Independents Swing Toward McCain
September 14th, 2008 at 01:50pm Kevin Patrick
John Avlon at Politico.com has an excellent analysis of what’s really going behind McCain’s surge in the polls:
Independent voters—the largest and fastest growing segment of the American electorate —were always going to determine the winner of this election.
In the wake of Sarah Palin, John McCain has opened up a 15-point lead among independents, according to a new Gallup Poll—and Barack Obama has a real problem.
McCain has opened up a months-long tie among independents into a 52 to 37 percent spread since the convention. Support for McCain among self-described “conservative Democrats” has jumped ten points, to 25 percent, signaling the shift among swing voters to McCain.
…
McCain’s credibility with Independents goes back more than a decade, and it’s far deeper than a veep pick. McCain was Independents’ favorite political figure for most of this decade—he fought against Karl Rove in 2000 and Tom Delay’s pork-barrel spending, corrupt conservative Congress in the road up to ’06.
He has a heroic record of reaching across the aisle to forge bipartisan compromise against an ideological establishment that encouraged the opposite—for Independents, this is profile-in-courage type stuff.
This is the mantle John McCain grabbed at the GOP Convention and all of the hit jobs and smear campaigns against his VP selection confirm the Left’s failure to appreciate the change.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008
13 Comments
1. David Miller | September 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I actually think that Palin is a superb choice, and McCain couldn’t have found a better person. Good luck to them!
2. kimberly4victory | September 14th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I have a feeling, as info about BO comes out, more and more will flock to McCain-Palin:
Now that we’ve had full field MRIs of Palin, her family and their pets, perhaps the media could focus on the many missing aspects of Obama’s bio.
Tom Maguire noted that we know virtually nothing about his time in NYC when he was attending Columbia (where no classmates seem to remember him and we have no transcripts or other records of his attendance there).
Dan Riehl notes why we should be especially concerning about those missing years.
By 1980 at Occidental Obama ran partly with a circle of wealthy, drug using Pakistani friends. He traveled to Pakistan between Occidental and Columbia in 1981. That was during the Second Military Era (1977-1988) - Pakistan was under Sharia Law and not the most welcoming to foreign visitors, especially without some graft or connections.
Based upon documented accounts, Obama seems to have also travelled the country-side, not just in the cities. By 1981 Pakistan had become the world’s number one supplier of Heroin. Upon his return Obama took up residence with one of the drug using Pakistanis in a run down, presumably drug infested part of NYC in an apartment they couldn’t qualify for based on income.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/obamas_missing_years.html
3. Mark Noonan | September 14th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
kimberly,
Certainly as the story of Obama has been fleshed out it hasn’t worked to his advantage - and, thus far, his mis-spent youth has not been brought up much; far more damaging to him has been his radical connections and his clear unreadiness to be President. As for me, I’m not going to get into whatever Obama may or may not have done in his younger days - I’ve got far too many skeletons in my own youth closet to be casting any stones.
4. hermie | September 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
You don’t even have to go back to his youth. Just focus on his lackluster career as a ‘community organizer’, where he never actually accomplished anything and his years as a State Senator, where his greatest achievement was voting ‘Present’. Show that for all his talk of ‘change’, he never went against the wishes of the Chicago Dem machine. He never supported reform.
Bring up that for all his talk of ‘Change’ and “bipartisanship’, he never bucked the Dem leadership in the US Senate.
Show that Obama’s manta is not ‘Hope and Change’ but “All Talk, and No Action’.
5. Retired Spook | September 14th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Bring up that for all his talk of ‘Change’ and “bipartisanship’, he never bucked the Dem leadership in the US Senate.
Hermie, if memory serves me, he’s had his name on 3 significant pieces of Senate legislation. One passed with around 85% and the other two were unanimous. That’s REAL POLITICAL RISK TAKING!
My gut tells me that the Dems last secret weapon will be a late October impeachment of Palin over TrooperGate, initiated by the Dems in the Alaska legislature and supported by the dirty Republicans whose noses she’s bloodied or who are friends with those who have been indicted and/or imprisoned. If that happens, look for a deluge of Obama’s dirty laundry to come to light. This has the potential to get really ugly.
6. New Conservative | September 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I wonder if we will take Congress back.
http://thenewconservatives.blogspot.com/
7. Moosetracks | September 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Not to worry, sooner or latter McSame will have to campaign on his own and not have the benefit from hiding behind Palin’s skirt. It will be back to the dull, listless all old white men crowds.
8. William of Orange | September 15th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Retired Spook writes:
“My gut tells me that the Dems last secret weapon will be a late October impeachment of Palin over TrooperGate..”
Honorable Mr Retired, while I don’t doubt your apprehension, I can’t seem to understand why this is or would get any traction with the American people. I mean, I do NOT understand why Wooten still has his job. The guy was drinkig on the job, threatened Palin’s parents with boily harm, and tasered his kid.
I mean, what’s it take to get fired up there? If his supervision wouldn’t fire him and Palin stepped in and relieved the recalcitrant supervision, then wouldn’t the public be sympathetic?
You’d think Obama’s and the Democrat’s operatives would realize that..
..oh, forgive me, I just realized who we were talking about.
9. William of Orange | September 15th, 2008 at 2:14 am
..er..drinkING and BODILY..
10. Retired Spook | September 15th, 2008 at 8:05 am
William, if you haven’t already read it, read this article, and I think you’ll see that, for the Dems, the ends truly do justify the means. Their playbook simply has an entirely different set of moral and ethical rules than ours.
Now, that said, I’d like to think that the majority of the American people would see through such an outrage, and the backlash would bury the Donks at the polls. But after witnessing what happened in our local Mayor’s election last year, I’m not so sure.
Last year in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a conservative Republican, a local architect who also happens to be a friend of mine, made an error in judgment involving a substantial campaign loan from the head of a local right-to-life group. He borrowed the money personally and then loaned it to his campaign without disclosing where the original loan had come from. He had upset the GOP’s chosen candidate in the primary, so he had people on both sides pitted against him. He was indicted by a grand jury a couple months prior to the election on 9 felony counts of campaign fraud and lying to a grand jury, and lost the election in a landslide to a good-ol’-boy Democrat. The voters are already starting to have buyer’s remorse, but, in the process, a really decent man was destroyed.
The people of Alaska may love Sarah Palin, but there are a lot of politicians on both sides who don’t. I sincerely hope they don’t pull off something like an impeachment attempt, but don’t be surprised if they do.
11. hermie | September 15th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Spook, I would have to say that Alaskan GOP members should tread very carefully if they are indeed, trying to get ‘payback’. The national GOP leaders and many in the trenches will not look favorably upon them; and they also will risk alienating their own constituencies if they try to take revenge upon a very popular governor.
Also, I don’t recall the word impeachment used in any of these stories. If the Dems try that, then they are not only risking their future political careers, but will be wasting who knows how many millions in Alaskan taxpayer funds.
12. DM | September 15th, 2008 at 9:09 am
”I’ve got far too many skeletons in my own youth closet to be casting any stones.” - Noonan
Perhaps, but you’re not running for POTUS either.
I say the voters should be aware of the history of the persons vying for that position. This is one of Obama’s biggest problems. Very little of his history has been made public. Slowly thru diligence we’re finding bits and pieces, much of which I believe does not sit well with the average voter. It seems like Obama is working overtime in hiding or distorting his past. Let the voter decide what’s relevant.
13. hermie | September 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Actually it’s not entirely because Obama is trying to hide his past; it’s because the MSM has no desire to actually look at his past.
They much rather discuss Palin’s hairdresser or make a hero out of the trooper who tazed a kid.