its because no one wants to focus on McCain.

people vote for the top of the ticket, Palin is a distraction and people are falling for it.

it needs to be non-stop McCain=Bush, but nooooo the left wants to do this long drawn out, hey we show Palin is a terrible pick and that reflects bad on McCain and then we challenge his judgement and then we show that he can't bring change we need?

yeah good luck to get the media to go along with that.

OR

we could do the thing that was working  McCain = Bush

so you have to take them with a grain of salt.

We shall see what happens to the polls as time and the debate continues.

The good news is that the swing states according to the Rasmussen/FOX News polls that came out show that all those states except Ohio is very tied.  This says to me that the election will be won on the ground.

probably showed that Obama had more indies but now polls taken after the GOP convention now show that McCain has more indies.

The GOP convention was all about biography and bashing Obama.  Once the election goes back to issues as it will with the debates, than I am sure that the Indies will swing back to the Dems for the Dems have the issues on their side.

Rasmussen weights their poll based on party ID so that they can get a representative sample.

And yet they also make conclusions about party ID from the pre-weighted sample, which they've already decided is not representative.

That's pretty odd.  Pollster.com has an exact tie at the moment, we'll see where it goes.

Agree.  McCain/Palin=Bush.  DO NOT GET OFF MESSAGE!

The polls are essentially post convention results.  The news cycle has already ground up and spit out the bounce(s) from both conventions.  Any numbers coming out now, should be taken seriously.

Independents moving that hard can't stay, there will be a move back, however, I'm afraid it won't come back all the way.  Axelrod, better get back from vacation quickly from complacency-land or he will find himself down like Penn did before you can say polling results.  Someone over there needs to put their hands on the steering wheel and get the car back on the highway. NOW.

It's pretty easy; I'd imagine that a huge percentage of the "independants" were Republicans who voted for Bush and got disgusted, leaving the Republican party as a result.

McCain's tactics of choosing Palin made some folks more willing to vote for their old party.

When people realize that she's not much of a real reformer and has a poor grasp on issues, they may oscillate back to being up for grabs.

My suggestion.  The bridge to nowhere thing isn't gaining traction.  Why not try the McCain is a crazy mo-fo who wants to start news wars and bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran.   How many times do I have to say it, Goldwater his ass.

We are let McCain hang around and McCain proved in 2000 and just recently in the 2008 primaries that he is dangerous if you let him hand around.  We need to take a page out of Bush's '00 playbook and get serious, and knock McCain down now.  

It should have been done 6 weeks ago.  It may too late now.  We may just have to ride it out and see what happens.  

Article in the Tribune today about the Obama campaign lagging its targets set when it decided to get out of public financing.   This is forcing the ticket to spend more time fundraising than campaigning.   Wondering if the magical strategy of small donor-powered fundraising that worked so well for him in the primary was the wrong answer here in the general.  Did what was clearly superior tactical execution vs. Clinton in the primary fail to translate over to the main event?

It's possible.  Primary campaigns are powered by relatively small numbers of activist voters.  In the general, it's all about locking in the less energized and less committed votes to your side.   These are folks who are less inclined to put money in your pocket.

I've been ambivalent about the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket.  Honestly, I think Joe Biden is terrific, and not sure that a pairing would have been in either Clinton or Obama's best interest.  But there is one place where it would have been a home run -- fundraising.   It's clear that the Clinton dollar base is not going to go all in for Obama.   This is in part because of the hard feelings from the primary season, in part because of genuine lack of enthusiasm for Obama, in part because they are keeping powder dry for another Clinton run, and yes in part to the relatively poor job of outreach done by the Obama campaign.   Had there been a joint ticket, the party would be firing on all cylinders from a money front.

As an aside, it was interesting to see in Obama's interview last night on Countdown that he directly paid credit to the Clinton years.   This is a new tack - in the primaries, Obama reached back to JFK and Roosevelt only.  

Why do I always read a background "I told you so! See? See? We're gonna lose!" in these posts? Oh, right... they're "just sayin'." No real analysis, no suggestions of how the trends could change or be changed, just the usual tossing of the polls and an implicit "nyahh, nyahh, nyahh."

