McCain Camp Responds To Poll: No, We're Only Trailing Obama By Seven Points!
The McCain campaign is clearly alarmed by the public's perceptions of yesterday's Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, which put Barack Obama ahead 49%-37%. They've now blasted out to reporters a memo from GOP pollster Public Opinion Strategies, arguing that they aren't down by that much.
POS argues that the party identification from the LAT/Bloomberg poll was too beneficial to the Dems, at 39% Democrats to 22% Republicans. "If party identification on the L.A. Times survey is recalculated to just down by ten (29% GOP / 39% Dem / 27% Ind / 5% Don't Know/Refused)," they argue, "the ballot would be 40% McCain - 47% Obama."
I'm not sure just how much of an improvement that really is, for the GOP nominee to be polling at only 40% and seven points behind a Democrat who was unknown to most Americans until this past year.
basically, they're saying if you change the facts and the reality so that they become more suitable to us, then we're only down by 7.
June 25, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe they haven't considered that fewer people want to call themselves Republicans this time around!
June 25, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn, you're making me thirsty with that picture. While I realize it's 5:00 somewhere in the world, I've still got a few hours to go. Clearly, I need to avoid the threads where you're showing up.
June 25, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love that the McCain's first response out of the gate to any news, good or bad is always unintentionally hilarious.
June 25, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh. Yeah, it's not like there are aren't plenty of other surveys that show the GOP is worse off than "down by ten" in party ID. But if you assume they're all wrong...!
June 25, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we got all the free throws, we'd have lost the final Playoffs game by only 7 points!
Keyword: LOST
Little John, in elections you don't get an A for effort. You get an E for Epic Fail.
June 25, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
After bashing the Newsweek poll as an "outlier," this is the new "strategy."
LOL
June 25, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
When they lose the election by 15, they'll argue that they only lost by 7, which makes all the difference to their egos.
June 25, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe they're playing the expectations game for the next General Election contest...
"All the pundits were saying we would lose that one by 15 and we only lost by 7. You'll see next Tuesday that... Wait... What?"
June 25, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, was this ever a stupid move.
1. It keeps the story about the poll alive for another news cycle.
2. The McCain camp has just admitted that the only question is how far he's behind, not if he's behind.
3. Even in their best-case scenario, they admit that the GOP brand is so badly tainted that they trail Democrats by 10 points in party ID.
Just an idiotic move.
Also, check out fivethirtyeight.com's pollster rankings. POS is one of the worst polling firms out there.
June 25, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's why it's called POS.
June 25, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been waiting for someone to call out POS for their awful/ironic/accurate initials...
June 25, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
they are behind on the national poll in double digits. the state plls are a bit closer, but mcmunster still looses. quit whining! he's 71 going on 3
June 25, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
More delusional behavior from the Dementia Candidate.
June 25, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait, the wingnut talking heads will now claim the inerrancy of the Gallup tracking poll.
Book it.
June 25, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Gallup says ZERO.
Who gives a damn? It's fuckin' June. And here's a song:
====================================
June is bustin' out all over
All over the meadow and the hill!
Buds're bustin' outa bushes
And the rompin' river pushes
Ev'ry little wheel that wheels beside the mill!
June is bustin' out all over
The feelin' is gettin' so intense,
That the young Virginia creepers
Hev been huggin' the bejeepers
Outa all the mornin' glories on the fence!
Because it's June...
June, June, June
Just because it's June, June, June!
Fresh and alive and gay and young
June is a love song, sweetly song
June is bustin' out all over!
The saplin's are bustin' out with sap!
Love hes found my brother, Junior,
And my sister's even loonier!
And my Ma is gettin' kittenish with Pap!
June in bustin' out all over
=======================================
Notice, there's no mention of people sitting on their putty butts blogging all day.
June 25, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
What in the fuck is a "putty butt"??
You remind me of a kid I went to summer camp with. At lunch, we made up rhyming songs against other houses...you know, "Skip, Skip, strong and able, get your elbows off the table." Big fun.
We had this one kid named Thornburg who didn't quite get the idea. He kept trying to get us to holler things like "Everything would be so peachy if you would not be so noisy." "Thornburg, that doesn't RHYME!" "Yes it does! Peach-Y, nois-Y, isn't that a rhyme?"
Anyway, he wasn't such a bad person, boring, but a lot of people are. The point I was making is that a few years later they discovered that he had a baseball-sized tumor in his brain, and he died in the hospital of an aneurysm.
June 25, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll. Today they have it a tie, 45-45. With the Newsweek and LAT Times polls showing Obama with a double digit lead and with Rasmussen's daily tracking poll - which tends to lean a bit Republican - showing Obama with a pretty consistent 5-7pt lead over McCain, what the hell is up with the Gallup poll, which has had the race a statistical tie for about two weeks running? I mean, given the other polls now out there - eg, the ones I mentioned above - do we know have to consider Gallup's daily tracking the outlier? Even their recent non-tracking poll had Obama ahead, 50-44.
