The latest "bold move" by the McCain campaign is to tout their unkown, untested VP as actually being "more experienced" than Barack Obama--in a desperate attempt to salvage their long-time theme of questioning Obama's experience. And they've found a wonderful way to do it---with the qualifier of "executive experience", which, of course, Palin also got as mayor of Wassalia.
There are only two or three dozen things wrong with this argument. But I'd like to present just one. If you accept this argument, just look who else Palin is better qualified than:
2 years in US House; no other elective office
6 year in US; 8 years in US Senate
12 yeass in US House; 12 years in US Senate
4 years in US House; 22 years in US Senate
A patently absurd argument, no? So just watch the Republicans run with it for all their worth.
Today The two tracking polls for Saturday have been released. Gallup shows Obama 47%-45% McCain, down from Obama 48%--44% McCain the day before. Rasmussen shows Obama 49%--46% McCain, which is actually an increase of 1% for Obama from yesterday's 48%--46%. The Diageo tracking poll, which yesterday showed Obama ahead 46%-40%, is not released on Saturdays and Sunday.
Last Two Days Day by day experts Haggi and Nate Silver concur on the Thursday and Friday results for Gallup. Both estimate that Obama was up by 1% in Thursday's polling, but that McCain was up by 2% in Friday's polling (see Haggai's and Nate's numbers). However, they disagree strongly on the two most recent days of Rasmussen polling. For that poll, Nate estimates that Obama was up 2% on Thursday and 1% on Friday, while Haggi estimates that Thursday was a tie but Friday showed Obama up by 6%.
Tomorrow Haggai and Nate seem to agree that McCain holds a 0.5% lead in tomorrow's Gallup poll, with today's surveys still pending. So, for Gallup, we can safely assume that if tomorrow's tracking poll is tied or shows an Obama lead, then today's Gallup polling will have been pretty good for Obama. However, if McCain leads, then his convention bounce has not yet begun to fade.
While we do know that Obama leads in Rasmussen's Sunday poll, pending today's surveys, we don't really know how much he leads by. Nate estimates about 1.5%, while Haggai estimates 3.0-3.5%. It is a pretty big discrepancy. Obama should go down by about 2% tomorrow if Nate is correct, while he should hold about even if Haggai is correct. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Analysis It is starting to look like this entire two-week stretch didn't change much in the campaign. The above analysis seems to indicate that Obama leads by about 1.3-1.5% 0.5%-1.5% in the combined Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls for the two nights following Palin's and McCain's speeches. This is, I believe, exactly where the campaign was before Obama choose Biden. So, after the initial Biden dip, the big Clinton bounce, the decent Obama speech, the small Palin announcement drop, the huge Palin post-selection "vetting" bump, and the McCain-Palin acceptance speech fall, we end up right back a the same narrow Obama lead where we began.
Personally, I am hoping that the tracking polls will start to move back to Obama on Tuesday, as the Republican convention reaction days start to cycle out of the polls. The two pieces of hope that I keep holding onto are that Republicans could be going through a bounce period right now that will inevitably fade, and also that the Gallap and Rasmussen polls have consistently been 3.2%-3.4% more favorable to McCain than all other polling firms combined. If those are both true, than a narrow tracking poll lead for Obama is actually decent news, as it means that Obama is ahead by about 3.0-3.5% nationally, and soon to be even more. Factors that worry me include Republicans closing the partisan self-identification gap to only 5.7%, and that Obama supposedly polls better on the weekends (although I can't seem to find a link confirming that rumor).
Phew. These weren't exactly the numbers I wanted, but they also aren't terrible. At least the morning shakes are over now. How are you feeling about these polls?
That's what leading progressive economist Dean Baker calls it, noting:
Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama's tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It's pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously.
This chart alone is enough to show what a load of hooey it is:
That steep ascent from 1993 to 2001 is the Clinton Adminstration, adding over 22.7 non-farm jobs to the American economy--an increase of over 20%. And after that? That uneven landscape atop the sharp Clinton rise? That's GW "Taxcut" Bush territory, with a measely 5.53 million jobs added throuhg January of this year--an increase of just over 4%.
"But wait!" you might say, "That's only seven years. Clinton had eight." And you'd be right. But since the beginning of the year, the Bush "taxcut" economy has lost over 1/2 million jobs. And this is what we're supposed to be scared to death of losing???
With the following statement, Harry Reid makes it pretty much official. After November, Lieberman is a goner (emphasis mine):
A spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., indicated Thursday that Lieberman may no longer be welcome.
"Lieberman went too far when he distorted Sen. Obama's record," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "From Reid's perspective, (Lieberman) has every right to give a partisan speech to whomever he wants. But he doesn't have the right to distort Sen. Obama's record like that. Sen. Reid was very disappointed in Lieberman's speech."
Added Manley: "The Democratic caucus will likely revisit Lieberman's situation after the November elections."
Finally, the self-delusion seems to be coming to an end on this one. No matter what happens in the Presidential election, Lieberman's chairmanship ends when this Congress ends. I guess he had to finally prove to his colleagues what we were unable to prove to them for several years. He isn't their friend. He isn't their ally. He is, just as he was when he condemned Bill Clinton on the floor of the Senate ten years ago, a conservative concern troll whose primary function is to undermine Democrats and the Democratic Party.
Even if it took too long, and even if Ned Lamont isn't in the Senate, I'm a bit relieved that the Senate caucus is finally willing to take this step. Come 2012, we can finally remove Lieberman from the Senate altogether.
For quite some time we have been noting that the Republicans ran a hugely obstructionist strategy in the Senate, running up a record total of cloture motions. McCain, in his effort to cast himself as some kind of trans-partisan agent of change was of course fully on board with this agenda.
