IBD/TIPP Daily Poll is Useless

We're obviously being buried at the moment with national tracking polls. On Thursday, for example, according to RCP's tracking there were no fewer than eight national polls released purporting to track the current state of the presidential race. All eight of these polls showed Obama to have a lead over McCain, but with the margin of victory for Obama ranged wildly from a high of 13% to a low of 1%. Fort the record, I do not in my wildest dreams think that Obama will win this thing by double digits as shown in the CBS/NY Times and ABC/Washington Post polls. I personally expect the real lead for Obama at the moment is somewhere in the 4 to 7 point range, consistent with five of the eight polls released on Thursday (see this one, that one, here, here and here). I do want to pick on the outlier for a second, the IBD/TIPP daily poll which shows Obama with just a one point lead.

After showing leads for Obama of 6% on Tuesday and 3.7% on Wednesday, the IBD/TIPP poll found a lead of just 1% on Thursday. Why did IBD/TIPP show a big shift in momentum over the past few days when no other pollster did? Well, it may have something to do with their samples being unrepresentative. I'm just guessing here since they don't give you any clue as to the demographic makeup of their sample.

Let's analyze the silliness a little more closely. IBD/TIPP doesn't share what percentage of their sample was between 18 and 24. They do, however, tell you what percentage of that age group voted for McCain vs Obama. The shift in the trend they showed over three days is striking:

Tuesday- Obama +6 points; 18-24 year olds- Obama 46% to 44%

Wednesday- Obama +3.7 points; 18-24 year olds- McCain 53% to 43%

Thursday- Obama +1 point; 18 -24 year olds- McCain 74% to 24%

TIPP touts itself as having been the most accurate pollster of the 2004 election. And, this daily tracking poll gets national attention on a daily basis via the popular RCP site. Yet, they present with a straight face data that shows a 52 point swing over three days in the 18-24 age group. Not to mention they also show a 20 point swing over three days among Catholics in favor of McCain and a 15 point swing among single women in McCain's favor.

So, is the race really tightening like IBD/TIP is claiming or is Obama's mid single digit lead holding pretty steady like just about every other pollster says? Given IBD/TIPP's apparently odd samples, I will guess that the latter is the case.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama

This is obviously an important endorsement for Obama. I still hold a bit of a grudge against Powell for his role in pushing us into the Iraq War. That said, he remains one of the most respected and accomplished military minds in the world. If he believes Obama is ready to be commander in chief, that should hold a whole lot of weight with voters.

LA Times Endorses Obama

The LA Times today joined the growing list of major publications to endorse Barack Obama for president.

Here are a few of my favorite snippets from their endorsement:

He is no lone rider. He is a consensus builder, a leader.

He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he's one of them, but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.

But for all the excitement of his own candidacy, Obama has offered more competence than drama.

In closing, the op-ed neatly and succinctly summarizes the broad appeal of Senator Obama:

Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.

Washington Post Endorses Obama

In the op-ed page of today's issue of the Washington Post, the prominent newspaper formally endorsed Barack Obama for President.

But Mr. Obama's temperament is unlike anything we've seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.

In my humble opinion, this is well deserved praise for a great Democratic candidate.

The essence of last night's debate...

...captured in a single photo.

Third and Final Debate Cacaphony

Senator McCain certainly came out swinging last night. Even knowing that his recent wallowing in negativity did nothing to halt, and perhaps even aided, a dramatic rise in the polls for Senator Obama, McCain still attempted to bombard Obama with every smear he could think of. McCain breathlessly invoked Obama's so-called shadowy associations with William Ayers and ACORN just to have Sentor Obama bat away each charge like so many pesky mosquitoes. I was shocked, frankly, that McCain didn't trot out Reverend Jeremiah Wright's name just one last time.

The tattered Republican playbook tactic of turning a phrase or a name into something nefarious sounding- see "liberal", "George Soros", "ACLU" et al.- by simply repeating it over and over on Sean Hannity's show and in 527 ads, finally seems to have fallen on deaf ears during this election cycle. Could it be that Americans have wised up to the tactic? I doubt it. The ineffectiveness of the tactic this time around is more likely the result of the Democrats actually putting up an extremely strong and well-financed candidate for a change. And, more importantly, the Republicans put up a candidate who can't hide from his long, long history of being a free market ideologue and for having constantly pushing for deregulation. McCain would have been a flawed candidate- too angry, too inconsistent, too old- regardless of when he was running for president but it's particularly hard for him to resonate with voters with a crashing economy and an extremely unpopular Republican president casting a long, dark shadow over his campaign.

