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Does this bother anybody else?

by CJK | July 25, 2008 at 8:19 PM
in

So Gallup is showing that Obama may be getting something of a bounce after Thurday's speech. He's now up six points compared to two points yesterday. Since the poll represents a three day average he probably was up even more on Thursday night.

Even allowing for the uncritical media treatment, shouldn't it bother us that four percent of the electorate changed their minds on the basis of nothing more than an empty cliche-ridden speech to a large crowd of Germans? Four percent isn't much but it could have swung the last two elections in the Democrat's favor. 

According to Gallup, Obama gained two points worth of undecided voters out of 12%. That means that at least 17% of undecideds decided they will back him because of his speech alone.

These are the people who get to decide our elections. Scary, isn't it?

If this bounce is either large or long, then the election is over. If people have bought into Obama because of his wall metaphors then they will certainly buy into whatever crap he will try to sell on the last week of the election. Just imagine: it's November and the polls are tied but on November 3 Obama delivers an "eloquent" speech in front of a huge crowd about the housing crisis where he talks about how the American dream is being stolen by Bush and McCain and he'll restore it. At this point he can just make up the facts. He gets a four point bounce and the next day he's in....

...Or maybe I'm just over-reacting.

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Comments

It's possible you might be over-reacting

Submitted by lagomorph on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 13:00.

And I say that for two reasons:

  1. You're using the poll that has the biggest margin, i.e. worst-case scenario - which is a conservative way to analyze it, but might not reflect circumstances on the ground
  2. Among people with land lines, Obama tends to overpoll well

And on the other hand you might be underreacting for one reason:

  1. Young voters, most of whom have cell phones, are reportedly vastly underrepresented in all of the polls

Bottom line?  We can all speculate, but we won't know a damned thing until November.  Meanwhile McCain really needs to hone his message and stay on it.  The campaign's made some improvements, but then seemed to slide back into the woodwork after the failed Gulf Oil Rig trip this week.  Obama's European Grand Tour prevented the press from focusing on what CBS and Politico have reported is the real cause of McCain's cancellation of his trip to Louisiana:  the oil spill, not the weather.  Look for that story to resurface in the future. 

 

Bounce is not surprising

Submitted by Freedoms Truth on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 15:05.

The 'conventional wisdom' was that he was 5 pts up so a gallup 2pts to 6pts? not sure it means alot.

Given how the MSM has covered this 24/7 and how they lauded him etc. the bounce is not unexpected. The real concern is how Obama, despite gaffes, mistakes, mis-statements on Iraq, and being fundamentally wrong on foreign policy has or will, through the Hype of a world wind(bag) tour, deflect this as a negative for Obama. that was the plan all along. The presumptuous behavior and speeches was/is about him play-acting as President so that shallow voters feel more comfortable with him as CinC.

Actually, his speeches, statements and over behavior makes me shudder all the more, but I'm not an apolitical undecided. The REAL TEST is this: Can we turn this into a Dukakis-in-the-tank moment for Obama, or will it be a "he can be President"-affirming event? The Obamedia of course is shilling for the latter, so it will take the RightBlogs and/or McCain campaign to make the case that this tour was a Dukakis-in-the-tank / jump-the-shark / over-the-top tour for a not-ready-to-be-President rookie Senator.

That's the real test, not a snapshot poll.

 

 

President of the World

Submitted by IrishRep on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 15:16.

Obama is running for the president of the world and will solve all of our problems.  And, then Obama is going to lead everyone in song as we all sing Cum-by-ya.

I say all of this jokingly; but, there are those who really think this about him.

You have to remember this...

Submitted by Ironman on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 15:35.

there's a well known list about "what does the college freshman know?"

The average college freshman doesn;t know Germany was ever not a unified Democracy, since they were born in 1990.

They may not know Russia was the primary adversary of the U.S., since they were born after the USSR dissolved. So the idea the 1948 airlift was a humanitarian gesture (and not made possible solely due to the US atomic monopoly at the time) is plausible to them.

What they do know is two Presidents named Bush fought wars in Iraq, and the one in between didn't.

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