Monday
Sep082008
It's official: Sarah Palin is a tour de force
Monday, September 8, 2008 at 07:15PM
There is no doubt anymore that Sarah Palin has completely changed the trajectory of this election.
The initial reaction to Palin's selection went from confused (Sarah who?), to derision (she's a goober with no experience), to mockery (her family is a mess), and then pity (this race is over) -- all in the span of 5 days. Within hours of McCain's announcement, I had blogged that it was a brilliant choice ... and was met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Fast forward to today, and every single poll now shows McCain in the lead. Some (like CNN, ABC, and Washington Post) have it at +2, while USA Today and Gallup have it at +10. The average seems to be around +5, which means that McCain got a post-convention bounce of around 8 points, one of the largest in history.
Can this all be attributed to Sarah Palin? Me thinks so. McCain had consistently been hovering -2 to -4 points behind Obama for most of the summer, and the only new variable in the equation is Palin. Maybe McCain's acceptance speech counts for 1 or 2 points, but the rest of it is the Palin effect. Further proof: The Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that McCain jumped 20 points among white women -- previously he was trailing Obama by 8 points; now he's plus 12. Has to be Palin.
Truth be told, Obama needs to take McCain head on. Going after the VP nominee is a mistake; it makes Obama look small and unpresidential. The last thing he wants to do is debate Sarah Palin about their relative qualifications for the office. I suspect that in the next few days, Obama is going to come after McCain hard on the economy -- clearly his weakest point. He should pick a page out of Bill Clinton's playbook and make it all about the economy.
For their part, it will be interesting to see how team McCain uses their secret weapon. My guess is they'll continue to have her zig-zag across the key midwestern and western battleground states, where she has been drawing huge crowds, and mostly avoid the national media. They announced today that she'd do her first sit down interview with Chalie Gibson of ABC News, but beyond a handful of select interviews, I doubt we'll see many one-one-one interviews. She'll do just enough so that she won't be seen as dodging the media, but not enough to really get herself in trouble.
Which means the debates will take on even more importance this year. The four debates (three presidential and one vice presidential) represent the best -- maybe the last -- opportunity for the candidates to change opinions overnight. This should be be fascinating.
The initial reaction to Palin's selection went from confused (Sarah who?), to derision (she's a goober with no experience), to mockery (her family is a mess), and then pity (this race is over) -- all in the span of 5 days. Within hours of McCain's announcement, I had blogged that it was a brilliant choice ... and was met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Fast forward to today, and every single poll now shows McCain in the lead. Some (like CNN, ABC, and Washington Post) have it at +2, while USA Today and Gallup have it at +10. The average seems to be around +5, which means that McCain got a post-convention bounce of around 8 points, one of the largest in history.
Can this all be attributed to Sarah Palin? Me thinks so. McCain had consistently been hovering -2 to -4 points behind Obama for most of the summer, and the only new variable in the equation is Palin. Maybe McCain's acceptance speech counts for 1 or 2 points, but the rest of it is the Palin effect. Further proof: The Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that McCain jumped 20 points among white women -- previously he was trailing Obama by 8 points; now he's plus 12. Has to be Palin.
Truth be told, Obama needs to take McCain head on. Going after the VP nominee is a mistake; it makes Obama look small and unpresidential. The last thing he wants to do is debate Sarah Palin about their relative qualifications for the office. I suspect that in the next few days, Obama is going to come after McCain hard on the economy -- clearly his weakest point. He should pick a page out of Bill Clinton's playbook and make it all about the economy.
For their part, it will be interesting to see how team McCain uses their secret weapon. My guess is they'll continue to have her zig-zag across the key midwestern and western battleground states, where she has been drawing huge crowds, and mostly avoid the national media. They announced today that she'd do her first sit down interview with Chalie Gibson of ABC News, but beyond a handful of select interviews, I doubt we'll see many one-one-one interviews. She'll do just enough so that she won't be seen as dodging the media, but not enough to really get herself in trouble.
Which means the debates will take on even more importance this year. The four debates (three presidential and one vice presidential) represent the best -- maybe the last -- opportunity for the candidates to change opinions overnight. This should be be fascinating.
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Reader Comments (11)
Hi Nick, you should make it possible for us to post your blog entries onto our Facebook pages. Admittedly, I thought you were too easy on the Republicans for a couple of days, but I would have loved to post some of the more recent Democrat-friendly ones on my Facebook page.
I'd be happy to ... if I knew how, exactly. My brother Tom, who happens to be a world champion lasagna eater, is the technowizard that makes this all possible. Would this require some kind of widget? Do tell ...
And I'm neither Republican nor Democrat friendly. I'm just trying to give some analysis.
That's funny b/c I was convinced you were skewing left (and disappointed about it). Heh, I guess we all read things a certain way!
