Clarence Page has also weighed in on this issue, and his assessment is the same as Juan Williams.

"In fact, if he fails to show at least a six-point advantage in the polls by Election Day, I expect John McCain to be our next president.

Where do I get that number? I'm no math whiz, but it did not take numerical genius for me to notice that Obama fared best in caucus states, where the voting happens to be conducted in public. Where votes were cast in the privacy of voting booths, Obama tended to do worse than polls predicted. When Obama showed a lead in the polls that fell within the margin of error, it tended to mean a victory for his principal opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton."

"Obama vs.'Bubba' Vote" - by Clarence Page

I don't think that's necessarily true. Sure there were some states where Obama underperformed the poll numbers (New Hampshire, California, West Virginia, Kentucky), but there are quite a few where he outperformed his polling numbers...


If anything, it shows that pollsters may severely be underrepresenting the African-American vote.

Biden was caught in yet another 'oops' moment yesterday when talking to a crowd where he gave this response in relation to a gun control question........

“Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don't buy that malarkey,” he said. “If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he's got a problem.”

How quickly Mr. Biden forgets the whole YouTube debate snafu in 2007 where he gave a much more different toned response in another classic 'Biden' moment........

AirCongress » Blog Archive » Michigan Man To Biden: Come See ‘My Baby’

So I suppose you'd say that if I murder somebody and there hasn't been a warrant issued for my arrest, I haven't broken the law?

No, but I'd call you an idiot, whether innocent or not, if you walked in and started talking to the police without representation just because they asked you to do so. The investigative process allows for a lot of checks and balances, which often include avoiding certain situations if the law allows for it. That's just the way the game is played.

well you certainly wouldnt want to cooperate with the investigation, and thats the truth. ;)

The problem, for me, is that she is a candidate for VP so I want her to be completely upfront and honest which means cooperating fully. The second part is that prior to being selected she was all about cooperating and whether or not French was involved or the legislature was biased, or the whole world was biased or sexist, wasnt an issue and she stood up, loud and proud, and said, "hold me accountable." That was a GOOD moment. Wiggling out under the whole "Left wing conspiracy" crap shows how fast 'big time' politics can infect ya.

She should cooperate fully and when the report clears her she'll even have a bigger 'bounce'.

But that's the entire point. The liberal supporters right now are all about one thing.....extending this situation as long as they can. It doesn't matter whether the allegations are fair or not. The longer that this situation can drag on, the more mud that can be slung, and the better it is for the Obama campaign.

Similarly, the stakes are just as high in Alaska and anyone who can't see that is out of touch with the political machine. The Alaskan Congress and many political lobbyists and executives in Alaska have been severely undercut by the reform movement pushed by Palin in Alaska over her first two years in office. The people that she nailed to the wall are now using 'Troopergate' to further their own ambitions. If they can drag on this situation and drag Palin through the mud, they may be able to make a dent in her 80% approval rating and damage her politically if she were to return to office as governor. But if Palin is elected as VP, they will all be scrutinized by a federal government (rather than a governor) who has a VP that knows exactly how their tomfoolery is accomplished and how big oil plays their game. They don't want that by any stretch of the imagination.

I could give a fuck about the subpoenas and the internal workings of Alaska politics. My issue is she's a compulsive liar even for a pol. All of this nonsense simply adds to the case against her.

If you can make a case against her being a compulsive liar I'd love to hear it.

Anybody who assumed that InTrade trading was any form of a good prediction model is a fool.

Interesting comments from Michelle Obama about the upcoming debate..........


Really confusing message here. On one side, the Obama ticket refutes the arguments that they haven't had many specifics, but now Michelle says that most people don't know about his plans. Not only that, but this kind of a comment raises expectations that Obama will provide a lot of specifics in a debate forum that he doesn't directly control like he would a speech. I'm not sure that you want to make these kinds of expectations for a debate.

Here's the full message for those that are interested. Big kudos for the possible first lady who uses the word 'gonna' in a formal release........

That's really interesting to say the least, but I'd imagine this is less of a political story and more of a guy-trying-to-game-intrade story.

More interesting polling methods on today's Washington Post poll. Initially, it looks like great news for Obama. +9 advantage......

Washington Post-ABC News (washingtonpost.com)

But the numbers in the poll are assigned as follows:

Democrat: 38%

Republican 28%

Independent: 29%

That doesn't even come close to mirroring what election day turnout breakdown percentages usually look like. In addition, the poll's independents are much more left-leaning than the election day independents. 54% of the independents in this poll usually lean Democrat while only 38% of the independents in this poll usually lean Republican.

