As Nate and I wrote late last night, Sarah Palin's speech released a tremendous burst of energy on each side. Democrats were angry. How angry? $10 million for Barack Obama from Palin's speech until the time McCain takes the stage tonight. Undoubtedly, we will soon see numbers from the McCain camp announcing high fundraising figures. She energized both bases.
As much as Palin fired up and got everyone on both sides ready to go, there is a heart-mind conflict we mentioned yesterday. Emotionally, the Republican base says: Yes! Give us more of this so we can work our guts out for you. Analytically, the Republican insiders know: In 2008, swing voters are the key to winning. While last night must have felt wonderful, I'd be soberly waking up worried about some of these independent focus groups like this one in Michigan and this one of former Clinton supporters in Nevada are saying about Palin's speech.
Therefore, what we should carefully watch for tonight is the tenor of McCain's speech. He's got to reach for independents, and to do that he's got to sound like he's full of practical solutions. Hitting Obama a few times will be expected, but if it's not a broadly-articulated vision of where the country needs to go, the race will continue to be "Obama" vs. "Nobama." (The latter being a big bumper sticker hit here in St. Paul). Obama vs. Nobama is a race McCain will lose, much the way Bush vs. Not Bush turned out in 2004.
24 hours is a lifetime in politics (during a convention especially), and as much as the Palin speech story dominated the mood last night and today, this time tomorrow it will seem like a fast-fading memory. Consider: the Reverend Wright controversy that felt huge as it unfolded now feels as if it occurred eight lifetimes ago. By the time we reach the debates in a few weeks these conventions will be historical footnotes. That's the way it works, and it's one reason Obama's approach has been to let these temporary buzzes slide off - Jay-Z style - while staying focused on the larger strategy.
EDIT: More Palin links for your browsing pleasure [--Nate]
Nearly as many people watched Palin last night as watched Obama last Thursday.
But some of those people were Obama supporters -- and they're donating to their candidate in large amounts.
A Media Curves analysis found voters' perceptions of the McCain-Palin ticket improving significantly after watching her speech.
But focus groups in Nevada and Michigan were less impressed.
Rasmussen's voters think Obama is more qualified than Palin -- but not by an especially wide margin.
And SurveyUSA's voters like Palin -- but aren't as sure she reflects well on McCain's judgment.
9.04.2008
All Your Base Are Belong to Her
@ 5:50 PM
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5 potential tipping point states:
Virginia
Colorado
Ohio
Florida
Nevada
Both campaigns know it, they're not dumb. Obama has the advantage because all he needs is to win one. The reason I'd say McCain has around a 25-30% chance of winning still is all of those states were Red last time. In a tight election they'd probably want to fall into the Red Column. But again, Obama needs to pulloff just one.
McCain-Palin crushed by the power of community organizing.
Delicious irony
We need some more state polls instead of just national ones.
With two months to go I don't think there is a lot to do that McCain can do to counter Obama's infrastructure advantages, especially given that he will have to accept public financing.
The Evangelical wing of the GOP that won Bush two elections will be energized and will definitely campaign for McCain, but they won't be able to donate en mass.
Hey Nate, isn't it weird that the latest CBS poll has the race tied at 42%? If Palin helped McCain, how come his numbers didn't rise, but Obama's fell?
http://www.mediacurves.com/pdf/Palin_RNC_Speech.pdf
I'd love to see some of that beautiful fivethirtyeight analysis on this. Makes her speech sound somewhat significant.
Yeah, her speech last night was a joke.... Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor so you can draw your own conclusions............
The CBS poll produced a tie because it surveyed more Republicans than any other national polls - out of proportion to their actual numbers. More Republicans = more votes for the Republican candidate. Gotta love the fine print.
CBS Poll:
UNWEIGHTED WEIGHTED
Total Registered Voters 734 691
Total Republicans 229 215
Total Democrats 250 241
Total Independents 255 235
One thing to note, I always thought the Republican party would be more likely to field the first minority President or first female President for one reason. They're the good ol' boy network that is much less open, but if they felt desperate and fielded someone highly qualified, they'd have the potential for crossovers from the Democrats and the Republicans would stick together instead of vote for the Democrat. I thought it might happen with Colin Powell, then Obama came along. The reason this is pertinent is the only way Palin is a game-changer is if there are moderate-Democrats who would crossover to vote for the first woman in a way where the whole electorate changes. It would probably only take 2 or 3% at the most. I don't think it'll happen because she's so diametrically opposed to most everything most of them are for, but she only has to hide most of that for 60 days. It's definitely a possibililty since most of the country aren't following as closely as we are.
"Yeah, her speech last night was a joke.... Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor so you can draw your own conclusions............"
The meek will inherit the earth?
The first shall be last and the last shall be first?
Jesus is just another big government liberal that ones to make loaves and fishes with your hard-earned tithe dollars.
And did Jesus get to where he is because of family connections from his powerful father? We just don't know. He won't tell us?
Jesus may be a celebrity, but is he ready to lead?
I'm Pontius Pilate, and I approve this message.
Well my lady, who for ages I've been trying to bring to Obamas corner, saw 10 minutes of that face twitching weird Tina Fey lookalike and then sent $50 to the Obama/Biden campaign.
When she came back from work today she told me Palin's speech was the talk of the watercooler and she didn't do too well among the young ladies. And that self confessed "I'll fuck whoever messes with me" Redneck son-in-law to be sent a cold chill down her spine.
Seems quite a lot of people in MI and NV had the same gut reaction.
AxmxZ,
CBS' weighted average is...
31% Republican
35% Democrat
That is not a far cry from Rasmussen's data for August showing a 6 point party ID gap (favouring the Dems of course). Even if Obama is really +2, that is a pretty statistically significant shift, that is almost entirely from yesterday (since the Rasmussen and Gallup trackers show no movement from Tuesday... poor swamp-draining Fred).
@hoosier
I still reckon it's an outlier.
hosertohoosier, as I posted in the previous thread...
of note with the CBS poll, they are using a 31.1% R, 34.9% D, 34% I split, if you apply the same numbers with Rass. breakout of 32.1% R, 39.7% D, 28.2% I, you get a 43.6% Obama to 41.2% McCain breakdown.
I've not looked around to see what the last CBS poll used for the breakouts to see if this one has the same or different.
hosertohoosier:
I know rounding numbers is fun, but it's actually 31.1% to 34.8% - 3.7% difference instead of 4%.
"Not a far cry" from 6%? Why, it's practically half that.
Well, it's a national poll of only 700 or so participants. More likely to have noise in it, if I understand these things properly. Most national polls are more like 3000 participants.
I had a good chuckle at the title, and I was genuinely surprised at how much was raised last night from Palin even though I was one of the ones donating.
The CBS poll makes no sense. How on earth could there be 12% undecided during these two weeks?
In today's mail I received my $2,300 refund check for the contribution to Hillary Clinton's general election campaign that never happened. I really want to donate it to Obama, but I'm waiting to see whether he and Biden are going to let themselves by cuckolded by Palin.
How fat, slow pitches down the middle of the plate will they fail to swing at? The community organizers crack is a prime example.
The Republican Party usually goes on and on about how government social services can be replaced by voluntary associations. Last night, Palin ridiculed those associations and said government activity is all that matters.
In doing so, she (with cheers from the delegates) dumped on every Rotarian, Kiwani, Knight of Columbus, P.T.A. mom, Little League dad, church food drive, and parks cleanup day in America. The Republicans told millions of Americans that their efforts on behalf of their communities and the people who live there are worthless.
