Obama and McCain Tied?

by: Matt Stoller

Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 12:14


Joe Sudbay at Americablog is worried, and Joe is someone who got it very early on that Obama was going to beat Hillary.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows the race for the White House is tied with Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 44% of the vote. However, when "leaners" are included, it's McCain 47% and Obama 46%.
Matt Stoller :: Obama and McCain Tied?

I'm not an elections analyst, and there are so many unknowns that it's impossible to figure out where this race is going just from the outside.  But it's obvious that McCain, in an environment in which any Republican should be getting crushed, is gaining.  Here's Pollster.com and its national polling composite.

As one of the first people to look at the systematic growth of Democratic field tools in the context of their origins from 2002-2007 in a community of Democratic tool developers, I'm not one to sneer at organizing and field.  What Obama people are doing there is really impressive, pushing aside the tired Michael Whouley's of the world and bringing in a new crop of powerful organizers.  Ultimately, field is about a national conversation just as media is about a national conversation, only on different terrains where the tactics and advantages differ.  Obama is out-organizing McCain dramatically in field, both in terms of small dollar donations and in terms of putting real resources into states.  But McCain is out-organizing Obama in the media space, which is much more about elite organizing.  McCain has an effective set of surrogates and his outside groups are functional and accepted into the national conversation, whereas Obama has marginalized his erstwhile allies in the media space.  As a result, very little that comes from outside sticks onto McCain.  As a simple example, McCain had such a horrible week while Obama was abroad and the Iraqi government endorsed Obama's withdrawal strategy that one top Republican strategist said 'We're fucked'.  And yet, McCain is gaining in the polls, and the media narrative just didn't pick up McCain's Iraq position (even though allies like VoteVets pushed it hard).

I don't have any conclusions with this post, as I'm not going to pretend like I know how to run a Presidential race.  I don't, and most of us don't understand the remarkable pressures involved in being an incredibly famous icon who can't make a mistake, or even worse, can't allow others to even frame anything you do as a mistake while building a policy apparatus to run the United States Government at the same time as you build a $800 million operation to persuade 60 million Americans to go out one day and pull a lever exactly the way you want them to.  Still, I have thought for years that this election should be an easy win for Democrats, and there's no reason to change my mind because of a few polls in July.  The terrain heavily favors the Democrats, despite handwringing all over the place from anti-Obama Democrats and hosana's from pro-Obama Democrats who think that only he can possibly eke out a narrow victory in an environment where Bush is in the high 20s.

But certainly, people in the campaign and savvy insiders are worried.

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Obama and McCain Tied? | 15 comments
What do you know... (4.00 / 1)
Character assassination works.  Maybe Obama will wake up and realize it before the convention.  We can hope.
Strip the Bark (0.00 / 0)
And if the campaign can't do it in Obama's voice, then they need their own Spiro Agnew -- which makes me think seriously about Clinton and Biden for VP.
The only (0.00 / 0)
problem with that plan is that Biden or Hillary would be VP.

There's nothing a VP can do that TV can't do. In my opinion, from the beginning, Obama's TV has been subpar--have they produced a single memorable ad? I can't remember, which is the point.

McCain and Hillary before him (3 AM) have shown that the single most effective political weapon in these awful times is a TV ad containing a controversial, charge or image. Thanks to the free media, it's one of the few things that can move numbers.

I think an ad using the image of Bush hugging McCain would do it, and I'd like to see an ad hitting McCain on his temperment--his anger and erratic behavior.

Of course, when he runs such an ad, the MSM would shout that he'd promised to run a different kind of campaign, but so what? The sooner he loses his virginity the better.


[ Parent ]
Only he can win in any shape or form now (4.00 / 1)
''...hosana's from pro-Obama Democrats who think that only he can possibly eke out a narrow victory in an environment where Bush is in the high 20s.''

Unless you advocate a coup which won't help either.

Look, Obama had a bad week and the polls moved. Maybe. There have been times when both Gallup and Ras were tied before now without any scurilous McCain ads in the equation. And a one point McCain lead with leaners is not statistically significant enough to prove anything. Yet.  

Obama Responds (4.00 / 1)
I saw McCain's Celebrity ad on Sunday, and thought it was effective -- not terribly damaging to Obama, but an effective message for it's target audience.

Later in the baseball game, I saw the Obama response ad -- it was decent, although slightly pedestrian and wonkish. The coolest thing about it was that it used Obama images that were similar to McCain's -- a clever way to maximize the benefits for Obama in the McCain ad.

As for the polls tightening -- teh Electoral College wasn't abolished over the weekend, was it? As long as the EC map is solid, it doesn't matter how much support McCain picks up in Oklahoma and Kentucky.

While there is some cause for concern, Team Obama is way better than Team Kerry, even if they are not as nimble as Team Clinton in the Rapid Response dept.

Thanks for recognizing the negative dynamic (0.00 / 0)
It's nice that Obama still appears ahead in the electoral analysis, but there's no use pretending that McCain is not gaining.

I think part of the explanation is that Obama has been focusing on organizing and innoculating himself from future attacks.  I also suspect that he's purposely refraining from making some pointed attacks, preferring to establish his biography a little better.

I believe that this strategy is perfectly fine, assuming that Obama intends to get more aggressive within the next few weeks.  My guess is that he does plan to make such a shift.