Meh.

So, what is Hillary going to do to help the ticket other than not say anything bad about Sarah Plain?

Appparently, Hillary is "above" that sort of thing.

As an independent voter myself, the moment where I decided to swing to Obama came first when he stood for not attacking family members, which I think shows real leadership.

Then, when he ended up correctly identifying that Sarah Palin +supported+ the bridge to nowhere.
During her gubernatorial bid, they asked her if she supported the bridge to nowhere. She responded.

Would you continue state funding for the (bridge to nowhere) ?




 "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now -- while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

She is proving, every day, that she only cares about her own political ambitions. And I'm glad Barack Obama didn't reward her by putting her on the ticket.

Hillary may be hoisting herself on her own petard by her lackluster support for Barack anyway. Now that Palin is the new female political star in the country, Hillary is putting her own achievemnt and legacy at risk.

And what do you think independents would think of a governor who charges the state for staying in her own house 312 times, including Thanksgiving Day?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090803088. html?hpid=topnews

I wouldn't call that kind of person a reformer but rather someone whose trying to put government money in her own pocket.

Rasmussen daily tracking is out now, back to being tied 48-48

1) You're citing polls in the midst of McCain's bounce.  I noticed that you did not do a diary about independents in the midst of Obama's bounce.

2) How do you know that ABC and CNN do not show that Obama and McCain are even among independents?  Rasmussen does in today's poll(which contradicts the narrative you're trying to manufacture).

3) As you also should know, if you're keeping up, the GOP has lost brand popularity and party ID since 2006, thus suggesting our advantange could be back to the 39-35 breakdown in 2000 or worse.  Rasmussen's method, despite their hedging, accounts for this.

4) I have noticed that you like to only cite information that supports the "concern" about Obama that you're trying to push.  And you ignore contrary information.  That is neither a credible or journalistic approach to blogging. (Also, ARG's poll today shows Obama with a 1% advantage overall, with a 5% advantage among independents).

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/arch ives/2008/09/quietly_obama_campaign_flas hes.php

If Independents really did skew to McCain by that much then the race would not be tied - especially in the CBS poll. I don't believe they control for party ID. But if they did, the number would actually be worse because the Indy percentage would remain artificially high and would actually drive the Obama number down more.

My guess is that these cross-tabs are just wrong, and that CNN and ABC found Independents roughly tied. Note also that the state polls in swing states show Independents actually favoring Obama; in Florida, Obama leads among Indies by a bunch.

So this is just a BS. The CBS poll has McCain up 2, I believe. If he really leads Indies by 30 points, then there would have to be about 3% Independents in the country, or Obama would have to be doing MUCH better among Dems than McCain is among Republicans.

...over time with a consistent push back on Sarah Palin by qualified surrogates.

Barack Obama should not have to do this. The most effective person to hit Palin is Hillary Clinton.

Why Hillary is not doing so is a big question. Howard Wolfson, who apparently is still acting as her unofficial spokesperson, claims she doesn't want to lower herself to that kind of stuff.

Which, as we all know, is a complete crock.

As I said on a previous diary -- Hillary should be topic numero uno at the Obama/Bill Clinton lunch.

Hillary should be out doing interviews with local media in key states, and on the cable talk shows blasting Palin for being a rightwing nut who shares none of her values.

its focus on attacking back McCain/Palin campaign.
Too much effort had been expended on trying to peel off conservative evangelicals and not on uniting the base of the party. The Gallup poll shows the need to work on the 20% holdouts amongst the conservative and moderate Democrat ranks.

with white female voters towards McCain...

bottom line = Palin.

Biden needs to "take a dive" (ie become sick or something).

Obama needs to put Hillary on the ticket.

I think those here at my dd are underestimating the historic VP candidacy (for republican) of Sarah Palin.....

I guess there is "concern" among the people!  

Come on, independents in the middle of post convention bounce?  

This was the republicans best week of the cycle and the best they could muster is a tie one week later.  