Palin/McCain (notice i put her before him since she is the star of this) are drawing Obama sized crowds during campaign stops. Even her lies (I sold corporate jet on eBay, i cut the bridge to nowhere earmarks) is getting raucus cheers. I support Obama, but I too am sensing a sea-change. We americans are so phony. We love someone, like a new popular rock star with one hit -- without stopping to think what they really stand for. Palin/McCain are hoping the stupid vote (i.e. woman that love the Palin rock star but don't realize she wants you to have a child even if you were raped god forbid) carry them to victory. Nick is right on re: debates - this will be the biggest must-see TV since the "Who Shot J.R. episode.
Mitch, so what you're basically saying is Palin is in fact a force. and although you don't agree with the motivation of American voters, Nick's initial post citing her nomination as brilliant, is now in fact correct. good flip flop.
i don't doubt that American voters are responding to hype. but you have to admit a candiates appeal (good looks, charims, etc) is inherent in politics. and i disagree that Americans are phony. we don't own on a monopoly on superficiality. it's human nature. i think what's most compelling is how much it will be a factor in this election. hence, to Nick's point, the Palin nomination was brilliant.
Huffington Post (left leaning of course) reports today on Palin start to bring her down brick by brick. It is only a matter of time before MSM starts getting to the bottom of her. Her baloon will be burst at some point. Americans will figure it out, the compelling nature of her will drop in time. Seven weeks is light years in politics.
And of course middle America sits around dinner table discussing the latest and greatest on the Huffington Post. She's teflon, just like Reagan. The media discredited itself with their initial hyperventilating over her, and so nobody gives a shit what the wacky left says anymore.
MSM often picks off stuff on sites like Huff Post reveals. I am already hearing stories on CNN and MSNBC talking about the stories that first appeared on the site. I get that she is a media phenominon, just like Obama was at the beginning. I get that she revived and perhaps saved his campaign. I get that issues alone dont drive the electorate. I may be incorrect in that the move to select her was brilliant, at least from an initial favorable media coverage standpoint. But she will come back down to earth, brick by brick. And then hopefully voters realize what they get in her, combined with McCain. There are a lots of twist and turns yet to be seen. The bridge to nowhere claims alone will come back to haunt her. She isn't trustworthy and that will replace the rock star feeling he newfound supporters have for her.
Polls are silly. I don't think people go into the voting booth thinking about what a national poll tells them. They also often showed Obama down as much as 20 points in polls all along this campaign and that didn't stop him. I don't put a lot of stock in polls.
From BBC: At least the world wants Obama, then again, polls suck
World wants Obama as president: poll
Posted 6 hours 29 minutes ago
US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may be struggling to nudge ahead of his Republican rival in polls at home, but people across the world want him in the White House, a BBC poll said.
All 22 countries covered in the poll would prefer to see Senator Obama elected US president ahead of Republican John McCain.
In 17 of the 22 nations, people expect relations between the US and the rest of the world to improve if Senator Obama wins.
More than 22,000 people were questioned by pollster GlobeScan in countries ranging from Australia to India and across Africa, Europe and South America.
The margin in favour of Senator Obama ranged from 9 per cent in India to 82 per cent in Kenya, while an average of 49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain. Some four in 10 did not take a view.
"Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents," GlobeScan chairman Doug Miller said.
"Given how negative America's international image is at present, it is quite striking that only one in five think a McCain presidency would improve on the Bush administration's relations with the world."
In the United States, three polls taken since the Republican party convention ended on Thursday (local time) show Senator McCain with a lead of 1 to 4 percentage points - within the margin of error - and two others show the two neck-and-neck.
The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations were America's NATO allies, including Australia (62 per cent).
A similar BBC/Globescan poll conducted ahead of the 2004 U.S presidential election found that, of 35 countries polled, 30 would have preferred to see Democratic nominee John Kerry, rather than the incumbent George Bush, who was elected.
A total of 23,531 people in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Turkey, the UAE, Britain and the United States were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone in July and August 2008 for the poll.
Why don't you ask your colleagues at Ketchum on how to add the capability to add Facebook? It's probably just a matter of copying some code and dropping it into the code of your blog.
In regards to the Republican/Democratic friendliness, it was bothering that you continue to praise Palin as brilliant (which I agree from a campaign/media strategy standpoint), but you never cited extensively how a lot of the content (facts) are unfounded. I do give you credit for questioning McCain's vetting process.
I agree that Obama's team needs to read your blog, but it wld also be helpful if u were more tip friendly to them vs. praising the Republicans or giving more coverage to Biden's gaffes.
I'm trying to play armchair quarterback here -- I'm not necessarily rooting on one side or the other, but just giving my POV on things. I've been praising the Republicans mostly because they've done spectacularly the past three weeks, as evidenced by McCain's dramatic surge in the polls. I'm not saying his policy positions are spectacular; I'm saying their campaign has been (whether you agree with him or not, it's just a fact).