Its not McCain’s attacks on Obama which are bringing Obama down its FISA, its more of the same on healthcare instead of National Healthcare, its getting wobbly on ending the war.
Its not standing up to McCain when he says that Obama will raise taxes. The 30%ers don’t read the facts they just listen to who is yelling loudest with more emotion.
I do not think it would hurt Obama’s nice way of politics to ask John just where does he plan to get the money to keep fighting the Iraq war.
Then answer his own question and say by borrowing just like George Bush does. Debt is just a tax deferred with interest as Milt Friedman use to say.
Then Obama should point out the cost of the war plus interest and tell America well we all know that somebody is going to have to pay this.
John McCain will make sure his rich wife won’t pay a dime but her two half sisters who were cheated out of the Will will pay on that you can bet.
The Obama plan will make sure that the rich who have enjoyed the Bush tax cuts for the last 6? years will pay.

TCU, all good points.

I do think the relentless negative advertising is working though. We’ve seen Obama’s negatives creeping steadily upward as McCain has hammered the “celebrity” angle. The Republicans are turning all the positive buzz from Obama’s European trip against him.

I agree the negative ads are working. Part of it is that thanks to FISA and other moves to the Center our base is not as inspired as we used to be.
An FDL poll of who has stopped giving to Obama because of FISA would show that some of our best are losing the faith me included.
The other part is that Obama is not attacking McCain on the facts or the issues which in the absence of an opposing argument many people are just assuming that McCain is right.
Has Mark Penn taken over the Obama campaign?
I agree that we should be worried about the polls. But the why is Obama going down needs to be addressed even more.
Why are the polls not addressing the why?

If this poll sets a baseline for a bigger Obama post-convention bounce, that’s okay with me.

Really, few people are paying attention. Olympics, summer vacation, back-to-school, and just paying the bills for the oligarchs’ excesses occupy most Americans time right now.

Talk to me after the conventions. That’ll show us what needs doing.

Obama support held up best among respondents making less than $50,000 per year.

Yes the GOP MSM talking heads the Peggy Noonans, the Daves Brooks and Broder do not speak for the Blue Collar workers I knew it:)
I knew that money and intelligence were not that linked and when you consider that lower income levels are less likely to have access to alternative news we get three conclusions.
One Lower Income level people are not buying the MSM lies at an increasing rate.
Two there are a lot of people with money who are not that smart and or are not using alternative media like reading the lake.
Despite not having as much access to or free time to use alternative media lower income types are smarter than the 30%ers. This suggests than educational chances are being wasted on Bush legacies and that more should be done to give everyone a fair shot.
Its not the grades you get but where you go to school this should change. After all the first Harvard business MBA President is the worse President for business since Hoover!
Bush still has some time left on his term he just might beat Hoover.

Subgroup shifts are to political analysts what Giant Steps is to jazz musicians–an opportunity for flashy riffs. Analysts and consultants make their names, and their fortunes, by coming up with novel ways to interpret poll data. Everyone in the polling and interpretation game has a vested interest in claiming to see more complicated and interesting patterns than the next guy.

Uh are the polling science people aware that the more complex a system is the more chance there is for something to go wrong? This might explain both the Failure of Microtrends Mark Penn to help Hilary and his huge consulting fees.
After all

Everyone in the polling and interpretation game has a vested interest in claiming to see more complicated and interesting patterns than the next guy.

Why do they have such a vested interest? Well as your auto mechanic might say the more complex the car/poll the more time I need to work on it to make it run right, the more I have to charge you.
At some point trying to maintain greater complexity cost more than the system can support or even figure out.
Kind of like those cars that always seem to be in the shop because the Mechanic can never figure out whats wrong. Best thing to do dump the car buy a new one.
The MSM and Washington are to the right of the majority of America on the issues micro trends are an advertising attempt to sell dog food that dogs don’t like.
A simpler, cheaper solution would be for the Dems just to go Left.

I’ll wait until the conventions are done. Once that happens, Obama better get a memorable ad or two up. Make the TradMed take notice and talk about it. Counter the celeb ads with ones of his own hitting McCain in a way that people remember.

Rather than to keep trying to sell us dog food like FISA that we don’t like.
Rather than trying to sell us the war like Hilary thought she could get away with.
Rather than try to sell us more of the same on healthcare rather than National Healthcare like Obama is trying to do.
Give us dog food that we like, not what you like Dems!

The latest Zogby result is definitely an outlier…

What else is new?

Zogby on TDS - Jon takes him apart nicely…

http://www.thedailyshow.com/vi.....john-zogby

I agree totally - this is the result of many things starting with Obama’s FISA vote.

There is also far too much importance placed on these polls. A good friend in Iowa became so besieged with polling calls that she actually started each day supporting a different candidate. I have to imagine that many of those polled are just out to screw with the polls for giggles.

I know that these polls showing McCain ahead are more than likely tweaked whether its methodology, or just flat out lying in order to help McCain.
However Obama chose to go to the Center and screw us on FISA because he thought that moving to the Center would help him in the polls. Live by the polls die by the polls.
We can use these polls as a stick to poke Obama and say see this is what you get for taking off with that Center Dem tramp! She played you got what she wanted and now your Senate Mentor Holy Joe is going to speak at the GOP convention.
Go Left let the 30%ers play with themselves sometimes you have to let kids fail by themselves so they can learn.

Yes I do not trust these polls even when I agree with them $4 a gallon gas should cause much lower poll numbers.

OT -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....20121.html

Rep. Tubbs Jones (OH) has died

Stephanie Tubb Jones dead? This is not good. My heart goes to her family… what a great woman.

amen

agreeing with Teddy Partridge and anyone else saying few people are paying attention right now

as for the idea that running to the center/FISA has cost him anything, that’s a big nope - go ahead, ask the most informed non blogger you know - none of them could tell you what FISA is/was.

if they had run as many ads/appearances with a friggin’ grapefruit while BO was on vacation we’d all be speculating about the papaya’s chances for veep:D

Amen so say we all!

There is a news conference now and they are stating she is in critical condition and has limited brain function.

Low-info voters are the perpetual overwhelming majority. I’d like to see the results of a poll asking average Americans what FISA is. If more than 15 percent answered correctly I would be shocked.

Teddy @ 4 was correct, it is natural for attention to drift at this point in the summer. Lindsay is right that McCain’s ads are taking a toll. There is no reliable portent of what the race will be like a month or two from now, we’re just engaging in speculation to keep our brains from atrophying while we wait for something substantive to chew on.

Thanks for the update. They probably just kept her alive until the family could get there. RIP

Obama had better get on a horse that can run, rather that this show trot. This race is very much like a sport with the better team not putting the game out of reach for the much weaker team. The longer the weaker team can hang close, the more likely it is to win. Don’t comfort yourselves with this Zogby being an outlier because the contest should not be this close at all. Obama is hurting himself by not using truthful attach ads to show mccain for what he is. If Obama doesn’t want to sully himself, then he doesn’t really want to win, but to get closer to the beltway elite.

Here’s one big BUT…

But surveys also tend to focus on people who use landline phones rather than cell phones, and there’s a bias towards age and the kind of media they consume, rather than newer, younger voters who don’t use traditional media for their news.

How cell phones can skew political polls

But we cannot take that hidden bias for granted; there’s also going to be a tendency to vote based on race among the older folks, and they are more reliable and consistent voters. Therefore, we need:

- more focus on registering new voters, AND ensuring they have both ID where applicable and a means to get to the polls;
- more outreach through cell phones to get to them educated on issues and info about voting
- more focus on sub-optimized voters like single women, find ways to get them reconnected and reengaged in voting.

And ground game. The ground game is HUGE. The turn-out in the primaries reflected the early effort of the ground game; if we continue to focus on the ground game, we can continue to build on those early gains. (Rule of thumb: if you knock on a door three times during an election season and talk with the voter, they’ll remember you at the polls. This will be very important for all candidates up and down the ticket.)

Additionally that it is inoperable

OT CNN first reporting Congressman Tubbs died, now pulled back “working the story feverishly….” “conflicting reports”

A cautionary tale for all of us on not jumping the gun…whether it’s hothead McCain wanting to smack the bear… or progressive handwringers bemoaning the poll o’the day.

FISA effects us Netroots types, our friends know who we are they think we are hardcore Dems, well because we are and if when they ask us about Obama and our smiles are gone that sends a message.
Because we are the source of Democratic news for our friends, we are the ones they go to when they have questions and if we hesitate when talking about Obama they will pick up on it.
Emotional messages in campaigns are not only the candidates job its his supporters job.
McCain is still moving right trying to win his base after the GOP Primary because his supporters are even less inspired than us.
I’m still inspired but not nearly as much as I was before FISA.

It does sound as though they removed life support and it’s probably just a short amount of time. How sad.

That’s pure speculation on my part but that could cause the confusion.

Sorry - basing my info on CNN and on the Cleveland Plain Dealer -
http://blog.cleveland.com/plai....._died.html

Didn’t mean to jump the gun.

Its more than FISA its the lies that go unchallenged the business channels are all about Obama would raise taxes see my comment at 1.

I would say it’s the constant attention of the media to Obama as their sweetheart that is bringing him down. People tend to move away from the hot pick of the week.

OT: Obama has a major campaign event scheduled in Indianapolis Saturday further stoking speculation (aka fears) that Bayh will be the nominee.

The Democrats also need to make sure that Diebold computer votes are accurate this time and that Black and Brown voters are not put on do not vote lists or hassled trying to vote or we will lose this one.

I don’t perceive Obama as the media sweetheart, McCain is the one who gets all the free passes.

good points all.

I had this in mind when I commented.

It’s the Oracle of Santa Monica riffin’ on the Annual Pew Study of american news watching habits

Obama is developing a ground game that has never been seen before. Many have credited Rove and company’s successes in the 90s and early 00s to their under-the-radar ground work in churches and other localized communities. Obama is doing this right now, and doing it at levels Rove could only dream of.

Polls are pointless at this stage, as they were last month when some were saying Obama had a 12% lead. Obama raised $51 million last month compared to McInsane’s $27 mill, and people are worried about fundraising?!? This is unheard of at this stage, and the DNC even outraised the RNC last month as well.

I’d say we’re looking really good right now. Certainly better than any Dem Prez campaign I’ve ever followed.

As usual, Al Giordano has a good take on all the “chicken-littleism” out there in Dem circles, and what’s happening right now with the campaigns:

Let’s have a month or two when people think McCain’s got the upper hand, just like they thought that Clinton had the upper hand in January and early February. That’s what it took for Obama’s volunteers to work harder and donate more: February was his single greatest fundraising month, and the day after losing New Hampshire marked his single greatest fundraising date. Likewise, Clinton had better fundraising in the later months when she was perceived to be the underdog, too.

http://narcosphere.narconews.c.....n-underdog

Well said. I hate sports analogies but I’ll use one anyway. Teams often play best when they are perceived as underdogs. Better for Obama to be polling where he is now than to have a huge lead that might cause voters and donors to grow complacent.

It’s the Oracle of Santa Monica riffin’ on the Annual Pew Study of american news watching habits

Link I’m having trouble getting your idea?

Much of McInsane’s new-found “support” is just people not knowing or trusting Obama, which is a direct result of the McSame ads and messaging.

Panama John isn’t offering anything new or exciting, and you really don’t see much enthusiasm for him even amongst his supporters. Obama’s support is the exact opposite. This difference and the ground game that’s in place will carry Obama through the finish line while McInsane starts running out of gas (so to speak).

Many have credited Rove and company’s successes in the 90s and early 00s to their under-the-radar ground work in churches and other localized communities.

I credit Diebold and the Supreme court.

For everyone hyperventilating about these polls
http://www.coreynahman.com/ant.....abase.html

The way Obama let McCain drag him in his wake on the Georgia fiasco (John McCain will always be “prescient” about such fiascos because he and his foreign agent friends are so involved in instigating them). He merely went with a less noisy and provocative, less quotable imitation of McCain’s ruinous policy is a bad indicator that he’s ceded “national security” credentials to him and let them define the parameters of debate. McCain outpolled Obama overwhelmingly on this seemingly minor issue.

Obama’s campaign started experiencing real problems and flagging support when he began moving away from his base. You would think that someone including the candidate himself might just pick up on this and get his campaign back on a clear message which resonates with his base. All of this outreach to Hillary, the Establishment she represents, the “so called” political center, and the religious right is confusing and blurring his message. There are real conflicts in this country, and Obama can’t be all things to all people. The media’s propagandizing against him should be a clue for him.

But this has been what is so frustrating about his candidacy. All he really needs to do is keep repeating: Want more of the same? Vote John McCain. Instead he kowtows on issues like FISA and tries to make nice to groups that aren’t going to vote for him in a million years.

Obama still has an edge over McCain in the electoral vote, according to Real Clear Politics.

Not if you look at the “no toss ups” count wherein McCain leads 274 to 264.

Shit for brains campaign. Turning back on supporters at every opportunity. Can’t even make a good speech anymore, his prior claim to fame.

No wonder Obama’s losing. Ds once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Throwing General Clark under the bus, bad move, bad karma.

-G

Digby comments on the results of the study:

Sadly, there are as many Disengaged as there are Net-Newsers, so they pretty much cancel each other out.

I’d be willing to bet the Net-Newsers are a lot more likely to vote.

I credit Diebold and the Supreme court.

Yes, they certainly helped seal the deal, but I do think the covert work they did in specific areas allowed them to get close enough to enable the stealing of those Selections.

OT: Obama has a major campaign event scheduled in Indianapolis Saturday further stoking speculation (aka fears) that Bayh will be the nominee.

??? Nothing about that here in the local rag, IndyStar…

linky?

Heartfelt wishes go out to her family.

dday has a good post on Obama’s ground game at digby’s place:

Obama’s Big Bet - The Power Of The Ground Game

Ground games only work if you give people a reason to vote. The gop ran on guns and gays and managed to get amendments on state ballots reflecting those issues.

Yup. It’s going to be a short, vicious, steeply uphill campaign for Obama, with McCain’s foot in his face and the MSM pulling at his ankles. Hope he’s rested and fit for fight.

From the Nashville Post.

you’re having trouble because my point was poorly made - am often so worried about being too talky, I employ a shorthand

had just read both the survey and Digby’s take on it - I was mindful of how many of our fellow citizens still count on broadcast networks to get their news - FISA and other issues that matter so much to us barely register a blip in the general populace

think it is supposed to be Chicago

ps- if he picks Bayh, I’m blaming you personally *g*

I kinda like Obama in an underdog role, whether that is in fact the case or not.

Get aggressive, bring out the big (metaphorical) guns, goddammit!!

Hope there are some big guns. I don’t imagine that the Clintons will do much beyond token cheering while they quietly hope to be running again in 2012.

Using Zogby as a valid polling data is like of like…. hmmm using the National Enquirer as a real news source?

They are the worst of the worst, use bad methodology and models…. As the big Orange says The big freakout

A Zogby poll.

Some people are frackin’ hopeless. Really. At the same time, a new Q-poll has Obama up five, Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times.

Look, the race is tightening at the national level, but it’s much less tight when you look at the state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency. So while it’s not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic.

I agree with you about that I just wanted to poke some air out of the Rove is/was a genius meme and point out Rove is a cheat.
Grass roots and Netroots the ground game is where its at Republicans need fear of 9/11 and or hate of Gay Marriage, Immigrants etc to win and we need the Issues.
Whichever side wins the attention of America with their competing views wins the election.
FDR, Clinton we normally win big sad to say after the voters are sick to death of the GOP Hoover preceded FDR, Reagen/Bush preceded Clinton.

ps- if he picks Bayh, I’m blaming you personally *g*

won’t matter - if he picks Bayh, I’m going to bed until November 5th. A man can only take so much pain.

Besides, the 5th is my birthday *g*

I heard earlier in the week that he was doing an appearance in Springfield, IL on Saturday, which is where he launched his campaign. Don’t know if that is still planned or not.

I am 100% on board with your comments. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Obama started to slide in the polls when he began to move to the center (or right) on virtually every important issue. I’m no pollster, but I can read a chart like everyone else, and it seems painfully clear to me.

Say what you want about Hillary, but her team would be all over the correlation between sliding positions and sliding support, and it would have stopped about 10 days ago.

These people need to get it together and fast, and I just hope they don’t get fooled into complacency by the post-convention bump in the polls.

New CHS post at fdl

I don’t imagine that the Clintons will do much

True. Obama could take Indiana, without Evan Duh-Bayh, if Bill would come back and work the southern and northern parts of the state.

Indianapolis (Marion County)(central) went for Obama with a 67% share in the primary…

Your Points are among the best here I was a bit harsh because thats how I react when I get nervous:)

Aside from great post and comments, this thread also seems to have mastered the challenges of time travel *g*

Get aggressive, bring out the big (metaphorical) guns, goddammit!!

