but I think Mccain did cave in to religious right in choosing Palin over romney or others.. Mccain the panderer!!!

This is the problem with really intellectual candidates - they assume everyone is as smart and rational as they are and that they vote that way too.  Any marketing and merchandising person can tell you that buying decisions are emotional, and voting is a buying decision.  You can't run this like a latter-day Children's Crusade or let the idealists run things, or this is what you get.

I guess we could take the 10% to the oh no the sky is falling bank or we could say McCain got his convention bounce and the likely voter model in use here is questionable at best.  

As noted here..

So I'll go through the process for this poll like I did for the last poll:

Total registered voters in this poll numbered 1,022, and the result was McCain 50%, Obama 46%

McCain received between 50.4% and 49.5% of registered voters - or between 506 and 515 people.

Obama received between 46.4% and 45.5% of registered voters - or between 465 and 474 people.

Now, the total likely voters in this poll numbered 959, and the result was McCain 54%, Obama 44%.

McCain received between 54.4% an and 53.5% of likely voters - or between 513 and 522 people.

Obama received between 44.4% and 43.5% of likely voters - or between 417 and 426.

So what does this tell us?  We know that McCain's registered voter percent can't me less than 50.2%, and his likely voter percentage can't be better than 53.7% given his absolute minimum number of voters is 513 and the absolute maximum is 515.

In short, at maximum John McCain loses 2 people to the likely vote filter.  There is a very good chance that every single McCain registered voter was counted as a likely voter.

What about Obama?  At best, he dropped 39 people from the registered voter model to the likely voter model, assuming he had the lowest registered voter percent possible and the highest likely voter percent possible.  It's likely the number is closer to 50.

In any case, at the absolute minimum, Obama registered voters were 19.5 times as likely to be dropped from the likely voter model than McCain voters were.

People can check my math, but I'm pretty sure this is correct.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/8/7 418/00673/119/590760

The choice is yours :)

From just one poll? From that you, in effect indict Obama's entire campaign! Wow. It seems you are really fixed on proving yourself RIGHT at every turn.

up until a week and a half ago Obama was steadily gaining and pulling ahead of McCain -- most of us were downright ecstatic after the convention for how it looked for the fall.  McCain through a major unanticipated game-changer in there.  OF COURSE it's going to seriously shake-up the polls.

the Evangelicals once considering Obama don't need to "get to know" Sarah Palin.  she's been on their watchlist for two years with her creationist horsecrap and hardliner tack on abortion.  They've loved this woman long and hard so there's nothing there for them to consider.

Give EVERYONE ELSE time to get to know the woman.  Abortion may be a non-starter until you start talking about no in cases of rape and incest and birth control as "abortion".  No one is even talking about her environmental positions which would give even normal mainstream hunters pause.  And no one has seen here tackle a tough question yet and the longer they shield her from that the fishier it's going to seem.

McCain's getting an unprecedented bounce because of her and some serious POW guilt out there.  That and Obama has been nearly invisible for a week and a half.  

Give them some time to re-adjust to this major game changer.  

I saw Biden's tortured defense of his position, as a Catholic, on abortion on Meet the Press and it made me wince.  It was the same trap Kerry got caught up in.  Whenever the Democrats are caught defending this position, they lose. Clinton's response is STILL the best "Abortion needs to be legal, safe, and rare."  

The position of the Democrats on abortion is supported by an almost 2-1 margin (http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?Rele aseID=1194) and yet they still get caught up in these "gotcha" questions from journalists and wind up losing on an issue they should be winning on.  

Second, if SCOTUS reversed the opinion, the amendment route would be taken, and won.

Let me get this straight - you're saying women won't care about Roe v. Wade being overruled because it is so obvious an amendment to overrule the decision would make it out of Congress and be ratified by 38 states?  

I'm sorry, you lost any credibility with that argument.  

Abortion and the Court have and will become a much more important issue in this election.  And you can understand that by the fact that Palin and McCain DID NOT mention it once during their speeches.  Because by putting Palin on the ticket, people will start waking up to the fact that McCain is not pro-choice and that he is more than willing to cave into the Christian right with his choice of Palin.  McCain and Palin did not want to bring light to that fact to the independent and moderate voters.  

