Obama bounce now gone in Rasmussen Tracking Poll; both tied at 48%.
As I suggested might happen a few days ago, Rasmussen is now reporting that McCain and Obama are tied in the 3-day tracking poll, each at 48%. This represents a 3% jump from yesterday’s results. Thus, Saturday’s respondents favored McCain by 8-10% more than Wednesday’s respondents, just before Palin’s Wednesday speech.
The Obama bounce, which peaked at a 6% lead in the Rasmussen poll released last Tuesday, is gone. Obama still leads by 1.8% in the Real Clear Politics composite.
In fact, every convention produces a bounce for its party's candidate. I think you were being far too conservative in your prediction.
The Gallup Poll you mention is not on their site.
In other news, the media bubble around Palin continues. 3 of the 4 candidates will be interviewed on the Sunday morning pressers. Palin is the sole no-show.
(BUT WAIT! Aren't you admitting she's not ready?!! AHA!)
Tes, for that part of the job. No governor really would be. And they don't want a repeat of the "Bush pop quiz" from 2000. But keep in mid that this is what expereinced people do as well, if they expect close scrutiny. Read James Baker's memoir. He was a former WH COS, and former Treasury Sec (the latter is my choise for best pre-presidential preparation). Yet when he was going before a (mostly friendly) SFRC for hearings on his nomination to be SEC of STATE, he crammed on names of leders, arms control terms, etc.
No one knows all that stuff. And yet getting one or two names wrong can make you look bad. So I certainly HOPE she is doing this. And I hope she keeps at it for another week. After which, there will be plenty of time to ask her questions.
Does anyone have a good idea of which polling organizations (if any) have consistently done well in predicting the results of a national election, two or three months out? It seems to me that when we can't even get exit polling (which is a poll of people who've actually voted) right, expecting polls of "likely" voters is even less likely to succeed. All that's left is using the polls as a general tactical guide, which is only really useful to the campaigns. Though, it does also help me determine which phrases to design for t-shirts next ("Some Guy/Palin" is flying off the shelves this weekend.)
I agree completely. In part, and I've said this before on VC, I think Obama is running a crappy campaign. Their few attempts at negative ads have been feeble (houses? Really?).
McCain had been running a largely good campaign, though some of his negative ads were less effective than others (Obama as Moses parting the Red Sea? Even Republicans reacted badly to that one). Strange to see McCain shift into making his campaign the Palin campaign. I watched one of their stump speech rallies online and almost all of McCain's remarks were about Palin, even repeating Palin's applause lines and with a few extra...exaggerations...thrown in. Maybe this works for him while Palin is still shiny and new, but I can't imagine running on the VP candidate's image can sustain a campaign for 2 months.
Now that the infomercials by the parties are over, I suspect that in a week or two it will balance back out to a 2-3 point lead by Obama- about exactly where it was before the conventions. No real movement from there until the debates- which should be the most interesting debates this country has seen in a long time.
All polls are meaningless at this point. Come late September, they have some use. Even national polls.
There won't be any new "battleground" polls yet.
The only thing worrisome for Obama in Rasmussen is the 81% Dem vote. That is kinda low. Not fatally low but worrisome.
Worrisome in a couple ways.
#1. Worrisome to Obama, because it is hard to win unless you get around 90+% of your base, or an awful lot of independents.
#2. Worrisome to McCain, because if half of those 19% "come home" to Obama, that would tip the race substantially to Obama. And it's easier to win back your base than it is to win over converts.
Which is the other big surprise. In terms of running a tight, disciplined campaign organization, I was expecting this to be like having Jack Kemp at the top of the ticket. (I still miss Mike Murphy, though. If you write him to comment on something he writes or says, he emails back. How cool is that?)
True. But the 'Palin Factor' is a big question mark. She is playing very well with working-class males. (My trip to the barber shop on Friday was quite enlightening on this--Guys saying they will vote GOP now. They like the VPILF.)
Also, watch Catholic organizations. If there is a substantial campaign to educate Catholics about Obama's position on "accidentally-born fetuses," he will not be able to bring home the blue-collar undecideds in, say, Mahoning County, Ohio.
The MSM is accused of liberal bias, and I can't see how anyone can deny that there is something there. But far more that bias, they suffer from ignorance of religion, and the role it plays in politics. They just aren't interested. The NYT coverage of religious issues is just horrible. They'll never understand what abortion means to the majority of Catholics in this country.
I think its deeper than that. She's the prototypical alpha female coming out on the beta male side. The social norm of lifelong monogamy can be understood (among many, many ways) as a compact between alpha females and beta males to restrict the reproductive opportunities of the alpha male to the alpha females, thereby giving the beta males an opportunity to reproduce at all. History is replete with examples, from the early bankrolling of Christianity by alpha females to the emergence of alternative arrangements as beta female power has grown.
I'm a big fan of the former arrangement due to its historically demonstrated benefits for society as a whole, but beta females, perhaps understandably, don't always agree, hence the expressed distaste for Palin from those quarters.