I've heard only a tepid reaction from Obama on this one. I really question his political instincts. Biden, supposedly the fighter, decided to congratulate Palin on a great speech. Nice. Real nice, Joe. What's next? Are you going to sign up for her campaign?
Come on. As others have pointed out, "Jesus Christ was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor." I'm an American and a Democrat who gives a shit about his local community and who has put the time and money in to prove it.
Obama, of all people YOU ought to be standing up for community service!
From the other thread....
When you boil all the bullshit down, this is why Obama is going to win.
He's smart, he's disciplined, he's got class, and he shows he has what a leader needs to have.
And it's really that simple.
current and previous month Rass party breakdown for anyone who cares...
"Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. Our baseline targets are established based upon survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews). For September, the targets are 39.7% Democrat, 32.1% Republican, and 28.2% unaffiliated (see party trends and analysis). For the month of August, the targets were 40.6% Democrat, 31.6% Republican, and 27.8% unaffiliated."
p.s.: There are all kinds of potential homes for that $2,300. Do I really want to put it into a political campaign that knows nothing about politics?
Lots of campaign money kind of has a law of diminishing returns.
Wasn't CBS poll taken entirely after Palin's speech?
If so, a tie is not so bad for Obama, given that some of the respondents would still have been caught up in the post speech fervor - which will surely subside.
I wouldn't be surprised, or that bothered if Ras and Gallup recorded a tie for tonight's polling...and because, unlike CBS, they are tracking polls they would still post Obama leads.
A little math on the CBS weighting:
CBS Party ID:
31.1% R
34.8% D
+3.7%
Rasmussen Party ID (9/2/08)
33.2% R
38.9% D
+5.7%
Gallup Party ID (July 2008, last I could find)
27% R
36% D
+9%
(Ras Party ID for July: +9.5%)
Republicans may have substantially closed a party ID gap in the last two months; Rasmussen has been pretty good in 2004 and 2006. (Though that seems to go against all of the voter registration stories.) If you weight CBS more like Rasmussen (instead of like 2004 :P) you wind up with roughly Obama +4. That's more in line with other polls for 9/1-9/3.
This gives us a good baseline for assessing reaction to the Palin and McCain speeches.
Is there any better methodology for identifying party ID out there?
I think Obama's response has been great. Getting into a spitting contest with Palin is a lose/lose situation any way you look at it. It's why she was picked and he shouldn't fall into the trap. He is in command and needs to act like these people are anklebiters. Just keep on message, act presidential and harp on how empty the McCain/Palin frakshow from a policy perspective.
Here are the numbers from the last CBS poll - the one that showed Obama +8 from August 29 - 31.
UNWEIGHTED WEIGHTED
Total Republicans 247 229
Total Democrats 310 308
Total Independents 318 337
Total Registered Voters 781 743
My point is, they went from a match-up of 30.8% (R) to 41.4% (D) to a match-up of 31.1% (R) to 34.9% (D). And then they wrote that this showed that Obama's 8-point lead evaporated from last weekend! Now, are you going to tell me that's not comparing apples and horse apples?
Re: the voter screen: If you check out the earlier 50/42 poll, it's obvious something is off because the weighed voter number when you add up the columns = the registered voter number. Nonetheless, if you do the math, the percentages for that first poll are 35D/26R/39I. How does weighing change 5 points over 3 days?
As an example, I give you: Mitt Romnney in the primaries.
axmxz - check the totals of both numbers. The first adds up to 875, which is the 'total respondents' number. The second is 874. Something is wrong with that PDF file.
pluckon: I understand your frustration, but remember a couple of things.
1. En toto, Palin is a trap. McCain wants Obama and Biden to go after her, so that he can then control the narrative.
2. Obama has run since day one on being a different kind of politician. That means that when the pigs start slinging mud, you don't jump down into the sty with them.
3. What Obama is doing works. He's succeeding. He doesn't have to give Palin any more attention. This thread is discussing bases and motivation, and as many of us surmised last night, Palin's handlers shot her in the foot. Why would Obama want to upset that?
The GOP are the ones who do the brute force thing. Obama will respond in a measured manner, in the way he feels is most to his advantage.
Contrast the VP selection process -- that's what Obama vs. McCain is all about.
The meek will inherit the earth?
The first shall be last and the last shall be first?
Jesus is just another big government liberal that ones to make loaves and fishes with your hard-earned tithe dollars.
And did Jesus get to where he is because of family connections from his powerful father? We just don't know. He won't tell us?
Jesus may be a celebrity, but is he ready to lead?
I'm Pontius Pilate, and I approve this message
You are right, I did a big mis- service to Pontius Pilate comparing him to Sarah Palin, my apologies Pontius........
How can McCain do any more fundraising unless he drops out of public financing? (An announcement I'm expecting any day now).
Adanthar: I'm thinking, somebody really, really, really, really wanted for McCain to have a good polling day.
Becky Sharp,
No, the CBS poll was taken entirely before Palin's speech. National polls don't matter much, however, and this one had a small sample size (<750) for a national poll.
Also, to Nate: if you haven't already, would you consider weighing down the third party vote percentages in the overall tracker? There is just no way that Nader will wind up with a number significantly over the 0.25% he got in 2004, for example; even his 2000 number, when he was getting real buzz, was only 2.5%. The polls with Nader at 2-4 and Barr at 1-2 should all be heavily discounted to reflect what will almost certainly happen on Election Day.
I'm in Florida. Florida is in total swing. I've been working with the guys at the local campaign hideout...
Our plan... More voter reg.... We think it comes down to getting "first timers" no matter age...
:-)
I know plenty of 50, 60 year olds and they say...
" the republican party is not what it was when I was growing up. something has gone totally weird there. "
There is a lot of open minded, looking for change down here.... There is a lot of people content to be asleep....
Its numbers.. I'm betting that a lot of the asleep aren't going to bother to vote.... That ought to turn a state blue...
:-)
I'm still frightened. I need a hug. Right wing is scary. This convention is creepy. And I need more pepto if I am to be asked to sit through a McCain speech.....
VCon: I'm going to disagree with you on Mitt. Huge sums of money deliver diminishing returns only if you don't really have any concrete plans for what to do with them. But if you have plans to open a gazillion field offices in every state *and* floor the ether with your ads, more is definitely better, and a million remains a million at every stage of the game.
Nate,
I think you are missing something with respect to the effect Palin will have. You have commented that there is not a whole lot of overlap between undecideds and people that liked her speach. However, as you have pointed out many times there is an enthusiasm gap and a ground game gap, and these are areas that Palin is definantly impacting. She may not win many new votes for the Republican ticket, but if she turns 1,000,000 Republican votes into 1,000,000 Republican activist, then the impact will be huge.
@vc
Lots of campaign money kind of has a law of diminishing returns.
I agree with you. But I think Obama knows this too - it's why he's invested a shedload of money into the ground game, he's decided that advertising money can only go so far.
OK, McCain's now got the evangelicals to balance that (in some states, anyway more than others) but it's still money well spent.
Does anyone have a link to Evangelical numbers in the key swing states (named above)?
Axmxz-
Huckabee was damn near flat broke (he was horrible at raising money) and kicked Mittens ass in several priamries.
The CBS poll numbers, and most others, are meaningless when so much of the electorate is undecided. And the undecideds are not republicans or democrats, they are independents. How they break will determine the election, assuming both parties get-out-the-vote with similar operations (but there are indications this year that Obama's organization far outstrips McCain's, at least before the Palin announcement and subsequent conservative enthusiasm). Anything that indicates how independents are feeling, such as the MI and NV focus groups, is the real meat we should be consuming.
