Charles Franklin has a new graph up that shows the national polling trends during the entire 2000, 2004, and 2008 campaigns. It is definitely worth a look:
The graph shows Kerry's, Gore's and Obama's national polling margin against the Republican nominee during the final year of each campaign. There are some very important lessons from this graph:
As of today, August 4th, Obama's current position (+3.3%) is superior to the best polling either Gore or Kerry ever enjoyed.
As of today, August 4th, Obama's current position is superior to any position he was in during the nomination campaign.
For all the talk of a polarized electorate, there has actually been substantial movement in the polls during the final three months of each of the last two campaigns. This could very well happen again, and it could happen in either direction. So, the campaign is nowhere near decided.
If there is a broader lesson to learn from this, I think it is that each campaign is different. We latch onto analogies from past elections, but 2000 and 2004 were completely different from each other in terms of their broad trends, even though they had similar results. And 2008 has started completely differently from either of those campaigns.
To get a bit tautological, the 2008 election is like the 2008 election. Obama is ahead by more than other Democratic nominees from this decade, but he is slipping. The situation would be better if he had 527s to attack McCain, but it is too late for that now. The Obama campaign probably does have an attack strategy on McCain prepared, but they might want to hurry up the timetable on that one, and ratchet up the rhetoric a bit. Otherwise, it is a little late for strategizing, and it is time to start executing plans that were developed months ago.
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