Aug 04 2008
Lose The Middle Of The Electorate, Lose The Elections
The independent (and not very ‘moderate’ by any measure) middle of the electorate is having second thought with Obama, The One. Obama has had a series of major stumbles even the fawning liberal SurrenderMedia could not cover (and most times just did not see happening).  The news media is so blindly in love with Obama that they cannot see when he stumbles, and apparently the Obama campaign is also so self-enamored it too has missed seeing the pitfalls.
The first stumble by Obama was when he (or the liberal power elites) decided The Surge was the one issue they would retain distinction with McCain over. Â FISA-NSA surveillance, Obama dumped the far left in the curb over. Handguns, threw the left under the bus. In each case Obama did not even retain valiant objection in the face of the pending wave, he crumpled and supported the opposite of what his base has feverishly fought for. Even on drilling off-shore, Obama has flip-flopped on the far left. Â All of these moves made him a shadow of the Bush-McCain positions in an attempt to show there is no difference between McCain and Obama, except charisma and ‘change’. Â The one issue he stayed stuck on was The Surge.
And what a dumb issue to fall on your sword over, since The Surge has been enormously successful. Â FISA-NSA and handguns are not so cut and dry as The Surge, so to me those would have been safer grounds to battle McCain on. But they picked The Surge and openly claimed, after a year of hard fought victory, they really did want to lose Iraq to al-Qaeda at any cost. Â That was a shock to America, who understands tough battles, but not battling and dying to lose. Must be a Euro-centric concept, but it was foreign to America.
Then Obama dissed our injured troops in Germany because he could not work out how to follow the process and shut up his campaign staff and control his agenda. He let pettiness and laziness stop him from visiting those who have given so much to this country, his ineffectiveness to make is his visit happen pales in contrast to their efforts. He was shown to be unworthy of those who are now in battle.
Obama then came back to the US and made some of the dumbest, most juvenile statements I have heard in a long time. Â When he claimed tire pressure and tune ups would drop the price of gasoline back to something reasonable he lost all Americans with more than two IQ points to rub together. Even if you are an Obamabot, it is hard to hold your head high and fight the fight when everyone is snickering about how 3rd grade Obama’s energy plan is. Â Add to that is plan to soak Big Oil for $1,000 dollar checks for each American, as if any of us still believe in ‘free money’, and the guy is crashing as the biggest buffoon in memory. Â Dukakis may have looked goofy, Obama thinks like Goofy.
All of this is shown in polls which continue to crash. From a 9 point lead in the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll Obama lost all of those points in one week of gaffes and stumbles. An now, for the first time since Obama sewed up the Democrat nomination, he is behind in the latest Rassmussen Poll. But what is driving this collapse is clear from Rassmussen’s internals:
A week ago today, Obama had a three-percentage point lead and the candidates were even among unaffiliated voters. Today, McCain leads 52% to 37% among unaffiliateds.
In one week McCain has gained 15 points with the independent middle of the electorate. That is a stunning change, and one I do not think is done playing out.  I suspect Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll might show more erosion in the coming days (it seems to be a slower in picking up changes in the electorate than the Rasmussen Poll, which tends to show less volatility – go figure). Once the middle moves it will not move back again because we are heading into the conventions. If Obama goes in crippled he will definitely come out even more damaged.
Obama was always the candidate who would blow this race out of inexperience. There will be a lot of other excuses bantered about race, etc. But the fact is he is not performing presidential, and America does not select its presidents as if they were competing on American Idol. Â Just as Obama lost control of his own campaign website, which has been a source of anti-Obama screeds from day one, Obama lost control of his PR team, who started treating him just like a brain dead celeb. And it was not hard to see it happening.
Update: Â Goodness, Obama must be in serious poll trouble if the Washington Post had to go to one special group of the electorate to demonstrate any lead for Obama. Sadly for Obama, the group is not politically motivated or active:
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama holds a 2 to 1 edge over Republican Sen. John McCain among the nation’s low-wage workers, but many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system, according to a new national poll.
