Even though we wouldn’t see the very small benefits of offshore drilling for something like 10 years, apparently the GOP finds handing even more money to the oil companies as such an urgent matter that they’re threatening to shut down the government in September over it.
One of the things Democrats haven’t done well is explain to people just how useless offshore drilling is, but perhaps this threat will finally get them to start doing that.
OK, I’m not as up on state politics as I should be living in the state of Virginia, but I’m trying to figure out how Tim Kaine is both a DINO and responsible for hyper-partisanship simultaneously. How did Kaine both create a super-partisan environment while supposedly bending over to the GOP’s every wish?
Second, most of the things liberal Virginia bloggers seem to be complaining about Kaine are things which were known before he was even elected. And of course, they’re doing what every good liberal blogger does, which is distort many of their positions to fit their argument (abortion is the real big one that they do that with).
Now, as I stated in my VP rundown yesterday, I don’t think Kaine is the best choice for Vice President, largely because I’m not sure he really brings anything to the ticket of value, other than maybe a small bump in Virginia. However, I really have to question people who are upset that Kaine is governing as a conservative democrat after running as *gasp!* a conservative democrat.
Sen. John McCain, American war hero and admired political maverick, as well as presumed Republican nominee for president, had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20.
“What do you want, you little jerks?” McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the “Straight Talk” Boeing 737 on July 21.
No one ever accused the Arizona senator of not being blunt. But he had come a long way from the media-friendly, boyishly charming, brazenly honest, free-wheeling McCain that so many in the media had come to love during the 2000 Republican primary. That man was now gone. Vanished.
…
It’s hard to believe that McCain was championed in 2000 as the man who could bring balance to the Republican Party, not plunge it into further darkness. He had entered the 2008 Republican race as its front-runner, as the man who stood up to George W. Bush and the party’s more extreme elements. In the 2000 campaign, McCain had repudiated Bush’s visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina and called out the late Jerry Falwell as one of the “agents of intolerance.” He had apologized for not taking a firm stand against the Confederate flag flying high above the South Carolina capitol dome and continued to press for bi-partisan efforts like comprehensive immigration reform, including some path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
But most of that was before McCain’s apparent slide into the dark side.
There’s a lot more. Basically it’s a confirmation of McCain’s well known anger problem.
If McCain already thinks he’s getting bad coverage, I’m not sure how he expects to get better coverage by bashing on the press, unless he thinks that they’ll kneel in front of him and kiss is fingers to get back on his good side (which, sadly, wouldn’t shock me).
I just hope they haven’t had their primaries in Alaska yet:
Senator Ted Stevens indicted on 7 criminal counts related to his holding of public office
Per Reuters breaking news.
Here is the map for July 29th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):
Numbers:
All states with change of status:
All states with new polling this week:
Also, see the spreadsheet.
This Week’s Notes
This is the first week showing a real drop in Obama’s number. However, this week was more bad for Obama than it was good for McCain.
The first reason for this is that, despite Obama’s losses (which I’ll get into in a moment), McCain’s numbers have remained essentially static. Indeed, the only movement within McCain’s official count was South Carolina moving from Weak McCain to Strong McCain. However, McCain’s total stands unchanged at 154. Even with the methodological shift, his total has remained largely unchanged since the start of July (his max was 160 and minimum was 151 this month).
Indeed, all the movement has been on Obama’s side this week. The three biggest shifts were three swing states shifting downward.
First, and perhaps most importantly, is Ohio, which went from Weak Obama to Too Close To Call. Indeed, it shifted so much that it now sits as a McCain leaner, though only by about the slimmest margin possible (it’s about as close to being tied as one can get without being tied). This is thanks to a new poll released this week showing McCain 10% ahead in Ohio. A poll had been conducted the day before showing Obama 8% ahead, but since those were the first new polls in a month, it largely came down to an average between the two, and McCain won.
Second, there is Michigan, which also fell from Weak Obama to Too Close to Call thanks to a total of two polls in the last two weeks showing Obama ahead by 2% and 4% there. However, Michigan is still a solid lean Obama state (if you can have a solid lean state).
Finally, Minnesota dropped from Strong Obama to Weak Obama, but again sits right on the borderline and is, indeed, Obama’s strongest “Weak” state.
It wasn’t all bad for Obama, however. A new Maine poll, even though it was a month old, pushed Maine back from Weak Obama to Strong Obama, while a new New Jersey poll did the same thing for that state.
Nevertheless, having a net 29 Electoral Votes drop, with 37 dropping out of your count in one week can be a little disconcerting. We’ll have to see if this is just the final corrections from Obama’s nomination bounce in those states or whether it is a sign of something bigger. We’ll probably have to wait a couple weeks to know for sure.
Despite all of this, Obama still remains in good position, leading McCain 243-154 with a record 141 electoral votes in the Too Close To Call category, and an amazing 71 Electoral Votes within 1%. The count with leaners is Obama 294 to McCain’s 244 which is Obama’s first time under 300 since June 24th (though again, I did switch my methodology since then). This is also McCain’s highest total since that date.
Looking at the more detailed breakdown, the only real changes were in the Weak Obama category and the Too Close To Call category, with Ohio and Michigan dropping. Indeed, both McCain categories and the Strong Obama category remained largely unchanged, leaving Obama with a 190 to 81 lead over McCain among strong states.
Historical Graph
Click for bigger version:
Not many data point since my change of methodology, but you can see that, despite Obama’s drop this week, he’s still in good shape over McCain.
Polling Wish List
Finally, my polling wish list for this week is:
On Deck: Arizona, Maryland, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming
States which haven’t had a new poll in over a month:
Alabama, Arizona, DC, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Sister states
These are states for each candidate where the margin in those states are within 1% of each other and are within 3 total electoral votes or 33% of electoral votes of the smaller state of each other.
Electoral-vote.com Map
July 29, 2004: Kerry 291 (+39), Bush 237 (-49), Tied 10 (+10)
Changes by election day: Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota (tie) Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee
Today: Obama 292, McCain 195, Tied 51
Total with same EV shift as 2004: McCain 295, Obama 243 (all 51 tied go to McCain)
To see the current status, go to the Status of the Electoral College page.
Or at least that’s one way to look at this new poll. In it, Obama leads McCain 47% to 44% among registered voters, but trails 49% to 45% among likely voters. There were 900 respondents in the registered voter poll while only 791 people were included in the likely voter poll.
Setting aside the fact that having nearly 88% of registered voters being likely voters is silly to begin with, let’s dig into these numbers.
In the registered voters poll, Obama wins 47%, or approximately 423, while McCain wins 396 people. Among likely voters, McCain wins 388, while Obama wins 356 people. All of these are +/- 4 people, depending on rounding.
So, looking at the average, Obama had 67 people dropped by the likely voter filter (with a range of 75 to 59). That represents nearly 16% of Obama’s registered voter support. In the meantime, McCain lost 8 people (with a range of 0 to 16). That represents 2% of McCain’s registered voter support.
So what USA Today/Gallup is basically saying is that eight times as many Obama voters will stay home than McCain voters, at least based on percentage. If basing it on actual hard numbers, at best it is 3.6 times, and at worst it could be as high as, well, undefined since McCain potentially lost no one in the likely voter filter.
This shows how utterly stupid (and open to manipulation) likely voter screens are (again, igorning the fact that filtering out only 12% of voters is ridiculous anyway). Yet, does anyone doubt that the media will flash up the McCain up by 4 graphic up on the screen?
P.S. I have to thank omgitsparishilton at Daily Kos for pointing this out originally.
Some people are saying that what McCain said here:
is a McCain flip-flop on a Nuremberg-Style trial for bin laden because he criticized Obama when he brought up the idea before.
I don’t think it was really a flip-flop because McCain was attacking Obama’s inconsistency (in McCain’s opinion) and not necessarily the Nuremberg idea itself:
Senator Obama refuses to clarify whether he believes habeas should be granted to Osama bin Laden, and instead cites the precedent of the Nuremburg war trials. Unfortunately, it is clear Senator Obama does not understand what happened at the Nuremburg trials and what procedures were followed. There was no habeas at Nuremburg and there should be no habeas for Osama bin Laden. Senator Obama cannot have it both ways. In one breath he endorses habeas for terrorists like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and in the next he denies its logical conclusion of habeas for Osama bin Laden.
There are several problems with this, however:
Obviously the terrorists haven’t consented to being tried by us or anything of that nature, so they still hold their habeas rights as long as we don’t treat them as prisoners of war. It is likely that if we capture bin laden alive and wish to try him in such an international tribunal, we would dot our i’s and cross our t’s so ensure that we have proper legal authority to try him in such a manner, in which case if bin laden chooses to invoke his habeus right, it should be dealt with and dismissed in a pretty routine manner.
One should also note that, if bin laden is captured, he may very well be held in US custody, but not on US soil (like most other detainees in Guantanimo) and thus isn’t immediately subject to US Constitutional jurisdiction (like those being held in Guantanimo).