In short, I thought Obama dominated the debate. He remained calm and carefully and thoughtfully addressed every bit of random, scatter shot nonsense hurled at him by McCain. Senator McCain seemed to have decided that going negative was his only option left at this point. The result of doing so was simply to make McCain seem unpleasant and small and extremely unpresidential. Given Obama's current lead in the polls, McCain needed to crush him in this final debate; He failed miserably in his attempt to do so. In fact, I thought it was by far McCain's worst debate performance of the three.

Surely, everyone saw the same thing I saw last night. Right? Of course not! Just as with the first two debates, the reaction was all over the spectrum. Behold:

Sam Youngman: Aggressive McCain, Cool Obama

Roger Simon: McCain Fails to rattle Obama

Harold Meyerson: McCain as Angry White Man

Anne Barrowclough: The Winner? Joe the Plumber.

Peter Canellos: Intensity May Help McCain

John Dickerson: McCain did well, but not well enough

Dick Morris: Debate May be turning point for McCain

Quin Hillyer: Solid Win for McCain

Marc Ambinder: McCain surrenders debate to his frustrations

Taegan Goddard: McCain's best debate

Although opinions did vary, this time around the overwhelming majority of coverage seemed to believe that either Obama won or McCain won, but that it wasn't a big enough victory for him to stem the losing tide of his campaign.

Say What You Feel, Eugene

In a cathartic and dead nuts on article today over at Real Clear Politics, Eugene Robinson tells it like it is:

The GOP is a mess and a Fraud

The whole article is quote-worthy but I found a few passages particularly juicy. His take on the GOP's Milton Friedman disciples suddenly embracing willy nilly government intervention is one such passage:

It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with "radical" or "socialist" views when a Republican administration is tossing aside "Atlas Shrugged" and speed-reading "Das Kapital."

After documenting some of the Right's many governing misdeeds, Robinson closes with a call to exile Republicans to minority status:

When a political party reaches the point of lurching incoherence, the most effective cure is a good, long spell in the wilderness. Americans should help Republicans out by sending them home to get their act together.

Even after receiving what I hope will be a broad rejection of Republicans on November 4, conservatives will undoubtedly miss the point. Whereas I will see it as a wholesale rejection of their corporatist ideology, the Right will no doubt argue that their candidates just weren't conservative enough.

McCain vs. Obama on Energy Policy

The Salt Lake Tribune is running a series of articles comparing McCain and Obama's stances on the issues. Today's article compares McCain and Obama's stances on energy policy.

The key energy policy differences between the two are that while McCain is more heavily devoted to old technology such as oil, coal, and nuclear, Obama focuses his attention more on alternative, renewable sources of energy. As the more devout free market capitalist, McCain wants to drill for more oil, including offshore but not in ANWR, and expects that alternative energies will have to compete with fossil fuels in the free market. Obama clearly believes that the government is going to have to be an active participant in the market to ensure that alternative sources of energy get developed as needed.

Comparing the candidates stances underscores something I've long said about John McCain; Maverick is just another way of saying "inconsistent". Yes, he has a history of bucking his party from time to time. But it's been in sort of a self-serving, scatter shot way. Energy policy is a good example of his inconsistency. After voting against Bush's energy bill back in 2003, he's now claiming to be in favor of the alternative energy measures contained in that bill. After voting against offshore drilling in 2005, McCain is now Mr. "Drill, Baby Drill" on the campaign trail. After voting against 20 solar or renewable energy incentive bills over the years, he now tries to position himself as being a big proponent of alternative energy. The reason a lot of Republicans didn't want McCain as the nominee in the first place was his lack of reliability on conservative issues. Looking at his history when it comes to energy, I can see where these conservatives are coming from.

The Bright Side of the Cratering Economy?

Gas prices are steadily dropping. After peaking at $4.11 in July, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline has fallen over 18% to $3.35 as of October 10, 2008. Industry analysts are projecting that prices at the pump could drop to as low at $2.50 to $2.75 per gallon in the near future.

So, in short, when the economy is relatively strong it looks like we're going to have obnoxiously expensive gasoline for the foreseeable future. If the economy is weak, a time when people have lots more to worry about than just gas prices, gas may well be substantially cheaper. Pick your poison, I suppose.

Weekend Blog Links

• Matt Yglesias blogs about the Pentagon's plans to bully the next president into massive defense spending increases.


• Juan Cole addresses McCain's defense of Obama as a decent man, not an Arab. As if the two things are mutually exclusive...


• Borowitz Report writes about John McCain's casting call for irate white people.


• The Left Coaster writes about one of my favorite topics, Free Market Fundamentalism.


