Either due to the market meltdown, the debate or both, much has changed in Gallup tracking poll land since our last thrilling instalment.
We also have this entertaining survey on Australian attitudes to the presidential race from UMR Research, showing 66 per cent of respondents preferring Barack Obama against 13 per cent for John McCain. Sarah Palin and (especially) George W. Bush also appear to be none too popular in our part of the world.
1,274 Comments
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juliem
1. Obama
2. 310
3. Florida
4. Yes
Thanks Gary
……
So far our votes (10) are all for Obama and range from EV of 286 through 364 …….. No one has duplicated a guess yet on EV’s ……
3) Colorado
4) No.
1. Obama
2. 293
3. Minnesota
4. No
Got it all guys, thanks
;…. we don’t have a single McCain backer on board 
… guess that is why his Intratrade value is so low, no buyers at any price 
juliem,
The early crow I see.
The reality is that atm Obama is probably in front. However, things can change quickly and with five weeks to go anything can happen.
The Obama team getting in the gutter over McCain’s war service is as low as you can get. Probably to be trumped by this spurious connection to the S & L disaster. Those who throw mud usually end up covered themselves.
The Obama team must be really worried if this is all they can offer the American public.
That’s actually a Rolling Stone article, rather than the Obama camp. That said, it should be condemned for being as pathetic as the “Swift Boats Veterans for Truth” campaign against Kerry (another Vietnam war vet) in 2004.
That’s definitely coming from the Obama camp. I’m not sure how well it will play given it’s 20 years old, but the current state of financial turmoil may present a unique opportunity. However, I’d still prefer if the Obama camp didn’t resort to these “gutter” negative stories (but I’m idealistic about these things…)
Also applies to the GOP, who have been doing this sort of stuff for years.
Considering McCain is going 100% negative atm, I think that McCain would be considered to be the more worried. In addition, there are the current state of the polls…
GG,
The article I posted earlier was from The Rolling Stones magazine. It wasn’t Obama’s campaign material. Has he said something else in the last day that I am not aware of?
swinglowe,
If you think the Rolling Stone article just appeared of its own volition at this convenient time, well, you’ll believe that Obama is change you can believe in.
Notice you haven’t addressed the disgraceful smear tactics of the Obama camp. Outrage is a relative concept for the Obamaphiles.
yes but Obama having to go negative and on the attack destroys his image….
GG,
Nice try, hope SL doesn’t get suckered in. So far, we’ve been pretty adult about this today
…. McCain’s camp quite clearly said that he was moving negative because he was lower in the polls. Never mind the fact that negative campaigning will only gain him a drop in the bucket if it gets him anything at all. It simply won’t work for the volume of votes that he needs. And it also ignores the other problems he has with his campaign, like Palin for example. Negative campaigning won’t yield the results in the amounts he’s looking for. His campaign is burnt toast ……
JulieM,
Again you ignore the disgraceful tactics of your favourite one. There is a difference between negative tactics and smear.
Obama should answer re his connections to Ayers, Rezko and his preferred pastor sauce Jeremiah. Because, each of those issues go to his credibility as a candidate.
This war record stuff on McCain is nothing but personal smear.
I hope your’e proud of your boy!
GG,
I won’t bite either ……
JulieM,
“She who sneers and runs away, lives to fight another day”.
Can’t defend your position when the acid is applied. Typical of the Obama crew.
GG
Why are McCain’s connections to Keating et al, being a “POW Songbird” beyond the limits of good taste but Obama’s to Ayer’s, Rezko and Wright fair game?
Personally, I don’t give a stuff about any of these matters and I doubt most Americans do. All this ancient history is irrelevant. McCains got desperate and Obama knows that “tit-for-tat” is the best strategy in that game. Look how badly Kerry did by staying positive.
Notice how it was Palin who made this character attack? Obviously it is partly to try and keep McCain’s hands clean, but the other reason is that McCain is back in Arizona practicing for the next debate. (It’s on Midday EDST, Wednesday our time)
He didn’t campaign last weekend either!
Greeny – the Democrats have remembered something from the Clinton years (and forgotten in the 8 years since). When the Republican mud machine starts in the campaigns, taking the moral high ground only loses you elections.
The Dems have ditched their delusions of “the nicest guy wins” that prevailed under Gore and Kerry.
And it looks a lot like the old Democrat strategists have come out of the closet. Those old guys knew the Democrats couldn’t throw mud first – it damages the brand, but they could throw it second and let the Republicans take the flak for going negative. They demolished Dole with killer attacks on his age after the Republicans started going negative.
