« Pants on Fire IV | Main | Independent Streaks » More Good News for McCain31 Jul 2008 10:40 am Obama Tour Doesn't Help In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds; Voters Care More About Energy Than Iraq --- FLORIDA: Obama 46 - McCain 44; OHIO: Obama 46 - McCain 44; PENNSYLVANIA: Obama 49 - McCain 42. That's right -- Obama's tour didn't help. He's just winning in Ohio and winning in Florida. He must be shaking with terror. Comments (29)
"McCain attack ad fails in Ohio, Florida and PA!" 
Matt, I think laughing this off isn't good enough. Yes, the media is ridiculous, but McCain's goal now isn't to pull ahead just yet, it's too consolidate his base. That's the rationale behind his ads, and it's working: http://strategy08.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/why-mccains-ad-strategy-is-brilliant-and-im-serious/
It warms my heart whenever he runs ahead in PA, since Gov Ed went so merrily off message to say "sure, he can win here" when Mark Penn was fervently saying the opposite. Aren't you required to link to www.fivethirtyeight.com if you're going to keep talking polls?
John McCain won his party's nomination months ago, way before Obama, and he's still consolidating his base instead of running a general election campaign? It's the end of July. The Olympics are about to begin, then the Democratic Convention. If John McCain is still consolidating his base, it means he gained absolutely nothing from the extended Democratic primary - but the massive Democratic registration gains across the country from that extended contest are here to stay. So much for Operation Chaos, I guess.
Dan, my hope is that the attacks from the Obama camp will come after the convention (when they'll do the most good), and they will be of a different kind. Rather than being lies and personal attacks, they will be a litany of McCain's flip-flops. They will paint him as feckless. They will use lots of video. I wouldn't be surprised if these attacks come from the DNC and from the V-P candidate, rather than directly from Obama. Obama gets points for staying positive and McCain gets thrown on the defensive for his inability to articulate and maintain a position on ... well, anything.
Obama has clearly read his Lewis Carroll, even if the concept escapes our media. Time for a counterfactual, people: what if Obama had not gone abroad?
LFC, I'm hoping for an ad showing John McCain on the floor of the Senate in 1993, talking about how Bill Clinton's economic plan is going to send the economy into a recession. While graphs, figures, and statements about the performance of the economy during the 1990s flash in the foreground. Right after McCain puts out an ad attacking Obama's economic policies. Experience and judgement, huh?
Experience and judgement, huh? Damned straight! He's been there for years and if you just sift through his opinions over those years, you're bound to find one that shows him in agreement at some point with just about anything you want him to be. (Just ignore the ones that contradict it. They're not important.)
On the other hand, given that the press will always tear down the frontrunner and given that they've already shown a proclivity to attack Obama for his popularity and given that it's 96 days until the election and 25 days until the convention in Denver, maybe it's good to see these stories. Obama as underdog can only be helpful right now. He should just keep his head down, run the campaign and don't be tempted to do victory laps. However, that doesn't mean the media should give McCain a pass for his missteps, bungles and "Kinsley" gaffes. "McCain does not speak for the McCain campaign."
LFC, Damned straight! He's been there for years and if you just sift through his opinions over those years, you're bound to find one that shows him in agreement at some point with just about anything you want him to be. Ah, yes, the eternal Senator-as-Presidential-candidate problem. Good thing the Democrats have finally figured out a solution: find a really young senator. And run him against another senator.
Historically Floridians have been extremely opposed to offshore drilling. When was in grad school I worked on some policy analysis of the original offshore drilling moratorium under Bush I and as I remember, it was spearheaded by Florida and California. Except for Orlando, all the major cities in Florida lie along the coast and much of the economy and lifestyle centers on pristine beaches. Not only do most Floridians not want to look at oil derricks offshore, they are justifiably fearful of tanker traffic and spills, especially as this is hurricane alley. Even with high gas prices, I can't imagine Floridian attitudes have changed that much. I haven't seen any state-specific polling on the offshore drilling issue, just national polls. But I gotta wonder how McCain's lust for new offshore drilling is playing in Florida. Is it me, or does Obama's recent rise in the polls in Florida directly correlate with McCain's recent lust for offshore oil? I gotta think it does. Politics are often local. And I gotta wonder if McCain is being too clever by half with his lust for offshore drilling. It might gain him lots of superfluous votes in Texas but it also might lose him Florida. And I'm not sure what McCain's path to victory is if he loses Florida.