This is not a good group to rest your hopes of a campaign on. Â And this group could change its mind as the Democrats remain the barrier to elements of a comprehensive energy plan that could impact oil and gas prices – specifically tapping our immense resources. These low-end workers are the ones getting hurt the most by energy prices, and the GOP effort to rightly paint the Democrats as the ones stopping immediate help in this area, Obama could lose this group as well. Â I keep seeing more and more signs of trouble for Obama and his media groupies.
MSM thinks that they are doing Obama a favor by fawning all over him, and not calling him on his crap. But in fact they have allowed him to run an ever less credible campaign. Hill could have told him and tried to but MSM did not listen because they so wanted to be part of history, first black President. Instead they fawned until he went down in flames.
“Dukakis may have looked goofy, Obama thinks like Goofy.” – AJ
Cleaning my screen. Was just eating a fresh Roma tomato.
So I am really intrigued with BO Force 1!
As found on Drudge:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/03/politics/fromtheroad/entry4317827.shtml
Anyone who donated to the BO campaign please look at what you bought! These customized Business Jets are incredibly expensive to operate and lease. Yes, BO is rolling in cash from campaign contributions. Living like the President in waiting. Did’nt he beat Hillary because of her own Hubris?
If you look at the Gallup poll data, they have on their site right now how Obama is holding his own with the far left.
Simply the reason for that is despite all the screaming over there about his positions to whip up the troops and make them mad, they know it is all a show.
The know he is far left and not changing only pandering.
Think telling Canada to ignore the words on NAFTA since he would only be talking trash.
Now put that on steroids and you have what you see now.
kathie: isn’t it funny how the media is completely blind to the backlash they create due to their excesses
TomAnon,
Sorry, it seems I have been the source of many a spewed screen….
AJStrata
Obama has a glass jaw. He can’t handle any kind of attack, because he has never had to. He just sticks out his lip and sheds a tear about how mean the other guys are.
Won’t work at this level. No coincidence that this turnaround has happened just when McCain’s team finally decided to come to life and start striking back.
WWS:
“Obama has a glass jaw. He can’t handle any kind of attack, because he has never had to.”
LOL. Yeah, because the Hillary campaign was incredibly civil, and never launched a single attack during the entire Democratic primary. Riiiiight.
And, of course, everyone on the planet knows that Chicago politics is the very HEIGHT of even-handedness and polite discourse. Nope, I can’t say as any Chicago politician has ever had to deal with “any kind of attack”, no sir.
The problem with the Obama people is that they can dish it out, but they can not take it. I am sure the numbers via the lower income people would probably be the same if Hillary were the candidate. Poor people are more often Democrats than Republicans. And Democrats like to keep them poor to keep them dependent too.
But Obama has made some unforced errors here of late and the most damaging errors have been the canceled visit to the troops, the price of gas.
The Democrats are running a campaign on bad rich people. Meanwhile Obama flies around in a jet that dwarfs Air Force One. And while they complain about cheap imports or jobs going overseas they absolutely detest domestic energy producers. Or seem to. Most Americans would rather see more of the energy they consume produced by American companies. Think of the jobs and taxes that will create. Not to mention the fact that increased production will eventually help ease prices.
“Dukakis may have looked goofy,Obama thinks like Goofy.”—AJ Strata
That’s a keeper.Ha!Love it.
AJ,
You have been citing Gallup polls exclusively for over a week now (check your posts on July 29th, July 31st & Aug. 1st) to support your theory that Obama is losing his lead fast due to his latest “gaffes”. When I saw that you cited Rassmussen poll this time, I naturally figured that Gallup probably doesn’t have a new poll. Otherwise, you would obviously continue citing Gallup to follow the trends – right?
