True 'dat! 
Obama supporter here, but I never underestimate the power of people to convince themselves of what they want to believe.
ETA: Including me.
I think he’s getting more at the idea of “concern trolling”, and that the people still talking about superdelegates may not necessarily be actual Hillary supporters.
That too.
I’m looking forward to his efforts on behalf of the Samuel Tilden campaign.
Correct. That’s what I was going for.
-Joe
So what you’re saying is that “puma” is not a cougar, not a brand of athletic shoes, but instead is a new synonym for a large mythical human-like creature of dull wit but much brute strength that often lives in mountains, caves or under bridges? And these ones worry about you? Who’d a thunk it?
I learn so many new words during election cycles. In the primaries I found out what “misspeak” really means. 
RTF so you won’t take a crack at quantifying the “likely voter” screen effect? Well left to my own devices … Gallup gives a sense of what it may be nationally when they find that their national registered voter result with a 3 pt Obama advantage flips to a 4 pt McCain lead when they apply their first time voter excluding “likely voter” screen. That’s a seven point flip looking at the same national population group, probably a result of the fact that young voters and others who did not vote in the last general presidential election, who support Obama to a disproportionate degree, are not counted with that filter on. How much more of a flip will there be when such a screen is applied to a state in which 36% of the population is Hispanic and most of them did not vote before (under the assumption that they do indeed come out this time)? 7% has to be the floor, given that the national numbers flipped by that much. Maybe 10%? Lacking any one else with a better ability to quantify this, that seems to me to be a conservative guess, 7-10% potential undercount due to the application of the typical “likely voter” screen on the Texas population under the assumption that Hispanic turnout in the general is indeed on par with nonHispanic turnout this time. Does that seem reasonable to you?
It was unlikely she win outright, but it got very very close of going to the Convention and thus perhaps a brokered outcome.
And that would have been a big win for Democrats of both persuasions.
I wouldn’t say “a lot”. It’s really the very vast minority that have said such a thing.
Then again, look at my location. It’s about as Obama friendly as you can get. Not all locations will be like that, however.
If Obama is up 4 or 5 points on November 4th, that may not be enough. We’ve got to work to make sure we crush that. Of course, the elephant in the room is whether or not these new participants to the political process actually get out to vote. That mobilization contains the real answer and the real key to the election.
Cite Conventional wisdom backs aldiboronti, but facts back Liberal
Obama tried to turn this election into the question of whether McCain was Bush’s 3rd term. Instead, McCain has turned this into a referendum on Obama. It is no longer Obama vs. McCain, but Obama vs. not-Obama. I wish Obama would hit “Bush’s 3rd Term” again. I think it could work. Polls show that 3rd party candidates take more votes from McCain than they do Obama. This is why McCain isn’t forked yet.
So RTF PPP today puts Arizona how you’d put it, fairly out of reach. 52 to 40 McCain.
And yet there’s that problematic “likely voter” screen. Why am I suspicious of it? Because nationally Obama leads McCain among Hispanics by 2 or 3 to 1, including in Arizona, but this poll of “likely voters” has it much closer, 48 - 40 Obama.
Just sayin’ is all.
Not-Bush worked great for Kerry, didn’t it?
That’s his sole hope? Have you noticed the color of his skin?
gonzomax wasn’t kidding. Mark my words; Whatever Obama polls at going into election day, you can subtract three percent because he’s black and, to many, not Christian enough.
And Rasmussen has McCain up by either 16 or 19 in AZ, depending on whether leaners are included.
My guess as to what’s really hurting Obama is the fact that the electorate is starting to twig to the fact that he’s pretty liberal, and that worries them. Plus, Americans tend to like humility and a ‘down-home’ type attitude from their Presidents. Kerry did a lot of damage to himself by being seen skiing in Aspen and windsurfing and all that. He came across as a rich eastern liberal, and that turns a lot of people off.
Also, the attacks on Obama for being arrogant are hitting home - because he is. So’s McCain (and anyone else who runs for President), but Obama seems to be taking it to the next level. The Obama campaign has primarily been about Obama. Not his policies, not anything specific people want done. It’s just, ‘Yes We can’. “Vote for Me, and together we can do it! I’m the one you’ve been waiting for!”
There are a lot of people who are looking at that level of rhetoric and going, “Uh, why? What’s so special about what you’re bringing to the table? Just what is there about a 47 year old lawyer with little experience that qualifies him to be the saviour of the planet?”
