A long night...

Ok, so I am watching exit poll data on FoxNews, they are already giving Kentucky to McCain and Vermont to Obama, with 10% of the vote in or so - which I think is a little early.
Now they have added West Virgina to McCain.

But the interesting thing is, McCain is leading on average through the BattleGrounds by 7-10% out of a few hundred thousand votes already - so perhaps some good news, but way too early to be able to trust these numbers...

Virgina looks to be having 2 Democratic Senators, so that does not bode well for McCain.
I heard as well that apparently the Obama campaign has virtually given up on North Carolina, which could bode well for McCain and Elizabeth Dole, who is one of three GOP senators in close races I predicted would hold their seats (the others being Norm Coleman and Saxby Chambliss) due primarily to the ground game going to the GOP.


I'm going to stay up until we have a winner between McCain and Obama, but mostly good news so far for McCain it appears...


EDIT 1:
Ok, so I am going to make a few predictions, besides the one about which GOP Senators I wrote about above...
Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Florida will go for McCain.
Ohio and Pennsylvania will be closer.

Beyond those states, I have no clue, but it will be interesting to see what happens based on the first exit polling...


EDIT 2:
FoxNews now projects that Kay Hagan has defeated Elizabeth Dole - but only 4% reporting. Dunno how this will affect McCain, but it looks like I was wrong on at least one of my Senate predictions.


EDIT 3:
FoxNews and others are now projecting Obama will win Pennsylvania, but I have yet to see a single vote count, so I am a bit skeptical...
On a brighter note, Saxby Chambliss is now projected to keep his seat.

EDIT 4:
Now Ohio has been projected to go to Obama - looks all but impossible for McCain now...

EDIT 5:
Obama is now up in Florida and North Carolina. Although McCain maintains a steady lead in Virginia, it may not matter any more.
Going to wait now for some absolutely solid vote counts before I post again, because, from the projections alone, it looks like Obama will win quite handily...

EDIT 6:
Obama now has a 50,000 vote lead in Virginia with 91% of precincts reporting, and Pennsylvania is also showing a large lead for Obama.
If there is a silver lining to this, McCain is now on top on North Carolina - but it won't be enough.
I think most likely Obama has won now, even if McCain comes back in Florida.

Looking back, I think it was McCain who killed himself. Months ago he could have attacked Obama on his connections and on his socialist plans, both of which have done well for him these last two weeks, but he needed to make them sooner.
In the end, I think where he failed was that he was tentative on the economy.
Coming out of the conventions he had sometimes double digit leads in the polls.
Then wall street crashed, and Obama gained as large a lead.
McCain at that time didn't come out with a strong, decisive plan for what to do, instead he appeared slow and confused about what to do.
In the end I think he did eventually come out with the better plan, but it was too late, the public had already formed the opnion that he was inept on the issue.


I think, after all this, McCain was the best candidate for us to pose.
The reasons being:

1. With the econimc crisis, few of the possible GOP candidates could have survived it, and Romney, who is most likely to have been able to, would already have been too far out on other issues, and he would have had a harder time with the base even than McCain.
2. McCain losing will not hurt the GOP next time around, because he won't be running, so perhaps Romney can come back without having lost last time.
3. Palin was a bold choice, and I think she is going to be a strong contender next cycle for President.

I must say well done to Obama (or his campaign staff) on a good run in the race - and I just request that I don't have to congratulate you on a grand farce in a few months, and you actually come through on your promises...

McCain landslide shaping up?

It sounds way too good to be true, but some reports are showing McCain doing far better than mainstream polls are indicating.

Zogby reports that on Friday (only, no 3 day average) McCain surged into the lead, 48-47%, with undecided's beginning to break heavily for McCain - I have seen reports that the margin may be as high as 4 to 1.

There is also a poll out, supposedly from GOP internal polls, that indicates McCain having a larger than 20% lead in PA, an 8 point lead in New Jersey, a 10+ point lead in Michigan, and within a point in California. (link)

While this sounds the most far-fetched of anything I have seen yet, and I was ready to dismiss it mostly when I read it, I found some other links that seems to verify the trends it represents, if not the actual number themselves.

As well, Paul Marston (hats off to Casey's Critical Thinking blog for the link) predicts McCain will win by at least 42 electoral votes, due primarily to PUMA voters.

Finally, there was a post at redstate.com that supposedly was from a former Hillary Clinton staffer turned Barack Obama staffer.

In it she explains the 4 "true weaknesses" of the Obama campaign.

Here is a link for the full thing, but there are some interesting parts I would like to point out.

First, the four weaknesses themselves:

1. Hillary voters - apparently the Obama campaign has internal data suggesting they are only getting about 75% of them...
2. Sarah Palin - really threw them a curve ball when she was picked, they have fumbled it since the outset and are now seeing some negative reactions from it.
3. Obama's radical connections - apparently it doesn't play well with voters to see the full line-up of Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Khalidi, etc.
4. The "Bradley Effect" - they seem to think it is going to be as much as 10 points they have to accept as lost to it.

Now, there really isn't much new here from first glance, regardless of whether this is a real report, or a fake.

The post goes on to point out how many of the mainstream polls are receiving as high as 80% "refusal to respond" results - and that the majority of the RTR's are McCain supporters. Combine that with the already known issue of some polls taking a much higher sampling of Democrats as it is, and you can get some pretty skewed results.

Now, if that above statement is true, that could indicate the numbers being reported in the GOP internal poll are perhaps more accurate than not.

Again, I think the above results are a bit too good to be true, but they are interesting to think about.

Let's see what happens if we try to quantify and apply all these "biases" in the polls:

1. Assuming for the moment that the Bradley effect is real, we'll put it at 4 points (considering the peak to be about 10 points 20 years ago, and an apparent weakening of the effect since then).
   
2. Now assuming it is correct that up to 80% of people contacted for polls refuse to respond in some polls, and there is a bit in all, we will put it at about 50% average at least refuse to respond.
   
3. Next, assuming it is accurate that a majority of the refusals to respond are McCain supporters (ok, now how can they really know that?) let's put it at 60% for McCain - which means a total disregarding of about 10% of McCain support (20% more RTR for McCain for 50% total refusals...).
   
4. Finally, assuming Democrats are indeed sampled 15 points more than Republicans, we will subtract away 7 points for the approximate weighting of Democrats to Republicans as reported by rasmussen, that leaves us with an 8 point bias to Democrats.
   

Taking the math that way - rasmussen currently reporting a 51-46% lead for Obama - it would not be hard to get it to McCain having a 52-45% lead after factoring in just the Bradley effect and the sampling bias. If we also include the refusal to respond bias for McCain, it could be as much as 57-40%.

Now, all those numbers are pure conjecture on my part, but it is liberals who keep going on and on about the Bradley effect, not me. If we take my number for that effect alone, then the race is basically tied, with Obama having an insignificant 1 point lead.

So I think, for the purposes of trying to understand that data, that bit of math is at least good for showing how skewed the polls could/might be - whether they are really or not we will have to wait for Tuesday to truly see, but this just confirms for me that this is indeed very much McCain's race to win or lose now.

Will it be a landslide? I doubt it.

Will McCain pick up the states he needs to win? I think it is plausible, if not likely.

Go McCain!

3 days to go...

In my previous post I remarked on how it was now McCain's race to win, as it had been Obama's to lose and he blew it.

Apparently the things he had already done weren't enough for him though.
Now, Obama has come out saying anyone who doesn't support his "redistribution of wealth" plan is "selfish".

The polls continue to move in McCain's favor as well, as he now clearly has the momentum in the race.
From rasmussen McCain has now moved to within in 4 points in Pennsylvania, a large movement from just two weeks ago, not to mention a month.
As well, on a variety of issues (economy, national security, taxes and social security) he is now trusted more than Obama. He is also now tied at 47% with Obama on the issue of Iraq.
Obama does still lead on a few key issues, such as ethics, balancing the budget, energy and the environment.
But what these polls show is that McCain truly has been successful in not only stealing Obama's thunder on the economy, which was arguably Obama's strongest point - and McCain's weakest, he has also regained the publics trust on the issues that he is strong in, but Obama had surpassed him in with his large surge.

Does anyone else notice (or rather, not) Biden?
I haven't seen him out campaigning very much anymore since his last gaffe, at the very least not on the scale of Sarah Palin.
Even McCain is getting out more than Obama from what I am seeing. That can't be a good sign for Obama.

I am only hoping McCain wins, or, if Obama comes out on top, he really makes good on his word, and everything is all fine and dandy...
The only problem with that is, I don't want another Bush.
I think he has ruined a lot of our government.
Now we have a candidate who we know even less of, promising things just as grand or more, and I'm supposed to just trust him to make everything right.
Yeah, that's a good idea, just see where that got us last time...

2 weeks to go...

Lot's of happenings these last few days.

Biden made a serious gaffe on Sunday, which McCain has already begun to use in his speeches. (link)
Basically, Biden said that the world is watching this election, and if Obama wins, he will be tested with a "generated crisis" to test his mettle.
Obama supporters are trying to spin this to mean that the generated crisis in Iraq will test whoever wins.
The problems with that, though, is that Biden specifically said Obama several times, clearly and was not talking about "either candidate", and he was referring to a new crisis that will be generated specifically to test of Obama.
Hard to spin that gaffe...

A new poll was released by the Military Time (link) shows support for McCain at an overwhelming 67% to Obama's 23%.

Rasmussen also (link) shows McCain slowly beginning to gain momentum again. Joe the Plumber and Joe the Senator are giving McCain his best shot at this he has had in ages I think.
Obama still boasts 50% support, but that is down from his peak of 53% a few weeks back. McCain is up as many points as Obama is down, and is now within 4 points again.

Another person who is helping McCain is Representative John Murtha, who backtracked from his blanket "Western Pennsylvania is a racist area" to stating that there are a large number of rednecks, but that it was worse years ago - as if that is a bad thing.
If anything will get the Republican vote out more than anything it is people continually calling them dumb racists.

McCain's in trouble...

Well, following the last debate I had the distinct impression Obama won (yes, you read the correctly).
McCain just seemed very... off, and little whiny (part of that is just how he talks as it is, but still...).
Obama on the other hand seemed Presidential and ready to tackle these issues.

While I still disagree with him on a lot of issues, and i still don't think he has the experience, and I still don't believe he truly is ready to handle all these issues as President, I have to hand this performance to him.
So I see the debates to have gone a tie for the first, a tie for the second (Palin/Biden) and a clear Obama victory for the second.

Now, McCain claims he is going to "whip" Obama's "you-know-what" at this next and last debate.
He sure needs to to even have a chance at this point.


Following the polls from rasmussen they seems remakably stable - Obama has had 50-52% support for weeks, and McCain has had 44-45% in the same period.
The closest they have been in that period were following the VEEP debate and today, with Obama at 50% and McCain at 45% support.
That is really bad news for McCain.

Another unsettling trend in the polls - in most of the swing states that were close before, Obama has opened large leads.
In only two has McCain gained any ground since Obama's surge - Indiana and Virginia.
Virginia he is still down but competitively inside the margin of error now, and in Indiana he has extended his lead to make it pretty solidly in his favor.

So that's about it for the polls, now for other interesting occurances since my last post...


McCain tried to tone down the attacks on Obama a bit, instead pointing out a few of his good features. Obama responded by thanking McCain and pointing out some things good about McCain, and thanking him for his service to the country.
Both comments were met with boos (and a few cheers too, but not as many).
I guess people on both sides would prefer the divisiveness we have now instead of getting to the meat of some of these issues.

Which is something that bothers me tremendously. On the campaign trail candidates really don't have a lot of time to go into great detail on what they plan to do. Neither do they get the chance in these 90 second response debates.
A lot of the time we have to wait for them to get elected to Congress (or the Presidency) before you really know what they plan to do, and by that point it is really hard to figure out exactly what people proposed or what all was in a bill the voted for and how it will effect you.
Just think how Bush said a lot of good things, but then his idea of implementing them has been really stupid.
I think we need a plain old debate that is set to run for longer (a lot longer) than the current ones. And then give the candidates some actual time to debate the issues - only moving on once they are finished.

I don't know if that is possible, but it sure would be interesting I think.


Another thing that happened last week - Palin wore a white dress (again, oh no!) - which, to some, meant she was being racist.
I guess that means Michelle Obama is a white suppremacist too, as she wears white often...
And Palin must be a black suppremacist the days she wears black.
Really quite stupid...


And now, to the really interesting occurance - the Palin investigation report.

It claims that it was perfectly legal and within her power to dismiss the state commisioner - like she has been saying all along.

It then goes onto say that she abused her power as a state official in her (and her husbands) attempt to get a state trooper fired.
It claims that the commisioners failure to discharge the state trooper was a contributing factor to him being dismissed (or reassigned actually I think...) - but not the sole reason.
In this she apparently broke a state ethics law that states that one may not use official action for personal reasons.

Now, I can understand this if the only reason she had given for attempting to get the state trooper fired because of his divorce from her sister.
But this is not the case.
This state trooper had tasered one of his step children, illegally killed several moose, driven drunk in a patrol car, and other issues.
The document states that these (and not the personal "he was involved in a bitter divorce with Palin's sister") were the primary complaints raised against him.
Now, I do not see where complaining about a state trooper not being fired due to conduct (and illegal actions) falls under that state ethics bill.

Either way, though, the report does not think anything "illegal" was done, nor does it push for any criminal investigations or any sanctions.
So, how can she have violated a state ethics law if she had done absolutely nothing illegal?

The first two debates...

Following the first Presidential debate, Obama has opened a large lead, both nationally and in many key battleground states.
The polls have now remained steady for a week - so the only conclusion I can reach is Obama did indeed win the first debate.

McCain did far better than I was anticipating, and it looked like point for point he got in more hits on Obama - but obviously the American audience disagreed.


Now, following the VEEP debate, I think McCain will rebound in the polls, at least moderately, if only until the next Presidential debate.

The reason's being are simple.
First, I think Obama is already above the real ceiling of support he can get, being around 50-51% steadily across several polls.
Second, nothing Palin did will have put off anyone who had not already written her off to begin with.
Third, Biden did nothing, in my opinion, to gain any kind of new support for Obama.

That leaves things to remain as they are, or go in the direction of McCain.

I think they will move in his direction, though, because it appears most people agree Palin won the debate. She appeared far more knowledgeable than most gave her credit for, and she was successful at attacking Obama/Biden several times.

Frank Luntz held a focus group during the debate that was split evenly between people who went for Kerry and Bush in 2004.
When asked who won the debate, all but, to my count, 3 or 4 people said it was Palin.
Also, the most well-received statement in this (or even in the first debate as well, if I recall correctly) came from Palin.

On the other hand, Luntz' focus group during the first debate gave Obama the win, as well as the best line.

Also, the response from Democrats, that I have seen, has been far more subdued this time than with the Presidential debate - which for me is a clear indicator of who really won.
A lot of them are saying she did absolutely nothing but avoid questions and get back to her talking points.
But that is also exactly what Biden did throughout.
Is it a good style - yes, and no.
I disagree with it because I would prefer to see more substance, but, it appears to work with people, and the sound-bytes play well in the media, so I'm not surprised.

So I think that without doubt, this will be reflected positively in the polls in a few days once they begin to register it.
It may disappear again with the next debate, but we will have to see.

Well done Governor Palin!

The polls

Well, I woke up this morning, and I checked rasmussen as I usually do. Yesterday I received an email from John McCain's campaign about how they were expecting Obama to get a little bounce in the polls out of the DNC and Biden. And Obama had gained two points on rasmussen since he picked Biden - so I thought maybe they were right...

Now I checked this morning and McCain is once again tied with Obama - 46% apiece.
Other polls are showing a similar gain on McCain's part as well.

Another interesting thing is, rasmussen keeps track of state polls too, and they have an "electoral college" line-up of who they think will win where and whatnot...
And the awesome thing is that McCain is up from 165 to 183, while Obama is down from 210 to 193.

I noticed a similar trend when I looked to see which states had switched - and every single state in the last month has moved more Republican. From Likely Dem to Leaning, or Leaning Dem to a toss-up, or a toss-up to Leaning Rep, etc.

The best news for me, and the most disturbing for Obama, is that he is supported by only 78% of Democrats - almost a quarter do not trust him yet! 21% of Democratic women say they will be voting for McCain.
McCain has slight lead among unaffiliated voters as well.
Similarly, McCain is viewed favorably by 57% of voters nationwide, with Obama attracting 53%.

Very encouraging news, now let's hope that McCain will make the right choice for his VP.

Getting stronger :)

Fred Thompson seems to be catching on to the surge of Huckabee, if not outshining it.

While you can't see this in individual polls really well (he has been dipping 3 or 4 percentage points in the last few weeks - though the same can be said for most of the candidates), you can tell by rank.
A few weeks back he was holding a steady 3rd or 4th place in the nationals. Now he is going up, and quickly. It doesn't matter which of the other candidates flip-flop for 1st or 2nd, he is always in the top 3.
In fact, many of the polls say he now holds a very solid second place, with Giuliani being in first but dropping from 38% of the votes down to 25-28%, in just one month.

Fred came in late, but immediately shot up in the polls. Huckabee came out of nowhere, but hasn't risen as fast, as some people still don't know where he stands on important issues. I am no longer one of those people. I had him as my number 2 candidate, up until I really checked into his beliefs and voting record (I'll post some things about Mike Huckabee soon).
He is now down in one of the lower spots on my personal rankings, above only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

Whether he is a good candidate or not, conservative or liberal, honest or flip-flopping, I expect Huckabee's "reign of momentum" to level out fairly quickly, once his views get out enough.

Fred, on the other hand, has been staying in the 16-23% range of votes the entire campaign, based on some polls here.
Which means he is not likely to dip too far below those numbers, unless he really makes a slip-up of disastrous proportions.
Some have even been placing him within single digits of Giuliani for a while.

We'll have to see what happens in the next few weeks.
Personally I hope Fred wins, but here are my overall rankings of the GOP candidates:

1. Fred Thompson
2. Duncan Hunter (what can I say? He has the most conservative voting record in his years in Washington D.C. of any of the candidates, he wants to bring our manufacturing jobs home, he wants to finish the fence on the border between us and Mexico, and he seems very pro-Israel.)
3. John McCain (too liberal for my taste, but less liberal than Giuliani)
   
4. Rudy Giuliani (don't like his more liberal views, but agree with his stances on the war on terror and Israel, and he has a better shot at this than the remaining candidates below)
5. insert most of the remaining GOP candidates here
6. and here
7. and here
8. Mike Huckabee (I'll be posting why Mike is not a good candidate in another post)
   
9. Mitt Romney (hate his liberal views, and his flip-flopping)
10. Ron Paul (has least conservative voting record of candidates, isolationist, and others - will post more later)

Go Fred Go!!!