Except when I checked Gallup’s website, I noticed something weird. It turns out that Gallup does have a new poll they issued today. The Aug. 4th Gallup poll shows Obama with a 3% lead over McCain. http://www.gallup.com/poll/109264/Gallup-Daily-Obama-46-McCain-43.aspx. Gallup also noted that “the three percentage point advantage for Obama matches the average since early June, when Obama clinched the number of delegates needed to head to the Democratic convention as the presumptive presidential nominee.”
You wouldn’t be selectively citing only those polls that support your theory and ignoring the rest? Nah, how silly is that thought!
Was my previous comment deleted? Or do you just have a strict “no double commenting” policy, AJ?
Anyway, let’s try again:
1) Polls before the two conventions are meaningless. You have no idea of the number of people (non-political-junkies, of course) who have told me that they haven’t made a decision yet, and won’t until a couple of weeks before the election at the earliest.
2) A poll where the difference between the two candidates is less than the margin of error is statistically meaningless.
3) National polls on the Presidential race are meaningless, since we don’t have a national Presidential election. When the state-by-state electoral numbers show a close race (again: AFTER the conventions), than I’d start worrying about Obama’s chances. But the fact that John McCain now has a stronger lead in full-on red states doesn’t really affect the race much.
[…] Strata breaks it down. In one week McCain has gained 15 points with the independent middle of the electorate. That is a […]
Terrye:
“But Obama has made some unforced errors here of late and the most damaging errors have been the canceled visit to the troops, the price of gas.”
Oh, so that was the visit where McCain’s campaign was going to run a negative add no matter what he did, right? That’s some real straight talkin’, right there.
And… Obama made a gaffe on the price of gas? What, you mean the widely-ridiculed ad where McCain actually tried to blame high gas prices on him?
Tell you what – if you can explain to me what “the Enron loophole” is, then I will listen to your opinion on why gas prices are so high.
Conman,
I site both Gallup and Rasmussen, though I tend more towards Gallup. I noted an experiment between the two when I predicted the Gallup 9 point Obama lead would FOLLOW the Rasmussen poll, which already had detected the drop off.
That is why I am predicting Gallup will mirror, with some lag time, Rasmussen again.
I could care less whether you listen or not, BTW. This blog ain’t for you!
too funny: did you forget about Google? and why would anyone care if you listened to their opinion?
“It’s the “Enron loophole,” which exempts energy speculators who make trades electronically from US regulation.”
the narcisism of people like conman compell them to reiterate their static talking points as much as possible to ensure that we haven’t forgotten them (as if someone can forget something that they have heard repeated about a bazillion times) and to ensure that he is the one who is seen as being the vessel of enlightenment.
[…] boy, Obama is in deep trouble with the electorate. The other day I predicted he would limp into the Democrat Convention behind McCain in the polls. I keep and eye on the […]
Vince,
Yeah, I know what you mean about people repeating their points over, and over, and over again. Like when you respond to EVERY SINGLE post you don’t agree with by calling the person a “moran”, “idiot”, “liberal”, “narcisist”, etc. Dude, put it to rest. We all get it – you think everyone that disagrees with you is an idiot. No need to repeat it every single time. If you don’t have a substantive response or can’t explain why you think others are idiots, please just don’t respond at all and assume we all know you think they are an idiot.
conman: You’re a Leftist.. of course you think everyone else on the planet is an idiot.
Since the Left operates and sees the world in terms of groups and categories, it’s entirely appropiate to refer to the Left as a group.. that is how they view themselves.
[…] I predicted on August 4th Obama would go into the Democrat Convention with bad poll numbers: In one week McCain has gained 15 points with the independent middle of the electorate. That is a stunning change, and one I do not think is done playing out.  I suspect Gallup’s Daily Tracking Poll might show more erosion in the coming days (it seems to be a slower in picking up changes in the electorate than the Rasmussen Poll, which tends to show less volatility – go figure). Once the middle moves it will not move back again because we are heading into the conventions. […]