McCain not as forked as the McCain Forked thread, but still forked

[Steve_MB]

@Phlosphr

Anybody catcj Ayers Shirt in that Ad? FREE MINDS

So thats what they are afraid of… :smack:

They seem rather ungrateful to someone offering to correct their personal deficiencies at no charge.

[Discordia]

I wish people would stop bringing up ARG polls. They’re so bad you’d probably do a better job just guessing.

[DSeid]

@Discordia

I wish people would stop bringing up ARG polls. They’re so bad you’d probably do a better job just guessing.

And 538 makes the snide comment about them too as they report the result (“I’d have to say that I’m very, very skeptical of this one until I see it confirmed by another polling agency; this is exactly the sort of quirky result that ARG is (in)famous for.”) Yet he gives them a rating in the .8s based on their history, which may not be great but aint awful.

So while I can agree with 538 in saying that one poll with an unexpected result needs confirmation - even if it came from the best pollster around and ARG is not that - I would be hesitant to totally dismiss it also.

If McCain is being perceived as more of Bush then these economic times may get Appalachia to want to throw the bums outs, even if that means voting for a Black man.

[Captain_Carrot]

@DSeid

If McCain is being perceived as more of Bush then these economic times may get Appalachia to want to throw the bums outs, even if that means voting for a Black man.

And do remember that WV is a very pro-union state, to the extent that when the NRA tried to make the coal-miners union do an anti-Obama ad, a lot of the members stayed home the next day in protest.* I also wouldn’t underestimate the value of Ralph Stanley’s endorsement; he’s centered in southwestern Virginia, but that’s pretty close to West Virginia both geographically and culturally, as far as I can tell.

And there was good news on electoral-vote.com for McCain this morning: he has a slight lead in North Carolina, Missouri is tied again, and his lead in Indiana has doubled. That more than makes up for losing West Virginia, though not by enough to get him very close to 270.
*Or something to that effect, I don’t really remember how it went.

[DoctorJ]

@RTFirefly

The only reason I’d believe an ARG poll is if it agreed with a bunch of more reputable polls.

But at this point, I think Obama could pick up WV if he made just a few campaign stops there over the next few weeks.

Maybe, but if he wins West Virginia he has almost certainly also won Ohio and Virginia, so it’s probably not worth it.

That’s also probably true of North Carolina, but aside from being a bigger state it also has a hot Senate pickup opportunity. In fact, rather than coming to West Virginia, he might be better off making a stop or two here in Kentucky where he’ll almost certainly lose by fifteen points but where Mitch McConnell is looking surprisingly vulnerable.

[DSeid]

More on the prospects across Appalachia. (This time Western PA, not all of which counts as Appalachia, but the message is the same.)

Now, driven by fears that their personal finances could further deteriorate, many see Obama as the better choice — their thinking in some cases driven more by concern about how McCain would handle the economy than any growing admiration for his rival.

“I don’t know that there’s anything I particularly like about him (Obama), but I dislike McCain, and I dislike the way the country is, and Republicans need to change,” said lifelong Republican Ruth Ann Michel, 64, a retiree shopping in a market in Butler on a recent day. She said her vote for Obama would be her first for a Democratic presidential candidate.

While talk in these parts is mostly about the economy, a prominent — if not unspoken subtext — is race. A study of the impact of racial attitudes on the election conducted by The Associated Press with Yahoo News and Stanford University found that whites without a college education were much more likely to hold negative views of blacks than those with a college education.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell says a drowning man doesn’t care what color the person is who throws him a life preserver.

“This election is going to be decided when a husband and wife sit at a kitchen table, or a single parent sits at the kitchen table, looks at their bills and figures out who is most likely to help them with their financial condition,” Rendell said. “If the answer’s Barack Obama, nobody’s going to care whether he’s black, green, orange, purple, fuchsia or whatever.” … Since early September, growing numbers of whites who have not finished college have been expressing the view that Obama cares about people like them, even as fewer say so about McCain, according to AP-GfK polling.

The West Virginia miner story:

Coal production at a mine in Monongalia County came to a halt today when every union miner stayed home, as part of a political protest.

It was an idle day Monday at the Blacksville #2 Mine.

More than 440 workers who are members of the United Mine Workers of America took what’s called a Memorial Day instead of going to work.

