Half say they believe the Arizona senator would chart a different path from Bush, including a slight majority of independents, a pivotal group of voters.

Holy low information voters, Batman!

I'd like to see more national attention paid to the team of lobbyists, neoconmen, and Rove attack dogs that populate McCain's campaign.
~

MCAIN IS THE TARGET! Palin is a distraction. FOCUS ON MCCAIN!

PS: It's the ECONOMY, Stupid!

McCain campaign has in effect told white folks it's OK to not vote for Obmaa because he's black. The "just under the surface" racist "kindegarten" ad, Obama being "disrespectful" to Palin etc.

Obama can turn this around, but "race" is still the most powerful motivator for many white voters and the McCain campaign is taking that fact to the bank.

Well, I'm sure this is helping him maintain his lead:

http://i36.tinypic.com/2af0c4j.jpg

Is it me, or is McCain's bounce lasting a bit longer than we all thought?

Wow, those of you who accuse us of being concern trolls, we certainly are doing well with the gutless, wimp campaign. Let us here these little girlie boys come out now and tell us how those who want to see a robust campaign were wrong. Yes, let us see how the "high road" has really succeeded. No one suggested the low road. We suggested fighting back against smears, lies and press manipulation. Cowards just do not realize the necessity. Obama seems to understand it. Let us hope it is not too late.

Greg, you should mention the dates the poll was taken.

September 5-10.

That would include the original bounce.

Greggy - you're so sweet to spin this positively.

;)

O yes, JMOHR - you are soo right!

We've already lost. I can feel it. Obama just cannot please anyone! He's done everything but raise the dead, but dammit - he should do more! He's not doing enough. He will never do enough to please me, dammit!

I'll probably throw myself in the Gorge this weekend, so if I don't see ya - adios, mofos.

538.com has an interesting analysis showing that the nationwide bump has not translated into electoral college gains. It now has almost a 10% chance of Obama losing the popular vote but winning the electoral vote.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/todays-polls-911.html

He's white, Christian and an ex-POW--to many of our brethren, a winning trifecta.

McCain is still bouncing in the red states that Obama never was going to win like Oklahoma, Wyoming, Alabama, Kentucky, etc. These red states are skewing the real story which is that the race is as close as ever and the polls aren't capturing the new voters, young voters, and the impact Obama's GOTV efforts will have on the outcome.

It's been 8 days since the RNC wrapped up. Polls are still coming out from the middle of it. The day the bounce was supposed to be its strongest (Tuesday) there were, and still are, polls coming out with Obama ahead. So McCain got a bounce. Whoop-de-doo. But if we subtract 10 points from Obama's number due to the Bradley effect, he's trailing by double digits. Oh noes!

Obama knows what he's doing.

I think most of us here think we could run a better ad campaign then him. Hell, just take 26 second clips from The Daily Show, buy some commercial time, and slap "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message" at the end. I'm sure Jon Stewart wouldn't mind. Yeah, it'd play well with the base. but that's McCain's plan, to get up to 100% with his base and try to peel off just enough PUMAs to win

The thing is, he's being subtler than that. He's trying to win the hearts and minds of the undecided, rather than just rally the "kool-aid drinkers". Is 2 months long enough though?

Substitute "Obamites" for the word "liberals" and I think this sums it up pretty well:

Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, “What Makes People Vote Republican?”, that it’s liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/no-laughing-matter/index.html

It's cool, people, it's cool.
McCain gets his day in the sun- sure we would have rather been ahead the whole time, whatever.
The McCain campaign completely fell into Obama's trap once they started yapping about random stuff. The Palin thing is over.
Remember: "Palin will benefit from low expectations in her debate against Biden."
Now it's the other way around! GOP says "oops!"
BTW- notice how McCain called it the "Democrat Party." I mean, it's only the second oldest political party in the world, why bother getting the name right?

I am worried that though Obama is closing, McCain is going down.

I've talked frankly to some of the newly-enthusiastic. These people were not going to vote before Palin. I am worried that the bounce isn't just fluctuation of the electorate, but an expansion in the size of the electorate.

Obama's negative computer literacy ad was lame.

Now, THIS is a great ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQobIUE1zTU.

I am worried that though Obama is closing, McCain is NOT going down.

Correction

Ha ha - check out McCain getting browbeaten for his lying and sleaze on the View of all places!

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/McCain_gets_BeharBarbara_whiplash.html?showall

Look at ole Traitor John squirm!!

Why is the View practicing tougher journalism that the MSM??

Excellent point. Further support for Obama's electoral vote strength can be found by looking at the RCP comparison of state-by-state polls with the 2000 and 2004 state results:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/

All Obama needs to do is win every Gore state plus 1. Currently, he's ahead in CO and NH- after the convention bounce.

As long as Obama hangs on to Gore states MI, PA, and NM and then picks up Bush 2000 states NH and CO (or just one of them) he is fine.

Palin may be able to help McCain run up popular vote counts by mobilizing Texans and Deep Southerners, but that doesn't change the fact that 270 electoral votes is the magic number.

The debate is not about Palin. The debate is about McCain as Bush's third term. Choosing someone who is manifestly unqualified and then lying about her record, again and again and agin comes straight out of the Rove-Bush-Cheney playbook. Refusing to let the press ask questions of the person who could be president unless they show "deference" comes out of Putin's Russia.

Don't forget that the one asset McCain really had was his supposed character. Now that is gone.

There were a lot of people who were playing Debbie Downer last summer when Obama was trailing in the polls. The thing to do if you want to say ENOUGH is to FIGHT back. Don't quibble, don't whine. FIGHT. Fight back by phonebanking or registering voters or donating money.

Obama's going to win not because he finally takes the low road but because he and his supporters rise above it. That's been his strategy from the beginning. Register voters. Make calls. Raise money. It has worked, and it will work.