Hillary on deck

Hillary in her Daily Kos pant suit tonight.

Update

Clinton: I’m here as a proud supporter of Barack Obama.

Update 2

Clinton: Whether you voted for me or Barack, the time is now to unite as single party with a single purpose.

Update 3

Clinton: This is a fight for the future, and it’s a fight we must win together.

Clinton: I haven’t been fighting for 25 years to see another Republican in the White House squander that promise.

Update 4

Clinton: To my supporters, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Update 5

And Clinton pivots to face Bush and McCain

Update 6

Clinton runs down all the themes of her campaign and then attributes them to Obama as to why she supports him.  Nice.

Clinton: Where you in this campaign just for me? Or for all the people I was trying to help?

Update 7

Nice.  She just said we had great prosperity under Bill Clinton, and we’ll have it again under Obama.  Good way to bridge Obama to Clinton.

Update 8

Clinton: Obama understands the economic and international realities of the time.  He is tough and wise.

Update 9

Clinton: We don’t need 4 more years of the last 8 years.

Update 10

Clinton finally brings out the knives

Update 11

Clinton has her line of the speech:

Clinton: It’s no surprise that John McCain and George Bush will be together next week in the twin cities because they are impossible to tell part.

Update 12

Clinton: We don’t have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.

Reaction

And it’s over.  That was a fantastic speech.  I think she could have ripped McCain even a little more than she did, but I think she pretty much hit all 3 points that I thought she needed to: she stressed her supporters to support Obama, she said Obama was ready to be President, and she ripped into McCain.

The blogs don’t like teh Mark Warner

He wasn’t a fire-breathing liberal who toasted McCain on a spit (even though he ripped Bush a new one), therefore Mark Warner was teh suck.  At least that’s what the blogs are telling me.

John McCain as Eldon Smith

This is beginning to look like it may be a major problem for McCain, if anyone dares bring it up.

Apparently back when McCain was first running for Congress, he decided to renovate a house owned by Cindy’s father.  However, part of the problem was that the house was located outside of the Congressional District he was running for Congress in, and he was already facing attacks for being a Carpetbagger (which he countered by saying, that’s right, he was a POW).

To hide this fact, McCain used a fake name – Eldon Smith – on the blueprints so that people wouldn’t figure out that he was about to move out of the very Congressional District for which he was running for Congress.

This may not be the end of this story, however.

Paul Anderson over at Daily Kos found this very interesting nugget of information about a particular Eldon Smith:

IVY AND ELDON SMITH of Milwaukie Candy Products were residents of Milwaukie during the Vietnam War. Their son, HALLIE SMITH, was a 1959 Milwaukie High graduate, and served in Vietnam. He was reported missing in action in January of 1968, when his RF-4 aircraft crashed in the mountains of South Vietnam.

Hallie Smith crashed a mere 3 months after McCain was shot down and taken in as a POW.  And see this:

No bodies or parts thereof or parachutes or parachute cloth, no flying clothes or gear and no survival equipment were observed in or around the impact area, including the personal weapon of Capt. Smith. No further search activities were conducted due to heavy concentration of enemy forces in the vicinity of the wreckage.

Given this evidence, is it possible that Hallie Smith became a POW and sent to the Hanoi Hilton with John McCain?  If so, did John McCain get to know about Hallie Smith there?  Did McCain have any contact with the Smith family after he left Vietnam?

It seems very interesting that he would use the name of the father of a fellow possible-POW who crashed a mere three months after he did.  And if McCain did indeed use the name of Hallie Smith’s father, it’s a pretty shocking thing.

What to expect of Clinton’s speech

If I had written a “what to expect of Michelle Obama’s speech” post yesterday, it probably would have pretty much gone the way her speech went, except her speech was a lot better than I was expecting.

I’m far less sure of what to expect from Hillary Clinton tonight.  However, I think she needs to do three things tonight for her speech to be considered a total success:

1. Tell the PUMAs to fuck off.  OK, obviously she won’t put it in that way.  However, she may say it more along the lines of “This election is too important to remain divided over petty differences and disagreements” or something along those lines.  I don’t really care how she does it, she needs to use her strongest language yet telling the PUMAs to get on board.
2. She needs to walk back her previous attacks on Obama.  She can do a lot of that by doing what Biden did in his speech on Saturday, which is to basically say “over the course of the campaign, Obama has shown himself to be fully qualified to be President of the United States” or something along those lines.  She could also throw in a line like “Obama has fully explained himself in regards to any questions about his experience and his past associations” or something like that, to allude to the Rezko and Ayers attacks that McCain is trying to mount now, partly based on Clinton bringing them up in the primary.
3. She needs to sink her teeth in McCain, big time.  Like Biden, Clinton likes being an attack dog, so she should put that to good use to attack McCain, especially on women’s issues and health care.