• Tapped has an interesting post on ACORN and the important distinction between voter fraud and registration fraud.


• Same Facts chimes in on the idiocy of Sarah Palin being sent to drop the first puck at a Philadelphia Flyers game.


• The inimitable Jesus' General posts an ad by the group Passionately Credulous Bigots for McCain.


• Over at Alas! blog, a suspected serial killer clears himself. I, too, have been regularly clearing myself of various crimes big and small ever since I learned from the McCain campaign that one can do so.

270toWin's Election Simulator

As I've mentioned a couple of times recently, I have become a complete addict of 270towin.com. I particularly enjoy running their election simulator to see what current state polls are indicating the result will be in the battle for electoral votes. One of the cool things about their simulator is you can look at the results of the last 1,000 simulations run. I'm a stats geek, what can I say?

As recently as a month ago, the simulations stats showed McCain winning 40% or more of the simulations. As of two weeks ago, if my memory serves me correctly McCain was winning 15% or 20% of the simulations. Posted to the right you will find the stats for the last 1,000 simulation as of this morning at around 8AM ET. Remarkably, the election simulator now has Obama winning an incredible 99.6% of simulations run. That means, as of today, if you were to run 1,000 election simulations, McCain would win approximately four of them. And, of those four wins, the biggest victory for McCain would be a narrow victory of just 282 electoral votes.

Yes, I'm optimistic. I am also realistic and I know polls can change very rapidly. If the election were held today, though, Obama would likely win in a blowout. Hopefully the recent trend will continue for Barack.

Friday Blog Links

• Joe Conason astutely asks 'what if"?

• Anonymous Liberal revisits the "race card" dispute.



• Daily Kos covers the Connecticut Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling



• Obsidian Wings: McCain Blames Self for Economic Meltdown

• Ezra chimes in on the correlation between October polls and November results



• Firedoglake: Will McCain Suspend Campaign to Investigate Obama's past?

• Glenn Greenwald skewers Dan Balz's weird idea of journalistic balance.

• Gun Toting Liberal blogs about the McCain campaign's idiotic Troopergate clearing

Financial Crisis Cacaphony

As the bloodshed on Wall Street continues today unabated, there is no shortage of opinion as to what it all means, who caused it, what we need to do about it, and when it will end. Behold the cacaphony:

Jimmy Carter: Bush Policies to Blame for Crisis

Marketwatch: This Isn't Crash of '29; Just Feels Like It

Bush Appeals for Confidence

Elizabeth MacDonald: Living in United States of Bailouts

Editorial: Greed of Wall Street CEOs Brought On Meltdown

Steve Forbes: The Fear Will Subside

Joe Mysak: Bankers are Discredited and Vilified

Ben Bernanke: Laying Groundwork for Recovery

Paul Krugman: Time for Coordinated International Action

Andy Kessler: U.S. Actually a Port In Storm

President George W. Hoover is More Like It

Conservative Hugh Hewitt has a column over at Townhall entitled President Barack Hoover. Hewitt labels Senator Obama as being Hoover-like based on his claim that Obama has suggested a tax increase during a severe downturn in the economy. Comparing Obama's proposed net decrease in taxes to Hoover's oppressive tax increases is, of course, a silly exaggeration.

The Revenue Act of 1932, signed into law by Republican President Herbert Hoover, is generally credited with worsening the impact of the great depression. This Act increased income tax rates punitively across the board on corporations, estates, and individuals in most tax brackets. The chart below shows the tax increases on individuals included in the Revenue Act of 1932. I've added a column converting 1932 dollars to 2007 dollars for illustrative purposes:

As shown in the chart above, the tax increase enacted in 1932 was extremely progressive in nature. That is to say, the more money you earned the greater the tax rate paid. For instance, someone earning $10,000 in 1932 (the equivalent of $151,345 in 2007 dollars) saw their tax bill increase by 25%. Someone earning $16,000 in 1932 ($242,151 in 2007 dollars) saw their tax burden increase by a whopping 62.5%.

Let's compare for a moment Hoover's 1932 tax increase to the overall net tax cut proposed by Barack Obama. Whereas Hoover increased taxes dramatically on everybody making more than the equivalent of around $90,000 in 2007 dollars, Obama is actually proposing rates that would see 95% of Americans paying the same amount or less in income taxes. Whereas Hoover increased taxes on those making $242,151 in 2007 dollars by 62.5%, Obama is merely suggesting that tax rates on people making more than $250,000 per year return to pre-Bush tax cut levels. Obama's tax proposal will result in a tax cut for most Americans with those making the most money seeing a small increase. Let me repeat my point in my best Joe Biden voice: Obama's plan on the whole is actually a tax cut.

Hewitt's ideology appears to be that of your typical trickle-down economist. These folks like to believe that putting more money in the hands of the wealthy is more productive for the economy than putting that same amount of money in the hands of the middle and working classes. This is, of course, malarkey. I've long argued that if you want to stimulate our consumption-based economy the way to do it is by putting more money in the hands of people who have the least. This is because people who are struggling will spend every cent you return to them in tax cuts on paying bills and/or purchasing items they have deferred buying. The wealthy, on the other hand, are less likely to spend every cent and much more likely to simply put the money in the bank.

History, to the chagrin of conservatives like Hugh Hewitt, will much more likely see George W. Bush as being the apt parallel to Herbert Hoover. Hoover, a Republican like Bush, was at the switch during the market crash of 1929. Hoover, as Bush is now in trying to fix our broken economy, flailed about quite impotently in an attempt to stem the ill effects of the Great Depression. Interestingly, Hoover's first instinct a month after the crash was actually to enact a Bush-like cutting of taxes. A brief glance at history points to George W. Bush as being our generation's Herbert Hoover. Barack Obama, in a thought which is undoubtedly horrifying to conservatives, is actually much more likely to be our generation's Franklin Roosevelt. Ironically, it is Republican George W. Bush who has already kicked off a sort of neo-FDR-ism with his unprecedented government interventions in the economy in recent months. Couple that with voters embracing Obama's "health care is a right" mantra and you have the makings of a New New Deal.

Yes We Carve!

You've gotta check this out:

http://yeswecarve.com/

Here's hoping every trick or treater is greeted by a Barack O'Lantern on every porch. At least in the swing states...

David Brooks: Palin a "fatal cancer" to GOP

Huffington Post has some great quotes from conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks about Sarah Palin. Most interesting to me, Brooks compares Palin's anti-intellectual tendencies to those of George Bush, noting that Palin not only to scorns liberal ideas but scorns ideas entirely. This is a powerful observation, especially coming from a respected conservative, about someone who is a McCain victory away from being Vice President.

In the same interview, Brooks refers to Obama as a mediocre senator but heaps praise upon him for his great intellect and for his keen social perception skills. Fascinating...

...and a Mavericky thumbs up to you

Debate Cacaphony Part Deux

After the first presidential debate I provided links to an absurdly wide range of opinions on who won the debate. This time around I've found it harder to find spinners touting a huge McCain victory. Opinions remain somewhat varied, however:

Susan Page: Sharp Tone, No Gaffes

Lynn Sweet: No Game Changer

Will Bunch: Solid and Informative

Mark Halperin: McCain "B"; Obama "B+"

Rick Klein: John McCain wanted to have 10 of these?

Doyle McManus: Candidates were 'models of courteous restraint'

Robin Abcarian: Obama the winner in body language

NY Post Editorial: An Economic Pander-Fest!

McCormick and Zuckman: Lack of fireworks is a loss for McCain

Dick Morris (numbnut extraordinaire): McCain needed KO and Didn't Get it

Harris and Vandehei: Worst Debate Ever

Financial Times: Short on Spectacle... And Anything Else

Adding to the pile, my opinion is that Obama mopped the floor with McCain. Obama was eloquent, calm, empathetic and quite presidential. McCain, on the other hand, seemed angry, weaselly, and a bit desperate. It wasn't a knockout but Obama still earned a decisive victory in my book.

Obama killing Kerry and Gore in the polls (for what it's worth)

The Talent Show has a great pollster graph posted which compares polling data from the 2000 and 2004 presidential races to this year's campaign. This graph shows a couple of things which I find interesting and encouraging:

• Neither Kerry in 2004 nor Gore in 2000 ever had a lead in the polls anywhere close to that held by Obama at this time.


• Comparing the polling as of a specific number of days before the election, Obama has been ahead of where Kerry was, usually by a wide margin, for all but about 20 days of the campaign. Similarly, Obama has also outperformed Gore at each time period for all but approximately a week of the campaign.

I have a history of premature optimism- I thought Kerry was going to win right up until election day 2004- but I am feeling like an Obama landslide is a real possibility as of now. I'll continue to hold my breath, of course, for any swift boatian attacks that could put a dent in Obama's lead in the coming weeks.

Presidents Who Died Early in Term

Where's The Outrage? freaked me out a bit with his post today regarding presidents who died early in a four year term. As much as I find the idea of a McCain presidency distasteful, the thought of a Palin presidency is much scarier.

Read the post. It's quite enlightening.

