Feb 27 2008
Still No Oba-mentum
Dem Presidential wannabe Barack Obama seems to have hit his ceiling in the democrat primary. For quite a while now the Gallup Daily Tracking poll has shown a dead tie between him and Senator Clinton.
The RCP average of good and ridiculously lame polls shows a different picture, but that is no surprise when you don’t do some quality control on your data and throw anything into the mix (for example, Gallup shows a tie and USA Today/Gallup shows +12 during the same period). As I have said before, wild fluctuations and variances in the polls show the polls are not measuring the mood accurately.
And is there any surprise this tie is being reflected in the delegate count? I think we will see this all the way to the convention since no one is going to get the delegates from the primaries they need to win the nomination out right. And this will hand it to the Dem Party machine to make the selection, which will cripple which ever nominee finally arises from the mess.
I think that this is going to be a really interesting mess for the Dems. Obama wins Texas, Hill wins Ohio, and the superdelegates are in one hell of a position. Lots of fun ahead!
Count all the votes! Don’t shut Florida out! (sez Hillary)
According to Rasmussens McCain leads both Clinton and Obama and the Democrats are quite close nationally.
I read over at Captains Quarters that the CBS/NYT poll was about what you would expect from CBS and the NYT, the demographics were really skewered. And AP also has the race fairly close.
I will say one thing, polls have been really strange in this race, for both parties. Zogby and Reuters and CBS are almost always off.
Gallup and Rasmussens are about the only ones I trust any more.
Mere wishful thinking folks. If Obama wins either Texas or Ohio, Clinton will definitely concede the nomination. Clinton may even concede unless she wins handily in both Ohio and Texas, but less likely given her inability to stop fighting on. I’m predicting Obama wins Texas and Clinton concedes the nomination. I guess we will have to wait until next week to see who is right.
I think Obama might well edge out Clinton, but I think that he will have a lot harder time with McCain. I saw this at Captains Quarters :
The Los Angeles Times has conducted a national poll for the presidency, and the results show John McCain leading both Democratic presidential contenders despite all of the attention on their primaries. Experience and wartime judgment carry McCain to leads over both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, although within the margin of error for the latter:
As he emerges from a sometimes- bitter primary campaign, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain poses a stiff challenge to either of his potential Democratic opponents in the general election, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
The findings underscore the difficulties ahead for Democrats as they hope to retake the White House during a time of war, with voters giving McCain far higher marks when it comes to experience, fighting terrorism and dealing with the situation in Iraq.
Both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have made ending America’s involvement in the war a centerpiece of their campaigns. And even though a clear majority of those polled said the war was not worth waging, about half of registered voters said McCain — a Vietnam vet who has supported the Bush administration’s military strategy — was better able to deal with Iraq.
In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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And of course the Democrats want to repeal NAFTA. In 1993, Bill Clinton got NAFTA passed. Unemployment was at 6.3%, now it is at 4.9%. Overall manufacturing is up over 50%. And yet the Democrats want to diss our neighbors and start a trade war with them while we pander to our enemies. I just don’t think the majority of the American people are going to go for that.
Uh . . . if you go to Gallup Daily Tracking posted on the 27th … you’ll see that the polling shows Obama up by 5 points with Obamba heading north and Hillary heading south . . . and you’ll also see that even factoring in the insane LA Times poll showing McCain up, Obama leads John Sidney McCain III aka senescent senior senator aka Crazy Old Cootâ„¢ by 3.7 points . . . . must be that durn-blasted Omentum.
The Voice is flooding the TX market. Most will not even bother to listen to the words (little nothings) but you can’t ignore the ‘feeling’ you get from the Voice. It is the closest thing to brainwashing that I have ever heard. Darn shame people kept ignoring it as it played in 2004. Darn shame that I think McCain will ignore something that is so powerful that it can take down the Machine. He insists on playing nice and just the facts. Like it or not, Hillary finally did what she should have been doing long ago when she did the skit on celestrial powers on high and the sky opening. Obama does not deal in facts and that’s not his power. His ads are verrrry good and it is only the sound of a Voice.
I know some who are going out and voting for Hillary and then will switch. Think it is too late because they will both probably share a ticket now.
Can’t wait to compare McCain and Obama’s intellectual capacity and understanding of “facts”:
McCain: senescent senior citizen and addle-pated senator who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class and caused three plane crashes (one trying to land, one because he flew too l0w and hit power lines, one when he joyrided a jet from Florida to fly to the Army-Navy game in Phillie) and who may not even be eligible to be president (not born in US);
Obama: Occidental and Columbia undergrad, degree in poli sci and international relations; magna cum laude from Harvard Law and the 1st black president of Harvard Law Review; lecturer on Constitutional Law at U of Chicago.
