- #176
Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
- 8,142
- 1,756
Nope, they didn't support Bush I either. I am either out of date or confusing my political anecdotes.
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2004/08/26/news-1303055.html?fta=yNo Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio, a fact of which Democrats and Republicans are both highly aware -- putting the state firmly in the top tier of this year's presidential "battlegrounds."
AGGREGATES OF CURRENT POLLS | PROJECTIONS
|
Date RCP1 RCP2 CNN Elec-Vote USAtlas-A Pollster | Elec-Proj USAtlas-P
06/21 238/163 289/249 211/194 317/194 271/191 | 349/189 298/240
06/26 238/163 317/221 211/194 317/194 288/180 | 338/200 298/240
07/01 238/163 304/234 231/194 317/221 268/180 | 338/200 293/245
07/06 238/163 304/234 231/194 320/218 268/177 | 338/200 293/245
07/11 238/163 304/234 231/194 320/215 268/188 | 306/232 293/245
07/16 255/163 304/234 231/194 320/204 268/177 | 311/227 293/245
07/21 255/163 322/216 231/194 312/199 268/172 293/214 | 298/240 293/245
07/26 238/163 322/216 221/189 292/195 264/175 284/147 | 338/200 298/240
08/11 238/163 322/216 221/189 289/236 264/202 284/157 | 298/240 293/245
08/21 228/174 264/274 221/189 264/261 264/210 260/191 | 264/274 293/245
08/26 228/174 273/265 221/189 273/252 259/210 260/176 | 273/265 293/245
09/06 238/174 273/265 243/189 301/224 259/194 260/179 | 278/260 293/245
In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote. The survey of 1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters, has a margin of error of +/— 3 points for both samples.
Gokul43201 said:Latest USA Today/Gallup poll puts McCain up by 10 points!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-07-poll_N.htm
I wouldn't be too excited about any recent polls. When an outfit calls 1000-2000 "likely voters" they can swing the poll numbers any way they want to. The media loves a horse-race (even if the reality isn't such) and the pollsters will deliver it on demand. Are the pollsters weighing these numbers with the overwhelming advantage that the Dems have in registering new voters, and are they able to factor in younger people with no land-lines?G01 said:I just checked Gallup.com and the poll has McCain up by 5: 49%-44%, not up by 10.
Is the Gallup poll different than the USA Today Gallup Poll?
Anyway, we have to remember that these numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are showing a boost from the convention and not necessarily what people will think when the convention wears off. For instance Obama was up by 8 points after his convention if I remember.
Yes, they are different.G01 said:I just checked Gallup.com and the poll has McCain up by 5: 49%-44%, not up by 10.
Is the Gallup poll different than the USA Today Gallup Poll?
More importantly, single polls have very little scientific value. The error bars spec'ed by the poll is only the intrinsic error that arises from sample size (the standard deviation of the distribution). There are a lot of systematic errors that creep in all the time, and the only way to minimize these is to look at a collection of polling data from different groups (and hope the systematic errors tend to cancel off).Anyway, we have to remember that these numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are showing a boost from the convention and not necessarily what people will think when the convention wears off. For instance Obama was up by 8 points after his convention if I remember.
Personally, being for Obama, I would like to see him as the underdog in the polls as this will make more voters turn out for him. If he is ahead in the polls, voters will become complacent and figure that their vote is not needed. Being behind in the polls, people will be more likely to vote for him if they believe in what he stands for.syano said:Are Gallup and Rasmussen considered to be the most reliable and the least biased? Do some polls have a reputation of being bias?
With Obama down by 10 points according to USAToday/Gallup Likely Voters Poll… doesn’t it seem like it would take an extreme circumstance to turn this around at this point?
Wow.Dirty Tricks Starting Already in Ohio
The Cincinnati Enquirer has a story about dirty tricks in Ohio intended to influence the election there. The McCain campaign printed a form on which a voter can request an absentee ballot and sent out about 1 million of them. The form included an unnecessary box asking if the voter was eligible to vote. If the voter didn't notice the box and didn't check it, he or she is in fact admitting that he or she is not eligible and the application has to be rejected by law. Secretary of state Jennifer Brunner is hopping mad about this stunt but she is required by law to reject invalid applications.
http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/09/09/copy/absentee_fight.ART_ART_09-09-08_A1_HPB99C2.html?adsec=politics&sid=101In the 2004 presidential race, Democrats cried foul when Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell initially ordered that voter-registration cards be rejected if the paper used wasn't thick enough.
Now, Republican John McCain's campaign is complaining that Blackwell's successor, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, has decided that certain absentee-ballot applications should be rejected if a box on the form isn't checked.
McCain's camp is worried that potentially thousands of requests for absentee ballots will be rejected and voters forced to reapply -- if they get notice that their application wasn't accepted, said Jon Seaton, McCain's regional campaign manager.
At issue is a mailing that McCain sent last week to more than 1 million Ohioans urging them to vote early by requesting an absentee ballot. The form included space for voters to provide the required personal information.
But Brunner ordered last week that if voters do not check a box next to a statement that says, "I am a qualified elector and would like to receive an absentee ballot," the application should be rejected and the voter notified that his or her request is deficient.
Brunner, who said county elections officials had asked about the issue, argued that by not checking the box, voters would not meet a legal requirement that every request contain a statement that the person is a qualified elector.
She noted that on the state's application form, there is a statement directly above a signature line that says the applicant attests to being a qualified voter. McCain's form has that statement next to the box to be checked.
"Failure to check the box leaves both the applicant and the board of elections without verification that the applicant is a 'qualified elector,' " Brunner wrote, recommending that those voters be sent a letter with the state's form.
But Seaton, who did not suggest that partisan motives were at play, argued that the forms mailed by the campaign should be accepted as long as all other required information is provided.
Wow again.Some county Boards of Election have asked Brunner why they should pay to fix the application error. “The law is clear. The problem is with McCain’s form,’’ she said.
But Brunner said she does not have the authority to order any campaign to reimburse counties for the new mailing costs to fix the problem.
Realistically, those 270 EVs are very likely all that McCain can reasonably expect to win. In that map, there are 5 states with a margin of 2% or less, and McCain is currently in the lead in all 5 (OH, VA, IN, NV, NM, IN). If even one of those 5 states goes to Obama, it's essentially over for McCain. He almost absolutely needs to hold all 5 of them if he is to have a reasonable chance of winning. What do you think are the odds on that? To really improve his chances beyond that slim possibility, McCain will need to show some ability to win MI.BobG said:Electoral Vote.com has McCain up 270-268 based on state polls. That's the first time he's held the lead since the primaries were decided.
Evo said:
. . . .
Still, how upset should we be about the McCain campaign’s lies? I mean, politics ain’t beanbag, and all that.
One answer is that the muck being hurled by the McCain campaign is preventing a debate on real issues — on whether the country really wants, for example, to continue the economic policies of the last eight years.
But there’s another answer, which may be even more important: how a politician campaigns tells you a lot about how he or she would govern.
I’m not talking about the theory, often advanced as a defense of horse-race political reporting, that the skills needed to run a winning campaign are the same as those needed to run the country. The contrast between the Bush political team’s ruthless effectiveness and the heckuva job done by the Bush administration is living, breathing, bumbling, and, in the case of the emerging Interior Department scandal, coke-snorting and bed-hopping proof to the contrary.
I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.
. . . .
So will the McCain campaign face a blowback in November.It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely perch for John McCain to be shamed for his increasingly hard-edged and truth-stretching campaign than the middle seat on “The View.”
Yet on Friday morning, there sat the Republican nominee – a politician who has built an all but saintly reputation for “straight talk” over the years – caught in a vise between Joy Behar and Barbara Walters and getting a lecture from each on honesty.
“They’re lies,” Behar said of two recent lines of attack from the McCain campaign
“By the way, you yourself said the same thing about putting lipstick on a pig,” interjected Walters as a defensive McCain struggled to respond.
The two daytime talk show hosts are hardly alone.
McCain’s tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns. In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical.
A series of ads – ranging from accusations that Barack Obama backed teaching sex education to Illinois kindergartners to charges that Obama called Sarah Palin a lipstick-wearing pig – have provoked a cascade of criticism of McCain’s tactics.
The furor presents a breathtaking contrast to McCain’s image as a kind of anti-politician who plays fair, disdains politics as usual and has never forgotten how his 2000 presidential campaign was incinerated by a series of loathsome dirty tricks in the South Carolina primary.
. . . .
I hope that's the case.DOVER, N.H.— Belittling John McCain as a relic of the disco age, Democrat Barack Obama pushed his campaign today to a new level of counter-punching "on the issues that matter" and directed his running mate to be tougher on their Republican opponents.
The changes come as national polls find McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, pulling ahead of Obama and Joe Biden, prompting some jittery Democrats to implore them to fight back harder, and Obama's camp to pledge "speed and ferocity" in that effort.
"You know, I'm not going to be making up lies about John McCain," Obama told undecided voters in Dover. But he dipped into history, citing the oft-repeated phrase: "If you don't stop lying about me, I'm going to have to start telling the truth about you."
"That's what we're going to do," Obama said.
Dover resident Glenn Grasso asked Obama, "when and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and the smear campaigns?"
"Our ads have been pretty tough," Obama replied. "I'm going to respond with the truth." . . . .
Jesus Christ was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a Governer.
(CNN) -- Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said Sunday that Sen. John McCain had gone "one step too far" in some of his recent ads attacking Sen. Barack Obama.
Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.
Truthiness McCain Obama
---------------------------------
True 22% 34%
Mostly True 18% 21%
Half True 17% 18%
Barely True 19% 11%
False 19% 16%
Pants on Fire 05% 00%
Gokul43201 said:
Energetically Wrong
September 12, 2008
Palin says Alaska supplies 20 percent of U.S. energy. Not true. Not even close.
...
Belittling Palin?
September 11, 2008
Updated: September 12, 2008
A McCain-Palin TV ad accuses Obama of being "disrespectful" of Palin, but it distorts quotes to make the case.
...
School Funding Misleads
September 11, 2008
An Obama ad plays fast and loose with McCain's voting record on education and proposals as a presidential candidate.
...
McCain-Palin Distorts Our Finding
September 10, 2008
Those attacks on Palin that we debunked didn't come from Obama.
...
Off Base on Sex Ed
September 10, 2008
A McCain campaign ad claims Obama's "one accomplishment" was a bill to teach sex ed to kindergarten kids. Don't believe it.
Addressing a fundraising audience of about 300 in Boston, the Delaware senator recalled how then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and his supporters in 2000 questioned McCain's commitment to his fellow Vietnam veterans and even suggested the Arizona senator was the father of an illegitimate child.
Biden said he supported Al Gore for president, but nonetheless called McCain during the campaign and said, "John, where do you want me? I'll go anywhere in the country and I'll stand before press conferences and I'll testify to your character. You just tell me."
"What really disappoints me is the very tactics used against him, they're trying to use against Barack Obama now," Biden said. "It's literally saddening. I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. But I guess I should learn to expect everything."
Gokul43201 said: