John McCain’s 6 percentage-point bounce in voter support spanning the Republican National Convention is largely explained by political independents shifting to him in fairly big numbers, from 40% pre-convention to 52% post-convention in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.
The surge in political independents who favor McCain for president marks the first time since Gallup began tracking voters’ general-election preferences in March that a majority of independents have sided with either of the two major-party candidates. Prior to now, McCain had received no better than 48% of the independent vote and Obama no better than 46%, making the race for the political middle highly competitive.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
WOW!!! I’m not sold on McCain / Palin, but MAN!, I didn’t expect indies to break for the Republican ticket lick this. If this trend holds, I wonder how long it will be before Obama forces Biden to resign from the ticket and give Hillary the post.
I have to ask again, if Obama loses… and InTrade is still saying he probably won’t, but if he does, will that be enough to break the Democratic Party out of the control of Move-On/Kos far left and back toward the political center?
The selection of Palin gets a lot of people to listen to McCain in a new way. (I know it got me to.) And if he wins over a fifth or a quarter or a third of those people, well, they feel great about their choice – because they won’t be voting against the nation’s first black executive, rather, they’ll be voting *for* the nation’s first female executive.
Not this cycle. Obama’s loss will be blamed on two things:
1) He tried to be too “centrist”
2) Americans are all secret racists
Neither of those are conducive to intelligent reflection.
Bruce, MM-partner and I and our two sons were able to head up to Flint yesterday and get close to the High Priest of Liberalism in the Temple of Barack. It was a strange experience for us. In his off-hand comments, Obama tried real hard to make a connection between Gov Palin and what she said in St Paul, the bridge, Kerry’s well earned reputation for flipflopping and connect all the dots for the audience –but it wasn’t working.
You could almost hear the crowd of worshipful assembled think in unison, “Oh no, he’s not going there! Don’t start invoking JohnKerry!”
Here we all were, surrounded by labor goons, in a city that is the posterboi for failed Democrat management of urban areas, the epicenter of the BigLabor Movement in the US, a city that defined Democrat White Flight and racism in the 1960s. And, honestly, all you could sense was fear in the air. No hope. Just fear. No audacity. Just fear. No future. Just fear. No banks of black ministers. Just fear.
MM-partner did get close enough to reach out and shake the High Priest’s hand… for him, as an Asian-African American, it was important to touch the Flesh of History.
For me, I listened but just couldn’t keep thinking about all those independent voters you reference here… who voted for McCain-the-Maverick in 2000 in Michigan, for his most visible surrogate in Michigan (former USN and CIA star Joe Schwarz) in 2002 and will likely tip the state Red in 2008 for McCain-Palin.
It was fun to be in the Temple of Barack for a moment. But you could smell, taste and feel the fear that permeated the room. From the Governor right around the room to the High Priest. And I bet we were the only gays in the room, let alone the only GOPers.
The only time we’ll get the kind of change we need is when both major political parties become anti-socialist and pro-American.
Mac Palin up 15% with Independents! Holy cow. To quote Obama, did they “really think Americans were that stupid” to elect a community organizer as President? How do Barack and the media stop the bleeding?
Never forget, Obama was going to run a high minded campaign, talk issues, bring a new tone, he was post partisan. Trouble is he has nothing to say and no experiences, no accomplishments. Could the media sit him down and allow him to wax poetic about his days as a community organizer, and state senator? Specifics. I want to hear from his own mouth what he did and what legislation he initiated.
And here’s why: Obama/Biden says, point blank, that Palin is a “backward step for women”.
McPalin’s polls are up, Obama bin Biden’s are down. And now we learn that Obama is having trouble on the fundraising front.
Does Liberal Gay Parody still think Palin will be off the ticket by the end of the month?
Oh … my … goodness! Obama gets a Drudge banner headline for saying: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.”
The crowd in Lebanon, Va. took it as a slur of Palin.
Independents are taking notice. How is he going to sell his innocence without burying himself deeper and smellier?
