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Obama Poll Numbers -- Media, Remember Your History!
Ugh. The numbers are terrible. Tied at 43-43 only a little four months from Election Day. Why can't he close the deal? Why with an economy in the crapper aren't more people coming to his campaign? He should be up by at least 20.
43-43. So said a New York Times/CBS Poll from July 8-11 in 1992. Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
That's why I am getting such a huge kick from the media flipping out that Barack Obama isn't leading John McCain by 800 percentage points. Either they really believe it, and have very short-term memories, or they're just trying to create the sense of a nailbiter, with months and months to go to election day, to keep their ratings up.
Here's what's happening, though.
First, John McCain has used his money on an all-out ad blitz in a handful of swing states. Most of the ads are "intro" ads -- who he is, where he's from. You know, the time as a POW that he is so "hesitant" to talk about. I'll admit, though, the ads are very well done. If they didn't have some impact in the polls, then I'd be sure McCain was about to lose all 50 states. But, here's the thing. You only get one chance to introduce yourself to voters, and the dead of a summer that has very late conventions is probably not the best time to do it. You're reaching a lot fewer people during this time. Thus, with this ad onslaught, McCain has made gains, but only enough to bring him to a four-point deficit in the Real Clear Politics average. Probably not the result the McCain campaign was hoping for. I reckon they thought they could take the lead with ads like this, and they probably could have, if they had run them later.
Meanwhile, what is Obama spending his money on? Yes, he is running ads too, but less concentrated, and a much greater percentage of the money he is raising now is going to his fall warchest (a benefit of forgoing public financing). More importantly, though, he is using his resources for on the ground organizing. Field trainings. Voter registration. Network formation. Those will not yield immediate opinion poll results, but by doing these things now (and perfecting them), the Obama campaign will be able to launch a massive voter-to-voter outreach program when he needs it the most.
Secondly, Obama has used the early part of the summer to get any position adjustments out of the way, with the calculation that it would take a toll in the polls. They're no dummies -- they knew the "flip-flopper" charge would get hurled at them and the more liberal part of his base would be upset with his moderate tone. But, the campaign made the correct decision that it was best to do that now, take the hits in the polls and some enthusiasm, and get it out of the way. No better time than the dead of summer, leaving the rest of the year for mostly positive, ratings-building stuff. The trip abroad was just the first move to get back on their footing. Expect a lot more going forward.
Combined, John McCain has used up his opportunity to play the bio card, and has reaped very marginal results. Now, for the rest of the year, he'll be left to try to build his poll numbers based on policy proposals that mirror George W. Bush's. At the same time, Obama still has his chance, closer to the convention, to get a bounce by introducing himself and his values to the nation. He'll then be able to take full advantage of that bounce with a huge warchest for ad saturation, and a massive well-oiled neighbor-to-neighbor program.
Obama's playing the calendar. It's just what Bill Clinton did in 1992. Before the convention, in the dead of summer, Bill Clinton was an unknown, and those who did know him most likely identified him with the Gennifer Flowers scandal. It wasn't until the Democratic Convention, with the help of a tremendous short film by Harry Thomason, that the nation was introduced to "The Man from Hope."
Right after this, the next poll from NYT/CBS in 1992 showed the largest bounce for a candidate in history. Clinton vaulted ahead 55-31. The organization he had built over the summer was put into overdrive, and he never looked back. George H.W. Bush was left to eat his dust.
Will history repeat itself? Who knows... but Obama is playing the calendar perfectly right. Elections aren't won in July, when only political nerds and 24-hour cable commentators are hanging on every word and every survey. You'd think all the talking heads would remember that.
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It galls those like John McCain, his campaign, Candy Crawley, Jim Scarborough, John King, George Will, etc, etc that Senator Obama has done well on the international stage. It is obvious that Senator Obama is far far more qualified in national security matters and foreign affairs than Senator McCain.
Also, because he has better and easier relationships with the world leaders, he has a greater chance of getting their buy in on the important issues. Most of the world's leaders are far younger than McCain and they do not talk the same language as Mc Cain. King Abdullah is young, both Cameron and Brown are young, Sarkosy is young, even Merkel is relatively young and they and Obama talk the same language. They can relate.
Senator McCain cannot even get the basic geography and history straight. He also cannot get who is who straight. If foreign affairs is McCain's strong area, heaven help us!
Polls are suspect since they don't get the cell phone only under 40 group. Perhaps a more accurate forecaster would be voter registration. How many new voters voted in the Dem. primaries? Never mind party switchers and independents who were already registered. Just count the new dem registrations.
This is one statement from "Young Democrats."
