Today's poll numbers - 9/30

Today's noteworthy states are Colorado and Indiana.  Colorado has improved to D+5.6, and Indiana is dead even. Those of you familiar with Indiana politics can understand the significance of an even race - a Democratic candidate for president hasn't won Indiana since LBJ's landslide victory coming off of the Kennedy assassination in 1964.  Before that it was Roosevelt in 1936. As far as the rest of the goings on today, all the details you need (and more) on every state in the Union are over at FiveThirtyEight.com.

FiveThirtyEight.com: 329.3/208.7 (+3.8/-3.8) electoral vote projection.

The New York Times: 255/227/56 (No change)  electoral vote projections, excl. tossups.

CNN: 47%/43% (D-1/R+0)

Daily Kos: 51%/41% (D+0/R-1)

Washington Post/ABC: 52%/43% (No change)

Today's poll numbers - 9/29

FiveThirtyEight.com: 325.5/212.5 (+15.5/-15.5)

The most apparent gains which have given Obama so much of a bump today are in Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Florida is looking better for Obama than it has throughout the entire race thus far. Also notable is North Carolina which has fallen into swing status - it's still leaning McCain, but considerable strides have been made toward the 50/50 tipping point in recent weeks. All the details you need (and more) on every state in the Union are over at FiveThirtyEight.com.

CNN: 48/43 (No change - CNN is still showing Friday's numbers as of 11:00am EDT Monday)

Daily Kos: 51/42 (D+2/R-1)

The New York Times: 255/227/56 (No change)

Washington Post/ABC: 52/43

It should be noted that the post-debate numbers have not hit yet. These numbers are still from people polled prior to Friday night's debate. I'll post here as soon as the post-debate numbers start flowing in.

Today's poll numbers - 9/27

FiveThirtyEight.com: 310/228.  (No Change)

CNN weekly roundup, national composite: 48/43.

broken down by state - Great Lakes data (electoral votes in parenthesis):

51/38  Michigan (17)
47/45  Minnesota (10)
49/43  Wisconsin (10)
56/36  Illinois (21)
44/47  Indiana (11)
46/45  Ohio (20)
53/44  Pennsylvania (21)
55/38  New York (31)

Daily Kos: 49/43  (D+1/R+0)

The New York Times: 255/227/56  (D+17/R+0/P-17)

These polls, for the most part, aren't going to reflect any sort of significant influence from last night's debate. Expect those numbers to start coming in reasonably solid on Monday after the weekend polling has been compiled. So far, however, it would seem that the purples were slightly more impressed with Obama than with McMean.

Responses from the respective candidate's camps

From Obama's David Plouffe:

This was a clear victory for Barack Obama on John McCain's home turf. Senator McCain offered nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies, and Barack Obama made a forceful case for change in our economy and our foreign policy. While Senator McCain wants to keep giving huge tax cuts to corporations and said nothing about the challenges Americans are facing in their daily lives, Barack Obama will be a fierce advocate for tax cuts for the middle class, affordable health care, and a new energy economy that creates millions of jobs. While foreign policy was supposed to be John McCain's top issue, Barack Obama commanded that part of the debate with a clear call to responsibly end a misguided war in Iraq so that we can finish the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. John McCain needed a game-changer tonight, and by any measure he didn't get it.

From McCain's Jill Hazelbaker:

There was one man who was presidential tonight, that man was John McCain. There was another who was political, that was Barack Obama. John McCain won this debate and controlled the dialogue throughout, whether it was the economy, taxes, spending, Iraq or Iran. There was a leadership gap, a judgment gap, and a boldness gap on display tonight, a fact Barack Obama acknowledged when he said John McCain was right at least five times. Tonight's debate showed John McCain in command of the issues and presenting a clear agenda for America's future.

The First Debate

OK.  It's over.  One down two to go, plus the veep debate in St. Louis on Thursday.

(I had been running odds of about 1 in 3 that Palin would drop out of the race before the debate, but McCain gave her "maverick" props during tonight's debate, so that drops the odds to about 1 in 5)

The pundits on the collective cable channels are tearing it apart bit by bit, which is their job, but in the end I think it all sorta falls on the purples - the undecided (Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight: "Really, I think a lot of pundits go about watching the debate in the wrong way. Namely, they're paying too much attention to it. That's not how most people watch the debate.").  There aren't too many people, red or blue, that are going to change their vote based on this debate.  I thought Obama did a stand-up job & displayed the poise, intelligence and diplomacy necessary to be commander-in-chief.  McCain was a typical Republican, brash and offensive with little interest in recognizing any positive characteristics of Senator Obama.  That sort of thing will likely play just fine with his demographic.  So be it.

What about the purples, though?  What did they think about the debate?  Will it make a difference?  

Probably not.

From MyDD:

My first thought: Think 1980, Ronald Reagan getting a major bump just from standing next to Jimmy Carter. Think 2004, John Kerry getting a major bump during the fist debate standing next to George W. Bush. The question is whether the candidate newer to the scene can stand toe-to-toe with the candidate longer on the national scene, and clearly on this front Barack Obama was able to speak as forcefully as John McCain. In this regard, Obama passed the most important test of the night. And to reiterate a point I made earlier, John McCain sounded like a Senator while Obama looked like a President.

And to take a step back, remember this: It is McCain who is losing this race right now, trailing in the national polling and in the statewide polling, and thus is was McCain who needed a huge night. He didn't get it, even on his home territory, and thus it was a missed opportunity.

The Atlantic’s James Fallows:

Unless it happened when I glanced away, up until this moment, 77 minutes into the 90-minute debate, John McCain has not once looked at Obama — while listening to him, while addressing him, while disagreeing with him, while finding moments of accord. This is distinctly strange — if anyone else notices. Obama is acting as if this is a conversation; McCain, as if he cannot acknowledge the other party in the discussion.

