philliesphhan wrote:

Laexile wrote:Barack Obama is the Democratic Presidential candidate I've liked the least in my lifetime.

I know you're Mr McCain, but seriously? How's he worse than Kerry?

I dunno, Dukakis was pretty bad as was Mondale.

jerseyhoya wrote:Excitement: Holy crap, McCain up 5 in a national poll!

Immediate deflation: It's $#@! Zogby.

The man's polling is not to be trusted, even when I want to because it would make me happy.

I want to believe this is not true, but must admit it has me quite worried. So far, it seems to be an outlier - and it's been pointed out that polling services have varying ways of determining what a "likely voter" is.

As an Obama supporter, I am hoping that there is a significant Obama undercount right now due to (1) younger voters and minority voters often being seen as less likely to vote and (2) people who only have cell phones being underrepresented/not represented in most polling.

That said, Democratic expectations in the past based on voter enrollment campaigns and optimism about the youth vote have not borne much fruit.

Rococo4 wrote:This is and always was an uphill battle for McCain. That said, I am about as confident as I have been in some time that he not only can win, but he will win. There are many twists and turns yet to come, but Obama is reeling. Not saying he cant or wont turn it around, but I am really beginning to believe he can win. IMO, that his major obstacle: getting Republicans and Republican leaning voters to actually think he can pull it out. He is close in national polls and state polls have been much better for him in the last week or so - gaining on Obama where he is down and expanding his leads where he is already ahead. But getting people to believe he can win is what he needs to do.

Prior to the Zogby poll, I would have said what are you talking about. Even in the aftermath of that poll, whatever it ends up meaning, I do not see Obama reeling at all.

If you're a McCain supporter, though, I'd remind you that the electoral college math for Republicans is very limited. I don't think there's any way the Republicans can win this election without Ohio - and right now that state is a toss-up. For the Democrats, winning without Ohio would be difficult, but not impossible.

Im kind of interested in seeing how 538 moves over the next 2 months.

As of today

Obama 281
McCain 256

Pop Vote

Obama 48.9
McCain 48.3

Senate

Dems 55
GOP 43

The popular vote margin on 538 has been tightening almost daily.

The reality is nobody knows, because of voters who only have cell phones and things like that.

Republicans are hoping that a lot of white voters ultimately won't be able to vote for an African-American.

Democrats are hoping Obama's support is underrepresented for a variety of reasons.

It's not hard to find solid rationale for either, or both.

Interesting theory that the noise about McCain picking a pro-choice running mate is really a head-fake to set up his choosing... the Mittster!

I'd rather McCain pick Lieberman than Romney. Well, not really, but almost, and that's saying something.

Don't pick Mitt. Please?

BuddyGroom wrote:The popular vote margin on 538 has been tightening almost daily.

The reality is nobody knows, because of voters who only have cell phones and things like that.

Republicans are hoping that a lot of white voters ultimately won't be able to vote for an African-American.

Democrats are hoping Obama's support is underrepresented for a variety of reasons.

It's not hard to find solid rationale for either, or both.

538 seems to have embraced the perspective that Obama's vastly superior (or at least better-resourced) field operation could make the difference for him in a way that polls aren't yet picking up. I find this somewhat plausible, but if you believe in the "Bradley effect" (also sometimes known as the Wilder effect), that polls always overstate white support for a black candidate, maybe his turnout operation only suffices to make up what's lost by racially-motivated voting. Or not even that.

Though the polls certainly have turned, I still think Obama is in the preferable position. He's yet to really unveil his serious ad themes, or (this just actually started today) strongly make the point that McCain is a Republican with a strong and unambiguous record of pro-Bush positions. On the economy, he retains a huge advantage that hasn't really been made clear yet. If one or the other is to make a huge mistake on the trail, I'd bet on the old guy with the questionable command of the facts. (That said, the fact that every journalist endlessly gives McCain the benefit of the doubt might render that factor irrelevant.)

And then there's the electoral college. If you start from the 2004 map (286R, 252D), it seems pretty clear to me that Obama will flip Iowa (7), and he has a good chance in New Mexico (5) and Colorado (9). Those three states are enough for him to win. Even if he can't pull off Colorado (and the convention should help at least a little), he has a larger playing field of feasible alternative targets: Nevada, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Virginia. If he wins any of those, that's it. McCain's targets among Kerry '04 states seem limited to New Hampshire, which is small, and Minnesota, where the underlying demographics and political sensibility (anti-war) remain solid for Obama.

Finally, Obama (like McCain) seems to have good stretches and bad stretches in his campaigns. A year ago, everyone thought they were both sunk; Clinton led among African-Americans by 20 points, and the press was full of stories about how Obama was too dry and academic in his speeches and couldn't connect with voters. He started hitting his stride about two months before Iowa.

dajafi wrote:Interesting theory that the noise about McCain picking a pro-choice running mate is really a head-fake to set up his choosing... the Mittster!

I've kinda expected Mitt all along. He's the establishment choice and McCain is all about the establishment these days. And when McCain dies shortly into his 1st term, we can have plastic Mitt as our president. Rumor has it, he will convert the whole country to Mormanism. Mandatory.

There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

mpmcgraw wrote:There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

Interesting fact here, but New Hampshire and Vermont are different states.

Monkeyboy wrote:And when McCain dies shortly into his 1st term,

lol

jerseyhoya wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

Interesting fact here, but New Hampshire and Vermont are different states.

jerseyhoya wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

Interesting fact here, but New Hampshire and Vermont are different states.

Serial?

I could have sworn that was New Hampshire. that guy with the beard was talking about that for a whole night during one of those primary coverages on cnn.

mpmcgraw wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:And when McCain dies shortly into his 1st term,

lol

Sorry, I should have typed "When Mitt and the neocon crazies knock him off early in his 1st term, Mitt will be Prez."

jerseyhoya wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

Interesting fact here, but New Hampshire and Vermont are different states.

New Hampshire Republicanism is a weird animal. They're authentically "conservative": no taxes, libertarian, a bit isolationist. But obviously McCain has deep-rooted appeal there: he won the primary twice. The question is whether Obama and the Democrats can make the (IMO well supported factually) case that while McCain might convey some of the atmospherics of old-timey honest conservatism, he's actually a super-interventionist Republican who's probably less corrupt than DeLay et al, but no less eager to fiddle around in the economy, start wars, legislate morality and so on.

What do you guys think of Obama's corporate tax plan? I only have a basic understanding of his plan, but it seems like to me that it is going to do more harm than good by pushing more jobs out of the country.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

mpmcgraw wrote:There is absolutely no way McCain wins New Hampshire.

A county there tried to indict Bush for crimes against humanity or something like that.

Interesting fact here, but New Hampshire and Vermont are different states.

New Hampshire Republicanism is a weird animal. They're authentically "conservative": no taxes, libertarian, a bit isolationist. But obviously McCain has deep-rooted appeal there: he won the primary twice. The question is whether Obama and the Democrats can make the (IMO well supported factually) case that while McCain might convey some of the atmospherics of old-timey honest conservatism, he's actually a super-interventionist Republican who's probably less corrupt than DeLay et al, but no less eager to fiddle around in the economy, start wars, legislate morality and so on.

Having lived there for 4 years, this sounds about right. They are very practical people, and they pay attention.

I want to live in New Hampshire some day just for the license plate.

Isn't that Geezer Rock, destroyed by Homer Simpson?