From the otherwise super-hippy-liberal dailykos.com (warning NSFW if you work with Cam!), a few maps:

States colored red & blue based simply on the pollster.com aggregate (Obama 335, McCain 202):



Similar map, but states where the margin is in the single digits are in yellow (Obama 210, McCain 72):



And lastly, pollster.com's own map (note the use of leans & strongs):




Arizona, Montana & North Dakota are tossups. Wow.

I still don't get the consensus that this will be a close election.

I see zero way McCain doesn't lose ground through the debates, and he's already way behind.

McCain is probably not going to be able to make more people like him, so he will have to go very negative to make people not like Obama.

To me, he has already begun in the past few days, with the Paris/Britney stuff (which he is apparently "proud" of) and the "Obama is playing the race card" stuff (via surrogates, for now).

I have a feeling this will be one of the ugliest national races that most of us will ever see.

He's already coming across as an old, bitter, desperate man. Obama has to really screw something up to blow this.

To be fair to McCain here, Obama did try to subtly make a racial point. The Clinton people also remarked on this saying McCain is learning from the primary against Hillary not to sit back when Obama tries to subtly suggest racism from the other side.

Cause the debates are where McCain gained ground and won the Republican primary. McCain looks much better in a town hall like setting.

True, but if he can disgust a decent percentage of wide-eyed Obama supporters and make them as put off by politics, as most of us tend to become the older we get, then he can make it close and/or win.

To me, the Britney/Paris thing is two-fold. Whether purposely or not, I think it goes beyond the celebrity angle and subtly crosses into the same arena that the Harold Ford ads delved into. It will probably end up being an effective ad and something like it was inevitable, but it is still pretty disappointing for me.

While I would probably never vote for McCain, I would not have had much of a problem with him if he won because, although his political views are dissimilar to mine, I think he is a good, principled person. Running for president is a dirty job, so I'm not surprised to see things go like this, but I still hate to see it and I suspect it will get much worse (on both sides) before November.

I just wonder what took him so long. This will get way more dirty before it is over.

dola--

And, yeah, I just quoted myself in an internet political thread.

I'll go stand in the corner now.

I suspect we won't hear a peep in the media outlets about the latest Gallup Tracking Poll. Of course, if Obama was up by 10-15 points, it would be the lead story on every news report and plastered on every news website.

Yeah, it's nearly impossible to find the media reporting this as a tight race.

Poll: Obama, McCain tied in Ohio, Florida
Polls show McCain-Obama tie
Tracking Poll Has Obama, McCain Tied
Survey: Obama, McCain tied among tech workers
Virginia: Obama, McCain Tied at 44% Each
Poll: Obama, McCain Tied in Florida
Obama, McCain Tied in Latest Gallup Poll
Obama, McCain Tied Among Catholics
Obama, McCain Tied In Indiana
Obama, McCain tied in new poll
etc.

dola

My nomination for stupidest political analysis. From the WSJ.

Too Fit to Be President?
Facing an Overweight Electorate,
Barack Obama Might Find
Low Body Fat a Drawback
By AMY CHOZICK
August 1, 2008; Page W1

This is BS. If either candidate was up 15 points, no one would care.

You might not be old enough to remember the 1988 election, but when Dukakis was up by 17 points over GHWB in July, plenty of people cared, and the news and print media reported it ad nauseum. However, when Dukakis' lead vanished in September, the reports kind of died down a little bit.

Every time I see a McCain ad it reminds of an old man saying, "Hey kid! Get off my lawn!!!!!"

At least the Obama ad I see (specifically the one about energy policy) speaks positively of himself while criticizing McCain.

I dunno, I may be biased but McCain doesn't nothing for me.

Neither candidate does anything for me.

Obama makes pretty speeches...but when he's not using prepared sound bites...I don't find him impressive at all...Bill Clinton was a better ad libber than he is.

An ad the McCain campaign ran at the end of June has Barack Obama's face superimposed on a $100 bill. Interesting to see the campaign's outcry over the supposed "race card" when they were doing exactly what Obama pointed out.

It will be a good thing for this country when we stop making every election a rehashing of the elections of the 1980s.

Looks like that lead that Obama held may be shrinking much quicker than anyone expected. I know some in this thread had mentioned that it might happen, but I didn't think it would happen this quickly............

One Week, 9-Point Lead Lost for Obama in Tracking Poll - America’s Election HQ

Bill Kristol had a very good article on picking VPs for McCain.

Op-Ed Columnist - How to Pick a V.P. - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

After the article, I researched Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who I didn't know about, and I think she'd be the perfect VP nominee. Don't need Alaska's electoral votes, but I think her conservative reformist agenda, plus being a fairly young woman would boost him substantially.

Amazing that Kristol doesn't bother to mention that Palin is caught in a political scandal now. There's no way that she'll be the pick.

From what I understand the Commissioner firing scandel doesn't really have legs.

That's already been all but dismissed, has it not? I thought I had heard that it was little more than a personal spat gone wrong.

It will still keep her off the ticket. No way McCain wants to spend several days talking about her troubles. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by Kristol, but Palin's troubles will almost certainly keep her off the ticket.

I don't think anyone disagrees that it will keep her off the ticket in the end, but Kristol shouldn't be faulted for not reporting what basically amounted to a baseless accusation.

Kristol should absolutely be faulted for not including information that will almost certainly keep her off the ticket. Ideally he should have kept her off the list entirely.

since when has something like that ever mattered?

Well, Kristol did say it was a long shot and perhaps McCain may decide to ignore the scandel for her positives.

I've been doing some reading about the latest Obama proposition. There's an article about taxing windfall profits over at FOXNews......

Obama Ad Calls for Return of Windfall Profits Tax - America’s Election HQ

Two things:

1. I don't like the idea of taxing big corporations just to cut an extra check to the consumers. That sounds more like wealth redistribution than anything else. If the tax is used to fund an 'energy X-prize' for the private sector or other incentives to expedite our move to reduce dependence on foreign oil, that's great. But taxing the energy corps to toss out money to the public seems very short sighted.

2. The above article has a lot of discussion about candidates flip-flopping. One of the main points concerns Obama's swing to consider more oil drilling in the U.S. While I agree that excessive flip-flopping by a candidate is a sign that he can't be a good leader because he's too easily swayed, I do think that both candidates should have a bit more leeway in regards to changing their thoughts on certain policies. I get a feeling that politicians are so worried about being labeled a 'flip flopper' that they sometimes hold onto their stances even when there are major shifts that require a reassessment of their position.

Didn't McCain flip flop on drilling too?

Yes, that was my point. I think the labels are a bit much. It made perfect sense for all politicians to change their mind after the drastic shift in energy prices over the past year or two. The overall policies truly need a shift of some sort. Honestly, I think the politicians who are refusing to shift their thinking at this point are the ones truly worthy of the criticism.

This is probably the wrong thread to ask this question, but what is the right thing to do about oil companies and their record-setting profits? Are oil/gas prices something the market can adequately control? The fact that profits are reaching some amazing heights and new companies aren't joining in to steal some of those profits tells me that barriers to entry are out of reach. If this is the case and the market can't work properly, shouldn't the government be able to influence pricing? I'm not sure that a windfall tax is the right answer, but would setting a price ceiling be appropriate? I'm curious what people think.

I think McCain's was a bit more defendable because he said he changed his mind because of the high energy prices (IIRC). Obama originally was against it when it came up a month or so ago and then changed it, it seems, fairly quickly, when the polling appeared to be against him.

Price ceilings would be a disaster... as they were in the 70s. All price ceilings would do is discourge anyone from attempting to enter or build more stations or whatnot. After all, the gas companies are price takers, not price setters. And to take advantage, they'd likely attempt to build more refineries (in a world where the regulatory barriers aren't so onerous).

