Trevor Cook on public relations, social media and politics

McCain needs historic turnaround to win from here

There’s just 22 days to go and Obama has a lead of 7.4 points according to the Realclearpolitics average of national polls, The Pollster.com average is 8 points and the trend is well-established and showing little sign of changing in McCain’s favour. Both websites have Obama way ahead in the electoral college votes and in the so-called battleground states.

A McCain victory would be truly remarkable:

ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos reports: The presidential election is now just 22 days away, and Barack Obama is leading John McCain by a whopping 53 percent to 43 percent according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

No candidate has ever lost with a lead like this since modern polling began in 1936.

Americans are in a very angry mood right now and that is helping Obama.

A record high of 90 percent of the country believes we’re going in the wrong direction right now.

A vast majority of the nation, 73 percent of the country, disapproves of the job President George W. Bush is doing. No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating, not even President Richard Nixon at the height of Watergate.

The NYT is also asking if McCain can come back{

No one, including Mr. Obama’s advisers, says such a turnaround in Mr. McCain’s favor is impossible. But the magnitude of Mr. McCain’s task may leave him depending on a misstep by Mr. Obama or a national security crisis rather than on what he can achieve through speeches, advertising or a winning performance in the final debate on Wednesday.

“At this point,” said Matthew Dowd, a strategist for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, “the campaign is totally out of John McCain’s hands.”

It also points out the historically difficult task of such a comeback:

Since Gallup began presidential polling in 1936, only one candidate has overcome a deficit that large, and this late, to win the White House: Ronald Reagan, who trailed President Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct. 26, 1980.

McCain says he’s not giving up:

“The national media has written us off. Sen. Obama is measuring the drapes,” he said to a cheering throng. He added, ” My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”

But time is running out.

Meanwhile, many Democrats are hoping Obama can press the advantage and claim an epoch changing victory.

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