Honestly, if the Democrats fall on election day, their supporters should blame these kinds of weighted polls for raising expectations that never should have been raised in the first place. This is just terribly bad polling methodology.

So Palin is meeting with Bono today. I don't understand why she's getting her foreign policy advice from celebrities.

It was beyond excellent on super Tuesday. Constantly ahead of the news and wire services by about an hour. It needs to be highly liquid to work though. If the idea about a rogue trader is correct, then I'd say it's working well enough here too. Plus I like betting bad lines. More here.

Do you have a link to the full message?

It's listed in the post from Michelle. It's on the Obama website.

The final numbers may or may not be accurate, but the trend is still clear. McCain went from 2 up to 9 back and the sample only swung 2 points towards the Democrats among registered voters.

Or the meeting could have been arranged by Bono under the false pretense that he would somehow be able to convince her of every supporting any of his causes when he doesn't actually have a prayer of changing her opinion. That's a much more likely scenario.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I saw your text, but I still can't find it on the Obama website. Little help? I'm just curious, since the version I've seen doesn't have the word "gonna" in it, so one of us has a fake.

Well reasoned.

I guess I just worry about undue celebrity influence in a McCain/Palin administration. Are they going to base their Mid-East policy on phone calls from Bono?

Apologies. I'll spell it out SLOWLY.

There's no disagreement that the Democrat/Republican/Independent turnout is off by 2/3 points. With that said, the independent percentage are WAY out of line with the general election day turnout.

Put another way, if we were to use the Washington Poll percentages as a predictor given that the Democrats traditionally constitute roughly 4% more of the voters than the Republicans, a 54% leaning independent segment would virtually guarantee a Democrat in the White House each and every time. That doesn't happen. The higher number of Democrat voters is always offset by a independent electorate that usually votes slightly to the right.

Is it an interesting poll? Yes. Does it resemble anything close to reality given the weight used? Not really.

Exhibit A: When liberal attempts at humor fall flat on their face.

Correct. It's fair to call it a formal release as it was certainly meant to be released via the internet for distribution. Both campaigns have distributed attack ads in a similar method.

I'm not arguing whether the sample will reflect the actual voting. The point is that the sample is very close to the sample used when McCain had a +2 advantage. Any individual poll isn't very useful, but a trend among a very similar sample is useful. This poll does tell us that within the WaPo sample it's likely that over the past couple of weeks McCain has lost a lot of ground.

That's what's important, not the overall numbers.

If anyone's interested, here's the e-mail I got that accompanied the video -- still not sure where MBBF's version came from.

Not meant to be humor. I'm just as concerned by this as you are by Clooney's influence on Obama.

Exhibit B: When a liberal makes a bad joke worse.

I'm assuming you have a link for that poll with McCain up 2 points. Could you post that just to verify that breakdown? Thanks.

I'm not sure where that differs from what I posted. The point remains that she states that the public doesn't know where Barack stands on the issues, which is a pretty shocking frank admission given the Obama campaign has argued that they HAVE been clear on those issues.

You're the one who commented on the use of the word "gonna" -- just seemed odd, since that's not in the version I have. It's one of the two points you made about it.

I am not sure how anyone can say that either candidate has not expressed their policy proposals. I have found a couple of great websites that do a very good job of showing their proposals, and then I can break them down side by side if I care to.

Welcome to Obama for America
www.johnmccain.com

and as far as her using the word gonna

how about Palin adressing a crowd as "Guys and Gals" ?? That seemed pretty...dumbed-down to me too. (clip was on ABC news a few days ago)

Agreed. That was my whole point. I'm surprised that Michelle Obama would make that kind of comment given the options available. The campaign believes that Obama has been very specific about the issues, yet Michelle's comments contradict that message.

Do you really think that last bit is true? That being cleared would matter in any significant way at all?

Seems far more likely to me that a report clearing her would
-- be praised as miraculous justice by supporters, along with a health does of I-told-you-so
-- be decried by detractors as being flawed in some way
-- barely a blip on the radar of anyone else

Got it. Looks like I made the assumption as you. The video was in the email I posted -- I just didn't bother reading it.

A couple of other interesting notes regarding the Washington Post/ABCNews poll from this morning.

-24% of the people polled are not registered to vote. So 1/4 of those polled will likely not even vote.

