DSeid
October 23, 2008, 8:03pm
441
Admittedly within MOE but MONTANA?!?
Okay, maybe I’m just reading too much into this, but check out this AP story that sounds a whole lot like McCain’s planning his concession speech:
Republican John McCain is not going to make his election night remarks in the traditional style — at a podium standing in front of a sea of campaign workers jammed into a hotel ballroom.
Oh, the throng of supporters will hold the usual election night party at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4.
But the Republican presidential nominee plans to address another group of supporters and a small group of reporters on the hotel lawn; his remarks will be simultaneously piped electronically to the party inside and other reporters in a media filing center, aides said.
Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was the result of space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.
Only a small press “pool” — mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and other guests — will be physically present when McCain speaks.
Thomas Patterson, a government professor at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, called the arrangement “unusual” but said the campaign may simply be bowing to the reality that the candidate’s remarks are geared toward the televised audience rather than those in the hall.
“Addressing your supporters election night is one of those traditions in politics, like where you choose to launch your campaign,” Patterson said. “Why wouldn’t you want the energy of the crowd? And if you’re going to lose, you almost need it even more.”
Either way it’s just… weird.
A rather insidious theory from The New Republic :
Apparently McCain drew less than 500 people to a rally in suburban PA two days ago. Then he went to Western PA and flubbed the attack lines against John Murtha’s comments so that the sound bite was completely incoherent. On Monday he drew crowds of about 2000, then 15 people at an airport rally (yes, that is correct–no zeros), and then his third rally of the day was described as “sparsely attended.” (Maybe they should try raffling off a car next time.) In Florida today, McCain is going to a factory in the morning, unable to draw a crowd even in a Republican area of the state. McCain is demanding that he campaign with Palin again, so he can draw a crowd, so they are back together today, wasting valuable candidate time and resources.
Now the Obama campaign is doing a major head fake in PA. They “accidentally” leaked an “internal” poll showing Obama up by only 2 percent in PA. I guarantee you that no such poll exists and that this was done both to motivate volunteers in the state (and maybe elsewhere) and prevent them from getting too complacent and also to sucker the McCain campaign into spending more time there. Ed Rendell has asked Obama to come back and campaign in the state-another major ruse. They know that McCain makes most of the decisions for his campaign and that they can goad him into spending more time in PA by pretending that it is close there. Let’s see if Obama actually returns to PA before November 4th, but I sincerely doubt it. They are brilliant.
:eek:
mabes10
October 23, 2008, 9:28pm
444
BTW it just occured to me, does 538 try to take into account voters who only own cell phones?
Fish
October 23, 2008, 9:44pm
445
Maybe he’s planning to suspend his campaign to conduct his campaign.
Chronos
October 23, 2008, 10:40pm
446
I can certainly tell you that, in Bozeman at least, Obama might as well be running unopposed, and I suspect the same is the case in Missoula (the two college towns in the state). If that MSU-Billings poll is a bit friendlier than normal to college students in their target market or likely voter model, that could account for the results.
I will refrain from speculating on how likely college students actually are to vote, since I don’t have data for that, just annecdotal observation.
Fish
October 23, 2008, 10:45pm
447
Obama now has support from Scott Fucking McClellan ?
This is going to get much worse for McCain before it gets better. If it ever does.
I can hear it now- “Get off my lawn!”
The dude knows he’s completely toast and is just going through the motions now. I don’t think the speechwriters are even going to bother with a victory speech.
Apropos of not very much, Winfield Scott was briefly the general-in-chief commanding Union forces during the American Civil War before being succeeded by George McClellan, and Scott Fucking McClellan sounds like a very strange and obscure cul-de-sac in the already strange and obscure genre of Civil War slash porn.
As you were.
538 doesn’t conduct its own polls. It provides excellent analysis of all the polls there are, though (and I seem to remember Nate thinking the cell phone issue is overstated).
Cervaise:
Apropos of not very much, Winfield Scott was briefly the general-in-chief commanding Union forces during the American Civil War before being succeeded by George McClellan, and Scott Fucking McClellan sounds like a very strange and obscure cul-de-sac in the already strange and obscure genre of Civil War slash porn.
As you were.
Excellent post.
One of my favorite historical anecdotes (relevant to my day job) is about McLellan’s decision to use hot hair balloons to scout the enemy, and the skepticism of others regarding this new-fangled technology.
TWDuke
October 23, 2008, 11:14pm
453
Ron, Opie, Andy, Richie and Fonzie (that’s three!) endorse Obama. It’s over.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d
All I ever really knew about the man was that he was the inventor of the Incredible Ball Pinchin’ Saddle, which must’ve made him VERY popular with the cavalry.
That Ron Howard clip honestly brought a tear to my eye. Maybe because I know that NOTHING would make Ron Howard be Opie again unless it was pretty extraordinary.
Squink
October 23, 2008, 11:51pm
456
Really? Not that I doubt you, but what has he said about that?
I won’t have a cite for this, but since he’s become a movie director, Ron Howard is famously loath to even talk about Opie and Richie.
FiveThirtyEight just pushed Obama’s odds of winning to more than 96 percent, from their previous hovering level of around 93 percent.
National Journal and SurveyUSA join Big Ten and Quinnipiac in giving Obama a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania, as does the Morning Call tracker. The Schroth Eldon & Associates poll for the Miami Herald and St. Pete Times in Florida, which has a fairly good reputation, puts him ahead by 7 in the Sunshine State. SurveyUSA now gives him a lead in Indiana, joining PPP and Big Ten; Indiana has turned blue on our map.
Obama even leads in Montana, a state which his campaign has never disengaged from, according to an MSU-Billings poll. […] North Dakota may in fact be in play, as well as two of Nebraska’s three congressional districts. If the election were held today, the Obama campaign might very well sweep every state on their target list.
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