He doesn’t have to be in order to win, and races historically tend to tighten towards then end. More people are committed members of a political party than not, and most “independents” do have some inclination in one direction as opposed to the other.

Five points in the popular vote is a landslide in the electoral college. If memory served, President Bush won re-election with just under three percent.

Keep fighting, you’re still in this, of course. Just don’t pretend that it has to be 20 points or anything. This isn’t a 60-40 nation and it hasn’t been one in a very long time.

You’ll never be able to convince me that this is on the up and up.

Good question at the end. The only thing I can conclude is the Media wants Obama much more than the people do

I really do.

Back in 04 we had a candidate we weren’t thrilled about, but we did the best we could. I empathize completely with the Repub position these days — we went through it too…the scapegoating, the search for reasons, the grasping at straws, etc. We did it too.

The pendulum swings. This way for a few years, that way for a few….you’ll be back.

Cheers all.

Technically, Sen. Obama only needs to win 1 more vote than Sen. McCain in enough of the key battleground states. If he can shut him out on the electoral vote it won’t matter if the polls tightened. However, the polls are so volatile, that it’s hard for me to believe that Sen. Obama’s lead is that stable. He’s definitely polling better, but the proportional quantities of Dems. vs. Repub., the weighting, and the screening for registered vs. “likely” voters combine to make this a really hard to predict race. Add in that many people may not want to admit they’re voting for a Republican for fear of being thought racist – we really don’t know what will happen.

If the polls tighten nationally they will also tighten in the key states. The national vote is a leading indicator. McCain was shedding his lead nationally before it showed up in state polls. Beyond that it depends on how the voter turnout differs. If Sen. Obama truly has motivated many new people to vote for the first time and for other previously apathetic voters to turn out then he may swamp McCain. If the closeness of the race and the profound shift leftwards that will come with Obama motivates many voters to lean towards McCain then McCain may squeak this out.

Obama is in a better position than McCain, but it is striking that he isn’t far ahead in a year with so many headwinds against the Republicans.

Let’s get another thing over with Powell. I hope people don’t try to trash him over this nomination. It’s best left ignored. He’s served his country admirably, and just has a difference of opinion right now.

Most of us praised Lieberman for putting aside partisan politics and putting country first. I’m sure Powell is doing what he thinks is best for the country as well. Powell was always considered a moderate.

It is what it is.

Gallup has Obama up by 10 today.That’s a 2 point jump from yesterday. Now I know you guys like to pick the Gallup Poll that only has him up by 3, although yesterday he was only up by 2 in that poll so I guess that lead is also growing.

But I guess it’s all about what poll you and Drudge want to agree with.

I’d like to discuss the question posed by the original poster
“Why isn’t this guy twenty points ahead by now?” Well maybe we should consider that, in fact, race is an issue for many patriotic Americans. There. I said it. We all wish it were not true. Well most of us wish that. Do you all not think there is still bigotry in this country? As many successful people of color will tell you, you have to twice as good to “achieve” in this society. Twice as tough. Twice as brilliant. Twice as organized. Twice as focused. So John McCain has met his match. But it is not a 20 point spread. Yet.
Peace and positive vibration.

Maybe it was your title Moe, but you’ve really managed to bring “the others” out in full force today.

…a previous Democratice presidential campaign:

“You know what they call a candidate who’s counting on a lot of new voters? A loser.”

Of course Obama has to raise more money than McCain – buying elections isn’t cheap – and as we have seen with ACORN – good help is hard to find!

1. $150 Million in September… I would be completely concerned if this money was actually coming from American citizens who vote on election day. They claim the average donation to be $86 dollars. That would mean that 1.8 million people donated. Sure. It gives them money to use, but it does not mean that the money is a direct corrolation to voter “admiration” Plus, the media will skew it that way, act like this is where everybody is turning, but that does not make it true. Also, arent the bulk of his follows considered to be the poverty stricken citizens who need our tax dollars to survive anyway?

2. 100,000 strong in St. Louis…Who counted this? Sounds like alot of support for The One. Everybody turning his way. The race is over. Look at him go. I say that he had to trump Palins 60,000 in Florida, and lets say that he actually did, well, he is running for Prez. Palin, new to the scene pulled 60.

3. Colin Powell… Much respect to this man worldwide. No doubt. He will pull some undecidededs his way, but the bulk of all military forces and Veterans and POWS will never sway from McCain no matter who endorses The One.

If I was to believe in all the “hype” of The One, I would conclude that his poll numbers would be staggering to say the least. They are not. They are probably not even reliable given the MEDIA. And I believe the media will not elect our next president. We will.

“It comes down to values,” Obama said. “In America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it?”

Seems like someone is channeling Karl Marx.

I believe the Austrians would call this a malinvestment.

The polls have actually been pretty stable in October – Obama has fluctuated just over 50 percent, and McCain has fluctuated around 44-45 percent. There have been some outliers each way, but it hasn’t moved that much in the aggregrate.

The bright side for Republicans is that some of Obama’s support appears to be very weak. For McCain to win he has to peel away some people that as of today think they are voting for Obama, but who are not committed.

It gets harder for McCain when you look at the battleground states. If you look at RCP or Pollster, states that shouldn’t be in contention are either toss up or leaning Democratic. Too much of McCain’s support comes from having energized the base in states he was going to win anyway. McCain has to run the table on battleground states to win, and that includes turning some states where he is down more than the national average and where Obama has a formidable ground organization made up of locals (that is, not goofy looking hackeysack kids bused in from out of state).

One factor that is holding Obama down, not that anyone will discuss it, is his race. Some people just won’t vote for a black person for President. Not a lot, but more than a point or two, and there’s no point pretending it’s not a factor in our society. On the flip side, Obama’s race will impact turnout significantly in the African-American wards of the major cities. Again, there’s no point in pretending that is not so. Don’t shoot the messenger on this – that’s just the way it is. Romney would have faced similar problems and benefits as a Mormon if he were on the ticket, and voting for someone with a last name from the same European country as your ancestors is a tradition that goes back centuries.

That’s not to say McCain has played to that. To date, he has not only avoided any overt calls, but he has stayed well away from the code words and code issues that tend to get racists riled up. His unwillingness to go to a race war is the only explanation for his not making more of Reverend Wright.

In light of all this, McCain has to ask himself how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of a win. He is a lifelong Washingtonian, and he doesn’t want to do anything that makes him the turd in the punchbowl for the rest of his life at Washington parties. I think he has staff who would crash past the line, and it will be up to him to decide when to stop.

If McCain has a positive plan, he needs to start executing it now. Very few people will change their vote based on Powell, but Powell’s endorsement will use up a news cycle in a pro-Obama way. There are only so many news cycles left, and McCain needs to start using them to make his case if he’s going to do it.

As McCain puts on his final push, he will have some structural problems. The money Obama has raised and will raise is staggering, and since the 1960s we’ve known that cash matters in elections. Obama also has planned carefully for the ground game, and already has in place teams that will do everything from drive voters to the polls to file legal challenges on the spot if they don’t like what they see.

McCain doesn’t have that. He has the party, and the activists. If you want him to win, you need to be down at the local HQ volunteering so he has a chance. Posting here doesn’t count.

coughs

“I was planning to vote for change with Obama – now that big-government Bush supporters like Powell are showing that they want Obama, this means Washington insiders just want more of the same of the last 8 years. I am switching my vote to McCain/Palin – these are people who stand up for their principles, and for the average American, against the same old Bush/Obama Washington government.”

coughs

moe

How much of Obamamentum is a reflection of how much the American people have lost faith in the leadership of George Bush? How much of Obamamentum is a reflection of how well or not so well McCain has distanced himself from the Bush record?

I think people are seriously deluding themselves about the Liberal “Change” promised by “The One” and Nasty Nancy and what it will do to this country, but sometimes it’s like that.

You can tell people that what they are going to do will hurt them in the long run, you can show them that there will be pain, but they do it anyway. The old “The Devil you don’t know instead of the devil you do” at play.

The fear of Obama, what he is, who his friends are and what he will do if elected is at play for sure, but short of some hard facts re-enforcing some element of that fear appearing at the 11th hour, people are going to vote for the Devil they don’t know.

The first reason is that almost nobody wins by 20 points. When was the last time a non-incumbent won 10 points? Reagan narrowly missed that margin. Eisenhower narrowly did it in 1952. FDR won by a huge margin in 1932. So it only rarely happens, and you’re asking about twice that margin.

The second reason is that Democrats rarely win big. How many Democrats have ever gained more than 51% of the vote? By my count, 3 – LBJ, FDR and Andrew Jackson. Clinton, Carter, Truman, Wilson, Cleveland etc. all won narrowly or in years with 3 candidates. (The guy who lost to Rutherford B Hayes got 51% of the vote but lost)

Secret Service put the number at 80,000 and City police estimated 90,000. Considering it was his first public rally in the St. Louis area, those numbers aren’t very surprising.

McCain/Palin pulled about 23,000 on their Road to the Convention rally on August 31.

The Debate Watch Party/Palin rally pulled another 12,000+.

We’ll see if McCain can draw another 15-20,000 in Saint Charles Monday. The local GOP offices are pulling out all the stops to make sure that the event is crowded.

Explain why Obama is ahead in the polls in a center-right country in this, our information age.

Easy. The failure of American public education, particularly in teaching history, economics and critical thinking skills.

There are plenty of other reasons (media bias and BDS being two), but the root cause is as I have stated.

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Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

First of all let me state that Colin Powell is a hero and he is free to voice his opinion and cast his vote any way he deems fit…

Somehow this is very odd…..

This was on fox news…

Speaking with reporters after his appearance on NBC, Powell said that part of the reason he is supporting Obama is because he did not like the negative tone of John McCain’s campaign, which has noted the links between Obama and domestic terrorist William Ayers.

“It troubled me. We have two wars. We have economic problems, we have health problems. … Those are the problems the American people want to hear about, not about Mr. Ayers, not about who’s a Muslim and not a Muslim. Those kind of images going out on Al Jazeera are killing us around the world,” he said.

“We now see that things are a lot better in Iraq. Maybe if we had put a surge in the beginning, it would’ve been a lot better,” he said

I want to point out a cpl of things here…

• How is Bill Ayers not a terrorist and how is it that associations and partnerships don’t matter? How does that make John McCain’s campaign negative? Barack Obama can clear his associations and answer questions instead of trying to brush any questions aside under the guise “it does not matter because American people don’t care about”.
• What made Mr Powell believe that Obama’s campaign is positive? Barack’s campaign has been calling anybody who raises questions a racist. Sarah Palin and John McCain have been smeared like no other candidates despite their better records.
• Can MR. Powell or any politician cite one instance where John McCain, Gov. Palin or their campaign have even “suggested” Barack Obama being a “Muslim or not”? At least John McCain had the courage to confront folks in his rally on this question and reprimand them for any such suggestion.
• Then Mr Powell goes ahead and suggests that perhaps if John McCain was in charge of the war we would have been better off (note the comment about surge). Doesn’t that prove John McCain has better judgement than Mr. Powell, other Generals, congress and the folks in the administration ?

I will keep checking responses to my post in an effort to educate myself and try to understand if it is only me who is getting this wrong.

How about the incident of the Obama supporter hitting a McCain one over the head with a sign in New York! How about the continual use of the race card against McCain and Palin.

It’s called “groupthink”. Conditioning of the masses does work you know. Do you think Sean Hannity et al have been doing what they’ve been doing for nothing?

Can you name even one transformational figure that wasn’t met with large resistance?

We would also see a super-majority for Dems in the House and Senate. That is troublesome. About the only safe Republican Senator is the Democrat in disguise Susan Collins.

I would argue, Moe, that Obama is 20 points ahead for all intents and purposes in the polls that do matter which is the state polls in traditional red states and swing states. Michigan used to be a closer call. Minnesota is usually closer at this point. Pennsylvania for crying out loud is always tighter than this. And meanwhile we are hanging on by a thread in Nevada Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina? This is tough. If you throw in the money advantage and the enthusiasm gap Obama is ahead by 20+.

With so little time left we have to start making strategic shifts. I think McCain should abandon Kerry states altogether and try to hold the thin red line. I think he could turn it around in Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, and Indiana, but not with the candidate going to Pennsylvania and Iowa all the time. Just win. That is all Mac should think about.

Aye. Losing by 4 points rather than 20 points will be cold comfort.

Prez year, and losing by 2 points is same as losing by 20.

1. It’s a concern to O because he historically (see Dem primary) underperforms or barely equals whatever is polled). Therefore he needs bigger margins going in.

2. Powell. Meaningles at this point, especially as nuanced by Powell.

3. Money. he is outspending Mc by 4-1 yet close in polls.

4. Crowd. Yes a Dem any Dem (see Mondale, Kerry, etc) can draw a huge crowd in a major city. African/Amer, urban hipsters, govt cheese collectors & distributors, etc. Get a crowd like Mc/Palin draw in Florida, NH, Virginia, etc. Then I’ll be impressed.

He is a racicst, a communist, a terrorist loving, liar and fraud. America knows it, but wants to believe his melliflurous words. They are drawn to the Siren’s song, but in their gut they know it means death. Powell has merely added his voice to the chorus on the beach of Sirenum Scopuli. In the end, the Obamanation is a Harpie. A vote for him will sound a death knell for liberty. Run from this evil man a fast as you can.

[*Sarah Palin made a decision without consulting her doctor to fly to the Governor's conference in Texas when she was 36 weeks pregnant.

While on this self-promoting trip to deliver a speech, the fetal membrane ruptured.

Most women go to the nearest hospital when their water breaks. Sarah Palin decided instead to make an 11 hour flight back to Alaska. She did not inform any of the flight personnel that was in premature labor.

She was immediately hospitalized when arriving in Alaska, and labor was induced within an hour.

The "family first" Palin returned to work within 3 days of giving birth *]

[That would be what the retread said the last time that he was here. Remember, kids: Obama supporter. - ML]

I was picking some flowers today wondering when we can all just get along and love one another.

Please take time today to admire the beauty around you then kiss the 1st person you see!

Peace and Love to you Moe

In 2008 you still call yourself HippyChick? That’s Groovy! Right on! Seems you have a lot of inside info into exactly when and where Palin went into labor. You know Palin that well eh? And if she was in premature labor as you say, why did they have to induce labor then?

The real test of family is first and foremost letting the baby come to full term and then raising that child like the gift from God that it is. Not to be ripped from the womb in the guise of being pro-choice that your candidate embraces. Or, in the absolute worse case scenario, left to die on a shelf in a botched abortion, denied any medical care. We give our pets more humane treatment than the treatment that BHO has voted on for our babies. 1500 African American babies are aborted every day! Funny how the leftists want the government to be in every single aspect of our lives EXCEPT the most important one of all- The right to life. Go hug a tree, hippygirl.

Like many above, I could make a list of particulars. As it is, let it be known that another affirmative action failure was Colin Powell, who combined loose lips and race as a career promoter.

Or career enhancer, eh, Colin?

You are despicable trash. How many are dead because you wanted good New York Times coverage? I have more to say in this regard. In the meantime, let us stomp this worthless maggot and his pimp Obama into the dirt.

Colin Powell needs the Media to reform his legacy of being proven wrong at every turn for the last 18 years. He advised not to go into Baghdad and finish the job in the first Iraq War, which would have obviated the rest of history since. He enabled Clinton’s fecklessness against terrorism. He spearheaded (reluctantly) the liberation of Iraq – which he didn’t believe in – then stabbed Pres. Bush in the back at every turn as his Sec. of State. Now, he is completing the circle of incompetent advice to the country by paying his pennance to Lord Obama and the Media by again stabbing in the back the one man who was right during the whole War.

After hearing and reading Powell’s non-sensical endorsement, I honestly doubt that this is anything more than another Black guy endorsing Barack to stick it to Whitey so that he looks good in the history books.