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Reality-based commentary on politics.

Overnight polling shows Obama the clear debate winner

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Linky:

Fifty-one percent said Obama, the Democrat, did a better job in Friday night’s faceoff while 38 percent preferred the Republican McCain, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey of adults.

Obama was widely considered more intelligent, likable and in touch with peoples’ problems, and by modest margins was seen as the stronger leader and more sincere. Most said it was McCain who spent more time attacking his opponent….

In a CBS News poll of people not committed to a candidate, 39 percent said Obama won the debate, 24 percent said McCain and 37 percent called it a tie. Twice as many said Obama understands their needs than said so about McCain.

This debate was McCain’s best shot at a game-changer.  Seems quite clear that he whiffed.  Onward.

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  1. In many ways, the debate reflects around who we want to come into our homes in times of celebration and crisis.  We are mired in war, we have a financial crisis dominating the recent news cycles, and Americans seem to be responding to the cool, calm, reassuring voice.

  2. Didn’t both Gore and Kerry win such polls?

    <

    p>Josh Marshall points out two things that I think are telling:

    • If we focus on the candidates’ behavior (as opposed to their content), McCain’s refusal to look at Obama reflected badly on him. Akin to Gore’s sighs.
    • Mr Foreign Policy Expert was supposed to win this one big. He didn’t. Like a defending Chess World Champion, drawing was enough for Obama — and he at least accomplished that.

  3. It appears that Obama’s performance did what it needed to do:  make people comfortable who were unsure about whether or not he could be presidential.  He eased mild fears and anxieties in those who were having their own internal debate about whether they should go for the comfort of age or the desire for change.  Now that many of these folks saw Obama behave and speak in ways that calmed their fears, they are feeling much more comfortable in voting for him in November.  

    <

    p>McCain has an entirely uphill battle.  His bizarre and erratic behavior the past week has not helped him one bit and did manage, amazingly enough, to actually turn people off who heretofore had not felt strongly negative about him.  He displays all the behaviors of the gambling afficionado that the NYT described this morning.  In retrospect, his behavior begins to make sense:  he’s an all-or-nothing impulsive hustler.  

    <

    p>And as for his running mate, well the consensus is coalescing around a single word:  unsalvageable.  She is an unmitigated disaster to all but the obsessed single-issue voter and the cognitively impaired.  Her negatives are staggering–she’s down 28 pts. since the 11th of September–and is in a trajectory to continue on that path.  She has moved from charming curiosity to national joke in nanoseconds.

    <

    p>I expect to see more of Barney Frank’s “history of footballs and Marys” sort of passes over the next few weeks as well as more bold-faced lying from the McCain camp.  This is one for the ages.  

    • McCain’s emerging problem is an image of erratic, impulsive bluster.  Whether it be Palin, the “suspension”, or other tactical moves in a strategic battle.  However, the quickest and most economical way to gain ground on Obama is to attack him at the debates from surprising directions — the very move that will make McCain look even more impulsive and blustery.  The one thing he must do for tactical reasons is the one thing he can’t do for strategic reasons.  He’s boxed in.

    • No really, this is a serious question. There’s no other explanation I can think of for your bizarre disconnect with the real world.

      <

      p>The focus groups after the debate favored Obama, and now the big polls are too.

      <

      p>What are the “every other polls” of which you speak? Links, please.

      • WBZ-TV, which ran a Friday night local poll. And I think MSNBC, it may have been CNN. Forgive me for having a life.

        • were online, completely unscientific, freep-able polls.  These are scientific polls.  Unlike what you saw, the polls I cited have meaning.

          <

          p>But thanks for playing.

        • This from the person who writes, “Is this the only favorable poll you could find? Every other poll, including WBZ-TV, had McCain wining 68-32%. Loserspeak.”

          <

          p>If you want those who disagree with you to be kind, you might consider changing your tone. Loserspeak, indeed.

          • you might have written. “This surprises me as I could swear I remember the WBZ-TV poll showing McCain had won.” That would match the actual amount of evidence you brought to the table and it would signal a willingness to discuss rather than indulge in name calling.

            • is the one you present without verification.  we hang on your every word.  you’re so amazing.  can i have your baby?

              • look at how many others have wasted good advice on billxi, who is glorying in all the effort wasted on him.  my retort was at least concise and appropriately ‘in you face’.  but you think my comment “needs work”.  well i’m game, how could i have improved it?  what was the ultimate troll stomp in this case?  đŸ˜‰

                • short of banning – is ignoring. The troll will make more and more extreme statements, in an effort to get a response. The response – any response – is his reward and an indicator that his effort was a good one.

                • on a forum this large, they can always get a rise out of someone.  so i’ve decided to play smack-back when i feel like it.  after all, why should the trolls have all the fun?

                • I tried precisely that by handing out 3s and 4s (which I rarely do now) to troll respondents. It’s sort of like trying to get an embargo to work. You gotta get everyone on board. If it leaks — even a little — forget it.

                  <

                  p>Some liberals, on finding a Republican talking point — especially a deceptive and potentially damaging one — sitting unanswered on a Democratic blog cannot resist the urge to refute. (“What if someone sees we haven’t answered it?” they worry.)

                  <

                  p>At Troll High School, America’s future trolls may not learn how to spell “lose”, how to use much punctuation beyond the ellipsis, or how to insert hyperlinks, but, boy, do they learn and learn very well the art of baiting.

                  <

                  p>Another reason to oppose charter schools?

        • a) making shit up?
          b) being lazy?
          c) being arrogant?
          d) being arrogant while making shit up and being lazy?

          <

          p>Whether or not you have “a life” is irrelevant, as we all have lives.  You might reconsider using such vapid cliches in the future as they really don’t resonate much.  Their use simply reinforces b) and c) above.  Helpful hint, that.  

            • From seeing one poll — that it’s not clear you even remembered accurately, you concluded that most every poll confirmed with your hopes.

              <

              p>In other words, you made shit up.

              <

              p>If you listed three polls that agreed with you, I’d say fine.

              <

              p>You didn’t.

              <

              p>I don’t see how to spin in otherwise, i.e., you made shit up.

              <

              p>Billxi, it’s not that hard to say, “Sorry, I got carried away.”  I almost always give people sixes who say stuff like that because it’s what keeps the discussion here worthwhile. In some sense, we need and value good conservative input here. Good conservative input means sticking to the facts, avoiding unconvincing invective (“Nobama”), and making clear arguments. I wish there was some way on this site to give good ratings to comments I disagree with because they are well-argued, or well-researched, or otherwise thoughtful. Maybe that would raise the level of conservative commentary.

              <

              p>Right now, the conservative commentary has been embarrassing with only three possible exceptions I can think of.

              <

              p>By contrast, when I disagree with Democrats on this site — even very disagreeable Democrats — they are at least making coherent, well-backed arguments. The O’Reilly supporters (excepting Sabutai) drove me absolutely nuts for 15 months. Yet not a single one of them was as half as bad as some of the conservatives I read here. They accepted evidence; they argued positions; they understood what the differences were; they gave the differences some degree of respect; they were extremely passionate.

  5. How could support of the Iraq war, and a gunslinger approach to foreign policy be a strong point?

    <

    p>Going forward, if the economy is the topic, a set of promises not-intended-to-keep could win more votes than a well-thought-out approach to the difficult choices we have to make.

    <

    p>And if the debates move into social policies, you can bet that piling on to “those people” will sell well in difficult financial times.

    <

    p>You can be sure of one thing, and that is whatever may work will be pulled out of the closet in an attempt to maintain control of the country.

    <

    p>Don’t relax.

  6. Polls

    <

    p>reminder these a day 3 day averages, 1 day includes the debate.  But if you take all four polls and average them, Obama was leading by 5.5% yesterday, today it’s 6.8%

    • Tracking polls, indeed all polls that are not “snap,” are trailing indicators.  Look for Obama’s debate performance to resonate among voters and McCain’s let-it-all-ride impulsivity to rattle voter confidence.  We’ll see this over the next few days.  The McCain campaign already knows this.  With Palin’s debate on deck, I’ll be looking for something dramatic from them over the next few days.  And that may look like setting the bar of expectations so low for Palin that a syntactically intact sentence will be viewed as a “solid” performance.  

      • while some are a bit much, there are a few that are good:

        <

        p>3. Challenges Obama to suspend campaign so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore.

        <

        p>8. Suspends campaign until Nov. 4, offers to start being president right now.

        <

        p>9. Sells Alaska to Russia for $700 billion.

        <

        p>Slate

  7. my brother & sister-in-law just returned from parents’ weekend at bucknell university in pennsylvania.  my nephew informed them that every student has been made well aware of the voter registration regs, how to get an absentee ballot, etc.  when i asked who was doing the organizing, the answer surprised me: mostly the repubs.  that is, the impression students have is that they’re spending more money on campus than the dems.  i was surprised, since i thought the college student demographic had been capitulated to obama.  but apparently bucknell draws lots of conservative children of wealthy conservatives, and so the lady de rothschild’s friend, john sidney mccain III, is organizing there.  my nephew and his family are certainly exceptions to the rule there in being middle-class liberals for obama.

    • conservatives have been pouring money into conservative groups on college campuses. the funding level’s quite unequal now. that might explain it.

      <

      p>i wonder what’s going at lower case western?

      • Conservative groups have been generous to the College Conservatives club activities. To the point of sponsoring an alternative newspaper that practiced totally free speech. There is no club at Framingham State for Democrats: lack of interest. The link would take up too much space.

  8. …if Obama had really taken it to McCain.  I’m heartened by these polls, but there were times during the debate when I felt like I was coming up with better and more forceful responses than Obama was.

    • People who take the time to watch a presidential debate are probably a more narrowly defined* group than those who will likely vote.  Perhaps there is a higher percentage of pro-Obama supporters in the debate viewing group (as opposed to likely voters) which would lead to more favorable reviews for their candidate.

      <

      p>* or at least “differently defined”

      • …that any focus group would be designed as a cross section of voters.  The polling certainly is a representative sample.

  9. which is conveniently located in the right-hand sidebar.  Several “fact checks” were added in light of the debate.  Here they are – you can always click the Lie Counter to get the latest.  Note that the sourcing is always to non-partisan media outlets.

    <

    p>

    Washington Post Fact Checker blog: McCain “Seriously Misstated” Lebanon Vote. “McCain seriously misstated his vote concerning the marines in Lebanon. He said that when he went into Congress in 1983, he voted against deploying them in Beirut. The Marines went in Lebanon in 1982, before McCain came to Congress. The vote came up a year into their deployment, when the Marines had already suffered 54 casualties. What McCain voted against was a measure to invoke the War Powers Act and to authorize the deployment of U.S. Marines in Lebanon for an additional 18 months. The measure passed 270-161, with 26 other Republicans (including McCain) and 134 Democrats voting against it.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    FactCheck.org: McCain Voted for $3 million to study the DNA of bears. “We’ve heard that one before. McCain’s been playing it for laughs since 2003. The study in question was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, and it relied in part on federal appropriations. Readers (and politicians) may disagree on whether a noninvasive study of grizzly bear population and habitat is a waste of money. McCain clearly thinks it is — but on the other hand, he never moved to get rid of the earmark. In fact, he voted for the bill that made appropriations for the study. He did propose some changes to the bill, but none that nixed the bear funding.” [Fact Check.Org, 9/26/08]

    Washington Post: McCain Repeats Lie That Obama Voted To Raise Taxes on Anyone Making More Than $42,000. “John McCain claimed that Obama voted in the Senate to raise taxes on anyone making more than $42,000 a year. This is misleading on several levels. The vote that McCain is talking about was a non-binding resolution on the budget that envisioned letting the Bush tax cuts to expire, as scheduled, in 2011. But these budget resolutions come up every year, and do not represent a vote for higher taxes in future years. In fact, Obama has said that he will continue the Bush tax cuts for middle and low-income taxpayers. He says that he will cut taxes for all but the wealthiest tax-payers.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    AP: McCain Repeats Troop Funding Lie. MCCAIN: McCain said Obama voted to cut off money for the troops in Iraq. THE FACTS: Despite opposing the war, Obama has, with one exception, voted for Iraq troop financing. In 2007, he voted against a troop funding bill because it did not contain language calling for a troop withdrawal. The Illinois senator backed another bill that had such language – and money for the troops.” AP, 9/26/08:

    ABC: McCain Falsely Invokes Eisenhower Letters. “Calling on President Eisenhower to deliver a lesson about accountability, Sen. John McCain invoked two letters authored by the 34th president the night before the Normandy invasion during Friday’s presidential debate. One letter, McCain said, was authored in the event that the D-Day invasion was a success and the other, a resignation, in the event it was a failure. According to the National Archives, late on the afternoon of June 5, 1944, Eisenhower scribbled a note intended for release accepting responsibility for the decision to launch the invasion and taking full blame in the event the effort to create a beachhead on the Normandy coast failed. In the letter, Eisenhower takes responsibility but makes no mention of resignation.” ABC News, 9/26/08:

    Boston Globe: McCain Repeats False Claim on Funding For Troops. “McCain: ‘And Senator Obama, who after promising not to vote to cut off funds for the troops, did the incredible thing of voting to cut off the funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.’ Fact Check: Obama did vote against a 2007 spending bill that did not include language calling for withdrawing troops from Iraq, but then voted for the version that did. That version was vetoed by President Bush, though McCain does not say Bush cut off funding for the troops. Overall, Obama voted yes on at least 10 other war funding bills prior to the single no vote.” Boston Globe, 9/26/08:

    Boston Globe: McCain Lied About Alternate Fuel Votes. “McCain: ‘I voted for alternate fuel all my time. … No one can be opposed to alternate energy, no one.’ Fact Check: In his 26 years in Congress, McCain has voted against several bills and amendments calling for new investments in renewable energy, according to official Senate records. In March 2002, for example, McCain voted against an amendment to require utilities to generate 10 percent of electricity from renewable energy facilities by 2020.” Boston Globe, 9/26/08:

    AP: McCain Leaves Out Key Vote on 2005 Energy Bill. MCCAIN: “We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Senator Obama voted for it.” THE FACTS: Obama did vote for a 2005 energy bill supported by President Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production. McCain opposed the bill on grounds it included unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry. Obama voted to strip the legislation of the oil and gas industry tax breaks. When that failed, he voted for the overall measure. Obama has said he supported the legislation because it provided money for renewable energy. AP, 9/26/08:

    AP: McCain Distorts on His Call to Fire SEC Chairman. MCCAIN: “I’ve been criticized because I called for the resignation of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.” THE FACT: McCain did eventually call for the resignation of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. But he first said that if he were president he would fire him, a step a president cannot take with the head of an independent regulatory agency. This is what McCain said on Sept. 18 during a rally in Iowa: “The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and, in my view, has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were president today, I would fire him.” AP, 9/26/08:

    Washington Post: McCain Overstates Iraq Opposition. John McCain correctly asserted that in 2003 he began to question the Iraq war strategy, which is correct. In November 2003, he criticized the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, saying the United States should send at least 15,000 more troops or risk “the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam.” But he has also made later, more rosy pronouncements. After visiting the Shorja market in Baghdad in April 2007, where he was protected by more than 100 soldiers, McCain said, “Things are getting better in Iraq, and I am pleased with the progress that has been made.” Privately, according to a recent book by Bob Woodward, he was more critical, telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “We may be about to lose the second war in my lifetime.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    Washington Post: McCain Repeats Health Care “Canard.” “John McCain raised an old Republican canard, repeated often in the primaries, when he claimed that Obama’s health
    care plan would eventually turn the health care system over to the federal government. The Illinois senator proposes helping individuals purchase health insurance through a system of subsidies and tax credits. He is also in favor of mandatory health insurance for children. But he is not advocating a state-run health system, such as the one that exists in Britain and some European countries. Under the Obama plan, individuals will still be free to choose between different types of health insurance, and will be able to choose their own doctors.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    Washington Post: McCain Exaggerates Growth of Earmarks. McCain, rebutting Obama’s correct observation that earmarks are a small part of the budget, said, “But the point is, that you see, I hear this all the time. It’s only $18 billion. Do you know that it’s tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it’s gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people?” But while federal earmarks tripled in size from 1996 to 2005, they have actually dropped in recent years. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, in fiscal year 2005 Congress inserted 13,492 earmarks totaling $18.9 billion for appropriations accounts. In fiscal year 2008, there were 11,524 earmarks totaling $16.5 billion for appropriations accounts.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    Washington Post: McCain “Kicked the Evening Off With a Wild Exaggeration” About Normandy. “John McCain kicked the evening off with a wild exaggeration by describing the allied invasion of Normandy as ‘the greatest invasion’ in history. Such historical comparisons are always dangerous. In scale, the D-Day landings were far exceeded by Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, and the Soviet invasion of Germany at the end of World War II. A total of 326,000 allied troops took part in the initial D-day Landings in June 1944. By comparison, Hitler’s sent an army of 4.5 million men into the Soviet Union in June 1941 along a 1,800 mile front.” Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/26/08:

    Boston Globe: McCain Distorts on Surge Comments. “McCain: ‘Senator Obama said the surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure.’ Fact Check: Obama said at the time that the increase in roughly 30,000 US troops in Iraq could improve security in ‘certain neighborhoods’ but that it would not solve the long term political strife between Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups. ‘I don’t think there’s been any doubt that if we put U.S. troops in that, in the short term, we might see some improvement in certain neighborhoods,’ he said in March 2007. In a September 2007, speech Obama said ‘the stated purpose of the surge was to enable Iraq’s leaders to reconcile. Our troops fight and die in the 120 degree heat to give Iraq’s leaders space to agree, but they aren’t filling it.'” Boston Globe, 9/26/08:

  10. from conservative blogger and founder of Redstate Joshua Trevino:

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    p>

    in this first 24 hours following the meeting, we already have several data points to consider. All of them bode poorly for McCain. A CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll has Obama winning a plurality of uncommitted viewers. A Frank Luntz focus group of undecideds gave the edge to Obama. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll of viewers nationwide yielded a majority for an Obama victory. (Commentary’s Noah Pollak and RedState’s Jeff Emanuel rightly note a partisan skew in the CNN/ORC sample, but do not explore what this may signify: a significant edge in Democratic enthusiasm, manifesting itself in audience composition.) Most shocking is the Democracy Corps survey which, though a Democratic outfit, stacked its focus group 2-1 with ’04 George W. Bush voters – and yielded a plurality for an Obama win.

    <

    p>By the way, Trevino agrees that Obama won.

    <

    p>

    The bottom line is that John McCain did not accomplish what he needed to: discredit Barack Obama as a responsible steward of America’s fortunes abroad. A major theme of his campaign is Obama’s callowness and consequent unfitness to lead in wartime. The failure to expose this posited shallow grasp of the wider world – a remarkable proposition about a half-Kenyan raised in Indonesia anyway – is a serious erosion of credibility for McCain. To find a foundational proposition of one’s candidacy rendered ineffectual is a tremendous blow….

    [Obama] finally let loose with a brutal and effective exercise in rhetorical parallelism, made the more cruel by its basic truth:

    “John,” said the Democratic nominee, “you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shiite and Sunni. And you were wrong.”

    In one swoop, the superiority of John McCain on foreign affairs was laid waste. An effective debater would have responded with a series of his foe’s own grievous errors in the same sphere – and despite his thin public record, Barack Obama has several. Instead, McCain lamely replied, “I’m afraid Senator Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy,” and segued into a non sequitur about General Petraeus. To paraphrase Tallyrand, this was worse than a crime – it was a mistake. Assaulted on the very pillar of his candiacy, John McCain yielded.

    • I think “laid waste” is a bit too much, but McCain definitely blew some opportunities to go after Obama on substantive issues and instead provide more evidence for his mancrush on Petraeus.

      <

      p>He has not entered the point of no return, but another week of this fiasco and he’s toast for Nov 4.

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