McCain Winning

Source: www.salon.com --- 15 hours ago
All summer, as John McCain has chipped away at Barack Obama's lead in national polls, Democrats have consoled themselves with the thought that no matter how close it got, Obama was still ahead. Maybe not anymore. A new Reuters/Zogby poll out Wednesday showed McCain leading for the first time this campaign, 46-41, among likely voters. It was taken from Thursday through Saturday, while Obama finished up his vacation in Hawaii and after McCain had spent a week talking incessantly about the crisis in Georgia. When the poll was taken a month ago, Obama led by 4 points. "There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama." Republicans had been saying for months that if they could keep it close going into the conventions, they'd be in good shape. This is probably better news for the GOP than it expected. Before they start cracking the champagne at McCain's suburban Virginia headquarters, though, it's important to note that figuring out who "likely voters" are this year has been giving pollsters heartburn . It's possible this poll's model undercounts support for Obama by discarding people who haven't been reliable voters in the past, but will definitely show up in November. And of course, this is Zogby -- he has been wrong before (and, like all pollsters, he'll probably be wrong again). But there's no question the race has tightened up a lo ...

Source: weblogs.chicagotribune.com --- 15 hours ago
by Frank James More bad news for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign on the polling front. The latest George Washington University-Battleground 2008 Poll done jointly by Republican and Democratic pollsters shows that Sen. John McCain has managed to move independent voters to him to such a degree that he now leads Obama by 10 percent. Back in May, Obama led with independents by 14 percent. Obviously, this is a huge swing. Republican pollster Brian Tringali and his Democratic counterpart Celinda... ...

Source: www.townhall.com --- 2 hours ago
Prager H3: McCain has taken a lead in the polls. Dennis explains why… Dennis talks to Don Corace, real estate developer and property rights expert. His latest book is Government Pirates: The Assault on Private Property Rights--and How We Can Fight It. Callers join in with their own horror stories… Why can’t we Anglicize foreign names? ...

Source: www.weeklystandard.com --- 18 hours ago
McCain leads Obama by 5 points in a new national Reuters/Zogby poll. McCain leads Obama 46 to 41 percent among likely voters, which the poll found is outside the margin of error. Reuters/Zogby had Obama ahead by 7-points as recently as mid July. And Rasmussen shows McCain up by 5 points in Ohio: McCain attracts 45% of the vote in Ohio while Obama earns 41%. That’s little changed from a month ago when McCain led 46% to 40%. When “leaners” are included in the totals, McCain leads Obama 48% to 43%. ...

Source: www.politico.com --- 18 hours ago
He overtakes rival in the presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released Wednesday morning. ...

Source: www.latimes.com --- 4 hours ago
A Times/Bloomberg poll finds that Obama shows few signs of Winning new voters. The issue of experience goes McCain's way. John McCain has begun rallying dispirited Republicans behind him, while Democratic rival Barack Obama has made scant progress building new support, leaving the presidential race statistically tied, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. ...

Source: www.topix.com --- 15 hours ago
A combative Barack Obama said Tuesday that Republican John McCain 'doesn't know what he's up against' in this election and challenged his rival to stop questioning his character and patriotism. Obama, campaigning in a state where he hopes to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in more than three decades, implored his supporters to fight for the presidency. 'Our job in this election is not just 'win,' although I'm a big believer in Winning,' Obama said during the rally. 'I don't intend to lose this election. John McCain doesn't know what he's up against.' ...

Source: www.associatedcontent.com --- 2 days ago
John McCain might need Joe Lieberman to defeat Barack Obama in the Election this November Republicans may not find it ideal but it could be necessary to ensure that a Democrat is not President ...

Source: www.sacbee.com --- 3 days ago
Tom Christian is the kind of religious voter that John McCain and Barack Obama were courting when they went to church this weekend. Conservative. Republican. But open to either of them. ...

Source: www.sacbee.com --- 22 hours ago
The "civil forum" featuring presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain may not have been as exciting as Michael Phelps Winning his eighth Olympic gold medal, but it was civil and it was a forum from which emerged useful information. ...

Source: primebuzz.kcstar.com --- 14 hours ago
Public Policy Polling says John McCain leads Barack Obama in Missouri by ten points, 50% to 40%. Money quote, from the company's release: “There aren’t enough black voters in Missouri for Barack Obama to win it if he can’t make things more competitive among white voters,” said Dean Debnam, President ofPublic Policy Polling. “That’s going to be his challenge if he wants to have any chance at Winning the state.” The survey PDF attached below. ...

