Is Obama wasting time and money?

Sorry, but I seriously doubt this is the case:

There are 90 days to go in this election campaign and at this point in time the momentum – according to the polls – is with McCain.

Take a look at the RCP General Poll Average on:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html

…and tell me that the ‘momentum’ is with McCain?

Seriously??????

Maybe I need to hold my computer monitor upside down or something. Can anyone help me ‘get it right’? LOL

David’s argument is partly related to the ‘why bother’ principal. After all – North Dakota and Montana are worth next to nothing in the Electoral College big picture. But wasn’t that the same story in the primaries? The Obama Campaign focussed on the mathematics and the infrastructure on the ground to win pledged delegates – and through this Obama won the race – not the traditional Super Tuesday style, but an alternative using a cunning plan and tight organization.

I think what is happening here in the general election is that (a) Obama is not challenging old rules just like he did in the primaries, and he’s out to get every single possible electoral vote he can, and (b) Obama is thinking beyond election day through a process of changing traditional assumptions about red versus blue and the electoral map that will be drawn four, eight, and twelve years from now.

Obama has a commanding lead with black voters, Latino voters, young voters and woman voters. Registered voters by 18% prefer the Democrats, see link elow. Does anyone see a trend here? I am yet to see anywhere where McCain is doing well, apart from the Fundies.

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr080805-2topline.pdf&id=4032

David, great to see you heading up a thread. Your contribution is most welcome. But people like your good self et moi were always destined to box on. What’s that….. a ding?

At first glance your supposition seems eminently reasonable. The Kid’s a dreamer, flinging dollar bills about like a confetti-ist on speed. An avalanche of greenbacks in Colorado, ticker tapes of the stuff in any State that even whiffs of battleground, and lots more in places deemed by “experts” to be unwinnable.
But let’s examine this situation more closely, after all, David, we are professionals:)

DG:

“A fifty-state strategy might be a nice little dream, but that is all it ever was. A five-state strategy is what is needed to win this thing.”

Politics is all about perceptions as well as practicalities.
If voters believe that Obama has a chance in States deemed by experts to be unwinnable, voters will be far more likely to perceive him as a presidential candidate with broad national appeal. If he plays a “short game”, puts all his eggs in just a few baskets, so to speak, then he risks being judged by voters less favourably. Nobody wants to be tagged a Small Picture guy these days, that’s why Lloyd Fullerton has been so successful.

By challenging in States that The Imbecile won in 2004 by 5-10%, The Kid also gets to mess with Johnny Bomb-Bomb’s mind, or what’s left of it. Keep Senator McCain’s “brains trust” constantly second guessing where they should be spending scarce campaign funds and deploying their grunts. Remember how shell-shocked El Rodente, not a young man himself at the time, looked while defending Bennelong AND the nation last October-November? That’s how I reckon the 50 State strategy will play for Obi.

Also there are 14 ECVs in NM and CO which BHO is a better than even chace according to electoral-vote cf. side bar.

As you say, David, “Time to get back to political reality.”

When I said that Starbucks is the canary in the coffee mug, how little did I realise that my flippant remark was presaging this:

http://business.smh.com.au/business/food-first-to-take-a-hit-as-discretionary-dollar-dwindles-20080802-3oyi.html

…and so folks, get ready to see those barista doing the Pied Piper routine down the boulevards of fast food in a town near you.

Which is where a lot of Australia’s yoof hang out on minimum wages and off the unemployment data.

Expect a rather sharp upturn in their numbers and therefore the touted drop in rates from the RBA will arrive on cue, unless inflation numbers go ballistic, which seems unlikely.

OK Mr Kirribilli-
I don’t think the J’sWI is getting enough credit here… you know, Starbuck’s being the canary thing. Next Macca’s. Who needs psephology when you have a good bladder? 😈

David Gould – it’s good to see another take on the race here – we’re a bit biased it’s true.
However, i can’t really get a hold on the veracity of the polls until the Campaign Proper begins. And I really can’t get pst the hunch that the MSM has a lot invested in maintaining that this race is close, when qualitatively it clearly isn’t.

Paris Hilton can bring McCain down in 2 minutes, FFS!!

