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!

dola

Speculation is heavy that Obama will pick Bayh Wednesday. There's a long unspecified time in IN on Obama's schedule and that evening Bayh is scheduled to introduce Obama for a speech. Bayh's office softball team has also canceled it's game on Wednesday night.

It's all so clear that it probably won't happen.

Also, the website ObamaBayh08 redirects to the DNC website.

It wouldn't surprise me that much if Bayh is the pick, but that is a fraud:
http://whois.domaintools.com/obamabayh08.com

Not owned by the DNC, so that guy is redirecting it on his own.

Bayh seems to be a weird pick. He's a DLCer, who not only voted for the Iraq war, but CO-SPONSORED the resolution (but now he says its a mistake). He's pro-choice, but against late term abortions. Maybe Obama thinks the pick would help appeal to moderates (Bayh was very popular as Governor of Indiana), but Bayh is also the son of a powerful political father. He seems to be very much anti the "change" Obama is talking about. He's entrenched in political system through family and by being a DLC type which it seems Obama's core support has felt has sold out the party to become Republican-lite.

I agree with Imran again, Bayh makes no sense to me.

I'm not thrilled with Bayh, but I think the reason is the Clintons. Bayh would be a bone to the Clinton folks without picking Hillary.

The other option would be that Hillary will be the selection and Bayh would be a perfect person to bring them together

Thanks for confirming this. I did a WHOIS check on the domain and saw it was registered to an address in Massachusetts state.

FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right: What Would You Do With $5M in Ad Time?


An interesting idea. It has all the advantages that this post notes. But it also kind of plays into the "Obama thinks that he is better than us" theme if McCain spins it right. "Only the Olympics are grand enough for Emperor Obama to announce his VP pick."

Either way, it would be slightly different, which is enough for me to hope that it happens this way, notwithstanding the consequences.

EDIT--Apparently McCain has bought 20% more ad time than Obama during the Olympics. Which pretty much makes the above quote moot.

So... this John Edwards scandal sure seems like its about to blow up, no?

This is a pretty good take by David Brooks.

Will Paris Hilton be added to the poll today?

props to her and the producers....that was pretty funny.

Interesting. As I read it, it seemed to me that Brooks is, in fact, describing most Americans. We all get involved in a myriad of activities that interest us, we all move from thing to thing, but the list of things we get heavily invested in is actually pretty small.

Anyway, some other "Why isn't it an Obama landslide yet" columns from:

Charlie Cook

Nate Silver (538.com)

That's more-or-less my view. Well, fuck....

State-by-state EV projections, from fivethirtyeight.com, summarized and compared to the last time I did this, which was 17 July:

Now, we can all finally vent our spleens to a wider audience. Maybe someone in this thread can take their energy and talent and become a star:

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Sorry, but this is just laughable. An idiot rep decided to endorse Paris Hilton's 'energy plan'. I find this laughable not because I disagree with it (most Republicans, Independents, and moderate Democrats would likely agree with the premise of it), but rather because this rep acts like this is some profound new idea that nobody has considered before. Paris did nothing more than read off a teleprompter what millions of Americans have been thinking and voicing for some time. The problem is that the politicians continue to not act on those wishes.

FOXNews.com - Congressman Gives a Plug to 'Paris Hilton Plan' in Energy Debate - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

My understanding is that the Gang of Ten plan that Obama said he was willing to support is pretty close to this except that it also closes tax loopholes on oil companies. That "tax increase," however, will keep it from being passed.

I'm seeing tons of Obama and McCain commercials out here. It looks like they're both fighting hard for Nevada's five electoral votes.

Anybody know what is going on with Hillary in advance of the official nomination? Right-wing radio is going nuts with Bill's refusal to state his belief that Obama is ready to be President or that he is qualified. Note that Bill isn't actually refusing to say it...he just seems to keep dancing around the question. It also sounds like Hillary, in her speeches, is leaving the door open on the possibility of still being involved.

Again, this is right-wing radio, so I'm curious if any of this stuff really has legs.

Hillary said in a campaign event a few days for Obama that her people ought to scream, then get to work electing Obama. So she's pretty much taking one for the team and even when they asked her what would happen with her delegates or her pulling a fast one, she basically said "I'm committed to getting Barack Obama elected."

Bill is in Africa and I think the thing is, for him, it's not even JUST about Hillary. Obama diminishes his legacy, so naturally that has to be playing a part in how mad he is that this kid came along just two terms after him to steal his thunder as the saviour of the Democrats.

If Obama wins all of the Kerry states + Iowa, + [2 of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico] then he has 269 at a minimum (which is all he needs since the House will be Democratic).

While this might not be the easiest path to Victory for Obama, it is certainly one of the easiest. And it is cheaper than running ads in Florida, Virginia, et al. So I can see an intense focus on those three Western states by both campaigns.