David Gergen on CNN:

John McCain needed a clear victory tonight. I think a tie was not in his interest. He is behind. And this is his best subject night ... I think he needed a clear victory tonight and that eluded him

Robert Shrum on Huffington Post:

Barack Obama was crisp, reassuring and strong -- in short, presidential, as he has been throughout the financial storm of the past two weeks. McCain was not as bad as he has been recently; but much of this debate was fought on what was supposed to be his high ground. As the encounter ended, Obama not only controlled the commanding heights of the economic issue -- and he not only held his own on national security -- but clearly passed the threshold as a credible commander-in-chief. McCain kept repeating that Obama doesn't "understand." But he clearly did. McCain made up no ground. That's similar to what happened in 1960 when Nixon ran on the slogan "Experience Counts" but found it didn't count that much when voters decided JFK was up to the job after the side by side comparison they saw in the first debate.

FOX News' Neil Cavuto blames "minorities" for economic disaster

Neil Cavuto of Fox News suggested in a recent interview with a Democratic congressman that the current economic disaster was caused by banks lending money to "minorities and other risky folks".

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks breaks it down here:



Mr. Cavuto should be immediately fired for saying such a thing on national television. A blatantly racist remark by the host of a program on a major national news network cannot be overlooked. He should be relegated to the sad pack of other bigots and racists (Bill Bennett, Trent Lott, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, et al) who, accidentally or otherwise, professed their true beliefs to the world on a grand stage.

It was just nine years ago when Washington D.C. ombudsman David Howard was fired for using the word "niggardly" (miserly) in context solely because it ~sounded~ like a racial slur. Granted, that went too far, but has the mainstreaming of extremist right-wing media (Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox News) really allowed us to regress so far in less than a decade as to accept the use of blatant racial bigotry without question or recourse?

Archie Bunker would be proud.

Today's Poll Numbers - 9/26

FiveThirtyEight.com, my favorite and perhaps the most thorough polling site, has Obama at 310 electoral votes and McCain at 228. The big change today, according to Nate Silver, shows Michigan moving off the "swing state" list and further into safe territory for Obama with a +3 to +13 lead in the polls here. West Virginia and Montana are starting to look safer for McCain but Virginia is looking like its going to be a tough sell for the reds.

CNN has Obama at 47% and McCain at 43%

Daily Kos is showing Obama at 48% and McCain at 43%.

The New York Times is showing Obama at 238 electoral votes, McCain at 227 electoral votes with 73 in the toss-up category (including Michigan & Virginia which many other pollsters are starting to view as more...aqua, if you will).

Debate Day & The Issue of the Red Veep

After much posturing and finagling on the part of the McCain campaign, the distinguished senator from Arizona announced this afternoon that he would, in fact, attend the scheduled debate tonight with Senator Obama in Mississippi.

From CNN.com:

Obama clearly goes into the first debate with a clear advantage in the issues. The new poll suggests 60 percent of voters say that the Illinois senator agrees with them on the issues. Voters say they trust McCain more than Obama in international issues like Iraq and terrorism — but Obama has a clear 10-point edge (53-43 percent) on the overriding issue of the day: the economy. (In a CNN/ORC poll released Thursday, 56 percent of Americans said the economy was the No. 1 issue.)

But the two candidates are statistically tied on the question of whether voters feel they possess the personal qualities a president should have (62 percent say McCain does, while 64 percent say Obama does.) And in good news for McCain, voters are also tied on what they care more about in this election — issues or personal qualities. Forty-three percent of voters say that the candidates' leadership skills and vision is more important to them than issues; 42 percent say issues are more important.

Those numbers aren't too surprising.  The following poll from CNN.com today, however, is very surprising - and extraordinarily distressing to this blogger:

Americans are also split when it comes to the vice presidential debate, with 48 percent saying Joe Biden is the likely winner and 46 percent giving the edge to Sarah Palin.

46%?  Are you &#$%ing kidding me?!  Sarah Palin has appeared in fewer interviews since being introduced as McCain's trophy vice in August than comedian Chris Rock appeared in yesterday. Those few, cringe-inducing interviews that she has done - with Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson - were without question the most clear cut examples of how truly far Governor Palin is in over her head in this campaign.  Her answers to Couric & Gibson's (rather basic) questions were a garbled mess of irrelevant talking points and unrelated issues.  She looks like a wide-eyed high-school quarterback lined up against the Indianapolis Colts defense.  She's not even in the same league as Joe Biden, and some pollster at CNN came up with a block of Americans, 46% of whom think Mrs. Palin is more suited to win a United States vice-presidential debate against six-term U.S Senator Joe Biden.

This is why the presidential race is as close as it is:  Millions of Americans don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about when they support major political candidates.  They frame their opinions on irrelevant issues such as the "feelings" they get by listening to them speak, or worse, they simply vote for whichever candidate gets pushed forth by their respective political party.  Any rational person who has seen both Governor Palin and Senator Biden talking about real policy issues would agree that the Governor is hosed.  Even conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, a once earnest supporter of Palin, thinks she should drop out of the race.

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Let's be clear - I'm a fervent Obama supporter, but after the last eight years, I am well aware that wholly unqualified individuals can attain high-ranking office in this country by duping millions of Americans into believing they are someone (or something) other than who they really are.  The damage that George W. Bush has done to this country is mind-boggling.  That's why I feel that Governor Palin must drop out of this race.  There is a chance that the 72-year old McCain could win this thing, and if he does there's a reasonable chance he doesn't make it through his term(s) as president.   If he truly loves this country like he says he does, his first choice of veep needs to go, and go now.