Note that Mr. Obama said: “I assume that she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated which means that their records are under scrutiny.”
Perhaps more scandals and oddities are coming. Perhaps they will come after it is too late to remove Ms. Palin's name from the ballot.
Huckabee was damn near flat broke (he was horrible at raising money) and kicked Mittens ass in several priamries.
He was a Mormon running in the Bible belt.
New Hampshire is the Bible Belt? McCain (another, at the time, flat broke candidate) beat him there.
"She may not win many new votes for the Republican ticket, but if she turns 1,000,000 Republican votes into 1,000,000 Republican activist, then the impact will be huge."
I'm sure she really helped her cause there by giving the big middle finger to community organizers (for NO politically beneficial reason, either. Smart politicking there, guys.)
"I'm sure she really helped her cause there by giving the big middle finger to community organizers (for NO politically beneficial reason, either. Smart politicking there, guys.)"
OH NOES THE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER LOBBY IS MAD!
McCain is toast now! Not.
"New Hampshire is the Bible Belt? McCain (another, at the time, flat broke candidate) beat him there."
Come on. Do your homework.
Surely you must have SOME idea of the history between McCain and NH?
Seriously, you're embarrassing yourself.
@vc
you KNOW already that McCain did very well in NH in 2000 & 2008 because he did about a million town halls. It's a tiny State, at the start of the campaign season.
Did McCain take public financing? If he did who is collecting this money he raising, the RNC?
Rhys-
Mittens was the Governor of a neighboring state.
Didn't Howard Dean have more money than John Kerry in 2004, too?
"He was a Mormon running in the Bible belt."
No, dickbag. He was a horrible candidate. Genuinely disliked. The John Kerry of the Rep party.
Huckabee proved charming and likeable.
I think Mitt would have been better off using David Brook's new slogan as his campaign theme.
Vote for Romney--He's Borderline Insane
@Brad
after tomorrow, McCain can turn whatever he's already raised over to the RNC. Any extra money has to be directed to the RNC.
Seriously, that's just broken. He can raise just as much, just indirectly, and have a free $84 mil. I kind of think Obama should have been just as dodgy....
"Mittens was the Governor of a neighboring state.
Didn't Howard Dean have more money than John Kerry in 2004, too?"
I give up. You want to discuss a subject without even informing yourself about it.
I'm a bit frustrated that no one takes up my methodological breakthrough with the Gallup tracker (combining their overall weekly averages with gender weekly averages to produce a narrow boundary for the weekly results, and then use this to find bounds for individual days).
Extrapolatng from the numbers derived there, I conclude that the raw Gallup numbers on 2/9 - the day to be dropped tomorrow - were Obama between 47 and 53, McCain between 38 and 44. This is in line with the 3-day average today and so the drop tomorrow will probably be at most 4-5 points, possibly less. My predictions now:
Gallup O 48 M 45
Rasmussen O 48 M 47
The primaries are different than the general, in alot of states the evangicals matter alot more than they do in the general. It is just the math...Huck's story is not a good analogy.
Best news is that she is solidifying his base, but hae already had 90% of that vote, thus all he is doing is increasing turnout which won't help nearly as much as '04 due to party ident gains by dems and BO's ground game.
ok, could be wrong here, but didn't Dean make some call for everyone to be nice and not stab each other and basically he got fubar'd for it?
Just some info on what Barack did in community service.
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/09/why-do-republic.html
"Mittens" is cute. If he'd ran as Mittens instead who knows how those would have ended up.
humanist,
No one takes up your methodological breakthrough because it's wrong and your are a no-nothing fuck-off.
humanist-
i love it, lets see if it works!
@humanist
I like the fact that your boundaries have Obama lower on the day to be dropped. Some estimates were him as high as 56.
The real media dynamic:
Palin candidacy announced, she is the new kid on the block, some negative history, huge wave of negative stories.
Palin will speak, will she fall flat on her face (see previous story), bar is set very, very low.
Palin speaks, did not fall flat on her face, must have hit a home run, huge wave of stories on that.
Palin post-speech, bar has now been set very high by 'home run' speech, scandals do not magically all go away, sooner or later she has to hold a press conference and sounds less polished, she still holds wildly unpopular issue postions, press turns negative.
All that has nothing -- Nothing -- to do with her merits, nothing to do with bias in either direction. It is the roller coaster ride the media sets up repeatedly to maintain interest in the "stories" they tell. A flat line is no story to tell.
What does it all mean: another wave on Palin -- negative -- will be rolling within days.
Matthew H,
No one gives a big shit what Barack did for community service, unless it was time served for breaking the law.
Depending on whether you use weighted or unweighted number, the difference is 3.2( unweighted) or 3.8 (weighted). (OK, I know the last number is meaningless and srounding should be done).
But somehow you seem to take the CBS poll as gospel, even though CBS was significantly less accurate in 2006 than Rasmussen. Today's other polls: Rasmussen O+5, Gallup O+7. So why do you think that the CBS polls is the one to hang your hat on?
The pollster introduced error score for these three (based on 2006 results):
Rasmussen: 1.30
Gallup: 2.4
CBS: 2.64 (the only national pollster worse was Zogby interactive.
And people, I don't know how so many people come to this site and obviously have no idea about margins of error in polling. Nate has posted all this information. Small differences between polls are presumed to be random noise until such time as there is a trendline.
Given the other poll results, CBS is probably (we can't say for sure yet, and we can know this only retroactively) an outlier. For those far too many of you who don't understand the concept, remember that about one poll out of 20 will give a result that is farther from the "true" value than the margin of error. Polls outside the MOE are consdiered outliers. Considering other sources of error in the polls, my guess is that 1 in 10 or 12 will be an outlier with respect to the published MOE.
That is truly dodgy - leave it to the guy who was all for campaign money reform to be the biggest loser and the guy who breaks it in spirit.
Brad,
Don't even go there, shitwad. We'll be here all night.
Loser Like You said...
No one
That's why people hate Republicans. They think they speak for everybody.
@Brad
it's actually worse than that.
Now this may not be 100% as it's from memory
but essentially: you can raise $2300 as a candidate, $29,000 as the RNC/DNC, but *in addition* any extra campaign group you setup can raise another $2300 for a specific purpose.
I think Obama set up one extra of these campaign groups and McCain set up an extra 4. So each of these big events that McCain threw for the multi millionaires, he got $29,000 funnelled to the RNC, $2,300 to himself, and $9,200 to the extra campaigns.
The system is broken. And McCain was fully aware of that when he wrote it, he's just exploiting it now.
He'll fallback on 537s if he runs out of money. Hypocrite that he is.
Other than the celebrity aspect I don't understand how Senator McCain can possibly win the election now. They just stepped on all McCain arguments other than abortion. I didn't think Palin's speech was vindictive (or mean spirited) but it was definitely partisan. So they're definitely not counting on the Hillary crowd. Wasteful spending is out of the window; eventually McCain will have to answer why Alaska has the highest per capita pork barrel spending in the nation. Bipartisan argument as good as dead after that speech. Forget about McCain's moderate image. They're trying to build (create?) a reform platform but what do they have to prove it other than the E-bay jet? Especially McCain? They cannot say that he is environmentalist he picked Palin... etc. And most importantly trying to cover up Palin's mess they made everyone forget that McCain will be the president, they are straying away from McCain's message and moving towards Palin's message and making him look really weak the process. This almost looks like the Republicans dumped McCain and do not want to run this election on issues but to have a popularity contest between Obama and Sarah Palin. I think thats what scares the bloggers most. But at the end of the day they strayed off message. Obama has been building his message for 20 months now and the Republicans have to craft a new image/message in less than 2 months. I don't know. Or maybe I am just another librul pinhead.
Hilarious! Watch this and send it to ten friends. Lying republicans, caught again!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32499/1/TDS-Rove-Bill-O-Hannity-090308.wmv
Loser-
Wow, are you mulerider?
Matthew H
Not republican. Just a pissed off 14 year old.
@Brad
actually, looks like I massively underestimated. He's actually getting up to $70,000 per person. This won't change.
http://zennie2005.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-mccain-fund-gets-around-2300.html
I couldn't believe it when Obama said he wasn't going to take funds and the media panned him for it. Ridiculously biased.
That's always the accusation right? It's true this time. Fuck it. I'm just bored and needed to waste some time. Call me a troll. I don't give a shit.
Anyone want to wager on how many times McPow says 'my friends' tonight?
The thing about these national polls is they're not all that meaningful. We need new state poll data next week about this time.
I'd guess it comes down to five states. Obama will need to win one of:
Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, or Florida.
The other states are probably not tipping point states, so probably don't matter in an analysiis of who will win.
@Tim
half an hour speech - I'm going to say once every 2 minutes and one for luck, so 16.
He will be on the POW story for a minimum of 5 minutes, personally I reckon 10.
gizmirli-
what scares the shit out of us is the fact that McCain is going to use the lowest, slimiest playbook he can find and the completely disingeuous fundraising, and the hiring of more Rove-like assholes.
This worked in the 200 primary, and the 200 and 2004 general. It is game on, we have to win this and take back the sole of the country. It is even more important now as the Palin pick means that McCain/Palin is further right than any ticket in recent memory.
Send this to ten friends, I am serious, show them as liars!!!!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/32499/1/TDS-Rove-Bill-O-Hannity-090308.wmv
I don't know, Giuliani did manage to get through his speech without saying 9/11 or even "September the Eleventh, Two-Thousand and One" (which is worth TWO drinks!)
Politico is arguing that McCain's choice of Palin, in solidifying the conservative base, will give him flexibility to distance himself more from the Bush legacy and focus more on his independence. Interesting argument. Given that McCain is planning to use his speech tonight to lay out his vision for his presidency, we should get a glimpse of how much this will be the case tonight.
looking at the realtive numbers of Dems and Reps in the CBS sample, it is approximately 3% more Republican than it should be, based on Rasmussen's numbers, which translates inot a 2.5% - 3% weighting of the sample toward McCain.
I noted that Hoser truncated Rasmussen's figure, which creates the affect of reducing the proportion of Dems to which the CBS poll should be compared.
actually, one really interesitng part of that story about campaign financing (well, to me anyway)
"The remaining funds would be divided equally, up to $10,000 a piece, among four states the campaign has designated as battlegrounds for November: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and New Mexico."
Isn't it just Colorado that's a swing state now? Hasn't McCain almost certainly lost the other 3?
Matthew H,
LoserLikeYou apparently doesn't know everything. :-)
Thank you for the link. I have many computer illiterate associates who will be calling for additional information. This has just enough information without making them shout TMI.
VC-
Guiliani did say 9/11 once, pretty sure. /he did it only once though.
Brad,
So are you going to talk shit to me or what, fat ass?
I would add Montana and North Carolina in the tossup state column.
Smitty,
I do know everything, bee-otch!
more seriously, he'll probably say it at least once from habit but I reckon they'll have scrubbed it from the speech entirely.
The POW stuff will be both in the introductory video and in the speech
CBS poll is a fraud. They just had their nightly news cast quoting that an approximate 10pt Dem party ID advantage and then the ypublis a poll with 4...ummm...
Nah, tipping point states are what matter.
North Carolina and Montana will not decide this election. McCain will win them and if they go for Obama it's because he already won by a large margin.
OBAMA response to personal attacks: "I've been called worse on a basketball court."
Classy as always, Barack.
Worth a read.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/04/obama_brushes_back_convention.html
Loser,
Behave yourself, child. Granny is busy.
@nkpolitics
both Montana & North Carolina should be swing states but Montana is only worth 3 - almost impossible to tip the election the way the numbers are - and NC is unlikely to turn unless Virginia does, in which case it's already game over for McCain. The 5 above are pretty independent of each other and any one will probably win it for Obama (Nevada depends on New Hampshire).
Indiana might join that list soon, possibly.
David, one question about the Politico article.
What does it say about the GOP and the general intelligence level of the electorate that having Palin read a Bush speech off a teleprompter suddenly proves that McCain is independent?
It's ridiculous.
The Community Organizing Insult Comment will be The McCain/Palin Tickets MACACA Moment or it will be similar to when Mean Jean Schmidt said on the House Floor-
Right Wing COL Danny Bubp send me a message- tell Congress Only cowards cut and run - real marines don't cut and run.
Jeez, you guys.
I go out for a nice hike in the autumn sunshine and come back to find Pete, MPM, stutter and VCon all exchanging high fives and celebratory chest bumps in the end zone.
What is WRONG with you people? You think all the Palin scandals somehow got vaporized becase she read a speech from a teleprompter?
The daughter's still pregnant, and dangerously ticked at her Mummy On The Stump. The extramarital affair is TRUE and there are two pissed-off witnesses who want to go public. The chief of police up in Alaska announced today that Wooten's personnel file was illegally accesesd by the governor's office and the prosecutor will be laying more charges.... and Palin has not yet answered a single question from anyone in the media.
Seems there is no limit to the wingnut talent for self-deception and normally I'd just let you all have your fun... but I like you guys and don't want you to look silly when the inevitable happens.
Obama has the advantage because all he needs is to win one
Presumably you;re assuming Obama picks up Iowa, New Mexico, and New Hampshire with little trouble.
"Other than the celebrity aspect I don't understand how Senator McCain can possibly win the election now."
50% of Americans are below average in intelligence. They get to vote, too.
Don't feed the trolls.
Obama is up in three of the five tipping pointstates, and tied in another. It is close in all five, but...the polling is old.
What Palin say!!
Somebody set up us the bomb.
ROFLMAO!
n00bs...
DaWolf said...
@nkpolitics
both Montana & North Carolina should be swing states but Montana is only worth 3 - almost impossible to tip the election the way the numbers are - and NC is unlikely to turn unless Virginia does, in which case it's already game over for McCain. The 5 above are pretty independent of each other and any one will probably win it for Obama (Nevada depends on New Hampshire).
Indiana might join that list soon, possibly.
Agreed, and if we have if it figured out, both campaigns do. They have to play defense to make sure to hold on to some states, but tipping points matter. I think Obama holds onto New Hampshire. The polls seem to indicate that whatever magic Iowa does for Obama, the same magic doesn't apply to McCain in New Hampshire. I'd guess they probably think the last 8 years have been bad and want change. i would've guessed polling there would be closer, but it hasn't ever been close in the polls. I don't think that will change.
A small anecdotal bit of info:
A friend from 35 years ago called, all excited. He went out to get a bite to eat and decided a cold brew would be good, too. He said there was a group of five blue-collar older guys talking to the barkeep. When they left, the barkeep joined him and said those five were the most obnoxious Republican customers that she had...until the Palin speech!
They stopped by just to apologize and to say they all were voting for Obama.
They are all in the reddest of red counties in OR.
"The extramarital affair is TRUE"
What do you know that we don't?
"and there are two pissed-off witnesses who want to go public. The chief of police up in Alaska announced today that Wooten's personnel file was illegally accesesd by the governor's office and the prosecutor will be laying more charges.... "
Soon it will be time for Palin's Jimmy Swaggart moment. You all know it's coming, right?