Running a 50 state strategy not only bleeds McCain dry, it also feeds into win expectations because people do not expect the Dems to spend big money and effort in states they didn’t think they had a strong chance of getting.

By the way David, your article is a good one, it’s just that you need to give a little more wriggle room for what might shape up to be a non-traditional campaign from Obama, just as he conducted in the primaries.

16 Noocat

Yeah, Obama beat Hillary at this stuff, so hey, give him some credit (and his team), for actually being able to think outside the box and then execute their plans almost flawlessly.

Why Obama ‘should’ play the game that McCain would clearly prefer ( and that thinking Republicans wanted to have with Clinton) is almost exactly why it’s a good strategy. Like you said, it messes with Macca’s mind, and seems to be doing quite well on that front from where I sit.

Kirri- just about wetting myself LOL! 😈

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57287

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57285

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57292

Commie Californian Sea Life:
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57298

He’ll need more than Viagra to keep up his election! LOL

BTW-
I’d bet on under 2 seconds – or not at all.

well Kirri – they did get his driver so we can relax now.
But what about his barber??? – he’s clearly in the top 10 .oh, and then there was that Bin Laden guy, but apparently he’s not nearly as important.
Wankers.

Some heavy reading on polling stuff (technical term).

Polling: A Greater Margin for Error.

To avid followers of election year metrics, a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of 519 residents last month could be seen as a sign that the stubbornly independent “Live Free or Die” state, scene of John McCain ’s greatest primary triumphs both in 2000 and this year, was getting swept up in Obamamania. It showed Barack Obama narrowly ahead, 46 percent to 43 percent, with 3 percent supporting other candidates and 8 percent undecided.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000002933553&cpage=1

“It’s truly the meaning of Numbing Down America, eh?”

Yeah, Kirri, it’s the slime oozing out of their TV sets wot dunnit mostly. The rot set in during the Fifties. No TV set=social leper. The math of demography is always brutal.
Without cartoons and Annette Funicello, an inordinately attractive Mouseketeer, many young Americans of that time would have necked themselves en masse in public dunnies from Frisco to Chesapeake Bay, driven insane by the torpor induced by feral commercialism and the politics of hate and fear. As seen on TV. Now there’s more of them and very little has changed.

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/71/039_63371~Annette-Funicello-Posters.jpg

“Since the reading skills of the American people are the lowest in the First World, the general public is always prey to manipulation by television. This means if you want to demonize drugs or the Arabs or the Japanese, you do so openly in the media…The oligarchy does not care whether the citizens make themselves sick with drugs or not. What government wants is simple: total control. If this can be got by dispensing with the Bill of Rights, then that’s a small price to pay.”

Gore Vidal

And BTW

the change movement isn’t so much a kumbayah thing with the great Messiah Obama.

it is just a movement away from the disaster of G.W. Bush and the disgraced Republican Party.

Kirribilli Déménagements at 27

What a farcical result: they convict his driver. Of what exactly?

An interview between Kieth Olbermann and the drivers legal rep gives us all of the details. Apparently the guy has been convicted of giving aide to a terrorist organization. What sort of aide I hear you ask! Personnel, specifically – himself. What is more interesting is all of the things that he has not been charged with (terrorism being a notable example).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26062426#26062426

CBS Lectures McCain for Lowering Tone, Agrees His Hilton Ad ‘Stupid’

The CBS Evening News on Wednesday night delivered a campaign story that was little more than a recitation of John McCain’s supposed misdeeds in lowering the tone of the campaign as reporter Dean Reynolds criticized McCain for spending “three times as long chatting” with a college football team “as he did talking issues to workers at a cabinet-making company,” took at shot at his access to journalists — “the man who rides the Straight Talk Express took no questions from reporters” (as if Barack Obama takes questions every day) — before highlighting how “McCain’s own mother” said using Paris Hilton to insult Obama in an ad “was, quote, ‘kind of stupid.” Running a clip from Paris Hilton’s mock ad in which she describes McCain as “that wrinkly white-haired guy,” Reynolds decided: “And now it appears mother knows best.”

36 Catrina

Good clip Catrina, thanks.

So, what’s his ‘crime’…he’s a bad driver? Who gave evidence? What was it? Was it ‘coerced’ testimony?