I think the Obama team is getting this. If they’re smart, they’ll step back a bit from the high oratory and 200,000 person rallies, and start putting Obama in coffee shops and pancake houses.
I thought it was hilarious when the media (and people here) thought McCain’s visits to the German sausage house were a huge gaffe, because they contrasted poorly with the big Obama show in Germany. I think that’s a pretty clueless reading of what people in the midwest care about. Speaking about being a world citizen in Germany in front of throngs of Europeans is actually a negative to a lot of people. They don’t want an America that looks like Europe, and they don’t want a europhile jet-setting President who’s at home schmoozing in Davos and Gstadt. McCain was sending a message to those types of people, and I think it probably helped him.
I’m not sure I agree with the crux of your analysis - I think Obama’s being held back by his ethnicity more than anything else - but on this you’re absolutely spot on.
I was just flabbergasted when people seemed to think the European Tour would be Obama’s big moment. Since when has the U.S. electorate given a flying fuck how their candidates go over in Germany?
For that matter, I can’t imagine this working in ANY country. I really don’t give a tinker’s damn how Stephen Harper, Stephane Dion and Jack Layton are perceived in Norway.
Good points, Sam Stone. I’ve heard several of my American friends dismissing Obama’s “royal tour” of Europe. They don’t care if the French like him, or the Germans. No, that’s not true, exactly: they think it’s a bad thing that the French and Germans like Obama.
sigh
I’ve been allowing myself to imagine Pres. and Mrs. Obama visiting Ottawa and being met at the airport by our Governor-General, Madame Jean, who hails from Haiti.
I do hope to see that, next year.
And unfortunately that’ll probably be the only big event in Mile High happening for the rest of the year. (It’s feeling like a long season coming up for us Broncos fans, especially now with Marshall suspended for 3 games, two of which are divisional.)
That said, even though I pay a lot of attention to politics, I never watch much of the conventions. I figure I can pick up anything of any importance off the blogs and the pundits. I don’t have a lot of interest in Redskins-Giants (even if I do root for the Eagles when it comes to the NFC) but I’d still probably watch the game if only to make sure I’ve got my HD setup working (been getting some funny dropouts from NBC lately.) I guess I could switch between NBC OTA and MSNBC on the dish but I’d rather listen to Madden make an idiot out of himself than listen to McCain do the same thing. (Any bets on how many times McCain will mention Brett Favre for no good reason? I’ll put the O/U on 0.5.) Hey, at least the Republicans are lucky enough that the Minnesota-Green Bay game is on Monday night and isn’t the one kicking off the season.
I think too much McCain gloating is ill-informed and premature, especially if it’s based on polling. The world has changed so much so fast that it shouldn’t be surprising that we see wild swings, bizarre outliers, and head scratching cross footing. No one really knows at this stage whether polls are even measuring accurately anymore. Like everyone else, Gallup et al need to catch up with an increasingly mobile and net-docked electorate.
But even taking the polls, like the daily Gallup, at face value, Obama prevails significantly. In GQ it was explained to me that a steady measure in a series of polls over time effectively nullifies the margin of error. This means that Obama, running a fairly consistent average of three to six points ahead, is slated to come out somewhere between a victory and a landslide. A six point popular vote victory translates into an electoral rout. Plus, key demographics are moving inexorably toward Obama, the latest being poor white working people who, as of today, favor Obama by double digits.
For many people, including some of McCain’s longtime supporters and friends, these latest ads and campaign tactics have come across as grumpy and sour. The old media darling is fast becoming “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with John McCain?”. Some talking heads are saying that the new Rovians he has hired have isolated him, which is why he was caught off guard yesterday by a reporter’s nuanced question about his Paris-Britney ad. They are saying he probably hasn’t even actually seen it. Not to mention that Paris’s mother wrote a scathing attack on Huffington Post, furious that he had spent her money this way. When you’ve pissed off your big donors, it means you’ve fucked up.
You’re right - that Obama’s dip in the polls happened at the same time as the Paris/Britney ad, and McCain’s playing the race card, was purely coincidental, I’m sure.
Yeah, like that time he gave a big speech where he talked about how our problems would be magically solved by 2013 if we elected him - no clue as to how; they would just go away.
The Iraq War won, the Afghan war all but, Darfur’s problems taken care of, several years of robust economic growth, America well on its way to energy independence, a revolution in teaching methods greatly improving American education, even much healthier school meals. Greatly improved access to health care, even declining obesity rates.
Oh wait. That was McCain.