Over 6.5 million young voters participated in the primary contests or caucuses this year,an increase of 103% over 2004. Sixty-nine percent of young people say they are likely to vote in this electionand 49% say they are very likely to vote, according to a recent poll.In 2006, 10.8 million young voters went to the polls, up nearly two million from 2002.
Most my family don't have phones in their homes any more. They find Cell phones more convient for all family members and cheaper in the long run. Sense these can't be polled, I wouldn' pay much attention to the lastest poll. This is going to be a year that polling cannot be truested, because of high technology use. this is another reason father Mccain will lose. He doens't understand high tech at all,a n rarely use it. Than if this isn't enought to satify your wondering why Obama isn't polling further ahead, keep this in mind. Thousand of young students thought this United States who are for Obama rarely have a home phone, they are cell phones only. Now also remember these pollsters polls who ever they want, and not reallly the most unbias sources are used for this! Keep in mind the one university that polled in a very bias way in a presidential election, remember? So don't put to much stock in these polls in the 20 th century.
Given all the advantages Democrats have right now Obama should have a greater lead. However I'm cautiously optomistic that Obama will put this away before election day. The latest daily Rasmussen and Gallup polls have him at a six point lead so maybe the overseas trip is having a tangible positive effect for him.
The enthusiasm gap is the real thing not enough people are talking about. I think one recent poll said 44% of Obama's supporters were very excited about supporting their candidate, while only 14% of McCain supporters felt that way about theirs. That could really be the kicker when all is said and done. Obama is going to have so many more people than McCain volunteering for his campaign all across the country. His organization already great will only improve.
Watching "The man from Hope" I found that Clinton has changed a lot from his message of hope at that time, especially his messages are practicaly the same as Obama's. His background is also almost the same only that his mother was even more free-spirited. It seems he doesn't want to have another one who is the same as him to be succeeded where he was. He no longer acts out his ideals of we together as one or we do things for the good of the country. Since Hillary lost the nomination he didn't do anything to ensure his party's presumptive nominee's chance to win the general election as if Hillary is the party. If she is not in, he is out! How time changes people!
HuffPost's Pick
There's a reason why the polls so rarely actually predict outcomes of elections. We're a nation of over 300 million people. To get a truly accurate picture, you'd have to ask each and every person of voting age who they intend to vote for, but of course, we can't do that. So pollsters go out and ask a sample of people what they think and then try to use that to project what the total population is like. But the problem is that these polls sample such a small percentage of the population that the answers likely cluster somewhere outside of what most voters would actually do.
If you took all the polls and averaged them, you might get a closer picture to the truth. But news hounds and pundits don't do that. Instead, they treat each small poll as complete and then attempt to use each separate poll to track a trendline. You've heard it. "Yesterday, Obama was up by 4 points, but today he's down by nine!!!" It is a bogus way to use the data -- entirely meaningless. The same thing would happen if you polled two of your neighbors and then used that data to claim that your two neighbors represent the thoughts of the entire city where you live. Then go across town and poll two more. Then claim that the people of the city have changed their minds based on those two polls.
Ah, no, I think that talking heads who can't remember that McCain said the exact opposite as little as a week ago aren't going to remember the political games and their outcomes from last millenium.
(It sounds less like they're intentionally forgetful, or merely stupid, than if I say a few decades ago)
Thank you. I for one am sick of all these daily and weekly polls. How in the world can McCane be gaining ground when his buddy Phil called Americans a nation of whiners?
Barack Obama's getting his position adjustments out of the way now. John McCain would like to do that too, but it's more difficult for him, because his positions change all the time, depending on his audience or the cheap politcal point he wants to make. Not that he really cares, because the media never calls him on it.
I have also noticed that the well publicized "it's really close!" polls are head to head with Obama & McCain. Less publicized are the polls that show Nader and Barr, which typically reduce McCain's poll numbers much more than Obama.
It's pretty obvious what the McCain campaign will be:
1) Drilling now in the US will help and Obama is blocking that
2) The surge "worked" and Obama will undo that
The problem is that while both of these points are BS, they are easy to repeat and deflect the debate from the actual issues.
To counter this Obama needs to hammer two responses (as much as McCain repeats these two lines of attack)
1) there are 62 million acres of leases the Oil companies are NOT even using (why? because they are AT CAPACITY so more leases will NOT lead to more drilling)
and
2) make the narrative that McCain cannot define what "winning" means, so all we can do is occupy (at the expense of Afghanistan). If he struggles to answer the simple "what does winning look like" question, his charge that the surge is working and we are "about to win" will ring hollow.
