US election minus 40 days

Gallup‘s three-day tracking poll shows the situation in the US presidential race throughout September as follows:

Barack Obama held a slight lead as the month began, which seems to be the long-term status quo. Then came the Republican convention and Sarah Palin bounce, which briefly put McCain well ahead. This moderated into a slight lead when the dust settled, before being wiped out with the onset of the banking crisis. However, Obama’s six-point lead at the start of this week has narrowed, despite polls giving him a clear lead on economic issues – surely a great boon in the current environment. Much is being said of an ABC-Washington Post poll which has Obama nine points in front, but this appears to be out on a limb. In any case, Gallup’s historical analysis reminds us that a lot can happen in the next six weeks, one way or the other.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,141 comments on “US election minus 40 days”

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  1. So let me get this straight. McCain deliberately scuttled the $700bn bail out that was close to being negotiated because? Some Republicans wanted to use the opprotunity to make the market even more unregulated.

    These guys are hard core viscious and greedy.

    That proposal reportedly includes even more deregulation and further tax breaks to the financial sector, plus a prayer that Wall Street can rescue itself if the restraints are removed.
    http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/09/26/republicans-scuttle-gop-bailout-plan/

  2. Why should McCain appear on a comedy show? He’s trying to signal “no business as usual” and that was a good way of doing so. Letterman is a Democrat who has ridiculed McCain as senile all year, and McCain owes him no favours.

  3. TP, yes, McCain and his colleagues in the Congress scuttled it. McCain is pretending he is “above” it all but that is bs. He is buried in it up to his eyeballs. Obama will take him to the cleaners in the debate tomorrow. 11am to 1pm on ABC1 🙂

  4. I think the problem was that McCain canceled the Letterman because he was going to be out of town – however what happened was he was doing an interview with Curic a few blocks away – which Letterman was able to bring up on screen – exactly at the same time he was supposed to be on his show.

    Got to count your fingers when you do negotiations with Mc Cain

  5. [Why should McCain appear on a comedy show? He’s trying to signal “no business as usual” and that was a good way of doing so. Letterman is a Democrat who has ridiculed McCain as senile all year, and McCain owes him no favours.]

    He was booked to appear

  6. He won’t be able to back out of it and save face as I see it …… Obama will be there no matter what 😉

    [ Obama and McCain both held out hope that they could still meet in Oxford, Miss., tonight for their long-scheduled first debate as they settled in to overnight in Washington. “I think he knows that I’m going to be there,” Obama said in his own appearance on ABC. But McCain’s campaign said that no travel decisions had been made as of last night.

    “I understand how important this debate is and I am hopeful,” McCain said on ABC News.

    The independent Commission on Presidential Debates said yesterday that it is “moving forward” with its plans for the face-off. ]

    [ While McCain advisers have refused to discuss his debate preparation, senior aides have been traveling with him for more than a week, prepping him when the campaign has down time, and there was extra work over the weekend. One aide said privately that this debate will be different for McCain, because he never reached a point during the primaries, as Obama did, when the debates regularly became two-candidate affairs. ]

    Both bits from the Washington Post, articles from today US time so 24 hour prior to debate time. The last bit seems to imply if you read between the lines that they will be there. I’m guessing that the whole thing of what McCain has been doing over the last 48 hours has been just a stunt.

  7. When McCain does anything unusual it is always a stunt, but when Obama does anything unusual it is always a bold new departure. I doubt the liberal media even know they are doing it, it is just hard-wired behaviour.

  8. [McCain has said he will only do the debate if there has been a deal on Wall St. As of now there is no deal, and the chances one by Friday evening US time seem not very good.]

    If he doesn’t show up he will get hammered in the press, and the polls, regardless of what he pretends he is doing instead

  9. Well Obama ought to do the debate, you can’t be manipulated by your oponent like that. People will tune for at least the first part of it and it will certainly make all the news for the very fact McCain stayed away, with no doubt sound bites form Obama saying a President should be able to do with two or more issues at a time.

    The thing with McCain and Letterman is dishonesty. McCain booked to be on the show – McCain canceled because he was going to be out of town – it was a lie. It seems that McCain is even more at home with dishonesty than GWB which is a bit of a worry.

  10. In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

    “I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

    Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

    The question is how this will all play out in the public’s eye. Will they see it as Republican’s or McCain playing games.?

  11. Re 68,

    Seems like Paulson ought to have been talking to the Republican leader in the House, not the Speaker. She can’t order the Republicans to get in line ……. Speakership doesn’t work like that in the HOR ….

  12. TP (68)

    [The question is how this will all play out in the public’s eye. Will they see it as Republican’s or McCain playing games.?]

    Or perhaps they’ll see it as the Democrats being obstructive. Isn’t that the big danger?

  13. [He’ll get hammered in the liberal press, and praised in the conservative press. So what else is new?]

    What’s new is that the polls on the subject have shown very few support postponing the debates. Regardless of the press, simply skipping the debate will hurt him with voters.

  14. [Or perhaps they’ll see it as the Democrats being obstructive. Isn’t that the big danger?]

    Not when polls of voters have shown that most are for strict conditions being placed on the bailout, which is what the Democrats are trying to impose

  15. About the way the university in Missouri is getting ready for the debate tomorrow night US time 😉 …..

    [ The student newspaper, The Daily Mississippian, ran a front-page photo yesterday of an Ole Miss student holding a hand-painted sign that altered McCain’s logo to say: “McCain Bailin’.” Students and locals were soaking up the charged political atmosphere: Big-screen TVs were set up for a massive debate-watching party among the oaks and magnolias of the Grove, where football fans normally hold tailgate parties before Saturday games. ]

  16. McCains a joke already. At least with Bush we had to wait for a few week after his election.

    Frank: Republicans “winced” when McCain was mentioned in meeting

    Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that “nobody mentioned McCain” during the several-hour-long meeting on the $700 billion market rescue plan, other than Frank and that his Republican colleagues “winced” when he did.

    “He’s been irrelevant to the process. He remains to be,” said Frank. “I was afraid that his dropping in here, like Andy Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse—’here I am to save the day’—I thought that would slow things down. I didn’t see any sign of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever.”

    Franks went on. “Nobody mentioned him. The man’s irrelevant to the whole process. No Republican mentioned his name. I’m the only one who raised his name. They winced when I did,” he said.

    “I don’t think anyone takes that seriously,” said Frank of McCain’s suggestion that Friday’s debate be delayed. “Sen. McCain trying to use the necessity for his presence to reach a deal that we’ve already reached as a reason to duck the debate is unworthy of him. There is absolutely no reason not to go to the debate.”
    http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0908/Frank_Republicans_winced_when_McCain_was_mentioned_in_meeting.html?showall

  17. Oh yes and this funny little bit:

    [Though he said McCain’s presence would be unhelpful, he did say, getting a dig in at McCain’s running mate, that there “were times when I was ready to suggest that, when we got to some of the more complicated issues about how do you price these sophisticated instruments, that we ask him to make Sarah Palin available to give us her expertise.”]

  18. Adam @ 57,

    Obama will have a televised event tomorrow no matter what McCain does. Obama and McCain are playing a huge game of chicken and when it came time for Obama to make his move, he didn’t blink 😉 ….. [ Barack Obama is committed to hosting a public, televised event Friday night in Mississippi even if John McCain does not show up, an official close to the Obama campaign tells the Huffington Post. In McCain’s absence, the Senator is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two, the official said. Such a course of action could make life incredibly difficult for McCain, who has called for the suspension of the debate in light of the current economic crisis. Should he stay in Washington D.C. — if a bailout is not completed by then — and let Obama alone reach tens of millions of television viewers? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/obama-will-make-debate-a_n_129250.html ]

  19. FINNS
    Posted Friday, September 26, 2008 at 3:37 pm | Permalink

    “Gallup Tracking 09/22 – 09/24 46 46 Tie
    Rasmussen Tracking 09/22 – 09/24 49 46 Obama +3

    I ask you, what is wrong with effing Obama?”

    As you see Amigo , you got NO answer !
    Just silence , and thus has it been from day one , an incapacity of Obama supporters to undrstand psephology , but then of those those who believe in elitist intellegentsia don’t find reality comforting anyway

  20. Re #78 [ for those who don’t care to link through and read the whole article],

    [ UPDATE III: McCain aide Tucker Bounds tells MSNBC, “we’re going into the debates.” ]

    McCain has no bloody idea what he is going on about.

  21. [As you see Amigo , you got NO answer !
    Just silence , and thus has it been from day one , an incapacity of Obama supporters to undrstand psephology , but then of those those who believe in elitist intellegentsia don’t find reality comforting anyway]

    I already responded to his question Ron. Way to ignore as you usually do. How are the sour grapes?

  22. [ Sell! Sell! McCain is tanking!

    By Dan Payne
    September 26, 2008

    JOHN MCCAIN’S move to suspend his campaign and TV spots and to dodge tonight’s debate is a panic attack, not cagey tactics. Place your “sell” order now. His poll numbers are tanking, fewer and fewer Americans believe Sarah Palin is qualified, and his campaign manager has been exposed as a well-paid lobbyist for bankrupt Freddie Mac.

    http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/26/sell_sell_mccain_is_tanking/ ]

  23. I don’t think anyone knows what the political effects of any of this stuff will be just now. We are in totally uncharted waters at the moment. The electorate is very angry, but they haven’t decided yet at whom to direct their anger. That’s why the Congressional Repubs are running away from the Bush-Paulsen plan. They don’t want to be associated with it if the voters decide it’s all a giant swindle. The Dems are the majority in Congress so they will have to take responsibility, either for passing the plan, or for not passing it. They don’t know which alternative is worse. I don’t think McCain knows what he is doing, but at least he’s giving an impression of action, whereas Obama isn’t doing anything as far as I can see. Over the next week or two we will find out who has positioned themselves better.

  24. One thing I have found about searching through a number of papers around the country and networks in the USA is the wide diversity of opinion.

    You get strong Republican and Democrat papers and in betweens – thus if you support one side or the other fairly strongly there is a paper for you but, if your a swinging voter you get to see a variety of views. Unfortunately you dont get that in Australia.

    That is the wonder of diversity in the media. And I get the feeling that the quality of political analysis is much higher than we often get in Australia.

  25. Adam @ 85, I read one article this evening which says point blank that Pelosi has said the Democrats will NOT sign onto ANY deal period UNLESS both McCain and a majority of Republicans also support it. Dems are playing hardball on this and that way they can not be wedged.

  26. The Wall St Journal is being quite scathing about McCain. They are backing the Paulsen plan and they don’t like the way McCain and the Congressional Repubs are trying to run away from it. But who’s to say what next week’s polls will show?

  27. [but at least he’s giving an impression of action]

    What impression of action? He said he was suspending his campaign and immediately going to Washington then, went and did TV interviews for the rest of the day and didn’t get to Washington until over 24 hours later! He’s a fraud, and has been called out on it.

  28. Yes GG I agree. McCain is behind, and when you’re behind you have to take more risks. He took a big risk with Palin, and so far it has paid off. Now he is gambling again. Maybe he will crash and burn. Maybe he won’t. Maybe Obama’s bland platitudes won’t cut it either. I don’t claim to know what will happen.

  29. Dario, if McCain can claim to have cut the deal that gets a package through Congress with bipartisan support, and make that claim stick, he will be a big winner, and Obama will be seen as Professor Waffle again.

  30. [Dario, if McCain can claim to have cut the deal that gets a package through Congress with bipartisan support]

    He’s got very little chance of that. He’s on none of the committes and the Dems won’t let him run the show. They’re not stupid. The guy just seems totally unhinged.

  31. Adam,

    At the end of the day you stand or fall by what you believe.

    McCain and the Repubs believe the market will ultimatley fix all.
    Obama and Co believe that you need controls and regulations.

    People are really peeved atm re the economic situation. But, I believe the US belief in markets is too inculcated to believe their will be a massive change of attitude.

    Attitudes change over time, but not instantly.

  32. GG: No, at the end of the day you stand or fall by what the voters decide about you. Obama ought to be 20% ahead after such a catastrophic policy failure by the incumbent administration as this represents. So why isn’t he?

    Dario: It’s all about impressions. Maybe the Repubs are pretending to oppose the Paulsen so that they be “won over” by McCain and he gets all the credit. Who knows? You don’t, and nor do I.

  33. And I remind you that at this point in 1976 Jimmy Carter *was* 20% ahead of the hapless bonehead Gerry Ford, who was carrying Watergate on his back, and in the end he won by just 2%. There’s lots of juice in this race yet.

  34. [Obama ought to be 20% ahead after such a catastrophic policy failure by the incumbent administration as this represents. So why isn’t he?]

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. He’s black.

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