How sweet it is.

Senator Obama began his run as a candidate who could transform the electoral landscape.   A win is a win and it's great, but if he manages a 52 to 48 triumph while flipping a few close slates he hasn't transformed the landscape.  He's just performed along with party expectations in a highly favorable year for Democrats.  But after the last 8 years, I couldn't care less how we win.

Pollster showing Barack 284, McCain 157, Undecided 97.

Someone tell me how Bush can win by three (3) percentage points and the pundits call it a landslide, while Barack's constant 4-6 point lead is treated as if he's the underdog!

http://pollster.com/

Nice pice.

Does anyone know when in the last 48 years (argubly the modern era) has a non-imcumbent pres nominee of any party ever been ahead by, say, eight points in early August polling?

I can't recall any time, maybe going back to Ike in '52? If anyone has any data, please post it.

This can't-close-the-deal crap pushed by Will, Novak (hope his health improves), and others is bullshit.

See http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2008/07/ novak-wrong-in-calling-steady-five.html

Politico swings with the prevailing winds, this weeks story is "Obama has peaked, he's not the phenom..." and they are running with it.

They, and CNN and MSNBC need a story, so if McCain release an ad with Paris Hilton that hardly anyone would see if they didn't run it 6 times between 5 and 9 EST on ever show, they want to create as well as deliver the news.  Makes them feel..important?

They ain't. Political junkies like us care, the media digs them, not so much the general public.

No one will care if Obama wins by 20% or 1%.

What MAY turn out is, not only is the old line media NOT important anymore, but the old style registered voters land line phone polls aren't relevant anymore either. The certainly got it wrong a lot in the primary?

We might all be surprised, but thinking Political is nothing but a microphone inside the echo chamber is 20th century thinking.

You're just keeping us from slacking off.

The article also asks why can't Obama get over 50% in the polls? Well if you look at the RCP polling average from 2004, it shows that Kerry was never above 50% and Bush was only above 50% for about three days during the entire election. So the fact that Obama regularly polls at 47-49% is significant as is the fact, admitted by the Politico in this article, that Obama's RCP average of 46.6% is the same that it was at the beginning of June. And that is higher than Kerry's was for all but a few days in 2008.

The real story is that McCain has been unable to gain any ground on Obama in two months of trying, that he has not developed a coherent theme, that his campaign cannot even build a crowd for him-so for example today he attended a football practice and toured a kitchen supply company. Yesterday, he held a "telephone town hall" with Pennsylvania voters, an event that generates no visuals and virtually no national, state or local press coverage. In fact, the only reason to have such an event is to make the candidate think that he campaigning, when in reality the campaign has failed to find a real campaign event for him. When you see McCain on his own, as in Sturgis South Dakota, yesterday, he is so incoherent and shrill that it leads one to wonder if the strategy of the McCain campaign might be to have him say as little as possible to avoid those senior moments.

It will be interesting to see how long McCain will allow them to control him in this way.  

But I will keep mentioning it because it needs to besaid over and over again until people hear it. In every poll, McCain somehow scores a freakishly high low to mid 50% or higher favorability rating, so infusing the current Republican troubles without recognizing that he is right now not part of them (even if he is a big proponent of most of their foolhardy ideas) will do no good. Unless the narrative turns to McCain, he will skirt by on the notion that somehow he's different, which is not a negative reflection on our candidate and NO OTHER DEMOCRAT would see much difference IMHO

I'll take 5%.

That's weird, there is actually less anonymity in a phone poll than there is at the voting booth, so I would think that people who would ever feel that way, probably live in areas where they would get looked at funny if they said they were voting for a black guy (family, friends at home, or even just talking at the bbq in general).  Those people say McCain because they don't want to get harassed, but then go and vote Obama.  

Obama's lead is unwavering and voting results will increase based on the above.  

Wow, first post ever.  And, such a subtle name!

Could this be the birth of a brand new sock-puppet!

Careful, I hear when newly born, they can urp up their formulae a lot....

Good post, Todd.  After seeing the two new polls I headed over expecting to see something exactly like this, and you didn't disappoint.  

Anyone saying this is bad for Obama - - please.  Just stop.  

Also, great comments above by MAL Contends and tiger547 - - I love the hilarious, and quite accurate, portrayal of McSame having to be steered around to manufactured events, like the Sausage Haus or the Pennsylvania supermaket.  

in some sort of fantasy that we were going to win the Presidency in a landslide. That doesn't happen anymore...not in this divided country. Even in 2006 House election, Democrats only got 52% of the popular vote nationwide and won by 8%.

The very idea that Democrats were going to somehow run 10%-20% up in polls is ridiculous. ESPECIALLY against John McCain. You think the Republicans are stupid? No way. New Hampshire Republicans went to the polls in January and decided between Mitt Romney, who trailed big, and John McCain, who trailed narrowly. They chose the guy most likely to win. The Republicans voted for no other reason than to have a chance at winning. The Democrats, for the most part, voted for the candidate they really wanted to be President, regardless of whether or not he or she polled well.

Obama is ahead by 6%? That's great considering Clinton beat Bush by 6% in 1992.

He's an African-American, with the name Barack Hussein Obama!  Did you really think this was going to be a landslide?  And if Obama were to win by just 4-5% he'd be hovering around 300+ E.V. (the most in over a decade).

I think the Bradley effect, which you are referring to, is something that has lessened with time.  There was no noticeable Bradley effect with either Harold Ford Jr. in TN, or with Deval Patrick in MA, two states with very unfriendly racial histories.  If anything, with the case of Harold Ford, we saw a reverse Bradley effect, as he did several points better than polls had predicted.  And save NH, this  year's primaries showed nearly no polling surprises.  

This is a headline which is true but that you will never see. Today the Time poll  has Obama- 46% and McCain-41% and the CBS poll has Obama-45% and McCain-39%. The Time poll said that Obama was more likable by a staggering 65% to 20%!

According to the RCP polling data, Bush did not fall below 42% at any time after July 7, 2004 in any national poll taken. After August 24, 2004, only one national poll ever showed Bush below 46% at any time.

Republicans have lost 3 million registered voters nationwide. In North Carolina, of the 250,000 voters that have registered this year, only 17, 000 are GOP voters. McCain is in very serious trouble right now and is hanging on by a thread. If he were to fall off a stage, be hospitalized or have to rest due to "exhaustion", then his support would collapse overnight.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo oooo....

People tend to be honest when having a conversation with a robot.  
Most of the calls are to people who voted in the last election cycle - and as pointed out in a comment above - are to landlines.  

Lots of folks don;t have landlines any more.