"and Palin has not yet answered a single question from anyone in the media."
Lucky for the GOP they are after the idiot vote where issues and competence don't matter.
'Let them eat mooseburgers!'
NC is a 3nd tier state for Obama in his plan.
1st tier:
NM,IA which he leads comfortably
then CO,NV,VA
2nd Tier:
OH, Fla, IN(border state w/ IL)
3rd tier
NC, GA, MT, ND
@jakam
Presumably you;re assuming Obama picks up Iowa, New Mexico, and New Hampshire with little trouble.
Iowa yes, Obama is miles ahead.
New Hampshire is required for Nevada to count. New Hampshire & New Mexico for Virginia (Virginia also wins with Montana I think, about the only time Montana matters) or Colorado to win. Ohio or Florida win without all 3.
Agree - Palin will still be introduced to low info voters via the National Enquirer. We have all the built in advantages, except I think we just lost the money lead although time will tell.
OH NOES THE COMMUNITY ORGANIZER LOBBY IS MAD!
I think Obama's campaign has missed a golden opportunity to pick up that issue. "Community organizer" is a very big group of people, encompassing just about anyone who's ever volunteered for anything.
But I'm not terribly impressed with Team Obama's raw political skills. They know their numbers, I'll grant them that. But I'm not sure how much else. This election shouldn't be anywhere near as close as it is.
OTF said...
NC is a 2nd tier state for Obama in his plan.
1st tier:
NM,IA which he leads comfortably
then CO,NV,VA
2nd Tier:
OH, Fla, IN(border state w/ IL)
3rd tier
NC, GA, MT, ND
PERFECT ASSESSMENT! As long as there's not some huge change in the national polls by about this time next week where McCain is ahead by say 3 or more in a poll of polls nationally, then the plan above is it. I think the Obama camp has about a 75% chance of making it happen, unless something bizarre happens between October 15th and November 4th.
Obama-Biden is going to win all of the Kerry States plus Iowa and New Mexico 264 ev.
The battleground states are
CO,FL,MO,NV,OH,and VA
Colorado,Ohio,and Nevada will be the states that puts Obama over the top.
This is huge if true. CNN did a great piece on the Troopergate scandal today, right before the repub convention intro.
"and there are two pissed-off witnesses who want to go public. The chief of police up in Alaska announced today that Wooten's personnel file was illegally accesesd by the governor's office and the prosecutor will be laying more charges.... "
Woo Hoo!
Howey-Gauge Indiana Poll:
McCain 45 Obama 43
http://www.howeypolitics.com/
From Papabear Bill O'Reilly:
[Palin] has a tremendous opportunity to sell herself as a competent, astute public official and a champion of the traditional point of view.
Mrs. Palin should devote all of her time to introducing herself. She should not attack Barack Obama. That would be foolish because at this point she doesn't have enough credibility to do that.
linked
Note: the article is dated 9.4.2008 (Thursday), but he refers to the impending speech on Wednesday night.
@OTF
I'd largely agree but think I'd add Missouri to the 3rd tier. Obama isn't *that* far behind and it's worth 11 EV's.
I'd be tempted to remove Georgia from the list, he's frther behind and from the sounds of it it's less like to tip than North Carolina, which is less likely to tip than Virginia.
Game theory means you want to spread out the states as much as possible so they aren't overlapping on the win percentages.
Brad,
Palin's new thing is trying to challenge jurisdiction to get the troopergate case in front of her political appointees.
MO is a red state. It is not in play. I escaped the evangelical hell that it became.
They had a vote to try to stop stem cell research for god's sake.
Johnathon,
I heard you.
Here's a big hug, Keep the faith, baby.
It'll be real interesting to see if Colorado starts looking more blue than purple. That's a possibility. If that happens, the McCain camp will probably pour crazy money into Pennsylvania or Michigan to try to flip one because that'd be the only way for them to win. It'll be a chess game down the stretch if it's close.
otf-
I am an attorney. It is a good ploy, but it would be unlikely to work in the states where I am a member of the bar. The legislature essentially controls it's own investigations (just like at the fed level). Who the hell knows what corrupt AK does though....
@ pluckon
there is still time - we're talking one day after. I'm not saying it's certain but the hits on Community Organisers could still find their way into an ad easily enough.
Rhys -
"What does it say about the GOP and the general intelligence level of the electorate that having Palin read a Bush speech off a teleprompter suddenly proves that McCain is independent?"
Nothing about Palin's speech itself says McCain is independent (that I can recall anyway). He will have that opportunity tonight. The argument is simply that he has a greater flexibility with his base to pursue that, given that they're all fired up about Palin.
(Lest anyone get confused, I'm not the only "David" posting here.)
dawolf,
I forgot about MO...I forgot he has alot of ground troops in MO. Being in IL we get alot of volunteer stuff from the Campaign about IA, IN, stuff...forgot about MO.
@Brad
then remove Georgia from the list anyway. Missouri is projected at McCain +3.4, Georgia McCain +6.5.
Guys/Gals - forget the obsession with the national polls. No pollster can accurately tell us the exact D/R/I make-up of the elecorate and that's why these polls will remain all over the place.
The money shots are the state polls for the following: CO, NV, OH, FL, NM, VA, IA, MI and NH.
It looks like IA and NM have gone blue and that MI will remain blue. With no Romney selection it looks like NH will go blue. If all this remains true until election day, Obama needs just NV out of CO, NV, OH, FL and VA to force a 269-269 tie in the electoral college. Right now, CO looks like it's likely to go blue too and Hillary will be living in OH and FL for the next 60 days and Obama has the ground game and money advantage in VA.
Bottom line is -- if I told you 3 months ago that BO would be up about 5-6 points on September 4 his supporters would be happy.
And also, the Palin pick really was a hail-mary pass. The McCain camp knows they are down further than the national polls are showing.
Governor Palin has no chance to survive make her time.
Brad,
The article I read today said they will challenge jurisdiction. We will see if it works. It might just be a an attempt to stall so the report doesn't get released till after the original October deadline.
All of your analysis on tipping point states conveniently omit two key Kerry states where McCain has a chance: Michigan and Penn.
Michigan is particularly in play because it's economy is the worst in the nation and it is lead by Democrats who raised taxes significantly, and Obama is tied to Kwame, who just plead guilty to two felonies and resigned as Mayor of Detroit.
Penn is inching towards McCain because he is pouring in cash and field people more than anywhere else.
Ignoring the weak points in Obama's plan does not make them disappear.
If BO can flip MO I will be impressed. I think it will take a 5 point plus ground game to do it, and if Palin really turns out evangelicals it could get worse.
Nate,
Your links to the Nevada focus group research is broken.
The correct links should be here or here.
otf-
I think it is a loser, it would be here, but it will delay the case and it will delay her deposition.
Obama is tied to Kwame, who just plead guilty to two felonies and resigned as Mayor of Detroit.
How is Obama tied to Kwame?
That's not sarcastic. I don't keep track of Michigan politics, and haven't read anything about it.
@Geoff
1 poll in the last 12 in Michigna has gone to McCain. 0 polls in the last 12 in Pennsylvania have gone to McCain.
They are longshots for McCain. It's much more likely he holds all the Bush States bar Iowa & New Mexico.
Obama will hold MI and PA. McCain has no economic plan..oh yes the Bush plan. Both states will sat thanks but no thanks.
so I just read excerpts from the McCain speech and had to donate again it made me so angry.
Filistro--you rock.
Woo Hoo!
Howey-Gauge Indiana Poll:
McCain 45 Obama 43
http://www.howeypolitics.com/
Woo Hoo for who?
Doesn't this pattern make sense, though? Sure, Palin comes out and attacks and solidifies the base because she's well established as a social conservative. She's good people, according to the Republican base, a group that hasn't traditionally been a big fan of McCain.
So tonight, McCain comes out and speaks in an entirely different way. McCain has a well known track record of bipartisan legislation, so he can draw on that to paint broad pictures of future progress.
The Republicans aren't idiots. They know what effect Palin has had, and they probably knew what it would be in advance. McCain's speech will address all of these points.
Nevada is a mystery to me. It now has a dem advantage in registry and strong unions but has yet to come up strongly blue. Makes no sense.
Nate,
Incidentally, the Michigan focus group link is broken as well.
The link for that should be here.
May 2007 outing at the Detroit Economic Club in support of Obama and Kwame. Excerpt:
OBAMA: So I want to first of all acknowledge your great mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, who has been...
(APPLAUSE)
... on the frontlines -- has been on the frontlines doing an outstanding job of gathering together the leadership at every level in Detroit to bring about the kind of renaissance that all of us anticipate for this great city.
And he is a leader not just here in Detroit, not just in Michigan, but all across the country. People look to him. We know that he is going to be doing astounding things for many years to come.
And so I'm grateful to call him a friend and a colleague. And I'm looking forward to a lengthy collaboration in terms of making sure that Detroit does well in the future.
Also, Kwame was his surrogate in Michigan, running the "None of the Above" turnout effort in the primary and raising cash at Michigan Fundraisers.
I'm not high fiving, I'm cautiously optimistic.
Again, Nixon and Bush (Senior) won with VPs that were universally panned. Nixon even managed to do it in a close race.
For all the talk about Palin's speech appealing not to indies but to repubs, why does it seem like no one has considered that Palin will increase the repub turnout. There are so many repubs/conserv who do not vote, but a candidate like this might change the numbers. Of course, the same can be said of Obama. But the bottom line is that current estimates of the number of repubs/dems are likely to be off base.
Don't count on Obama competing in MO -- it will not be a state Obama can win in a close election. And this is shaping up to be a 49.0-47.6-1.8-1.6 election (O,M,B,N).
Biden pick is no where near as good as Hillary would have been but Biden keeps PA off limits to McCain and he helps in S. Florida and rural OH. Biden on ticket plus a full-press by Hillary in OH and FL may give Obama some breathing room in the electoral college.
VA will come down to Obama's ground game vs. McCain's elderly/veteran support.
OTB:
GOP has yet to ramp up on the air efforts in Michigan, and soon they will. Kwame also introduced Rev. Wright at the Detroit NAACP in the beginning of the Wright week craziness.
Re Penn, see latest Quinnipac and Ras. polls. Ras is only plus 4 obama, quinn plus 7.
however, large amount of undecided AND, critically, McCAin has better favorability/unfav than obama in both states.
That is the election, folks. Those two states.
@VC
Bush Senior is just not a fair comparison. He had been Vice President for a popular President.
IMO McCain is polling ahead of generic Republican purely because there is a huge mass of low-info voters out there who don't realise he's running as a generic Republican.
That's why his speech tonight is important - can he keep them believing he's a maverick when he no longer is? Can he look and sound Presidential?
If he can do these things, it's a win for him. If he doesn't come off presidential he's toast, and if the voters start explicitly tarring him as Republican he's toast.
But then, I know very little about this, all guesses from afar :)
Geoff said...
All of your analysis on tipping point states conveniently omit two key Kerry states where McCain has a chance: Michigan and Penn.
WRONG, Bad Assessment. But, I hope McCain's people think this way. Pennsylvania is not going to flip to McCain as a tipping point state, though if you setup a plan for McCain I'd certainly pursue it as an offensive strategy. After all, you don't want to be completlely on defense. It's a waste of money though. They're both naturally Blue, Bush has made them even more blue. Don't underestimate the Africna-American vote in Detroit and Philadelphia. I get the argument for Michigan, but McCain didn't pick Romney. If he had, I'd be scared and think McCain would have a good chance there, but he didn't. Obama soeaks very well to large parts of both states and has been ahead in all of the polls in both states the whole time. He's even been ahead in those two states when the national polls were tied. They won't tip to McCain in a close election, he's going to have to play great defense to win. I bet both campaigns know this, but they each have to play the game both offense and defense or risk losing what's theirs.
Eric:
See prior posts - Kwame and bad econ bc of Dem governor who is VERY unpopular for Michigan and ads have yet to roll.
Re Penn, money rolling and gap closing in Ras and Quin.
Ignore at your peril.
Fav/Unfav in both states are in McCain's favor.
The thing to keep in mind about the tipping point states is that states don't all move in the same direction for the same reasons.
Nate described the positive correlation between certain states in his polling projection model (I believe PA and MI move similarly). However, political issues can work in an opposing manner in others states; in response to (insert issue of the moment here), one state will get redder while the other gets bluer.
Without having actual numbers to back it up, it seems that socially conservative political issues become the "story of the day", Ohio and Virginia go redder while Nevada and Colorado go bluer. However, a real statistical analysis by a trained professional would be infinitely more interesting than my casual observations.
McCain's speech excepts look just like what I expected - my friends, noun, verb, POW.
McCain trolls -- if Philadephia was in NJ and not PA, then McCain would have a shot. Else, with favorite son Biden on ticket, it will stay blue, likely by a similar margin Kerry won by.
Kwame in MI -- ok, roll that Kwame/Obama link out and watch african american turnout in Detroit go up even higher. Detroit plus 2 huge college towns (Lansing and Ann Arbor) plus automotive jobs leaving the state and never coming back leads me to believe that McCain non-economic economic plan will not carry MI.
Obama needs just NV -- that will get him to 269.
If McCain can both a) fire up his base and his ground game through Palin, and b) convince independents that he will truly blaze his own trail in the Presidency and not lean upon the Republican agenda of the past 8 years, then he could become quite competitive. I think the evangelicals are now 100% and nothing, barring McCain supporting abortion or pushing for gay marriage, will lose him that support. The bigger question is whether he can himself woo independent voters. If the excerpts coming from his speech tonight are any indication, he's certainly going to try.
VACon made a good point earlier when he said "Huckabee was damn near flat broke (he was horrible at raising money) and kicked Mittens ass in several priamries."
Which gets down simply to the fact that Huckabee is a great candidate (yes it pains me to say this, but it's true) and Mitt Romney is sugar-free non-fat fudge. Romney raised loads of dough, but if you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.
Obama's a good candidate, has really fired his base, and is pouring an unprecedented amount of cash into organizing and GOTV, which may well defeat the traditional diminishing returns of high spending.
DaWolf said...
@Brad
then remove Georgia from the list anyway. Missouri is projected at McCain +3.4, Georgia McCain +6.5.
Georgia has a couple strange dynamics, Africna-American vote could surge to crazy levels and native-son Bob Barr. It's unlikely for Obama, but there's no reason to think Obama can change the dynamics in Missouri. It's slightly red and will almost certainly stay that way IMO.
As for Kwame and Granholm and that whole mess it doesn't change the fact that the state is Blue. The polls have been consistent there. I hope McCain spends half his time and half his money in Pennsylvania and Michigan. It's a no-brainer that there are 58 electoral votes between Mich, Ohio, and Penn and if you could get a message that works well enough to flip one in your favor, the elction is probably over right there, but it doesn't mean it's likely. When the polls have been tied, Obama probably runs about 1 or 2 points behind in Ohio and 5 up in Mich and Penn. Mich and Penn won't tip it.
