why Penn matters: caveats: bottom line is:

[amborin]

we need to keep fighting as if we're 10 down


"However, there are some caveats to take into consideration. Firstly, Obama's support is notoriously soft. We saw that against Hillary in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsyvania, where the electorate actually moved away from Obama and towards Hillary in the final days of polling.

We also saw it post Republican convention where his lead went from +8 against McCain to -6 in the space of a weekend. Additionally, throughout this entire Presidential race up until the economic crisis began in September, Obama's leads have fluctuated wildly from +15 to -6. The electorate's trust of Obama is subject to a rapid erosion of support given the right set of circumstances.

Secondly, undecideds typically broke against Obama in the primaries. We saw this in New Hampshire, and in many other states throughout the battle with Hillary. If voters still have reservations at this point about siding with Obama then the probability is that they will resort to their fears and concerns, as opposed to their hope and desire for change, even in this political climate. Also in the 2006 mid-term elections, we saw a similar trend in favor of Republicans and against the Democrats.

It has been forgotten, because of the innumerable tight victories Democrats were able to eventually win, but the Democratic lead going into that election should have, in reality, resulted in far more emphatic margins. The United States, ultimately, is a center right nation and these natural proclivities amongst the electorate will always work against Democrats in the closing days of most political races, in my opinion.

Taking this into account I think it's fair to estimate that undecideds in the last 3 days will predominantly break to McCain by a margin of 65% to 35%. What this means is that if Obama is leading 50-46 heading into the weekend before election day, we will probably be looking at a final result of something like 51.4 - 48.6 in favor of Obama. The difference undecideds can make is negligible unless McCain is able to draw level.

The Intrade Predication Market gives McCain a 15% chance of victory and I think this sounds about right. However, news cycles like yesterday or today are crushing for McCain. The Colin Powell endorsement not only elevated Obama's standing on national security issues, but Powell also launched into a stinging attack on the McCain campaign, the selection of Palin as a candidate for VP, and on the Republican party for its conduct in general (video below). In actual fact, Powell went much further than endorsing Obama as was expected. Instead, he turned into a fully fledged advocate providing some of the most effective arguments for Obama's candidacy that we have heard this election season."

<snip>

<http://thecognoscenti.blogspot.com/>

[Clio the Leo]

1. I'm all for being cautious but........

John McCain ain't no Hillary Rodham Clinton!

Not no way! Not no how!

[MattNC]

2. if we were 10 down

I'd probably be getting drunk and drowning my sorrows away at this point.

[Curtland1015]

3. I love the "we need to fight like we're XX down" argument...

Does anyone remember what the people were alike around here when we were THREE down? Finger pointing and despair and inaction.

If we were TEN points down, nothing would get done.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and we were actually ten down.

Let's say NBC/Wall Street Journal released its poll Tuesday showing McCain up ten two weeks out.

It would be total meltdown!

[Curtland1015]

7. Exactly. Hell, even when we're UP people around here panic!

"OMG! Obama's lead went from 11 to 10 today! The Ayers stuff is working! It's a Rove plot!"

[Lithos]

4. Not quite true

Obama's support in Texas never really wavered. The shift was due more to Republicants crossing over to vote against him, not from any shifting inside the Democratic Party or weakening on his part.

Truthfully, if anything the post-Republican convention showed just how soft McCain's support really is. Flash in the pan to say the least.

I think that if there were any internals out about PA, then you would be seeing both the Clintons and Biden essentially living in the state. You would also see McCain and Palin there non-stop as well. Yes, McCain is there at the present time, but his audiences are small and his message is weak.

What is going with PA is that he can't afford another retreat. He has effectively ceded all of the other Blue battleground states (and a few of the Red battleground states). For him to do anything other than fight a last ditch effort in PA would be tantamount to admitting defeat. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place - he has to act like he can win and he has to attack somewhere.

See:

http://www.politickerpa.com/node/2241

[amborin]

5. that is reassuring

[jberryhill]

8. The question in the primary v. Hillary was "can he win the general election"?

And many D's could flip back and forth on that question.

Not the same sort of indecisiveness here.

[amborin]

9. today's ny times says their internals

"They say that their own polls show Mr. McCain only seven or eight percentage points behind Mr. Obama. (The state polls that show Mr. Obama with a double-digit lead, all conducted in recent weeks, include surveys by Marist, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA and The Allentown Morning Call.)

Mr. McCain’s strategists argue that their candidate has a dual appeal: to the pro-gun working-class voters in the western coal country, many of whom supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in the Democratic primary, and to independents and moderates in the swing counties around Philadelphia.

“When we look at our numbers, we think we’re competitive here,” Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, told reporters in Harrisburg on Tuesday. He added, “We would like to get as many Clinton supporters as we can.”

Another reason for Mr. McCain’s focus on Pennsylvania may be the shrinking electoral map, as Mr. Obama’s dominance leaves Mr. McCain with fewer and fewer competitive states to campaign in, and the need to avoid another embarrassing concession like Michigan, which the campaign abandoned early this month.

Conceding Pennsylvania two weeks before the election would be ....


<snip>


Mr. Obama, who was in Florida on Tuesday, had no immediate plans to return to Pennsylvania in coming days, perhaps the most telling sign that his strategists were comfortable with his position there. But Democratic officials in the state said they had been urging the Obama campaign to send the senator back there at least once more before Election Day to shore up support."

<snip>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/politics/22pennsylvania.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin>