How about… (4.00 / 3)

…I have no idea?

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by: Haggai @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:12:18 PM CDT

 

Picked "McCain up by less than 1 point" (0.00 / 0)

I just think these things move around a bit first before completely settling in on a trend, like the Sept 12-14 polls.

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by: leshrac55 @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:25:55 PM CDT

 

whenever the campaign is focused on actual issues (4.00 / 1)

Obama will have the advantage.  my guess is that he goes up by 1-2 points by the end of the week.

btw, here is Palin’s solution to the financial crisis, according to firstread:

   The Alaska governor said that the fall of Lehman Brothers is “taking a toll on our economy” and that it needed some “shakin’ up and some fixin’.

So apparently she’s offering some shakin and some fixin.  Is this really going to fly with people who are afraid of losing their retirement savings?

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by: bennytoothpick @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:26:06 PM CDT

 

Shake n' Bake (4.00 / 1)

I believe it was Keynes himself who advocated Talladega Nights economic policy.

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by: ecotect @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:31:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Baked Alaska (0.00 / 0)

never tasted so stale.

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by: wobbly @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 15:36:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

ha ha (4.00 / 1)

that’s hilarious!

By the way, my car doesn’t run right. I think it needs some “shakin’ up and some fixin’.”

John McCain or Barack Obama?

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by: tremayne @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:31:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Possibly… (4.00 / 2)

Why else was she even popular?  She’s a new face, and therefore people associate her with something new.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the same.

She also said that she’d focus on energy (ahem, oil) and “reform” as her VP duties.

Praytell, Governor, what exactly you mean by “reform”?  Perhaps secret meetings with more oil people to “Drill, baby, Drill”?  This is starting to sound pretty familiar…

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by: leshrac55 @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:33:29 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Bounces (0.00 / 0)

“Bounce” seems to me to imply something temporary, illusory– you bounce after something happens, and then gravity pulls you back to where you started. If you go up after something happens and you stay there then it doesn’t seem like it was a “bounce” at all, it was just you were doing badly until that point and you were doing well afterward. No? Is this just me?

So if the thing McCain did in the polls after his convention was a “bounce”– when do we expect it to go away? And when it goes away, when do we expect things to settle? It seems like if McCain’s bounce ends with us going to being tied, then the “bounce” is still holding because the entire election before his convention McCain wasn’t tying, he was noticeably and consistently behind. If McCain is consistently tying now then, well, that makes it seem like he’s doing pretty damn well.

Of course, the time immediately before McCain’s convention was the height of Obama’s convention bounce, which was temporary or illusory, apparently. And before Obama’s convention Obama was actually doing worse than he’d done the entire election, finally falling in the polls and coming darn close to tied. So maybe if we return to everything being tied, this just resets the slate to where it was before the conventions, ignoring Obama’s unnatural bounce? Or maybe we should consider the low period before the Democratic convention unnatural too, what with the height of McCain’s kitchen sink approach overlapping with Obama being on vacation and doing nothing to hit back.

Bah. I don’t get what’s going on. Maybe trying to explain poll results is a bad idea to begin with.

But it does seem silly to try to even apply “bounce” reasoning to McCain’s convention bounce because the poll number changes probably weren’t due to the Convention, they were due to Sarah Palin, and that’s not a temporary event, it’s a permanent change to the dynamics of the race, for good or ill…

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by: mcc @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:30:30 PM CDT

 

Well, according to Nate at 538… (0.00 / 0)

The full impact of his bounce won’t be gone until October.  Since there’s a debate before that, I imagine that things will shake up again at that point, for better or worse.  The first debate is on Foreign Policy, which has the opportunity to either significantly hurt or help Obama.

In either case, the “bounce” IS starting to fade… If you recall, Obama was only ahead by 1-2 points going into the conventions.  If we’re actually at even now, he may be on his way back to that 1-2 point lead.

Now, we weren’t happy with a 1-2 point lead before, and we certainly want Obama to do better than a 1-2 point lead again… but that’s where we started before the conventions.

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by: leshrac55 @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:36:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Won't that be long enough? (4.00 / 2)

If the bounce lasts to October that’s enough to seal the election considering the impact of early voting.

Am I alone in not thinking the debates are going to change a thing about this election, barring some unexpected and huge gaffe?

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by: Robert in Monterey @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:48:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

A lot can happen in two months (4.00 / 1)

And it’s not necessarily a huge gaffe–there could be an October surprise of some sort, one of the two parties or a 527 could come out with a game-changing ad buy, or any number of other things.  As of now, all we can do is sit back and wait for David Plouffe’s magical plan to unfold, and hope that it doesn’t suck.  

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by: Valatan @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 15:09:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

That's not exactly what Nate said (0.00 / 0)

My recollection is that Nate said that, historically, convention bounces can last several weeks.  But he acknowledges that the timing of the conventions this year make it hard to predict.

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by: ThomasPaine @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 14:53:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

Tracking poll vs State polls (0.00 / 0)

Whats the value of tracking poll? It seems that individual state polls are more important as it points to the actual electoral college votes that determine the outcome of the election.

Nate Silver’s 538 web site shows a dramatic fall in EVs from 300+ for Obama to now McCain with 287. That’s a massive gain for McCain over the past 3 weeks. Its the magic 270 EVs that matter was what I was always told.

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by: ab initio @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 15:17:00 PM CDT

 

state polls (0.00 / 0)

If we had daily polling in each state we would certainly be much more interested in those than the national polls. They are more sporadic but will increase over the remaining.

There is, however, a very strong correlation between the final national split and the final electoral tally. Not perfect but very strong. I’m sure in the final few weeks all we will be talking about is polls in about 5-6 states.

John McCain or Barack Obama?

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by: tremayne @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 15:24:17 PM CDT

[ Parent ]  

just a few days ago (0.00 / 0)

tremayne and others at open left were freaking out about the polls.

glad to see obama is tied, but it is still too early to tell. whomever has the lead a month from now (october 15) is the likely winner. until then, no need to freak out.

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by: TA13 @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 16:12:55 PM CDT

 

These polls (0.00 / 0)

These polls are going to kill us all by the end of it.  I have decided I am not looking at any individual or 3 day polls, but will spend every day studying tracking polls.  It gets rid of all the noise (of which there is a ton always) and shows how little these daily ups and downs matter over the long haul.

You guys want something to do, get all over the media as I listened to 3 supposed anchors either referring to Obama themselves or allowing their supposed impartial guests refer to Obama as the community organizer.

Get on this folks or it will stick more than it is now and he will never be able to over come it.  Not to mention that’s it’s completely disrespectful just the same as when Palin is referred to as a tiny town mayor.

Both these folks have advanced on their own, not riding anyone else’s coattails (no matter what you think of them politically) and they deserve the respect of their current titles if titles are used at all.

Get on this.  Call, email, badger them until they stop with the community organizer mess.

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by: GrDavis @ Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 19:19:43 PM CDT