I simply can't take this crap anymore day to day.   I could never understand why McCain is not behind by 10 points after pushing for months now that McCain is the same as Bush ... it simply ain't working.

Elections have consequences.   American's deserve the leaders they elect.  

I don't want to come off as an elite who believes he knows more than the average American, but for 20+ years now living in the south I have seen people vote against their own pocketbook year after year all because of race and the church.   I am assuming those living in the farm states believe the same.

I doubted since day 1 that America was ready to vote for a black man, each and every day I believe it even more.   I sincerely believe that Obama will lose every state that he does NOT have at least a 4 point lead in.

Was on MSNBC and said the gallup poll is great at measuring the enthusiasm of the party base after a convention, but is not the most reliable or stable poll to really gauge where the race is.  

He says wait until the NBC/WSJ poll that comes out on Wednesday, and that should give a better picture of the state of the race.  

Obama better effin win, or I swear to gawd, I will leave the party after how his running turned us inside out and against each other. He promised he was a uniter. He promised he could deliver even red states. He promised alot and he damn well better deliver in Nov.

for the liberal bloggers?  

Where do you see Obama's disdain for the liberal bloggers?  Obama has NEVER said that at all.

Jerome, this is just a post-convention bounce just as Obama got one afer his convention but his was muted because the Palin pick came right after Obama's big speech.

What Biden said about abortion is his OWN PERSONAL VIEW (he is Catholic) and really has NOTHING to do with the campaign.

In terms of polls, even Chuck Todd on MSNBC this morning said don't even look at the USAToday/Gallup "likely voters" poll numbers because he thinks that Gallup's "likely voters" model is totally off this election (ton of new voters).  Even the press is mainly focused on the "regisered voters" poll numbers (even right-wing hack Mark Halperin is just listing the "regisered voters" on is blog).

I really think that you are reading too much into this.

Ever since the primaries ended, Jerome has had a not so hidden tone of glee in his observations on any negative turns in the Obamam campaign.  Sorry, Rove/McCain had a plan to bring down Senator Clinton as well- with even more baggage to work with.  I am a middle aged female from working class roots and I am standing with the change Obama represents, and that was not something Clinton's style of governing could or would have offered. Palin is a bright shiny thing and unfortunately the average voter is more impressed with the shiny bauble than with dry policies and they always will be.  Politics is uniquely susceptible to the lowest common denominator, and so,  'pow hero,beauty queen hockey mom" is the easier meme to sell when juxtaposed to 'thoughtful intelligence'

As a conservative, I realize my comments aren't the most welcome here, so I'll just make one quick point and be on my way.

Roe is never going to be overturned. Ok, maybe never is too strong a word, but it's likelihood can be measured in the same amounts as winning the lottery.

Democrats have been using that message to scare voters since 1973 (not that Republicans don't have their own "scare voter" messages--that's not the point), and it's beyond silly.

Yes, abortion rights may be reigned in from time-to-time. They may also be expanded from time-to-time. But they're not going away.

I'm a pro-life Catholic (recently converted) conservative, and even I wouldn't want to see Roe overturned completely. If the anti-Roes can't even get me, there's no way they can get enough of "middle America" to do so.

I don't even think it's very likely to happen in SCOTUS, so you don't have to worry about that Constitutional Amendment. It certainly couldn't happen now. At best the vote would be 5-4, and I really doubt it'd even be that.  6-3 would be my prediction. So, to overturn it, two "pro-choice" Justices would have to be replaced by two extremely "pro-life" Justices. It'd take a Republican President and a Republican filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for that to even have a chance of happening. And what are the odds that two "pro-choice" Justices would retire under such a scenario?  Slim and none. They'd have to be in exceptionally poor health or die.

So, stop worrying about Roe.

Obama and his brilliant kidz have messed up enough in the GE. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, its not working.  Pay attention to common sense and see if you can bail us out of this mess before the Republicans win, ok?

