Inuvix
1921
Just skimming through this mega-thread and I found a number of examples of where Qt3 Democrats substitute reasoned analysis with wishful thinking.
Of course, the tide may turn in Obama’s favor in the future (I’m not a wishful thinker), but this is very revealing about Qt3 predictive powers.
Not seeing this narrative anymore, but you can get decent odds on Obama chucking Biden overboard.
Inuvix, if Palin was going to have any effect, it would have resulted in a bigger convention bounce for McCain. It’s been a standard bounce, primarily attributed to southern states that were solid red anyway. Key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are still very much for Obama when they should be a lot closer from the RNC’s effects.
Palin continues to be a gimmick grab for the base. None of the Kerry states have budged, and the swing states are not leaning red enough, and in some cases are actually still leaning blue. People have heard Sarah Palin give the same speech five times or more, that probably has somthing to do with it.
McCain can’t match Obama’s campaign organization. Palin can make people like her and make them say so on the phone, but she hasn’t shown any sort of ability to make people go vote. What’s she really offering? Like her speeches, more of the same.
Jazar
1923
It is very interesting how the Palin narrative just keeps on taking center stage for about 2 weeks now. Biden appears on Meet the Press and the first 15 mins or so is about nothing but Palin. Maybe when the first debate airs on Sept 26 will the spotlight return to McCain and Obama.
Fooey
1924
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are no longer solid for Obama at all.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/battleground.html
Obama up by 2 in Michigan, McCain up 3 in Virginia, McCain up 5 in Florida, Ohio tied, Obama up 2 in Pennsylvania. Those Michigan and Pennsylvania numbers are a nightmare for Obama. He’s fighting for his life in blue states he has to hold and should be winning by 15 points. And I think Ohio tied into election day means McCain wins fairly comfortably, repeating the 2000 and 2004 experience where the downstate social conservatives came out in huge numbers for Bush.
A nightmare that he’s still up in the middle of an RNC bounce? Quinnipiac has Obama up by 5 in Ohio with a four-day poll that started last Friday, right after the RNC. Nearly three times the sample size of the Rasmussen poll, as well. Numbers will only go up from there.
Well, it’s easy to say, after the fact, that the bounce McCain has experienced is pretty much the standard, expected bounce.
Hindsight is 20/20.
But predicting it ahead of time, folks didn’t seem to see quite so much of a McCain bounce.
This QT3 poll started on the Friday that Palin as VP nominee was announced, and ran through the next few days. Per a quick calculation by me, it looks like the median prediction for RCP poll results as of tomorrow was Obama +3.0 - Obama +3.9. At the moment, the RCP National Average shows McCain +2.4. It is possible that it could swing over 5 points from that current figure between today and tomorrow - possible, but quite unlikely, IMO.
FWIW, my own prediction was off, too (assuming the RCP average stays roughly unchanged). I predicted Obama +1.0 - Obama +1.9.
Enidigm
1927
It’s suprsing to me the enthusiam for Palin. Where does it come from? Is it a release of pent-up conservative energy, to find someone in today’s climate they can easily support? Palin’s record, itself, even if you took the highest, best view possible (everything she has done was right, correct, and 100% conservative values), is still threadbare.
One theme that conservative politics seems to have had in recent years is that the less visible the candidate the better. Bush was and remains extremely popular among the die-hard, non-political types because of his “maverick, bipartisan” image. I think people project into the blank slate candidate what they want to see.
Personally i think the Democratic party vastly underestimates the “soccer mom” demographic - the moms of cheerleaders, gym girls, and all the rest. These women have nothing in common with Hillary Clinton, the lifestyles of the Washington/New York/LA elite, and cannot identify with 2nd or even 3rd gen feminism (if 3rd gen feminism is anything but ivy league feminism/education wrapped around and validating drunken hedonism).
Pissing off liberals = happy conservatives.
JeffL
1930
Unlike Lou Grant, America likes spunk.
Palin was made out to be a hapless incompetent before the convention (and may well be) - that set the expectation bar very low before her speech. I admit, I expected her to kind of stumble through the speech like a deer in the headlights, and was taken back by her direct attack back at the attacks on her, and her “folksy, down home” approach. America loves that stuff. And for most of America, all they’ve heard is the speech, and they’re ignoring the comments on how she needs more political experience.
They’ll vote for Jimmie Stewart over Truman every day.
MattKeil
1931
The thrill of the right wingers sensing the possibility of a history-making president who considers “Because I said so” to be a valid justification of policy.
Unfortunately I think Palin resembles the Jimmy Stewart of Vertigo more than the Jimmy Stewart of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.
JeffL
1932
Unfortunately, right now a lot of Americans do see her as Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington.
What is fascinating to me, from a purely strategic point of view, is that not a lot of people were enthusiastic about McCain. I almost saw it as a parallel to the recent traditional Democratic Dilemna - Republicans didn’t particularly love their candidate, but he represented the party and was the tool to defeat the enemy. I’m guessing there are a lot of Republicans who were looking for something to get excited about, and they’ve grasped Palin. (yeah, I know, if Obama said that there were be ads in 30 minutes on how he said he wanted to molest Palin.)
I think you’re absolutely right on that score, Jeff.
Inuvix
1934
It amazes me that you can go from this:
to this:
without batting an eyelash. Why is it so hard for you to admit that you were just flat out wrong? Intrade now predicts a McCain win, where it had Obama at 60 two weeks ago. By any objective read, McCain picking Palin was tactically brilliant. You may not like her or respect her, but she has been a huge boon to the McCain campaign, your head in the sand notwithstanding.
You answered your own question with:
[I]
[/I]
Exactly. McCain took this gem straight from the playbook of Barack Obama.
I can get behind that, literally.
Except that polls that break out support for Palin between men and women show that women have not swung over to support her and women in general are more skeptical of her. It’s men who make up the majority of her support.
I don’t see why everyone thinks the current polls are some big mystery. Pretty much every single convention in history results in a bounce, and this one has pretty much precisely been par for the course. Palin may be an unusual VP pick, but there’s nothing about the national polls that’s unusual.
Now, if McCain/Palin hold onto this lead in the polls for another 2 weeks? That’ll be noteworthy.
antlers
1938
What about the Post poll where it went from 50/42 Obama/McCain to 41/52 after the convention among white women?
I don’t agree. Obama’s numbers didn’t jump much after the Democratic convention, and what bounce he did get was ephemeral. If the bounces both candidates received were typical, they’d cancel each other out and Obama would still be leading. However, the Palin pick is two weeks old, and McCain’s chances of victory continue to rise. For a change, I think the VP pick matters to a statistically significant portion of the electorate, and that’s why were seeing a more sustained increase in support for the Republican ticket.
It’s the only one showing that kind of movement, while there are multiple polls showing that Palin is not helping McCain with women. I am not inclined to believe the 20 point shift unless others start replicating those results.