Source: tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com --- 16 hours ago
I've been wondering why Arizona reporters don't get much national exposure. Since McCain is running on "character," wouldn't reporters who've covered his local doings for a quarter-century be useful witnesses? I'm far from expert, but I've been asking around and was advised to check out John Dougherty's stuff in The Washington Independent, exposing the smudges on McCain's pretty Arizona picture. Dougherty is a freelance based in Phoenix. He does his homework. One of Dougherty's recent pieces exposes McCain's "ranch" as no ranch at all: It's a vacation home in a subdivision. But MSM unthinkingly call it a ranch. Google "McCain ranch" and you'll see what I mean. McCain has a lot riding (sorry) on his ability to sustain the rough-riding image. He is, of course, the latest in a line of out-of-the-west, rawhide-wrapped Republicans: Goldwater, Reagan, Bush II. As Dougherty reminds us, Teddy Roosevelt launched the rugged individualist brand, and had an authentic claim to it. Now it's become shtick. The brush-cutter in jeans is not a sure-fire image, quite (see under: Goldwater), but overall it's a Winning persona in a country that believes in making itself perennially new on the vanished frontier. All the more reason to peek beneath the persona and see who's wearing the mask and the $520 loafers. Bigfoot media, isn't it time to get Dougherty, a real Arizona reporter, more exposure? Sunday show bookers? NPR? ...

Source: www.politics.ie --- 21 hours ago
by Zyklon B (Posted 11 hours ago) Despite Obama leading McCain by ~3% on average and consequently 228 : 178 in electoral votes , such has been McCain's resurgence, particularly in nudging ahead of Obama in swing states such as Indiana, Ohio and Florida that McCain would actually win the popular vote according to realclearpolitics.com Electoral-vote.com has allocated 275 votes to Obama and 250 to McCain (with 13 tied) , though assigns Ohio and Florida to McCain. The difference between the scenario above is that Virginia is deemed to be "tied" and Indiana leaning Democratic (whereas both are considered Red States by Realclearpolitics). Either way, McCain would appear to be within striking distance of Winning. What about Nobama's laughable "southern strategy"? True, increased voter registration in the South has been proportionately greater amongst blacks and minorities (e.g. in Georgia, where Blacks comprise 25% of the vote, they reputedly account for 28% of the eligible electorate of late. Still, the latest opinion polls indicate McCain's support to be 50%, Obama 43% and others about 7% (Bob Barr, Libertarian)). That leaves NC, FL and VA, all of which will vote Republican. href="http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?f=173&t=40010"> ...

Source: www.kentucky.com --- 10 hours ago
Energy companies bid hundreds of millions of dollars Wednesday to explore for oil and natural gas beneath 1.8 million acres in the western Gulf of Mexico, while looking forward to the possibility of future drilling in federal waters now off-limits. The results of the first lease sale since offshore drilling emerged as a key campaign issue after gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon only muddied the waters as to how much politics can really influence oil production, and by extension, energy prices. While firms bid $487.3 million to win the rights to drill 319 tracts of the Gulf, most in deep water, 90 percent of the area put up for sale Wednesday did not receive a single bite. Most of the leases purchased came with 10-year terms, unlikely to influence prices now. The highest bid of the 47 received Wednesday - $61 million - came from StatoilHydro USA, a subsidiary of the Norwegian oil giant. Exxon Mobil Corp., which has been relatively inactive in the Gulf in recent years, posted the most Winning bids. The company plans to spend $127.3 million to explore 130 tracts. Chevron USA Inc. was the second biggest spender Wednesday - paying $127.2 for the rights to drill in 20 tracts - a day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited one of its offshore platforms. ...

Source: www.redstate.com --- 5 hours ago
Best projection site now shows 52% chance of McCain victory FiveThirtyEight runs a rather unique projection site. Unlike RCP's crude averages that follow the current state of the race, 538 tries to project the result based on current polls, underlying demographics, and cyclical trends (i.e. when a convention bump happens, 538 will be discounting those numbers). 538 runs a large number of simulations using a calculated probability of Winning each state. For the first time this general election, a majority of simulations are showing a McCain victory . The narrowing has crossed over and McCain now has a better chance of Winning than Obama does. This result comes from a huge load of polls released today. See below the fold for more on those. More polls released on Wednesday show the continued McCain improvement. First, the national polls. Zogby clocks in with McCain +5. Battleground finds McCain +1. Rasmussen tracker shows Obama +1. Gallup tracker sees Obama +2. LA Times gets Obama +2. CBS found Obama +3 and NYT agrees with Obama +3. Can you say "margin of error"? Yeah, they are all within the margin of error. Tie game. Next, a slew of state polls came out in the past 3 days. The best news for McCain were seeing MO (+10), AZ (+10), IN (+6), OH (+5), LA (+18), MN (-2) and NC (+6). Some decent news include NC (+2), FL (+2), NH (-1), and MD (-10). All of those polls are improvements on recent polls except for the NC +2 which is on par w ...