You see, we’ll never know the details, just that this guy is guilty of driving around bin Laden. No details, just a conviction and now he could spend the rest of his days behind bars because he was a driver?

I hope the Bush/Cheney chauffeurs are watching this stuff VERY carefully! LOL

But as you say, what he was NOT convicted of are the crimes (as we all accept them to be) of al Qaeda.

He was not involved in them, just driving the boss. So OK, bang him up for 7 years without trial, under god only knows what conditions, then stick him in a legal black hole, and convict him of being a driver?

It’s too surreal for words.

KR at 40-41

I know – there is a blind ridiculousness about all of this. I know we have this problem of a war against a non-nation entity and as such none of those standing conventions come into play – but the reality is that this is not new stuff. Irrespective of ones opinion about Al Qaeda the overriding premise must be the rule of law – but all of that gets thrown out the window along with Lady Justice, and any sense of moral center or a soul to speak of evaporates. I guess this is another one of those grounding moments when we get another glimpse of the mammoth changes the Kid will have to deal with.

Bush-lies and the art of war-making…..

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/06/10836/

Published on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 by The Huffington Post
The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?
by Ron Suskind
What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way:

The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush — a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush’s famous deck of wanted men — has been America’s secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger. The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, “resettled” Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money.

In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD — as Habbush had foretold — the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a “small team from the al Qaeda organization.”

The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conduction disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil.

So, here we go again: the administration full attack mode, calling me names, George Tenet is claiming he doesn’t remember any such thing — just like he couldn’t remember “slam dunk” — and reporters are scratching their heads. Everything in the book is on the record. Many sources. And so, we watch and wait….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tifmqKz34V4&feature=related

In any party or political movement, there’s bound to be a mainstream and a fringe. As a rule, the fringe looks to the mainstream for validation, and the mainstream looks at the fringe as kind of icky.

Things get interesting, of course, when the line between the mainstream and the fringe blurs. Take the Republican National Committee, for example.

The RNC is a fairly predictable, far-right animal. It’s run by lobbyists and business interests who divide their time between raising money and lying about Democrats. The RNC likes to exploit the ignorance of its base, and stoke the culture-war fires from time to time, but generally steer clear of the kind of insanity one might find in, say, a thread at the Free Republic. It’s the whole mainstream/fringe dynamic in practice.

At least, that’s usually the case. Yesterday morning, RNC Chairman Mike Duncan sent out this email to Republican donors.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/07/the-lunatics-are-running-the-rncs-asylum/#more-31644
—————————-
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57299

The China Syndrome
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57294

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57288

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57302

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/57304

Bo-Bo, the house of mirrors is stating to krinkle.

Merci Bo-Bo,

“The Bush White House – a house of mirrors or chamber of horrors?”

Both and more. In the Obama W.H. there’ll be some changes made, bet yer blue booties on it! Night.

Morning all. To back up my assertion I made some time ago on a previous blog, about the Confederates (and the KKK) finally loosing the war at this election. Here is a couple of articles connected with just that.

Tenn. Democrat faces lawyer who linked him to KKK.

After a racially charged Democratic primary campaign that turned particularly ugly in its final days, voters will decide Thursday between a Jewish incumbent congressman and a black opponent who ran a television ad juxtaposing photos of him and a hooded Ku Klux Klan member.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j_21CQEmVXaRLlqpw6n7eqnKIyNwD92DMEV81

‘Freedom’ means giant Confederate flag can fly.

For the greater good, sometimes you have to put up with something that makes you wince.

With the United States being founded on the principals of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, we sometimes find ourselves defending a person’s right to do something or say something in order to protect the rights of others.

A great example of this can be found in Tampa, where the Sons of Confederate Veterans want to erect a gigantic, 30-by-50-foot Confederate Rebel flag at a major intersection near Interstate 4.

For many of us, the Rebel flag has come to symbolize slavery and even the KKK. In fact, when the idea of the giant flag was brought up at a Hillsborough County Commission meeting, a woman held up a noose to make her point.

http://www.highspringsherald.com/articles/2008/08/05/editorial/editorial01.txt

The poll picture of the Barack Obama/John McCain race? Static.

