OCTOBER 31, 2008
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One thing I don't get about McCain pollster Bill McInturff's argument that McCain is poised for a comeback:
[H]aving had the great good fortune of working for John McCain on three Senate campaigns and now two presidential campaigns, here are two things I ALSO know for sure: 1) John McCain is a hard man to kill and I am the least surprised guy in the country that with even the smallest window of opportunity--as the focus on the financial crisis faded a bit--that he could make up ground and 2) the difference between these two candidates in terms of their preparation and capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief is profound, to McCain's considerable advantage, and that matters to the remaining voters here in the last few days of this election. [emphasis added.]
Now, it's true that the financial markets had a decent week, all things considered. But the actual economic news, as opposed to just financial news, keeps getting grimmer. The lead story in today's New York Times (sure to have been echoed in news reports around the clock) is the economy's third-quarter shrinkage amid a collapse in consumer spending. I can't imagine that the people who lose their jobs and homes as a result are going to feel so reassured because the Dow didn't crater this week. When discussing the "smallest window of opportunity," I'd put the emphasis on "smallest."
Oh, and by the way, my daily tracking poll average shows Obama ticking up significantly today. Any way you slice it--all eight trackers, all the trackers minus Zogby, all the trackers minus Battleground and IDB, which lag a bit--Obama has his largest margin since Sunday.
Credit where due: Zogby foreshadowed all three major inflection points (with apologies to you math majors) in the past week--the tighening last weekend, the stabilizing in the middle of the week, and the upward surge today.
Another place credit is due: Chicago, where whoever made the decision to air that half-hour infomercial has to feel pretty pleased. (To say nothing of the people who produced it.)
--Noam Scheiber
8 comments
I've been playing with the pollster.com and RCP charts this afternoon; if you reset their charts to only cover the last month, the race has been astoundingly stable. Obama has fluctuated between 49 and 51 percent, McCain between 42 and 44. There was a brief divergence the middle of the month, followed by a convergence [the latter of which was giving a lot of us heart palpitations], but over the past month we've basically been talking about a 6-point race with little change. McCain needs something exogenous to move those numbers; otherwise, it's all about turnout.
- colablease
October 31, 2008 at 6:19pm
While I think your point about Zogby is correct, it should be noted that Zogby did not show an Obama surge today. Obama gained 2 pts yesterday, today was steady
- sbzuck
October 31, 2008 at 6:20pm
While I think your point about Zogby is correct, Obama did not gain today in the poll. He gained 2 pts yesterday, today was steady.
- sbzuck
October 31, 2008 at 6:22pm
<i>Zogby foreshadowed all three major inflection points (with apologies to you math majors)...</i>
Yeah, these would be "critical points" of the function that plots the difference between Obama's and McCain's percentage.
I know you wrote the parenthetical remark so that you wouldn't get a smart-ass response like this. Sorry.
- mkayser0
October 31, 2008 at 6:25pm
According to Drudge, McCain beat Obama 48-47 in Zogby's Friday (Halloween night) sample. I expect it's a had sample, but it seems to be moving the Intrade numbers slightly and will likely be a center of attention tomorrow, especially if the other trackers move toward McCain.
- bhunziker
October 31, 2008 at 10:38pm
Obama's supporters were off having phone bank costume parties. Not going to sweat it.
- cspencef
November 1, 2008 at 12:49am
Us Dems who have had our hearts broken so many times in the past are taking NO chances this time. We all have to VOTE, we all have to email and call everyone we know and beg them to vote for Obama, and we need to volunteer a little time in these last few hours if we can. Otherwise, its 8yrs of McCain & Palin (YIKES!!!!!)
- frilz1
November 1, 2008 at 1:31pm
Unfortunately, frilzl, eight years of McCain-Palin is NOT the worst-case scenario. There is something nastier which involves the McCain part of it dropping off.
- ironyroad
November 1, 2008 at 3:24pm