-Note the following in the poll information:


So the pollster actively found 163 African-Americans to include in the poll rather than a random sample of the population. That means that the poll had 15% of its respondants who were African-American, which is significantly higher than the 12% of the sample population that should be represented. Should we be shocked that the increased numbers of Democrats and AA's resulted in a poll favoring Obama by a wide margin?

I'm hoping JPhillips will post the previous sampling he mentioned where the statistical breakdown was the same when McCain was up 2 points. Would love to compare with this sampling.

It's in the link to the WaPo poll you posted.

9/22 Registered voters 38/28 Dem/Rep
9/7 Registered voters 36/28 Dem/Rep

Why is that shocking? According to the Census in 2005 72% of the adult population was registered to vote.

Also, the numbers break down into likely and registered voters. The poll doesn't include non-registered voters in the McCain/Obama numbers.

I actually see the breakdown on 9/7 as 36/26 in favor of democrats. In addition, we have a poll where the African-American vote is over-represented by 3% and the independent leanings have shifted 4%. Toss in a poll that has 1/4 of the people who are not registered voters and it's really hard to draw much at all from this poll. As I stated before, this is an attack on the poll methodologies more than any attack on the results. I'd be shocked if there hadn't been some movement toward Obama over the past couple of weeks, but polls like this aren't even close to telling the true story.

Wrong. Do you consider me a liberal supporter? ill bet you do, and I dont care if the results come out tomorrow of this damned thing or in 2 years as long as everyone involved fully cooperates and the TRUTH comes out. Period!

If the report comes out and clears her, and Im in the McCain camp I use that as a springboard into the 'liberal media conspiracy' crap. How theyre attacking her on frivolous this and that. I would absolutely turn that into a huge bounce, but instead I think theyre completely botching this in an effort to stifle the investigation until it either isnt resolved before the election or becomes so buried under rhetoric that people cant even 'see or hear' the truth when it is found out, whatever the results. Regardless, it's shameful IMO.

Um, I'm wondering if MBBF is intentionally leaving out pertinent information, or is he just reading sentences that support his position in saying the poll is wrong.


Is this where we bring out the icons?

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

My understanding (admittedly based only on what I've read online) is that the Alaska legislature is out of session until January and therefore can not take action to enforce the subpoenas until then.

That's a convinient stance to take in this case.

"I'm not stirring the pot! I just want the TRUTH!"

Yeah, ummmmm, OK.

You're correct. I missed that point. Thanks for the correction note.

you call it stirring, the world calls it an investigation.

You have to look at the registered voter lines as those are the numbers used to get to the final number. As I stated earlier the inclusion of non-registered voters isn't an issue either. Keep in mind that this poll is about more than voting prefeerence, so a close to accurate distribution of non-registered voters is appropriate. They aren't represented in the horserace numbers as those are clearly marked as only asked of registered voters.

There's no conspiracy about the methodology. It may or may not be accurate, but the internals look consistent with other polling operations.

Or was he cutting and pasting without attribution?

The electoral map looks pretty interesting now. Obama now seems like a very good bet to win Iowa and New Mexico. McCain is now making a good push in New Hampshire. If he steals that, and Obama takes Colorado and keeps all other Kerry states, we have a 269-269 tie.

One thing I will say for the ABC News/WaPo poll is at least they release their full internals (even the DKos/Research 2000 poll does this). There's a Battleground tracking poll showing McCain with a 2 pt lead, but I see no sampling information. I'd like to know why they're getting different numbers from everyone else.

McCain campaign responds to today's story in the New York Times............

http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainrepo...6-53c0c2d88376

Sounds like the same Nate Silver from BP. Is that him?

SI

Yes, that's him.

psssttt....if a poll shows more people polled said they would vote for you, it doesn't mean you are "leading" the race.

Didn't really respond, did he? Just yelled a bunch hoping no one would notice that there was no denial of the payments.

More fun with polls. Obama up by 6 in latest FoxNews poll. The Dem/Rep breakdown is 41/34 in this poll, which accounts for the 3% difference in lead when compared to the Washington Post poll (had +10 weight to Dems). The average breakdown on election day is 37/33 in favor of the Dems, so this poll is also weighted a bit off from what it truly should be to mirror the electorate.

UMass Chaplain: Campaign for Obama, Get College Credits - America’s Election HQ

In other news, Biden and Obama voted twice to keep the 'Bridge to Nowhere' alive.......

Biden, Obama helped keep 'Bridge to Nowhere' alive - CNN.com

They said he received nothing after 2006. That's a pretty firm denial. You certainly won't see Obama raising this issue because he's got $3,900,000 reasons to keep quiet in that regard.

