Barack's "I Feel Your Pain" Moment. or Why Voters Thought Obama Won (Nate Silver)

[jefferson_dem]

Why Voters Thought Obama Won

TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience.

Something as simple as Obama mentioning that he’ll cut taxes for “95 percent of working families” is worth, I would guess, a point or so in the national polls. Obama had not been speaking enough about his middle class tax cut; there was some untapped potential there, and Obama may have gotten the message to sink in tonight

By contrast, I don’t think McCain’s pressing Obama on earmarks was time well spent for him. One, it simply is not something that voters care all that much about, given the other pressures the economy faces. But also, it is not something that voters particularly associate with Obama, as the McCain campaign had not really pressed this line of attack. If you’re going to introduce a new line of attack late in a campaign, it has better be a more effective one that earmarks. And then there was McCain's technocratic line about the virtues of lowering corporate taxes, one which might represent perfectly valid economic policy, but which was exactly the sort of patrician argument that lost George H.W. Bush the election in 1992.

More -- http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/why-voters-thought-obama-won.html

[Window]

1. K/R.

:kick:

[MadrasT]

2. K & R - thanks! Pretty good assessment, IMO. n/t

[BeyondGeography]

3. But Obama didn't connect with people on the economy...how can this be?

:smoke:

[JBoy]

4. LOL! I love this part:

"The only category in which McCain rated significantly higher than Obama was on “spent more time attacking his opponent” ".

[MissWaverly]

5. a thought on earmarks

okay, nobody likes them except when they are targeting to one's own state; but at least earmarks are directed at improving the lives of the folks back home. We have had a Republican administration and an obstructionist congress which has gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy/top 1%, corporations and war profiteers. I will tolerate earmarks that help build infrastructure unless it's a bridge to nowhere which is a lobbyist giveaway. I will not tolerate a government that exists for the wealthy and special interests.