Halloween Masquerade

Happy Halloween. First, let's see how Halloween is trying to predict the outcome of the Presidential Election. Amazon tracks sales of Obama and McCain masks. It is surprisingly close to many national polls.

Next, an update on our take on the Electoral Vote breakdown.


This map represents an Electoral Vote count of Obama 291, McCain 142 with 105 uncommitted electoral votes. This is 21 more than the 270 needed to get elected. So even if John McCain were to win all of the uncommitted states on this map (and several of them are already leaning Obama), he would still be 23 Electoral votes short. Hence the desire by the McCain campaign to win Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes, but even that would be short. McCain would need to take another state like Nevada or New Hampshire.

You can see a recent explanation of the CNN Magic Electoral Map here:


If you want to prepare for Election night, look at this map which shows when polls close. We plan to make a post in the next few days taking you through hour by hour on Election night and when states and their electoral votes will be called for one of the 2 candidates.


Finally, there are few things that could have seemed more appropriate on this Halloween than my city of Philadelphia doing one heck of a job masquerading as a city of champions. After 25 years of 4 sports teams failing to win a championship, the Phillies won the World Series on Wednesday night. After several nights of absolutely horrible weather conditions that made playing difficult and/or impossible, the parade today was in beautiful warm sunshine with open blue skies. So for the Phillies, their fans, both John McCain and Barack Obama and all of their supporters, today we leave you with Don't Stop Believing by Journey:

Barack Obama - The Movie

This could have turned out to be not only a colossal waste of a ton of money, but could have created a late reason for voters to believe they had too much of Barack Obama and decided NOT to vote for him.

I don't know how many of the 333.5 Million people who watched last night decided to vote for Barack Obama based on last night's 30 minute infomercial on 7 stations. However, it probably prevented any voters who were leaning Obama from running away. It was a bit hokey and overproduced at times, but if he can run a country with half as much efficiency and timing as this production, we'll definitely be heading in the right direction. It was beautifully edited piece and then transitioned seamlessly to Obama speaking live in Florida, a neat feat. I had simultaneous sensations of seeing Bill Clinton's "A Man from Hope" just before Election Day 1992 and the day in hostory (October 27, 1975) when Bruce Springsteen appeared simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek, an enormous media coup.


Interestingly, Bruce Springsteen has been playing benefit concerts for Barack Obama.

Negative campaigning often works despite our supposed distaste for it. However, it almost always fails against a mostly positive campaign that paints a picture of the future that people can see themselves in. There was no negativity in Obama's infomercial, in fact, John McCain was not even mentioned. This is in stark contrast to McCain's time on Larry King Live the same night as well as the campaign stops for McCain and Sarah Palin in recent days.

Can John McCain Win?

The technical answer is, of course, Yes, since until all votes are cast and counted, the result is not determined.

But given polls and the environment in which this election is taking place (unpopular Republican president, state of the economy, etc.) is it possible for John McCain to pull out a win?

Perhaps because I have been watching too much CNN lately, I definitely think so. McCain and Palin's recent message being hammered home about Obama's Socialist agenda seems to be having an impact. As I mentioned at the bottom of my blog entry on the Electoral Vote Update 10 Days Out the crowds are eating it up, even if they are ignoring the fact that many of them will be better off under Obama's 'Socialist' tax plan than McCain's proposals. They are also hammering on Joe Biden's remarks that Obama will be tested by foreign countries in the early days of his presidency. I'm not sure how effective that has been, but certainly some voters have stopped and thought about it. Poll numbers are getting a little closer, as tightening usually happens in the final days of a race. Republican GOTV (Get Out the Vote) efforts are usually good for 2-3 points in battleground states. Democratic ground forces are supposed to be able to match them this year in the GOTV effort, but that does remain to be seen. Rainy weather is forecast for a significant portion of the US on Election Day which could dampen turnout of key Democratic demographics such as young voters and minority voters especially those who have not been habitual voters. Obama is not more than a point or two above 50% in any battleground state and even some 'safe' states and if the undecideds all turn to McCain, it really changes how the polls look.

That is the right side of my brain talking. The left side of my brain is very logically analyzing the state by state polls and not finding many ways that McCain can get to 270 electoral votes. Assuming Pennsylvania currently polling at a 10% Obama edge is safe, Obama just needs to win any one (just 1) of these states to lock it up: Florida, Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Colorado and Indiana. He is tied or leading in all of these states, and his lead is 7% in Virginia, Ohio and Colorado. An overwhelming number of people are voting early and even if the race keeps tightening or something happens in the final 6 days, it won't change any votes already cast. Finally, perhaps the best election predictor of all time, The Weekly Reader Poll, gave barack Obama a 54.7% to 42.9% win. Students from kindergarten to 12th grade took part in the poll. The Weekly Reader has been correct in 12 of the 13 Presidential Elections they have predicted, missing just the 1992 3-Way race between Bill Clinton, George HW Bush and Ross Perot. Kids might just get better answers from their parents than pollsters, so I am putting my money on the kids (but perhaps not that big a win).

One Week to Go - How Does It Look?

The website fivethirtyeight.com is dedicated to providing incredibly high level numerical analysis of the distribution of electoral votes for the candidates. So it is a real bonus when one of their blogs lays out this elegant analysis of a difference in the messages from the campaigns as portrayed by The Three Ashleys.

Here is the Electoral-vote.com electoral vote count for states with a 5% or greater lead by a candidate:


Although Obama's total is a few points off its high point, it is still solidly above the 270 goal. With 1 week to go, it is very, very difficult to turn around a state that has not just one but several polls averaging out to a 5% or more lead.

Sign of desperation - The Republican party has bought television ads in Montana, a state that has been solid Republican for a long time.

More (lawn) signs of desperation for John McCain - My travels to my son's and daughter's sporting events yesterday took me through some very contrasting neighborhoods. One mile long street is in the wealthiest town in the greater Philadelphia area. There are not many homes on this street that are valued under $1 Million. The high net-worth community generally votes Republican but a lawn sign count along this drive was Obama 6, McCain 3. If John McCain has trouble winning the wealthy Philadelphia suburbanite vote, it will be very difficult for him to win Pennsylvania, the linchpin in his narrow path to 270.