A spate of new national polls in recent days add up to one bottom line: For all the travel miles racked up by both presidential campaigns, for all the shifting of positions by the candidates and the sound and fury emanating from each camp, the race has remained essentially static over the summer.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/the-poll-pictur.html

That’s now four polls. Tow how Obama ahead by 5% and two show Obama ahead by 6%.

Alls quiet on the Olympic front.

It’s the stupid economy stupid.

Senator Barack Obama holds a 44% to 38% lead in Wisconsin over Senator John McCain in the presidential race. Senator Obama leads the race primarily because of a combination of the most important issues on the minds of voters and the impact of President Bush and the voter’s view about the direction of the country. The two issues that voters felt personally were most important to them were the economy and creating jobs (24%), and dealing with the war in Iraq (12%). On these issues Senator Obama had large leads. On the economy, Obama led Senator McCain by a 62% to 20% margin. On dealing with the war in Iraq his lead was 66% to 22%. Another issue that was frequently mentioned was improving education, where Senator Obama’s lead was 73% to 10%.

http://www.wpri.org/Commentary/2008/8.08/Poll8.7.08/Poll8.7.08.html

Very worrying.

Man held in Fla. on charge of threatening Obama.

A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami’s downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

Washington Post needs registration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080702131.html

Tit for tat ads or anything you can do we can do better.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/mccain_touts_de.html

It’s the stupid economy stupid.

Democrats are frustrated and Republicans are amazed: Barack Obama is not running away with the presidential race.

This is the presidential election, we have been told, that a Democrat can’t lose. The economy is in decline, with unemployment on the rise, President Bush’s approval ratings in the basement and virtually everyone convinced that America is “on the wrong track.” But the race remains tight, at least according to the polls.

http://www.observer.com/2008/politics/does-mccain-have-chance-election-about-economy

The article in #61 also touches on the issues of the “Confederates (and the KKK) finally loosing the war at this election.”

45 blindoptimist

You get the feeling the tide has only just started to run out, but it’s definitely running out! All the service industries, the household related, any discretionary spending…all tightening up the labour force. Not to mention the financial market contraction…lay-offs down Wall Street are gathering into a right little tornado.

It’s got a way to run out too.

$3 trillion, now there’s a good hip pocket nerve issue that people can be reminded about. Wasting 3 trillion on an unnecessary war, that could have stayed in the USA.

66 Chris B

It puts things in perspective when you realise that it’s nearly 20% of GDP!

The waste and financial they’ve dumped on them, you’d expect the Republicans to tarred and feathered if the electorate had had half a brain…and alas, they unfortunately do, since half are convinced that they’d be damned if ‘tax and spend liberals’ took over! LOL

They gonna need a dose of ‘tax and spend’ because they just cannot keep borrowing from overseas, and that message is getting louder and louder.

Time for a radical change: save, or pay in taxes, what you spend! Now there’s a concept they haven’t been familiar with in about a generation and a half!

It started sooner than I expected.

The political hunting season for presidential candidates has arrived early, and already it features a new level of mudslinging and cage-match attacks.

A new GOP Web site, meetbarackobama.com, has a daily “Audacity Watch” on Democratic candidate Barack Obama – including a takeoff on a Facebook page (www.barackbook.com) that features Obama “friends” like Tony Rezko, the Chicago fundraiser who was convicted of fraud, and William Ayres, a founder of the 1960s violent radical group the Weathermen.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/07/MN251268V8.DTL&tsp=1

KR at 2,

If you look at the RCP average, it is clear that the recent trend has been dramatically in McCain’s favour.

On 28 June, Obama was 6.5 per cent ahead.

On 7 August, Obama was 3.6 per cent ahead.

That is a 3 per cent tightening in five weeks – a clear advantage to McCain.

Now, obviously I would much rather be in Obama’s current position than McCain’s – being 3.6 per cent ahead is way better than being 3.6 behind!

But the recent trend – and I would call 3 per cent in five weeks ‘momentum’, but I guess that is a question of definitions – is to McCain.

For those arguing that the 50-state strategy is all about the future for the Democrats, I would point out that this particularly election has unique factors, the most remarkable of course being Obama himself. If – if – Obama produces swings towards him in red states, then much of that will be because of Obama alone, combined with the unpopularity of Bush and the state of the economy. It will not assist the Democratic Party at future elections.

