Aug 20 2008
Obama Poll Crash Expands! The Year Of The Center Continues
Boy, this is no way to limp into your party’s convention! I posted earlier (here and here) on a slew of polls showing Obama slipping against McCain. Even more polls are out this evening showing the same trend, an Obama poll slip. Â In the first post I noted I predicted Obama would likely limp into his convention down in the polls – seems I was right.
First there is the CBS/NY Times Poll indicating a slip in the last two weeks:
Republican John McCain has cut Democrat Barack Obama’s nationwide lead in half, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll. Obama now has the support of 45 percent of registered voters, with John McCain closing in at 42 percent. The margin of error is three points.Â
Two weeks ago, Obama’s lead over McCain was 45 percent to 39 percent.
…
Like the CBS News Poll completed earlier this month, each candidate is backed by more than three quarters of voters in his own party, with independents closely divided, narrowly favoring McCain.Â
Emphasis mine. Â As I noted back on August 4th Obama is losing the moderate middle of the electorate, which means he will end up losing the election if this trend continues. Â This is why McCain is smart to keep his eye on the middle of the electorate instead of worrying about the unpredictable and unreliable far right who have threaten to sit out the election about once a week. That is no place to put faith in voter turnout.
If the Far Right do sit out this election, then that leaves the far left and middle voters as the majority of the votes that will be cast. If McCain can steal the middle voters Obama has no shot at winning the election – whether the far right sit out or not. The threats to sit out because of McCain is moderate on some issues have created their just rewards. McCain has to keep as much of his base as possible, but he cannot do so to the point he loses the moderate middle.
Obama has the opposite problem, since far left liberals make up a much larger portion of the Democrat Base. The GOP base is chock full of moderates, which is why they keep winning the Presidency and only Democrats who run as faux conservatives can challenge them. Obama has gone as far to the middle as he can afford to already, flip flopping on major issues dear to the liberal mindset (e.g., FISA laws updates, Hand Guns, Abortion, etc).Â
The other poll out is the NBC/WSJ poll:
Overall, Obama holds a three-point lead over McCain, 45-42 percent, which is within the survey’s margin of error. That’s down from Obama’s six-point advantage last month, 47-41 percent.
…
For Obama, he receives the support of just one in two voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and he trails his Republican rival on handling terrorism, the war in Iraq and international crises like the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia.
The fact Obama has not been able to shut up his more mouthy supporters critical of Clinton (nor has Clinton stopped her anti-Obama supporters either) means there is no healing going on in the Democrat Party. In addition, Obama is very liberal at his core, and very two-faced and cagy in his PR projected image. He is a far left liberal trying to hide it, and doing a damn poor job of it.
Clinton got at least half the democrat primary votes (if not a majority), which means 50% of her supporters are not in Obama’s camp. Â That means Obama is losing 25% of the democrat primary vote. A vote that tore up voter turnout records. Obama cannot win with that much defection from the Clinton camp, which was clearly the more ‘centric’ of the two campaigns. Â
And with Dems like Lieberman supporting McCain, these more hawkish, more centric and less gullible Clinton supporters will find comfort in supporting McCain. Â Especially if the far right continues to tear him down like many are doing (the dismal Mark Levin comes to mind). If the far right hate McCain, that takes all the risk out of supporting a GOP candidate.
This is the year of the moderate middle. It is not the year of the polarized fringes. Â Nor is it the year of mushy policies, feel good policies or rampant capitulation. People still want resolve and someone to fight for their views. They want a strong leader who will protect this nation from its enemies. The term ‘moderate middle’ is sometimes confused with dispassion or muddled thinking. In reality those of us in the middle are very strong minded and willing to stand up to any and all comers to support our points. Â That is why we flourish outside the party fringes which have been the cultish clubs of party and purity.Â
To be independent is the same as being a entrepreneur – to fight the harder fight alone, outside the stereotypes and cliches. It requires backbone, resolve and determination.  The more the fringes demand unity and purity of thinking, the more the independent, self motivated, self thinking voters move into the non-aligned camp.  And it is this group which will determine the direction of the nation over he next 4 years.
The party fringes insult and threaten this group at great risk and cost to their electoral success. More here on the falling poll numbers.
Update: Even more here as the left begins to sweat:
While some here think everything is going just fine, and that Obama has a secret plan lying in wait, I ask you to think back a year ago. Imagine if someone had told you that the most charismatic Democratic speaker in a decade would be in a dead-heat with a Republican has-been corrupt waffler – you would have laughed in their face. After eight years of George Bush? No way, people are fed up – that’ll never happen.
Well, that’s the reality today. This race is a dead heat and is up for grabs both in the national polls as well as in key states like Ohio, Florida, Missouri, etc. Face reality folks – something isn’t working.Â
Obama isn’t working. He is vacuous and slippery, cold and elitist, and the most inexperienced candidate for President to ever run a national campaign for a major party. Did people really think America would not ask questions, demand some backbone, desire clarity and demand we get the best of the best for the job? Clearly some very deluded liberals on the left did.
Breschau,
Only idiots would connect the national economy to how many houses the McCain’s own. And Americans are not idiots.
Think what you like.
WWS,
Rezko is old news. It is not going to play like McCain’s new housing gaffe. As breschau said, McCain’s gaffe will be all over the news and late night circuit because it is the type of story the media loves. This will play into Obama’s new theme that McCain is too rich and out of touch to understand the economic problems most Americans are experiencing. Add McCain’s housing gaffe to his definition of “rich” as $5 million and above, his ridiculous statement to Politico that “I define rich in other ways besides income,†and Phil Gramm’s statement that Americans are a bunch of whinners, and that theme starts to gain some traction. I’m guessing we will start seeing a fresh round of McCain is out of touch ads from Obama continue.
I have to admit, I have been amazed that McCain has been able to peg Obama as the elitist. McCain is the son and grandson of four-star Navy Admirals (Gee, I wonder how a poor student like McCain got into the Naval Academy), has been multi, multi, multi- millionare uber-rich since he married Cindy in 1980 and has been living in the Congress bubble since 1982. And he is the regular guy who understands average Americans lives? Yeah right.
AJ:
Would those be the same “idiots” that think mentioning the price of arugula (while talking to farmers, who do kinda care about the price of arugula – since they sell it) makes you an “elitist”?
Never heard of the arugula issue. Could care less.
The exact quote from The One, campaigning in Iowa at the time, was “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately? See what they charge for arugula?” There is not a single Whole Foods in Iowa. There’s an inconvenient truth for you.
Regular folks don’t eat arugula, and Iowans don’t and can’t shop at a Whole Foods, which is a very trendy grocery store with prices that ordinary folk can’t afford, found only in major metropolitan areas. He tried to pander to the working class voters in Iowa and ended up exposing himself as an effete snob.
Besides, Iowa farmers raise primarily corn, wheat, soybeans and pigs. (My midwestern farm relatives prefer wheat mostly, some corn) Arugula is a mediterranean lettuce mostly imported from Italy, and is only served in hoity-toity places where plain old lettuce isn’t good enough. There ARE a handful of Iowa growers, but they are all small hydroponic operations. THe only major US growers are some large scale produce operations in California and Arizona. (Arugula doesn’t like hard winters)
Obama didn’t know what Iowa farmers grow. An elitist wouldn’t.
WWS:
Okay, seriously – are you trying to say that Iowa farmers don’t know what arugula is? What next – if you’re a dairy farmer, you don’t know what that exotic “corn” is?
Sure, the quote at the time didn’t go over well – and you were right, it’s probably due mostly to the fact that there are no Whole Foods in Iowa. Maybe those folks didn’t know what a “Whole Foods” was – hell, my mother-in-law might not know either, since she gets pretty much all of her vegetables from either our gardens (tomatoes kinda suck this year, but hot peppers are AWESOME) or the local farmer’s market (one of the advantages of living where we are in DE – we are surrounded by farmers on all sides; the recent corn has been very sweet).
Arugula is, basically, a slightly peppery lettuce. You can buy it in the Super G that is about 2 miles from me. To claim that knowing was arugula is, or eating it, is a sign of “elitism” is JUST FREAKING STUPID. Can we agree on that, in the name of decency?
And the whole point of the argument was: “supermarkets are charging more for produce, but you [farmers] aren’t seeing any increase in your crop prices.” So, I guess pandering to the bottom line for a freakin’ FARMER now counts as elitism?
As a counter point, I will offer a simple example: the “family recipes” from Cindy McCain (themselves the point of a minor controversary, consisted of entries such as “Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage”. So, why is arugula such an “elitist” food, but Ahi Tuna is not?
And seriously AJ – you never heard of this? Hell, your side is selling t-shirts about the damn thing.
conman
negative campaigning, there has been no negative campaigning by McCain.
if Obama wanted substantive debate he would do the 10 town hall meetings he agreed to and has reneged on.
breschau
numberf of houses, why is that bigger than Obama not knowing how many states there are? And it turns out, McCain doesn’t own any houses. So they can’t claim he owns so many he couldn’t count them. And none of Cindy’s houses were bought by a convicted felon.
I never heard of arugula til this came out and I don’t think anyone in Iowa has either and that goes for Whole Foods stores also.
It’s basically grown and sold in Europe and is not an Iowa crop at all.
Redteam:
It’s entirely possible that this may be the last time I even consider responding to a comment of yours. Let’s go in order:
1) Do you really think that a graduate of the Harvard Law School, and a standing US Senator, does not know how many states there are? Have you never made a simple mistatement of your own, or are you indeed the perfect human being who has never said anything in his entire life that needed a correction later?
2) “McCain doesn’t own any houses.” Oh, right – they are all owned by his wife, Cindy. And in their pre-nup, which he was forced to sign, she keeps all of them. Smart woman – knowing she was marrying a known adulturer, she forced him into signing away anything he might have gained by abandoning his first wife and three children, and marrying the young, blonde, rich beer heiress.
3) “I never heard of arugula till this came out”. Well, honestly – nobody else can be blamed for your ignorance of a slightly-peppery lettuce that can be bought in any large chain supermarket in the United States of America. (Although I probably stopped with “nobody else can be blamed for your ignorance” – but I don’t like to go there.)
“there has been no negative campaigning by McCain”
Seriously – how do you people get through these entire phrases without convulsing into laughter?
One
Two
Three!
Three negative attacks! Ahhh ha ha ha!!
(end Sesame Street Count)
Redteam,
Since you apparently couldn’t identify a negative campaign if it whacked you across the head, let me give you a clue. A negative campaign is one that focuses more on the opponent than the candidate himself. What do McCain’s Hilton/Spears/Obama celebrity ad, the “One” ad or the tire gauge ad all have in common? They are all about Obama, not McCain. What would you call McCain’s efforts to paint Obama as an elitist or accusation that Obama is more concerned about winning an election than winning Iraq? EVERYONE agrees that McCain has been running a negative campaign for the last month and one-half and that it has worked well for him. Get up to speed with the times.
As for McCain’s housing gaffe, you clearly don’t understand WHY it is significant so let me help you out. It is not a question of intelligence – like you suggest by comparing it to Obama’s 57 states comments. It is an illustration of how incredibly wealthy McCain is and therefore how out of touch he is with the experiences of average Americans going through these dire economic times. Seriously, how many people do you know that couldn’t immediately answer the question – “how many houses do you own”? Add that gaffe to the numerous statements by McCain and McCain supporters (ie Phil Gramm) saying how great the economy has been and it creates a narrative that McCain doesn’t understand the economic problems of average Americans because he is so freakin rich. Look back to 1992 when G. H. Bush made the infamous supermarket gaffe and revealed that he had no idea how much groceries cost because he never does his own shopping. Clinton hammered him on that in the election and it stuck because everyone was worried about the economy that year. Deja vu!