In the latest NYT/WSJ poll, Barack Obama has a 47-41 percent advantage over John McCain, which is no great surprise. Fuurthermore:
But Obama's lead over McCain expands to 13 points when third-party candidates Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are added into the mix — with Obama at 48 percent, McCain at 35 percent, Nader at 5 percent and Barr at 2 percent. However, it's important to note that the pro-Obama vote (48 percent) and anti-Obama vote (adding up to 42 percent) is consistent with the result from the two-way match up.
“This remains Barack Obama's election to win,” Hart says. “In the end, the election is about reassuring voters and removing doubts.”
Or maybe not. Also according to the poll, 55 percent think Obama would be the riskier choice for presidency; just 35 percent say that of McCain. With only 13 percent think the country is headed in the right direction (the lowest percentage in the history of the poll), the voters seem to prefer the risk over same-old same old.
Comments
McCain is not a "risk" in the sense that the costs are known -- we've done it before and know what the results are. Trouble is, the results suck.
Part of the Obama risk is that it isn't obvious what he stands for - and what he won't stand for. He can only show the answer to that by showing that he is resolute and forceful - but that also makes him look like an "angry black man". He'd lose a LOT of votes, if people perceived him as an angry black man.
The other thing is that Obama has what shrinks call a "flat affect." That's not "uh-fect", but "afff-fect". Anyone else would call it a poker face - and that's what the Obama campaign should be talking about. They should be selling Obama as someone without an agenda, pointing out that the president can only sign bills once Congress has passed them, and pointing out that the president is really a negotiator.
If you're a good negotiator, the campaign could say, you can talk to anyone about anything, and come out on top. With a poker face like his, he should be an excellent negotiator. And we really do need to talk to the leaders of other lands. You learn from talking to others. Over the past 7 years, we've learned that a policy of ignorance just doesn't work, and it's time to try something else.
Anyone that thinks Obama has it sewn up is on something. On the other hand, if McCain wins, it won't be because of the campaign he has run, but because of the campaign Obama has run.
Harl, I'd be curious to see Obamas "negotiating skills" without a pre-written and rehearsed speech. He is an absolute master at reciting platitudes and actually saying nothing.
Tim, he negotiated a deal with his fellow lawmakers in Illinois to get the police to videotape ALL interrogations, not just confessions, in Illinois.
The FOP was very much against it, and lobbied hard to keep it from happening.
But defense attorneys had been complaining that confessions were often coerced. He told fellow Democrats it would stop police from coercing confessions, and he told Republicans it would stop judges from throwing out confessions, because the videotapes would show that they hadn't been coerced.
And what's wrong with "pre-written and rehearsed"? I make to-do lists all the time, and keep a shopping list so I get everything we need when I go to the store. Don't you plan ahead? We've had two terms of an administration that doesn't believe in "pre-written and rehearsed" and it's done a hell of a lot to make us appreciate how much smarter George the father was than his son.
Harl, with all due respect, he's a freakin novice with NO verifiable credentials, but he's handsome, young and black. Wow.
What credentials to lead the free world.
Please put your misguided admiration aside and think with your head.
Tim, he's currently managing a campaign that has grown to about 1000 employees in less than a year, the largest political campaign in the history of the republic, and they aren't making many missteps, which is unusual for a political campaign - or, for that matter, for any organization that has grown more than 100-fold in size in less than a year.
Who's he running again?
A enemy ace who managed to down 5 American aircraft.
A man who abandoned his first wife, because she was in a wreck.
A man whose drug-addict wife after 28 years of marriage doesn't trust him enough to drop the provisions of the pre-nup.
A man who is so good at management that his campaign has repeatedly gone broke at critical times.
A man who has signed a confession of war crimes.
A man who lately has dropped every principle he ever espoused, embracing preachers he once labeled agents of intolerance, embracing tax cuts while running the largest deficits in history, even embracing treating prisoners far worse than the Nazis did.
A man who claims to be qualified to be commander in chief, even though the largest unit he's commanded in an act of war was the single aircraft he was piloting.
A man who repeatedly has shown that he doesn't really understand what's happening politically in Iraq.
A man who voted to attack Iraq because, uh, what was that reason again? Was it the weapons of mass destruction they didn't have, or the attack on 9/11 that they weren't involved with?
THOSE are credentials to lead the free world?
If McCain were to pick someone as VP who was a solid conservative, someone of recognized good character, and proven executive experience, and then would die shortly after the convention, the GOP might win this election.
Sarah Palin is popular, but not very experienced. Schwartzenegger is foreign-born. Charlie Crist is gay. Haley Barbour might be OK or Rick Perry. John Hoeven would be an interesting choice. Robert Gates and Tom Ridge probably have too many skeletons in the closet.
But otherwise, the GOP can't win the election with only 13% of the voters thinking the country is headed down the right path. Barring a major screwup, Obama is as good as elected.
Respectfully Harl, you are full of sh%t. I didn't ask for a diatribe against his opponent. I simply pointed out that the "Messiah" speaks of nothing of substance. I'm not a huge McCain fan, but I am far less an Obama fan for the simple fact he offers nothing besides 'HOPE" "CHANGE" and "YES WE CAN"... Yes we can WHAT???????????
Give me ONE solid thing..any solid thing...any semblance of a solid thing Barry proposes.....All I hear (and the masses) is "I'll make our life better"....
Well call me picky, but HOW ?????
I hate to be a "double poster" but I just re-listened The Messiahs mantra.
I have never heard more inconsequential horseshit in my life, and I've been listening to politicians since I could vote in 1976.
I don't care if you vote for Bob Barr, John MCcain, or Ralph Nader.....Just don't put this in experienced wanna be in the White House.
I didn
Harl, I'm gonna vote for the best man for the job...out of 2 choices. I'm a pragmatist. I must subscribe to the theory of "the lesser of two evils" as that is the system I have to deal with. It may not be perfect, but it is the best system on the planet.
I don't have confidence in Barry, he's all talk. I don't care about his "negative" past, as I don't care about McCains' negative past. If you are a "glass half full" kind of guy, as I am you must find the positives on both sides and vote accordingly.
If you like platitudes and sound bytes, with no real plans, Barry is your guy.
Common sense dictates a vote for the lesser of two evils.
If you are a
Face it, Tim...you're dealing with someone even MENSA didn't wish to have on their membership rolls...LOL.
You'll N-E-V-E-R get the "last" word...trust me.
(It's like the old saying: "People that think they know everything are extrememly bothersome to those of that actually DO")
And I KNOW that YOU don't drink Kool-Aid, Tim.
;)
B.G.