Source: politicalwire.com --- 15 hours ago
The new GWU Battleground poll shows Sen. John McCain just edging Sen. Barack Obama, 40% to 39%. Democratic analysis : "For most of the summer, these dynamics combined to afford Obama a narrow, though consistent lead. At this point in the contest, however, after a continued and largely unanswered negative campaign on the part of McCain, the race is a statistical dead heat (47% for McCain to 46% for Obama). Underneath the more modest movement in the overall vote from our last poll, however, is a larger shift among independents that is of particular concern for Obama. In May, Obama led among independents by 14 points; today, McCain is Winning these voters by 10 points." Republican analysis : "The 2008 presidential campaign is far from over. As this survey reveals, of the 13 attributes tested between the two candidates, John McCain enjoys an advantage on half of them. Indeed, McCain has seen improvement on every comparative attribute repeated in this study save one - and it is the one in which McCain enjoys his most commanding lead (the war in Iraq). This positive re-evaluation of John McCain (in comparison to Barack Obama) is the untold story of the last three months of this election." ...

Source: www.kansas.com --- 2 hours ago
T he "civil forum" featuring presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain may not have been as exciting as Michael Phelps Winning his eighth Olympic gold medal, but it was civil and it was a forum from which emerged useful information. McCain had the most to gain. Judging by the applause, he won the night among evangelical voters. He told them what they wanted to hear: He would be a pro-life president with "pro-life policies." He believes the unborn have human rights "from the moment of conception," that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that the California Supreme Court was wrong to strike down the state's existing statutes limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. "I'm a federalist," he said, but added that if the federal courts start forcing one state to accept rulings on same-sex "marriage" from another state, he would then favor a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between opposite-sex couples. McCain said he would allow "contracts" between same-sex couples. McCain also gave the strongest answer on the theological concept of evil. He said his approach to evil would be to "defeat it." He said that to get Osama bin Laden, "I would follow him to the gates of hell," which might be easier than following him to the mountains of Pakistan. Asked to define "rich," McCain offered a mini-sermon, noting that "some of the rich" are "the most unhappy," adding that he doesn't want to take from the rich; rather ...

Source: www.redstate.com --- 18 hours ago
For the first time, state-by-state analysis shows McCain in lead RCP's "no toss up" map shows McCain leading 274-264. It's the 2004 map with Obama picking up IA and NM. Thus, McCain's tiny "lead" in VA, CO, and OH is enough to put him over. Reuters/Zogby also announces a telephone polls showing McCain up by 5 today. This is a big change from the last Zogby poll (Obama +7) and shows Obama losing support across the board. On the other hand, other national polls show Obama ahead 1-3 points. The most recent polls from swing states look good for McCain, including OH (+5), FL (+2), IN (+6), NC (+6), and MN (-2). The only state polls that seem to be resisting the movement toward McCain are PA (-6) and IA (-7). Fivethirtyeight has their projection model showing Obama with a 54% chance of Winning, his lowest chance since he won the nomination. The over-50 number is because McCain must win all the states he leads narrowly (CO, VA, OH, FL). Obama needs to flip any one of them and has fewer states that he leads by only 1-2 points. Regardless of how you do the measuring, there is a strong argument that if the election were today McCain would win. It would be a nail biter either way. But for the first time, it is arguable that McCain is ahead today. Update: A related piece of good news, it seems that most undecided voters are in the retired age bracket. Undecideds are also more likely to be Ds and IS than Rs. So older, white Democrats and Indep ...

Source: www.observer.com --- 11 hours ago
A keynote address by Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention signals John McCain's commitment to Winning the moderate and independent voters, according to a former senior adviser to Giuliani. "The battleground is always in the middle, it's not the party regulars on the left or the right but smack dab in the center," said the adviser, speaking on background. "Yes, Rudy will help with the independents, but he'll also rally the troops by his ability to get the convention rocking and rolling." The adviser noted that Giuliani, while moderate on social positions, was a favorite of the conservative tax group The Club for Growth.  read more » ...