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McCain, Behind in the Polls, with Strength for Final Stretch

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With the political climate favoring the Democratic Party this year and media coverage skewed in favor of the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama should enjoy a healthy lead over his Republican rival in summer opinion polls (particularly given the strength of the out-of-power party after eight years with the other party in the White House).  

But, right now, polls show Obama’s lead dwindling, with McCain making gains in key battleground states.

And this in a week where the Illinois Senator has received especially fawning media ooverage.

Given that late-deciding Democrats broke heavily against Obama in spring primaries even after the media had anointed him their party’s nominee, one could expect late-deciding voters in the general election to break for John McCain by ever larger margins. 

Consider this one detail from the recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (which had Obama up by 6 points):  55 percent of voters surveyed consider Obama “the riskier choice for president.“  This, combined with McCain’s advantage on leadership, knowledge, experience and commander-in-chief qualities, should serve him well with voters who have yet to make up in their minds in this long campaign.

UPDATE:  As per that skewed coverage mentioned above, Ann Althouse, forced to watch CNN while waiting for a flight, observes: “the endless enthusiasm over Barack Obama is appalling. There’s no pretense of journalistic neutrality. Barack Obama is getting a rockstar welcome… blah blah blah… ugh!”  (Via Instapundit.)

Comments

  1. Rush Limbaugh made a very interesting comment today. He said this election isn’t about McCain at all. The narrative is all about Obama – and there is too much of it. McCain hasn’t been able to be heard much and his numbers are climbing.

    Maybe Rock Star Obama has overplayed his hand. The fact that the Europeans love him doesn’t make him more desirable here at home.

  3. I think we’ll also see much more of the true attitude of the Obama Party as expressed in remarks from Obama supporter, Obama confidant, and Obama endorsee Kwame Kilpatrick.

    Yes, you read that right, folks; this supporter of Obama and someone who Obama personally endorses and supports was claiming that a black woman, who happens to be a Detroit detective, should be ashamed for riding in a car with a man whose last name is White — not to mention the race-baiting he has been doing against Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, also a black female, for daring to prosecute him.

  4. McSame is flip-flopping again.

    2008 – “From the early days of this war, I feared the administration was pursuing a mistaken strategy, and I said so.”

    “The costs of these enterprises are not known with any degree of certainty at this time. Nor are the costs we will incur after what I believe, what I fervently, hope, will be a brief, successful war in Iraq, as we seek to establish the foundations for a peaceful, stable and democratizing Iraq.” (Congressional Record, 3/18/03)

    “I believe the war in Iraq can be concluded successfully in a relatively brief time.” (Congressional Record, 3/18/03)

    “There’s no doubt in my mind that once these people are gone that we will be welcomed as liberators,” McCain said on MSNBC’s Hardball in March 2003. (MSNBC, “Hardball”, 3/24/03)

    “I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short. I believe we’ve achieved significant goals and successes.” (NBC, “Meet the Press,” 3/30/03)

    “I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, But the conflict, the major conflict is over … The regime change is accomplished.” (Fox News, “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” 6/11/03)

  5. Where’s the flip-flop, Pinky Bear? Only in the imagination of the left.

    None of those quotes contradicts what McCain has recently said. It was a significant goal to overthrow Saddam so quickly. It wasn’t long after he uttered those statements that he faulted the Administration for not responding swiftly enough to the changes on the grounds as the “insurgency” developed.

    You’re use of the term “McSame” shows your limited understanding of the man and his record. He had been arguing for a change in strategy for nearly four years before the surge.

    And your comment shows you’re not interested in engaging us, but attacking McCain (what is the obsession with people like you and Republicans). You didn’t comment on what I said in the post, just brought in your own mean-spirited and baseless attack on our party’s nominee.

    Right now, it’s looking increasingly like you may have four years more to vent against him.

  6. Pinky, Rather than attack McCain, why don’t you tell us what we are missing in Obama. Because less and less Americans are seeing it like you do right now.

  7. The polls are worthless this far from the election.

    The paucity of coverage could work to McCain’s advantage. I think people will be sick and tired of hearing about Obama long before the election gets here. Obama coverage reminds me of the coverage that goes along with over-hyped (but awful) movies.

    McCain should avoid overexposure and resist the urge to respond to every Obama event (I don’t have a problem with Obama’s reasons for not visiting wounded soldiers – it would have been nothing more than a photo-op using soldiers as props… and conservative commentators would have claimed just that).

  8. #7: “(I don’t have a problem with Obama’s reasons for not visiting wounded soldiers – it would have been nothing more than a photo-op using soldiers as props… and conservative commentators would have claimed just that)”

    And where were you fed that bullsh*t story, Robert? The reason Obama didn’t visit the wounded soldiers is BECAUSE THEY WOULDN’T LET HIM TURN IT INTO A PHOTO-OP. The moment he was told that he could come–but not with the cameras and reporters–he lost all interest and left town. He could have visited the soldiers without the fawning press there to cover it, but why would he do something like that if Katie Couric wasn’t there licking his ba*ls at the same time? Obama doesn’t give a crap about wounded soldiers, just being photographed with them. This shameless lie being told by the Obama campaign crumbles to dust when the following question is considered: why didn’t he go visit the troops WITHOUT THE CAMERAS? This wouldn’t occur to Obama or any of his staffers in a gazillion years, so it’s no surprise they didn’t see the vulnerability of this WHOPPER of a lie.

    Unbelievable. They think this excuse makes them look classy and principled, but it just (once again) shows how worthless they are.

  9. Most Americans are morons to begin with Leah. They are Anti-Intellectual and Pro-Christian and you can fool them into voting against their best interests. How many had watched their jobs go to China and India. (Of course, you will say it never happened.)

    I was more of a backer of Hillary than Obama but I do believe that he has sensible solutions and will fight hard to try to bring some more equality than allow the Rich to ride roughshod over us with more tax cuts galore.

    He wants the International Forces to come together and stop our isolationist “We Know Best” Policy of world Imperialism. The Iraq War was because a bunch of Neo-Con Chicken Hawks thought it would be like a corporate take-over and that you could just put the CEO out of business and everything will be hunky dory.

    We need an intelligent President, not a C Average Legacy who was always a n’er do-well or some old guy who thinks that he can keep trying to win Vietnam over and over in his head.

    People smear Obama thinking he is Anti-Israel when he is not. People are afraid, the rich people, that he will tax them more, which is what they don’t want. He will bring more reciprocity to the table and try to bring the war to and end, try to get more equitable health care and bring us back to the esteem of the rest of the world.

    You take every word from Rush Limbaugh’s mouth as if it were gospel truth. The so called family values people pay homage to a drug addicted cretin who is more bluster than substance.

  11. #9

    “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world,”

    Soooooo……he lied?

    I was waiting for Obamessiah to travel to Calvary to be crucified so he could rise from the dead.

  12. Folks, another reason that McCain is rising and Messiah Barack is falling is because that people who are beginning to pay attention realize that he is a socialist. Read and or listen to the speech from Berlin. It is total Eurosocialist claptrap. Here is an example. Why is he pushing for more European involvement in Afghanistan? A problem. The Germans can not engage in fighting, unless they are fired on and they are protecting themselves. That makes the German soldiers nothing more than policemen/women in cool uniforms. That is what he would reduce the armed forces of the United States to. Glorified policemen/women. And all the “share the wealth” crap he was talking about would make our standard of living lower to match those of the underprivilged nations. You know, take from the producers and give to those who do not produce. It is socialism. John McCain is not perfect, but he is not a socialist.

  13. Pinky Bear, in #9, did you even read the article you linked. Note what the Pentagon said:

    The Pentagon advised Senator Barack Obama’s staff that he could visit a US military hospital in Germany only in his official capacity as a member of Congress, without the trappings of a political campaign

    Emphasis added.

    So, all he needed do was tell his entourage to skedaddle and to visit the troops privately without press escort or campaign aides.

    But, unlike W, who frequently meets with the troops without alerting the press while earning scorn from the left for not meeting with wounded soldiers, Obama wouldn’t meet with out the media.

    Oh, and when are you going to get around to actually addressing the point of the post to which you have attached your comments.

