watching the polls
McCain Surges in New Montana Poll
By Matthew Frank, 9-09-08
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| See the trends at Pollster.com | |
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A poll released Tuesday by Rasmussen Reports has John McCain up 11 points over Barack Obama in Montana, 53 percent to 42 percent, compared to the one point advantage he held in a similar poll conducted at the end of July.
Other findings:
- McCain is now viewed favorably by 60% of Montana voters, little changed from 59% in July. However, the number with a Very Favorable opinion of the Republican hopeful jumped from 26% in July to 35% today.
- Obama earns positive reviews from 50% of Montana voters, down slightly from 53% in July.
- Sarah Palin is viewed favorably by 59% of Montana voters, a figure that includes 44% with a Very Favorable opinion of her.
- In Montana, Biden is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 47%.
- 55% of voters in Montana say McCain made the right choice in picking Palin as his running mate. Just 35% say Obama made the right choice.
- Sen. Max Baucus holds a comfortable 30+ point lead over Republican challenger Bob Kelleher.
With only a handful of polls conducted in Montana with fairly large fluctuations—Obama had a five point lead July 1—it’s tough to gauge how accurate this one is, but it would appear that adding Palin to the ticket boosted McCain, considering that 44% view her very favorably. It could also be a Palin-fueled convention bounce, typically short-lived.
But it doesn’t bode well for Obama in Montana, one in a trio of traditionally red states—North Dakota and Indiana, too—with high ratios of working-class Democrats where the campaign is going “full steam ahead,” as campaign manager David Plouffe said during a briefing with reporters today.
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Comments
Does anyone know where I can buy my "Don't blame me I voted for Obama bumper sticker"?
Does anyone know where I can buy my "Don't blame me I voted for Obama" bumper sticker?
"Never land ranch tone of skin."
Someone is getting real unhinged and letting their true feelings fly. Are you a secessionist Mr./Ms. Hells? Is that why you don't like me pointing out that your boy Todd is?
You must not like the "Northern Exposure" that is currently going on. Pretty soon your savior Palin will be known as a bigger "serial exaggerator" than Al Gore by the media. Better swear her off the Earth tones or it will be real trouble.
And too bad Craig isn't around here anymore, he could assure me that your comment isn't racist.
The sooner we develop domestic alternatives to our addiction to foreign oil, the better. We can't wait 10 years for Alaskan oil or California oil.
DRILL!
The longest oil futures market is 84 months. That is 6 years. There will be no increase in domestic production from offshore drilling within 6 years.
Craig is that you?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMtvzhUJmkDwVPsjJ0vhp-MDl1-gD934RHCG0
Analysis: McCain's claims skirt facts, test voters
By CHARLES BABINGTON – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He accuses Democrat Barack Obama of calling Palin a pig, which did not happen. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead.
Even in a political culture accustomed to truth-stretching, McCain's skirting of facts has stood out this week. It has infuriated and flustered Obama's campaign, and campaign pros are watching to see how much voters disregard news reports noting factual holes in the claims.
McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more notable because many political insiders consider him one of the greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally unstable.
Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced less-than-truthful campaigning. Vowing to live up to his "straight talk" motto, he apologized for his reluctance to criticize the flying of the Confederate flag at South Carolina's state Capitol in a bid for votes. When the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked the military record of Democrat and fellow Navy officer John Kerry in 2004, McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."
Now, top aides to McCain include Steve Schmidt, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush's premier political adviser in 2000.
Politicians usually modify or drop claims when a string of newspaper and TV news accounts concludes they are untrue or greatly exaggerated. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, conceded she had not come under sniper fire in Bosnia after a batch of debunking articles subjected her to scorn during her primary contest against Obama.
But McCain and his running mate Palin, the Alaska governor, were defiant this week in the face of similar reports. Day after day she said she had told Congress "no thanks" to the so-called Bridge to Nowhere, a rural Alaska project that was abandoned when critics challenged its costs and usefulness. For nearly a week, major news outlets had documented that Palin supported the bridge when running for governor in 2006, noting that she turned against it only after it became an object of ridicule in Alaska and a symbol of Congress's out-of-control earmarking.
The McCain-Palin campaign made at least three other aggressive claims this week that omitted key details or made dubious assumptions to criticize Obama. It equated lawmakers' requests for money for special projects with corruption, even though Palin has sought nearly $200 million in such "earmarks" this year.
It produced an Internet ad implying that Obama had called Palin a pig when he used a familiar phrase, which McCain also has used, about putting "lipstick on a pig" to try to make a bad situation look better. McCain supporters said Obama was slyly alluding to Palin's description of herself as a pit bull in lipstick, but there was nothing in his remarks to support the claim. Obama accused the GOP campaign of "lies and phony outrage."
The lipstick wars were fully engaged when the McCain campaign produced another ad saying Obama favored "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. The charge triggered the sort of headlines becoming increasingly common in major newspapers and wire services monitoring the factual content of political ads and speeches.
"Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy," was the headline on a New York Times article Thursday. "McCain's 'Education' Spot is Dishonest, Deceptive," The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" article said.
Major news outlets have written such fact-checking articles for years. "But in the last two election cycles, the very notion that the facts matter seems to be under assault," said Michael X. Delli Carpini, an authority on political ads at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. "Candidates and their consultants seem to have learned that as long as you don't back down from your charges or claims, they will stick in the minds of voters regardless of their accuracy or at a minimum, what the truth is will remain murky, a matter of opinion rather than fact."
With Palin giving McCain's campaign a boost in the polls, Obama supporters are nervously watching to see what impact the latest claims will have. Surveys already show that most people believe Obama would raise their taxes — a regular McCain claim — even though independent groups such as the Tax Policy Center concluded that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under his proposals.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds defended the campaign's statements. "We include factual backup in every one of our TV spots," he said Thursday.
Obama, of course, has made exaggerated or questionable assertions as well. Earlier this year, for instance, he repeated a claim that more black men are in prison than in college, after news accounts refuted it. He also used a McCain remark about having troops in Iraq for "100 years" to exaggerate McCain's proposals for being fully engaged militarily in that country.
In general, however, Obama has been quicker to react to news accounts challenging his accuracy. Faced with skeptical reports this year, for instance, he stopped saying he "worked his way" through college, and instead credited hard work and scholarships.
Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now teaches politics at the University of Southern California, said McCain and Obama learned they must stretch the truth "when staying on the high road didn't work out to their benefit."
McCain, he said, "tried it his way. He had a poverty tour and nobody covered it. He had a national service tour, and everybody made fun of it. He proposed these joint town halls" with Obama, "and nothing come of it. Through the spring and early summer, that approach didn't work. You can't blame him for taking a step back and reassessing."
EDITOR'S NOTE _ Charles Babington covers national politics for The Associated Press.
My note: The end indicates that McCain felt he couldn't win by playing fair, and if he couldn't win by playing fair then he would cheat. ??? A real maverick would rather lose a campaign than lose his honor.