Thursday, October 02, 2008

Battleground Polls Show Stunning Shift To Obama.

The swing to Obama in the battleground states is bordering on historic:

"It is difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign," says Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "In the last 20 days, Sen. Barack Obama has gone from seven points down to eight points up in Florida, while widening his leads to eight points in Ohio and 15 points in Pennsylvania."
The polls make very pleasant reading:

A set of five CNN/Time battleground polls also show Obama breaking away in some key states:

Florida: Obama 51%, McCain 47%

Minnesota:
Obama 54%, McCain 43%

Missouri:
Obama 49%, McCain 48%

Nevada:
Obama 51%, McCain 47%

Virginia:
Obama 53%, McCain 44%

Said pollster Keating Holland: "Obama has gained ground among moderates in all five states. That may have something to do with the first presidential debate. Some commentators knocked Obama for agreeing with McCain as often as he did, but moderates tend to like it when candidates appear willing to see the other side's point of view."
I did think that Obama would start to break away once the polling started to reflect the debate, especially as that was coming on the back of McCain's ridiculous decision to suspend his campaign and fly to Washington to inject partisanship into the bailout process. It was a totally stupid thing to do and the polls are reflecting the fact that it is hard to take the McCain/Palin ticket remotely seriously when he's behaving like such a self serving dork and claiming, as always, that he's actually putting the country first.

I've always said that McCain campaign is working on the assumption that the American people are stupid. That's why he put out that dreadful ad after the debate mocking the fact that Obama had occasionally agreed with him. And it's why he stood up after the $700 billion bailout failed and tried to put the blame on to Obama. It's politics for the dumb.

Fortunately, the polls are indicating that most Americans can see through this nonsense.

All of this with Palin still to debate Biden later on today. If that goes as expected Palin will give her usual vapid answers and the US will recoil even further from this ticket.

Click title for full article.

4 comments:

daveawayfromhome said...

I think the economy is helping Obama. As the President appears to cry "wolf" again (however real the threat may be, it sounds the same coming from him as the "need" to invade Iraq did), and it becomes more obvious who's policies are to blame (except to the biggest GOP kool-aide drinkers), the appeal of the Republicans keeps falling. My own mother, staunch conservative (purple-stained lips) just wants this to be over; she's not happy with McCain and she recognizes (finally) the bankrupcy of the Bush Administration.

It's not over, though, and there are plenty of ways for the election to be stolen yet.

Kel said...

I am so delighted that even Conservatives like your mother recognise the bankruptcy of this crowd.

And I'm hoping that Obama will establish such a lead that even this lot won't be able to steal it, no matter what methods they try.

Todd Dugdale said...

Obama +11 in Minnesota is good news to me!

One thing going against voter suppression efforts is early voting in several states. It's conceivable that 20% of the electorate could have already cast their votes by the end of next week or mid-month. This also makes any McCain "comeback" incredibly difficult.

There have been several very sleazy efforts thus far from the Republicans to wipe thousands off the rolls, but they are being contested in court. This will provide more post-election drama. However, in many of the swing states the Secretary of State (in charge of elections) is a Democrat this time around. In almost all states, agreements have been worked out with the courts that make widespread dis-enfranchisement unlikely (but not impossible).

All of this means that the Republicans will spend two or three months after the election screeching about voter fraud and a "stolen" election, which will be quite ironic.

Kel said...

Todd, I have no idea how they are going to persuade anyone that fraud has taken place. McCain's campaign has been worse than useless and the appointment of Palin has come back to bite him in the ass.

I'm loving it!