A later part of my trip took me on a similarly long 1 mile stretch of a road through a town, but this was a predominantly black neighborhood of modest income. This city of Chester is perhaps the largest predominantly black location that has a majority Republican registration and usually votes Republican. I stopped getting an exact count of lawn signs because there were too many on these small front lawns to count and drive safely, but it was perhaps about 10 to 1 Obama signs. Granted, since Obama is going to get over 95% of the black vote, this may not be a surprise, but remember, this is an area that usually votes Republican and could account for a portion of the 5% of blacks not voting for Obama. Black turnout could be as high as 90% of registered voters nationwide. Recent presidential elections have had an overall turnout of about 70% of all registered voters and a lower number for minorities and voters under 30. If youth voter turnout is similarly at all time records, a group that is about 2 to 1 favoring Obama, the polls may not be sufficiently calculating Obama's support.

Does a Lead in the Polls Mean a Win?

A poll is a (fairly) scientific attempt to take a snapshot of public sentiment at a given point in time (often performed over 2-3 days). But even accepting for a moment that a really good poll will show current sentiment, do people wind up voting the way they say they are thinking they will vote just 10-14 days prior?

Gallop does a good job digging through their historical numbers and showing that Late Upsets Rarely Happen. The story is that it is rare for a Presidential Candidate to overcome a polling deficit just a week away from the Election, but it has happened. Bush (2000) and Carter (1980) were leading in polling in late October, but did not win the popular vote on Election Day. Bush still won the electoral vote count which is all that mattered. Carter and Reagan had their only head to head debate on October 28th and as I have mentioned previously, that was the kicker for Reagan. He looked as if he could be OK handling the presidency and people wanted a change. A poll taken after the debate but before Election Day had Reagan moving into the lead, so in many ways, that should have been the poll used by Gallop in this analysis.

What history does show is that if a candidate is behind by double digits in late October, they just can't make up the difference. Early voting in over 30 states has also enabled Obama to lock in the sentiment 2 weeks out and decreases the chances McCain has for a late comeback.

Although Electoral-vote.com shows that the average of its 8 polls has an Obama 6% lead, the Gallop expanded poll has a 9% Obama lead (10% announced this afternoon for 10/27 results). The expanded poll for likely voters uses only current voting intentions, not historical turnout. This estimate is estimating that there will be a higher turnout among groups of voters traditionally less likely to vote, such as young adults and minorities. While this is reasonable, it is not certain. Gallop's traditional model has a 5% Obama edge. I am sure the Republicans are focused on this number. So if I keep harping on the fact that this is an electoral vote race, not a popular vote contest, why care about the national popular vote poll results? Assuming it is possible for an underdog to make up as much as 3-5% in the last week of a campaign, a gap of 5% or more is not insurmountable. A candidate could lose the popular vote by up to 1-2% and still win the electoral vote total. If the gap winds up being 3% or more, it is highly unlikely that those votes will be distributed in such a fashion that would give them the electoral victory.

I think the Gallop expanded poll is a pretty fair assessment of how things will play out. As of today, they have the race 53%-43% for Obama with 4% undecided. Assume that most undecideds vote for the party in power which is fairly common and you wind up with a 6% gap on Election Day. The important thing for Obama is that even in the traditional Gallop poll, he still has 50% of the vote, which is important when you know the historical trends of the undecideds.

Electoral Vote Update with 10 Days to Go

Only 10 days to go until Election Day and here is how I see the Electoral Map:


This is a Obama 286 - McCain 139 total with 147 undecided and this is very conservative. I am only coding as red or blue states that I think there is no way they will go the other way. Of the 10 states I show as undecided, Obama is currently leading or tied in 8 with McCain holding small leads in Georgia and South Dakota. McCain would have to win all 10 of these states AND come up with at least 18 electoral votes in states I am listing as safely Democratic. They are hoping for PA with 21 electoral votes, but at the moment, it is still just a lot of wishing and hoping.

In today's Soccer Dad, Dance Dad Lawn Sign Poll, we had Obama 31, McCain 21. As one of our daughter's has traded in her soccer cleats for her ballet shoes to perform in The Nutcracker, my travels took me to some more traditionally Republican towns, but the gap is still pretty solid. If McCain isn't at least tied in the Philadelphia suburbs, he doesn't have enough voters in the "T" of Pennsylvania to offset the votes Obama will get in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Some things to note in particular comparing this map to the map I listed two weeks out. West Virginia moved from undecided to McCain. However, Montana, South Dakota and Georgia, all very solid Republican states have had polls that make their outcome much less certain. If Obama wins any of those states, it will be the sign of a landslide.

McCain has actually started getting some traction with the Socialist label being slapped on Obama. It has been effective even though it ignores a lot of facts. Most of the people in McCain crowds cheering when McCain says that Obama wants to take money from small business and spread it around would be beneficiaries of Obama's tax cut proposals. A very small percentage of small businesses have profits over $250,000 and Obama's proposed tax increases are 1-3% of profits above that level. Also, my analysis of their respective Health Care plans indicates that Obama's is a modification of the current employer driven system and McCain's tosses that out the window and creates a much more socialized medical care program with a lot more overhead. But that's just me looking at the facts, so what do I know.

Friday October 24th Political Humor

So much good material today.

Let's start with another wonderful SNL Thursday night skit. Everything with Tina Fey just winds up being wonderful and in this one we also get Darrell Hammond and alumnus Will Ferrell.


If you have ever seen the great map graphics on CNN as John King explains how the election will play out, you were in stitches watching the map skit on SNL last night.


Here is CNN's Anderson Cooper talking about it:


Adding some music to your humor, here is Boybama with “Battleground for Your Heart”

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Pull out the stars. Here is Ron Howard, going Back in Time to reincarnate himself as Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham in support of Barack Obama.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Upping the star power even more, here is the starlet pulled into the Political limelight by John McCain commercials, Paris Hilton and perhaps the most popular President ever to appear on our TV screens, Martin Sheen as Jeb Bartlett.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

I searched for some funny McCain videos, but after several minutes of web surfing, I still couldn't find any. Happy to post them if you send me the link.

Turnout, Turnout, Turnout

In 2004, over 122 Million people voted for President of the United States. This was a 15% increase over the 105 Million who voted in 2000. This was still only 56% of the Voting Age Population. Only 3 states (Wisconsin, Minnesota and Maine) had turnout levels above 70% of Voting Age registration in 2004.

By most accounts, the 2008 election will set a record for turnout. How big will it be? 130 Million? 135? 140?

One sign that this year's turnout will be a record is the record setting turnout so far in the 34 states and D.C. that have early voting, including reports in many areas where people waited on line for several hours before getting to vote. Will polling places be able to handle the Election Day turnout even with so many voting early? Maybe not.

Approximately 1/3 of all votes cast (perhaps 40-45 million) will be done prior to Election Day. This would be about twice the amount of early votes cast in 2004. The significance is that if something were to occur in the final 12 days of the election, it would not have as significant an impact. Votes cast cannot be changed, they are in the bank. This is just one additional thing working against John McCain this year.

The turnout numbers we listed above were based on all age eligible voters. On Election Day, it is also very important to look at just those who are registered to vote (on Election Day, if you aren't registered, it doesn't matter if you are eligible). Overall in the US in 2004, 73% of registered voters turned out to vote. Only 4 states (Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado) had registered turnout over 80%. That means that 27% of registered voters did not cast a vote. With about a dozen states expected to have a result within 5%, this 27% of no-shows is what the ground forces of both campaigns are focused on. The Republican ground game has always been impressive, but the Obama forces may be the best in the history of the Democratic party. We are probably in for some very big numbers across most states.

Has Obama vs. McCain been like The Rays vs. The Red Sox?

As we open the World Series tonight with my hometown Philadelphia Phillies vs. my parent's hometown Tampa Bay Rays (see what taking the Devil out of you will do) I found it interesting to look back at the AL series pitting the defending champion Red Sox vs. the Rays and see how that compared to the Presidential Campaign.

The representative of the incumbent team fell behind early but had shown on several occasions that they could come back from the brink of extinction.

Throughout the campaign the upstart team had a lot of people asking "Who are they" and "How did they get in this position".

Earlier in the season, even after a strong start, it was assumed the upstart would fade but they not only hung on but got even stronger.

The upstart pulled ahead to a commanding lead in their head to head competition before the incumbent could regroup.

The incumbent did pull back to even and made things exciting for a while.

Youth and consistency was on the side of the upstart and they didn't waiver or get rattled, they just kept playing the game the way they had all season.

I'd love to see the Phillies win the World Series, but I think this is the year of the upstart.

Two Weeks Out - Where do Obama and McCain Stand?

There are only 2 weeks left in this long race and the last few laps will be the fastest yet.

Looking at states that the consensus of polls gives one candidate at least a 5% lead gives us the following map:


This represents an electoral vote count of Obama 286, McCain 155 with 97 electoral votes undecided in 8 states, which would be an Obama win. Since I posted the Obama Supporters Reality Check last week, which showed the possibility of a McCain 274-264 victory, Virginia has been polling a steady lead for Obama between 5-10%. Also, today, McCain's campaign has been admitting that they need to have a strategy to get to 270 electoral votes that does not include Iowa, New Mexico or Colorado. Now I have put Iowa and New Mexico in Obama's column for some time, but McCain really needed Colorado to have a chance. He also really needs Virginia and despite recent polls, McCain's campaign believes they will find some way to win it.

But the math is still tricky for McCain. If he wins all the undecided states on this map and turns around Virginia, that still would leave him with only 265 electoral votes, still 5 votes short. So, guess what the McCain campaign has in their targets? My home state of Pennsylvania. Yup, you got it. The state that hasn't voted Republican in 20 years that dramatically increased its Democratic registration this year and has polls showing Obama up by 8-15% is their Last Stand. As you can see from my Soccer Dad Lawn Sign Polls, I'm not seeing anything that would indicate a change in local attitudes. Perhaps if McCain got every registered voter in the middle of the state to vote and there were torrential downpours all day in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, he might have a chance. Might. If this is their current 270 strategy, that is very thin.

Here is another way to look at Obama's current electoral vote lead. This is from the great site electoral-vote.com. Here is a graph showing electoral vote totals based only on states where a candidate leads by at least 5%, a gap that is generally considered very difficult to overcome at this stage of the campaign.


The solid red line is 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win. Here is what it looked like in 2004 between Bush and Kerry.


Any questions.

Did Hillary Clinton Make Barack Obama Unbeatable?

Last week, Barack Obama's campaign hit a couple of numbers that almost defy comprehension. In St. Louis, MO, under The Arch, Obama held a rally that attracted a crowd estimated at 100,000. That gathering gained all the attention, but in the same weekend there was another Obama rally on the other side of the state in Kansas City that attracted only 75,000. Also announced was Obama's fundraising total from September which set a record. Obama had the previous monthly record of $66 Million set in August. The total from September was $150 Million. $150 MILLION!!!!!!! This is almost double the entire amount John McCain gets from Public Funding and it came from over 1,500,000 people donating an average under $100 each.

So what does all this success have to do with Hillary Clinton?

Although at the time, many senior officials in the Democratic Party were very concerned when Hillary Clinton stayed in the Democratic Primaries until the end, in 3 important ways, Hillary Clinton immunized Barack Obama from potentially fatal McCain attacks, increased his base and gave a major boost to registrations in key states.

FIRST - The Rev. Wright bonfire occurred in the Spring and Obama had time to deal with it. Hillary definitely got traction again when this came out. However, it was old news by the Fall and credit goes to McCain for being steadfast in not resurrecting it. However, had Rev. Wright not hit the hot lights of mainstream media until a few weeks after the Republican Convention when Obama was already off balance, he might not have recovered.

SECOND - Barack Obama was not well known, even after he had taken the delegate lead from Hillary Clinton. Four more months of prime time coverage, especially after John McCain had pretty much locked up the Republican nomination, with more debates than we could count gave more and more Americans a chance to get to know Barack Obama.

THIRD - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina had primaries late in the season and both Clinton and Obama's campaigns made tremendous efforts signing up new voters. In each state, Obama is benefitting from having this registration advantage over John McCain.

This would be one of the most spectacular ironies of the entire election if Hillary Clinton was the person who put Barack Obama over the top.

The Worst Nightmare for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party

Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over until it's over". The Obama campaign and DNC is probably having that printed on t-shirts, hats and buttons and distributed around the country.

Nightmare #1 - Polls show Obama ahead by far enough that a high percentage of newly registered voters, especially young and minority, decide it is no longer important for them to vote thereby making the race a lot closer than most polls currently indicate.

Nightmare #2 - Virginia (polls close at 7PM Eastern time) and/or North Carolina (polls close at 7:30PM) have exit polls that show a convincing victory for Barack Obama and 1 or more National TV stations call the state for Obama. Without either state, Obama probably has 264 solid electoral votes, so either of these southern states in Obama's corner would put him over the top of the 270 electoral votes needed to gain the Presidency. This would be at 5:30PM in the mountain states and 4:30PM in the west. There would still be a lot of time before polls close in those states, but many new or sporadic voters may be compelled to not make the effort to vote. This could effect Obama's totals in New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, but it will certainly have an impact on the so-called "down ticket" races. This is one of several reasons why the Obama campaign has been pushing followers to vote early in states that enable all voters to cast their ballot prior to Election Day. Locking in their following now rather than risk the outcome to how events play out on Election Day.

