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Deity
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Feb 1999
time: 00:27
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quote:
Poll: Economic Discontent Boosts Barack Obama Over John McCain
Democrat Takes 52-43 Lead Among Likely Voters, Erases Republican's Post-Palin Pick Gains
Barack Obama has seized the reins of economic discontent, vaulting over John McCain's convention gains by persuading voters he both better understands their economic troubles and can better address them.
Fifty-three percent of registered voters in this new ABC News/Washington Post poll call the economy the single most important issue in the election, up 12 points in two weeks to an extraordinary level of agreement.
The public is cool to the bailout itself, underscoring economic uncertainty.
Eight in 10 are worried about the economy's future, half of them very worried. Personal concern runs high as well; six in 10 are worried about their family's finances. And 83 percent say the country's seriously off on the wrong track, back within a point of its record high -- set just this June -- in polls dating to early 1970s.
All these work for Obama.
He's recovered to a 14-point lead over McCain in trust to handle the economy, and leads by 13 points specifically in trust to deal with the meltdown of major financial institutions.
Obama leads by more, 24 points, 57-33 percent, in better understanding the public's economic problems.
Tellingly, after trailing by 17 points, he's pulled even with McCain in trust to handle a major crisis. And Obama holds wide margins in vote preference among likely voters most concerned about the economy.
More economic worry, plus an Obama lead among those who express it, spells a lead for the Democrat: In a head-to-head-match-up he's now supported by 52 percent of likely voters vs. McCain's 43 percent, the first significant advantage for either candidate among likely voters in ABC/Post polls.
Add third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr and it's essentially the same, 51-43 percent.
Obama Takes Lead Amidst Economic Worries
The contest has shifted from a 49-47 percent McCain-Obama race immediately after the Republican convention.
McCain's bounce -- on individual issues and attributes as well as in overall preference -- is gone.
The immediate question for Obama: Whether he can hang on to his newfound gains through the first presidential debate Friday night.
Attention to the contest, meanwhile, is remarkable. Ninety-one percent of registered voters are following it closely, 55 percent "very" closely – both highs in ABC/Post polls dating to the 1988 presidential election.
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We should really use multiple polls - others coming today:
Hotline/FD Tracking: Obama +6
Rasmussen Tracking: Obama +2
Gallup Tracking: Obama +3
Fox News: Obama +6
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quote:
Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Which is exactly why McCain now wants the Friday debate postponed. |
Um.. if anything, McCain shines in debates. The debates are how he pulled himself up from when he hit bottom in the Republican Primary.
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Prince
The Bear Flag Republic
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Jan 2006
time: 00:27
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I know they agreed long ago to a debate format that begins with Foreign Policy, but c'mon, address the Economic issues first.
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Deity
Lurking occasionally
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Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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He also wants to look like he's taking action, like he's the president already, but he's not the president. McCain wants to keep a low profile right now because people look at him and see a banker.
Obama is going to **** this away I think though. He probably will agree to postpone the debate.
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Deity
Lurking occasionally
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Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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Also, something is wrong with McSame's appearance. He can't open one eye all the way. He wouldn't look very good in the debate like that.
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Prince
The Bear Flag Republic
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Jan 2006
time: 00:27
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Why not just switch the debate from 'Foreign Policy' to 'The Economy'?
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I agree this is probably an expectation lowering move, also suspending campaign ads may help him stretch his money which is now limited under Public Financing. It also feels like another 'Hail Marry' being injected into the Campaign when it became obvious that 'buisness as usual' would lead to defeat. This opens/reinforces the "McCain is reckless" line of attacks, I think they can sell that very well as McCain has now in the span of a month performed two of the most reckless campaign maneuvers in history, Obama has been a bastion of stability by comparison.
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Deity
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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Feb 1999
time: 00:27
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quote:
Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
It just doesn't make sense, politically. Didn't McCain learn anything from the Palin stunt? Voters are gullible, but eventually they realize what's really going on. |
They've done everything possible to tick off the press.
I haven't seen such savaging of the press since Nixon's "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech.
Palin gave one press interview, then had a brief lovefest with Hannity and went into hiding.
McCain went for over a month without talking to the press. Finally, he just did so, and answered sever (7) questions.
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Emperor
of the Big Apple
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Nov 2001
time: 02:27
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I think McCain is trying to play up his "Country First" theme, while taking some time to figure out a way to stop losing ground and retool his message.
This has been a bad week for him politically, so I can see why trying to create a halt to things might seem very attractive.
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King
of infinite space, though bounded in a nutshell
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Sep 2000
time: 16:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
This opens/reinforces the "McCain is reckless" line of attacks, I think they can sell that very well as McCain has now in the span of a month performed two of the most reckless campaign maneuvers in history, Obama has been a bastion of stability by comparison. |
On that note, this piece from Keeper of the Conservative Flame George Will in yesterday's WP on-line, in which he all but endorses . . . Obama 
quote:
McCain Loses His Head
By George F. Will
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; A21
"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
To read the Journal's details about the depths of McCain's shallowness on the subject of Cox's chairmanship, see "McCain's Scapegoat" (Sept. 19). Then consider McCain's characteristic accusation that Cox "has betrayed the public's trust."
Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Rep. Cox, who, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.
In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending. (For details, see The Post of Sept. 17; and the New York Times of Sept. 19.)
By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic |
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