Election Eve

GO OUT AND VOTE !!!! Honor Mrs. Dunham and elect her grandson.

On the eve of this election I can't help but feel that this will be a historic event. For the 1st time, we have an African-American who not only is leading in the polls, but is leading with an outright majority nationwide. There is far more at stake, however. Here in California, there's Prop. 8 (please vote NO), which I will turn out large numbers of evangelicals. The LDS church is joining with evangelicals to fund the 'yes on 8' campaign. They have delved into politics, not something everyone in the LDS church agrees with, for what it's worth. There's Prop. 4 (please vote NO again), which chips away at a woman's right to privacy by eliminating that right for those under the age of 18. It doesn't outlaw abortion, but rather attacks the fundamental right which is the basis of Roe v. Wade. Since when are constitutional rights magically determined by age?
Sneaking in under the radar on what has been a massive presidential campaign, these Propositions are being funded by right-wing and right-to-life PACs from outside of California. In any other election year, there would be a large outcry.

Obama's rally tonight in Manassas, Virginia drew 90,000 people in a county where George Bush won with 69,000 votes in 2004. But that's just the dot on the I. He's been campaigning in states that were 'Red' and turning out record crowds. St. Louis 100,000, 3 rallies in western states that turned out 250,000. It's been that way all across the country, and been that way for weeks. It is the Obama Phenomena. Curious what a crowd of 90,000 looks like in the middle of the night? Here's a picture of part of the crowd posted by a blogger. As far as the eye can see and beyond.



Meanwhile, McCain and Palin are hitting midnight rallies in Nevada and Arizona tonight to crowds of hundreds. Crowds that fit into a high school gym. In Tampa, McCain started the day with a crowd of 1,000 when 10,000 were expected.

The Obama Phenomena is changing the Electoral map. States that haven't been in play for decades, are now 'toss up' or leaning Obama. Not only does that provide a multitude of ways for Obama to get to the needed 270, it's had a dramatic impact on the down-ticket races for Senate and Congressional seats. No one was thinking that we might get to 60 Democratic Senate seats even 6 weeks ago. If you believe the polls, that possibility is very real. Although still not likely, most pollsters get to that number by including "Independents" like Lieberman (what a jerk).

You've probably noticed that I've not been blogging on the polls lately. It's not that I'm not following them. On the contrary.. I watch these sites and read all the data I can.
RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight are two sites run by wonks that crunch numbers to excess. You can watch the campaign maps of CNN and MSNBC. You can look at Intrade Prediction Markets which would have you trade on the predictions like the stock market.

Here's my take on the polls. They show a steady Obama lead nationwide. The variance day-to-day of the tracking polls are all within the margins of error. There hasn't been any indication of a change in trend. Has it tightened up? Maybe. Not significantly. The national polls tend to not include votes for Nader and Barr.. some say that will be 2-3 %. Interestingly enough, most polls show that Nader and Barr overall will hurt McCain more than Obama. More important are the State-by-State numbers. This election is won State-by-State; something we don't have to tell Al Gore. In all of the toss-up states except perhaps North Carolina, Obama holds some kind of lead. Even there and Missouri, McCain's "lead" is less than 1 %. On the other hand, Georgia, North Dakota, Montana, and Arizona are now 'toss-up'; being within the margins of error.

Here's my problem with the polls. They don't reflect those tens of (or hundreds) of thousands of people that are showing up at the Obama rallies. Either voter turnout from these energized individuals will be the lowest in history or the polls are just not paying attention. The polls have their methods and they stick to them. I think they will learn a new lesson this year about how the dynamics of this election are not being reflected in their numbers.

Here's an example:
In GEORGIA- for all pollsters a 'red' state. Latest polls show McCain's lead down at about the margin of error, in some cases down to 1 point. However here's news that the pollsters didn't pick up. We see this reported at FiveThirtyEight.com today. They don't poll, they run simulations based on other people's polling data.

1,994,990 people voted early in Georgia. 3,301,875 total voted in Georgia's presidential race in 2004. That, with insanely long lines for early voters.

On the Road: Atlanta, Georgia details the 550, 000 new voters registered, the 33 offices, 175 staging areas, at least one in every county, and a highly organized and active volunteer organization.

Indeed, Obama is doing better with white voters in Georgia than either Kerry or Gore. In early voting, African-American voting was 35%. 25% is the historic level. As for totals after election day comes and goes, Adelman said, "anything over 30% and we're gonna win."

The other problem I have with the polls is the early voting movement. No one knows how to account for the early voters, especially in the battleground states. It will be interesting to see if they are more influenced by the GOTV from the campaigns than the electorate in general. Many of these voters are VERY motivated; standing in line for hours. Why, I'm not sure. Perhaps it is from the fear of being disenfranchised as happened in some areas in 2004.
In any case, far more people are voting early - 1/3 of all voters in Virginia voted early. So much for the last 72 hour 'push' by the campaigns.

I'm sure there will be plenty of analysis to listen to tomorrow.
I think there is going to be a big surprise. Obama is going to get results that the polls just don't measure.

In the mean time, there is this: Washington lost this weekend. Some say that means a Democratic win (football fans!).

Then there is this - Dixville Notch, NH polls opened at midnight and closed shortly thereafter. Obama wins 15 to 6 (votes!). It's the 1st result of the night, and not necessarily a good bell weather, however they haven't voted for a Democrat since Humphrey in 1968.

Find me blogging the news tomorrow. !!!

Debate number 3 - Monitoring the Independents

The CNN Independent focus group twists the dials for Barack Obama again for debate number 3.
The snap polls taken after the debate

McCain started the debate with 'angry angry angry' and looked that way. The split screen told the tale, looking old, angry, and at times contemptuous. None of those win votes, especially with Independent or undecided voters. Dial responses were muted.

On the other hand, Obama was 'cool and collected', and although a bit tense at the open, seemed to get more comfortable and more focused as the debate wore on. It might have seemed 'boring' to some, but the 'even hand on the tiller' of steady leadership can look that way. Net result - similar muted responses.

In contrast, it makes McCain look even more erratic and disjointed when unsuccessfully trying one attack angle after another to get Obama off course. McCain just seemed to get more angry, more frustrated, and at the end, tired. It seemed the focus group ended the same way; positive responses dropped off while McCain was still dragging out his responses.

McCain sounded hollow when complaining about the Obama's negative ads. It's an unbelievable charge. He's not in a position to whine while he's running 100% negative ads and Palin is stoking the hate mongers on the fringe. No one will believe that Obama is spending the most on negative ads, because he's only about 30% negative compared to the 100% negative of McCain. Every time someone sees an positive issue ad by Obama, they are now going to think ' Gee, McCain was wrong about Obama spending so much on negative ads'. This is definitely going to blow back on McCain, especially if he continues to run negative. Needless to say, you don't win votes with this line.

Obama missed the talking point on Ayers that he was voted Chicago Citizen of the Year in 1987, but responded well about the relationship. He told the story, explained the board, who else was on it, and who funded it - Ronald Reagan's friends the Annenburgs. - McCain hurt himself with outbursts. The diallers show they really aren't that interested. McCain follows up saying that he's not that interested in an old former terrorist, but it's about Obama's being forthcoming about the information. The problem was he said that after Obama just got done with a detailed explanation.

McCain is not believable about 'repudiating' all negative personal attacks. How can he say that when his running mate is busy making negative personal attacks? The dial shows people are not particularly impressed.

McCain has some problems with his arguments lately. When asked about Sarah Palin, he can no longer say 'reformer' without people thinking 'troopergate - abuse of power'. Flat Independent response from women until he touched on 'special needs kids'.. Men seemed to like that 'feisty' part of the 'reformer' word.

As the subjects turned to energy, Obama blew McCain out of the water. Especially when he talked about making high efficiency cars here in the US, not overseas, and working on new energy sources creating jobs in the US. McCain's drill-drill-drill just didn't resonate. The focus group is from Ohio. Job news is hurting this part of the country. McCain ties jobs to energy, but doesn't say how. Bringing up nuclear powered navy ships seems SO detached, McCain's just not relating to the focus group.