Obama has raised an unbelievable amount of money ($150 Million in September alone, or almost twice the total of public funds McCain had to spend on his entire campaign) and a considerable portion of it is being spent on GOTV (Get Out the Vote). In addition to being necessary to overcome the traditional advantage that the Republican party has in "The Ground Game", it is the only effective counter to these 2 Obama Nightmare situations. This attentiveness to details and a thoroughness of organization could turn a close election into a landslide and would be a good portent for a government that is on its game.

Sarah Palin Meets Tina Fey

After being recruiting and cajoled to play Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Tina Fey finally met her look alike, although it was a fleeting moment of togetherness on SNL.


The better skit with Sarah Palin actually had her saying not much of anything, which, if you think about it, is fairly appropriate.


Soccer Dad Lawn Sign Update for 10/18/08 - Obama 24, McCain 12.

Why Presidential Candidates Won't Tell the Truth About Taxes

People are more willing to somehow resolve the dissonance of lower taxes, lower deficit and more programs than that are willing to accept the truth that to do any of that taxes have to be raised.

Politicians have know this a long time, but in case Barack Obama and John McCain were thinking they might actually want to be truthful and level with the American public during the campaign, they only have to be reminded of the 1984 Presidential Campaign.

In honor of this age old tradition of skirting around the reality that in a situation as we are in, that at least some taxes have to be increased, we bring you Walter Mondale's Democratic Nomination Acceptance Speech from 1984:

Whoever is inaugurated in January, the American people will have to pay Mr. Reagan's bills. The budget will be squeezed. Taxes will go up. And anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth to the American people.
I mean business. By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds.
Let's tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.

Walter Mondale leveled with the American public. The American public leveled him. Thus, the tax avoidance strategy continues.

Presidential Humor after the Final Debate

I was initially planning on posting a humorous skit on the last presidential debate on Saturday Night Live's Thursday Night Special. However, it wound up not being very funny. So here we have some other political humor that is very funny and not only involves both candidates, but uses the actual candidates. This is from the Alred E. Smith Memorial Dinner:






Word has it that Sarah Palin will actually appear on Saturday Night Live this Saturday, October 18th, 1 week earlier than I previously reported. No word yet on whether or not Tina Fey will also be there.

Oh, OK, well there was 1 pretty good piece on SNL Thursday. Major props to Darrell Hammond for playing Rev. Jessie Jackson discussing the Bradley Effect.

Final Presidential Debate - Who Let the Dogs Out?

William Ayers. ACORN. Joe the Plumber. All the old and new dogs were in the house tonight.

Joe the Plumber is the main topic of discussion. Poor Joe. He is only making $250,000 per year. Remind me not to feel sorry for plumbers. Joe the Plumber is Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio who expressed concerns to Obama during a campaign stop this past Sunday that if Obama were elected, Joe's taxes would go up when he buys the small business where he has worked for several years. You can hear the entire dialog between Obama and Joe the Plumber and decide for yourself.

So, the economist in me kicks in and tries to clear up a few things. Even though Obama uses the phrase "revenue of $250,000", I really don't think that is what he means. For a small business like Joe's, the profit (revenue minus expenses) of the business pulls directly over into his own taxes. The marginal tax rates of 36% and 39% that Obama refers to are marginal tax rates on Taxable Income (Line 43 on the 2007 1040 Form). Now if Joe has only $250,000 of total revenue (charges to his customers), there is no way he carries all of it over to his tax return as taxable income. He has to have expenses (materials, insurance, rent, vehicle, etc.) and may also have other employees for whom he has payroll, insurance and many other expenses. So the only way Joe gets hit by these higher marginal tax rates is if he is CLEARING more than $250,000. Even then, on your tax filing you have deductions for your dependents, property taxes, mortgage interest, child tax credits, etc. If after all of these deductions, Joe's taxable income is still above $250,000, well, that puts him in the top 5% of all wage earners in America, so even though he works long days, let's not feel too bad for him. Also this tax increase from the current 35% is a 1% increase (to 36%) on taxable income above $250,000 and then a 4% increase (to 39%) on income above some higher level. So lets say Joe is really making $350,000 after all tax deductions. For this $100,000 above the $250,000, his taxes will go up by about $2,000 over the current tax structure. For a guy making more than a third of a million a year, he shouldn't cry over $40 per week less in his paycheck. (Getting down from my soapbox now)

Some observations as they occurred last night:

A switch from talking about taxes to deficits. I don’t know yet what they want to do about health care, but we are already talking about a hatchet and a scalpel, so I am a little concerned. McCain made a passing yes to whether he could balance the budget in his first 4 years (I doubt it will be that easy, especially with all the tax cuts he is referring to).

Good comeback from John McCain on Barack Obama not running against George Bush and if he did want to run against Bush, he should have done that 4 years ago. It sounded like he said 3 years ago when I first heard it, which was kind of funny.

McCain scoring some points going head to head with Obama. Some good scripted points, putting Obama on the defensive, but Obama is often not responding directly and engaging in the battle.

On CNN, there are once again big difference in the scores between the men and women from the Ohio Uncommitted Voter group on most answers. The men are often scoring McCain higher and again the women are scoring Obama higher.

McCain putting out all the dogs. William Ayers. ACORN. McCain saying that the American people should judge when the facts are out there. Well the uncommitted Ohio voters, men and women voted a rare negative as McCain was saying this. Once again, regardless of the debate jab points that McCain seems to be making, but the all-important uncommitted voters just plain don't care, they want answers on the economy.

The running mate question. Could have sworn that was a setup from the Democrats. Obama didn’t touch criticizing Sarah Palin, just talking about Biden. When McCain spoke about Palin, men were voting very highly, women were flat on zero. This echos how they voted during the VP debate whenever Palin spoke. She is NOT bringing in women to vote for the Republican party.

Energy dependence. Both bailed a bit on the question of reduction of importation of oil during their first term. Both agreed instead that over a longer period of 8-10 years, could eliminate need for oil from ME and Venezuela.

Roe v Wade talked about a lot during a debate. It has been a while since we have seen that. This is not an issue that will help McCain appeal to uncommitted voters who tend to be moderate and are much more likely to be Pro-Choice. To a Pro-Choice person, the term Pro-Abortion is pretty highly offensive, so I think this issue really moved uncommitted voters into Obama's category.

Education - vouchers vs. charter schools. Just too complex a topic for anything of value to be said in 9 minutes and most people have no idea what will really work, they just want things to get better.