Union officials say they took the day to protest after a film crew from the National Rifle Assocation showed up at the Consol mine last week to interview union workers.

They say the crew tried to get union coal miners to speak out against Barack Obama.

The UMWA has endorsed the democratic presidential nominee.

The Union is doing its best for Obama.

Often, union officials show up at coal mine bathhouses during shift changes, when dozens of workers are getting dressed, to make the case for Obama.

The union portrays him as a friend of the coal industry, and argues that Obama is culturally in step with local workers. Union literature tells them that the Democratic nominee supports gun rights, and the literature attacks McCain for opposing legislation that would make union organizing easier.

“Barack Obama Won’t Take Away Your Gun,” says one flier. “But John McCain Will Take Away Your Union.”

A new 18-minute video that the union is distributing in coal states features Roberts, the union president, talking directly about race as he addresses white workers, many them clad in jeans or denim overalls.

“I could just ignore the fact that Barack Obama is African American,” says Roberts, “but I’m not.”

The effect of visiting West Virginia … and KY … (and of having high ranking surrogates visit too) goes beyond shaking up those states, helping down-ticket, and building infrastructure for the future. The more workers in Appalachia believe that he actually cares about workers across Appalachia at least as much as he cares about the state that is flippable, the more the flippable states that matter most will flip. Like was said, it buys a lot of free media coverage across the region and sends an important message everywhere.

[Steve_MB]

And a few more signs and portents of forkage:

Erosion of Republican support:

Former governor Milliken backs away from McCain

GRAND RAPIDS – He endorsed John McCain in the presidential primary, but now former Republican Gov. William Milliken is expressing doubts about his party’s nominee.

“He is not the McCain I endorsed,” said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, ‘Who is Barack Obama?’ I would ask the question, ‘Who is John McCain?’ because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.

“I’m disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues.”…

The lead federal prosecutor on the Weathermen cases calls BS on McCain/Palin mudslinging:

Prosecuting Weathermen

…As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child…

[RTFirefly]

@DoctorJ

Maybe, but if he wins West Virginia he has almost certainly also won Ohio and Virginia, so it’s probably not worth it.

I disagree: the closer his win is to a landslide, the easier it’ll be for him to get his program through Congress next year.

And picking up WV would pretty much shut up the “but blue-collar whites don’t like him” meme.

Also, WV is right in his flight path anyway: he’s clearly going to be spending a lot of his remaining campaign time in VA and NC, on one side of WV, and OH and IN, on the other side. It would only take a couple hours out of his day to stop in Charleston or Wheeling just long enough to give a speech.

rather than coming to West Virginia, he might be better off making a stop or two here in Kentucky where he’ll almost certainly lose by fifteen points but where Mitch McConnell is looking surprisingly vulnerable.

I’d say there’s enough time left for this to be a both/and, rather than an either/or. Kicking Mitch out of the Senate would be truly sweet, and would also reduce the difficulty of getting the Dem program through Congress. Mitch isn’t just the Minority Leader, he’s also their ace legislative tactician/obstructionist. Getting him out of the game would be big.

[Steve_MB]

Another former supporter repulsed by McCain’s behavior (and, reading between the lines, all but accusing him of resorting to “Have I no friend who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” instigation):

McCain’s attacks fuel dangerous hatred

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as “not one of us,” I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, “Kill him!” At one of your rallies, someone called out, “Terrorist!” Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered…

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed…

…Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people – forever.

We will hold you responsible.

[Lakai]

National polls have moved slightly in McCain’s direction, but today they jumped back to Obama.

Obama is oscillating between a 5-7 point lead. If McCain keeps attacking Obama without any benefit in the polls, I think even his own party might start breaking away from him. If not they will all go down with him.

I don’t see Obama going higher than 7 unless Republicans start getting sick of McCain. I think a 7 point lead means he’s got the independent vote pretty much wrapped up.

[RTFirefly]

@Lakai

Obama is oscillating between a 5-7 point lead. <snip>

I don’t see Obama going higher than 7 unless Republicans start getting sick of McCain. I think a 7 point lead means he’s got the independent vote pretty much wrapped up.

I think he’s already above that. Pollster.com’s average has Obama 50.0, McCain 42.5. The average (weighted by sample size or not, either way) of the six daily trackers (Gallup, Rasmussen, Research 2000, GWU/Battleground, Reuters/Zogby, FD/Hotline), has Obama up by just under 8%.

I think there’s still more room for McCain’s support to erode. He’s starting to convince a lot of people that a McCain Presidency might be a really, really bad idea. Few of his supporters are likely to flip to Obama, but many will just stay home, vote for Barr, or not vote for President.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Here’s today’s electoralvote.com analysis of what McCain will need to do in order to win:
McCain will need to do ALL OF the following:

1. Keep support in all 3 states currently listed as “weak Republican” (MT, MS, GA, ) Likelihood: Good.

2. Keep support in 2 states that are currently listed as "barely Republican (IN and NC) Likelihood: Good

3. Grab the one state that is currently listed as tied (MO) Likelihood: Tossup - MO went for Clinton twice

4. Switch ALL the 4 states that are currently “barely democrat” (NV, CO, OH, FL)
   Likelihood: Probably not all of them. NV, and OH went for Clinton twice, and CO and FL went for Clinton once.

5. Pick up 13 EV’s from the 6 states listed as “weak dem” (NM - 5, MN- 10, WI- 10, WV- 5, VA- 13, ME- 4) Likeihood: Not likely at all. WV voted Bush the past two elections, and may yet swing back, but that only gives him 5 EV’s

[C3]

@RTFirefly

Few of his supporters are likely to flip to Obama, but many will just stay home, vote for Barr, or not vote for President.

All my hardcore Republican friends/family think I’m voting for Barr since I’ve been pushing them so hard to go that way. I’ve even managed to sway a few*!

*these are people who would never in a million years vote for a Democrat

[Defensive_Indifference]

Esquire is endorsing Obama (cite). I don’t know what Esquire’s readership is like. Are they preaching to people likely to be Obama voters anyway, or is this a significant score for Obama?

[Fish]

Is John McCain turning into a troll?

He’s just desperately trying to get Obama to respond to him, to take control of the topic of conversation. McCain wants to talk about Ayers and Weathermen and terrorists and stuff, but Obama is ignoring him. Is this a case of DNFTT in action?

[Voyager]

@Bayard

Esquire is endorsing Obama (cite). I don’t know what Esquire’s readership is like. Are they preaching to people likely to be Obama voters anyway, or is this a significant score for Obama?

I don’t think Esquire has been significant for anything except the Dubious Achievement Awards for a good 30 years.

[AuntiePam]

The news shows are playing clips from McCain’s stump speeches today where he backpedals and tells his supporters that they don’t need to be scared of Obama, that Obama’s a decent guy.

Sigh. If I were a McCain supporter, I just wouldn’t know what to think. Yesterday Obama associated with terrorists, today he’s a decent guy. Shouldn’t it be obvious even to his supporters that McCain changes the message depending on the polling?

[Fish]

No no no no, he’s responsive to the needs of the electorate, unlike certain terrorists he could mention.

[Fat_Chance]

@AuntiePam

The news shows are playing clips from McCain’s stump speeches today where he backpedals and tells his supporters that they don’t need to be scared of Obama, that Obama’s a decent guy.

Sigh. If I were a McCain supporter, I just wouldn’t know what to think. Yesterday Obama associated with terrorists, today he’s a decent guy. Shouldn’t it be obvious even to his supporters that McCain changes the message depending on the polling?

wow.

I just saw the clips. I am torn between being shocked more by which of 2 things.

The one women in the town hall holding the mic and telling McCain she is scared of Obama because she has read he is an Arab - how fucked is that? I weep for humanity when here people say things like that.

and

The fact that McCain, shook his head sadly, took the mic from her and said, “no, no he is a decent man, a family man, a citizen…” (paraphrased)

He actually said at another moment, he was a good man, that you shouldn’t be afraid of as president. And as he said it I thought he was about to cry - not because he saw his last chance disappear with the defense, but because it looked like he was realizing what he had done, what his tactics had done, what he had made people feel. It was hard, hard, guilt I think I saw.

[Slacker]

I just saw McCain’s capitulation on MSNBC. Wow. This is really starting to crush my very soul. I use to admire him so much, and tonight I saw the tiniest dot of the old John McCain in there when he was correcting the idiots in his audience. Man, what a WTF week this has been.