Matt - with a shaky economy, an unpopular war, and a Republican candidate who supports that war, Obama - at a point where he should be way ahead - is ahead only in the margin of error. Presidential races tighten from here, and the support for Democratic candidates at the Presidential level is usually overstated in polls. Frankly, I'm amazed that Obama isn't leading by the kind of margins that Carter held in the summer of 1976.
Isn't the point of the poll that he lost ground in those states? You seem to imply that the headline - "Obama Tour Doesn't Help In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania" - is somehow false, but in fact, unless his lead is bigger than it was before, the headline is perfectly accurate.
Exactly right, jeebus. Those polls show, if anything, a weakening of Obama's strength. The internals look worse.
Six points is not the margin of error. The report doesn't provide historic data, so we can't compare it. I'm pretty sure Obama was not leading in Florida in the last Q poll. There are a lot fewer swing voters than in 1976. Don't you remember all that 50/50 nation stuff? This limits the size of the lead a candidate can open up, and also the size of any swing that can occur.
It's friggin' crazy. McCain trailing by any amount in Florida is a disaster for him. Is there a single scenario under which McCain wins without Fla? Meanwhile, he's having to fight for Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Montana. The whole game is being played on McCain's 30-yard-line. Isn't the point of the poll that he lost ground in those states? You seem to imply that the headline - "Obama Tour Doesn't Help In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania" - is somehow false, but in fact, unless his lead is bigger than it was before, the headline is perfectly accurate. Read Nate Silver for a more nuanced take.
Check out the pollster.com tracking graph for Florida. You can see a steady Obama climb and it doesn't even include the latest Q poll: http://www.pollster.com/polls/fl/08-fl-pres-ge-mvo.php In any event, the latest Q poll released today has Obama 46, McCain 44 http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/polltracker/flpres/
Gallup's daily tracking poll shows Obama down for the fourth straight day in a row. Obama's lead over McCain is now down to just one percentage point, a statistical tie.
Matt - These points are becoming tiresome. Given that this is such a lousy year for Republican candidates, I don't think it's unreasonable to be disappointed that Obama's polling leads are (a) shrinking, and (b) not that big in absolute terms. He needs to go on the offensive on McCain's bad ideas.
It's friggin' crazy. McCain trailing by any amount in Florida is a disaster for him. Is there a single scenario under which McCain wins without Fla? Meanwhile, he's having to fight for Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Montana. The whole game is being played on McCain's 30-yard-line. Isn't the point of the poll that he lost ground in those states? You seem to imply that the headline - "Obama Tour Doesn't Help In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania" - is somehow false, but in fact, unless his lead is bigger than it was before, the headline is perfectly accurate. Read Nate Silver for a more nuanced take.
Matt, this is ridiculous. The point is that Obama had larger leads in each state last month, and that he would probably prefer to maintain or expand his lead than have it decrease. Overall it's still a good result for Obama, especially since McCain can't possibly win without Florida. But the point of the commentary was not that Obama is losing, it's that he lost ground over the past month. When three state polls all show similar losses over the same time period it signifies a real trend. Obama is winning right now and is still, in my mind, the overwhelming favorite. But I hope they are less sanguine than you about polls that show the race tightening.
The whole game is being played on McCain's 30-yard-line. Posted by Bart Acocella | July 31, 2008 12:36 PM Allow me to make a slight correction. The whole game "up to now" is being played on McCain's 30-yard line. Since the conventions are still a month away, all this has to be regarded as being only the first quarter or maybe the first half of the game. I have no idea why supposedly political savvy liberals have the need to constantly examine polls for an election that is still more 4 months away when they all know that polls are pretty much meaningless at this point. At this point, polls are only good for determining themes and talking points that the candidate will be using for the fall campaign.
