by George Harris
Kansas City Star
Reader Advisory Panel 2008
With still a month before the election, national and state polls show that the McCain/Palin ticket is faltering.
First, the national polls as reported on RealClearPolitics.com show on average a 5 point advantage for Obama. The 10 polls range from a 2 to a 9 point advantage, including: CBS; ABC; Pew Research; Associated Press; Ipsos/McClatchy; Time; Gallup; Rasmussen; Hotline/FD Tracking; and GW/Battleground Tracking.
Almost 49% of voters say they will vote for Obama. A 5 point advantage of 45 to 40 is not as meaningful as a 50 to 45 advantage because the number of undecided voters in the latter scenario is not large enough to reverse the Obama advantage even if all undecideds went to McCain, an unlikely event.
The news gets worse for McCain when the battleground states are examined. Obama has an average lead of 5 points in Colorado, 2 in Ohio, 3 in Florida, 7.6 in Pennsylvania, and 2.5 in Virginia. He has leads as well in New Mexico and Nevada. Obama campaign officials months ago targeted Colorado as high value and estimated McCain's chances of winning without Colorado at less than 10%.
The RealClearPolitics map predicts that if the election were held today, Obama would win 353 electoral votes (270 needed for victory). (But, of course, the election will not be held today, and much can happen in one month.)
Obama's gains are attributed to a variety of factors, including: the loss of confidence in the Palin candidacy; McCain's frenetic and changing campaign strategy; economic woes, which fairly or unfairly voters attribute to Republicans; and the continuing unpopularity of George Bush, who now has a 27% approval rating.
Also, last Friday's debate between McCain and Obama appears to have allowed some undecided voters to feel adequately confident in Obama's ability to manage foreign affairs.
Historically, undecided voter choices begin to occur after the first presidential debate
Other factors that may be affecting voters in swing states are sharp edged radio ads by the Obama campaign that are highly targeted to specific audiences. Fairly or unfairly, voters perceive McCain to have run the more negative campaign, perhaps in part because the Obama negative ads are on local radio and not easy for national media to report.
A final Obama advantage may be a strong voter registration effort and get-out-the-vote machine that was under construction through his tough primary campaign with Senator Clinton.
Ironically, it may be Obama's community organizing skill, used to create his political machine but mocked by Governor Palin, that wins the election. Stay tuned.
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McCain Marxist?
Cmon, McCain a
liberal sure ...but a Marxist?
I personally believe if he were to be elected he would try to put a stop to the Republican philosophy of tax break and spend. Truly, I think either candidate will be a huge improvement.
Tone down the RACIST rhetoric
Puerile comments such as yours only shows a lack of an intelligent mind and incapacity for critical thought.
RIP McCain/Palin 2008
It seems that some republicans here have gotten their knickers in a bit of a twist over the fact Americans are rejecting another extension of the Bush years. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Rogue's Lament
All the rainbows in the sky
Start to weep, then say goodbye
You won't be seeing rainbows any more
Setting suns before they fall
Echo to you that's all, that's all
But you'll see lonely sunsets after all
It's over, it's over, it's over
It's o-o-o-ver
Also, keep calling him "Yomama," it's been taking its toll...
Calm down Georgie
Unless Osama Yomama has at least a ten point lead in the "polls" come election time, the old man will beat him.
Under 30 won't vote
My under 30 was all hyped up about the Primary and he assured me his peers would get out in record numbers. He was working on an intership at the time so all his coworkers were about his age. He noted election night that despite all the talk he only saw one other person with an I Voted sticker. We are talking a couple hundred interns in one place.
Go ahead and hold out hope by saying maybe they didn't get a sticker.
one reason may be...
The reason is in part also that mccain gets caught in many of lies or trying to frame obama with some idea that doesn't make sense. Mccain doesn't simply lie a little, he tells BIG boldface lies. Then when confronted he tries to lie his way out of the lies on national television. THAT is in part what is disappointing to some many. They see it, know it, feel it.
Sure the typical mccain supporter says all politicians lie, but again, it gets back to mccain going so far beyond the norm that he hurt his image. You can say anything you like, he's seen as acting desperate. We can't afford a president who is a LIAR. That said, he had many people fooled into thinking Obama was raising the taxes. He also says he won't, but has lied about that too. Mccains plan will not adjust the rate of taxes. Instead if you have a 42k per year job and a 10k health plan. mccain will count your income as if you made 52k and tax you on that! I could go on to the lies about mccain saying obama wants to teach sex ed to 5th graders, but now this is getting too long. I could fill the internet with mccain's lies, LOL. After looking at both mens policies, obama's sounds the best for our economy and the average person. mccain's is more geared to help get a 4 billion dollar tax cut to the oil companies.
After all his campaign manager has been one of the biggest oil executives. No wonder. It's so obvious. They talk of alternative energy, but mccain could LIE (as he does) and make excuses, and then lean on oil. I also don't get the socialist/marxist concepts since they are nothing but fabricated, exaggerations that I was unable to prove. I could prove that mccain was a huge liar. So that was the difference. It's these little things that add up in the minds of voters and may just be the reason he's ahead.
Awfully Odd to Want a Marxist in These Times
I guess I'm out of touch, but after the economic disaster in Michigan thanks to the election of a similar tax and spend ultra-leftist I don't know what Americans are thinking. We have never had a candidate with such strong leftist/radical roots in American history. Turning our financial system over to the government and then 30 days later handing the reins of the entire government to the most liberal Senator in the Senate? What's going on here?
Polls, schmolls
I don't trust the polls this year. The voters seem as capricious as the stock market. I get the sense that maybe for the fist time the under 30's might vote in numbers, we'll see.