It looks like the Dems are doing the same thing again – they waited for McCain to throw mud, now they’re going to take his legs out from under him. McCain’s history with the S&L fiasco is a good one since he was slapped over the knuckles by the Senate ethics committee over his actions, and that tawdry financial spectacle wasn’t too dissimilar to the current fiasco.
Which one do you think will resonate more in the States that matter – Obama’s tenuous links to Ayers, a man who committed terrorist acts when Obama was eight years old, or McCain pushing an economic platform that has now failed twice and taken two lots of peoples livelihoods down the shit shute?
It wont matter if both or neither are correct – it’s the way US politics is necessarily played when one side goes negative and the other side is serious about winning.
He’s already explain this over and over and over. The idea that he has more left to explain is just an attempt by McCain and Palin to create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
They’ve tried everything else, no one believed they would actually implement a positive agenda, so now they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
SL @ 1058,
You might enjoy this, came into my email inbox as I’m on the mailing list. I get everything ….
What is McCain’s debate strategy going to be? I see a problem that the debates will dominate the media cycle when McCain would rather set hares running for the media to respond to
Sorry to demonstrate my ignorance folks. Can someone please give me a brief rundown on what the S&L fiasco was?
Geoff Robinson
McCain is going to use the phrase “high taxing”, “big spending” and “liberal” as often as Palin said “maverick”, “hockey mum” and “Joe Six-Pack”. It’ll be riveting.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha PROBABLY in front hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Darn @ 1072,
S&L fiasco – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%26L_Crisis
Diogenes,
I beleive there is a quantum difference between the behaviours of both candidates. McCain was tortured and may or may not have offerred up information in a life threatening situation.
Obama chose to associate with Ayers, Rezko and Rev. Jeremiah. These associations are open to legitimate question seeing as they go the the questions of credibility and judgement.
McCain did not choose to associate with the Viet Cong.
Possum,
You may well be right. However, what I find most offensive is the moral relativism of the Obama campaign and supporters who squeel across the blogotopia about any questioning of their champion, yet are more than delighted to stick the boots in to their opponent in a far more vicious and vituperative smear campaign.
The New Yorker endorses Obama
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/10/13/081013taco_talk_editors
McCain also chose to associate with G Gordon Liddy…
Dario,
There you go again.
Liddy’s claim to fame was re Watergate. A full ten years or more before McCain went to the Senate. Are you desperate or what. I bet his grandfather bombed the Germans so there is a family connection with Hitler and the Nazis!
Pathetic.
1075
Wow, that’s dynamite in the present climate Juliem. The Republicans could well rue their descent into the gutter when this little time bomb comes hurtling back at them.
Greeny, I cant disagree with you that there’s a lot of selective purity in the Obamasphere!
I’ve never bought the line that Obama is anything but a cluey politician myself.
You simply don’t rise to the top of Chicago politics, create a groundbreaking grass roots political funding apparatus the likes of which the world has never seen AND beat the most powerful family in the Democrats to win the party nomination for President (in a year when the Dems have their best chance of winning for 40 years) if you were some kind of liberal elitist, Age of Aquarias egg head.
Nope – he’s a smart cookie.
And there you go. Obama was 8 when Ayers was a ‘terrorist’.
GG
I have no problem with anything McCain did in Vietnam. I think he was probably quite heroic. McCain did associate with Keating as a legislator and it showed, at best, poor judgement and probably a lot worse. But he picked himself up and has moved on, and even turned a negative into improving himself.
Ayers was bombing when Obama was eight. Their joint project was pretty harmless and was actually a good thing. Rezko is the kind of creepy guy all these politicians get entangled with. There wasn’t any poor behaviour by Obama. Wright worried me the most of the three not because I think Obama shares Wright’s views but because it shows a lack of convictions by Obama in sticking around a nutty minister.
Dario,
But he wasn’t 8 when he associated with him later. As far as I know, Ayers has never repudiated his terrorist activities.
1076
{Obama chose to associate with Ayers, Rezko and Rev. Jeremiah. These associations are open to legitimate question seeing as they go the the questions of credibility and judgement}.
Sounds like the Brian Bourke nonsense all over again. It didn’t work here and hopefully it won’t work over there either.
What a load of utter twaddle. Liddy has donated regularly to McCain’s campaigns since 1988. How is it any different to what McCain has done? My goodness some people have the most incredible double standards.
GG
I don’t think Nelson Mandela has either. I should add that Mandela only ever used “sabotage” and never targeted humans.
Correction: 1998
I think McCain’s involvement in the S&L disaster is relevant. If the Republicans are digging up some ancient tenuous associations Obama has had in his career they can hardly complain about them retaliating with something that nearly destroyed McCain’s career.
