The new Pollster.com interactive flash polling graphs are really cool. Finally you can trim the fat all you want and see a custom trendline based on the polls that you trust. For example, here’s an national aggregate I just put together that makes the following changes to the standard Pollster national trendline graph that I’ve featured here in the past :

1) It only includes live person polls, not robocalls or internet polls.
2) The upper and lower ranges have been changed to 60% and 30%.
3) It only shows polls conducted since June 1st.
4) It draws a “Less Sensitive” trendline, which gives a better overall sense of the momentum of the race rather than reflect every little polling blip.

Neeedless to say, these changes (which I made without any regard to how it would affect the numbers) give a much more comforting picture of the race as a whole :

That said, making these same changes on the state-level maps doesn’t yield the same pro-Obama trends, but there are too few state polls to really have the luxury of picking and choosing polling data the way you can with the national numbers.

Wow. This may be the douchiest thing in the history of presidential politics (which is saying a lot). After McCain turned into a drama queen on Wednesday and declared that he was going to suspend his campaign (which he didn’t) in order to rush back to Washington (which he didn’t) and save the economy (which he didn’t), he suddenly decided that even though negotiations on a potential bailout are worse now than they were 24 hours ago, enough had been done for him to shout “Time In!” and travel to tonight’s debates with his tail between his legs. Yet with his new stance revealing that his previous act of faux-bravery was just a political charade, McCain still found a way to one-up himself by declaring victory in a debate he hadn’t even agreed to attend :

Ugghhhh…Sarah Palin is an idiot :

Couric: When President Bush ran for office, he opposed nation-building. But he has spent, as you know, much of his presidency promoting democracy around the world. What lessons have you learned from Iraq? And how specifically will you try to spread democracy throughout the world?

Palin: Specifically, we will make every effort possible to help spread democracy for those who desire freedom, independence, tolerance, respect for equality. That is the whole goal here in fighting terrorism also. It’s not just to keep the people safe but to be able to usher in democratic values and ideals around this, around the world.

Let me just say that as great an orator as Obama is, he doesn’t stand a chance of winning a debate against an empty podium with John McCain’s name on it.

The McCain campaign thinks his campaign strategy of “suspending” his campaign helps reinforce his “Country First” slogan, but it really just makes him look like an old man who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

Wanna see something scary? Here’s what happens when you assign all of the Pollster.com toss-up states as they stand right now :

It’s been too long since our last constitutional crisis.

For the record, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that this will be the result on election day. I think McCain’s chances of winning New Hampshire have always been overrated and that Obama has a good chance of winning Nevada, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and Florida. And that’s all before you account for the fact that (1) the lack of cell phone-only voters in polling samples is probably under-representing Obama’s support, (2) Obama has a better ground operation and has been registering new voters by the tens of thousands in the states that matter, and (3) the economic downturn will drive more undecided voters away from Keating Five-veteran McCain. Add to that the fact that Obama currently has the momentum of the race and that John McCain is going to seem like a self-righteous Mr. Magoo in the debates, I still insist that the race is still Obama’s to lose.

Add my voice to the chorus of those who scoff at the idea of giving a blank check to the finance industry whose lack of ethics got themselves into the mess they’re in now. I’m sympathetic to the notion that a bailout might be needed to forestall a bigger crisis, but there has to be strings attached. Robert Reich has some great ideas, though I’d be even harsher :

1) The CEO and entire Board of Directors are fired. No golden parachutes, just clean out your offices and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Any executives VP and above loses all compensation beyond their base salary for this year and the next three years.

2) Every mortgage held by the company is refinanced at 30 year 5% fixed rate. Don’t punt this to bankruptcy judges or deal with on a case by case basis, just make it automatic unless a borrower decides to opt out.

3) Full transparency. Not just additional regulatory hoops to jump through, but every financial document available for shareholders via an externally-accessible corporate intranet site. Obama’s Google-for-government proposal adapted for corporate governance.

4) Stealing this one from Reich : “All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers.”

5) A new tax on the financial industry that goes into a fund (a la the tobacco industry) to fully inform Americans that a 30% interest rate doesn’t mean you’re paying 30 cents extra for every dollar you borrow. Public service announcements about predatory lending, mandatory classes about personal finance for all high schools, and major restrictions on misleading marketing. It’s not enough to simply ban the pseudo-fraudulent practices that prey on the ignorance of the American people, our country needs to be educated enough to realize what they’re getting into.

