The problem biggest problem is McCain’s ceiling. In the Gallup poll, I’m fairly certain he’s only cross the 45% barrier once and most of the time hes sitting around 43-44%. Conversely, Obama has consistently been in the mid to high 40’s since June. The difference is irrelevant, and you can chalk it up to the kind of background noise that affects a campaign in the short-term, but does nothing in the long-term.
The fact of the matter is that unless McCain can significantly improve his polling numbers to get them into the high 40’s, much like Bush did in August of 04...its going to be tough sledding.
If you take a look at who the remaining undecideds are, they are blue collar whites for the most part. Obama has had a terrible time trying to win them over.
His convention was designed to do that. The current Gallup numbers suggest that as of this moment, he has won many of them over, but it is interesting, most of them report being won over after the Clinton speeches, and not the Obama ones.
If this bounce for Obama persists, it indicates he has sealed the deal with those blue collar whites and will win in November.
If the gap closes again, it means they are not fully convinced, and the race will fall back into a tie.
Yes, the RATs appear to have a better ground game in place than we do, but if there is any Bradley Effect at all, it helps negate that. Also, if voters are truly undecided at the last minute, that probably helps McCain as well because he will be seen as the "safer" choice by most.
If I could choose today which hand I would want to play, I would pick Obama's, but I would also realize McCain still has a lot of cards in his deck that could wind up beating me. This thing is far, far from over.
Remember that the debates are usually the deciding factor.
I remember when Gore held a double digit lead over Bush, being an incumbent VP and 8 years of experience in Washington in the Executive branch, Bush was a decided underdog before the first debate began.
Another political fact is, that the underdog usually wins the first debate. It’s not a bad thing that McCain is a 4 or 5 point underdog, when a 12% underdog like Bush won and came out even after the debates. Then, Bush took a 4 point lead in honest polls and won. Remember how McCain mopped the floor with Obama in a recent one-on-one debate?
Obama should be way ahead at this early stage, especially having been fresh out of the biggest media bash/blitz in American media election history. But when the idiot takes the stage, he blows it. The more exposure he gets, the better.
Gallup is also at least 5 points in favor the the Democrats, and always has been. They truly believe their polls shape public opinion. It’s obvious.
Only two Democrats since the New Deal have gotten over 50% of the popular vote. LBJ did it in 1964 with a landslide. Carter did it in 1976 by getting more than the usual Democrat share of white southerners & blue collar rust belt votes.
Clinton won in ‘92 with around 43% after Perot ruined everything. He survived with less than 50% in 1996 with a good economy and a weak opposing ticket.
Does anyone think Obama can get more than 50% of the vote? Especially when the only time the Dems win is when they do better than usual with white southerners & white rust belt voters (Clinton did a tad better than usual with those groups, for example). If anything, Obama has thoroughly alienated those voters. The punditry thinks he can make up for it with a massive black turnout and “new” voters, mainly college kids. But I really can’t see him doing better than Kerry. Yeah, there will be a bigger black turnout, but that’ll be cancelled out by the loss of a lot of blue collar whites, and maybe even some PUMAs. The “youth vote” thing is a pipe dream.