On the whole, it seemed like McCain did a pretty good job. If I had to award the debate to one of them, I may be more likely to give it to McCain because he was constantly on with great responses, he was sharp and on message. However, several polls after the debate showed an overwhelming (20% or more difference) advantage to Obama. This was pretty stunning to me. It means that most people have made up their mind and the undecided really don't care about the so-called "character issues". They just want to know who will be focused on making their lives better. For a while after the debate, I was thinking McCain, may have just turned momentum his way and this could get closer. The post debate polls tell me this could easily become an Obama landslide.

Reminder that tonight (Thursday, 10/16) at 9:30PM, Saturday Night Live runs their 2nd of 3 Thursday night half hour News specials on nothing but the election. No doubt there will be a takeoff on last night's debate.

Late Breaking Summary of Biden Palin Debate

OK, so this is definitely one-sided and 2 weeks late, but anything this funny needs to see the light of day:


Congratulations to Aden Nak for this piece of comedic genius.

3rd Presidential Debate - Last, Best & Final?

"Last, Best and Final" is a term usually used for bidding on contracts, often in Government circles. It is where you cut out all the fat and put forward your absolute best chance to win.

With just 3 weeks left until the election, tonight's final presidential debate at Hoftra University on Long Island, NY at 9PM Eastern time, might be John McCain's last chance to turn his campaign around and try to hold on to enough battleground states to pull out a win.

If the words spoken tonight were to come from John McCain's campaign, there is not telling just what might be said given recent campaign ads and rhetoric channeled through Sarah Palin. But this will be John McCain speaking. A decent man in a desperate position who is almost certainly at odds with the "win-at-all-cost" kamikaze tactics of those running his campaign. If John McCain is truly a maverick, what we might see tonight is him breaking away from his campaign and saying not what might be politically expedient, but what is in his heart. I don't know if that tactic will turn things around for him, but he would be at peace with it and it certainly couldn't do worse with the American electorate than the recent negative campaigning.

Obama and Biden have challenged John McCain to mention Obama's association with William Ayers to his face and McCain has at least verbally agreed to do just that. When a batter tells a pitcher to "go ahead and give me your heat", the pitcher better be throwing something better than just a fastball, because the batter will be sitting on it and waiting to hit it out of the park. I don't know if McCain will bite and try to discredit Obama on this association that is already old news that didn't get traction outside core Republicans. If he does, I have a feeling that Obama has a great counter punch ready. I hope for all concerned that the two of them just stick to the questions asked by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS.

An interesting note today is that Christopher Buckley has been let go by The National Review, founded by his dad, the late William F. Buckley. It seems that Christopher's article in The Daily Beast over the weekend "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama" led to an onslaught of hate mail at The National Review. In fairness to Rich Lowry, NR’s editor, and its publisher and former high school classmate of mine, Jack Fowler, Buckley soon thereafter submitted his offer of resignation which was quickly accepted. Buckley's next posting at The Daily Beast was "Sorry, Dad, I was Fired". There is a lot of anger and frustration in Conservative circles and I hope the pressure is released in a non-destructive fashion.

Obama Supporters Reality Check

Obama Supporters - Does this map scare you:


It should. This is a McCain 274 - 264 win. Even with recent poll results, this is not impossible.

Granted, this may be one of the only realistic combination of states in which McCain can win, but it is not outrageous. This would require McCain to take all the states leaning Obama (Nevada, Colorado, Missouri, Wes Virginia, Ohio, Virginia, Florida) and hold onto the states that are leaning McCain (Indiana, North Carolina). Any state where Obama has less than a 5% lead is not out of reach with a strong Republican turnout. So while most sites are currently projecting a 350 vote tally for Obama, there are a lot of states that are marginally falling into his column.

If Obama wins any 1 of these states other than West Virginia or Nevada, he wins.

If Obama wins just West Virginia or Nevada, it is a 269-269 tie, which gets broken effectively by the House of Representatives with each state getting 1 vote. Most projections are that this would favor Obama, but it would become a bit of the Wild West again.

So what is today's lesson? If you are a McCain supporter, there is still hope. If you are an Obama supporter, don't think for a moment that this race is over and make sure you have a date with a polling place on November 4th.

One more dose of sobriety. An interesting new video is viewable online that covers the John Kerry campaign and shows how even late on Election night, they were sure they were not only going to win, but win by a lot. Inside the Bubble is well worth watching to understand how as Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over 'til its over".

Is North Dakota a Battleground State?

At the bottom of my October 5th post on Going Negative, I mentioned an interest in seeing updated polls in North and South Dakota.

Well, look what we have here. A poll conducted Oct 6-8 has Obama leading 45-43. Now granted, this was conducted by Minnesota State University rather than one of the national pollsters, and is in sharp contrast to polls conducted by Rasmussen, American Research Group and Research 2000 in mid-September. However, those 3 polls were during the Sarah Palin honeymoon period and were in sharp contrast to polls conducted in July and August by the same national pollsters when it was being shown as a close battle.

Although some including electoral-vote.com consider this poll to be wrong or incredible, I think it is consistent with the response in other states over this period, but we haven't had a poll for almost a month in North Dakota. The incredible part was happening in the summer when Obama was close in a state that typically votes Republican by 20 points or more.

A Republican losing North Dakota is like a Democrat losing Rhode Island or Delaware. Not a big deal in the electoral college, but a sign that everything else is about to crumble.

Will Obama Experience a Reverse Bradley Effect?

I had been planning to run this post some time in the next week when I didn't have anything more timely to print. Then this morning I saw Electoral-vote.com refer to a University of Washington study going over basically the same thing. Oh well, I don't get credit for breaking the concept, but here is my take anyway:

A month or so ago, on a cable news show, I heard an interview with a voter from a Rust Belt state talking about the voting tendencies of his co-workers. He said that none of them publicly said they were voting for Barack Obama, but privately several had confided in him that was what their plan.

That got me thinking. Was the Bradley Effect just describing white voters reluctance to tell pollsters they were not voting for the black candidate because they felt that was not the politically correct thing to say? Or, is it really more general - a person believing that it is unacceptable in their local social circle to announce they are supporting a particular candidate? If the later is true, and given that the Bradley race in California in 1982 and a few others that may have been associated with the Bradley effect (Wilder, etc.) were 2 decades ago, is there a more likely outcome of this effect in the 2008 Presidential Election?

What if, in several circles, voters, especially white males, plan to vote for Barack Obama, but aren't sure how their co-workers, neighbors, bowling and softball league members, etc. would respond to it? What are the politically correct things to say in those social circles and might they be very different than in California, a fairly progressive state throughout?

I believe this effect will have some role in the outcome, but it will be very difficult to determine the level. There will be 2 other forces moving in the same direction that will be difficult to separate out. First, I still believe that most pollsters are underestimating the youth vote. The demographic between 18-30 is substantially less likely to not have a land line home telephone which is the predominant method of polling. While pollsters are aware of this fact I do not believe they have sufficiently accounted for it. Secondly, the Obama Ground Game and the passion of Obama voters, in particular young and/or African American voters will probably produce a turnout that is being understated by pollsters 'likely voter' totals.

As an aside, I am not sure I agree with the depth of the findings of the UW study. I believe some of what they experienced was a greater turnout among voters who favored Barack Obama. I think this will also play out in the general election as mentioned above, but although real, I don't think the Reverse Bradley effect was as large as they claim during the primaries.

Is Barack Obama Having an Eli Manning Experience?

After 3 years of at best up and down performances, Eli Manning led his team to the 2008 Super Bowl Championship. Besides his inconsistency, the biggest complaint against Manning was that he was too calm and never got emotional. As the Giants won their last 7 road games in the regular season, then 3 road playoff games and then upset the previously undefeated New England Patriots, Eli Manning was given tremendous credit for staying calm and keeping his team focused.

Since the beginning of his campaign, Barack Obama's top supporters have been concerned that his overly steady and calm demeanor made him seem distant, robotic and overly intellectual. As the debates have played out amid our economic crisis, Obama's steady, calm demeanor has enhanced his ability to communicate his ideas and previously undecided voters seem to be saying that although they don't know if his previous experience directly prepares him for being President, his calm consistency is exactly what they want in leadership in these times of great uncertainty.

Weaknesses becoming strengths, or changing views on the value of the "strong silent type"?

There are so many things that have broken correctly to enable Barack Obama to get to this point. A desire for change, an electorate that may just be free enough of prejudice to judge him on his merits, an incredibly unpopular president from the other party, an economy that trumps all other potential issues including political leadership experience, political ideology (liberal or conservative), military and foreign affairs experience, etc. Perhaps this is one of those times in our country's history when everything lines up to overwhelmingly usher in a President who was at best a long shot just 4 years earlier. In 1976, Ronald Reagan lost the Republican nomination to incumbent President Gerald Ford and at his age, it was assumed to be the end of his career. Four years later, he started what many Republicans believe is one of the greatest Presidencies in their party's history.

Capitulation and a Return to Normalcy

This title could (hopefully) be referring to the Stock Markets as on Friday, we began with a 700 point loss, rising back to almost even, dropping back to almost the same loss, then rose to a gain of 300 points then eased back down, but to a loss of only 128 points. All the possible sellers are probably out and that big intraday gain shows there are buyers ready to re-enter the market. There will probably be a lot of intraday activity, but hopefully the general trend from here on is upward.

However, this is a political rather than economics blog, so I am actually talking about John McCain. I think he has capitulated on the tactic of attacking Barack Obama's character at least to the point of encouraging people to believe caustic and non-factual opinions about Barack Obama. It was starting to get a bit scary. One spectator at a McCain rally this week was shouting 'Kill Him' (referring to Obama). That person detained, questioned and eventually released by the FBI. But a frequently run reel of a town hall rally in Wisconsin this week exhibits some of the depth of anger and frustration some McCain supporters are feeling.


Just a personal note that with the historically low approval rating of the incumbent Republican President, the state of the Economy and the propensity for the American voters to not give a party 3 consecutive terms in the White House, nobody should be surprised that "we are in this position".

After hearing a lot of attacks on Obama, McCain got to a point a few times during a campaign stop in Minnesota that he could not allow to remain unchallenged:



I admire John McCain's desire to take a stand at the presentation of these opinions. He has returned a bit to his old self that probably would have appealed to more moderates and independents than he has with the way his campaign has played out.

SOCCER DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for October 11 - Obama 21, McCain 13

Friday Morning Political Humor

With so much that is serious going on around us, I want everyone to kick start their weekend off with another wonderful SNL take on the Presidential Election of 2008. This was part of their first Thursday SNL Weekend Update that will run through the election.

This is the takeoff on the 2nd Presidential Debate held just a couple of days ago. You have to give them massive credit for pulling off such a wonderful piece with great poking at the idiosyncrasies presented by the 2 candidates and Tom Brokaw. Look for some SNL alumni. Enjoy!


Word has it that sometime soon (October 25th is our guess), Sarah Palin will appear on SNL opposite her wonderful impressionist Tina Fey. This would be the 2nd time this year that a female in this years Presidential Race went face to face with their SNL representative. Take a look back to when Hillary Clinton and Amy Proehler went pantsuit to pantsuit.


Which means we might as well make this a trio and return to the late night TV spot that showed the power of a presidential candidate showing their personal mojo around comedians. The difficult to find, Bill Clinton on The Arsenio Hall Show from 1992:


BTW - The Secret Service code name for Bill Clinton was "Elvis"

What the American Voter Seems to Want

After thinking about the 3 debates I have seen (2 Presidential, 1 VP), keeping a daily watch on state polls, looking at lawn signs (and the particular combination of signs on lawns) and reading a ton of articles trying to weed out partisan bias, I have a few observations on where the American Voter is trending. This isn't to say this is what a majority of voters are thinking, rather where there has been the largest movement in thinking.

Voters want a President who will keep them in mind as they try solving our Economic mess.

Voters don't want to hear negatives about either candidate, there are enough negatives in daily life and headlines. They want to be given a realistic hope that someone in charge has an idea of how to make things better.

Although they want someone to stick up for them, they don't necessarily want a fighter, they want a calm and rational person who won't settle for unacceptable solutions.

As in 1980, voters are willing to go against their traditional allegiances to have a shot at a future that looks different than the present.

Things that don't seem to matter as much this year:

Conservative vs. Liberal
Quantity of Experience
Military Experience
Foreign Affairs Experience

Although there are several weeks left until Election Day, in past elections, when the numbers looked like this, the end result was very one sided. It appears that at best McCain could squeeze out a narrow victory by a few electoral votes, however, the more likely outcome is that Obama takes over 330 Electoral votes, winning comfortably.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan held his own in the last debate, everyone who wanted a change, but was concerned about voting for an elderly statesman, decided RR was going to be OK, and cast their lot with him. The term 'Reagan Democrats' was born and the result (thanks to Dave Leip's great website) looked like this:

The website swaps the current association of Red and Blue colors for the reason that traditionally Blue was used for Republicans and Red for Democrats.

This map still amazes me (the 1984 map is even more stunning, but was more expected).

