Hope is not a Plan

Posted by on . 10 comments.

(8/6/08):

The latest AP-Ipsos poll gives Democrats an 18 point lead in the generic ballot test for control of Congress. When asked who they would prefer to see win control of Congress, registered voters preferred Democrats by a whopping 53% to 35% margin.

+18

(9/8/08):

“In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.”

-10

Obama is now underperforming a generic Democrat by 28 points.

That’s fantastic work. Heckuva job, Plouffie.

Comments

  1. kdiddy says:
    September 8, 2008 at 10:04 am

    tom is completely baffled by the fact that you and I are both pretty sure that McCain is going to win.

  2. matt says:
    September 8, 2008 at 10:11 am

    what is wrong with that dood?

  3. Spero Melior says:
    September 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    There’s a few things that render this comparison dubious. One is the timing – polls are always only a snapshot estimation of opinion at an instant. Comparing poll results for two questions a month apart isn’t a kosher way to get at the true difference between Obama and a generic Congressional Dem. Especially when the presidential poll is done in the midst of a post-convention bounce.

    Second, each survey was done by a different polling organization, therefore differences in sample selection, wording, and interpretation.

    Lastly, McCain is (wrongly, IMO) not considered by most to be a “typical” Republican.

    None of this means that I agree with everything Obama’s campaign has done, such retreating from progressive principals. Just that comparing apples and pomegranates doesn’t always make for good inference.

  4. matt says:
    September 8, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    There’s a few things that render this comparison dubious.

    of course there are. but, you’re missing the bigger picture. obama is underperforming generic democrats no matter how you measure it. he’s even further underperforming right-track/wrong-track numbers, by something like 40%.

    a bounce doesn’t happen in a vacuum. in this case, it’s happening because obama seemingly went on vacation for a week after denver. he let palin be defined by the mccain campaign, and he let the absurd speeches at the RNCC go almost totally unchallenged.

    defining mccain as bush3 is the obama campaign’s job. if they did it properly, they wouldn’t need to do anything else because the election would be over. but they refuse to do their job because they think they’re on some mythic high road. this shit doesn’t happen by accident.

    i’ll have more about their communications failures in a day or so.

  5. Spero Melior says:
    September 8, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    Matt – He wasn’t on “vacation”; the Repubs were doing their convention. We also had the Palin pick and Hurricane Gustav. Remember these things, they were in the papers? How’s he supposed to get any air time with all that going on? He agreed even to go on O’Reilly to get airtime — is that desperate enough for you?

    The RNCC bullshit went “unchallenged” because they went after the Dems. That’s an advantage they seem to have every presidential election, unfortunately, for some reason.

    Honestly, I don’t understand why this meme about Obama not being willing to fight persists. I agree we need to fight back hard, since the Repubs will be at their sleaziest. But the election is two months away– not time to fire all of your weapons now. Obama’s campaign has been pretty good at quickly turning around video responses to McCain bullshit. I agree he needs to go more on offense, but that’s coming.

    And if you agree with me the comparison was dubious, why’d you not at least qualify it?

  6. matt says:
    September 8, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    i seem to remember many republicans getting airtime during the dem convention.

    obama is supposed to get airtime by having a coordinated message and a team of surrogates.

    I don’t understand why this meme about Obama not being willing to fight persists.

    dunno. maybe it’s because he’s doing it wrong.

    The RNCC bullshit went “unchallenged” because they went after the Dems. That’s an advantage they seem to have every presidential election, unfortunately, for some reason.

    A) it didn’t have to be.
    B) it went unchallenged because obama didn’t challenge it in real time. this isn’t complicated.

    But the election is two months away– not time to fire all of your weapons now.

    this election will be decided within 2 weeks, if it hasn’t been already.

    Obama’s campaign has been pretty good at quickly turning around video responses to McCain bullshit. I agree he needs to go more on offense, but that’s coming.

    yeah. some wikkid youtubage. i imagine obama’s offinsive will come around the same time as john kerry’s did. about 9 months after the election when he finally realized wtf happened.

    And if you agree with me the comparison was dubious, why’d you not at least qualify it?

    because i’ve been writing here for five years. because my regular readers know what i’m saying. because i provided links to the polls. because the point remains. because at this point i just don’t give a fuck. i’ve been saying the same things about obama since the 04 convention.

    if you want to catch up, start with Paid the Opportunity Cost to be the Boss.

    Going back a bit more:

    “Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.”

    Barack Obama Doesn’t Care About the Democratic Party

    WAY Ahead Of The Curve

    Getting Middled

    London Calling / Speak the Slang Now

    Slipping in the Shiv

    Show ‘Em Whatcha Got

    I Think There’s a Word for This

  7. Spero Melior says:
    September 9, 2008 at 11:31 am

    Food (apples, oranges) for thought:

    http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/09/mccain_bounce/

  8. matt says:
    September 9, 2008 at 11:37 am

    http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8069

  9. Spero Melior says:
    September 9, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    Matt, you link to an article that refutes a claim I don’t even make. Further, the statistics he reports are *election results*, not polling results. Again with the apples and oranges…I don’t give a shit whether Obama outperforms Congressional Dems in the election, only that he gets more electoral votes than McCain (and the Dems strengthen their hold in both houses).

    Look, I probably fear a McCain presidency more than you (I work for the federal goverment, and I see things…). Obama is far from my ideal candidate, and I haven’t given him a dime, even though I gave copious amounts to Dean and the Dems in 2004. But even Bowers says the problem is McCain, rather than Obama:

    “I don’t have all of the answers to this problem, but I do stand by my thesis that it is mostly because of McCain’s popularity, not because the country has a problem with Obama. The gap has persisted despite Obama sporting favorable ratings of close to 60% for the past several months. This gap has persisted all summer, long before people outside of Alaska had ever heard of Sarah Palin. It is a problem that seems mostly separate from Palin, and separate from Obama. The problem seems to be McCain himself.”

    Even so, I don’t entirely agree with him that Obama isn’t’ the problem. Obama has a substantial problem: he’s black (bi-racial actually, but that’s what he’s labeled) and this is still in many respects a racist country. But what is he supposed to do, not run because he’s not entirely white? That said, I agree completely with him that Obama, Biden and their surrogates should cut the “nobody respects Sen. McCain’s service more than I do” shit out.

  10. matt says:
    September 9, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    i posted that link for the numbers, not his commentary. i could have made this clearer, but since that is what we’ve been arguing, i didn’t think i had to. silly me.

    feel free to ignore data you don’t like. but if you don’t see a pattern there, i’m not sure what to tell you.

    i fear a mccain presidency in the short term, but an obama presidency in the medium to long term.

    of course obama is the problem. i’m not going to argue race, just his positioning.

    and obama is making the same mistakes kerry insisted on making: burying the substance after empty words. obama’s just taking it a step farther by praising his scumbag opponent.