Reagan, for example, won in a massive landslide. A few elections later, Clinton was in power. There was no long-term change or trend in demographics or voting intentions. The same can be said of the Republican congressional victories in the 1990s. All those have been swept away in the course of around a decade.

Further, arguing that this strategy ‘forces’ McCain to spend across the map on a much tighter budget ignores the reality. McCain is not bothering to spend money in states that he knows that he will win, while Obama is spending money in states that he knows he is going to lose. This is a huge mistake on Obama’s part, as it assists McCain in his efforts to match Obama’s spending in the states that do matter.

74 David Gould It certainly will help the Democrats after the 2010 election. The Democrats will have an unbeatable majority in the senate. Even if they don’t win a filibuster proof senate in 2008, they will it in 2010. Unless they stuff it badly. Which is always possible. After 2010 redistricting occurs. Which will favour the Democrats. One vote one value will be introduced. Which will help the Democrats maintain control. Proportional voting, instead of winner takes all, will be introduced. So in the interests of a far more democratic USA. The Democrats will be around for a long time. Again unless they stuff it.

David. I have sent a drovers dog to the USA to help out.

Enemy Combatant at 8,

How’s it going? 🙂

Obama will win New Mexico and Colorado. I have no problems with him competing there. However, those two states are not the keys to this election. Obama can win them by 30 points and McCain can still win this thing if he holds Indiana and wins Ohio, Virginia and Michigan (or Pennsylvania instead of one of those four.)

That is the issue that I am concerned about here.

As to looking like a big picture guy, there are problems there, too. If he spends big in, say, North Carolina and doesn’t move the polls, then he looks like a chump, not a leader. And that look can flow over into other states.

Outspend McCain on national ads by two to one and hit the key five states.

As to Bennelong, there is no real analogue in the US. Which state, for example, would you see as Bennelong? On current polling, maybe North Carolina would fit the bill. But I am very sceptical that Obama can make any inroads there.

Most importantly this one.

Democrats Way Ahead on Generic Congressional Ballot
The latest AP-Ipsos poll gives Democrats an 18 point lead in the generic ballot test for control of Congress. When asked who they would prefer to see win control of Congress, registered voters preferred Democrats by a whopping 53% to 35% margin.

August 6, 2008

David Gould at 73

As I keep saying, the polls are the only data that we have to go on. If we assume they are wrong, we may as well assume that McCain is going to win 538 electoral votes – after all, the polls are wrong, aren’t they?

I agree with you – polls coming out now are giving us information about the state of things on the ground. But – every talking head with a pinch of electoral experience is telling us these polls are akin to long range radar in that they are suggestive, not authoritative. Based on that premise, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina are all potentially in play (and they are all states that have been red for 20 years or more).

Anyway – I figure the next reference point will be polls after the conventions, and thats only a few weeks away. At that point the countdown to election day will be on in earnest.

Democrats being way ahead on congressional ballots has nothing to do with the presidential election. They are two different elections, Chris. And that is why the polling for the congressional elections is showing different things to the polling for the presidency.

KR at 83,

As I pointed out previously, this long-term idea does not play. People do not get moved long-term. See my comments on Reagan and the Republican congressional victories in the 1990s. They changed the map – very, very briefly.

The Obama campaign may be careful with money. That does not mean that they will not make mistakes. And I think that spending money in states they know that they cannot win or they know will not make a difference to the final result if they do win them is a mistake. They obviously think differently.

ChrisB,

I am assuming that the polls you are talking about are the ones mentioned on RCP. As such, they are factored into McCain closing the gap by three points. I used the RCP averages. You will notice that the tracking polls with large samples have McCain a lot closer than the other polls. However, RCP weights them all equally, and that is how we get the current average of a 3.6 lead for Obama.

Oh, and Clinton for VP. 😉

94 David Gould Yes! 🙂

Chris B,

I agree that Obama will win. However, it will not be a landslide and it will not ‘change the electoral map’ in any meaningful way. Sure, he will pick up some red states. But guess what? He needs to do that to become president because the Republicans won the majority of EVs last time. This election is going to be close.

If the Democrats cannot win in a landslide they do not deserve to be in.