by Blue Stockings | This is why I try to ignore polls and commentary on polls. What's the point in false reassurance NOW if it means that you are confronted unprepared with REAL reality later? What's the point in making yourself sick with anxiety NOW only to find later that it was all---to quote (partially) Palin---"for naught"?
Marc Ambinder reports on the jazzed up Rick Davis, all in a lather of excitement at the way McCain campaign dirty tricks are bringing it home.
A "jazzed up" Rick Davis enthused that John McCain is the middle of "the greatest comeback you've seen since John McCain on the primary."
Davis, on a conference call with reporters, said that the campaign has had "the best ten days of polling" since the convention.
"We think we've shaken off the effects of the financial collapse that have suppressed our numbers prior to the last debate. Our own data has us dead even in the state of Iowa."
The dead panned Ambinder remarks, parenthetically, "(Davis said that the Obama campaign's data was also close in Iowa -- although the Obama internal polling gives Obama a double-digit advantage.)"
Meanwhile Ambinder reports the findings of a "a very confident David Plouffe." I don't know why Ambinder struck through the "very" and I don't want to know.
Meanwhile, frighteningly cheery neocon gargoyle Bill Kristol predicts that McCain "will win big." True, he's never been right about anything before. But what if this is the exception that proves the rule?
Meanwhile, Gallup says that the political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama.
The political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama in the waning days of the campaign. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 28-30 shows him with an eight percentage point lead over John McCain among traditional likely voters -- 51% to 43% -- his largest margin to date using this historical Gallup Poll voter model....
Since Tuesday, McCain's support among traditional likely voters has dropped by four points (from 47% to 43%), Obama's has risen by two points (from 49% to 51%), and the percentage of undecided voters has increased from 4% to 6%....
Obama's lead among expanded likely voters is only slightly greater than that seen among traditional likely voters. He now leads McCain by nine-points, 52% to 43%, using this looser definition that does not factor in whether respondents have voted in past elections, but strictly relies on their reported level of interest and intention to vote in the 2008 election.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver says McCain has "a mountain of a problem" in the Mountain states.
In the wee hours of this morning, Public Policy Polling released data from Colorado and New Mexico. The toplines are strong for Obama, giving him leads of 10 and 17 points, respectively in those states. What's worse for McCain, however, is that PPP estimates that nearly two-thirds of Coloradans have already cast their ballots, as have 55-60 percent of New Mexicans, with large majorities of those votes going to Barack Obama. This is backed up to some extent by Michael McDonald's turnout statistics. In Colorado, the state had already processed approximately 1.3 million ballots as of Thursday, around 60 percent of the total 2004 turnout. In Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), New Mexico (statewide figures are not available), 145,000 ballots had been cast as of Wednesday, equaling 55 percent of 2004's total.
Should New Mexico and Colorado become safe Obama states, McCain's only realistic path to victory runs through Pennsylvania. Even if McCain were to win the Keystone, however -- say that Philadelphia remains in a collective stupor from the Phillies' win and that there is some sort of Bradley Effect in the Alleghanies -- Obama has a pretty decent firewall in the form of Virginia and Nevada, which had already achieved 53 percent of its 2004 voting totals as of Wednesday, and where Democrats have a 23-point edge in ballots cast so far in Las Vegas's Clark County (and perhaps more impressively, a 15-point advantage in Reno's Washoe County, a traditionally Republican area). The Kerry states less Pennsylvania, but plus Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa and Virginia, total 270 electoral votes: an ugly, nail-biter of a win for Obama, but still one that would get him to 1600 Pennsylvania all the same.(via Memeorandum)
I wish I could close my eyes and it would be all over. Naturally I'd prefer it to end with Obama as president, but whatever the predestined outcome, I'd like for it to be OVER.
At least most accounts beg to differ with Rick Davis. Here's Chris Cillizza:
It depends on what measure you look at but, overall, polling at the state and national level suggests that Obama remains very much in the driver's seat heading into the final weekend of the race.
National polling is something of a mixed bag. Republicans have seized on the new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll that showed Obama leading McCain by a 47 percent to 44 percent margin -- a narrowing from the nine-point edge the same poll gave to Obama a week ago.
The general trend in national polling suggests some level of tightening but nothing that would point to a major change in momentum for McCain. The pollster.com average of all national polls -- the full chart is below -- puts Obama at 49.7 percent and McCain at 44.2 percent.
And Obama's takin' it to the airwaves in Georgia, Arizona, and North Dakota. Nate Silver is skeptical about the wisdom of this. But The Anonymous Liberal says reassuringly:
. The key point is that Obama is close in Arizona despite having devoted precisely zero attention or resources to that state.
That means there's potentially room for improvement there that there isn't in any of the other close states. By making a token ad buy in that state, Obama gets two immediate (and cheaply purchased) benefits. First, he ensures that the primary topic of conversation in the local Arizona media for the next three days is the sudden emergence of Arizona as a battleground state. That alone is likely to drive up Democratic turnout and--even if it doesn't result in an Obama win--could really help down ticket candidates like Bob Lord. Second, it may well cause the McCain campaign to devote its precious time and resources to defending Arizona. Losing is one thing; losing your home state is another. For pride's sake, McCain won't want to let that happen.
skippy, asking (rhetorically) how bad things look for McCain, answers:
obama is ahead in early voting in...wait for it...arizona!
Jonathan Singer at My DD says:
That's right -- John McCain is just about tied in his home state, and if his 2010 reelection bid were today and were he running against Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano he would lose.
Don't believe these numbers? The McCain campaign apparently does, because they have scheduled McCain to campaign in Arizona ahead of election day.
Speaking of the general outlook, centrist Justin Gardner of Donklephant says:
The biggest news here I think is that Obama is up by 8 in Gallup’s traditional model, with Obama hitting his high of 51% and McCain hitting his low of 43%. That’s extremely bad news for McCain.
What’s more, Obama is above 50% in every model, so the likelihood of McCain turning it around at this point is quickly becoming nonexistent.
Progressive Chris Bowers has even more reassurance here at Open Left, ending with this.
One thing is for certain, I want to win by a lot more than 273-265. We need a large electoral victory, 51.0%+ of the popular vote, and huge majorities in Congress. We need everything that gives Democrats a mandate, and the numbers to enforce that mandate in D.C. We are going to get the win, but of course that is no reason to stop working. Let's pile it on. Let's get out there and kick some more ass, but do it with a confidence in victory, and a strut that Democrats have lacked for so long.
All right then, these fragments I have shored againste my ruin---because however much I'd like to, I can't get away from the damned pollsters.
Time enough to learn to strut when it's in the bag.
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Posted by: dualdiagnosis | November 01, 2008 at 01:11 AM