The Senate: Democrat By How Much?

Obama’s Ground Game

With the McCain campaign retreating from Michigan into Wisconsin, Walter Shapiro heads to Green Bay and notices a distinct difference between the ground games of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain

This is very interesting.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/10/05/obamas_ground_game.html

Poll: VP debate failed to boost John McCain.

The vice presidential debate has done nothing to inject new support for John McCain’s White House challenge, according to the latest polls.

Gallup’s daily tracking poll, taken between Oct. 2-4, yesterday revealed registered voters across the country continued to favor Democrat Barack Obama with 50 percent of the vote to McCain’s 43 percent.

Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll yesterday reported an identical lead for Obama with 51 percent of the vote to McCain’s 44.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/view.bg?articleid=1123674&srvc=home&position=active

Obama Surges Ahead in Florida.

A worldwide economic crisis can make a lot of difference to a voter. Or at least it has done to Isabelle Murawski. For the past two elections, the pensioner has reliably voted for George W Bush, casting her ballot in Florida’s Broward County, one of the epicentres of the voting debacle that saw Bush win the White House in 2000.

http://www.alternet.org/election08/101688/obama_surges_ahead_in_florida/

One of the good things about the bruising primary battle is that the voters have heard all the Ayers, Rezco and Wright crap already, nothing new except its lipstick saying it.

My sense and hope is that the US voters will ignore this stuff because they want change (just like our voters ignored all the anti-rudd stuff)

Just reported on lateline that 7 of Palin’s employees will testify in troopergate probe. Apart from everything else that is bad about Palin, why would you chose someone in the middle of an ethics probe??

Yep Andrew, they can probe all they like. They’re not likely to locate any ethics there.

it’s a great album Ecky….though I have to say that dear ol’ Mark hasn’t put out a decent album since. His descent into rockabilly (a-la the woeful “Shangri La”) is….regrettable.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Barack Obama attracting 52% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. This is the highest level of support ever recorded for Obama and is his largest lead of the year. It also continues a remarkable twenty-five days in a row where the Democrat’s support has never declined by even a single point. The Democratic candidate has gained six full percentage points of support since Lehman Brothers collapsed to start the Wall Street mess

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Now KR, about the Aussie Battler….not such a good buy @ 0.83 afterall. it could be 1.05 by the end of the month, but is more likely to be 0.55 by next week.

Democrats are buzzing over a poll commissioned by the liberal blog Daily Kos, which shows the U.S. Senate race in Georgia to be a hair tighter than it was last week.

The poll puts the Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss at 45 percent, and Democrat Jim Martin at 44 percent, with 4 percent going to “other” and 7 percent undecided.

The poll was conducted 9/29-10/1, before the completion of Washington’s debate over the Wall Street bailout, and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percent.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/shared-blogs/ajc/politicalinsider/entries/2008/10/06/another_poll_this_one_says_the.html

Politics and Palin lure viewers to “SNL”

The politics-fueled ratings train of “Saturday Night Live” keeps rolling along this election season with Tina Fey’s impersonations of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin luring viewers.

“SNL” averaged a 7.4 household rating/18 share in the metered market overnights, Nielsen Media Research said on Sunday afternoon. That’s within a tenth of a rating point of its September 13 premiere, which itself was the highest-rated show since December 14, 2002, when Al Gore and Phish appeared.

http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSTRE4953TT20081006

Election 2008: Can small turnout gains tip Southern elections?

If any of you may be wondering if last-minute registrations really make a difference, Nate Silver at 538.com leads with some analysis today that shows how small registration and turnout gains could tip the election.

And to make the point, he uses an unlikely example: Georgia.

No polls show Georgia to be very close for the presidential race. But Silver shows how even a modest gain in African-American turnout could make Georgia — and other states with growing numbers of black voters, like North Carolina — a lot closer than you’d think.

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/labels/538.com.asp

723
blindoptimist

Nup, the run on the USD is quite amazing.( But my call was at 79 cents, and although I didn’t buy, there was a very good trade in there for anyone who was quick.)