She can still have a reasonably good speech if she only does 2 of the 3, but she probably needs to do at least that much.  If it ends up being a speech about how much her run helped women, I won’t be very happy.

Status of the Electoral College: August 26

Here is the map for August 26th. Notes are below (click map for bigger version):

Methodology

Numbers:

• Official count: Obama 217, McCain 173, Too Close to Call 148
• Strong states only: Obama 180, McCain 87
• Weak states only: McCain 86, Obama 37
• Count with “leaners”: Obama 292, McCain 246

• Weeks until the Republican Convention: 1 week
• Weeks until Election Day: 10 weeks

All states with change of status:

• Arizona – Strong McCain to Weak McCain
• Indiana – Too Close To Call to Weak McCain
• Minnesota – Too Close to Call to Weak Obama
• Missouri – Too Close To Call to Weak McCain
• New Mexico – Weak Obama to Too Close To Call
• Pennsylvania – Weak Obama to Too Close To Call

All states with new polling this week:

• Arizona – new polls August 13th-15th & August 14th-16th
• California – new poll August 20th
• Colorado – new polls August 13th-15th, August 15th-21st, & August 21st-24th
• Florida – new polls August 18th, August 18th-20th, & August 18th-21st
• Indiana – new polls August 16th-18th & August 19th-21st
• Iowa – new poll August 4th-13th
• Kansas – new poll August 18th-20th
• Maryland – new poll August 18th
• Michigan – new polls August 17th-20th & August 18th-21st
• Minnesota – new poll August 7th-17th
• Mississippi – new polls August 21st
• Missouri – new poll August 13th-17th
• Nevada – new polls August 13th-15th & August 18th-20th
• New Hampshire – new polls August 19th & August 18th-20th
• New Mexico – new poll August 20th
• North Carolina – new polls August 14th-17th & August 19th
• Ohio – new polls August 18th
• Pennsylvania – new polls August 11th-14th & August 19th
• Tennessee – new poll August 20th
• Texas – new poll August 21st
• Utah – new poll August 13th-15th
• Virginia – new poll August 20th-22nd
• Wyoming – new poll August 13th-15th

Also, see the spreadsheet.

This Week’s Notes

For the second straight week, McCain has significantly eroded Obama’s position in the Electoral College.  However, unlike last week, where most of the erosion was taking place “under ground,” this week we see some real changes in the numbers, as McCain gains a net 38 Electoral Votes on Obama this week.

Five huge battle states switched categories this week, four in McCain’s favor:

The first two were Indiana and Missouri, which are increasingly getting out of Obama’s grasp and which now debut as Lean McCain states, adding 22 Electoral Votes to McCain’s total.

The the last two in McCain’s favor were New Mexico and Pennsylvania, in which tightening polls have moved those states from Lean Obama to Too Close To Call.  The last battleground switch was Minnesota, which flipped back to Lean Obama after a week in Too Close To Call.  This results in a net loss of 16 Electoral Votes from Obama’s column.

The only other state to move was Arizona, switching from Strong McCain to Weak McCain after a pair of polls this week.

Overall, McCain has closed the gap to it’s closest point since June 17th – the first week that Obama had an Electoral College lead (and before my change in methodology I should add).  This also marks the first time that Obama is under 230 Electoral Votes since June 17th, and the first time McCain has been able to break his flatline count of between 150 and 160 since June 24th.

Another huge move below the surface this week was Ohio finally moving to McCain’s lean column.  However, this was somewhat mitigated by Virginia moving back to Obama’s lean column, resulting in only a +7 gain for McCain in the count with leaners.  That count now stands at Obama 292, McCain 246.  This marks the closest this count has been since July 29th, and the first time Obama has had consecutive weeks under 300 Electoral Votes since June 17th and 24th.  It is also Obama’s lowest count and McCain’s highest count since June 24th.

The turning point states this week – the state which, if switched, would give McCain the election – is either Colorado or New Hampshire, both of which are currently +1.4 in favor of Obama which, ironically, is better than last week even though McCain is closer in the count, due to how states shifted around this week.

Historical Graph

Click for bigger version:

The narrowing between Obama and McCain that has been taking place since mid-July continues.  However, this is the first week where the narrowing is helped by McCain actually gaining electoral votes instead of Obama losing them.

Polling Wish List

Finally, my polling wish list for this week is:

• Delaware (8th week) – Weak Obama, no poll for 180 days
• Montana – Too Close to Call, no poll for 28 days
• North Dakota – Too Close to Call, no poll for 34 days
• South Dakota (4th week) – Too Close to Call, no poll for 48 days
• West Virginia (6th week) – Weak McCain, no poll for 85 days

On Deck: Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota

States which haven’t had a new poll in over a month:

Arkansas, DC, Delaware, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia.

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.

• Alaska (Obama, 3 EVs, +1.3%) and North Dakota (McCain, 3 EVs, +2.3%)
• Alaska (Obama, 3 EVs, +1.3%) and Nevada (McCain, 5 EVs, +2.1%)
• New Hampshire (Obama, 4 EVs, +1.4%) and North Dakota (McCain, 3 EVs, +2.3%)
• New Hampshire (Obama, 4 EVs, +1.4%) and Nevada (McCain, 5 EVs, +2.1%)
• New Mexico (Obama, 5 EVs, +4.3%) and South Dakota (McCain, 3 EVs, +4.2%)
• Michigan (Obama, 17 EVs, +4.3%) and North Carolina (McCain, 15 EVs, +4.4%)
• Minnesota (Obama, 10 EVs, +6.2%) and Indiana (McCain, 11 EVs, +5.9%)
• Wisconsin (Obama, 10 EVs, +6.6%) and Indiana (McCain, 11 EVs, +5.9%)
• Wisconsin (Obama, 10 EVs, +6.6%) and Missouri (McCain, 11 EVs, +7.4%)
• Maryland (Obama, 10 EVs, +10%) and Arizona (McCain, 10 EVs, +9.6%)
• Maryland (Obama, 10 EVs, +10%) and South Carolina (McCain, 8 EVs, +10.9%)
• Washington (Obama, 11 EVs, +10.2%) and Arizona (McCain, 10 EVs, +9.6%)
• Washington (Obama, 11 EVs, +10.2%) and South Carolina (McCain, 8 EVs, +10.9%)
• Maine (Obama, 4 EVs, +13.8%) and Oklahoma (McCain, 7 EVs, +14.8%)

Electoral-vote.com Map

August 26, 2004: Kerry 280 (+28), Bush 238 (-48), 20 Tied
Changes by election day: Colorado (tied), Iowa, Missouri (tied), Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee

Today: Obama 273, McCain 252, 13 tied
Total with same EV shift as 2004: McCain 293, Obama 245, all 13 tied go to McCain

To see the current status, go to the Status of the Electoral College page.

Cross posted at Daily Kos

McCain on Leno.

John McCain notes that it’s his 13th time on Leno. But Obama is the celebrity.

Update:

My friends, my friends!

Update 2:

McCain sings the praises of Gov. Pawlenty.

Update 3:

McCain:

I’ll run a respectful campaign!

Too late.

Update 4:

McCain also talked about how much Obama and Biden are scary liberals.

Update 5:

Here it is:

Leno: What about those houses?

McCain: POW! POW! 5 1/2 years!

Blegh.

I like how it was Cindy’s father who made the American dream.  Cindy just got the benefits of her father’s work, and McCain is just milking off of it.

Update 6:

McCain: We don’t like negative ads. Our ads weren’t negative, they were funny!

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Now he’s complaining about Obama not doing town hall meetings.  Of course, Obama offered to do like 3, but that wasn’t enough for McCain (who wanted something like 10), and since McCain wouldn’t just do 3, Obama dropped it.

McCain’s lying about Obama not wanting to do town halls.

Update 7:

Ha!

Leno: Why don’t you pick Clinton as VP since you seem to like her so much

McCain: Sucks up to Clinton, but her positions are crap

Hear that PUMAs?  McCain just said he strongly disagreed with Hillary’s positions.  Are you sure you still want to vote for McCain?

Update 8:

McCain: Drill now! Woo! Wind! Solar! Nuclear!  Too bad McCain has a history of voting against alternative energy.

Oh god, McCain just remarked how France now has a “pro-American” president.  Yeah, our allies should really like that.

And it’s over.  Personally, I’m not sure what McCain got from this appearance.  No matter how hard he tries, he’s just not exciting.