So it looks like McCain is suspending his campaign to go back to DC to work on the bailout bill. He wants the debate postponed. Kind of late to be doing this, since it's not like the economy just took the turn for the worst in the last day or two. Still, Obama will have to go along - it would way too much ammo for the Republicans if he pushes to have the debate stay when it is.

If only the first debate was on the economy instead of foreign policy...

I think the delay mainly has to do with the original assumption by the administration that something would pass relatively quickly. Now, with the debate over how the bailout should be structured or whether it's really needed, there's a real need to get all of Congress in-house to get these issues resolved.

Sincerely,

Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank

Very nice political move in my opinion. I can't wait to see how Obama camp responds.

If I'm Obama I'd agree to cancel but not postpone.

I'll take "Committee chairs who failed to fix the problem when it was happening but now claim they know how to fix it" for $200, Alex.

Your grasp of polling and statistics leaves a lot to be desired. In short, a 3 percent change in party ID does not mean a 3 percent change in voter preference.

John McCain != Bob Dole.

He will keep throwing hail marys until November 4th.

And, whatever happens, on November 5th* he can say that he is President or he can say that he fought as hard as he could and did not go gently into that good night.


*Or until the end of the inevitable litigation over 20,000 unclear ballots in Colorado filled in by people who somehow managed to make a federal case (literally) about their inability to clearly check one of two boxes.

dola--

FWIW, I think that this is 100% a political stunt by McCain and 0% because he thinks that he can actually solve the crisis.

And, as political stunts go, I think that it is a good one. Possibly a great one.

Of course, I thought the same thing about Palin . . .

McCain's internals must be painting a bleaker picture than the media polls that we have been seeing.

It's a decent stunt, but one that he's not set up well to capitalize on. The discussions that matter will be largely in committees and behind closed doors. There won't be a big floor fight as all of the details will get hashed out before a final bill is presented. There really isn't much for him to do at the moment.

It will play well today, but unless he plans on taking over the Senate Minority Leader job, I don't think this plays out very well for him.

This just released from Obama.

As I read it the NYT article was making the case that the $15K per month was to gain influence in a future McCain administration, which Goldfarb did not deny nor did he make a claim that the payments were for another reason. And the fact that Davis is currently on leave from the firm and not receiving income is irrelevant, as he will certainly return at some point. Instead he went with New York Times = Huffington Post defense.

Isn't he the ranking Republican on the Commerce Committee?

Now that I read McCain's statement he's calling for bypassing the committees and doing the negotiating with leadership, he and Obama, and the President. I wonder how that will play with the rest of Congress that's going to want a say in this.

Now this is just plain dumb from any camp. If anything it gives MORE of a reason to hold the debate....an issue is important. Putting the Partisanship aside would be nice in my world (although jonIMGA would think thats just silly) but the debate is actually one of the highlights of this campaign.

What does "suspend" mean? The candidates were pretty much exclusively tied up in debate prep for the next two days anyway. Is McCain going to stop advertising?

LOLLERS

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/...lin_laura_bush

That may be true, but postponing the debate to reach across the aisle to create a bi-partisan solution to the economic crisis will give major capital to whomever can take credit for it. The candidate will get the play the "unity" card and the "change" card (stopping the election process to fix the country) up until the election. Postponing the debate may not be necessary, but it is good (politically) to make us think that it is.

You say that as though there's some need for additional ammo for that particular issue.



And you say that as though virtually anyone actually gives a damn what she did or didn't do. Or even more shockingly, as though you believe the outcome - from one end of the spectrum to the other -- would influence more than a relative handful of votes. Any result can be spun by both sides. Believing otherwise is painfully naive, and I know good & well you're smarter than that. Make careful note, I said "believing". You certainly free to wish for anything you want in that regard, no harm in that as long as you have a grip on the reality of the situation too.

She could cure cancer & she's not going to draw votes from Obama supporters. She could rape drunken goats on home video & she's not going to send a significant number of voters running from McCain to Obama (although that might keep a few weak McCain's from turning out).

Wouldn't this cause Democrats to run out and vote for McCain/Palin?

(ducks and runs)

and......

This may be naive, but how does not debating Friday night help the economy?

So is that a good or bad response for Obama? On the one hand, always going against what your opponent wants tends to be a good thing. On the other hand, will this be spun to say that he is more interested in getting elected than in fixing the country?