Further, McCain by far, leads the pack of senators for votes skipped during the 110th Congress. McCain skipped 63.8% of votes. He beats out stroke sufferer Tim Johnson, and both Obama and Clinton in the midst of their epic struggle who all still managed to attend a majority of votes.
Let's take a peek at that record, after all McCain says:
The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you.
Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That's how I will govern as President. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not.
I'm not versed enough in economics to know if this technically qualifies as the nationalization of a major financial sector, but it sure sounds like it:
The U.S. government plans to put troubled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under federal control, the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers reported on Friday.(...)
The firms would be placed in a legal state known as conservatorship, the Post said, citing sources familiar with the conversations.
The value of the company's common stock would be diluted but not wiped out while the holdings of other securities, including company debt and preferred shares, would be protected by the government, the Post said.
Senior Bush administration and Federal Reserve officials called in top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday and told them that the government was preparing to place the two companies under federal control, officials and company executives told the New York Times.
The executives were told they and their boards would be replaced and shareholders would be virtually wiped out, but the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, The Times said.
The problem I have with this is not the move to nationalize the mortgage industry. That actually seems like a good idea to me. The problem I have is with the incredible cognitive dissonance surrounding "big government" in our national political discourse. Even as we have reached national consensus on nationalizing industries, which is the literal definition of socialism and big government, politicians of every party keep talking about "small government" as though it were a virtue. I mean, the day after the Republican convention, which included countless attacks on big government, the Republican administration goes out an nationalizes a major industry. It will probably be done in the corporate welfare style typical of American government--privatize the profits, socialize the risk--but it is still nationalization.
Voters, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Conservatives, Moderates, Progressives, Greens--everyone is in favor of "big government" moves like nationalizing the mortgage industry now. And yet, all of those same people keep talking about how terrible big government is, and how we need to stop it. It is massive national lie. It is as though the entire country is a homophobe who is actually a closeted homosexual. It is as though the Emperor has no clothes, but now the entire nation has decided to dress to match.
Can we all stop lying to ourselves on this one? Please? Pretty please? This national self-delusion is a major obstacle to having an honest ideological debate in this country.
"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."
In the immediate aftermath of the GOP convention, the Troopergate scandal has clearly emerged as VP candidate Sarah Palin's Achilles heel, with a ferocious, Nixonian combination of lies, stonewalling, and, of course, attacks on her "enemies" in the media.
The sheer intensity of Palin's turn from promised cooperation to Nixon/Bush total resistence only seems to makes sense if she's got something very serious to hide. So now, subtley, belatedly, but most definitely, the Republican state legislators are coming to her assistance, agreeing to subpoena the whole lot of Palin cronies she's convinced not to testify, but not Palin herself. The announcement comes along with an earlier completion date for the investigation--October 10--which could make it even easier for Palin to run out the clock.
This move will clearly allow Palin's stonewall to continue, without consequence, unless political heat is brought to bear. This will prove particularly challenging, as the Nancy Pelosi "See No Evil Policy" is having a deeply corrosive trickle-down affect on our political culture, as stonewalling legislative oversight has now become accepted public practice. Details on the flip.
I am going to need to enter tracking poll rehab after this election, but for now I am going to dive in head first and worry about the consequences later.
Today's tracking polls show Obama still ahead, but positive movement for McCain. Gallup moves from Obama 49%--42% McCain, to Obama 48%--44% McCain. Rasmussen moves from Obama 50%--45% McCain, to Obama 48%--46% McCain.
As those of you following the tracking polls closely already know, large movement was expected today, as Monday's enormously positive numbers for Obama were replaced by Thursday's post-Palin speech numbers. To show just how deep into the addiction I am, Haggai's daily tracking poll estimates for yesterday are Obama 47.7%--46.6% in Gallup (with a 1.5% MoE in both directions) and McCain 47.0%--Obama 45.8% in Rasmussen (with a 1.5% MoE in both directions). That averages to an exact tie.
So, it appears that Palin pulled McCain even, for one day, in the tracking polls. That is actually pretty good news, especially when one considers that Gallup and Rasmussen have consistently been 3.2%-3.4% more favorable to McCain than all other polls. Based on polling so far in the campaign, it is reasonable to assume that a dead heat in the tracking polls indicates an overall, narrow Obama lead. Even if his lead has shrunk, if Obama is still ahead after Palin, that is good news.
Now, the more sobering news is that tomorrow's tracking polls will be the first to reflect McCain's speech. While the speech didn't feel like a number mover, I still think it is reasonable to assume tonight's tracking poll surveys will be better for McCain than Tuesday night's, which they are replacing. A free hour of advertising has to be better than the giant goose egg that was Monday night of the Republican convention. Obama still held a solid, 4% lead in Tuesday night's surveys, but last night about 40 million people watched McCain's speech--more than watched Obama's. With yesterday roughly even, it is hard for me to imagine that Obama polls a 4% lead tonight, meaning that the tracking polls will continue to move toward McCain.
Returning to good news, we should take heart that it is unlikely polling will improve much from this point for McCain. The times immediately after conventions are almost always the high point for every single campaign. As such, the overall picture appears to be that McCain has closed the gap, but that Obama weathered the storm and still leads narrowly. I'll take it. At this point, I just want to win by any margin.
P.S. Hotline and CBS might also be instituting tracking polls. I'll look into that.
Update: Nate at 538 also tries to crack the individual daily numbers for the tracking polls, too. His estimate for yesterday is a bit more postiive than Haggai's, showing Obama up 1.5%. In the comments, Hagai sticks by his guns.
12 yeass in US House;
4 years in US House;
