Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Where are your figures from?
Gallup has been rather out of step with all other polling over recent months and there have been serious questions about it's sampling database for weeks now. From the left, right and non-partisan statisticians. So looking at the others, Hotline, Rassmussen and NBC are showing a lead for Obama or a tie. Once those big post Convention bumps (including the 10 pointer from USA Today which caused a flurry but was quickly seen as an aberration) drift off the averages, it's pretty much where it was before the convention.
She is less than 24 hours from starting a series of interviews on ABC.
Are you serious? The fact that this is all she's done, a controlled vanity styled interview has added to the negative. Can you point me towards a Sunday face the press type show, an open press conference or anything of the sort...no, I guess not.
If those aren't watertight they become a smear to add to the waterbreaking/incestuous/grandson smear (among others) of last week. Sure they will play well to the Obama faithful, but amoung the swing voters...
Both those stories are watertight, Angus...backed, annotated, documented. There was a link to the promotion story above, with another link off that page to more.
The thing is, every day she looks a little shakier, a little more flakey, a little nastier, a little more corrupt. Her dishonesty over earmarks has made the front page of half a dozen major newspapers today. Everyday she lies about her bridge it digs a little deeper. It's like the death of 1000 knives....
Palin wasn't their secret weapon, she was their only weapon and she's looking like she may be McCain's achilles heel too.
Time will tell but I'm guessing that the Democrats are a tad happier than they were three days back.
-
We'll file it under "the guy can't catch a break".
Yeah, but, like the pig jibe, these things may also have a backlash effect. In the same way people reacted against the unfairness of the Bristol attacks, there seems to be an undercurrent amongst the independents and others that doesn't like the attacks against Obama.
And at least one analysis sees the pig story as a deliberate attempt to paint the McCain camp as unreasonable and extreme.
-
Which counts as a negative swing because Obama was leading pre-conventions and is now even.
No, not at all true..leading up to the convention he was on average one or two points ahead...about where he is now.
But I just can't see Obama as being real happy about this result.
Sure, there were some missteps and I think any candidate would be unhappy just to be one or two points ahead, but all in all, there seems to be a quiet optimism creeping back into the Democratic campaign after an unsettling few days.
Every day there seems to be a new, often minor, but new nevertheless, revelation about Palin..see the buying off of the Alaskan National Guard guy above, and the Newsweek story..each one rubbing a bit of the sheen off her. The novelty is gone and she's not setting quite where McCain wants her to settle as their reluctance to expose her to the media means that almost everything you hear about her is negative now. Major mistake, coupled with an even bigger error making her the focal point of the ticket.
All it will take is a couple more stories like those and she becomes liability.
Obama may not be happy but I'm thinking Rove's boys are even less happy. The old GOP tactical philosophy of assuming everyone is unquestioningly dumb might be wearing thin.
-
...he understands it is really, really, really bad (like -5% swing bad) for his campaign
It's called conference bounce, which btw has begun to evaporate now, with most polls either putting Obama back ahead or statistically even. The current feeling amongst many pollsters seems to be that as it plays out, McCain did less well out of the bounce than he was expected to, given the coverage and the Palin factor. So I guess when you step back and look at it, it wasn't really really bad at all for Obama, quite the opposite.
-
And now the story the quickly changing mind of the general from the ANG and his fresh new promotion:
When John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, the campaign immediately began touting her experience--both foreign and domestic--as "commander-in-chief" of the Alaska National Guard. But the reality of the situation--that Palin actually had little to do with the National Guard quickly became apparent. In fact, the idea was undercut severely by comments made by the actual commander of the Alaska National Guard--its Adjutant General, Major General Craig Campbell. When that happened, it eventually turned into somewhat of a national joke, culminating in the humiliation of McCain/Palin campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds on CNN when he tried to promote Palin's "foreign policy" experience during the Republican National Convention.
It was getting bad for the McCain campaign because they couldn't afford to lose the "experience" argument to the Obama campaign.
But suddenly--and strangely--the commander of the Alaska National Guard, Major General Campbell, changed his story. By the end of the convention, he was praising Palin's experience, talking on TV about how she had taken control of Alaska's National Guard operations and how she was a "great" leader.
Interestingly enough, Palin promoted him with his third star--to the rank of Lieutenant General--only three days later.
-
Incidently, from Ed Koch who was a major Bush endorser:
I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.
If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.
-
The baggage is assessed here, rather well I think:
But the truth is that it's always about Vietnam for John McCain. He has invoked avoiding the mistakes of Vietnam with a sort of religious fervor in every important debate about dispatching U.S. troops since he first entered Congress in 1983. As he put it in an Aug. 18, 1999, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he studies "every prospective conflict for the shadow of Vietnam.
-
did campaign for the surge for 2 years prior to its successful adoption
except that a) he wasn't quite sure when it occurred, as you may recall, and b) the 'success' of the surge is debated. No-one is debating the downturn of violence but the most successful element in that seems to come from the demographics of ethnic cleansing, the purchase of elements of the insurgency with cash, c) the adoption of SOF tactics which exist outside the surge.
I know it's an element of faith in McCain central but every now and then realism has to poke its head into the discussion.
McCain..linked the anthrax to Iraq without evidence, linked 9/11 to Iraq and wanted to go in days afterwards, voted for the war. His history as a moderate before 2000 has been stomped on by his more recent past as a hot headed, rather unthinking before ranting, hard line hawk obsessed with past wars and living in a bygone era.
Obama carries none of that baggage. I know who I'd rather trust.
-
or proximity to Siberia.
are you serious?
-
I never thought that was a comparison even the most true believing Obama supporter really wants to be made. But apparently I was wrong because every part of the left-o-sphere is raising questions about the credibility of Palin.
Yes you are wrong.
I don't think it's a matter of great import to most Obama voters. Its more about vision forward versus grasping at the past.
McCain offers a kind of nostalgia which he hopes that Americans, scared by 9/11, oil rises and an economic uncertainty will buy. Hence the slogans, the war hero stuff and the drill drill drill themes. It's as much fear based as anything. He's an aging cold war warrior for a time passed which many Americans want to hang on to. This is a frightened and divided country.
The word experience is better replaced by something else. By your definition, she'd make good White House Chief of Staff..not president. Does Palin have a grasp on the world beyond Alaska..she herself has said she's not paid much attention to it. Obama quite clearly does and has vastly more credibility there.
And I'd argue has more credibility than McCain. On Georgia it was McCain who blustered hot without consideration. Obama was more measured. Americans lapped up the warrior talk but on reflection it was exactly the wrong way for a president to respond. McCain is the one on film, incredibly, singing Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran. Obama's more credible on Iraq, from 2001 onwards, with even Bush now buying into the 2010 schedule vis-a-vis McCain's war without end.