ELECTION DAY 2008:........... Barack Obama, the next President of the United States of America

Delicate Obama Path on Class and Race Preferences - Rachel Swarns, NYT
Obama's Eloquence Fatigue - George Will, Washington Post
Where Have You Gone,John? - Jonathan Alter, Newsweek
Barack Obama's Lost Years - Stanley Kurtz, Weekly Standard
McCain Reform Trumps Obama Change - Salena Zito, Pitt Tribune-Review
McCain:Right Strategy, Wrong Candidate? - Chuck Todd, NBC News
Why Isn't Obama Pulling Away? - Jennifer Rubin, Commentary
McCain's Problem Is GOP Ideas - Greg Anrig, Washington Post
Obama Sells Out on Offshore Drilling - Melinda Henneberger, Slate
McCain and the Media's Crush on Obama - Ramesh Ponnuru, Time
 
 
these are the latest maps i found
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this is what really matters. so all these pundits citing their popular vote head to head polls are pretty much irrelevant.
 
[h3]Today's Polls, 8/4[/h3]
Up until now, I have been urging caution in (over)interpreting the results of the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, which had shown the presidential race tightening to a near-tie in recent days. Although the tracking numbers are important sources of information, this trend had not really been reflected in much of the state polling, nor in other, one-off national polls.

Today, however, we have a set of state polling out that does indicate some tightening in the race:

2732759991_80a98d1066_o.png


The most interesting results are in Florida and Massachusetts. In Florida, SurveyUSA shows John McCain ahead by 6 points. The only other time it had polled Florida, back in late February, McCain had been ahead by 2. This result is driven in part by SurveyUSA's party identification figures; SurveyUSA does not adjust its results for partisan ID, and they drew a sample that gives the Republicans a 43-38 edge in party affiliation. The conventional wisdom is that party affiliation in Florida should be about evenly divided or somewhat tilted to the Democrats; nevertheless, there may be some softening in the Democrats' party ID edge nationwide, perhaps because of the improved situation on the ground in Iraq.

The Massachusetts poll from Suffolk is interesting mostly for the trendline; Obama leads by 9 points now after having led by 23 points in June. He experienced a particular decline among men: perhaps McCain's 'Celebrity' advertising campaign, which among other things seeks to emasculate Obama, has had more resonance with men than with women.

Apart from the state polls, there are now a couple of national polls that show McCain with a slight lead. One is the Rasmussen national tracker, which has McCain ahead 47-46, and the other is a new telephone survey from Zogby, which has McCain up 42-41.

Throwing everything together, we still see Obama with a national lead of about 2 points, but polling over the past 72 hours has indicated an even tighter race. Obama faces an interesting decision about whether to try and get out in front of the news cycle and create some drama of his own -- perhaps with a VP selection or some aggressive lines of attack against John McCain -- or to let the cycle play out organically, hoping that McCain's negative advertising will begin to backfire on him.
 
Originally Posted by SchruteFarms


this is what really matters. so all these pundits citing their popular vote head to head polls are pretty much irrelevant.
Click to expand...

and you should probably pay closer attention to the polling in battleground states.
 
FT: Democratic jitters as Obama heads forHawaii...
Adviser blames McCain ad for polldip...
REALCLEAR AVG...
Obama rejects talk of trouble from Clinton backers...

[font=ARIAL,VERDANA,HELVETICA]WHAT'S SHE UP TO?

[/font]Have the Clintons Gotten Over It? - Karen Tumulty, Time Magazine
Hillary's Growing Shadow - Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics
Is Obama the End of Black Politics? - Matt Bai, New York Times Magazine
Can Mac Win If Election Is About the Economy? - Jennifer Rubin, NY Obsvr
Barack The Cable Guy - Bob Beckel, RealClearPolitics
Is Obama Fatigue Real, And Is It A Danger to Him? - Walter Shapiro, Salon
Swing State Review: Pennsylvania - Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics
Why So Nasty, So Soon? - David Broder, Washington Post
Obama Pivots to Populism - Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
​
 
McCain Not 'Ready to Lead' on Nat'l Security - Arianna Huffington, HuffPo
Following McCain's Lead on Russia, Iraq - Rich Lowry, New York Post
Hillary Clinton: The Front-Runner's Fall - Joshua Green, The Atlantic
Bayh Offers Risks, Rewards for Obama - Carl Hulse, New York Times
A Catholic Case Against Obama - Pat Buchanan, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
John McCain is a Pro-Life Zealot - Sarah Blustain, The New Republic
Obama and the Galbraith Effect - Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics
Uneasy Voters: The Changing Exurbs - Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times
HowMcCain Would Govern - John Fortier, The Politico
McCain, Not Obama, Was Right About Georgia - Steve Huntley, Chicago ST
McCain: Let's Compound the Blunder! - Greg Djerejian, Belgravia Dispatch


Iowa Republican Endorses Obama...

Pelosi, Michelle Obama to kick off Dem Convention...

 Obama's 'no income taxes on seniors' drawscritics...

 Video askspeople to pray for 'rain of biblical proportions' during Obama speech...
 
Countdown to Dem convention: 12 days
Countdown to GOP convention: 19 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 83 days
 
PAGLIA: Obama's and Madonna's rough summers...

DOWD: Hillary busy planning HER convention...
Jesse Jackson may not speakat Dem's party...


The Dems' Problem with White, Male Voters - David Kuhn, Boston Globe
Clinton Wouldn't Take Penn's Advice, but McCain Will - Mark Davis, DMN
Election Must Be a Referendum on Republican Rule - Thomas Frank, WSJ
Here Come the Clintons - Michael Goodwin, New York Daily News
The Questions That Hang Over Obama - Irwin Stelzer, Daily Telegraph
How Obama Can Erase the Race Factor - Peter Beinart, Washington Post
For Race Scholars, An Obama Dilemma - Jonathan Tilove, Newhouse News
McCain & Lieberman: Perfect Together - D. Morris & E. McGann, Fox News
McCain Was Right About Putin - Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Gang of 10 Gives Obama the Edge on Energy - Peter Keating, NY Magazine
What Other Secrets is the Media Keeping? - Tom Maguire, JustOneMinute
Reclaiming theMorality of Abortion - Linda Hirshman, Slate
Obama's Abortion Distortion - Kevin Vance, Weekly Standard
McCain Camp's Double-Talk On Obama's Patriotism - Greg Sargent, TPM
We Are All Georgians - John McCain, Wall Street Journal
Will the Clinton/Obama Feud Continue? - E. J. Dionne, Houston Chronicle
Obama, Abortion Champion - David Freddoso, National Review
Can Patriotism Save McCain's Campaign? - Howard Fineman, Newsweek
 
[h2]Obama Camp Defends Tax Plan
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/category/1208.aspx [/h2]
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and NBC's Alex Wall
The Obama campaign held a conference call today to draw attention the Illinois senator's tax plan and to "set the recordstraight" regarding what it called false, misleading, and inaccurate representations about his proposals by his rival.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, economic policy director Jason Furman, and senior economic adviser Austan Goolsbee (whosparked controversy last spring, when reports surfaced that he had downplayed Obama's plans to renegotiate NAFTA), took part in the roughly half hour call,which revealed new details on capital gains and dividend tax rates for the wealthy.

Furman and Goolsbee published an op-ed on Obama's plan in today's Wall Street Journal, which sought to communicate a message the campaign has repeated over andover again -- that Obama's plan is better for middle-class families, while McCain's favors big corporations and the wealthy. Thecampaign launched a new Web site today with details of the plan, comparisons with McCain'sproposals, and rebuttals to what the site calls the "baseless claims" that the presumptive Democratic nominee would dramatically raise tax rates.

While McCain's campaign has said that an Obama Administration would mean higher taxes, Furman said that Obama's plan wouldamount to an overall net tax decrease and would reduce taxes for middle-class families to a level that is lower than it was during the Reagan Administration.Obama would pay for it by cutting spending -- by ending the Iraq war, limiting payments for high-income farmers, and eliminating other wasteful and unnecessaryprograms and payments. Furman said that by the fourth year of an Obama Administration, their "very conservative" budget projection shows savings of$90 billion from ending the war in Iraq.

Summers said Republicans were recycling old arguments that Democrats' tax plans would harm the economy, which did not prove trueduring the 1990s, a time of great economic expansion. He criticized McCain for proposing a large tax cut -- $3.4 trillion of tax cuts over 10 years -- withoutpaying for it, and said Obama's plan was more equitable and more fiscally responsible. "There's nothing approaching a description of spending cutsthat will finance this deficit and that means you're gonna have to pay for those tax cuts in the future with higher tax rates," he said.

Obama would roll back a portion of the Bush tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 and would "leave their tax rates at orbelow where they were in the 1990s," Furman and Goolsbee said in their op-ed. That would put the top two income-tax brackets at 36% and 39.6%.

"Barack Obama's plan would cut taxes for middle class families, and when you take the entire tax proposal as a whole, wouldcut taxes as a whole to less than 18.2% of GDP," Furman said. "That's lower than the level of taxes when Ronald Reagan was president."

When asked about claims that Obama voted for raising taxes on lower income families, Furman called the McCain campaign's argument"completely false."

"The McCain campaign is relying on a vote for a Baucus amendment to the budget resolution that John McCain voted for aswell," Furman said. "Organizations like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said [the amendment] was not a tax increase and that wouldhave in fact cut taxes on middle class families."

The wall Street Journal op-ed included, for the first time, specific details on capital gains and dividend rates that Obama proposesfor these families. The top capital-gains rate would be 20% and the tax rate on dividends would also be 20%. Goolsbee said a capital gains rate of 20% would bealmost a third lower than the rate Reagan set in 1986 and that the dividend rate would be lower than the vast majority of the years that dividends have beentaxed.

Furman said that while Obama would not raise taxes for families making less than $250,000, McCain could not make the same point,because he proposes taxing families for the health care their employers provide -- a plan Obama's advisers say would "impose a $3.6 trillion taxincrease over 10 years on workers" since the Arizona senator's proposed health care tax credits likely would not cover the tax increases resultingfrom his plan.

The advisers said any changes to Social Security -- Obama proposes calling on those making over $250,000 to contribute 2% to 4% more --would not be phased in for another decade.
[h2]McCain Camp Fires Back on Taxes
[/h2]
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
Three McCain surrogates repeated many of the campaign's attacks on Obama's tax plan, including his pledge to raisetaxes and his history of voting for tax increases in the Senate. The campaign criticized Obama's op-ed published today in the Wall Street Journal, sayingthat it is just more evidence of the Democratic candidate's "shifting" language on taxes.

There wasn't much new information on this call, but one questioner did challenge the McCain campaign's claim that their taxplan would be more beneficial to the middle class.

Obama's campaign has said that their plan provides tax cuts to lower-income individuals, an assertion that the McCain campaigndidn't directly refute. In response, senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that the key to John McCain's middle-class proposals is allowingpeople employment opportunities, which in turn ensures that they have the opportunity to benefit from lower taxes.

"In order to pay taxes and have the opportunity to have lower taxes, you have to have a job, and John McCain's plan is a planwhich is dedicated to preserving the small businesses that have created 283,000 jobs in an economy that is struggling," Holtz-Eakin said. "BarackObama's plans are plans which would damage small business in ways that are quite dramatic."
Carly Fiorina, a McCain economic adviser and head ofhis Victory Fund, said that Obama's campaign was simply being disingenuous. "Obama has also said that all of his government-mandated programs are paidfor. That doesn't make it true."
 
The McCain campaign added that it had $21.4 million cash on hand through the end of July.

The RNC raised an $26 million in July and has has $75 million cash on hand for a combined $96.4 million cash on hand,Davis said.

Through the end of June, Obama had $71.7 million cash on hand, and the DNC reported just $4.5 million on hand for a combined $76.2 million, according tofederal campaign finance data.



McCain raises $27 million in July...

McCainRNC report $96 million cash on hand...
capt.2e7140f721e94a2a85482e85e921fa3c.obama_2008_hiab117.jpg


OBAMA: LOOKING FOR A WAVE...

GALLUP DAILY: MCCAIN, OBAMA TIED...

Blinks in Hillary face-off?

capt.989ad4f5a5374c4fbf745a179265bf73.clinton_obama_wx106.jpg


Her Name In Nomination???
Howard Dean Calls GOP The 'White Party'...

DNC launches attack on Romney...
 
[h3]538's Battlegrounds as ofMid-August[/h3]
Our final deep breath before the VP picks and the conventions is a good time to do the monthly update of battleground states according to our projection model. Mid-September's will come between the conventions and the debates, and mid-October's will come after we know the polling effects from the debate series.

The last month has seen a nearly across-the-board uptick for John McCain. That's his good news. The good news for Barack Obama is that no states have flipped in our projections since mid-July. Since that month showed more of the McCain states inside of five points closer to the dead-even line, it's now Obama whose states are slightly closer to that line. Two Obama-projected states sit on the precipice of flipping: Ohio and Colorado.

The mid-August projection -- using a winner-take-all model rather than the probabilistic version that we usually use here -- remains at Obama 293, McCain 245.

FiveThirtyEight's mid-August Battlegrounds, 136 EVs:

2768946192_c8b93a669a_o.jpg


Since McCain's movement was small but consistent, we've added a column for this month called the "McGain." Movement toward McCain is represented by a positive number. The line demarcates McCain-projected states from Obama-projected ones. Although no state has flipped across the line this month, New Hampshire and Iowa found their way inside of five points and Indiana is now projected outside of five points for McCain despite a polling average under two points.

McCain Penumbra States (projected between 5%-10%), 40 EVs

2769023694_003f28ed6f_o.jpg


From July, South Carolina, Arizona and Texas have moved into double digit McCain projections, while Indiana joined this group's ranks.

Obama's Penumbra States (projected between 5%-10%), 66 EVs

2768177599_faf5aab36b_o.jpg


In the last month, Minnesota has made a strong move from double-digit land into this group, going from Obama +11.6 to Obama +6.4. Iowa and New Hampshire graduated to battleground status and the remaining states stayed put. While Minnesota's strong movement isn't good news for Obama, the truth is +6.4 and a far better ground game is still fairly comfortable.

In double-digit base EV projections, Obama leads 165-131. Including Penumbra States, Obama leads 231-171.

Significant Movement:

Obama made incremental gains in our projections for the battlegrounds of Nevada (0.6), Florida (0.4) and Pennsylvania (0.3), but mostly found his numbers slipping elsewhere. The biggest explanation can be found in the Super Tracker. Notice that in mid-July Obama's lead was roughly three points; today it is roughly one point. That two-point slippage tracks with the projection movement this month.

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The next time we update our battleground projections roughly 11 days after the final gavel in St. Paul, remember that "par" is a lingering McCain post-convention bounce of just over two points on average; for an explanation why, see yesterday's post on what a convention bounce looks like. That means that if McCain is polling two points higher across the board than he is today, our projection will hold him steady.
 
Pelosi Praise: Obama is a 'leader that God hasblessed us with at this time'...

McCain Accuses NBCNEWS of Obama bias...

'It doesn't look good' -- WASHINGTONPOSTadmits covering Obama over McCain by 3 to 1...