While I don't think Obama's map will look anything remotely this dominant (especially since a lot of strong Republican states are large geographically but sparsely populated and therefore have few electoral votes), there will be some long standing Republican states that will wind up casting their electoral votes for Obama. Perhaps there will even be a reason to coin the term "Obama Republicans", but at this point, I wouldn't go that far.

2nd Presidential Debate Review

Once again, I watched on CNN. Not because I enjoy listening to the Talking Heads there, but they have wonderful and informative graphics during the debate.

If you have HD TV, you can see 6 CNN analysts give PLUS and MINUS points to each candidate and you can see what makes a difference in their minds.

However, much more important is the graph at the bottom of the screen with green (Men) and orange (women) lines showing the reaction of each gender of a group of Uncommitted voters from Ohio.

You can see a replay of the 2nd Presidential Debate with the responses of these Uncommitted voters at the CNN website.

Interesting results were:

Barack Obama got high marks from both men and women very often when talking about specific ideas he had to solve economic problems.

When John McCain attacked Obama, the scores were flat-lining at zero and occasionally going negative. Every time he stopped talking about his plans and switched to focusing on what Obama had or hadn't done, the voters turned their dials to zero. They didn't want to hear about the past, they wanted to get information about the future.

Women often gave higher scores to each candidate than men did.

The analysts were almost unanimous in their preference for Obama with minimal negative marks for Obama for most of the debate and a consistent awarding of several negative points to McCain by all analysts.

Obama's biggest flaw was that he rarely stayed within the time allotment. (McCain wasn't much better.) I am sure Tom Brokaw was pretty ripped, but it didn't seem that the viewers minded.

Perhaps Barack Obama's ideas were just plain better than John McCain's. I think it is more likely that people think more highly of the things they want to hear when said by the people they like hearing from. I don't know a lot about how CNN picked the individuals and exactly how evenly distributed they were among ideology, but this is yet another tough sign for John McCain.

Presidential Debate 2 - The Beginning of the End?

The 2nd of 3 Presidential debates is tonight at 9PM Eastern Time at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. It is on domestic affairs and is being called a Town Hall Meeting, although it is a lot more structured than that. All questions have already been submitted. There will be no follow-ups. The candidates will not be debating one another, rather answering the questions posed to them, although I am sure they will choose to respond to statements made by the other candidate.

Barack Obama is pretty much playing Prevent Defense at this point. As long as he doesn't make any huge mistakes, the debate is unlikely to change many minds. There is unlikely to be anything John McCain can say that would significantly help him, all he can do is say something that would irk Obama into making a mistake. Anything that McCain says in a derogatory fashion attempting to attack Obama's character is likely to be viewed as desperate and is unlikely to increase support for him. In fact, by seeming un-Presidential, it could reduce his support even further.

Polls just released today paint a picture for McCain's candidacy that is about as rosy as the short-term future of the Financial Sector.

Obama is now leading, comfortably in McCain must-have states Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Missouri. So-called battleground states of Colorado and New Hampshire are also comfortably in Obama's column. Unless McCain's campaign gets momentum moving on their side, it will no longer be a race to 270, but trying not to be held under 200 electoral votes.

2nd Presidential Debate Preview

The second debate will be held Tuesday night at 9PM in a town hall format at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Obama could wind up being nervous and stiff. McCain almost always is relatively smooth and could come off better. But I don't think that is how it is going to play out.

If the candidates move around and walk into the audience, then the age, height and physical differences between the two of them will be obvious and will make it difficult for John McCain to get the upper hand in the debate.

Expect John McCain to attack Barack Obama several times and try to keep him off guard. With such a large audience an attack could have some instant impact. The problem with attacking in a planned event is that the other side may be able to effectively prepare to counter the attacks. If a lot of people see a good response, it may effectively deflate the ability of that issue to gain any traction for him.

Our prep on the 2nd Presidential Debate wouldn't be complete without the SNL review of the Vice-Presidential Debate:

Going Positively Negative on the Campaign Trail

As I mentioned last month in my post "Campaign Reform Dies a Final Death", the McCain/Palin team had launched a series of negative ads about Barack Obama. Over the last few weeks, they had backed off and run more pro-McCain ads. Well, from here on out, expect an even greater focus on negative ads. They are desperate at this point and regardless of McCain's desire to rise above partisan attack politics, if he has any desire to win, there is only one option that has a chance of working.

Sarah Palin has already been proclaiming that Obama associates with terrorists referring to his association in recent years to William Ayers who 30-40 years ago was a leader of the violent radical left organization Weatherman. You can read more about William Ayers for background info, but as for a more recent picture of him, know that Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. He has edited and written many articles and books on topics such as education theory, policy and practice. He has also appeared on many panels and symposia and served on the board of directors for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where Barack Obama was Board President. Decide for yourself how much this effects your opinion of Obama. It is a last gasp effort for McCain.

I am actually interested in seeing new polls for North and South Dakota. They had somewhat unexpectedly become battleground states until Sarah Palin was named McCain's VP mate at which points, polls showed a big McCain lead in both states. But there have not been any polls since the 3rd week of September. Obama's lead in national polls has increased significantly since then, so these states could be back in play. Although both states have the minimum 3 electoral votes, if they are close and McCain has to spend any time there, it will make an already difficult task even more challenging.

The Soccer Dad Lawn Sign Presidential Poll

SOCCER DAD, DANCE DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for November 1 - Obama 43, McCain 27
SOCCER DAD, DANCE DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for October 25 - Obama 31, McCain 21
SOCCER DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for October 18 - Obama 24, McCain 12
SOCCER DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for October 11 - Obama 21, McCain 13
SOCCER DAD LAWN SIGN POLL for October 4 - Obama 20, McCain 9

While driving our 4 kids around today to a total of 10 soccer games and 3 field hockey games, I decided to count properties with lawn signs for the Presidential candidates. There was a lot of back-tracking between fields, so in an attempt to avoid double counting signs, I only counted once on each approach to a field.

This highly un-scientific poll was conducted in South Eastern Pennsylvania in the suburbs surrounding Philadelphia. Although Philadelphia is predominantly Democratic, the suburbs have long been Republican although they have continued to move closer to neutral over the last 3 decades. Most of the observations occurred in Delaware County, which used to have a Republican to Democratic registration ration of 70 to 30, but is more like 57 to 43 now and a number of those registered Republican act like independents, so the County in recent years has been considered a bellweather of Pennsylvania and at times, National sentiment.