The New Yorker Endorses Obama

In a thorough and well written editorial, The New Yorker makes the case for Barack Obama:

At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

I obviously agree wholeheartedly. After a little more than 40 years on this planet, I am hopeful that a transformational leader for the Left may finally have arrived in the person of Barack Obama. Liberals, by definition, don't generally revere their leaders like conservatives do. That said, I have always hoped that we would one day get "our Reagan". Whether deserved or not, Ronald Reagan represents for most Republicans the gold standard for their party. For conservatives, Reagan was inspiring and confident and he represented to them all of the positive qualities to which they aspire. We Liberals expect a lot from our leaders so it will be very hard for any leader to achieve a "Reagan-like" stature amongst progressives. Count me as one cynical idealist who is ready to give Obama a shot at being a progressive leader for the ages.

A Little Sunday Reading

• Blue Gal scored what may or may not be an actual interview with the ever adorable Joe Biden.
  

• Is there a better site anywhere for pissed off lefties (like me!) than Crooks & Liars? (With a great new layout, to boot.)
  

• I bet you can't run just one election simulation over at 270towin. Now that Barack is ahead I find their simulator to be particularly addictive. Seeing all those states turn blue one by one almost brings a tear to me eye...
  
  
• ThinkProgress covers Dick Cheney's recent lies speech where he claimed that the Bush administration has made environmental conservation a high priority.
  
  
• Rude Pundit chimes in with his assessment of the Biden/Palin debate.
  
  
• Read Tim Dickinson's Make Believe Maverick piece in Rolling Stone. After 8 years of a make believe cowboy in the White House, a pretend maverick is the last thing any of us needs.

On Push Polling

The always insightful and funny Gun Toting Liberal has a great piece on recent complaints of the McCain campaign engaging in push polling in battleground states. I'm personally in shock that Mr. Straight-Talking Integrity and Honor would allow his campaign to engage in the very tactic Bush used to smear him during the 2000 Republican primaries.

A tongue-in-cheek example of such push polling from GTL:

“If you knew Barack Obama was involved in the murder of O.J. Simpson’s wife and the Las Vegas kidnapping/robbery scheme, would you still vote for him"

I've heard rumors from completely unreliable sources that the following questions are also being asked in push polls throughout purple America:

"If you knew Barack Obama was a direct descendant of Pontius Pilate, the executioner of our Lord, would you be less likely to cast a vote for him?"

"If you learned that Barack Obama hates NASCAR, listens to the Fugees, and is a vegetarian would you be less likely to vote for him?"

"Would you be less likely to vote for Barack Obama if you learned that he thinks Carrot Top is funny and, in a previous life, caused dinosaurs to become extinct?"

For me the answer is clearly "yes", "yes", and "absolutely".

Awaiting A Swift Boat Attack

With a McCain victory looking more and more like a long shot, what can we expect from the Republicans in the next four weeks? A swift boat style attack or two, of course. October is the perfect time for a totally unsubstantiated attack simply because the victim has a difficult time dispelling the myth completely before election day. My guess is Karl Rove and company have more than a few ideas of how to slander Senator Obama in the coming weeks.

The most likely theme of a swift boat attack on Obama will be to make claims which portray him to be as black and/or as liberal as possible. With states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri seemingly in play, the old Karl Rove playbook would suggest that Obama needs to be shown to have associations with scary black people and that he favors the closure of all churches and believes in abortion even after birth (without "pre-conditions", of course). The fact that none of it is true doesn't matter, of course. The point is simply to distract enough white people away from disastrous Republican policies by planting the seed that Obama is a militant black man who shares Karl Marx's economic beliefs.

Democrats undoubtedly know it's coming and will probably still flail about when it actually happens. Personally, I'm holding my breath waiting for October to end.

Palin's Evasive and Spastic Performance

The political press is buzzing this morning about Governor Palin's VP debate performance last evening. I'm finding the pundit reviews to be mostly positive, at least to the extent that most people believe she exceeded the incredibly low expectations that had been set for her.

Personally, I found Governor Palin's performance to be a bit spastic and incredibly evasive. She openly avoided answering questions asked of her and instead returned over and over to her canned talking points. I found her to be over-the-top folksy and never once found her to be the least bit presidential. Her knowledge of issues seemed superficial at best. While she didn't fall flat on her face, I thought she needed to be great to stem the flow of recent McCain losses. She clearly failed to be great.

I thought Joe Biden played it pretty safe in the debates. He came off as serious and extremely knowledgeable and avoided appearing condescending. He did not deliver a knockout blow but I don't believe he needed to. Senator Biden's charge was simply to not screw up Obama's recent positive momentum and I expect he accomplished that modest goal quite nicely.