A new poll for Wisconsin just missed today's report but confirms the trend:
Strategic Vision 9/22-26
Obama 49, McCain 40
as said earlier, these results put tremendous pressure on Gov. Palin to hit it out of the park tomorrow night. Polls show most of McOld's weakness is Palin. If she looks like she has on Couric, it will be ugly, quick. Right now, she's all McPOW has standing in the way of a landslide. That can't be comforting to the old fella.
Posted by T2 at October 1, 2008 04:41 PMT2, I think McCain's rapid fall is a consequence of the incompetence of the candidate and his campaign, of which Palin is a symptom. Ordinarily, I would say that it would be hard for McCain to have anywhere to go but up in the polls. Given his flailing campaign, however, it could conceivably get worse for him. I think Palin will survive the debate fine, though. She won't have follow up questions, so she can filibuster with impunity. When Biden gets the questions, she can also clue in on his answer so that she will understand the question better.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 1, 2008 04:53 PMGood roundup of polls. Of course there has been a clear trend this year of national polls being leading indicators of trends and state polls being lagging indicators. Now that the national movement towards Obama in the +6 or so range has stabilized the state polls are catching up.
Now, I'm going to three comments that the vast majority will disagree with.
1) The Obama trend is probably NOT due to Palin, and while McCain's erratic behavior around the financial crisis probably did push the polls a couple points in Obama's direction, all that did was accelerate by a few days or so the incipient Obama trend that was going to happen anyway. We like to attribute poll movement to recent events (the "causality fallacy"), but historical trends indicate that this was going to happen anyway at about this time.
2) There isn't any evidence to indicate that TV ads make a difference, unless the advertising is heavily one-sided. Which is why the national trend is similar both in battleground states and in safe states, although the safe states don't get the same attention because the trend doesn't change the likely outcome. OTOH, ground contacts DO make a difference, and often in a way not detected in
Ground contacts, on the other hand, can make a difference, perhaps by as much several points in an area where one side is working intensely and the other side is absent. This explains Indiana.
3) One-sided media can make a difference, but less and less as time goes on and as the sources of information become more diffuse. For example, most election models show that Gore would have won by 1% in 2000 without all the media nonsense, and in fact that's about what he did win by if the Florida vote supression hadn't occurred. In that situation the economy was good, but declining, and the incumbent party had been tainted with scandal. Now, in 2008, the media sources are much more diffuse, media bias is far more closely watched, and people are frankly more skeptical than 8 years ago.
What does all that mean for 2008? Well, I too am a bit anxious and worried about a media assault on Obama (no signs of yet -- but there have been signs of some cow-towing to the McCain whines about media), or a last minute Swift Boat campaign, or Diebolding, or a mass Bradley effect. But evaluating the evidence and seeing what actually does influence the vote counts, the trends are all positive.
Obama 54% McCain 43%
Posted by Anonny at October 1, 2008 05:21 PMAnonny, I actually mostly agree with you.
1) Palin is a symptom of a campaign which is incompetently run and is not offering the American people what they want. She is quite the catalyst for showing the American people how screwed up John McCain is, though.
2) Barack Obama and I agree with you. He is emphasizing the ground game as well as advertising. Occasionally an ad will strike gold (Daisy, Morning in America) but I think that's just a case of amplifying the existing conditions.
3) Here I think I mostly disagree. Media manipulation is key to a winning campaign - deciding what the race is about and putting it in your candidate's terms. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were very good at it; John McCain is not.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 1, 2008 05:41 PMCPJ: Excellent point -- I have to rethink.
I think part of my assumption was based on both candidates running generally competent campaigns, and in that case the campaigns should play out as you would expect.
However, you are right that driving the media narrative is a big factor. The key seems to be figuring out the memes that the media already buys into and amplifying them. Which is why Obama focuses on the economy and the mistake to start war in Iraq -- which everyone agrees with, and doesn't bother fighting the incorrect media narratives about, say, the "surge is working" or "McCain is a POW hero". I mean, Obama could try to argue the details of the surge, or point out that McCain's service record is actually very spotty, but it would only distract and make Obama look bad for bringing it up.
Obama did attack the one huge media narrative directly from early on in the campaign -- the "maverick" theme -- because he had to. But because he hit that meme early, hard, and often (it's hard to find anyone in America now who doesn't know that McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time) that was successful.
Meanwhile, McCain had only one narrative that was getting any traction at all, the experience idea, and he killed that with Palin.
Yes, good point. Thanks.
Posted by Anonny at October 1, 2008 06:03 PMWe're working the phony social security numbers and random names angle in battleground states. We haven't seen anyone from the McCain camp doing the same. We're going to kill them in the make-believe-people demographic!
Posted by ACORN at October 1, 2008 06:23 PMI want to see the polls about CA prop 8 that is attempting to control sex criminals, homosexuals. As I drive the neighborhood I note many homosexuals with pro 'marriage' for perverts w/planted placards in their yards.
What's the possibility of criminalizing homosexuality? And confiscating their property for the poor?
Posted by Taxi at October 2, 2008 05:52 AMTaxi sez: What's the possibility of criminalizing homosexuality? And confiscating their property for the poor?
I suggest instead confiscating your empty cranium and erecting a monument to the Republican Party.
Posted by joel dan walls at October 2, 2008 08:40 AMWell, this is all meaningless, and in any case those poor schmucks are obviously not voting for Obama but rather against economic insecurity. This is made crystal clear by some typically stellar analysis at eriposte's favorite blog.
Posted by joel dan walls at October 2, 2008 08:44 AMjoel: It has been fun watching the PUMAs.
Now, first let me exempt from this comment those PUMAs who, after confronted with the reality of McCain/Palin, have jumped firmly on the Obama/Biden bandwagon. I can't argue with someone who cared so passionately about Hillary that she/he took until the RNC to accept Hillary's loss and join with Hillary's primary opponent.
But for those over-the-top PUMAs, we've heard, over the course of the past many months:
* [May] Obama is unelectable based on his problems with white voters in the primary.
* [August] Obama should be leading by double digits -- Hillary would have been by now.
* [Early September] WE'VE LOST! WE'VE LOST! Hillary would be creaming McCain NOW!
* [Now] Obama should be leading by double digits -- Hillary would have been by now.
We've also heard:
* Obama should be hitting harder, sooner.
* Obama is wasting his time in Europe
* Obama made a huge mistake not accepting federal funds, his money is drying up.
* Obama should have picked Hillary for VP -- he's doomed now.
* Obama's campaign has no direction or plan, it seems random.
At this point it is clear that Obama had a general election game plan as far back as March, and he's been sticking to it, with minor adjustments, ever since. His team didn't care about the daily news cycle or the summer polls. They knew the numbers, knew the election cycle, and knew what they had to do in terms of message and response to get the maximum vote in November. Only now are we starting to see it all come together.
Posted by Anonny at October 2, 2008 01:47 PM