Gah! So these polls don't mean anything. There is no way to be even reasonably sure that they show any change at all and yet we have to hear all of this nonsense about them, because nobody ever wants to just say "hey, we did a new poll and it didn't show anything different, still the same as last month." That isn't a story so you get this absurd collaboration between journalists and pollsters to pretend that a poll like this means something. Drives me nuts.
Kent, Most Californians and Floridians (and, for that matter, a lot of other coastal residents) are against offshore drilling because they are ignorant. Specifically: 1) They are afraid offshore rigs will lead to oil spills, when there hasn't been any significant spill from an offshore rig in the U.S. since the 1960s, due to improved technology. Northern Europeans, such as the Norwegians, who are arguably more environmentally sensitive than we are, have safely drilled for North Sea oil for years. 2) They think offshore rigs will be visible from their beaches, when the rigs proposed will be so far offshore, that they won't be visible, even from a high rise on the beach -- they will be over the horizon. 3) They think that there isn't enough oil offshore to make a difference when, A) No one knows how much is there in most of the outer continental shelf, because it has been off-limits to exploration; B) The parts of California's continental shelf that have been explored are estimated to have three times as much oil as Texas.
Kent, Most Californians and Floridians (and, for that matter, a lot of other coastal residents) are against offshore drilling because they are ignorant. Specifically: 1) They are afraid offshore rigs will lead to oil spills, when there hasn't been any significant spill from an offshore rig in the U.S. since the 1960s, due to improved technology. Northern Europeans, such as the Norwegians, who are arguably more environmentally sensitive than we are, have safely drilled for North Sea oil for years. 2) They think offshore rigs will be visible from their beaches, when the rigs proposed will be so far offshore, that they won't be visible, even from a high rise on the beach -- they will be over the horizon. 3) They think that there isn't enough oil offshore to make a difference when, A) No one knows how much is there in most of the outer continental shelf, because it has been off-limits to exploration; B) The parts of California's continental shelf that have been explored are estimated to have three times as much oil as Texas.
Fred,
Fred: You miss the point. It makes no difference what the facts are about offshore drilling. With respect to Florida and the 2008 elections, the only thing that matters is how McCain's push to open the Florida coastline plays with Florida voters. And the fact that offshore drilling has always been extremely unpopular in Florida suggests that this issue could play to Obama's advantage in the state. None of your arguments really make a difference. In any event, I was just down in Port Aransas Texas (near Corpus Christi) on vacation and believe me, you can certainly see a whole lot of oil rigs along the Texas coast. I'm not sure I buy your argument that they would all be out of sight. On the Florida Gulf Coast, the Federal EEZ starts at 9 nautical miles (compared to 3 nautical miles along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts). Big oil rigs should be easily visible from 9 nautical miles offshore. A little trigonometry tells us that a 20 meter platform should be visible from 9.2 nautical miles offshore http://www.mid-c.com/manmar/Obse0040.htm
What's most interesting about this Quinnipic poll is that -- just as in their other one a few days ago of Michigan, Wisconisn, Minnesota and Colorado -- they start out making a great fuss about how McCain's support for offshore drilling may be helping him, and then admit quietly later in both press releases that "More voters still say Obama has the best energy plan." To be more precise, voters in all 7 states told Quinnipiac that Obama had a better energy plan than McCain by an average margin of 4%. This just might have something to do with the fact that -- although voters in the 7 states do want more offshore drilling by landslide margins -- they prefer the development of renewable energy sources by margins fully 50 points wider, and "mandating higher gas mileage for cars" by margins fully 30 points wider! (They prefer solving the problem through "energy conservation" over solving it by increasing the supply of oil and gas by an average of only 6 points; but that may be because a lot of them think of "energy conservation" in terms of simply doing without and thus lowering their living standards, as opposed to installing more energy-efficient technologies.)
Comments closed August 14, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
I'm sick of this shit.
Posted by justin | July 31, 2008 10:47 AM