The tally was 20 signs for Obama/Biden and 9 for McCain/Palin
Now while I can safely say that Obama will not take almost 70% of the vote in Pennsylvania, these observations lead me to surmise that either the Obama ground game is much more impressive in a battleground county in a battleground state, or the there are more Obama supporters than McCain supporters who are fervent enough to declare their preference for all to see. Or perhaps a bit of both. Any way you slice it, this tells me that polls showing Obama to be 7% ahead in Pennsylvania are unlikely to be overstating Obama's lead.

Although this poll is perhaps one of the least scientific that I can imagine, I don't think Pennsylvania will turn Red this year.

McCain should forget about all states with the exception of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada. He has to win all of them. He has already withdrawn from Michigan and probably should from Wisconsin and Minnesota as well. New Hampshire has new polls showing a average of a 9 point Obama lead and if that is even remotely close to reality, that state is gone as well.

Vice-Presidential Debate Review

It doesn't often happen this way, but both debaters and their campaigns have to be very happy this morning.

There were no major gaffs. Both candidates sounded intelligent, spoke with some passion and weren't caught off-guard at any time. Sarah Palin did have a few moments of minor hesitation, but that is rather common in debates as your brain spins in a few directions at the start of a response, but she always got traction.

Palin did herself proud, she certainly stopped the bleeding of her reputation in the public eye. I think it quelled any movement to try to get McCain to find a new running mate and probably stopped the momentum swing to Obama-Biden, but I doubt it started to swing momentum back to the Republican ticket.

Joe Biden was pretty crisp, made no major gaffs and had several moments where he weaved his wonkish knowledge with a "down-home" feeling talking about his dad, where he grew up and even being a suddenly single parent.

Two things Biden said really stuck out to me. He did a serious slap-down on what exactly John McCain had been a maverick on and that on issues that were very important to the American public, he was in lock-step with George Bush. I think that took some steam out of Sarah Palin's ability to keep using the moniker "original maverick" for John McCain.

Joe Biden also painted a pretty clear picture of how he would be utilized and benefit Barack Obama as his VP. Not only did it instill confidence in the Obama-Biden team's ability to lead, it had to bring to mind questions of what exactly Sarah Palin would do for John McCain as his VP.

You can see the VP debate again and see how a group of Ohio Uncommitted voters judged the candidates continuously during the debate by going to the CNN video transcript website

Two important developments in different directions on the Electoral Vote side. First, it is being widely reported (but not officially confirmed yet) that John McCain is pulling campaigning resources out of Michigan and redeploying them to other battleground states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota). While this is probably sensible given recent polling changes, Michigan was one of the only states John Kerry won that McCain had a legitimate shot at winning.

Second, some polls out today that were run earlier this week show McCain closing or going ahead in some battleground states Obama had been consistently leading. The one that seems to have the most heft behind it is a Survey USA poll from Sept 30 - Oct 1 in Minnesota showing John McCain ahead by 1%. Survey USA polls in Minnesota all year have shown the race closer than most other polls, but this certainly will provide some energy to the McCain campaign.

Vice Presidential Debate Preview

Are you not sure you know enough about the Vice Presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin? You may want to look at this review from Good.is.

Sarah Palin doesn't need to not make mistakes, she needs to convince people she is competent to be president. This is not easy given the Katie Couric interview that has been released in snippets over the last week. She won't all of a sudden become a policy wonk, so she has to show leadership abilities in another way.

Here is how I think it will play out:

Palin will go on the attack right from the start. She will say very little about McCain's policies other than high level glossy concepts like the fact they are "The New Energy". Going negative may be their only hope at this point and it has always been the best course for her in this debate with Joe Biden. She needs to get Biden off balance and tempt him into unleashing a verbal tirade against her.

Biden will look like my dog when our daughter has dropped food on the floor and he is told to sit at attention. A massive dissonance between instinct and training. Look for Biden after a Palin attack to be biting his lip, shaking, tapping his foot or some other quirk as he wants to rip her apart but knows he shouldn't. He should daydream about walking along beautiful beaches all over the world visiting foreign leaders as the Vice President of the United States. If the worst that can be said about Joe Biden was that he seemed distant, that would play a lot better than "he verbally beat up a woman". he best tactic would be to find a way to let Palin talk some more. The format tonight provides for very short responses and provides few opportunities for the candidates to respond to one another. Biden should use the time to ask Palin a specific question and offer to give her the remainder of his time to respond. You can tell if Biden is starting to get flustered if you find yourself counting the number of times he begins a sentence with "Look...".

It will be interesting to see how things play out.

Unless Palin can start turning the Republican ship around, this is going to quickly turn into a rout. (That may not be in Obama's best interests, which we will cover in a few days). New polls show Obama leading in Florida by anywhere from 3% to 8%, Ohio by 8% and Virginia by 9%. John McCain needs to win all 3 of those states to have a chance to win. In other states where McCain was hoping to have a shot, he is now down by 1% to 4% in Nevada, 11% in Minnesota, 15% in Pennsylvania and 16% in Iowa. McCain is also only leading by 1% in Missouri, 2% in Indiana and is tied in North Carolina, all of which he needs to keep this from becoming a total wipeout.

The Vice Presidential Debate

Since I heard her speak at the Republican Convention, I have been telling people that I believe Sarah Palin will do just fine in the Vice Presidential debate this Thursday. I was actually concerned about how many ways Joe Biden could come off as rambling, condescending, patronizing, etc. The Palin-Couric interview has me seriously reconsidering that opinion. I still think there is a pretty good chance that she will be able to hold her own in 1 and 2 minute segments as happens in a debate. However, some of the things she has said in the Couric interview just make you wonder.

The segment that aired this morning is very peculiar. After telling Katie Couric that she does not have any debate coaches, Couric followed up by asking about those helping her prepare:

I have quite a few people who are giving us information about the record of Obama and Biden, and at the end of the day, though, it is -- it's so clear, again, what those choices are. Either new ideas, new energy and reform of Washington, DC, or more of the same.

Has anyone told her that Obama has been saying this exact same thing for several months? Does she forget that she is of the same party as that which currently resides in the White House? Barack Obama is more of the same of what exactly?

I hope for her sake that she doesn't uncork a doozy with tens of millions of people watching (about 50 million watched the 1st Presidential Debate last week) or the polling numbers will quickly move to a place from which John McCain would have no chance to recover with less than 5 weeks to go. Already, 4 MUST states for John McCain are showing a tie (Florida, Ohio, North Carolina) or Obama slightly ahead (Virginia). Winning all 4 of those states still puts McCain 5 electoral votes short, which means he would probably have to win Colorado as well where he is polling about 3 points down.