Owl:
What are you babbling about? Really? What are we going to compare? Hippt dippy demagogues vs. years of experience. Please. I hear that Obama hearts Zarqawi, in fact if he had been in charge…Zarqawi and Saddam and his psycho sons would be killing and maiming people in Iraq today. Zarqawi would have his terrorist training camp and what would Obama the neophyte be doing? Invading Pakistan.
So I can’t wait either. The demagogue vs the warrior. It will be entertaining.
And besides, what is he running for, to be Dean of an Ivy League college with all its protections from the real world, or President of the United States?
I hear that McCain made areal ass of Obama in fact. Obama said we could go back to Iraq after we ran away, if in fact AlQaida was in Iraq, but AlQaida is there now McCain informs him..so Obama refusing to deal with the world as it is today starts yammering about how it was Bush’s fault AlQaida was in Iraq….completely ignoring the current reality. it is as if the man is stuck in 2003.
Ofcourse, Zarqawi went to Iraq before the invasion of Iraq for the purpose of setting up an organization like Osama’s in Afghanistan. He had been there until the US invasion. So I guess Obama thinks we were supposed to ignore him until buildings started to fall in Manhattan.
Owl that first post of mine was directed at Soothie, not you. I am sorry for the screw up but the little so and so irritated me so much I just started typing.
O’Bama has the thinest resume for a top presidential candidate in modern times. His couple of years as a political street organizer makes him less qualified than my barber. His shallowness will become glaringly clear when challenged by somebody of substance, like McCain.
Terrye,
I won’t defend Soothsayers comments because I think they are off point and too focused on personal attacks. The thing I’m most tired off is pure partisan attacks that have no substance, regardless of what side you lean on. But I do suggest that you start watching/reading/listening to the “liberal” media sources as well to get a full picture of how Obama intends to respond to McCain on these issues (fyi – I check out both conservative and liberal media sources so I can see both sides of the argument).
Obama did not simply respond by saying that Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until we invaded, which I think will rescinate among the majority of voters that think the Iraq war was a mistake anyway. But he also focused on the broader GWOT and hammered Bush/McCain for allowing Al Qaeda to reconstitute in Afghanistan and Pakistan while we have been consummed with Iraq. He emphasized – that is the group that attacked us on 9-11 and constitutes the Al Qaeda leadership. While a lot can change between now and the fall of 2008, the current situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are major problems for the GOP and McCain. While I know you like to label those who disagree with you on staying the course in Iraq war as defeatist, surrendecrats, etc. – the majority of Americans disagree with you because they view the GWOT in a broader context than just Iraq. If Obama is effective in framing the issue that way, this will become a major liability for McCain.
I also am beginning to wonder how the situtuation in Iraq will play out for McCain. If Iraq turns for the worse, McCain is finished (as he himself inadvertantly said in a recent press interview). If Iraq improves, I’m not so sure that it is as big a boost for McCain as I originally thought. Since Bush/McCain/GOP’s whole argument on Iraq is that we must stay there to root out Al Qaeda, what happens if we accomplish that by next Fall? What justification will McCain give for keeping troops there – refereeing a civil dispute between the Sunnis and Shites? Waiting for the Iraqi government to get its act together? That is a loser argument given the current public attitudes about Iraq. The only way that McCain gets a big boost out of Iraq is if there is both a military victory and political reconciliation. I just don’t see the later happening within that timeframe (if ever) and the US appears to have very little control over that aspect. for example, the recent Iraqi parliment agreement to hold elections in October 2008 (lauded by AJ and other conservatives as proof positive that the Surge has resulted in successful political reconciliation – yet another premature prediction of success to score political points) was just vetoed by the Presidential Council. I’m wondering when conservatives are going to realize that the Iraqi government is not going to take the difficult steps necessary to reconcile simply because we provided them breathing space on the security front.
I know you all ridicule Obama for being inexperienced and naive, and claim that McCain will eat him alive in the general campaign. But don’t forget – he has gone head-to-head with the Clinton machine and kicked her butt so far. Absent a major blunder or sea change, he will undoubtably be the nominee. That should tell you something. Like him or not, he is an impressive candidate that has generated an enormous amount of interest and support beyond just the Democratic base. McCain can’t even get his own party base excited.
That’s okay Terrye……I will even own up to babbling.