Also, in the commentary on the poll today, they noted that McCain has done better the past two days. What happened to give McCain a bump?
June 25, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe they're back to their 1948 mode:
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!
June 25, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
He laid out his energy plan...
June 25, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems to me what they're trying to say (and some of you polling experts correct me if I'm wrong) is that there's no way Republican party ID is at just 22 percent.
This from the memo of Messrs. McInturff and Kanevsky and Ms. Harrington:
(emphasis mine)
NEWSFLASH: A lot of shit has gone down since February!
June 25, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pretty bad when your major message for the day is pushback against poll methodology.
June 25, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, tweak the numbers until they match what you need and when that's still not enough, then argue that your losing numbers are actually a sign of strength if you just think about them the right way.
Glad to hear Ickes, Mcauliffe and Penn have found gainful employment with a new Senator...
June 25, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reminds me of the Dish TV commercial:
90% of all statistics can say what ever you want.
90%?
50% of the time.
I think we can make that work!
June 25, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
"POS"? A partisan Republican polling firm is actually called "POS"?
June 25, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice!
June 25, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I actually would hope that the national numbers were alot closer. People will just get complacent and think obama has it in the bag, which he doesn't. Also, the state by state polls are much, much closer and these national polls really are a bunch of bs. We don't have a national election, so I don't think that they should even do these stupid polls.
I hope this isn't a dreaded double post, but I got an error message last time.
June 25, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
538 had a post a couple of weeks ago (I wish I had the time to look for it now so I could give you a link but must work occasionally) that was about how the national polls realy do show who is winning because the state polls tend to track with them so as your national numbers go up states flip into your collumn. They report that their simulations show that a situation where a candidate wins the popular vote but loose the election is rare and can only happen when the candidates are near tied in the national vote.
June 25, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see that argument and in a normal election, that is probably accurate. However, this election will be far from normal. Obama will probably poll greater than most dems in red states and not necessarily win the state, which would boost his national number. Also, I really believe that the national polls are skewed by bigger states, which favor the dems. Look at what happened with clinton. She was leading in the national polls for a long time after her losses in February. I attribute that to the fact that she was winning in cali and ny. It took a while for her national number to come down and it didn't come down that far. I foresee the same situation with obama v. mccain. It will come down to wins in states that are close by obama. Therefore, I believe that the national polling number gives people a false sense of security, which is not something that you want in a close election. I hope I'm wrong, but the only vote that counts is on election day and I wouldn't want people being complacent about voting because they thought obama locked it up.
June 25, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't wait for the post on the new Gallup poll...
June 25, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, that should get more press anyway. They are neck and neck. It's a horserace.
June 25, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
More like "neck and jowls"
June 25, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, very funny.
June 25, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was stupid, on their part. It makes them look anxious and afraid.
And talking about "Republican" identification is dumb, as well, because that can be used to highlight the fact that people are flocking to the Democratic brand...
June 25, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Something stupid coming out of the McCain campaign? Shocker!
June 25, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
A few years back the Chicago Bears had a terrible head coach named Dave Wannstedt (now head coach at Pitt, I believe). "Wannie" soon became known for a standard response in post-game losses' press conferences -- of which he had many -- that went something like this: "It was the big plays that killed us. Take away their 80-yard touchdown pass where our guy turned the wrong way and the 90-yard kickoff return where our coverage broke down and we're right in that ball game."
Wannie never got it down that you CAN'T take those things away, and letting them happen by breakdowns and mistakes meant that the Bears were not WORTHY of winning those games.
So, Team McSame is saying "Cut their lead in half and we still lose." How these so-called professionals could actually be dumber in their field than Wannie was in his field should scare the shyte out of the GOP. Maybe Grampa Fred Thompson is involved somehow.
June 25, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
My bet's on the geniuses who scheduled his speech, early in the night, on June 3, in front of that ghastly green background.
June 25, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm likin' your tone, Eric. I'm likin' it ALOT.
June 25, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
How reminiscent is this of the huge pushback Team Clinton (and Edwards) made with the Iowa poll from Ann (don't recall her last name) three days before the election? "It can't be true!" Too funny.
They might want to spend a bit more time figuring out how to pull their campaign together rather than worrying about poll #3 showing a double digit lead. A trip to Canada and then Mexico within the space of a week? Huh? I hope they realize not everyone in North American can vote in our election.
June 25, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
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June 25, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the poll shows you losing and you want to fiddle the numbers, why the hell wouldn't you announce that you were ahead? "We're less behind!" is a crummy slogan.
June 25, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The surge is working! Go McCain 08!
www.womenforjohnmccain.com
June 25, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink