Linked from HotAir:
While I was at the gym during lunch, one of the TV’s had Fox on and they were talking about ACORN with Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. While it was interesting stuff, I couldn’t help but notice that none of the other TV’s, which had CNBC, CNN and MSNBC on, had anything about ACORN. CNN had something about Palin, CNBC had people talking about failout and MSNBC was playing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards.
January 3, 1993 – In the AFC Wildcard playoffs, Jim Kelly’s Buffalo Bills faced off against Warren Moon’s Houston Oilers. At halftime, the Bills were down 28-3. Warren Moon was 19 for 22 and had 218 yards in the air. Jim Kelly went down and a backup quarterback that nobody ever heard of, Frank Reich stepped behind the center. In the second half, the Bills came back to tie the game at 38. It went to overtime, where Steve Christie won this thing.
We are closing in on halftime of this thing. One debate down, we’re down. McKelly is busy dealing with the economic mess. It seems as if nobody believes in Sarah Palin or knows what she’s capable of. While Obama is nowehere near as capable as Warren Moon, the media is pretty much firing on all cylinders against us. This Thursday, it is time for Sarah Palin to shine and begin the comeback drive. It’s not too late to believe.
If necessary, the Supreme Court can be our Steve Christie.
NYT:
The early voting begins Tuesday and runs through Oct. 6. The Ohio Supreme Court and a federal judge in Cleveland on Monday upheld the weeklong voting period. Later in the day, Judge George Smith of Federal District Court in Columbus declined to rule, deferring to the Ohio Supreme Court decision.
But Judge Smith ruled that counties must allow party poll observers during early voting.
The disputed voting window results from an overlap between Tuesday’s beginning of absentee voting 35 days before Election Day, and the Oct. 6 end of voter registration.
We need all of our lawyers out there and ready to fight on the ground. People from out of state will likely pour in and try to get in on some voting. ACORN will be knee deep in this mess and McCain needs to be ready to fight.
Courtesy of RCP:
Pennsylvania is very ugly, but Colorado looks winnable still. Too many polls have skewed it 5 or 6 points. Colorado has, in recent years, become home of the libertarian west. Libertarians hate to identify with Republican candidates, especially one like J-Mac because of the McCain-Feingold. I am amost positive, though, when they get to the polls, they will vote for the candidate closest to federalist.
Jay Cost of RCP breaks down the polling data:
Immediately prior to the start of the Democratic National Convention, Obama led in the RCP average 45.5% to 43.9%. In June, he had an average lead of 47.1% to 42.4%. So, from June to the beginning of the conventions, McCain whittled down Obama’s lead from 4.5 points to 1.6 points. The Republican National Convention put him ahead of Obama, but recent events have wiped that lead away. Currently, the race stands roughly where it did in June, though McCain is in a slightly better position.
It stands to reason that the financial situation has been a campaign “moment” that has favored Barack Obama. So far, its effect is similar to him winning the nomination in June or heading to Europe in July.
A additional few points are worth noting.
First, the number of undecided voters has increased in the last three weeks, from a low of 6.3% of the electorate on 9/8 to 8.8% last night.
Second, the polls themselves have been very volatile this month. The Gallup tracking poll had a crazy week last week, and individual pollsters are disagreeing with each other quite a bit. Much of the disagreement has to do with McCain’s share of the vote. The standard deviation of McCain’s share in the current RCP average is 2.8%. Obama’s is 2.0%. [The standard deviation is the average distance between an individual poll’s result and the average of all polls.] By comparison, the final RCP average in 2004 had John Kerry’s standard deviation at 1.7% and Bush’s at 1.3%. This is a sign of volatility in the current race. Pollsters are finding fairly divergent results.
Third, there is a good subset of the electorate that claims to make up its mind in October or November. That might be hard for political junkies who have been following every twist and turn for 18 months to believe – but it’s true! In 1996, 30% of respondents claimed to make up their minds a day to a month before the election. In 2000, that number was also 30%. In 2004, 21% of the public made that claim.
If anything, the chart and Jay’s analysis indicate that gloom and doom is not what we should be feeling… yet. This race is far too volatile and the increase in undecideds is a good thing. More than a few undecideds will base their choice not solely on the economy but on a myriad of possible future circumstnaces. There is a giant Russian gorilla waiting in the back of the room. While the financial crisis is first and foremost on people’s minds, defense should not be too far behind. When McCain looked into Putin’s soul, he saw KGB. If Putin has to look into Obama’s soul, he’ll see “puff pastry”
Can’t say it’s the best ad out there. Once you start throwing these giant numbers out, numbers which very people in the world even understand, the value of the dollar is lost.
Trust, But Verify 