Unless McCain has a VP pick to roll out each of the next 7 weeks the general trajectory of the race has not changed.  

I'm surprised anyone who supported Clinton would see Palin as a legitimate proxy.

Palin is perfect today, I doubt she will be a week from now.  The WaPo, WSJ, NYTimes, ABC are already comfortable basically calling her a lier, what's next?

Nate would be so proud of you.

Not in the numbers, but in the conclusion drawn.

Yes, this is the <u>pessimistic</u> conclusion. But there is an optimistic conclusion as well:

We are in the midts of McCain's bounce. Yet he never breaks 55% in independents. So there are still a lot of independents who have are uncommitted in the period of McCain's best performance to date.

Of course if the election were held today, we would probably lose. But elections aren't held the Tuesday after the convention. Sheesh.

I'me very disapointed you would fail to mention this other facet of the numbers. Wait two weeks before drawing any further conclusions on this.

How about a productive front page diary about how we can win the election? Mydd has become the site for negativity. Yeah, you have to acknowledge polls that are not positive, but, really, don't get stuck there. What a bore and how unproductive.

The funny thing about the netroots dem community is the large segment of bloggers who are almost in denial as to how this race in rapidly developing.

Many are still stuck in the primary mode of thinking. Somehow these people think that some surge of voters will come & save Obama out of nowhere.

You see it in the responses. " Don't worry, its early. "Don't worry, we have millions of new registered voters", "Don't worry, once we finally focus on Issues, they will flock to Obama. " Don't worry, the millions of Youth Voters will overwhelming the electorate & give Obama a big win. "Don't worry, Black people will come out in huge numbers".

Someone has to knock some sense into these people. Not that it matters anyway.

Boys & Girls, Guys & Gals- the democratic liberal, black, youth, dominated primary has been over for several months !

There is No More Splitting of delegates in each state. ( Its the old Winner Take All ! )

No more extra delegates for urban black dominated areas.

There is No More 45% to 55% Black electorate dominating states like SC,GA,AL,MS ( You are back to reality ( 80% white voters, majority of them moderate mainstream voters! No more Liberal white  voters dominating caucus states like WA,OR,SD, KS )

There is No More " Need to Pacify Black voters out of fear that they will stay home on election day". Guess what, McCain & Palin don't need nor frankly don't give a damn if 95% or 98% of Black voters vote for Obama. That's already a given.
That's not part of the GOP winning coalition.

There is No More "Politically Correct" lets not offend Obama because Jesse, Sharpton & the Congressional Black Caucus might take offense & call us racists. You think the Republican party cares if you call them racists? They in fact love it! It energizes millions of white republicans!

The worse part of all this is the false perception by many of the liberal idealists among our party that this is like Gore vs. Bush  or Kerry vs. Bush where millions of indy voters are fluid voters who would keep going back & forth between Gore & Bush, Kerry & Bush until election day.

Folks, yes, these indy's may swing once or twice in big numbers. But make no mistake about, most mainstream american voters have a much clear distinction & choice between Obama vs. Mccain as compared to Gore, Kerry vs. Bush.

Its a Young Black man who speaks well named Barack Obama versus an old white man who happens to be a War Hero & a supposed Maverick to many.

Its a choice between electing a historic young 1st Women Vice President who happens to have 5 kids, one special child, church going mom versus
an older White man with 25 years of experience.

For some very strange reason, many Liberal whites Cannot Seem to Comprehend or Understand how Powerful Race Bias combined with Anti-Muslim bias is in America.

Somehow, they believe that one,two or three debates will somehow OVERCOME the Racism & Bias among millions of white seniors, white working class & women.

Somehow, 3 debates would cause millions of americans who saw McCain's War Hero maverick video
to suddenly abandon him for a young black liberal democrat.

Obama better attack McCain at a much louder & higher tone or this election will be over by October!

He has to shake up this race in a big way or he will do even worse than Kerry in '04.

Many Independent analyst & even Democratic analyst
agree that if battleground " racial politics" states like Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, PA are either Tied or Obama with very slight 1% or even 2% lead by November, McCain will be heavily favored to win these states.

Two Michigan democratic analyst have already stated that we may see the so called " Bradley effect" in Michigan come November. Its happened before in their states & there are very clear signs of it happening again.

Kerry got 41% of white General election voters & still lost. Gore got 42% of white voters & still lost.

Obama received 33% of white "democratic voters" .
( which are 10 times more liberal than GE white voters)

Obama needs around 40% of white voters just to be competitive.

one white voter equates to 4.5 black voters in the General election.

Senator Obama made the 1st critical mistake by not picking Clinton. He better act now & start hitting McCain hard & talking to the american people much more forecefully & direct.

Preaching " Hope" will NOT do it for most white indy voters. It did not work with millions of white Hillary Clinton supporters. It will definitely NOT work with white Non-Democratic voters.

I wonder how many of these "swing" independents believe:

McCain/Palin (MP) is pro choice
MP is pro working class
MP is pro family

etc etc etc.

In other words, I'm guessing that these independents are low info voters - who have swung (hopefully temporarily) to MP because -

Since Palin looks like a working mother, they must share the same values.

Yes, the answer is NOT, but swing independents don't believe it yet.

First of all, the CBS party ID is 36D-33R-31I, which is hardly out of whack. So the skewed party ID argument doesn't fly, and they did weight it for that ratio.

Secondly, they have Obama winning Dems 88-5 and McCain winning Republicans 87-7. That would be the first poll I've seen where Obama does better among Dems than McCai does among Republicans.  I still doubt that, even after the DNC.

Thirdly, even with the numbers they provide, an Indie ratio of 55-29 (not 55-25 as you cite) would give McCain a 48-43 lead (5 points) and not the 2 point lead CBS shows.

My guess is they listed their crosstab for Independents wrong and it should be 45-29 or 55-39. Lower the margin by 10 points among Indies and you get 2 point top line difference.

The problem for McCain is that Indies are fickle voters. They swing from one side to another. They were undoubtedly impressed by McCain's speech - almost as much as Republicans were. Palin helped only marginally with Independents, and seemed to turn off Hillary Democrats.

McCain's speech, however, is easily undermined by his behavior and his record. He reminded voters temporarily of the 2000 version. And that's why it is so important for Obama to destroy that connection again by hammering him for being Bush III and for being tight with lobbyists.

Obama's counterattack is already undermining McCain's convention bounce as Rasmussen has it tied again. Tomorrow Saturday's polling rolls off and Obama could take the lead again. I bet Independents will lead the move back away from McCain again.

Jerome didn't make up these numbers.

I know how comforting it is to hide in the echo chamber,  trying to convince each other that bad news really isn't bad news, and criticizing those who bring up such bad news as not sufficiently committed to  the cause.

Criticizing someone for simply reporting what is betrays a lack of confidence in the outcome.

I remember the simple calcualtion folks used in 2004 to convince themselves Bush could not possibly be reelected despite what the polls were saying. It went like this: No one who voted for Gore would possibly now vote for Bush, so given Gore actually won in 2000, all we needed were a few to switch the other way and the election would be ours. Well we all know how that turned out.

So rather than shut out bad news with bromides about how we would like things to be, perhaps using reality as a basis would yield a more effective strategy

Sorry to offend anyone here who is an independent, but ... people are STUPID!

Anyone who can not make up their mind OR see the clear difference between mccain and palin to Obama and Biden is STUPID!

Anyone who can not see the difference between the Democrats and the repubs is STUPID!

Wake Up People or you will be getting just what you deserve... another reason to WHINE and cry about how horrible to government is, how bad our standing in the world is and how bad your life is!

The republicans and the corporate media are masters at getting people to vote AGAINST their own best interest. Then these people say... oops! What did I do? Then.... they FUCKING DO IT AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN!

lieberman anyone?

No... he is bad... we want to kick his ass out!

but wait... he just lied and said what we want to hear, he is change! He has changed! We love lieberman!

OOPS! Shit... what did we do AGAIN!?

Maybe I am misreading the tone, but am I the only one who feels that Jerome is getting some perverse joy out of this polling.  I'm not sure if its the fact he was right about this being a closer election than thought or about Palin's short term impact (we'll see long term)...  Either way, his tone in the message conveys happiness over the results.   Maybe I am misreading it and I certainly don't think he likes McCain or anything, but its really rather annoying.

MCCAIN and his judgement! It is about the REPUBLICANS and their judgement! It is about how these two continue to FUCK US OVER!

palin is just a byproduct of their combined BAD DECISIONS!

what does this mean?

"Oh yea, I almost forgot... Sarah Palin."

...that Obama did when he initially beat Hillary and got all this massive attention. He's losing focus on the underlying issues of the campaign, and trying to ride the Palin personality cult wave.

This came back to haunt Obama, and it will come back to haunt McCain. Hillary started focusing on bread and butter issues, which started to resonate with voters.

GO NEGATIVE in a big way. Swing hard and keep on at it. Frame your opponents as liars and question their credibility. Portray St. John as someone who will sell everything for his political ambition, energize the base. Only then Obama will be able to win. If Obama carries on with anymore of his high-minded unity crap he will lose. He does not have any 527s to do his dirty work for him and the Republican 527s have not even started yet.
So moral of the story, go negative in a big way or start drafting your concession speech.

Why is it that lately the only diaries you post seem to be about how bad something is going for Obama and the Democrats?

Where are your work up the base (Democrats) diaries?

By the way... a little bad news in A state.

rossi now leads Gregoire by 1 point and the Obama mccain race has Obama up by only 4.

Jerome, WE Need Your Help To Rally The Base! We Need You!

I stop by here every once in a while to see how far things have devolved for Jerome.  He is now certifiably pathological in his efforts to discount the Democratic ticket.  It's beyond transparent at this point, it's shiny and patent.  Why do you people continue to tolerate this crap?

This post by Jerome is perfectly illustrative - he fails to mention the fact that the poll is practically meaningless as it was taken in the sweet spot of McCain's bounce.

I think Jerome needs to take a sabbatical to process his angst over the Clinton loss.  

This is very bad news this week, but it has nothing to do with Palin, who only gave one speech, which was more of a bio, which was not that extraordinary.

I think this is what happened:

The DNC was an excellent convention in its last two nights, particularly the final night. The one problem is the punditocracy was not managed, and so the message was not managed, and so the message that most people took away was more of a celebration of civil rights, than a coherent vision of the future. I'm not at all saying that wasn't there in the speeches and in the decorum, but the media siezed on the whole Clinton-women, Obama-blacks theme, and that's all that got through. Particularly in the first two nights, where no compelling message was coming from the floor anyway.

The final night was GOLD, but you literally had to be watching that night, because within twelve hours Obama was completely off the air because of the Palin announcement. So what the convention produced, for non-Dems and non-news junkies, was largely a civil rights message which is more of a targeted outreach message than anything else. So it didn't appeal to the average person on a gut level, although it did look like big change, and sort of the unknown change, with having the first black as President.

Then you have the RNC, which was dismal in its production, its portrayal of American (60-something rural whites), and self-contradicting in its beliefs and vision. It looked like conservatism in its death knell.

But one thing got through, both from the floor and the punditocracy: McCain has been in Washington forever, and has split with the Republicans to a degree where there's animosity.

To the average viewer at home, that completely reframes the election. It is no longer change vs. status quo, and its not even big change vs. the status quo.

It's now unknown change vs. a little change, and that's a whole different ball game.

Obama/Biden just have to keep plugging away at the themes of the last two nights, because that will sell...

Folks like who Palin said she was.  The media is debunking (who'd have thunk?) her b.s. right now.  No really, they are!  

Obama/Biden can stay on message about the economy (it was working before this fleeting convention bounce) and see what happens with independents after the shine comes off of Palin.