McCain gaining (0.00 / 0)
Likely but not yet confirmed. We can't base everything on these tracking polls. There have been times since June when both were tied so it could still be statistical noise. I would bet against but who knows.
[ Parent ]
Obama's new energy ad (4.00 / 2)
It really hits McCain on his $2 million from oil industry lobbyists just before and after his complete reversal on offshore drilling, while Obama favors a broad range of measures to improve efficiency and get alternative fuels going.  He is going to get tougher.

But those who expect Obama to do the hard swinging are not going to get that.  He can't.  He has to be more careful so as not to appear too scary.  His surrogates will do it.  Biden as VP looks like a better and better choice in many ways.  I think they are weighing factors like that.

True, McCain seemed to be winning the Invisible Pundit Poll last week, but I wouldn't underestimate the import of David Gergen's takedown of McCain's strategy.  He has the cred because he worked for Reagan on his phenomenal ad team in 1984, and because he later worked for Clinton and so is seen as less partisan.  But he understands ad-making and image-making and he was raised in the South.  That he got the racial subtext in those ads and called it what it is makes a difference to other pundits.  It completely legitimized that critique.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
hopefully (0.00 / 0)
the obama campaign will get aggressive and hit mccain hard, when you are dealing with rw thugs you must play by the same rules and not be respectful of your opponent.

mccain is a phony and deserves respect from no one that wants to rip the control of the us out of the hands of an anti-democratic mob like the gop, there are voters out there that are just looking for a reason to justify voting for an unqualified, deceitful, unethical, candidate like mccain, don't give them that excuse.

 

Believing in a blow out is crazy (4.00 / 1)
It is not remotely realistic to expect Obama or anyone else to blow McCain out.  

As critics of campaigns, we have to separate what we want from what 'is.'

No candidate, not even Obama, can singlehandedly and immediately wipe out all of the negative branding and persuasion re: liberals, campaign tactics, and distrust of politicians in general.

It's a tough slog, and he's built a great field presence, and there's a long way to go.

"Stay above the fray" and "embrace new politics" is bullshit (0.00 / 0)
Not saying Obama has to start lying. But he has to say the truth. Forcefully. And he has to knock out McCain's last legs, rather than praising McCain for his military service. McCain is NOT qualified to be commander in chief.
The Problem is that we can't tell much of anything (4.00 / 1)
from polls that use a likely voter screen in July-August, except that many Obama voters are getting screened out by Rasmussen and other similar pollsters because they are saying that they are "not certain" to vote.

Gallup polls Registered Voters, not "likely voters" at this point in the race, who tend to poll more Democratic than actual voters on election day (some Democratic registered voters don't show up): Obama had an 9 point lead, suddenly it evaporated over a period of 5 days to a tie, and now Obama is back to a 3 point lead again, the average of the entire period since he wrapped up the nomination in June.

So, if you believe Rasmussen, McCain has been gaining, and if you believe Gallup, the race hasn't really moved since June 1. Instead there was a blip resulting from Obama's Europe speech and then back to normal: 3% Obama lead.

In June right after the nomination about 10% of Obama voters they were telling pollsters like Rasmussen they were "certain" to vote and now they're not. Are they disgusted with politics? Turned off by Obama looking "more like the usual politician", on Summer holiday and not looking at politics?

We can't know. But the only significant race dynamic is that Obama has secured about 80% of Democrats while Kerry had 89% in 2004.

There's time for Obama to reach another 8 or 9% between now and the election, but Republicans have rallied MORE to McCain's campaign than Democrats to Obama.

88-89% of Republicans in various polls are supporting McCain, although only 16% in some polls are "enthusiastic" about him. The vast majority just hate any Democrat and want the Republican to win whoever he is.

Certainly, McCain has been rallying his base very well so far. Bush got 93% of Republicans in 2004, so McCain is only 4-5% off that right now.

The large 7-10% partisan voter self identification in favor of Democrats is what's been keeping Obama in the lead.

But, in Democratic voter ID fell from a high of 41.7% in May to 39.2% at the beginning of August, a decline of 2.5%.

There aren't more Republicans. Their voter ID % has been stuck at 31% since January.

So, all the volatility in the race is due to 2.5% of Democrats peeling off and becoming Independents. McCain has picked up maybe 3% of Independents which is making the race close (if you believe the likely voter screen).

Can McCain eke out a narrow win by demonizing Obama and calling him "elitist" for being "too smart, too accomplished, too "egotistical" and too "different."

There are lots of idiots in America and McCain's strategy is to appeal to the sentiments of the kids who sat at the back of the class in high-school and threw spit-wads at the kids like Obama in the front who knew all the answers.

That America is in desperate shape and NEEDS somebody smart in charge doesn't seem to occur to them. This strategy worked in 2000 and 2004 and McCain is clearly hoping it will work today.

no movement in electoral votes (0.00 / 0)
There has been no movement in electoral votes.

See http://election-projection.net

If I were Obama, I would be happy to take 12 more weeks just like the last one.

HAHAHA (0.00 / 0)
Yeah, the same "savvy insiders" that have led us to electoral defeat after electoral defeat and assured us that Hillary was inevitable...

When we will finally be rid of all the chicken littles in our party?

I have a conclusion with this post (0.00 / 0)
IF it really does turn out that the margin of victory ends up being within 2% again, or Obama loses (gah!), then really, one can only conclude that Americans are monkey butt stupid.  

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
Obama and McCain Tied? | 15 comments
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