P. J O’Rourke (hardly a Democrat stooge) wrote an excellent description back in 1990. (”Setting the Chickens to Watch the Henhouse”, in “Parliament of Whores”). Here he is describing the Keating 5 (McCain and four others). “…in return for campaign donations (the Keating 5) came to the aid of Charles H. Keating, one of the worst egg suckers in the S&L business… The senators should be ashamed to even know, let alone take from the likes of Charles Keating…all the Keating five did was get together and tell (the head of the Federal Loan Bank Board) to lay off their pal.”
It makes great reading and is particularly interesting given the current financial crisis. It’s obvious that McCain is very vulnerable to a dirt campaign. I don’t know enough about Obama to compare his vulnerability, but if all the Republicans have is that he knew a few dodgy characters a few decades ago, then going negative is a very dangerous move by McCain, with a strong chance of backfiring.
My guess is he will come out swinging, he has to, he is behind with time running out.
I don’t think anyone in the Obama campaign has ever attacked McCain’s military record. Obama went out of his way during his acceptance speech to praise McCain’s commitment to his country during the Vietnam war.
What about McCain’s association last year with Jerry Fallwell after previously saying that Fallwell was an “agent of intolerance”? Was he wrong then, or is he wrong now?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2000/02/29/bush.2.t_9.php
Same here. But we have to put up with people saying we think Obama is a messiah anyway.
Exactly, but we have to put up with people saying Obama is this years Michael Dukakis / John Kerry anyway.
Everybody, drop whatever you’re doing and buy the P.J. O’Rourke book to which Amused refers at #1089. It’s the funniest book I’ve ever read, and the section on the S&L crisis is the second best part (the first being the chapter on agriculture subsidies).
Agreed and seconded William
GG
“But he wasn’t 8 when he associated with him later. As far as I know, Ayers has never repudiated his terrorist activities.”
Possum , Diogenes & others here ar deceptively claiming or being silent partners in th pretence of Obama was only 8 when William Ayres was a terrorist …AS IF there was no further association between th 2 !!!
They know of th later close associationS of th terorist William Ayres (listed on th FBI’s top most wanted for over 10 years) AND Obama or ar lazy in not doing research , or both They also know he has not repudiated his terorist activities
Possum double standards claims “he follows th data where it leads”….except when its adverse to Obama , then he selectively ignores it So do other Obamabots
Obama’s negligent lack of judgement & willingness to climb politcal ladder with th help of th sickest of dangerous US terrorists Charles Keating by comparison is a saint
What about McCain’s association with Jerry Falwell, someone who McCain previously called “an agent of intolerance”? In 2000 McCain said this:
This is the same Jerry Falwell who said this about the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks:
Yes that’s right, Falwell blamed September 11th on AMERICANS. When Michael Moore did that he RIGHTLY was criticised, but why did McCain associate himself with a guy who did the same thing?
McCain was right to criticise this guy long before those remarks. But when McCain knew he had to suck up to those types to get the Republican nomination, so he set his principles to one side and did it.
Ronster
Your comments would carry more weight if you didn’t sensationalise your arguments. It seems to be used to disguise a lack of substance.
The Unabomber, Tim McVeigh, Terry Nichols and George Metesky would take great exception at placing a Professor who never killed anyone ahead of them.
I wonder how McCain is going to explain being a board member of the United States Council for World Freedom?
What help? A $200 donation?
Please. Next you’ll be telling me Ayers wears a panama hat.
More likely he’ll start writing about Obama’s middle name. That seems to be the illogical end to all Obama related conspiracy theories.
Yep Shows On. They got nothin, They know it, they know we know it, and they know we know that.. well you get the idea.
1/ Grog , yes I’ve got info of Obama & th terorist William Ayres but th Obamabots Possum Diogenes etc also know about it too & ar playing kids games on keyboards in denial or ar lazy Its all on US public FBI records , so your sarcasm is unwarranted
2/ Diogenes , Possum & others here ar quite aware of William Ayres chilling terorist history over 6 or so years terrorising US civilians & Government buildings
So reely yous Obamabots ar indulging in lack of intelectual truth in pretending otherwise , just hitting keyboard keys…ar yous trying to fool who with such denials
3/ Diogenes , Possum & others here ar quite aware of Obama sat for 20 years in whaco Pastor Wrights church claims US Govt introduced aids ., 9/11 US brought on etc
Obama’ excuse ? he PRIVATELY disagreed wih th Pastor but kept turning up …to help his politcal career
4/ So Faldwell connection/association to McCain is reely lame in comparison , but keep hiting keystrokes to convince yourselves otherwise
(I’ve previously condemned McCain’s asociation with Faldwell anyway , Faldwell was another whaco in my opinion…so MCcain’s judgement was definitively poor I’m said , but Obama had 20 years with his whaco makes his poor judgement th worst
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