  15. Lefties are such easy whores.. it’s so easy to fuck them.

    Just talk about Hope and Change , even though you have spent the past 20 years belonging to a stuck-in-the-past throw-back Marxist 1960s-style revolutionary black seperatist church, and watch them open their legs and start playing with their clit.

  16. I’ve been watching both candidates, especially when they’re reacting to something the other has said. McCain’s messages really aren’t that different from what we’ve heard out of Bush for the last 7 years. This doesn’t seem to be sitting well with even the supportive Repulicans who want something different in their choice for a candidate. In addition, his responses to Obama usually come off like a grumpy old man who can only seem to say “he’s wrong, dagnabbit, I tell ya he’s wrong! (chomping his teeth all the way)

    12: Yes, let’s give Bush points for his alleged sincerity. He (well, more pointed his handlers) don’t like the press around because his foot-in-mouth disease has been too well documented over the years. Let’s get a look at him talking to a wounded soldier or the families of those who’ve lost loved ones off script – bet that would be a sight for the evening news….

  17. Let’s face it, when it comes to some Americans deciding on who to vote for it’s a popularity contest. Politics aside, look at boring Gore and dreary Kerry. Bush had that “good ‘ol boy” style about him that many could relate to.

    Obama appears energetic and brighter in personality while McCain does appear at times like a grumpy old man. Some one in McCain’s camp should really work on the PR image so that he will get people’s attention, then they will be more likely to hear the message.

  19. You can always count on ‘Good Riddance’ for a classy comment and an outright lie: Obama had no problem visiting troops in Iraq because he could get pictures of himself doing it.

    The thing is, The Obama would win this in a slam-dunk if he really were a moderate. If he said, “Let’s find a way to develop domestic energy resources without hurting the environment.” And if he really were open to working with Republicans to solve the other problems our country faces. But with each passing day, he looks less like ‘the Lightworker’ his adoring cult has dubbed him, and more like an arrogant, spoiled, product of the uber-corrupt Chicago Democratic machine who is obviously in way over his head, and offering the same failed policies to which the Democrat left has been bitterly clinging to since the sixties and seventies.

    I still think he’ll win, ultimately… but if he were really a new kind of candidate, he’d be running away with this.

  21. Pinky Bear,….once again, get your facts correct…..The Pentagon told NOBama that he could visit the troops…Any Member of Congress and U.S. Senator can visit the troops at any time. The Pentagon even told NoBamba that his campaign plane could land on the Military airstrip…Nobama could bring one of his Senate staff (just like that is allowed for every Member of Congress) and they would have military photographers and if the members of the military he spent time with agreed they would release photos of his visit with them and then if he wanted to he could then use those shots for his campaign…even with all that rule bending NOBAma said NO..just as he has consistently done to the miltiary..NO to the surge, NO to funding and NO to real support for our troops….I am hoping that the voters say NO to NOBama in November.

  23. #8, Sean – I stand corrected (thanks to the story Pinky kindly linked to). I confess that I wasn’t paying all that much attention (having a case of Obama fatigue).

    All I’m left with is that The Messiah decided not to waste His time visiting the troops since there was no political mileage to be had.

  24. My politically-moderate parents…who are suffering from a severe case of Bush Fatigue syndrome…used to be fairly-supportive of Sen. Obama. But recently they’ve voiced concern that there doesn’t seem to be much “there” there….flip-flops and all. After Obama’s rambling Jerimand in Berlin, both on separate occasions voiced the suspicion that he’d be another Jimmy Carter, a well-meaning but ineffective bumbler.
    …And both of my parents loathe Jimmy Carter for being both an ineffectual meddler, and a naive appeaser who coddles of dictators.

    They might not be wild about McCain, but at this rate by November ’08 they just-might vote-against Obama….

  25. Let’s get a look at him talking to a wounded soldier or the families of those who’ve lost loved ones off script – bet that would be a sight for the evening news….

    Uhhhh….er…um…..no doubt…um…that it would…ummm…be far…er…far better than…..uhhhhh….ummmm….er….far better than the Obamessiah….uhhhhh…ermuhhhh…than the Obamessiah ofscript…..ummmm and his breatherlyzer…..now wait….ummmm….off his inhalator……The people….ummmmm….of the 57 states…..ummm….would see that er….ummmm…uhhh…..they would see that the Obamessiah…..ummmm….is incapable of….ummmmm….speaking without a ummm…without a uh….telepromterizer.

  28. V the K..you forgot that Nobama said in his June acceptance speech that he will heal the world and in Germany he was going to heal the planet….Charles Krauthaumer got it right…at least Jesus (and forgive me if this seems to take the Lord’s name in vain) cared about healing the sick..

    TGC…now that is funny….Obami can’t function unless there is a teleprompter in front of him..that alleged soaring speech in Iowa when he won the caucuses that the MSM ooohed and aahhed over was one he gave with a teleprompter….well he can give a speech with a telepromter..now, there’s a real qualification for the Presidency…NOT~!!!

  30. I’ve made it clear in past comments that I cannot and will not vote for John McCain. (That doesn’t mean I’m going to support Barack Obama, although my previously-Republican granddaughters are campaigning vry hard to move me in that direction.)

    But I’ve noticed a couple of things that ought to concern those of you who are supporting McCain.

    I’ve been a political junkie ever since I was a kid and have been involved one way or another in every presidential campaign since Dwight Eisenhower first ran in 1952. I cannot recall another campaign in which a major party candidate demonstrated such contempt for his opponent as McCain does for Barack Obama. It’s clear that McCain personally dislikes Obama and appears to resent that someone so new to the national scene dare seek the presidency (and stand in McCain’s way). You should be worried that this might backfire on McCain.

    We spend our summers on our small farm in a very Republican county out in middle America (Bush carried the county against Gore by better than a 3 to 1 margin and did about the same against Kerry). So it was interesting to hear what the folks around here (where with high farm income no one seems to be hurting) were saying about politics at Friday night’s catfish fry and Saturday night’s pork barbecue.

    I heard very little pro or con about Obama, although everyone who mentioned the speech in Berlin was impressed by it. However, there was a lot of talk about the week McCain had while Obama was overseas. The prevailing sentiment? Too often on TV McCain came across as a petty and/or cranky “old man”.

    As I told a farmer down the road from us who supports McCain, “that kind of talk ain’t good for your guy”.

  31. #15
    “Israel is a friend of Israel” Press hasn’t pounced on Senator Obama’s gaff, or even really reported it.

    If he had an R following his seat, you’d be saying that he makes President Bush look ‘clean’ and ‘articulate’

  32. although everyone who mentioned the speech in Berlin was impressed by it.

    I would think more folks would be embarrassed by it. Not to mention the fact that he clearly ripped off Kennedy, Reagan and Bono.

  33. What was impressive about Obama’s speech? What’d he say?

    (Note: DON’T look it up. Try to tell me something worthwhile and important off the top of your head. Like Christopher Hitchens, I have a theory that the Messiah never actually says anything. Or if he does say something memorable, it’s only because it’s contemptible. Take the the Messiah’s big speech on race, a few months back: the one memorable moment is him throwing his own grandmother under the bus. I predict we will find the same here: if the Messiah did say anything memorable in Berlin, it’ll be something awful that deserves to be picked apart.)

  36. #32 – TGC, they wouldn’t know crow if it made droppings on them from a limb.

    To them, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  37. That wasn’t me, Pete.

    #28
    Say TP, which makes you prouder as an American, Sarkozy’s speech to congress or the Obamessiah’s Rhineland Tour smear job?

    Just curious.

  40. By the way, the accuracy of that latest “report” from Pinky Bear can be shown to be false in two ways; one, Kerry never authorized the release of his full record until 2005, and two, it is very difficult for an A-4 Skyhawk, whose engine and exhaust face rearward, to hit with a jet of flame from its engine an F-4 Phantom parked in front of it.

    So tell us, Pinky Bear; do you belong to the white supremacist or anti-Semitic groups that have been pushing that one?

  41. ThatGayConservative in 34: If you’d read #28 a little more carefully you’ll note that I did not say whether I was impressed by Senator Obama’s speech in Berlin. (I have the full text but haven’t had time to read it all.) I noted that those neighbors attending rural cookouts last weekend who mentioned Obama’s speech were impressed by it. I assume those who weren’t impressed said nothing about it.