Not that any of this will actually happen. As Paul Krugman says :

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal.

I really hope Obama gets out in front on this issue tomorrow. His “Statement of Principles” is a damn good start.

Remember when everybody was freaking out last week about the poll numbers? Well, things are looking better now.

That’s the tracking poll I’ve been watching for the past month or so and it’s back in Obamaland. While Obama has been getting his groove back, the GOP’s favorite wolf-killer is tanking.



While the Palin phenomenon was intimidating for a minute there, let’s take a step back and look at the full Pollster.com aggregate trendline :



See that tiny little blip there on the right where the red line is above the blue? That’s Palin. Not exactly worth sweating over. Like every other fad, there’s a big backlash brewing and it’s only going to get worse. Imagine how well her favorability ratings will be if/when Biden mentions “rape kits” or “helicopter hunting” in the VP debate.

Contra what I said last week, don’t sweat the state polls. They’ll catch back up. To paraphrase McCain, the fundamentals of this election are strong. Keep donating and volunteering, but don’t loose your head. We’re cool.

Am I the only one who finds it kinda pathetic that the GOP candidate has to cling to his VP pick to attract crowds?

Ummm…does being “next door” to a foreign country really count as “experience” if you’ve never even bothered to go there?

Also, for lovers of shitty television and metaphors, let me point out that the following clip appeared on the same night that Palin had her deer-in-the-headlights, “Bush Doctrine” stumble :

Sarah Palin doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is?? She’s a champion bullshitter, but when you’re running for a position as important as the vice presidency, it’s a good idea to know one of the central policies of the person you’re trying to replace.

If Palin knowing more about energy policy than anybody else in the whole wide world counts as foreign policy experience, how is that applicable to the war she’s trying to start with Russia? Is there some sort of oil rivalry between Russia and Georgia that I don’t know about?

Finally, both Palin and McCain are now fully onboard with the bizarre “Alaska is next to Russia” school of foreign policy credentials, which is sorta like me making the claim that I speak fluent Spanish because I live next door to a Mexican guy.

Let’s give John McCain the benefit of the doubt for a moment. For the sake of argument, let’s put aside questions that have been raised regarding his campaign and take as a given that John McCain is an honorable, trustworthy person who always puts his country first and makes strides to ensure that his campaign for the presidency is conducted in an honest manner. Knowing that, then can we all agree that John McCain is a %$@#@ idiot?

Seriously, is there any other conclusion we can reach when John McCain’s first instinct is to cry sexism when Barack Obama uses a common phrase :

Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin’s new “change” mantra.

“You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said as the crowd cheered. “It’s still a pig.”

“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

“We’ve had enough of the same old thing.”

Anyone who would look at the comments above and conclude that Barack Obama is referring to Sarah Palin as a pig is such a fool that educated people should be laughing them out of the public square. John McCain thinks he should be the next President of the United States, but I’m sitting here thinking “How the hell did John McCain even graduate from high school?”. Anyone with a basic reading comprehension can understand the phrase “lipstick on a pig” and how it relates to what Obama is discussing. This is the sort of thing John McCain should have learned in elementary school.

Since it’s not only John McCain, but all of his boosters as well who have seen their ability to read devolve to a kindergarten level, let’s break this down so John McCain can understand it. In the example above, what Barack Obama considers their “new ‘change’ mantra” is the “lipstick”, while their actual implied agenda is the “pig”. But even if you sympathise with McCain’s narcissism and insist that this is a personal attack, it still doesn’t mean what John McCain thinks it does. In that case, and again, this is basic reading comprehension here, Sarah Palin is the lipstick and John McCain is the pig.

But John McCain isn’t a pig. He’s a dumbass.

Tom Coburn, 1997

A Republican member of Congress Tuesday criticized NBC television’s showing of the Holocaust movie “Schindler’s List,” saying its airing during Sunday family time should outrage parents.

Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, was quoted in a release put out by his office as saying the airing of the highly acclaimed film took network television “to an all-time low, with full frontal nudity, violence and profanity being shown in our homes.”

His criticism brought a response from Sen Alfonse D’Aamto, a New York Republican, who told the Senate Coburn’s statement was “shocking.”

“To equate the nudity of the Holocaust victims in the concentration camp with any sexual connotations is outrageous and offensive,” D’Amato said.

