In June of 2004
June 19th, 2008 at 01:11am Mark Noonan
The Washington Post/ABC poll asked the question: If the eleciton were held today, for whom would you vote?
The result was: Kerry 48%, Bush 42%
in June of 2008 the Washington Post/ABC poll asked the question: If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?
The result is: Obama 48%, McCain 42%
Obama is in big trouble - he’s still the inside favorite, but he’s got to do vastly better than Kerry if he hopes to win in November, and so far he isn’t doing it. He’s gotten a “post wrap up” bounce which, at best, has pushed him nationally about 6 or 7 points ahead of McCain, depending on the poll, but that isn’t good enough, not by a long shot. In this year of 2008, with President Bush’s approval ratings below freezing and with the right/wrong track numbers entirely in the dumpster, Obama should be crushing McCain. I mean, seriously, anything less than a 20 point lead is just bizarre, given the overall political dynamics - and this shows that the American people, in spite of leftwing fantasies to the contrary, did not turn left in 2006 and are unwilling to do so in 2008. Obama is the most leftwing candidate ever nominated by a major American political party, and he’s having a very hard time selling himself outside upper class whites and black voters.
America is a center/right political nation, and if Obama wants to be President, he’d better figure out a way to assure the average American that his policies will not be overtly leftist - all the while fighting off McCain and the GOP, who will bring up every scrap of evidence of Obama’s leftism to tear down the moderate wall Obama is building ’round himself.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Republicans
20 Comments
1. What? | June 19th, 2008 at 1:49 am
This from the man who claims polls don’t matter.
Anyways, you keep comforting yourself with those poll numbers, Mark. If that is what gets you through the day, so be it.
2. Mark Noonan | June 19th, 2008 at 2:18 am
What,
Polls are a weak reed to build on - but I’ve said all along that trends in polls are useful, especially the same poll taken over a period of time. Presumptively, the poll linked used the same methodology in 2004 and 2008 and to come up with an exact same result is indicative not of how the vote will come out, but of overall trends…and the trend is not in favor of the left.
3. french student | June 19th, 2008 at 2:30 am
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html
Well if you want trends…
The trend of these last three months is Obama rising, McCain…. well, not.
And remember, it has not even been three months since Obama was the candidate.
4. Liberal | June 19th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Maybe Karl Rove has “the math,” eh?
5. OpChaosUK | June 19th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Tradition’s not on our side, Mark, so McLame has a hill to climb. Also, I’ve lost faith in the American people to do the right thing.
It’s a good time to be living in England…
6. Mark Noonan | June 19th, 2008 at 2:50 am
french,
You’re not paying attention - so, I’ll make it very clear for you.
OBAMA IS LEADING IN THE POLLS.
Happy?
The problem is that Obama isn’t leading by nearly enough to show that he’s going to be a winner in the fall. At this point in 1976 Carter had a 30 point lead over Ford…he won by less than a percentage point. At this point in 1988, Dukakis had a 15 point lead over the Elder Bush…he lost by 10 percentage points. Get the picture?
No one has ever been able to explain it, but for whatever reason it is, the fact is that the GOP always polls worse the further out from election day you go…the race always tightens, and the rule of thumb is that it will alway tighten in the GOP’s favor. Were this a normal election year (as 2004 was) then I’d be predicting a McCain victory in November (as I did with President Bush, even though he was behind Kerry as much as McCain is behind Obama at this point in the campaign)…only because this is an anti-GOP environment do I think that Obama still has the inside track to win…but he’s got a might high mountain to climb, and so far he hasn’t shown that he can do it.
7. french student | June 19th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Three month trend? Favorable to Obama.
What you did xas digging for a snapshot example from elections past (june of 2004 ), disregarding the differences in the nature of the races and the trends at the time of the given snapshot. You are not exploiting the trends of the polls, or you would have given the trend at the time of your snapshot.
So yes, I believe that the point made in comment 1 is valid
8. french student | June 19th, 2008 at 5:12 am
and, of course, from the very artivcle you linked to :
(my emphasis)
So not only are you drawing a parallel by taking a couple figures and ignoring the context, you are actually doing it on purpose, since the very article you link to emphasizes more the difference in the situations ( over 3/4 of the space and text) than the similarities (under a quarter).
This, once again, takes away from you the “but I’m just stupid” defence and lands you into “I’m purposely trying to mislead people” territory.
Have a nice day.
9. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 5:58 am
I personally love polling. I think so much is spent on polling, both in pundits and the press analyzing them and actual money spent gathering the data, that it honestly makes anyone who thinks they are without merit clearly only one thing possibly, “on the low end of the poll.” I am not a statistician nor a pollster I can claim only two expertise in covering politics, I know the law and I know not to open my mouth or scratch paper with pen until I have the facts. That latter bit there means that it is also unwise to try to draw coincidental connections to polling data that have absolutely no equity in terms.
In 2004 the US economy was humming along on autopilot cruising toward a mountain. In 2008 the plane has hit the mountain and everyone is trying to figure out who is going to survive. The main topic three years out from September 11 with that fear of being attacked still fresh in the minds of most Americans Iraq was the main topic. Should you stay or should you go? America by a slim margin voted to stay; the Democrats had blown their chance to win by not choosing Howard Dean. The GOP won by flooding evangelical churches with PowerPoint presentations given on a weekly basis by well spoken, very bright and blond people wearing modest church clothing spending millions of dollars across the Bible belt registering new voters who would vote for the images of race, religion, family and flag they had been shown by the well paid consultants chosen by the RNC. Imagine the power of the images of 9/11 counterpointed with images of a young man his wife and child walking in a park. It is a fantasy world the consultants showed them of flags and victory and segregation that resonated so deep inside Southern Baptists and other denominations that GOP never had to be said so it could remain legal. They could not come out and shout Bush for president but they could ask if a person was registered for either party in that state. Of course the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth® were given all the credit, but they were the smoke and mirrors. It was the nearly 10 000 churches visited from the late fall of 2003 until just a few weeks after Labor Day 2004 that brought out the evangelicals, Baptists, fundamentalists and Pentecostals one last time for Dubya.
Despite what your crystal ball tells you Noonan 2008 is a wholly different matter. John McCain is not George W Bush in many ways. He does not appeal to the “base” that would line up in droves to register to vote after church because those avid church goers know McCain does not take their fantastic world view seriously. For what it is worth I can say without hesitation that Senator John McCain is a rational man of Reason and Science. At his age he knows better than to try to seem like one of the religious Right crowd even while knowing that he needs the support and votes of even the most addle-brained member of Pastor Hagee’s megachurch. McCain showed how rational he was by reaching out to two of the most radical and wealthy of the Religion Incorporated bunch—Hagee and Parsley. Still, this will not play in Philadelphia, MS. Those folks may not be breeding Nobel laureates but they do breed more true believers per capita than any other place on Terra. And that include Gaza, Beirut, Helmand province and North Waziristan.
Barack Hussein Obama is a ripe fruit for the picking for the GOP in smear factor terms. The funny name, the strong vocal wife, those ears all would have been easy targets for the GOP hatchet men in more abundant years. However, there is no bumper crop this year; it lies underneath the flood waters that have laid ruin to many hectares of crops in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. The impact of these historic floods in not at all in contrast to the flood of disdain the American people have for their current president and his party. Like the actual physical impact of the flooding at its crest one cannot see the economic damage that has been done and will register many months from now in higher food prices and next summer in even higher gasoline prices unless a different hand is placed on the steering wheel of the Executive Branch. So the smears will not work, Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger have showered the newspapers with vitriol and vomited chainsaws at video cameras filled with words and pictures that would have destroyed most other candidates in most other times. But this time is different Noonan and you know why. You shake your head even now and owner why is this Liberal fool continuing to mention Michelle Obama, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger knowing that white voters are angered by all three of these people and what they say and the manner in which they boldly say it? Well, mark Noonan I will let you in on a secret that my good friend Hunter S Thompson clued me in on many years ago when we were hard at work undoing a spell that Shai’tan had cast on the United States of America in for of Richard Milhous Nixon. Hunter said, “You don’t have to be a gonzo journalist to be a demon journalist; but it never hurts to be a demon journalist if you are a gonzo journalist.”
