Jul 13 2008
Obama Crashing In Polls
I have a theory about this election that (as one would suspect with me) flies against the conventional wisdom. There was no doubt about the amount of energy on the left this year, hoping to leverage their blow out in Congress to take the White House. There is no doubt the conservative base is fractured, thanks to purity wars on the right that were too close (but clearly not identical or violent in any manner) to the purity demanded of al-Qaeda to Islamic followers. Even a faint echo of the mandate for purity that has made al-Qaeda the number one killer of fellow Muslims in a political party here in the states while we are at war can be enough to tip a 50-50 nation to one side and cause huge shifts in the political landscape.
But while that was the context we started the 2008 election season with, it is not the one we find ourselves in now. The Democrat Congress has failed so miserably their approval ratings make the GOP Congress they replaced look marvelous in comparison. Their predictions of failure in Iraq were completely wrong, and now they represent a position that too closely hews to victory for Islamo Fascists. They tried desperately for a year to give al-Qaeda a victory in Iraq by trying to stop the war funding. Now Americans see dangers from following the leftward fever swamps where before they were concerned with the rightward ones.
Outside the far left, until recently, there was enormous energy. And this energy led to some interesting biases in those mechanisms used to measure the political winds of this complex, 50-50 nation. Liberals flocked to the polls to vote in the endless Democrat primary, yet head-to-head matches between the Democrat and GOP contenders show a statistical tie? How could that be?
Just because one side has more energy, is more vocal, is more into the mechanics of politics doesn’t mean there has been a shift in the overall make up of the political make up of the country. There could still be a silent majority out there, ignoring all this as they deal with the important element of their lives. This would have been difficult to argue, until recently, because there is no way to prove the energy of the left was causing an over sampling of their views in a process that is, in the end, voluntary and based on the level of interest of those being sampled.
But since Obama’s flip flops, and especially his flop on the FISA matter and his pending flop on Iraq, the far left has been deflated, their energy sapped out of them as they realized their standard bearer was no longer standing by them. The wind is out of their sails as Obama the forked tongue politician emerges from his primary success.
I think the political chattering class is so out of touch with America right now they have no clue what is happening. It is all inside baseball and relying on historic trends, when everything we have seen about the Bush years indicates we are living in ‘historic times’ and there are no trends to rely on. I caught a hint some might be opening their eyes to this in an interesting piece by Democrat political consultant Bob Beckel:
My 14 year old son loves Barack Obama. …
So I was a little surprised last week when my son asked me, “What’s wrong with Senator Obama?” I asked why. “Because he sounds different”, he says. …
Listening to both videos I get it. Obama did sound different. He was defensive, and I sense a bit annoyed that he was forced to explain himself in North Dakota. …
But the amount of angry internet traffic to Obama’s website suggesting he was abandoning his positions apparently hit a nerve. In a town hall meeting this week Obama was forced to address the charges and to defend his progressive credentials. He blamed the criticism from “my friends on the left” and “some of the media” on their preoccupation with assuming a political calculation is behind every move he makes.
Obama is not flying high anymore. He is not the agent of “change” anymore. And his rapid jerk to the right has really destroyed his movement among the far left:
In the breathless weeks before the Oregon presidential primary in May, Martha Shade did what thousands of other people here did: she registered as a Democrat so she could vote for Senator Barack Obama.
Now, however, after critics have accused Mr. Obama of shifting positions on issues like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, gun control and the death penalty — all in what some view as a shameless play to a general election audience — Ms. Shade said she planned to switch back to the Green Party.
“I’m disgusted with him,†said Ms. Shade, an artist. “I can’t even listen to him anymore.
Betrayal is impossible to get past for a politician and their base. Two camps on the left have had it with Obama: the far left that wanted a strong progressive agenda and the Clinton supporters who felt cheated. Add in the lousy Democrat Congress and you have a Democrat party on the cusp of losing it all, simply because they came here on unrealistic expectations of hope. Now they are being denied all those hopes. Now they see lies and broken promises where once dreams where. Now they are turning away from a process that used them, made them look like fools. I know that feeling – it was what sent me out of the Democrat Party after I naively support Carter in 1980.
And we see this deflation in the polls. A new Newsweek poll is showing a 12 point drop for Obama in one month, going from a 15 point lead to 3 points and a statistical tie. Gallup is also showing a statistical tie. Rasmussen is now showing a real tie.
Is it coincidence that, as the energy from the far left was destroyed by Obama’s move to the center, the polls settled back down into the normal 50-50 state of American politics? Now here is the interesting question: what if the polls are still biased and there really is not a big surge to the left right now? What if these polls are only sampling the higher energy levels between two equally matched (and crippled) political movements?
If he was still alive, I am sure President Dewey could shed some light on this matter. He too faced a war time President and the overhang of a long war effort.
Obama did make political calculations, about a year and a half ago when he and the rest of the pack raced left to win the nomination. In the process they opposed policies they knew were good (Fisa) or ran their mouths about Free Trade, the war, etc.. Now with reality smacking his rhetoric the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. The left has a choice, accept that some of their central premises are wrong, (Not gonna happen) or accept they were wrong about Obama. Of course to admit Bush had a point about Fisa or Free trade, or even the surge is too much. This is does not doom Obama, but disillusionment among his base will be one of the keys to a McCain victory, and this key has turned.
“…and the key has turned.”
Roll Tide, baby! We are gonna win this thing in November! Red, red, red…all over the political map!
America will be saved from the socialists once again.
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I’m seeing something similar. Historically, Republican candidates are at least 10 points behind at this point. If this trend continues, it means Obama will lose badly in November.
On top of this, Dick Morris has long maintained that political parties move to the extremes until they lose…then move back to the center. The Dems did well in ’06 by moving to the center. Since then, they have moved to the Left, while the Republicans have fielded a center-right candidate.