“I just wonder if Congressman Coburn is aware that there was a Holocaust, that millions of people died and it’s not something anybody should ever forget,” NBC West Coast president Don Olhmeyer was quoted as saying in Variety, an entertainment industry trade paper.

“NBC is extremely proud of its presentation of this unique award-winning film,” he said. “We think that Congressman Coburn’s statement should send a chill through every intelligent and fair-minded person in America.”

John McCain, yesterday

John McCain’s presidential campaign released a new television ad Tuesday that says Barack Obama is bad for families because he supports sex education for kindergartners. Obama’s campaign called the ad a “shameful” distortion.

The ad says Obama has a weak record on education and that his only accomplishment was legislation to teach sex education to kindergartners.

“Learning about sex before learning to read?” the ad says. “Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family.”

But the legislation was not Obama’s, it never became law and it would have required age-appropriate information in schools. Obama has said that means warning young children about sexual predators and explaining concepts like “good touch and bad touch.”

“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

I know this is hard advice to accept, but ignore the polls. They’re just going to freak you out. If you insist on obsessing over them, at least obsess of the right polls. Specifically, the state-by-state electoral college numbers. Here’s the more meaningful

That’s where things stand right now and despite all the post-convention and Palinmania-fueled national numbers that put McCain slightly ahead, Obama is still in a much, much better position going into November. Not only does he have significantly stronger numbers overall, but a much greater percentage of the electoral votes are in the “strong” category. Now compare the map above the the results of the 2004 election :

If you grant Obama all of the John Kerry states from four years ago, then there’s only 18 more electoral votes needed to push him over the top. With the exception of Michigan and New Hampshire (which I don’t see going Republican), all of the battlegrounds are in red states.

The Kerry states plus Florida or Ohio is enough to push Obama over the top, but unlike Kerry, this year the Dems aren’t putting all their eggs in one of two baskets. While those two states are very close, other possibilities include adding Iowa (7 EV’s) & VA (13 EV’s) or CO (9EV’s), NM (5 EV’s), & NV (5 EV’s) or any combination that adds an additional 18 electoral votes to Kerry’s 2004 total. There are a number of ways Obama can pull this thing off, but McCain’s task is much harder. He has to virtually sweep the toss-up states.

While McCain has undoubtedly gained some momentum in the past week, I think this analysis of the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll perfectly captures the potential pitfalls ahead for McCain :

“The Republican Party, which had been trying to make an argument about experience, basically got off that and came to our field,” Sen. Obama told reporters in Dayton Tuesday. “They realize this is going to be a change election.”

And, the Journal poll showed, voters still say Sen. Obama is most likely to bring change to the country. With that in mind, Sen. McCain is now emphasizing “change” both on the stump and in a new TV ad.

The poll reflects the reality on the campaign trail, where Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain are drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds who often chant her name. Hoping to keep the moment going, the pair is campaign together through Wednesday and may spend even more time together on the stump.

On Tuesday, some 5,000 people in Lebanon, Ohio, came downtown on a cold, rainy morning for an outdoor rally for the Republican ticket. Many wore “I (heart) Sarah” stickers, and the crowd chanted her name repeatedly-even while Sen. McCain was speaking.

McCain’s bounce in the polls is almost entirely because “his” supporters are enthusiastic about Palin, but that enthusiasm comes with a risk. In picking Palin, McCain has ceded that this election is about change. That might help him in during Palin’s honeymoon period, but once the afterglow wears off, Republicans are still stuck with an old man who’s been in Washington for 30 years at the top of the ticket. The best chance McCain has to win is to make voters forget that he’s the nominee, not Palin.

A few weeks ago, we were talking non-stop about how John McCain couldn’t remember how many houses he owned. A few weeks before that, it was that McCain was running ads comparing Obama to Paris Hilton. And now everyone’s talking about Sarah Palin. Whatever. A lot can and will happen in the eight weeks between now and election day. Palin will make some more gaffes, there will be four debates, the inquiry into Troopergate will be released, etc.

If these McCain’s national poll numbers (which are already showing signs of slowing) trickle their way into the state-by-state numbers after the debates, then it’s time to worry.

UPDATE : It’s also worth noting that most of the recent polls showing a lead have some pretty serious methodology problems. I wonder if screwing with party affiliation numbers to make the race look more competitive helps sell newspapers?