It may even cause gas stations to close (as a result of not being profitable... just because the central companies are making a lot of money, that doesn't necessarily mean your local gas station owner is).

The whole flip-flop thing fits well for our lazy media. It's easy to go back and see if a position has changed, Russert made a career of doing this, but actually examining ideas and positions takes much more work and carries the risk of pissing of one side or the other.

On off-shore drilling, my understanding is that Obama is willing to compromise on that to get things he wants passed. That's exactly what I would like to see happen and I'd also be willing to trade ANWR drilling for proposals I like.

Yep.

I consider myself somewhat centrist, but my feeling is that important economic sectors, such as energy (also transportation), are worthy of stronger-than-normal government regulation/oversight.

Price ceilings and windfall taxes, however, seem like the wrong idea (I agree with ISiddiqui's reasoning). I'm not sure what the right idea is - maybe something like a Fannie Mae gas company? Just because Fannie and Freddy have floundered recently doesn't mean the concept was a bad idea. That's obviously big vision, rather than an easy implementation like a tax.

I think the problem is that a lot of the die hard Obama supporters, who came on early during the campaign, aren't the ones who are willing to compromise.

Similarly, I believe Pelosi's move to adjourn rather than vote on the new energy bill was a move to keep her supporters in California happy rather than allow the vote to occur. I think it's fine for her to make a vote representative of her CA residents, but I think it's silly to put off a vote at this point just because it may not swing her way. By the same token, Dubya should have enough balls to pull them back into session to get something done.

Mizzou: Funny how you don't make that same argument with the dozens of bills that Republican Senators have put on hold.

ISid: You may be right. I was just trying to point out that compromise isn't the same as flip-flop. McCain's initial willingness to allow compromise on SS taxes wasn't a flip-flop in my mind either.

It really is in the eye of the beholder whether a change in policy is compromise or flip-flop.

I just don't like to see a stubborn refusal to learn or compromise elevated to the pinnacle of political attributes.

Yes, but it doesn't involve a situation where the presidential candidate of a party now stands in direct contrast to the evident beliefs of the party. If Pelosi was willing to stand up to the Republicans and not hold a vote, that's fine, but Obama shouldn't have even bothered backing off if there was no reason to do so. She's putting Obama in a tough spot at this point.

Also, you assume that I don't see the hypocrisy in politics on both sides. You'd be wrong. I'm simply discussing the most recent situation as it would appear to have a direct affect on Obama's campaign stance.

I can guarantee you that a number of the bills that various Senate Republicans have holds on are supported by McCain. The only difference is that the Republicans play the outrage game better and have succeeded in making this an issue.

I disagree. I think the Republicans can get away with it more with McCain because he's usually not in lockstep with their policial beliefs. One of the main concerns with McCain has always been that he's not a true Republican because he often doesn't follow party lines on a vote. Obama is much more of a party vote senator, so it's a bit more glaring of a problem when he steps outside of party thought on an issue and the rest of the party doesn't follow.

So if Obama and McCain are in the exact same position it's good for McCain and bad for Obama?

Found this after a quick google search:

http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/show...o?diaryId=3891

"Brock and Waldman write:

The only years in which McCain diverged significantly from the Republican party line in the last decades were 2001, when he voted with the party "only" 67 percent of the time, 2004, when he stuck to the party line 79 percent of the time, and 2006, when his unity score was 76. The rest of the time, throughout his 19-year Senate career, McCain has voted with his party more than 80 percent of the time in any given year."

Absolutely. I wouldn't disagree with any of that. I believe it to be more perception than anything else. I also think that McCain's camp tries to further that perception rather than fight it. I personally still see him as a Republican, but there is the perception amongst core Republicans that he's not in lock-step with the party at all. I agree with you that the difference is not that great.

Don't question the maverickiness!