Good point David.
McCain will be McCain tonight, vintage 2000 primaries. America may buy it, may not. We'll have to see.
Re Troll comments by others, your ignorance and intolerance are troublesome indicators of the makeup of the hard left.
"convince independents that he will truly blaze his own trail in the Presidency and not lean upon the Republican agenda of the past 8 years, then he could become quite competitive."
Of course, he WILL lean upon the Republican agenda of the past 8 years, since his is the same, and he's been changing his "positioning" on a weekly basis since the campaign starts.
People wonder why I say that GOP voters are stupid, but they themselves make arguments that boil down to: "McCain can win if he fools the voters".
"McCain will be McCain tonight, vintage 2000 primaries. America may buy it, may not. We'll have to see."
That McCain is dead, buried, the corpse has rotted away and even the skeleton has gone missing.
It's not fooling the voters, Rhys, its a disputed point about whether McCain will follow Bush's lead.
That's an open question, no matter how many times MoveOn and Obama say they are twins in ads.
The American public will decide.
09/04/08 Wishful Thinking
Nate is cherry picking his data and his presentation to bolster his point, the meme he is working to create that Palin is only red meat for the base and that she has limited appeal.
I think Sarah Palin is a great big wave that is washing over this campaign and I have little doubt that this will show up mightily in the polls, amply demonstrating her broad appeal (ahem!).
The MediaCurves.com impact study of 1000 voters was by far the largest and most representative sample and had all the hallmarks and disclosure of a statistically rigorous measure. Nate mentioned it as an after thought, dismissing it.
The Media Curves study was available bright and early this morning and provides detail and support for the proposition that Palin did in fact move independents significantly.
While the study speaks for itself and there is little editorializing on the web site, the study's author, Glenn Kessler, on POTUS this morning made it clear that Palin had had an extraordinary effect on independents, more than double what would have been expected and he characterized the movement among independents as being between the low teens and mid twenties (I did not understand what the range was all about). On the web site the reportage was cut and dry, and left no doubt that Palin had gotten a bump of some 10% from her speech alone.
Aside: Snide coverage on MSNBC. I wonder what dirty gossip Rachel Madow has tonight. Meow! Now that’s red meat!
They ridicule Palin for earmarks. Why shouldn't she have gotten earmarks during the season of earmarks? Why leave money on the table when you are an executive? But practices change. She herself along with McCain was one of the leading reformers of the system. Perhaps Obama gave a speech on it.
Great line from last night: Senator Obama has written TWO MEMOIRS but not a single piece of legislation.
Trace Atkins singing the national anthem was cool.
Back to the thread:
The focus groups that Nate cites are curious. The NV one is sponsored by some left leaning women’s group and consisted of self-identified Hillary Clinton supporters. LOL futile territory for a right of center woman candidate who hopes to supplant their heroine. It was a set up.
And the DFP focus group in MI? There was no there there just five people being interviewed. No sense of how many others were talked to and what their opinions were.
Worthless. Look at the Media Curves study – an unambiguous pick up of 10% overall among independents and even a majority of Democrats saying that PALIN will help the GOP ticket. I think Palin has EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS.
Most powerfully, Palin represents an alternative kind of feminism. The Power Mom. She is what every woman aspires to be. She seems to do it imperfectly, but always with grace.
How could America not have fallen in love with that family last night? I think many will want to keep these people on the national stage because she is like them. That is powerful.
Last night, the first thrilling line I heard from Palin was quite aways into the speech. I thought she started off slowly, but warmed to her subject: talking about herself and her family. But then she turned it.
She spoke movingly of the joy that can come from problems, noting the joy she has gleaned from her son with Downs syndrome, a special needs child.
Then she pledged to all the FAMILES of people with SPECIAL NEEDS people that if she and Senator McCain won, they would have an ADVOCATE in the WHITE HOUSE.
Imagine how many other DEMOGRAPHICS PALIN could be an ADVOCATE FOR!
Powerful stuff. It is what McCain needs: a mission.
The old soldier needs a mission and Sarah Palin is going to give it to him. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy!
Nate is trying to resist these notions. I call it wishful thinking on his part.
The wave is cresting, my friends, it is cresting. And when it breaks it will wash over all that lies before it. A giant wave of populism, the last gasp of the Old America? Who knows, but it will wash over all of us, over you and me and an entire country.
It will sweep McCain and Palin into office and it will train her to be our first women President.
There is history in this, my friends, there is history!
And please let us have reverence this evening for her nomination and roll call. This is a historic moment and should be attended to with solemn gravity. (Ahem!)
Great Article on Politico about Palin's record from someone from the town: extensive read.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/The_antiPalin_email.html?showall
Tonight is football for me. In politics, it is the usual playbook.
Wed nite: Palin - bad cop
Thu nite: McCain - good cop
Plukon at 514 is showing donor fatigue!
Geoff, I have to say that I don't really buy this assessment. Looking at the closest states, McCain holds NV, OH, CO, VA, and FL to win.
Your argument, if I'm understanding correctly (please let me know if I don't) is that McCain can take MI and win. So do you think it's a better shot to pick up MI than just to hold OH (Obama has been running 2.5 pts better in MI)? You think the Kilpatrick angle is enough to make up that difference? He's a mayor who campaigned some for Obama.
"09/04/08 Wishful Thinking"
Pete, thanks for using a descriptive title on your incredibly long, thoughtless and boring cheerleading speeches. It makes it easier to know what I'm skipping over.
Rhys be happy by heading his posts that Pete Kent is making it extremely easy for you to look it up in the archives.
@Rhys
lol. I didn't even bother reading that much, I saw his name and the length and skipped.
"It's not fooling the voters, Rhys, its a disputed point about whether McCain will follow Bush's lead."
Yes, it's disputed by McCain, because Bush is poison and McCain is a self-serving liar.
He throws Bush under the bus and trots him out again as the need arises.
Geoff said "That is the election, folks. Those two states."
Kerry - MI + VA + CO + NM + IA is 269 electoral votes. Add NV and it's not even a tie. I'm not discounting the extreme importance of MI and OH, but do you really think McCain/Palin has the economic chops to pull out a MI/OH double anyway? These guys are clueless on the economy, and Obama still owns the issue according to the issue polls.
He'd have to say something of value for it to be worth looking up.
How can anyone seriously write this sort of pablum?
"The old soldier needs a mission and Sarah Palin is going to give it to him. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy!"
Good lord.
The McCain campaign appear to be leaking portions of tonight's speech to the media and predictably, it sums up as "POW POW POW POW POW POW POW" and touts his experience. So no policy, it looks like, as expected.
dammit, you made me look
"Great line from last night: Senator Obama has written TWO MEMOIRS but not a single piece of legislation."
well thats a lie right there.
Can't be arsed to go through the rest.
Pete, I'm sure I speak for the majority when I say, "Stick a sock in it."
Or at least learn to self-edit. I showed you recently how every 2,000 word essay you post can be distilled to about 50 succint words without losing any of its meaning.
As it is, you subject yourself to the worst fate that can befall any writer. You, my friend, are being skimmed.
Don't you think that it is likely women in forested states who will find Palin most appealing?
She is a frontiers' woman, as are they. Perhaps many of these women have been liberal out of habit, but now Palin gives them a feminist alternative. It could move voters in VT and NH, with NH the more likely pick up and Maine an outside chance, it being a touch like the Alaska of the northeast.
The there is the PAC northwest. The Rocky MT states, with the exception of NM will be LOCKED DOWN soon. Plain has he potential to move votes in OR and WA, again with WA being the more likely pick up, about even with ME.
Is the Vice President's role suppose to be an understudy or an advisor.
Biden is going to be an advisor to Barack Obama- while Palin will be an understudy to John McCain.
Biden who has been in the US Senate for 35 years- He knows all the Actors in the Congress. He has travelled around the world met with Foriegn Leaders.
What is going to Palin's role as Vice President.
otf - the original was posted a few days ago. I printed it and read when my computer illiterate friends call.
As Westerners all, the attempted book censorship, the eminent domain issue, the huge debt (per capita) really gets the blood boiling around here.
I assume the media is just taking a breather with Palin. It was very predictable that she would deliver a good speech last night and the media would pretend they love her. They need to get back to assessing in truth whether she's qualified or not. She's not. It's ridiculous to think she is. She has no qualfications whatsoever. And by the way, I can give a great speech, but I'm not the least bit qualified to be VP or Prez. This has absolutely nothing to do with her being a woman. The GOP has at least 10 women I can think of right off the top that are qualified without question, she's just not one of them. Not even close.
"POW POW POW POW POW POW POW"? What does that mean?
Was John McCain a boxer or something?
"What is going to Palin's role as Vice President."
Breeder.
PeteKent said...
Don't you think that it is likely women in forested states who will find Palin most appealing?
She is a frontiers' woman, as are they. Perhaps many of these women have been liberal out of habit, but now Palin gives them a feminist alternative. It could move voters in VT and NH, with NH the more likely pick up and Maine an outside chance, it being a touch like the Alaska of the northeast.
The there is the PAC northwest. The Rocky MT states, with the exception of NM will be LOCKED DOWN soon. Plain has he potential to move votes in OR and WA, again with WA being the more likely pick up, about even with ME.
This is all really silly, please tell me you're kidding. McCain has a little bit of potential in New Hampshire, the rest would be flushing money down the toilet. The GOP can't play offense this time and expect results. Fortunatley for them, they don't need to.
The Kwame Kilpatrick situation, which had both a sex scandal and vitriolic racial accusations, had the potential to be a monumental fiasco.
However, most people in Michigan realize the Detroit Mayor's office has been corrupt for a very long time, all the way back to Coleman Young. With Kilpatrick accepting a plea bargain (including jail time as well as resignation), I think this will be a non-issue by November.
Re: VP duties: Hilary Rosen pointed out today that on 9/11 while W was flying all over the country looking for a safe place to land his plane, Cheney was in charge and making all decisions including ordering a plane full of Americans to be shot down.
I think that's a factoid that should be mentioned early and often.
It means that McCain, instead of giving us reasons to vote for him, is going to play the neverending pity card that his campaign has been playing all summer... "but I was a POW! You have to vote for me! FIVE AND A HALF YEARS ALAN!"
It would be insulting if it weren't so pathetic.
Once again some comments repeat the idea that larger states require larger samples. Please, Nate, gice these folks a link to some elementary statistics site./mbw
Vermont? What the fuck are you high on?
A Republican will win Vermont when a Pakistani Muslim is elected Governor of Utah.
Eric,
The press is going to question her record. We will see how long they hide her from a real interview. She refused to take any questions today after her convention appearance. They are afraid for anyone to ask her a question about her record and past commnets.
As noted by several others, the key point to look at from an electoral strategy point of view is Obama's "win-conditions." If we accept that Obama has as a base the Kerry states + Iowa + NM, we should look at the win conditions that are (*as much as possible*) INDEPENDENT (or more precisely, uncorrelated):
Colorado
Nevada
Virginia
Ohio
Florida
*Montana + North Dakota
The first five are pretty much conventional wisdom; what do you all think about the last one? It gets Obama to 270 exactly and I think it's reasonable that MT and ND move together and yet somewhat independently from the others. Do you see other win conditions? It would seem like NC comes only if VA comes and MO/IN come only if OH comes, but I am curious to see what you all think.
Kilpatrick has resigned and is going to jail. He was forced out of office by his fellow Democrats. People in Michigan are relieved. End of story.
If you think Kwame Kilpatrick and Barack Obama have anything at all in common as politicians, then you are one race-hating SOB.
But VCon... VT has trees!
Pete's new theory is that states with trees will vote for Palin.
Perhaps the Reps plan to give the trees a vote.
Please Republicans spend time and money in VT.
Rhys-
I'm talking about the Presidential election, you smug prick.
So....rhys agrees with Pete Kent! Vermont is in play!
Palin is being very carefully managed by the campaign. They know they have a precious asset and fully intend to take advantage of her family time before eldest son Track deploys to Iraq on 9/11. (!)
She is being polished very carefully so that she will be fully prepared to answer any question put to her whether it be about the Bridge to Nowhere, foreign policy, Trooper Gate, or Bristol’s baby daddy.
She will more than pass the nation’s test and then she will have put herself on a footing with Obama. Imagine that! Governor Palin the equivalent of the THE ONE!
The effrontery of Pete Kent to even suggest it!
But c’mon, what does she have to do? Go on Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw? Piece of cake!
there is still time - we're talking one day after. I'm not saying it's certain but the hits on Community Organisers could still find their way into an ad easily enough.
Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath. It truly amazes me that no one seems to have figured out that the Republican attack on community organizers is a gigantic misstep. It truly makes me question the Obama campaign's competence.
America is chock full to the brim with "community organizers." To think that the term is limited to people in berets who carry a well-thumbed copy of Rules for Radicals in their back pocket, as seems to be the case on the progressive sites I've seen, is testament to the degree to which Democratic political instincts are DECADES out of date.
As for McCain's speech tonight, of course he'll reach toward the middle, and of course he'll play the good cop. Christ, how stupid can people be? Do you think he's the only former P.O.W.? Look, the biggest reason he's gotten this far is that he's got a Phil Donohue radio voice and can turn on the charm at will.
I'll tell you, when I watch the Democratic Party playing politics I am reminded of my Golden Retriver trying to catch a squirrel. I still think the Democrats will win this year, but it's going to be at least as much in spite of themselves than anything else.
Oh, and PeteKent, are you an individual or some Spambot 3.0? Do have anything to say that's not utterly predictable Republican talking points?
Oops. You're right. My mistake.
/pete kent-
Great thiought s from the guy who said Obama would never reach 50% - wasn't that you?
I am getting emails with poor election analysis from my evangelical friends. McCain is using Palin to get people to build a ground game based on poor analysis and lies - but they are mostly low info so they won't figure it out.
They are afraid for anyone to ask her a question about her record and past commnets.
They're afraid for anyone to ask her anything at all. She has not held a presser of any sort since becoming the nominee. I am rapidly drawing the conclusion that she is in fact as dumb as a ****ing post, because no one needs to be briefed for an entire week before they are ready to take some simple questions about themselves unless they're much dumber than Dan Quayle.
She's going to be matching "wits" with the Washington press corps FFS, it's not like she's defending her dissertation. This is not even at Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader? level.
"Palin is being very carefully managed by the campaign."
Wait a sec.
I thought she was tough as nails and the Dems were afraid of her?
Why isn't the chickenshit answering questions?
I guess she's more a bunnyrabbit with lipstick.
Yes, her family is off limits but she can use them before the son goes to Iraq. RepubliCons caught in their own blatant hypocrisy.
Pete-
I agree that she is being trained like a seal right now. Tghat said, she has to get control of troopergate and her other scandals to swing the campaign. She might still.
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