Moving on to Health Care, Obama got the twist to full + both with men and women. McCain's $5000 plan got Neg marks with women.. period! Men also dropped down to only slightly +.
McCain's mocking 'zero' response to Obama's statement about fines to small businesses didn't come off. It made him look like he didn't know Obama's plan. Obama continued with a strong response, detailing McCain's plan and it's faults. McCain is clearly out of it on this one. He didn't explain or counter Obama's arguments - he went back to Joe Plumber.. what? He goes off track then veers back. McCain then goes on to explain that his plan would give people $5000, but then would be taxed .. but the kicker is then he says the average health plan costs $5800.. hmm that seems like a $800 loss, and you then have to go out and find coverage for yourself... Good Luck... needless to say he got flat lined by the diallers on that. His arguments were not coherent at all. Obama's explanation of the McCain plan was far more understandable than McCain's attempt at explaining his own position. Probably convinced more than a few that they're better off without McCain's plan.

On the Supreme court issue - McCain came out and said he's for overturning Roe v. Wade. Called himself a Federalist - (stole that one from Palin!) He then got incoherent again.. no litmus test, but someone who's record supports Roe v. Wade would not be qualified .. huh? Talking out of both sides of his mouth. Obama refers back to supporting the Right to Privacy.. gets a strong uptick. Obama gives a strong empathy position - not 'Pro-Abortion'; support providing alternative solutions. Empathy was apparent; give women the choice, but encourage alternatives and prevent pregnancies to begin with. Very Centrist- and probably acceptable to some who lean pro-life, but are not hard line. Common ground approach mentioning sacred sexuality hits TOP marks, men and women! This line provides a way for people to support Obama from both sides of this issue and is reflected in the focus group response.

Obama hits again with Education. Teacher pay is very good point with the dialer twisters, but college hits the mark 100% + especially with women, but also with men. He does it again when he talks about better parenting -- 100% both men and women. Clear win on this one.
McCain harps on Vouchers.. his only answer. Troops returning to work as teachers without credentials gets a strong neg twist from women. Don't blame them... it's a STUPID idea. What qualifies a veteran to be able to teach without appropriate training? Makes NO sense. The visual of that ex-marine standing in front of a bunch of elementary school kids is pretty stark.
Obama comes out and blasts McCain's lack of help for college education, and uses his campaign's flippant response of not being able to accommodate a 'special interest'

Closing speeches were a mis-match. McCain starts, and gets only small responses. He doesn't have much to say. If anything, this should have been his shining moment. He should have been prepared to espouse all his strong points, but doesn't. He basically just asked for people to trust him. That's pretty tough with the sentiment running so negative these days, and some of his erratic answers. No big positives in response. Obama reviews his policy positions and relates them to the people. He gets a fairly strong positive response on the dials, and closes asking for peoples votes. (Don't forget to ask for their votes!!).

McCain set himself up as the angry attack underdog, but that set up a very negative tone. Response was muted. This is a very dangerous mode to go during a debate. If you are successful with the attacks, throwing your opponent off or getting them to change their game plan, and do it in a way that doesn't set a negative tone on your own message, you can win big. It's the kind of tactic that McCain needs because he needs to make a global shift in the campaign. Unfortunately for McCain, his tactic didn't work. He came across with a negative tone, did not throw Obama off his game plan, and didn't deliver a message of his own.

He ended up attacking Obama, but doing it on Obama's turf. That gives Obama control of the response and the debate. In order to work, he needed to attack Obama from his own turf. From his own strengths, he could have attacked without setting a negative tone on his own message.
The problem is that his own strengths aren't very strong. They don't bear critical analysis. They are also in areas that are not as important as they once were to the voters.

UPDATE - CNN snap poll data shows:
By 23 points, those polled said Obama was the stronger leader during the debate. By 48 points, they said Obama was more likeable. Independents went 57% to 31% for Obama as winning the debate. [Those are blow-away numbers. Clearly McCain's attack underdog persona hurt him]
CNN's Electoral College map now is at 277 Obama - more shifts, and some strong red states are now only 'lean McCain'. Interesting to see it change.

I expect a bounce for Obama in the battleground states out of this. I'm also waiting for the press to bring forward the William Timmons lobbyist issue, which mainstream news organizations haven't delivered on yet. Perhaps they were all waiting for the debates to be over. Obama doesn't need to raise this issue, but the press should still let people know about Timmons. He's an example of the worst of Washington insider politics.

Latest Q-Polls

These surveys of likely voters in Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan were conducted by Quinnipiac University in partnership with washingtonpost.com and The Wall Street Journal.

The polls reflect data collected Oct 8-12 (post debate)
Full survey results are available here

Key Findings Among Likely Voters
Presidential Preference
If the election for President were being held today, and the candidates were Barack Obama the Democrat and John McCain the Republican, for whom would you vote?
Colorado
McCain (R) 43%
Obama (D) 52%
Michigan
McCain (R) 38%
Obama (D) 54%
Minnesota
McCain (R) 40%
Obama (D) 51%
Wisconsin
McCain (R) 37%
Obama (D) 54%

More Polling - Gallup quote and Yahoo EC map

The economy is tanking, and my portfolio is sinking, but I'm being buoyed by the Polls.

This economic mess is going to be handed to our next President to fix, so it's more important then ever, now that the $700 Billion has been approved, that we make sure the right man gets elected to do the job. Who would you rather have; A man who barely made it through the Naval College, graduating fifth from the bottom, known to all to be the 'maverick' because he was in more trouble than he was anything else, not getting kicked out because his daddy was an Admiral, or a man who broke barriers at Harvard and was elected to be President of the Harvard Law Review?

Here's the Yahoo! News Political Dashboard - EC map. This one is based on the RealClearPolitics organization. Look at this map and reason for John McCain's desperation is obvious. The data is a little different than CNNs, but they aren't bashful about the projected 341 EC votes for Obama either. Also, included is the InTrade market prediction. Interesting stuff, and lots of data behind it. You can click on a state and see the polling numbers graphed to see trends, etc.

Gallup:

This 10-day stretch of a significant Obama lead is the longest since [Obama] became the presumptive nominee back in early June, and the longest for either candidate at any point in the campaign.

Hope that helps take your mind off your 401k balance.

On another note, Republicans are hinting voter registration fraud in Indiana. We should remind them of voter fraud in Ohio and Florida (insufficient polling places/machines, 'roadblocks' and intimidation of black voters) during the '04 election. They are just tired of getting their butts kicked by the best grassroots campaign organization ever assembled.

A heartwarming example is what's going on in North Carolina. This state has gone Republican since 1976. McCain is being forced to defend this state, one that most of the politicos thought was safely in the fold. Why? Because of massive voter registrations drives that are 6 to 1 Democratic.

As written in the Washington Post yesterday:

The ratio is more lopsided in North Carolina, where Democrats have added 208,000 voters this year. The 34,000 voters the Republicans have added lags well behind the 148,000 new independents. Four years ago, when Bush won the state with 56 percent of the vote, the picture was different -- Democrats added 192,000 voters during all of 2004, but Republicans nearly matched them with 179,000 new voters of their own.

A disproportionate share of the new voters in North Carolina are minorities. At the start of the year, white voters in the state outnumbered blacks by nearly 4 to 1, and Hispanic voters by 10 to 1. Yet the 146,000 black and Hispanic voters added to the rolls represented nearly three-quarters of the growth among white voters.

Gary Pearce, a Democratic political consultant in North Carolina, said the gap in new registrations is a big reason he thinks Democrats have a chance of carrying the state for the first time since 1976. "It's huge. You talk about a surge -- we think we're going to see it here," Pearce said.

McCain steals the VP Debate Thunder - Pulls out of Michigan

The McCain camp announced this afternoon that it was pulling out of Michigan - conceding that state to Obama. Well, the polls were pretty clear, but making that announcement puts the McCain campaign in dire straights. They recently announced that they had raised a record amount of money, so clearly they could campaign there if they wanted to.

Looking at the electoral college map on CNN, they have moved Obama to 250 EC votes, with McCain at 189. With Obama only 20 points away, McCain would literally have to win almost ALL of the remaining battleground states to win this election. That map still does not reflect significant Obama gains in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, and Virginia since last weeks debate.

This certainly doesn't look good for McCain. I'd be watching for some pretty major mud-slinging in McCain ads soon. His biggest problems are that he really doesn't have anything new to offer, and independants tend to really dislike negative campaigning.

CNN Election Tracker shows Obama gains in EC map

I noticed some discrepancies between CNN's Electoral College map and their 'Election Tracker' map.

Click this link for the Election Tracker map. Notice that this map shows the latest polling data, all prior to the debate, in the swing states - if you mouse over the CNN symbol of a swing state - it will provide the data. On this map, light blue is still 'even-within margin of error'. Notice that Wisconsin is DARK blue - called for Obama. Also notice that the data for Minnesota and New Hampshire are favoring Obama, but are not called for him yet, however the leads are right at the 'margin of error' for the polls. WI, MN and NH total 24 electoral votes.

Now notice the CNN Electoral College map linked from their main politics page. This is the interactive 'calculator' map that allows you to change states and see what happens to the EC count. With CNN's estimate they show Obama at 240, McCain at 200.

Notice that this map does NOT have WI for Obama, and shows MO and NC as leaning McCain, even though the Tracker maps shows them as 'even - within margin of error'.

It appears that they have not updated the 'Calculator' map linked from their leading 'Politics' page with the latest data from the Election Tracker. If you update the map with the WI, MN and NH, Obama moves up to 264 EC votes - 6 votes shy of the 270 required. MO and NC should be moved back into the 'toss-up' pile, as they are both within 1 pt, and the data is 2 weeks old. This leaves McCain with 176 EC votes, and 100 in the toss-up group.

This shows a VERY different picture of the EC vote status - 264 Obama to 176 McCain with 100 still in the 'toss-up' states. Keep in mind that this data is all PRIOR to the Debate. New post-debate polling data will move things around a bit. If Obama gets a bounce in Ohio or any of the other swing states, which judging from the debate viewer polls , he will, and with his current momentum, the Election Tracker map should start to show Obama polling over the top with the next poll results update.

This is especially true if Palin does not get a huge bounce out of the VP debate. Somehow, based on her press interviews, I don't think that will be likely, unless it's a sympathy bounce because somehow it's 'unfair' or 'sexist' to expect her to answer the same questions as Biden. It's really just another press interview, since they won't be addressing each other based on the 'special rules' for this debate session. Most people don't know Joe Biden, although he has a long record in the Senate. They will learn that he is a very capable, eloquent speaker, and knowledgeable on the issues and the record. Palin has a problem putting together a coherent grammatically correct sentence if she's not repeating a memorized talking point. The best thing she could do is find a reason not to be there on Thursday. The best thing Biden can do is to let her hang herself and stay as far away from the self-destruct as possible, to avoid any 'blame' from the Republican spin doctors.

My only other expectation is that CNN will be slow to update their maps, because of the debacle of the last election, where they missed their predictions by small but important margins.

Obama Breaks for the Lead 52 to 43% in Latest Poll

It's way to early in this race to break out any cigars but this Washington Post-ABC News national poll is GREAT news.

It shows Obama has taken the lead in the national polls both of likely and registered voters by 9 points - 52 to 43

This breakout is important, as it is the first time either candidate has broken the 50% mark among 'likely' voters (Obama crossed the 50% mark several times during the primaries among 'registered' voters, but not since securing the primary).

This is quite a swing since the last poll of 9/7 Obama +5 and McCain -6 for a net +11 for Obama!!

The momentum is shifting - now is the time to shift into high gear and double up on efforts to get Obama elected.