The sobering fact is that the lead is this narrow (and thus potentially fragile) during a week that highly favors Obama - focus on economy, Palin losing her novelty act attraction, and some conservatives highly critical of McCain. (See George Will’s column, for example)
Wow, might we end up seeing George Will endorsing Obama?
Nah.
I don’t think the lead is that narrow. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Obama up by 9 points, 52-43 nationally.
And Electoral-vote.com has Obama up by 26 electoral votes, and winning with 282. Granted Virginia, Pennsylvania and Colorado are Obama’s by 2 percentage points or less. So that’s pretty narrow, I suppose.
Well, there are internal numbers, and there are a host of sites that do breakdowns on electoral math. Long story short: Michigan is hella important.
I’d be more inclined to trust electoral-vote.com, which bases its figures on a metaanalysis of polls, and of course does them on a state by state basis.
Obviously, if Obama actually DID win the national popular vote by 9 points there’s not really any realistic way those votes could fall that wouldn’t result in victory. He could lose the electoral vote winning the popular vote by 2 points, but not by 9.
However, one national poll tells you squat. A combination of votes tells you a lot, and electoral-vote.com has the race as being pretty much dead even; too many states are too close to call.
Sadly, the black-guy-factor might still be in play. Suppose each state is overreporting Obama’s support slightly, so in fact he’ll give two points to McCain in each state due to the black guy factor (I know it has a name. I keep forgetting it.) That would swing Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado, which means McCain wins 299-239.
McCain is not forked… yet. Five weeks is an eternity in politics. He could catch a wave and win, or he could make a gaffe and be absolutely crushed.
The campaign so far suggests McCain and Palin are far more vulnerable to missteps than Obama and Biden, but no chickens have yet been hatched.
They’re not only vulnerable to gaffes and missteps, they’re vulnerable to real-world issues dominating the campaign too, which doesn’t bode well for them. When the campaign is about “celebrities,” and this one time at POW camp, and Sarah Palin’s hockey momness, and lipstick on pigs and bullshit like that, McCain does well. But when people rightly re-focus their attention on the possibility that we’re on the brink of recession because of the Bush administration and GOP’s deregulation policies, things swing back to Obama.
You’re right, he ain’t forked yet, and I’ll be curious to see some other polls as well, but the tide is moving toward Obama at a pretty decent clip.
You misspelled Depression.
I thought about using “depression,” but I figured I’d go with the next-to-worst case scenario, lest I be called a overly-dramatic Chicken Little by some.
I have heard a couple of pundits say the “black guy factor” is worth 5-7 percent for McCain. Of course no one really knows, but I fear it’s worse than that. I would be very happy to learn I’m wrong, but it’s tough to underestimate the intelligence of the American public. Even if your guess is “none”. :rolleyes:
No, I think you would’ve been safe saying depression. We could ALL be forked in the next few months.
Last week proves your point; once the credit crisis started dominating the news, McCain’s momentum went fast. His campaign has mishandled the issue terribly.
It’s called the Bradley Effect, but it simply wasn’t a factor in the primaries. In fact, he out performed his poll results more often than not. People might not vote for him because he’s a black guy, but they’d have voted for McCain already or are open about the fact they’re voting based on race.
Raygun99 beat me to it, the scoundrel! 
Fox News has a new national poll – Obama 45% - McCain 39%. I think that’s the first one I’ve seen with McCain below 40%.
An interesting bit at the end of that story:
Dunno how the new storyabout Biden and Obama supporting the Bridge to Nowhere, or McCain’s loony-or-maybe-brilliant offerto suspend the campaign to work on the economy will fly over the next few days. Still, scoring below 40 isn’t a good sign for McCain.
I don’t see how this can help McCain. He’s been flailing around contributing nothing thus far. He doesn’t have anything to offer. Obama has more to offer than McCain does. But Dodd seems to have it under control, and the last thing they seem to need at this point is more cooks running around spoiling the broth.
Of course, I’m applying thought to the issue. Viewed through the lense of spin, this might work very well for him.
Well there’s your problem, right there.
TIME/CNN Battleground Numbers
You know, I’ve been meaning to ask this for a long time and keep forgetting:
Why is New Mexico a blue outlier in the otherwise very red South?
Hippies and Mexicans.
A poll in Colorado (follow the link to the article on Obama’s lead in Colorado here shows him with a 60 point lead over McCain with Hispanics!
(The linked article is fun also.)