Some of the sudden dump on the AUD is the expectation of our rates falling, but the biggest move is because hedge funds are getting their goolies crushed in resources and so falling commodities is driving our buck south. Also, there’s a shortage of USD (it’s a credit crunch, after all! LOL), so there’s a bit of buying up for those needing USD.

The gyrations are spectacular, but even though I haven’t taken a close look yet, I’d have to reckon our dollar has been oversold. (When gold gets a 4% overnight you suspect the USD is soon to take some lumps.)

McCain forced to defend North Carolina.

For the third weekend in a row, Barack Obama campaigned in North Carolina as part of the most vigorous Democratic effort since at least 1992 to win this reliably Republican state.

At a surprise stop Saturday night at a North Carolina Democratic Party dinner and again a rally here Sunday in the state’s conservative western edge, Obama sounded a confident note:

continued..

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14304.html

Palin ‘trying to keep Fey in business’

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joked Monday that her recent gaffes during media interviews were just providing “job security to SNL writers.”

Pointing to her “less than successful interview I had recently with the mainstream media” Palin told a crowd in Clearwater, Florida, “I was just trying to keep Tina Fey in business.”

Well at least she has a sense of humour if nothing else going for her.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14312.html

Obama expands North Carolina lead.

With his party beginning to line up behind him to a greater extent than it
had previously, Barack Obama has opened up a 50-44 lead over John McCain in North
Carolina in the newest survey from Public Policy Polling.
Last week Obama led by two points. He is now winning 82% of the Democratic vote,
compared to just 74% a week ago. For most of the general election his share of his own
party’s vote has hovered in the upper 60’s and lower 70’s

Isn’t it a great day? Haven’t seen any concern trolls in a while.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_100625.pdf

FCUK!

Though the Commonwealth of Virginia has voted Republican in ten straight Presidential elections, a new poll by Suffolk University signals that Democrat Barack Obama is poised to break that historic streak. Obama (51 percent) leads Republican John McCain (39 percent) by 12 percentage points.

McCain will be pulling his team out of here shortly! Circle the wagons!

http://suffolk.edu/31220.html

Makes you wanna weep:

“I wake up every single night thinking what I could have done differently,” Mr. Fuld said, adding, “This is a pain that will stay with me the rest of my life.”

…Lehman Brothers CEO. The 350 milllion bucks he ‘earned’ since 2000 will also stay with him too, so maybe we shouldn’t be too concerned for the poor man, eh?

His other good line was how was he to know that the subprime mortgage market was going to cause this much damage to financial markets?

If he really didn’t have a clue, then why was he paid $350m to ‘run’ the company? LOL

Everything looks excellent for Obama, and I cannot see a mechanism by which McCain can turn this around, as there is nothing on the calendar. Four weeks may be a long time in politics, but I suspect that it is going to both seem an eternity and a microsecond for McCain and his team …

Someone mentioned a while back about me altering my prediction of 298 EVs. Well, I cannot retrospectively alter it: that was my prediction. However, I will say that my prediction will, according to current polling – and polls are what I go by, after all – turn out to be significantly in error on the downside. 🙂

BTW, it looks like on PollBludger that the vitriol against Obama from the Hillary supporters is increasing almost in lockstep with McCain ramping up his negative campaign.

Man, they don’t know how to take a defeat gracefully, do they?

“The best candidate is not even in the race…” *sigh*

Mornin’ all!

Intrade is doing the splits again after yesterday’s shenanigans:

Obama – 68.5 Whasisname – 31.6

743
David Gould

Having taken a little wager some time ago that Obama would get over 300 EV’s, I’m happy to believe you initially “misunderestimated” DG! LOL

Have a look at the vulnerable senate seats on votemaster.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/Maps/Oct06-s.html

Here is the Keating 5 documentary. Rate it, favourite and pass it on. Email it to friends. This can change a vote. Do your bit. Email it to 5 friends or more. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.

A short shorter version of that, and another ad with McCain giving Georgie Boy lots of hugs, will be a great way to kick off a national advertising campaign.

Krugman, in today’s NYTimes, agrees with McCain:

In short, the McCain plan makes no sense at all, unless you have faith that the magic of the marketplace can solve all problems. And Mr. McCain does: a much-quoted article published under his name declares that “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”

I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.

….LOL, another ‘endorsement’ (NOT)!

This is an email I received about an hour ago.

Chris —

John McCain wants you to forget about his role in our country’s last major financial crisis and costly bailout: the savings and loan crisis of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

But voters deserve to know that the failed philosophy and culture of corruption that created the savings and loan crisis then are alive in the current crisis — and in John McCain’s plans for our economic future.

We just released a short documentary about John McCain’s role in that financial crisis — watch it now and share it with your friends:

http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo

Voters should know the facts about John McCain’s poor judgment — judgment that has twice placed him on the wrong side of history.

Please forward this email to everyone you know.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Meant to say “to be close to being”.
Just in case anyone wants to take me to task over that statement. 😈

It’s like the Geelong Port Adelaide grand final from last year. Three Quarter time, with no injuries. Can still afford a couple of broken legs. But in this case the Democrats still have a fit Nathan Buckley and James Hird sitting on the bench! 😈

Here’s a link to the Republican Election Projection, maybe we could even put a link to it on our site!
http://www.electionprojection.com

764
ferny

yeah, it must be getting close to complete capitulation. I saw that 494 stocks on the S&P 500 were down at one stage last night…and that’s a pretty rare sight. If it wasn’t for the massive moonshot the US markets got towards close it would have been bye bye, toodle pip, and all over red rover today. As is, we are only (only! LOL) down another couple of percent.

Remember last year when the size of Howard’s problem could be summarized with one little graph:

http://possumcomitatus.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/howardsproblem101.jpg

I’ve found one for McCains problem:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/files/2008/10/demstatespread.png

Although the rest of the article might help describing it:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2008/10/07/the-jaundiced-view-intrade-polling-confluence/

Where is Jaundiced View BTW? Haven’t seen him anywhere for yonks.

Gee, $850bn doesn’t buy much of a bailout these days. Chuck another couple trillion in, that oughta do it.

I wonder if that will force Iceland into the European Union and the Euro? They have been reluctant till now. Maybe even the UK will be forced into the Euro. 😈

773 asanque Dubbya is equal first as the worst president ever on 22%. Just the time to run national TV advertisements with McCain giving him a hug. 😆

775 David Gould The debt is double what it was in the great depression, only unlike then you just have to cancel a few war planes and a couple of warships.

Apparantly, Europe could be in a worse position than the US. Spain is apparantly completely screwed and they may drag down France and Italy with them, which would tip Europe into something approaching a depression.

780 David Gould The implications of that would be huge. It would force countries into the European Union and the Euro that have been reluctant. Ireland might even change it’s mind on the treaty it rejected with very little persuasion. Countries that are out of the Union would be vulnerable such as Norway Iceland and Switzerland (huge in the banking sector). Countries that aren’t in the Euro will be forced in UK, Sweden and Denmark, who ever thought the George would help defeat the forces of conservatism throughout the world!

Note: I am a big fan of the EU. It is going to be a superpower and a force for reducing world suffering once it truly gets its act together – roughly 30 years.

And our market is back up to just 1% down.

Can you feel the de-coupling?

Mind you, people are going to wake up when the banks try and hold back as much as the Reserve gives ’em! Funny to watch the Ruddsters trying to stop the playground Turnbully picking on the Big Four, isn’t it? The party of the workers giving the party of free enterprise one in the eye over bank profits.

Gotta laugh really! LOL

790
ferny

Sure is that, ferny!

But I don’t think Turnbully has it all his way on this, especially if you look at LIBOR’s historic high. Let’s not forget, our banks MUST borrow on international markets at extremely high rates if you’d like to see our mortgage industry not freeze up.

But essentially it’s a commercial decision, and just like the government does not comment on the RBA’s rate decisions, it really has no authority over this either. If you don’t like your mortgage rate, find a cheaper provider is the real answer. (Yeah, where?)

It’s a silly political game, and if Turnbully thinks he’s hit the populist bulls-eye with this one, he may be in for a rude shock when the bankers turn on him and start giving him the facts of life.(Not that he doesn’t know them, but it’s like the petrol excise, he was against it long before he was for it! LOL)