USAT/Gallup Poll: Obama Wins
Another survey indicates that Obama won the debate:
A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows 46% of people who watched Friday night’s presidential debate say Democrat Barack Obama did a better job than Republican John McCain; 34% said McCain did better. [...] The poll suggested the debate was to some extent a wash for McCain: 21% of those who watched say it gave them a more favorable view of him, 21% say less favorable and 56% say it didn’t change their opinion much. Three in 10 said their opinion of Obama became more favorable after seeing the debate, compared to 14% who said less favorable and 54% who said it didn’t make much difference.
These are bad results for McCain but hardly catastrophic. What is catastrophic for McCain is the opportunity cost of having lost some ground during the national security debate. Of the things under the McCain campaign’s control with the ability to make up for his deficit in the polls — the national security debate, the townhall debate, the domestic issues debate, the ground game, and final week television advertising — the national security debate seemed like by far the most plausible spot for McCain to make up ground. Instead, he lost ground. Which basically leaves him either needing a dominating performance in the remaining debates, or else for al-Qaeda to bail him out with an inflammatory tape or spectacular terrorist attack designed to frighten people into voting for a continuation of the status quo policies that al-Qaeda believes are bleeding the U.S. economy and driving Muslim public opinion toward their side.
32 Responses to “USAT/Gallup Poll: Obama Wins”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
September 28th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
He is good in the townhall setting. I never understood why he would win a nat’l security debate; Obama’s just as knowledgeable on those issues, and sounds a lot more sensible.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Agree with Asher on both counts. Also don’t see why terrorist attack would help McCain more than Obama. Data?
September 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Count me among those who are pleasantly surprised the polls indicate Obama won. I saw it as pretty much a draw, and thought Obama missed a couple of opportunities to nail McCain on a few key points.
I just watched Obama on Face The Nation, and McCain on “This Week”, back to back. The difference was striking. Obama really does appear to have his A game. McCain seems cranky, tired, irritable, and doesn’t appear to know much about anything.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I think we are going to learn that the debates really aren’t much of an opportunity for McCain to catch up. Basically, Obama has too many good cards to play on the issues, and while not necessarily the best debater he also doesn’t screw up much, so there isn’t much McCain can do in the debates to change the basic dynamics of the contest.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Ah but you forgot the backup plan:
Televised shotgun wedding of the preggo Palin daughter!!!!
September 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
This is great news! Just as long as the MSM continues to “do their job” (example) and no one who opposes The One is ever able to ask him a real question or call him on one of his lies, everything should go according to plan.
Of course, if a few people are able to press The One on something and make him look very bad on Youtube videos, it would have a very severe impact on not just The One but on the Dem Party and the MSM as well. But, don’t worry about that, and resume your chanting.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Can McCain get thru an entire townhall debate without looking at Obama?
I’m expecting something “bold” from the McCain campaign soon…whenever they feel desperate, something happens; maybe he denounces the bailout? Or do they wait to see how Sarah does on Thursday?
September 28th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Expect to see a lot of Jeremiah Wright video soon.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Bush could help McCain with some sabre-rattling foreign policy disaster (I know this is cynical and unrealistic and even nonsensical–as one commenter noted, how exactly would this help McCain?–but I don’t put anything past these jokers)
it’s also “nice” to have confirmed in the string above the fact that “every harem requires its eunuch.” Hey, why not just post on the Weekly Standard?
September 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
They can play video of Wright until they’re blue (red?) in the face. It’s not going to have an impact. I’m pretty sure the McCain campaign realizes this.
No, I think we can expect them to rather over-react/hyperventilate over anything and everything Obama says that can possibly be viewed negatively, and continue to pray that something sticks to the guy.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Which basically leaves him either needing a dominating performance in the remaining debates, or else for al-Qaeda to bail him out with an inflammatory tape or spectacular terrorist attack
Or, vote-counting shenanigans.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Or, vote-counting shenanigans.
Not this time. I’m sure they’re going to try, but I think they’re outmatched this cycle.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
It’s getting to the point where Sen. McCain would have to parachute into Afganistan and single-handedly capture bin Laden to increase his standings in the polls. Of course, today he repudiated Gov. Palin’s comments about attacking terrorists in Pakistan. So apparently bin Laden will be safe from Sen. McCain if he can hide on the Pakistan side of the border.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/28/mccain-retracts-palins-pakistan-comments/
As we get closer to the election and the number of undecided voters decreases, it is more difficult for Sen. McCain to make up ground. Now instead of just winning undecided voters, he has to get some of Sen. Obama’s supportors to switch. It is hard to win an election when your opponent is polling at 50% or above.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Ah but you forgot the backup plan:
Televised shotgun wedding of the preggo Palin daughter!!!!
To be followed sometime next year by a very special episode of Dr. Phil.
September 28th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Of course, today he repudiated Gov. Palin’s comments about attacking terrorists in Pakistan. So apparently bin Laden will be safe from Sen. McCain if he can hide on the Pakistan side of the border.
Seriously. I’ve no idea why the McCain campaign decided to go after Obama on that issue.
He seems to be trying to focus the point on how we shouldn’t announce we’re going to do that sort of thing, but I don’t think that really resonates with people. Particularly when Johnny Drama is the king of making reckless statements.
September 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
hopefully they’ll do it on oct. 10, the day the troopergate investigation results will be announced.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I don’t know why the left blogosphere constantly puts out there the idea that a terrorist attack would help the Republicans. We can only hope there is never another attack, but if there is one, the response from the left has got to be:
“Bush has now failed at every aspect of being President”
Or such. Basically, the one thing they were hanging their hat on about Bush he failed at. It will be hard to do when so much ground is being set for rolling over.
Remember, while everyone was worried about the victims in the hours after 9/11, the Republicans were already planting stories about meetings between Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence and there being training planes outside Baghdad where the perps did dress rehearsals.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I’ve tried to put myself in AQ’s ‘head’ too but I don’t think it’s this simple. Is AQ cohesive enough to have a solid preference in the election? Are the next four years so forecastable that they can be so certain? Wouldn’t any preference have closest relation to their future plans, which are unknowable to us?
September 28th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
“opportunity cost of having lost some ground during the national security debate.”
Let’s not pretend that there was a chance for McCain to gain ground on this debate, just so that we can say McCain blew his chance. He couldn’t force Obama to look like an idiot on foreign policy. And he also couldn’t convince Americans that Iraq was a great idea and the attacking Iran would be good, too. Americans by and large accept that the surge was successful in limiting the violence and they still think the war was a mistake *by the same margins* that they were before. Pericles and Lincoln tag-teaming Obama on the war for an hour wouldn’t get the public to change on that issue, and McCain wasn’t going to either.
There are, however, anti-war voters out there who voted for McCain in the primary (specifically in NH, which is still very close), bercause they’re deluded about this real views. For those people, getting an hour of full-throttle pro-war McCain is probably bad for McCain. I think he performed quite well, but there wasn’t much chance he was going to help himself in that debate. No wonder he wanted to cancel it and perform a campaign stunt instead.
“Expect to see a lot of Jeremiah Wright video soon.”
Yet another McCain campaign tactic that Sarah Palin rendered ridiculous. The right does not want to go there.
September 29th, 2008 at 1:34 am
What is catastrophic for McCain is the opportunity cost of having lost some ground during the national security debate.
You seem to have your definition of “opportunity cost” wrong. An opportunity cost is a choice passed on due to making another — as in, I have $12, if I buy dinner, the new Jenny Lewis CD that I can’t buy is the opportunity cost. McCain simply cost himself an opportunity.
March 1st, 2009 at 6:07 am
viagra
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:56 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
March 14th, 2009 at 5:40 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 am
tramadol
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 am
buy viagra online
Great site. Good info
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:34 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Excellent site, It was pleasant to me. viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This topic is quite hot on the Internet at the moment. What do you pay attention to while choosing what to write ?