Also, I don't see how the usual methods used by pollsters for determining who is a likely voter can possibly be effective this year.    Barack has been building an unprecedented GOTV machine in all 50 states.  One top of that, I defy anyone to find historical precedent for turn out among black voters when the top of the ticket (or any part of the ticket for that matter) for a major party in the GE is occupied by a black candidate.  Not that  any of this makes that much difference since national polling has very little in common with the way that a winner in presidential elections is determined.

We still have a lead in the state by state.  If McSame wins Utah by a 70 - 30 margin it doesn't garner any more EC votes than if he win Utah by a 49 - 51 margin, but it sure makes national polling look different.  

Jerome, et al-

I read a diary here today about how Hillary Clinton should be out there working even harder for Obama. I was going to reply that it's Obama's bed & his election to lose- which he is doing a spectacular job of, whether the lefty blogs want to admit it or not- then the lovely advert caught my eye as I went to type my response.

Is it really necessary for this blog to have the snorg t-shirts ad with the girl with the bare midriff almost going wild, in the act of lifting up her shirt?

Really, is it?

Oh, I must be bitter... nevermind.  

When I was a kid, I couldn't decide whether I liked Spider-Man's black costume or his red & blue one better.

One thing I noticed, whichever he wore in the last comic I read was always my favorite.  I'm thinking a lot of these low-information/independent voters is that sort of dynamic.

However, it is true that there is a new breed of ex-Republican independent out there now.  Even my most Republican friends would identify themselves as independent to a pollster.

Wait, you mean... the RNC resulted in independents swinging their votes?  You don't say...

Yeah, it sucks... deal with it.  This is what conventions do.  McCain's gets to last a little longer because Obama doesn't get another convention to step on McCain's, as McCain's stepped on Obama.

This should come back down to earth at some point, but it may take a bit.  Just the way it is...

The best cure for panic attacks is action - check Bob Sacramento diary, check The field: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefiel d

So, make some call, do some GOVT...

Everybody needs to get Gov Palin out of their system.  I say the more we talk about her right now the more people will get sick of her.  In a week or so her novelty will have worn off.  I think that we should start next week talking about George Bush again, and saying how bad he is.  The more people hear about him the more they don't want the same party in power.  Let's start seeing those diaries about George W. Bush and linking him to old man McBush.  What do y'all say?  I am getting sick already of Gov Palin.  She is just a politician like all other politicians.  She is very, very conservative and very, very scary.  Even the former Mayor Koch is scared of her.

Dr Dean needs to diagnose Biden as having some form of VP preventing disease....

And using the secret DNC call signal we need to send the SOS out to SUERBILL and WONDER WOMAN

Hillary at VP and a CLEAR "I Obama do swear to follow in fiscal discipline footsteps of Bill Clinton" would be all it would take.

But I am reminded of a piece of literature "I would prefer not to"

Initially, the establishment democrats got distracted by Palin's small town experience. Instead they should be focusing on her character. Her lack of experience has no bearing on this race. We need to go after McCain for his judgement and for his catipulating to Bush when times got tough for him. THat would hurt him with independents. With Sarah Palin, you need to go after her character. That's all. She has nothing else going for her but her personality. It must be made clear how small minded she is, her pettiness would serve her bad at the national stage and that it could translate to the same kind of Gonzalez-Goodling fiascos. We also need to keep attacking her on her propensity to LIE about her achievements. No mincing words. just come up with a catchy moniker along the lines of  LIAR LIAR PALIN(well, something more visceral and creative that that).

frankly, the fact that Obama and McCain are virtually tied despite the gap between independents is good news for Obama.  That's because McCain is hit his peak with independents, that number can only go down from here.  

And independents probably are more subject to convention bounces than dems or repubs.  

Here's another number that suggests that independents are still move-able.

In the Gallup cross-tabs, 53% of Obama's support is with enthusiasm, while ony 42% of McCain's support is with enthusiasm.

47% of McCain supporters have reservations, compared to 35% of Obama supporters.  

McCain's support, in other words, even after the convention, is still very soft.  As Palin starts to come down to earth, as she inevitably will, those independent numbers should shift fairly significantly.