Those words have stayed with me from that day in 1973 until today. It does not matter how you get the story or even how you tell it as long as it is the truth and you do not run away from that truth. Barack Obama’s campaign knows they will win as long as they do not throw away the respect the people have for them. They can make mistakes and they will be magnified by the Right Wing media and the Right Wing pundits as expected. The US economy is bad and rather than run around trying to cover George W Bush’s ass the GOP pundits, c-list bloggers and even the insane Freeper lickspittles should be running to McCain and his policies and throwing Dubya under the bus. You do that so easily too; Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Vitter, Craig, Foley, Lewis, Stevens, Abramoff, Safavian, Hastert, Goodling, Gonzales, Libby, Fossella chuck them under the lorry and go back to business as usual. That is not admission as you like to put it that is a glossing over. “Nothing to see here people move along,” ought to be the motto of the GOP. There is something frighteningly important to see here. This time the smoke and mirrors will not work. While vile things are being said about Barack Obama’s wife and children by push pollers over here DNC operatives whose names end in vowels will be interviewing every woman who worked with John McCain while he was in the Navy after returning from Vietnam.
According to our sources who have been reliable to this point, Obama campaign director David Axelrod has a red day planner he never pets out of his sight and when he is gone it is locked inside a strong box that is placed in a safe. Inside that book are 293 names and a range of dates from the late 1970s to the early months of 2006. They are not only liaisons listed, but connections to people. From how he networked after falling in love with Cindy Hensley to how he has been groomed for this day by a series of lobbying firms not the least of which is at the very focus of his campaign Akin, Gump, Hauer, Strauss and Feld. Feel free to Google that firm at your leisure. The MSM thinks that being politically bought and sold is too complicated for the little man to understand and they are generally right; the American voter suffers from intellectual naïveté in this case. However, I feel I must point with a well polished claw to the suffering US economy and how many people have been cast out of their homes due to foreclosure. My city desk editor in Rham writes wonderful columns about the distance between the haves and have nots you may want to examine what he has to say today. I guarantee it will be enlightening. The common man in America, the poor slob, who has awakened from the “American Dream” to find he is 16 000 USD in debt, his house is in foreclosure and his gasoline coast 4, 50 USD per gallon does not care right now if their election year; quite possibly five times that many would have their votes swayed by this issue in an economic boom year if the party in power happened to hold their “values.” Today when strawberries have gone up in price by 75% and apples by 65% nationally in grocery stores where 2nds and 3rds are sold as “fresh produce” to the masses, men like Phil Gramm and his wife shop where the fruits and vegetables are “select” or “premium” or even a grade that the average common man will never neighbors daughter of 15 years notified her parents before she got an abortion Noonan. That issue is important to you and maybe 5 million other people in this taste unless he goes into the fruit processing business, “Gold Label.” John and Cindy McCain eat this better fruit and lettuce and tomatoes and so do Barack Obama and his family. The difference is that in Mister Axelrod’s Little Red book of Truth there is a trail of how Mister McCain came to be able to enjoy a plum so sweet it would cross the blue eyes of a kid in trailer park in Polk County, Florida.
In the end what you fail to realize is, Noonan, that while the voters who are looking for a better fit on the Democratic and Independent side, especially among young voters, realize that Barack Hussein Obama is no John Kerry this same large and likely to vote group of 20+ million also realize that John McCain IS another George W Bush. There likely will be no need to show any proof of McCain’s tomcatting in Virginia in the 1970s nobody really cares about that. What will bring him down if the smears against Obama continue, and they will because the RNC is stupid, is that he is a corrupt politician and that is not some hollow accusation because the trail leads out from Phil Gramm, to Enron, to lobbying firms that are hardwired into his campaign. Honestly, Noonan which do you think Americans care more about the fact that Barack Hussein Obama has an Arabic middle name and that his father was a Muslim, or that the Bush administration had secret meetings with the heads of the largest oil companies in the world and now they pay nearly 3 USD per gallon more at the pump than they did when Dubya took office? Are you willing to pay 6 or 7 or 8 USD per gallon for years to come with no energy plan except “drill offshore!” Mark, I must give it to you my friend you are a loyal man, but it is going to be a long hot summer for you politically.
Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire, O.D.A.J.[1er], D.S.V.J., J.F.
Editor-in-Chief
The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork
5 Melnar 2 AS
10. js | June 19th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I think you are the only one who fails to realize something CE.
You post so much drivel, most people will not read it.
Mostly, your opinionated claptrap is several steps out of reality, but for sure, we expect that of liberals, but you take it a few steps beyond the obvious.
11. Dollardays | June 19th, 2008 at 6:41 am
As we found out in 2000 Presidents are not picked by the majority vote. If you look deeper you see Obama uniting the country where recent Democrats have failed; he leads in Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Jersey, Ohio and closing in on North Carolina. After two months of being pretty much alone on the campaign trail. McCain has not much to show for it. Pollster.com
12. OpChaosUK | June 19th, 2008 at 6:45 am
…the Democrats had blown their chance to win by not choosing Howard Dean.
Merely an opinion, I hope–or are you clairvoyant(sp?) down there in devil-land?
…my good friend Hunter S Thompson clued me in on many years ago when we were hard at work undoing a spell…
Gee, was ol’ Hunter a devil worshiper too? Wouldn’t surprise me at all; he was a class-A kook. I guess he took too many head shot when the Hells Angels roughed him up. But hey, who am I to speak ill about the dead?
…and rather than run around trying to cover George W Bush’s ass the GOP pundits, c-list bloggers and even the insane Freeper lickspittles should be running to McCain and his policies and throwing Dubya under the bus. You do that so easily too; Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Vitter, Craig, Foley, Lewis, Stevens, Abramoff, Safavian, Hastert, Goodling, Gonzales, Libby, Fossella chuck them under the lorry
Aw hell, something we actually agree on in part. Did you cast a spell on me?
the American voter suffers from intellectual naïveté in this case.
Gee, something else we agree on, although I would content that it’s the American liberal voter who suffers, or who just doesn’t care as long as his, her, or in your case, its guy wins.
My city desk editor in Rham…
Who’s this, Dianne? Nothing but top-notch journalists down there, eh?
The common man in America, the poor slob, who has awakened from the “American Dream” to find he is 16 000 USD in debt, his house is in foreclosure and his gasoline coast 4, 50 USD per gallon…
And Earbama is gonna fix this how? 4.50 a gallon? Wow, try living in England; they don’t wanna hear Americans pissing and moaning about 4.50 petrol. I had to buy diesel on the economy–none on base–for 9.00US a gallon.
group of 20+ million also realize that John McCain IS another George W Bush.
Why? Because Earbama says so? Why can’t Earbama run on the issues, instead of against Bush? Why can’t any of you kooks run on the issues? You have none, except the same tired promises about health care and education. Same sh*t, different election.
There likely will be no need to show any proof of McCain’s tomcatting in Virginia in the 1970s nobody really cares about that.
Sooo, you bring it up why?
Cav, I must say that if you were E-I-C of a real publication, you’d not last long at all. Do you even proofread your own work. And, should you take offense and find errors in my post, so be it. I ain’t no E-I-C.
Now don’t go castin’ any spells on me; I’m riddled with bad luck as it is. Hell, I can’t cure my shanks with my lob wedge, and I’m unemployed.
13. Douglas Fairbanks | June 19th, 2008 at 6:48 am
One million people went to vote in the primary to find they were taken off the voter registration rolls.
Republicans send “Do Not Forward” letters that look like junk mail to urban areas. When they are not returned, they use that as proof that the person no longer lives there, and take that person off the voter registration polls.
The names on the cage lists contain many many soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. So when they vote by absentee ballot it is not counted.
Provisional ballots are only counted if the election for an area is close. If you suppress enough votes, it does not get close enough to meet that margin.
Democrats need an overwhelming turnout to beat the Republican voter suppression. And Congress needed to eliminate voting machine with no paper trail.
14. OpChaosUK | June 19th, 2008 at 6:50 am
DF, you’re a nut. Do you have proof, or did your MoveOn buddies convince you that the GOP has a lock on voter fraud? Idiot…
15. js | June 19th, 2008 at 6:58 am
there will be enough people to easily defeat hussen in the general election
its just too easy to make him out to be the liar that he is…his denials will only go so far…and “charisma” is no substitute for the truth….
16. William Teach | June 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Say, Doug, got proof? Besides, why would Republicans send out letters for a Democrat primary? Why would we care if they show up to vote or not? Heck, most of them probably do not even know what they are voting for, like most of the Kerry voters, who were really voting for “anybody but Bush” due to irrational seething.
17. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 19th, 2008 at 10:51 am
12. OpChaosUK | June 19th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Now don’t go castin’ any spells on me; I’m riddled with bad luck as it is. Hell, I can’t cure my shanks with my lob wedge, and I’m unemployed.
While I cannot give you a job you only need to strengthen your left hand on the club and bring the ball a bit forward in your stance [ 1 ball width inside the right heel] to cure that horrid disease.
Actually the Rham city desk editor is 1-1-8 a fine journalist in his own right when he can be kept away from Rham’s gaming tables.
I still hold Dean would have trampled Bush in 2004.
H Thompson is as good a friend now as he was then. There is far too much about Hell that you do not know than that you assume.
18. OpChaosUK | June 19th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Doug ain’t got no proof, William; Doug’s a MoveOn kool-aid drinker. And his lib buddies are still voting for “anybody but Bush,” thanks to the drive-by media’s portrayal of McCain being “Bush’s third term.” Of course, you’ve got blowhards such as Bob Bechel selling the same bullcrap. These pukes have nothing to offer America but the same old socialist crap, so they have to divert America’s attention from who they really are…
19. Jay Gaultieri | June 19th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
CE may be long-winded, but he’s right about a few points.
1)Obama’s strength has been the young people, for whom issues like gay marriage and Harry Potter books don’t resonate. If he holds onto the young people, he wins.
2)Obama has already been attacked for being Moslem (false) and for being Black (half true), in the primaries. He won. And when the RNC has run anti-Obama Congressional campaigns they have lost.
3) The bedrock base of the GOP is aging and dwindling in number. Younger evangelicals are inclined to preach a message of “Love Your Neighbor” instead of “Sponge Bob is part of the homosekshul agenda! Yee haw!”. Small government free-market conservatives are embracing Ron Paul. The only young people continuing the Bush Era legacy are the creepy Ann Coulter crowd.
4) President Bush’s platform of of endless war, corporate cronyism, big government, deficit spending, ecological destruction, hatred, fear, ignorance, arrogance, and divisiveness caused a whole of generation to become political in a negative reaction to him. A perfect example is the continued ridicule of environmentalism. The right wing media continues to depict the entire environmental movement as a few gay unemployed pot-smoking vegan hippies living in a yurt near Berkeley, California. Meanwhile, Jim Kramer is recommending the best green stocks to buy, recycling soars, railroads resurge, and sales of scooters and hybrid cars explode as the green ideology goes mainstream.
5)CE didn’t mention this, but the GOP has exactly one issue where the views of most Republicans coincide with the views of a large majority of Americans–illegal immigration. However they can’t because McCain, like the President he wants to succeed, is a huge proponent of illegal immigration.
20. Bloodthirsty Warmonger | June 20th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Cavalor Epþiþ, Esquire and Douglas Fairbanks are interesting handles to use on this blog, but they must be living in a parallel universe. Republicans don’t send their operatives to engage in political activity in churches - they wouldn’t be admitted for fear of losing their tax-exempt status. Democrats, on the other hand, do it all the time because they can get away with it.