Democrats don't win when they run on wedge issues, only Republicans. Karl Rove knows that apparently you and the Obama campaign don't, to his everlasting delight. If you care about abortion or gay rights as an issue, fine. Take it up AFTER you've won the election.  Its about the economy, stupid.  Its about health care, all those things.

Call me names, ban me if you want, but I'm sick and tired of sitting here watching this campaign screw up over and over while the rest of you try to defend it.  Wake up, your dream candidate is about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Send him an email and tell him to stop acting like an arrogant as* and take some advice from people who have won presidential elections.

than to run away from the party brand - by definition.  We have to keep pounding that McCain/Palin say they are mavericks but in reality they are not - on economic policy,  foreign policy and social issues.  More of the same Republican failure.  And that's to the extent that they have any specific ideas at all.

Having said that, it's a bit premature to conclude what is happening, if anything is happening at all.  

If we're going to point out any mistakes Obama has made, so far, I think the fact that Obama has tack towards the middle is his worst! There is NO middle! This was Kerry's downfall. Once Obama started trying to attrack so called Clinton voters and Evanglecals he started to lose traction. He got to stop trying to be Repuglican lite and go back to his winning stratigy of "Yes we can", Hope and Change. Now thats the winner. But I truly believe the "bounce" is a political  Mirage and will soon fade back to reality.

He only shows up and writes here now when he wants to crow.  I think he is totally wrong on the abortion issue. Back at Saddleback Barrack gave a bizarre response, for most of America, not me. "It's above my paygrade".  That to me is reflective of his problem, a problem Kerry, Gore, and others have had.. they just didn't talk at the same level as the deciding voter base.  Barrack needs to find that voice, Biden was picked to help him, and I think Biden did a great job on MTP.  

Of course there seems to be a contingent here on KOS, and on OpenLeft that wants to blame Barrack for McCain picking Palin.  Hey McCain found a voice for voters he wants to target. (and his timing of announcment drowned out any discussion of Barracks marvelous speech).. He won that round, we now move on to the pre-debate stretch.  

Between Now and November, there shall be several events that will shape the final election.

ALthough it does seem like after all is said and done, Obama has made only one crucial mistake and that is not picking Clinton. I am thinking that his team became a bit complacent; and in my opinion  there is still some way to come back. The best way in my opinion is to  use both Clintons in campaigning-- if Bill gets off message, then so be it. People underestimate Bill's ability to make a case for his candidate and even if he does go off-script ; he will still ened up winning more votes than loosing it.

Remember come November, gas prices will still be high, more people would have lost their homes in mortgage crisis,  people will still   be without proper and affordable healthcare insurance, more people will be without jobs and troops will still be in Iraq.
In short, fundamentals are still with Obama and it is still his election to loose. Whatever the polls may say.  
 

Give up on the abortion issue?

Nope. This is a huge, huge issue for suburban women and for others as well. My 81 year old mother, a stalwart Clinton supporter who wasn't sure she would vote for Obama, is now firmly in his camp because of Sarah Palin's stance on abortion. And I'm sure the same is true for many elderly Jewish voters.

The idea that people shouldn't take the McCain-Palin position seriously on abortion because Cindy McCain said that Roe won't be overturned is, frankly, rather absurd.  Does she guarantee what the Supreme Court will do?

And while we talk about Roe as if just a technical legal matter, we are in fact talking about people's lives. If Roe goes, women will be doing self-abortions and they will be dying of uncontrollable bleeding and septic shock, just as they did before Roe.

It would make much more sense to argue that "Drill, Baby, Drill" is turning people towards McCain/Palin, rather than an argument that is based on pulling a couple random quotes about abortion.  That would at least be consistent with another doomsday post Jerome had in the Summer.

A 17 point swing to McCain, is quite frankly, insane.  If it's temporary (or wrong), great.  If it's real, we should just face the fact that McCain would have pretty much smashed any Democrat this year.  The idea that McCain and the Republicans offered the public any reason to vote for them during the RNC is just laughable.