Roseanne Barr? I’ll bet she’d be willing to act as a surrogate. She describes John McCain is “insane” and she should know.

had just read both the survey and Digby’s take on it - I was mindful of how many of our fellow citizens still count on broadcast networks to get their news - FISA and other issues that matter so much to us barely register a blip in the general populace

Yes and I was focused on the emotional level that Obama’s hard core supporters have lost because of the issues and that others could sense it.
Normally I focus on the issues because that is where we win if we get the majority of voters focused on that too.
I’m trying to focus on the emotions of voters more now after that last book club 2 weeks ago?

Why do analysts and pollsters have a vested interest in reading more into polls?

Because they get more prestige and attention if they can convince us that they see an obscure and relevant pattern than they do if they say, “I don’t know” or “I don’t have enough evidence” or whatever.

A lot of the claims that get bandied about will never be proven or disproven, so there are few consequences for overplaying one’s hand as pundit/analyst/pollster.

Obama is playing rope-a-dope with McCain, because he has more money and will crush him teevee addwise come September. If advertising didn’t work, nobody would spend money on it, and McCain’s people have been spending like drunken sailors. It has to show up in the polls. But we are not seeing any real redefinition of Obama the way we did with Kerry this time last cycle. They made Kerry out to be a wuss, and Kerry didn’t help himself much in that department by his speeches or immediate response.

The NYT had a story out this morning documenting Obama’s ad attacks on McCain in some key midwest districts and in VA. Not quite under the radar, but aimed at exactly those places where they can do him the most good. There is no point in spending on people who aren’t going to vote for you anyway, and that in part is what McCain has been doing.

The NYT did its usual clucking over how they think Obama seems to be going the ‘low road’ despite all his talk. I have no doubts that he will do what it takes in that department. Some of us will be disgusted, but better a dirty win than no win at all at this stage in our history, when there are no clean wins at the Presidential level any more.

Obama has a lot of cash in the bank. He is going to bombard the airwaves when it counts, and when McCain can’t counter because he’s trapped by his finances. McCain’s 527’s will of course do their best, but two can play that game, and probably will. This was, as Obama said several times, always going to be a tough, close race.

It’s Zogby people, ferchrisakes. Zogby couldn’t poll the Yankee Stadium bleachers during a Red Sox game and get the right numbers.

“Using Zogby as a valid polling data is like of like…. hmmm using the National Enquirer as a real news source?”

tell that to John Edwards…..

Hit McCain with something that acknowledges that he is a maverick, and then look at what a maverick is.

A maverick (by definition) is NOT a leader.

Tie McCain back to Bush’s failed policies of the past 8 years, and then ask the rhetorical question, “Do we need a leader who can’t lead, who follows the failures of the past?”

Sorry to miss your comment, too busy to make it back here.

We’re working on your point here; cannot believe how many people take it for granted the system isn’t being gamed simply because my state doesn’t use Diebold.

This article, though, hints at other methods they are using to suppress turn-out. Shut down the offices where people register to vote under the guise of saving money, and make sure that the new offices are located out in the hinterlands away from urban minority residents.

We have to focus on this now.

Without having done any substantial study, it seems to me that polling has become much less accurate/precise/predictive during the monarchy of Bush & Cheney. Witness the divergence in current polling, the divergence seen in various polling prior to the last two presidential elections, and the exit polling results seen during the last presidential elections.

Assume with me that: 1) Republicans have engaged in large (and small) scale dirty tricks that have changed the outcomes of several elections. 2) Like all of their lies, they want to have a narrative of how their lies are truth. 3) Many polling organizations and their clients are corporate, and could be swayed by influences apart from measuring and reporting accurately.

Why wouldn’t the republican leadership lean on polling organizations so that some polls would predict results consistent with republican election fraud? And, the beauty of this is - suggesting polling fraud implies a level of collusion that the average (not too well-informed) citizen finds difficult to believe. Sounds like conspiracy theory: doesn’t it?

Meanwhile Zogby sez they can’t discern a demographic difference between folks who only have a cell phone, and those with a land line. As a consequence, they don’t worry about limiting their calls to land lines. Which sounds like more false narrative to me.