Well said. I think the media (including the blogosphere) has allowed the almost never-ending nail-biting Democratic primary, complete with its ratings bonanza to delude itself into thinking that anyone besides 'political nerds' (like myself) and '24-hour cable commentators' would be effected by these too often polls. Of course they want to keep the drama going as long as they can- how else are all of the sycophantic pundits going to get paid? I'd watch McCain's gaffes and rants over Big Brother anyday.
Obama clinched his nomination on June 3rd and hasn't even been able to breathe since. If there is one thing that McCain's woeful campaign has done successfully, it is duping the media and therefore the public into believing that the candidates have always been on the same playing field- the reality is that Obama should be at a DISADVANTAGE. Yes the mood of the nation is in his favour- but McCain has had since MARCH to figure out his general campaign, visit countries etc. Obama has been masterfully playing catch up (while McCain has been misstepping all over the place) and is being punished for it by the msm.
Both campaigns and the media should take a break, let the Olympics take centrestage- and allow the candidates to rest in order to clearly solidify and hone their policies so we can have a more substantial debate this historic year. Right now, we're just being consumed with silly word-parsing and dangerous name calling.
Glad for the input. I am concerned that the race is so tight (if polls are to be believed). I think with the very successful trip for Obama, that next week he should see a pretty good bounce. If not, however, I won't know what to make of it. I do think the media tends to pick/choose whatever poll seems beneficial to Mr. McCain. Even if Obama is ahead by one - 4 points, they love calling it tied or bringing up the fact the McCain did gain ground. Still, he is behind.
Anyway, I hope Obama wins by a landslide, yet will be perfectly happy if he wins by one vote. A win is a win. We must be very critical though of the media. Anyone know which polls are not biased toward McCain?
I am concerned that they push these bogus polls to put into people's minds that the race is closer than it is, so that when the election is stolen by the GOP again, folks won't be too outraged because "it was close all along".
Psst! Latest Gallup and Rassmussen daily national tracking polls show Obama up by +6 and +5 respectively.
The 4 "battleground" polls NBC keeps pointing to were conducted by Quinnipiac (whose numbers, in my opinion are open to question).
In Michigan they show Obama ahead by +4 (down from +6 a month ago).
In Michigan, their +2 Obama lead in Minnesota is countered by Rassmussen (published the same day) showing Obama up by +13.
In Wisconsin, Quinnipiac shows Obama up by +11 (down from +13 a month ago).
Obama's biggest decline appeared to be in Colorado where Obama was shown down by 2% (vs. a +5 lead last month). However a Rassmussen poll published at the same time showed Obama up by +3.
So where's the steep Obama decline?
The only major Obama concern right now appears to be Ohio (where latest poll shows him down by -10). But most other battleground polls (including Indiana, Penna., Missouri and New Mexico) show Obama with narrow to moderate leads.
And the latest Rassmussen poll has Obama up by +2 in Florida.
I believe there's pressure being put on C Matthews, C Todd and D Gregory to take some of the luster off Obama's trip (to balance things out and perpetuate the horse race). What do they have to work with? They can resurrect the Hillary issue, rip Obama for taking a premature victory lap or criticize him for neglecting domestic problems by traveling overseas.
Or they can massage the poll numbers.
A few weeks back Matthews and Olberman discussed the same poll. Matthews kept pointing to supposed drops in Obama's numbers in a few states on specific narrow questions, while Olberman pointed out that Obama's numbers nationwide in the same poll were up by large numbers. These talking heads manage to take different messages from the same polls depending partly on a personal agenda. Matthews has several times said that McCain "deserves to be President" without giving specific reasons why, while damning Obama's "eloquence" with faint praise.
Obama has used this preconnvention time to shore up his national security and foreign policy credentials. He is already way ahead on the economy, healthcare and the environment. Now, with his monies rolling in, the days after the Convention, he is going to choke and suffocate MCSame. The momentum he picks up from the Convention, the national advertising fueled by his warchest and the on-the ground, well-oiled grassroots onslaught, MCSame will be blown to smitherens.
Thank you Eric Schmeltzer.
I am becoming really exhausted by this incessant need to create artifical horse races by the media to insist that we're in a neck and neck Derby run. They did it in the primaries when the numbers were already there for Obama but ignored, and they're doing it now. When the media isn't at it, factions of the Democratic party are tripping him whenever possible and saying "look, I guess he's a lame candidate". And he just keeps trottin' along, pacing himself. Calmest person I ever saw in my life.
We seem addicted to panic. Adrenaline junkies? I'm not enjoying it. Thank you writing something objective. It's good for my nerves.
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