You would think that the first black president would treat the possible second black president more kindly. :D

It'll be interesting to see the poll numbers over the next 10-15 days. Kerry began a pretty big polling free-fall in mid-August in 2004. Obama's numbers are similar to Kerry in that he had a big lead in June and July and both Kerry and Obama see their numbers decreasing in early August.

A big part of that fall was due to the combination of Kerry accepting public financing (Bush did also) along with the democratic national convention taking place about five weeks before the republican national convention. Bush was able to spend his "primary" money for that additional time, while Kerry had to ration his allocated funds and stretch them out to last for an additional month.

And, let's not forget that McCain became the nominee long after the GOP had left him for dead and were focusing on whether Rudy and Romney could hold off Huckabee and Fred Thompson.

McCain has that useful trait of being liked by the voters, even after the talking heads have come up with their 1001 reasons why he has no chance.

Also, in six out of the past seven election cycles, the republican candidate has performed 10-15 points higher in the actual election than his standing in the July polls. We'll have to wait and see if that trend comes to fruition again this year.

Vic: You're massaging the numbers a bit. I think you must be going by lowest poll number in July as opposed to an average. Further a low point in July doesn't necessarily provide an accurate picture of the race. In 2004 there were at least four big swings from April to September. In 2004 Bush had times before and after July when he was up by several points.

You may have a better point arguing that Bush and perhaps others outperformed their high polling average by a few points, but I haven't looked at other races yet.

Here's another nice graph. There's certainly a pattern of big changes in late summer, but in 2000 it was Gore that charged back in August where in 2004 Bush overtook Kerry. In both cases, though, I think it's important to note that the Republicans had large advantages a year out. I wonder if the 2008 line is important because the support for a Democrat has been greater for most of the year and so far there hasn't been a big switch like we're used to seeing.

A Clinton coup attempt at the convention wouldn't surprise me. That would certainly be prime time entertainment. I think Clinton and her supporters are still feeling a bit raw and resentful toward what they perceive to be the media's glad handling of Obama during the primary season.

I know, right? lol

Actually, I was going by the average republican gain over all of the cycles, which includes Ford's 33 point deficit in July 1976 and GHWB's 17 point deficit in July 1988.

But that does look like you're taking the lowest poll taken in July, correct? I've dug around but can't find polling data past 2000, do you have a link(s)?

Chris Wallace interviewed McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis yesterday, and addressed some of the "misleading" statements the McCain campaign has been promoting, among other issues. Interesting interview.

Link: (FOX News) Transcript: McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis on 'FOX News Sunday'

Key quotes:

Wowzzors - Chris Wallace growing a set of balls and confronting the GOP. Whodathunkit.

They've done this several times this year in regards to ads on both sides. I'm not going to be the one to say that FOXNews is 'fair and balanced', but this isn't the first time that they've put a hot poker to a GOP person in recent months. Wallace actually does a much better job in that regard than Snow or Hume did IMO.

Any news media outlet that wants to apply fact-checking to ads from both sides is a good thing, in my opinion.

I think Chris Wallace generally does a good job and has grilled both sides in the past. He is not afraid to stand up and ask tough questions of both parties.

Wallace is a bit of a wildcard. He has enough of his father's pitbull in him to really go on the attack when he senses weakness.

You should enjoy a new feature that the electoral-vote.com guy started. On any day, you can click on a link on the page and it takes you back 4 years to the day.

So we can see that, for instance, August 11th 2004 was looking pretty good for John Kerry with 300+ electoral votes.

Alan Keyes is keepin it real:

The Obama-Keyes race for the U.S. Senate was quite possibly one of the funnier political races I'd seen in recent memory.

"Quite possibly" "one of" "the funnier"? Awful lot of qualifiers that pretty much just add up to "maybe it was slightly above solemn". ;)

Interesting article that's going to come out in Atlantic Monthly

Memos show Clinton camp lines of attack, disarray - CNN.com

talking about some of the internals wars fought within the Clinton campaign. It seems to me that with all the talk about her "experience", she couldn't make a hard decision to save her (political) life and instead, let the strifes and antagonisms fester. I do very much look forward to reading the definitive book (or Newsweek special issue) from the embedded reporter's views of the three campaigns.

At least she didn't follow Penn's strategy... daaamn.

McCain may need a nap:


If he's elected, let's hope that "3:00 AM call" comes at 3:00 PM instead.

McCain really doesn't want to be talking about his sleep schedule.

George Clooney evidently is a trusted advisor to Obama on PR and foreign policy........

How George Clooney offers his 'good friend' Barack advice on Iraq | Mail Online

What is it about the ability to recite lines and look good that make people think that they can do anything else?