the final week will confirm our deepest fears of a portion of our nation. The citizens who fear will pull out the stops. But I'm beginning to think we may be ok. We may have had enough. But this final week will put a huge target on the backs of those who represent government for the few. Newt, Karl and your Base, you guys are now the sad bunch. Cheat all you want. You will stand in clear relief from your countrymen.
Posted by T2 at October 28, 2008 05:42 PMIf this were a well-functioning democracy there would now be no doubts about the election. All the Republicans have left is to hope for massive vote fraud/spoilage/supression. Which we all no doubt worry about way too much. (I know I do.)
Logically, we shouldn't worry. In terms of management capability the Obama campaign versus the Republicans is like NASA's Apollo 13 ground and space crews versus the keystone cops. Iraq, Katrina, the economy, Enron, Worldcom, McCain's own campaign -- all management disasters that exhibit the same endemic symptoms of rank Republican incompetence. Yes, the Republicans would love to block millions of Democrats from voting -- it's just not clear that they are capable of making it happen.
It's not like they have a track record of well-organized vote supression. The Florida supression in 2000 was so badly organized that it took a butterfly ballot in Palm Beach and the Supreme Court to keep Gore from winning. The Ohio vote supression in 2004 was effective (we'll never know if that made the difference), but it was done in such an obvious manner that even the spineless Democrats were moved to initiate counter-measures. Note that the Democrats won all available Senate seats in 2006 (and despite Rove's predictions), with even moderate counter-supression measures.
This fall the Democrats have a perfect record in court cases regarding voting issues -- every decision has been a win. It does help that the law is on their side, but also that they are fully prepared with a top law team (having a candidate who is a top law scholar probably doesn't hurt either). Furthermore, every step of the voting process is being watched closely.
Still, the mere chance of another stolen election is why I volunteered for the vote-action team in Colorado on election day, and why I won't relax until the victory is assured.
Posted by Anonny at October 28, 2008 08:04 PMKos had an interesting speculation tonight in his thread on advertising last week. Obama went from $32M to $20M from two weeks ago to last week, cutting out all national and cable and focusing strictly on swing states. Kos wondered if this might account for Obama seeing a slight decline in the national numbers but flat or gaining in swing states.
I'm a bit skeptical because I'm not sure how much the advertising actually does for a candidate. To me it all seems like noise, and whenever I see a campaign ad on a TV in a public place I never see anyone pay any attention to it. But, one comment from a McCain aide may have made some sense: it's hard to get anywhere with negative ads when your opponent is drowning your message out with 4 ads for every one that you run.
So, it may be that Obama's advertising advantage doesn't promote him so much as to neutralize what McCain is trying to do.
If this is true, then Kos' speculation makes sense. All the negative stuff that McCain runs, including web site ads, and of course the 24 hour Republican propoganda channel, may have actually help McCain's numbers in the non-swing states, but had no effect in the swing states.
Since we aren't getting much state-level polling from the non-swing states it's not possible to validate this. But it is another reason to focus our attention on the state polls now that so many are coming out so frequently.
Posted by Anonny at October 28, 2008 08:20 PMOT, this pissed me off:
The McIdiot Campaign demanded the L.A. Times to release a video of Obama attending a 2003 banquet for Professor Rashid Khalidi.
Turns out a McCain-led group donated almost 450K to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank in 1998.
The McShit Campaign hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Anonny, alot has changed since 2000. Democrats control alot more Secretary of State offices. The Republican SoS in Indiana is a problem, but we don't have to worry so much about Ohio this time. Even in Florida, Governor Crist has actually been good about increasing access to voting. He cleared the way for most ex-felons to get their rights restored and just today he expanded early voting to 12 hours per day. I think we have every reason to believe the winner of the election will reflect the popular will, especially since the popular will is relatively lopsided this time.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 28, 2008 08:30 PMI think we have every reason to believe the winner of the election will reflect the popular will, especially since the popular will is relatively lopsided this time.
I agree with your analysis. As I said, that is the logical view.
But aren't you a little worried too?
Posted by Anonny at October 28, 2008 08:50 PMBut aren't you a little worried too?
Not really. Obviously I let a little confidence exude from my posts. There are way too many factors in Obama's favor:
- the issue environment is very Democratic-friendly
- the outgoing Republican administration is extremely unpopular
- the Republican Party is unpopular
- John McCain and Sarah Palin have worse positive/negative ratings than Obama and Biden
- Barack Obama is likable and charismatic
- Obama supporters are more enthusiastic about their candidate than are McCain supporters
- enthusiasm tends to be magnified by having one's candidate clearly winning or losing
- Obama has lots more money and is using it
- Obama's ground organization is an order of magnitude better than McCain's.
- Early voting is heavily in Obama's favor, which is votes in the bank, a sign of what is to come, and insurance against a game-changing event
- African-Americans are a substantial and nearly unanimous voting block whose turnout is surging.
Is there anything besides a theoretical Bradley Effect which could go in McCain's favor? A terrorist attack could theoretically shake things up, but that doesn't necessarily even help McCain, much less get him over his many obstacles. The calamity which would befall the country if McCain were is elected is truly frightening to think about, but it's hard to take such a scenario seriously when I can't figure out how it would happen without switching the polarity of the universe.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 28, 2008 10:01 PMAfter Viewing New Anti-Obama Ad Independents Leaning Toward Obama Increase Intensity of Support
One of the truisms of politics is that mud must be slung early to have an effect. If done late in a campaign, after voters know the candidates, it tends to backfire.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 03:10 AMNot really. Obviously I let a little confidence exude from my posts. There are way too many factors in Obama's favor
Logically I have to agree. I can't see any path to McCain victory even with a certain percentage of vote fraud.
Emotionally, though ... call me optimistically nervous. Or nervously optimistic.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 03:12 AMCaPJ and Anonny, I really enjoy your posts and learn a lot from you.
You are good progressive leaders. Thanks.
Posted by euzoius at October 29, 2008 05:14 AMTx euzoius.
Sigh. I wish this would be an easy last 6 days, but at this point it looks like it won't be.
R2000 has gotten +5, +6 and +5 the last three days. Now, the one bit of good news in this is that Obama is staying at 50% in all three, so it's mostly undecideds moving to McCain. But R2000 has had a decided Democratic lean.
Now there are leaks all over the web (since subscribers get early results) that Rasmussen will have the national race down to +3. This is the closest they've had it since Sept 25. I'm guessing it will be 50-47, which still has Obama at 50, however the trend sux.
Now, Rasmussen at +3 and R2000 at +6 is consistent with their leans until now, and of course if those are the numbers the morning of Nov 4, and the state results are still high, then all will be good the night of Nov 4.
What is frustrating here is that the national daily trackers are showing this movement but the weeklys and the state polls are not. Is this because the weekly and state polls are lagging indicators? I sure hope not, and at this point they shouldn't be because they are sampling over the same days.
Later today Nate at Fivethirtyeight may provide some insight, as he has access to Rasmussen's internals. And of course tonight's 1/2 hour special may have some effect, although I'm not betting on it.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 05:30 AMRasmussen is out, 50-47 as I guessed.
Their commentary points out two things. First, newly interested voters are strongly for Obama. Among those who say they always vote, the lead is only 1%. Among those who say they have high interest in the election, it's 5%.
Second, they note that two of the last three nights were unusually strong for McCain, so they will need another day or two to see if this is statisical noise. It appears those nights were Sunday (the 3-day tracker dropped 3 points on Monday) and Tuesday. I'd like to think this is just noise, but it is consistent with recent results reported by R2000 and Gallup. However, a good night tonight for Obama would bump the poll up, as the Sunday result will roll off.
Again, hopefull Nate will give us some hints in his analysis later, since he has access to the internals.
OTOH, there is some good news on Fivethiryeight.com from Oregon, where they are finding that early voting is down, with a statistically significant relationshipe between % of Republicans and less likelihood to have voted so far. Now, Oregon is *all* early voting so some of this may just be people getting used to the early voting system and now feeling comfortable waiting longer to mail in the ballot. And some may be because the Presidential race isn't close and there are no high-interest measures on the ballot. Or maybe the fact that in the Senate race both candidates are competing to see who is a better friend of Obama, thus pissing off conservatives (if so, that means we get another Senate seat). However, taken with all other early voting data this suggests that Republicans aren't voting in huge numbers this time --yet.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 06:45 AMIt will take another day to see if McCain's gains are real, but there is lots more state polling out today favorable to Obama. Nevada and Ohio are moving up toward Colorado and Virginia as strong Obama states while North Carolina and Florida are very close. The national poll movement could be real and we'll see it in the state polls soon, it could be regional reflecting white southerners going home to the GOP, or it could go back the other direction tomorrow. McCain might be able to pick off North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri but that would still leave him well short of a win. I continue to believe that Obama's ground game will give him a stronger win than the polls predict, especially in the South.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 29, 2008 08:37 AMCAPJ: Yeah, I'm thinking also that ground game, early voting, and the enthusiasm gap are overwhelming the models, even when they adjust for "expanded" likely voters.
Regarding state polls: the ones coming out today (that I've seen) polled through Sunday, so the possibility that they are lagging indicators isn't removed just yet.
The good news is that this will remove any remaining complacency in the Obama camp.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 09:18 AMGallup has moved back up today and Rasmussen's results may be cooked, so I don't think we need to worry about a McCain wave hitting in the final week.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 29, 2008 10:06 AMCAPJ: Yeah, whew. And thanks for the link to Openleft on Rasmussen. I wonder what's going on there? And that was *before* today's surprise numbers. Now, we know that Rasmussen's ownership has a political bent, but they are also invested in their solid reputation. Interesting.
Did you notice that the Gallup LV sample sizes are going up significantly, both in absolute terms and as a %age of the RV sample size? No doubt this is due to early voting influencing the model. Yet, when LV-1 weights are applied the sample is still shrunk down to a weighted size of 1812, possibly indicating that the LV-1 model weights to a pre-determined turnout level.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 10:17 AMI haven't been following the Gallup likely voter sample sizes. My understanding is that LV-1 is more or less frozen in 2004, or perhaps they add actual early voters who would otherwise be left out of the model. I don't know why it would drop relative to registered voters unless 2004 type voters are less interested in voting this time.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 29, 2008 10:32 AMActually, the raw sample size of the LVs is increasing. It's the LV 1 weighted sample size that is seemingly constant.
I just see this as another data point on the early voting size.
Posted by Anonny at October 29, 2008 10:44 AM