 days out, that is an eternity. This race could go back and forth several more times.

    This is not the time for panic or a circular firing squad.

    Sheesh!

  • PaRep
  • sturner

    The national polls are nice to see some swings overall, but doesn’t matter in the end. It comes down to those swing states where all the focus should be at this point. The last batch of swing state polls (Rasmussen/Fox News) were a good sign for McCain.

    My biggest worry right now is the economy and the way the McCain campaign has handled it. Regardless of your opinion on the “fundamentals are strong” statement, it wasn’t a smart political statement.

    If I was the McCain campaign, I would have Governor Romney doing the talk show circuit. While some may like Ms. Fiorina, I don’t find her to perform well in the media. Governor Romney works the media much better and has an aura to him that makes you trust what he says on economics. He has been grossly underutilized and is vitally important if the party wants to gain some ground from those worried about the future of our economic system.

  • SeanH90050

    As much as I hope you’re right, if we’re relying on the bradley effect to win this election, we’re in trouble.

    Remember, margin of error, very rarely have Obama or McCain found their way outside of it. As long as it stays that way, then national polls are just temperature gages, and could change daily.

    State polls matter.

  • PSDA

    The ways in which these economic problems hurt McCain are political and not substantive. Romney can speak better than anyone to the substance and it won’t make one whit of difference in the perception game.

    The problem is a simplistic knee-jerk reaction, nurtured by the media and amplified by the Democrats, that rich fat cat Republicans, acting according to Republican policies, are to blame. That this is laughably false hardly matters.

    McCain needs sound-bytes here, unfortunately, to compete with Obama’s sound-bytes. And the way to go, I believe, is linking Fannie Mae and its directors to the mortgage crisis which started all this mess to Obama and the Democrats. A case which is VERY easy to make–because it’s real–and very easy to digest by the public. If they’d just make this case clearly and forcefully…

  • dingo

    I am sure Obama is a practicing, but he is far behind McCain when it comes to “debate” practice. McCain has been doing this since 1982, he has been on the national scene for over a decade, and he has been honing his off the cuff speaking style through thousands of town halls these past two years. Obama, meanwhile, has done this for maybe two years, with probably a few debates before in 2000 and 2004.

    In addition to his extra years of practice, McCain seems to be more of a natural in debates than is Obama. He is far less likely to stumble for words, forget his lines, etc. And this is a skill that can’t be learned; you either have it, or you don’t.

    I expect McCain to win all three debates. The greatest danger to winning, I suspect, would be if he adopts a condescending attitude towards Obama that makes him less likeable (i.e., pulling an Al Gore). He did this once or twice towards Romney in the primary debates.

  • jdripper

    Just what strategy do you suggest now? Keep running that same ad that they had before the convention? The one that says Barry is a liberal and I am not?

    What do you suggest the McCain campaign do? Also I agree Rasumssen is the best survey company, but if you watch the numbers they are consistently going down. Attack ads work, and for some reason McCain will say in his speeches what needs to be said, but he won’t put them into an ad.

    I digress though, what is your strategy. Since you don’t believe attacking and going negative is the right choice.

  • PaRep

    Right now the Wall st. Meltdown is sucking all the Oxygen out of the campaign

    neither McCain/Palin Nor “THE CHOSEN ONE/Gaffe Machine know what to say because neither campaign knows how much more is coming down the tracks

    McCain will unleash they ads you want to see when the time is right

  • zebrapants

    my read on the polls is that they are basically where they were four weeks ago.

    obama’s bounce lasted about a week, and mccain’s lasted about three weeks.

    the race is tight and if it were held today it could easily go either way. at this point, the outcome will be determined by the debates and each party’s ground game.

  • bob2008

    This site gives us the information and knowledge about the Election.

    An election is a decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold formal office.

    Bob
    Dui In California