What are the Key Factors for Victory in the 2008 Presidential Election?

[Gokul43201]

Obama may lose the election, but unlike his clueless and crackpotty opponents, he occasionally makes some sense.

Guess Einstein wasn't terribly off about stupidity being infinite.

 

[turbo]

A close friend of mine from Finland has an old Finnish saying in his Sig: "Stupidity gets denser in the crowd." His English is excellent, so I'm pretty sure his translation is spot-on.

 

[G01]

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 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.

 

[turbo]

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.

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?

 

[Gokul43201]

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?

Yes, they are different.

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.

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).

 

[BobG]

The more important bounce has occurred in the state polls. Sep 7 polls in Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have all shifted McCain's way while Florida has shifted Obama's way. Of those, PA is probably the only significant change - it's gone from leaning towards Obama to practically a dead heat. OH, VA, and FL were dead heats before and are still dead heats. The other battleground state with a recent poll was Colorado, but there was virtually no change either way.

Electoral Vote

The battle of the polls may not be as important as the battle over ballots and election laws.

My projection right now would be 265-240 for Obama with CO, OH, & NH up for grabs - McCain would need to sweep all three to win (Democratic Congress so ties go to Obama).

Realistically, FL, NV and VA probably should probably be tossed in the mix, as well, but a small change in momentum could flip CO, OH, & NH together making them the real key states. I just find it doubtful that Obama would win FL or VA without taking the 3 key states along the way and I find it doubtful that McCain could take NV or PA without taking the 3 key states as well.

 

[russ_watters]

USA Today uses Gallup polls, but you really have to look closely at what they are saying. You guys are just looking at different parts of multiple, overlapping polls. Note the subtle differences: there are two sets of data cited in the USA Today article, one with registered voters and one with likely voters. The poll of likely voters shows the bigger margin. Note also, they are running averages over three days - thurs-sat vs fri-sun.

 

[quadraphonics]

A better place to look than the polls (particularly the polls that are selectively cited in the mass media) are the prediction markets. Currently, Intrade is selling Obama futures for $53.5, and McCain futures for $47.3. So, the people who are willing to put their money where their mouths are have Obama with a comfortable lead, although McCain has shown some improvement in recent weeks.

http://www.intrade.com/

 

[russ_watters]

Doesn't the "enthusiasm gap" (now closing) imply that "people who put their money where their mouths are" would be more inclined to bet for Obama than is reasonable?

I don't see how a betting market is a better predictor than asking people who are actually going to vote.

 

[syano]

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?

 

[Evo]

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?

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.

I personally don't care if Palin is "capable" of being President. It is her views that scare the hell out of me. Lots of people can be in the Oval Office, not all of them should be. This really isn't about being able to handle the decision making as much as it is about what those decisions will be.

 

[BobG]

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.

Realistically, Obama still has a slight lead in the states most likely to hold. The toss-up states that can swing either way based on yesterday's headlines are tilting McCain's way right now.

It just goes to show, though, that until a candidate locks up 270 solid electoral votes, anything can happen very quickly.

 

[Evo]

From your link

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.

Wow.

 

[turbo]

When McCain was running in the GOP primary, he claimed that his legislative experience in foreign policy qualified him for the office of the presidency, and that being a mayor (Giuliani) or a governor (Romney) did not qualify anyone to hold that high office. Hmm... Wasilla as a few fewer people than NYC, and Alaska has a few fewer residents than Mass, and no budgetary concerns to speak of (except how to dole out the oil revenues). So why is she qualified?

 

[chemisttree]

In 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.

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=101

Wow.

 

[Evo]

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.

Wow again.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080911/NEWS0108/309110032/

 

[LowlyPion]

Two Part report by Kieth Olberman on McCain being in bed with lobbyists.
McCain has had lobbyists developing his positions, yet this is the man that claims to be an agent of change?
Seems to me the only change he has introduced to date is to see if he could select someone for Vice President even less capable than Dan Quayle. The search was difficult, but by Jove I think he jolly well pulled that much of it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKH6YOMKrfg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftvL4EAuJ2Y

This was before Phil Graham shot himself in the foot with his whiners remarks.

Phil Graham - a Nation of Whiners:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NVjq2py7BA

 

[Gokul43201]

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.

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.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Wow again.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20080911/NEWS0108/309110032/

You have to wonder if his campaign took the cue from that women voters org. If she does what she is supposed to do the campaign can make it look like she is attempting to disenfranchise voters on a technicality. Had she not done what she ought to have the campaign could have waited until after voting and claimed these people's votes were invalid if things didn't go their way.

 

[Astronuc]

Food for thought.

Blizzard of Lies, Paul Krugman, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html

. . . .

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.

. . . .

 

[Defennder]

Really I'm surprised. Obama hasn't learned to go negative despite what happened to Gore and Kerry.

 

[Astronuc]

Why McCain is going so negative, so often
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080913/pl_politico/13412

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.

. . . .

So will the McCain campaign face a blowback in November.

Certainly the mainstream media has played a role as an enabler.


So where is the discussion of the issues?

 

[mathwonk]

the VIEW interview was a perfect illustration of the backlash from intelligent women over his cynical insult to their intelligence by choosing palin. i think the primary benefit to choosing palin is the energizing of that part of his party that agrees 100% with bush's policies. there will also be some women who support her just because she is a tough talking woman, no matter what she is saying.

but many powerful and intelligent women who insist on being taken seriously and not played down to, apparently are not having any of it. wonderful.

 

[Astronuc]

Obama ramps up counterattacks on McCain
By NEDRA PICKLER and CHARLES BABINGTON Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5998373.html

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." . . . .

I hope that's the case.

I don't like attack adds on either side. I want to hear Obama on Obama, and McCain on McCain - and a bunch of nonsense and misrepresentation about the other side.

Too bad the nation can't vote for Pres and VP separately. McCain-Obama or Obama-McCain might have satisfied a lot of people.

As a citizen (or resident alien in my case), I want to know about the issues: energy, transportation, the economy, taxes, management of the federal debt and how either canditate plans to deal with chronic deficits, national security, environment, education, health care, . . . . .


Why the heck can't we get people like Alan Simpson (Wy) or Warren Rudman (NH), or Christine Todd Whitman?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Todd_Whitman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_K._Simpson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Rudman

 

[Ivan Seeking]

A campaign button referenced this morning on Meet The Press:

Jesus Christ was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a Governer.

That's a good one.

 

[Gokul43201]

Check this out:

(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.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/14/campaign.wrap/index.html

Meanwhile, here's the score on lying by the two campaigns, according to Politifact.com.

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%

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

 

[LowlyPion]

Check this out:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/14/campaign.wrap/index.html

That must be another Rove lie.

I honestly can not believe that there is any room the other side of Rove for the idea of greater dishonesty.

 

[Gokul43201]

The last 3 days at factcheck.org have to following debinkings:

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.

http://factcheck.org/

4 strikes for McCain-Palin, 1 for Obama-Biden.

 

[Gokul43201]

From a Biden speech, last week:

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."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9341K5O3&show_article=1

 

[LowlyPion]

From a Biden speech, last week:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9341K5O3&show_article=1

I think McCain doesn't understand the Golden Rule.

Do unto others what the same people did unto him?

As the Daily Show did their piece from the convention on McCain - from Maverick Reformer now to Reformed Maverick. Wallowing in divisive campaign tactics, aimed at doing and saying anything to gain power.

And he is supposed to be about bringing change to Washington? They don't need any more lies and misrepresentations there.