In reality, it probably doesn't. If candidates can get the public to think that spending time not campaigning and debating but instead sitting around a table hammering out details is a better use of time...

I understand the politics, but if it's empty of substance isn't it, by definition, a political stunt?

I gather (after reading a longer form article on the subject) that it's ostensibly to allow the two Senators to be more involved in the negotiations over the final bailout bill.

Obama can't allow McCain to run his campaign, though.

Obama must want to put a muzzle on Rendell:

McCain Seeks to Delay First Debate Amid Financial Crisis - NYTimes.com


If the bill isn't done by 9 PM on Friday, I kinda want the Senate to still be working!

+1

I think it could backfire, because it's transparent as hell.

It is incredibly transparent, but it does two crucial things:

It snaps the latest news cycle about his plummeting poll ratings, and it's a pre-emptive strike against any attempts to put him to a strong question about his shortcomings on the economic front.

By taking this action, and attempting to postpone the debate, he's hoping to avoid having any attention paid to "The Fundamentals of Our Economy are Strong" and whether or not he or his campaign director are lying when they say he hasn't been getting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac at a time when American eyes are strictly focused on the economy.

(Because, really, what has changed between now and this time last week, except for a 9ish point slide in McCain's national polling numbers?)

It was a crafty play, too, in that there is no simple way for Obama to deflect it without looking like the bad guy in the eyes of many, who won't understand what little difference it makes to negotiations whether or not two senators are on a debate stage at 9pm on a Friday night.

The best response the Obama camp could come out with, IMO, is to insist that they remain firm that the debate take place, but that "in this time of extreme crisis, it is even more critical that the American people know how the two candidates before them are able to handle the economic challenges we face, and now is a better time than ever before to do it."

Pivot the debate right back to substantive issues, especially ones that are a weakness for their opponent, and away from political grandstanding, since they've been undermined on that front.

(Also, how are you the first person I end up repling to when I decide to dip my toe outside FOOL waters on this forum? heh.)

Yep. McCain keeps grasping for straws imo.

McCain has been man-handled these last couple of weeks. With the economy coming forward and the "Palin effect" wearing off, its becoming mano y mano, and he's getting handled. Biden needs to stick to the stump speeches, though.

Only problem with that is that the debate is on foreign policy. Now if he says something like we should change the debate to the economy (though neither are really prepared for that), he could take it away from McCain.

That is precisely what I was implying but didn't make explicit, yes. Seems like a key point to say, "Ok, rather than keeping the American people in the dark, let's talk about something that matters right now."

Relevant snap poll from SurveyUSA: SurveyUSA News Poll #14454

10% of respondents say they think the debate should be suspended, 36% think it should be refocused on the economy. 46% say a debate not happening on Friday would be "bad for America".

Rapid response polling, take with grain of salt, etc.

A political ad combining the debate postponing request and the bipartisan committee to "fix the economy" and including Obama's refusal to postpone the debate (with implied refusal of the committee as well) could have some effect. Much harder to create a political ad discussing how the debate and the committee aren't really related...and make it understandable to the average voter.

I think stuff like this shows Obama isn't really sure how to handle this yet, and by sending out feelers like this he can see what the initial reaction is then completely deny it was ever his plan to do so if it's negative.

Yup. Its a battle for the middle 20%. As one wag put it, 40% of Americans would vote for Hitler over Ghandi depending on the party identification (heck, I think Jon might :D )

One must say that McCain being the Republican nominee definitely makes the race far more interesting than any other Republican running for President. Not necessarily because McCain is running closer than any other Republican who was running, but could you imagine Romney or Huckabee doing this?

It probably is more political than not (though McCain may actually believe they need him down there in Washington), but it could be a great political move. We'll have to see.

David Letterman on McCain asking for the debate to be delayed:


So awesome :D

Inside the campaigns today:

McCain: I'm suspending our campaign starting now
McCain's People: Shit...wtf???...you're doing what??
McCain: No deal, no debate either.
McCain's People: Shit...wtf???...you said what???

meanwhile...

Obama: Ummm....hi
Obama's People: McCain is suspending. What do you want to do?
Obama: I don't know. What do you think we should do?
Obama's People: I don't know, what do you think?
Obama: Let's do nothing and see what happens.
Obama's People: Cool, that's change we can count on.

:)

I think it was a good political move except for adding in the postponing of the debate. Obama could put himself in a great position by agreeing to work on a bipartisan solution for the crisis, but insisting the debates continue. This could make it look like McCain is afraid of debating Obama.