#4 “Obama’s loss will be blamed on two things:”
1) yes NDT, he really is trying to appease the center now. And it’s a mistake
2) Of course their will be an element of racism in the voting, to deny it is ridiculous. It won’t be enough to impact the results unless the candidates are neck and neck.
It’s no surprise that independents have switched to Palin/McCain given her performance at the convention. But as time goes on, if she is ever allowed to be questioned on her positions that is, they will see exactly how much of a rightward swing she represents. Just as Obama has lost supporters as he defines (or avoids defining) his positions on issues important to Americans so will Palin. I wouldn’t try to predict how many or if it will offset the addition of the orgasmic evangelicals.
How is he going to sell his innocence without burying himself deeper and smellier?
Mr. Hope-and-Change New-Kind-of-Politician just sent three dozen lawyers and private investigators into Alaska to dig for dirt on Palin.
Mere Palin hype – this too shall pass like a painful yet brief plague of locust eating away at the better judgment of poll takers. (who takes these poll anyway?)
When are Barack and Biden going to “sit down and answer questions” like when does life begin (above my paygrade) and is it alright to place a born baby in the corner to die. And why do Barack Biden support partial birth abortions. Extremists. They don’t reflect America. Like Pelosi’s bishop who has asked her not to comment on Church teachings when she doesn’t know what she is talking about.
http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/09/08/113695/
I’m sorry, aren’t Republicans the ones usually telling us not to believe polls? They love to point back to ’88 when Dukakis ran high in the polls and lost. Overall, the polls continue to show Obama and McCain just a few points apart from each other, so close you can’t put either into a solid lead, but boy when you get one poll showing more than a few points difference, you jump all over it.
You’re right Kevin of course. Polls are odd and you never really know the internals. But for the most part we Republicans know that we are underpolled often. Most elections the past 20 yrs Republicans close a 4-5 point gap the last few days of the campaign. And Obama does have this real problem of the Wilder effect. But we are having fun man, it is nice to see a 18% turnaround in 2 weeks. You’d be havin fun too.
#11: Dave – how can you tell that my opposition to Obama is racist? Are you saying that if Obama were simply a conventional white liberal-leftist with no real accomplishments, proposing policies that I see to be harmful that I would vote for the man?
I’m really sick of being told by leftists that I’m a racist. I think there are some pretty good arguments in support of the notion that many of the problems faced by the black community are caused by liberal “cures”.
In a roundabout way, though, you may have a point… political arguments in this country are already awful and I just can’t imagine adding to this mix an administration that attributes EVERY policy disagreement to racism.
The libs have fed the identity politics tiger for years and now they’re trying to ride it. Good luck.
Well, we ALL know that if you don’t run out and vote for Obama, you’re a sexist, racist, bigot homophobe Grand Kleagle. 😉
Kevin’s more than a bit dim, and so he doesn’t understand that conservatives don’t settle issues of what’s right and what’s wrong by taking polls. Polls can be used, however, to gauge the progress of a campaign. These polls show a definite erosion of support for the Obamassiah. Whether that holds up through the election is another thing entirely.
SoCalRobert, if you read my comment to mean you are racist then you have some severe comprehension issues. What I SAID was that it will be a factor (if you don’t know what that means get a dictionary) – I didn’t say who was racist, what party they belonged to, how many there are, whether they are white or “minority” or what policies they should or should not support. Also, there is NO ONE in the Obama camp that has said every policy disagreement is because of racism. Don’t be ignorant – THAT is what is wrong with political discussion in this country.
TGC, grow up.
Anyone have a live-link to the great op-ed in the NY Times yesterday on the Dhimmicratic Party Convention focusing on pessimism and “losing” whereas the Republican Party Convention was all about optimism and “success”? It mirrors much of my own loathing of the Dhimmicrats despite their more-favorable approach to G/L issues.
I hate backing a loser……
That graph is so beautiul. It says my country isn’t as brain dead as I feared.