I have already commented on my belief that McCain threw this election a long time ago. If we needed any more proof that McCain is throwing this election, Palin's appearance on SNL should be enough.
There is something I noticed here. For starters, she said, "I just don't think that is a good depiction of how my press conferences WOULDDA gone." (My emphasis added). And she just seemed way too comfortable in her SNL role. She actually did a good job. But I wondered if she caught the whole rap thing. Seems to me that they were really making a lot of fun of her (and yes, McCain's smile is creepy!), and the Alaska map earnings and what I think was an Alaska flag pin. Hey! Where's the American flag pin? How come she doesn't have to wear one?
I would post the video here, but I am not sure how to do that from Hulu and I can't access YouTube from this workstation. But you can see the rap here and you can see the "back stage here .
Monday, October 20, 2008
McCain Throwing the Election?
Posted by USWest at 9:50 AM
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Palin's appearance on SNL was weird. She had very few lines. Instead of poking fun at herself, she just watched others make fun of her.
The rap thing was really amazing to me. They were just mocking her, to her face! Did she even realize just how much they were making a fool of her? It was painful to watch her trying to act like she enjoyed being humiliated like that. It almost was not funny.
If she had done that rap herself, it would have catapulted her to stardom. Or if she had started out dancing in her chair, but then slowly became more appalled and eventually had came out with some great zinger about the mainstream media--that would have been hilarious. But instead, she just danced as they mocked everything, even lampooned her husband.
I think the (liberal) SNL cast got away with murder--and the non-cast members did too. Tina Fey wouldn't even look at her or talk to her. Alex Baldwin got away with calling her, "that horrible woman," to her face. How or why did her campaign staff permit that to happen?
My husband had the same reaction, even more so. He said to me, "Did she just throw in the towel? Or are they just so clueless they don't even realize what just happened?"
Two things. First, McCain is surging in the polls right now. It is clear that although most people say Obama won the debate, by the only measure that matters - effect on bottom line poll numbers - McCain won pretty substantially.
Second, most people who don't already hate Palin won't see SNL comedians as legitimate opinion leaders. They will discount all the humiliation and move on happily supporting Palin. Or they will see the SNL stuff as "typical eastern media elite" stuff and react in the opposite way we all might expect if it were us.
McCain is not surging in the polls. I think that's an inaccurate statement. A "surge" has to be more than a minor settling of poll numbers. This week, we see the outlier polls (CBS, Newsweek, etc.) giving Obama 10-11 point leads are gone. Other tracking polls are coalescing around the 3-7 point range. But there is no indication these numbers are really moving anywhere. 538.com shows a trend flatlining rather than reversing. Obama had a bit of a bump last week. The end of the bump is not the same as a McCain surge.
The Powell endorsement will help Obama.
I was very surprised by what SNL got away with. Something is really odd in all of this.
If this represents a surge for McCain, I hope he surges all the way to election day.
Though to be fair, the Pollster.com composite does show some movement for McCain.
I would also point out that last week the RCP average was solidly above +7 for Obama. It is now hovering somewhere between +4.5 and +5 for Obama. That's an alarming shift if we think there is any validity to the Bradley Effect (which I do). If it stabilizes at this level I'll only be worried. If it continues even a point more in McCain's direction it will be time to get really worried.
We'll have to look at the state by state polls that start coming out this week.
OK so as soon as I say it's between +4.5 and 5, RCP adds a CNN poll that pushes the RCP average up to +5.8 for Obama which is still about 2 points lower than it was last week.
Every fluctuation in polls is not a surge. That's my point. I don't like this fear of impending doom I hear from so many Democrats. Fox/Rasmussen puts FL at McCain+2 and Ohio at MCCain+1, but NC at Obama+3. Suffolk has Ohio at Obama +9. State polls are looking haywire. The problem is that models of likely voters are so hard to deal with right now. And it's Fox.
Take a look at RCP favorability ratings. Obama's are relatively constant with about 55-60 positive and negatives int he 30s. McCain's were similar for a long time, though with somewhat lower positives. For the past month, his negatives have been surging.
I agree with LTG: McCain is not surging in the polls. It would be more accurate to say Obama's support has leveled off. I completely understand your fears of the Bradley Effect, RbR... But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Obama is doing very well. (If and when he actually does stumble, then believe me, I'll be the first to shout about it because I'm so nervous for him!)
OK, I would MUCH rather have my guy be where Obama is now than where McCain is. What I'm saying is that Obama was demonstrably and probably significantly better off last week than this. There is a difference between "leveling off" and losing 2 points.
Obama has remained level, RbR. For the past three weeks Obama has been hovering around 50%. McCain has been bobbing up and down a little, stuck down in the weeds at 42-44%. One of those bobs happened last week. That's all.
I sure hope you are right but that's not what the RCP graph and the Pollster.com graph have showed. They showed a noticeable drop for Obama and gain for McCain.
RBR, RCP and pollster.com graphs all show a slight gain for McCain and very little change for Obama. As Dr.S says, if you consider last week a "bob" or "nod" upward, and instead compare Obama and McCain to two weeks ago, there's no change. What's not happening is a trend downward over time, just the end of a bump.
News reports show that McCain is abandoning efforts in Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa, and concentrating instead on Nevada and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is his only hope for victory if he abandons Colorado. As I said months ago, Colorado is the key to this election.
Obama wins if he gets all states that voted for Kerry plus Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa. McCain is now conceding all that except... Pennsylvania, where Obama leads by 10 points. Nobody expects him to win Pennsylvania, but I suppose he's hoping to rely on the same racist vote that supported Hillary Clinton there.
I must do something more for Nevada, then.
RbR... You can take heart! The RCP graph has a bit more data on it this morning, and what the rest of us have been saying is clearer. Obama's numbers are steady, and there was just a bob or nod in McCain's numbers last week.
I am happy to report that the apparent narrowing of the race in the default graph over at Pollster.com (and there is an apparent narrowing, as you wrote) is just an artifact of their default smoothing algorithm.
If you choose the "less smoothing" option for the trend line, it reveals the same bump or nod last week that RCP shows, nothing more. If you choose "more smoothing" you see the larger picture the rest of us have been talking about: Obama steady around 50%, slight bob or nod for McCain down in the 42-44% range.
The Gallup daily tracking data, which bell curve offered above, shows a steady race with Obama at 50% or so. Similarly Rasumssen-- which this morning fivethirtyeight.com called the one poll they would take with them to a desert island--says today, "The race has remained very stable over the past month and Obama’s support has not dipped below 50% in nearly a month."
Finally, the electoral-vote.com graphs are also heartening. Both the looser and stricter graphs show a largely stable race, with (if anything) a slight drift upward for Obama in terms of projected electoral votes.
So while I remain worried that something drastic will happen to crush my dreams... again... there is as yet no sign of it. All is well in Obamaland today.
Let us hope it was just the lost weekend.
More good news: the new RCP average is back up to 6.9% gap (note Obama remains level at about 50%, as he has for weeks) and the new polls in Pollster.com reinforce the pattern. McCain did not surge in the polls and Obama did not drop. So far, so good!
Back up to 7.2%
What's just as interesting is that the daily averages are much more consistent now than they were a few months ago. Means more polling, I think.
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