From the outset of this campaign, it was obvious that the MSM and many Republican crossover voters were going to wreak havoc on the Democrats' efforts to return to the White House.

The Obama campaign was made to order for this mischief.  He was a neophyte with a very thin national resume.  His was the campaign of Howard Dean, of Nancy Pelosi, of Ted and Caroline Kennedy, of Oprah Winfrey, of college students with a festering anger over the state of the nation, but most particularly of the conduct of the Iraq War.

This is the Left Wing fringe of the Democratic Party.  It forms its much more passionate nucleus, draws crowds that are the major thrust of caucuses.  This wing in the primaries can easily deceive both media and their pundits as well as the less seasoned political viewers.

But alas, this wing has not delivered a White House victory to the Democratic Party in well over sixty years.  Indeed, if one discounts its effect in the forming of the early Franklin D. Roosevelt coalition in the early 1930s--with the understanding that FDR's era came out of the United States in total collapse--then this wing has never been successfully dominant in spearheading presidential wins.

Jimmy Carter's election was by way of Southern and Midwestern pragmatists rendering a win over more passionate Kennedy liberals--and it was barely a win even in the aftermath of Watergate.

LBJ's 1964 victory came in the afterglow of the tragedy of the JFK assassination and it was commandeered by the most powerful of Texas/Southern politicians.  JFK, who barely eked out a win in 1960, did so not just by way of the Cook County machine, but by embracing that most powerful of Southern politicans, making LBJ his very necessary running-mate.  And Harry Truman barely survived in 1948, hardly by making himself the bastion of liberal passion.

Which is why Bill Clinton was so utterly amazing.  His DLC understood why Democrats lose national elections, and was determined to rectify that fact.

Bill Clinton became a pragmatist, and Hillary Clinton was an ineluctable part of that pragmatism.  From the dawn of his first campaign, the Clintons were "two-fers," and they drew brilliantly off each other's strenths and weaknesses.

He was a platinum politician--I believe the greatest in the entire twentieth century, who could survive Ring Wing attacks and even Impeachment, govern even in total congressional hostility, and still leave office with soaring approval ratings.

Waiting her turn, hewning her skills after a career lifetime devoted to progressive cauces, both Bill ande Hillary knew it was her time.  Barack's timer would come too--but not yet.  And the marriage of Hillary as a presidential candidate with Barack as vice-presidential candidate would have been unbeatable.  But alas, not the other way around.

The current polls reveal only too painfully why political neophytes, backed by an ideological extreme, should never assume the role of standard-bearer.  Such candidates do, however, work very well in the veep position--as witness Sarah Palin, who has shorn up the GOP base.

EIghteen million rank-and-file Democrats voted for Hillary Clinton.  The non-traditional base of fringe voters with passionate liberals embraced Barack Obama.  And that non-traditional base, so evident in the caucuses--meaningless in the Electoral College--embraced Barack Obama.  The latter base emerged victorious only because the pro-Obama DNC shut down the political process in June, ignoring the popular will of the key Midwestern states and Florida.  And this is where all recent general elections have been decided.

And, of course, to garner victory, Obama chieftan David Axelrod went for broke and systematically began to bash and undermine the Clintons, the only twice elected Democratic President and First Lady since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  Fueled with a belief that they were indestructible, the Obama-nots then completely bypassed the Clintons even in consideration of a veep.

Now, in what should have been a slam-dunk year for Democrats, the Obama campaign is in obvious trouble.  Today Senator Obama is in conference with former President Clinton.  At long last, but perhaps much too late.

I too hope that the Obama campaign ultimately prevails, as this nation can ill afford another GOP presidency.

But, oh, what an era a Clinton/Obama administration would have made!

As it stands now, the Clinton years may well have been America's last Golden Age.

Boy are a lot of people going to look embarrassed when the RNC bounce ends and this outlier poll is recognized for what it is...

I wonder how many people had these doom and gloom comments and journals saved up so they could say "I told you so."

Instead of coveting someone else's base and giving them stuff, how about strengthening his natural base ang giving us stuff?