Obama tears into McCain...

McCain Slams Obama on National Security - Elisabeth Bumiller, NY Times
Obama: Muzzle the Media - Russ Smith, Splice Today
Veep Week Speculation Hits Fever Pitch - Dan Balz, Washington Post
Hillary Strategy Could Work in General Election - Jennifer Rubin, NYO
Obama's Democratic Party - Dana Goldstein & Ezra Klein, American Prospect
Life Lies: Barack Obama & Born-Alive - David Freddoso, National Review
The Downside of Barack Obama's Cool - Michelle Cottle, The New Republic
McCain Shines at Saddleback Forum - Michael Gerson, Washington Post
McCain Reopens the National Security Gap - David Paul Kuhn, The Politico
Following Clinton's Lead with '3 a.m.' Approach - Byron York, USA Today
McCain's Clarity vs. Obama's Nuance - Sally Quinn, Washington Post
Obama Criticized for 'Extreme' Abortion Record - Russell Berman, NY Sun
Rigidness on Abortion May Hurt McCain - Nancy Gibbs, Time
Swing State Review: Colorado - Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics
How Democrats Can Mine the West - Sen. Ken Salazar, Los Angeles Times
Obama Must Hit Harder on the Economy - Paul Krugman, New York Times

0817_bigmap.PNG

 
Yo TBone.. this is the first time I have seen this thread, but Good Looks my man... This is all good info.
 
[h3]Today's Polls, 8/19[/h3]
It was another fairly bad polling day for Barack Obama, and we are getting to the point where it would be hard to describe the election as anything other than "too close to call". But most of that has been driven by the rapidly tightening national numbers. This set of state polling isn't quite as bad as it looks for Obama:

2779358783_04d64f5614_o.png


The most disappointing for result for Obama is probably in Indiana, where SurveyUSA has John McCain pulling into a 6-point lead after having trailed by a single point last month. Why so disappointing? Because Obama has been investing heavily in Indiana while McCain has not.A couple of caveats, though. Firstly, investments in the ground game may not show up in the polls in the first place. And secondly, the partisan leaning of the sample has shifted a fair bit more Republican than the last edition of this poll. It's possible that, as McCain enthusiasm grows (and Bush fatigue wanes), more Republican-leaning independents are now willing to identify themselves as Republican. It's also possible that we're just looking at some static.

It is officially time for Obama to be worried in Minnesota, where SurveyUSA marks the third consecutive poll to show him with a lead of only 2-4 points? Our model says ... maybe not qute yet. There has certainly been a pretty big shift in the raw numbers in the Gopher State, but there aren't really any demographic explanations for it -- Obama hasn't lost much ground in demographically similar states like Wisconsin and Iowa. So our model is going to need a little more coaxing before it considers Minnesota a toss-up. It might be close enough, however, that there is an electoral rationale for McCain to pick Tim Pawlenty.

Certain of these other results actually aren't that bad for Obama. In Pennsylvania, for instance, his 6-point margin over McCain in the new Susquehanna poll is meaningful precisely because he's not polling so fantastically elsewhere. What do I mean by that? I mean that even when the national race is about tied, as it is now, Obama still has a lead of 5-6 points in Pennsylvania. So Pennsylvania is unlikely to be a tipping point state; it's going to be pretty hard for McCain to make up 5-6 points in Pennsylvania without gaining that ground everywhere, especially given that Penna has been absolutely saturated in the Presidential campaign since late March.

Conversely, in Florida, Obama may be within tipping point range in a close election. McCain's 2-point edge is a reversal of the 2-point advantage that Obama held in the prior Rasmussen poll -- but on the other hand, versions of the Rasmussen poll in the spring had shown a couple leads in the double digits for McCain. Which way Florida goes next may depend on Obama's VP selection; it is one of those states where Joe Biden might help him, as undoubtedly could Hillary Clinton.
 
 
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