Posted on 09/25/2004 9:05:12 AM PDT by Owen
Saturday September 25, 2004--The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 48% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. The Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern.
He may have released it only to his premium members, of whom I am not one.
I am a premium member and there is no poll on Nevada as Rasmussen stated there would be yesterday. Like I said, this is not the first time they said they would post a certain battle ground state and didn't. I may have to ask for my 'premium' money back.
I wouldnt be concenred about anything in this poll.
It has officially been declared useless. There is obviously some smoothing done to ensure neither candidate gets a large lead.
as we approach the election I will be following TRADESPORTS, Iowa Electronic Markets and Gallup.
I predict Scott will be out of the polling business on Nov 3rd.
"the White House refusing to answer the National Guard story has clearly cut into the Bush lead."
I think that is nonesense. Bush's big double digit lead was bound to shrink the further we got from the convention.
The only story in the National Guard story is how deep the rot is at CBS. It was exposed in a way that media bias never has been before. Even NBC was all over it.
Look, the biggest unspoken reality of this campaign is that WHEN Bush wins he will HAVE to do something about Iran, and that means boom boom boom.
Polls used to be good for spotting trends. Whether a poll was skewed to Republicans or Democrats, you could judge whether a candidate was rising or falling by tracking the same poll. With pollsters changing their methodology during the same election cycles, many of the polls become garbage, like the Time and Newsweek polls.
The best thing to watch is what the candidates are doing and where they're campaigning. Kerry is in serious trouble, as he's dropped campaigning in the old Bush "battleground" states, and has started ads in the old Gore "battleground" states. The Kerry campaign is in serious disarray. New advisors this late in the game aren't good. Also, although some disagree with me, the fact that Kerry is pitching to his base again indicates he's got serious base problems. Some claim that base turnout will sway the election, and I understand this point, but I disagree with the premise. A candidate should not have to be whipping up his base after the convention.
Kerry is hurting badly. In the democrat party, though, the true believers are fanatics. They will commit any fraud necessary to win. We must push Bush's totals high enough that fraud is not an option. Hopefully, we can demoralize the Rats enough that they will stay away from the polls and allow downticket Republicans to pick up some perecentage points.
Overall, I think Bush has been okay on Saddam being a terrorist and state supporter of terrorism, and on the WMD issue. He has been better than okay at exposing the mess of inconsistencies, contradictories, and incoherence in Kerry's positions on Iraq and other aspects of the war on terror. This is why virtually every major poll gives Bush hugh leads on national security and leadership questions.
I would like to see Bush follow up on the recent FNC stories on the Oil for Food scandal, incuding especially how Saddam used the program to get money to businesses and individuals known to be funders of Al Queada. This is potential roadkill material for him.
Also, I would like to see the US military flatten the terrorists in Fallujah once and for all, with extreme prejudice.
Last, I would like to see Bush challenge Kerry on who he is actually rooting for in Iraq: Saddam, Zarqawi, or Allawi -- and then challenge him to apologize to Allawi.
Fortunately, Kerry is so bad that Bush doens't have to be at the top of his game to win. However, I would love to see him run up the score so badly that the Democrats will never again dare to nominate as leftist and anti-American a candidate as Kerry. He is a complete disgrace, even by Rat standards.
God, no! This is something that Bush himself should raise during the debate. It will be much more effective that way.
The guys at realclearpolitics are terrific. I would put much more stock in them than in Rasmussen. However, Rasmussen did mention in today's column that Bush is tied or leading in every state in which the lead is less than five points -- states reflecting 117 EVs on top of the 200 or so he already had in the Bush column. This finding is in line with most of the other electoral college maps that I have seen.
I am unaware of any polling evidence that the violence in Iraq is actually hurting Bush. In virtually every major poll this week on the subject, solid majorities say that things are not going well there but that Bush is the best man to deal with the problems. They're right.
Four years ago, I was too. Once bitten, twice shy. Gallup came out with a Nevada poll earlier this week showing Bush ahead by about nine points, IIRC. Mason Dixon came out with a poll last week showing Bush ahead by five. It doesn't get any better than these two firms as far as I'm concerned.
I was certain Bush would be below Kerry today. My last three days are 46.7/45.1/51.9 Bush and 47.5/46.1/45.3 Kerry. Bush need today's polling numbers bigtime. It should keep him safe through the weekend.
Heads up, folks. There is another thread running that describes how the Dems are out-registering the GOP. They are signing up new voters in larger numbers than we are.
What this means is actions that appear weak, i.e., solidifying the base this late in the campaign, Is Not Weak. It is intended to energize those new registrants and raise the % of them that show up to vote.
They have increase their pool of available voters and now they are getting them committed to showing up.
Read the thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1226947/posts?page=15
and then please, please call the campaign and volunteer ASAP. We only have about a week before we're past the registration deadline for most states. We have to move NOW.
I would much rather rely upon statewide polls that reflect local preferences and trends. Aren't they more telling?
The Dimocraps have already pulled their ads in W. Virginia, not a good sign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.