By always going to this BS heartland "America" with their "downhome" values and disdain for anyone valuing intellect and reason, we make it appear that they're the "America" that we all must aspire to.  Progressives have become ashamed to even talk about our alternative values in polite company (unless you're in an urban setting), always defensive and nervous.  Obama's serenade for the votes of the evangelical NUTJOBS, and his general post-partisan bullshit schtick (blaming the left as much as the right for our country's problems), have further eroded what pride we have for our own values and issues.

On the other hand, the Republicans are never afraid of giving in to their base.

Democrats are wimps. We must change this.

Explain this...

Sheesh. A little convention bounce, and Jerome is reinventing history, and the trolls and chicken littles come out to say 'Told you so'

Wait and see

I keep coming back to Roosevelt,a patrician intellectual and his first campaign, where he detailed how he would fix things in pracically every speech he made, to the exclusion of just about anything else.  No social issues there.  I think the only problem with Obama's campaign is that it is not focusing on the economic trouble we are in, where it is taking us, how it is affecting us, enough.  That is what is on people's minds, not any side issues right now, and the campaign really needs to be hammering it to the exclusion of social issues.

Because, you know what, McCain and Palin will win on people's image of America, but we can win on what we will actually do.  That message is not getting out and I'm not sure how to get it out more efficiently.

No one who is pro abortion will vote on that basis this cycle, not with congress the way it is.  The right will, they vote on social issues.  We just need to tell people over and over again, how we will make their lives better.

And I imagine your response will be "And good riddance."

After years of almost daily visits under two handles (my first of which was respected and regularly recommended, but it was a nick name I had to kill), this will be my last visit.

Jerome, your posts are more appropriate for Republicans sites. Straw men ("...whether abortion should be criminalized or not"), intentional misdirection ("...Wright-Ayers-Rezko"), concern trolling ("...a mistake to think otherwise"), cherry-picking (Google trends? Honestly?) and absolute, outright lies ("...not re-tooling their campaign message").

But this is the kicker. The last time you wrote a single word about Democratic strategy, a way forward, or a way to win was August 20th.

Well, maybe you don't think (or want?) Democrats to win, but I'll be spending my time working to make it happen. I wish you would do the same.

I've said it before, I miss the Jerome who wrote Crashing the Gate. GBCW, I guess.

You must've missed my last comment, so I'll ask it again:

The wife and I were wondering, why is there still a delegate counter on the front page of your site?  Isn't it taking up valuable real estate, post-primary?

This election is a tossup, and has looked like it would be for a long time.  But one critical turning point in momentum was the choice of VPs.  Obama campaign went through a long selection process and came up with Joe Biden, which I have called one of the worst possible choices they could have made.  

Biden is, simply, a blowbag.  He has had too much exposure on Sunday morning programs where he has run his mouth without much to say.  He has spent almost his entire adult life in the privileged position of a senator and is the ultimate Beltway insider.  It completely contradicted the major themes of the Obama campaign.  And the idea that Biden brought "gravitas" to the ticket was just absurd.  He's a bit of a clown and that is not hard to see.

MOre importantly, Obama did not pick HIllary--and THAT was a huge error as well as evidence of a flaw within the candidate and/or campaign.  To step past a rival with 18 million votes and a huge constituency is an insult and a rather arrogant decision.  In an election that is this close, there is no good reason for not adding her to the ticket.  He opened the door for Palin and the buzz and why?  Because he was afraid of being overshadowed?  Weak.  Because he resented her primary campaign?  Childish.  Because he didn't want to deal with a powerful Veep and Bubba?  WEAK.  And you have to get elected first.

I think the Obama campaign got carried away by their early primary success.  Down the stretch Hillary was beating him in key, huge states.  He needed her political discipline, energy and base but the relatively inexperienced Obama team refused to recognize that.

There are few moments more important in a presidential campaign than selecting a running-mate.  The effects of the Palin choice remain unclear.  She has a lot of problems and potential baggage.  But the Biden choice brought NOTHING and that is an error from which it will be hard to recover.