The real question is whether or not McCain will have coattails.
Mike M,
Obama could have negative tails …
It is always the noisy people on both the left and right that state the positions of each party, and usually they don’t speak for me, sometimes they do. The media is decidedly left so there are lots of spokes people loud on the left, on the right it is the game group you AJ call the “purists”. My feeling is that there are not as many “purists” as there are loud mouth leftists. Stating principal is not the same as being a “purists”. I think Fred Thompson stated my thoughts best. On immigration he talked about closed boarders and wide gates. On the war he talked about winning. On terrorism he talked about all agencies working together to fight all aspects of attack. He talked about the need for small less intrusive government. He talked about personal responsibility. He talked about Federalist Principals in choosing judges.
I think that for me on most principals Bush was great. I could name a few who were critical on the right and they were featured over and over again as if they spoke for all Conservatives or Republicans. My bet is that at the polling booth many will not vote for someone who will “change” what ever that means and a “hope”. Obama is going to be forced to state policy to make the hope come about about, and it won’t be good. If John McCain can articulate better the future, many, even enough, will realize that life has been filled with hope and employment and lower taxes which will help all Americans. He needs to say why the last 8 years under the circumstances has not been so bad.
It is always the noisy people on both the left and right that state the positions of each party, and usually they don’t speak for me, sometimes they do. The media is decidedly left so there are lots of spokes people loud on the left, on the right it is the same group you AJ call the “purists”. My feeling is that there are not as many “purists” as there are loud mouth leftists. Stating principal is not the same as being a “purists”. I think Fred Thompson stated my thoughts best. On immigration he talked about closed boarders and wide gates. On the war he talked about winning. On terrorism he talked about all agencies working together to fight all aspects of attack. He talked about the need for small less intrusive government. He talked about personal responsibility. He talked about Federalist Principals in choosing judges.
I think that for me on most principals Bush was great. I could name a few who were critical on the right and they were featured over and over again as if they spoke for all Conservatives or Republicans. My bet is that at the polling booth many will not vote for someone who will “change” what ever that means and a “hope”. Obama is going to be forced to state policy to make the hope come about about, and it won’t be good. If John McCain can articulate better the future, many, even enough, will realize that life has been filled with hope and employment and lower taxes which will help all Americans. He needs to say why the last 8 years under the circumstances has not been so bad.
Kathie:
I agree.
I actually had this discussion today with someone who was not going to vote for McCain. He liked Fred however, and I could not help but think that Fred Thompson will not be sitting home in November, so why should you?
Well AJ; literally for the sake of this Nation, and even Western Civiliaztion, I hope you are correct, and this Marxist-Muslim, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, who practices “Taqiyah”, does not get elected, or we can all kiss our collective rear’s goodbye..
Politicians generally pander to the base until the convention and then run to center. They need the base to get the nomination and then they need the center to get elected. One can not get elected by being extreme.
Obama drew crowds during the Primaries, and his war chest looks more impressive than McCain’s.
But the GOP is out-fundraising the DNC. And ultraconservatives / theocons have been counting their beans : they don’t like McCain but they don’t want a Democratic president either.
To me, the relevant political split in the US is not Reps vs Dems but partisans of the republic and democracy on one side, and theocrats on the other : http://e-blogules.blogspot.com/2007/08/universal-declaration-of-independence.html
Now they see lies and broken promises where once dreams where. Now they are turning away from a process that used them, made them look like fools.random list for each poll?
This process didn’t make them look like fools.They are fools for believing a politician, especially one who had a meteroic rise and who came from Chicago of all places, would do all these things. The whole country knows what Chicago politics are like even if they only know about Elliott Ness.
In politics you vote for the person who will do the least damage or who has the guts to do the right thing. Hope and change is so elusive and vague. It tells you nothing and anyone who bought into the canard is extremely gullible. But then these are the same people who believe man can take God’s place and control the forces of nature.
It is offensive to me to see Obama with halos around his head. I feel it is blasphemous and I am not very religious but I do believe in God. I shudder to think what devout Christians feel when they see it.
I have wondered if these polls are using the same people each time. They say these are random but how random. It is hard to see that these polls are accurate when you factor in the Clinton supporters’ anger, the people who don’t like Obama’s church and religion, his friends who keep coming out of the woodwork. What it looks like is that they use the same people and some of them are falling by the wayside. I don’t trust any of them. I feel they all have an ax to grind.
I have wondered if all this hoopla is to get Clinton elected at the convention. The thought of an extreme left know-nothing maybe getting the presidency could have been implemented to make Clinton more palatable. But I discarded this notion when I remebered that the black population would not go along with it. They are not nuanced enough.
AJ,
Are any of these polls trustworthy?
I think Fox News is in the tank for Obama but they keep having
these experts on that say Obama has the electoral college votes
sewn up, something like 279 – 190, ish
I’ve kind of stopped listening. That m ay be an attempt to demoralize
McCain voters. Certainly Murdoch has come out in support of Obama.
That AOL poll,
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/straw-poll
for last week ended with McCain 64 – Obama 36 , all states red
Yeah I know, it’s not a scientific poll, but it does have a large sample
size (200K) and robot defeating features, I’m inclined to give it some
credibility.
I don’t know if the polls are in the tank for Obama too.
Dave M,
Trustworthy? Under certain conditions yes. When the electorate is very dynamic and times are dynamic – double the margin of error.
I think McCain could be in much better shape if the polls are measuring energy and not preference – which the pollsters have no way of knowing.
I think the only hope still is that the Democrat Congress has negative coattails. I think the oil drilling/gas price issue is the key. That issue, Congress’s failure to allow drilling, could bring down both Obamessiah and Facelift Pelosi.