The Final Nail in Coffin for the Campaign of Senator John McCain?

Per John McCain, from Meet the Press on Sunday morning: “Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course,”  – and with that, perhaps McCain added the final nail to the coffin of the McCain/Palin ticket.

In context, what McCain was trying to do was say that both him and George Bush are Republicans and share an ideology.  However, the last thing McCain needs to say is that he shares anything similar to George W. Bush.  To me, this is a gaffe and on par with that of Biden claiming Obama will be ‘tested’ on the international stage in six months.  Obama’s biggest issue has been foreign policy experience.  For McCain, it’s being tied to the failed policies of President Bush.  Obama already is using the line in his stump speeches and I would expect, as was Biden’s gaffe, a commercial will be produced shortly with McCain’s gaffe.

But the reality is that there is some substance to Obama using McCain’s words against him.  The ‘philosophy’ that McCain and Bush share is one of a conservative.  What does that mean?  It means they believe in less regulation, it means providing tax cuts – particularly to the wealthy in support of supply-side economics, it means less social programs, it means less tolerance for social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.  Beyond that, it goes to associations.  Conservatives, in the guise of Republicans, are supported by big business and Wall Street.  This is their philosophy and this is what has failed the nation economically.

What McCain may have inadvertently done is make a distincition between he and Bush, but also build the argument that they are actually similar.  McCain can argue his methods for achieving Conservative goals are different (i.e. his policies).  However, at the end of the day, the goals (philosophy) are the same.  Bush has had failed with policy – such as the Iraq War or his economic plan.  But Bush has also failed in the Conservative ideology – deregulation and tax cuts.  And that, my friends, is why four years of McCain is four more years of Bush’s ideology.

Obama rightly should be calling out this similarity.  The power of today’s comments and those of McCain’s past – “there are studies that show I (John McCain) voted with the president 90% of the time, more than my colleagues” is a damning one two punch.  These previous comments, boasting about his support for President Bush also builds the argument he supports, not only the ideology, but the policies of the President.

Let’s roll a couple of videos:

also (see 5:45 in for the ‘philsophy’ comment):

The Liberal Crab’s Poll of “Poll of Polls” – 26 October 2008

Popular Vote

Obama – 51.2% +7.5%

McCain – 43.7%

Electoral Vote

Obama – 363

McCain – 175

With eight days left to go in the election, the race remains relatively stable.  Slight movement to John McCain today, as Obama’s share of the vote remained identical to yesterday.  McCain ticked up .4% and independents dropped .4%.  The good news to take out of this for Obama supporters is that he remains above the 50% mark.  In the 15 days I’ve reported on the poll, he has been above 50% in each of those days.  McCain can take an overwhelming majority of the independents and still lose the popular vote.  Obama’s support at at least 50% is relatively strong.  McCain still hasn’t been above his ceiling of 46% since Mid-September.  According to Real Clear Politics, McCain has spent a total of 10 days above 46% since April 1st.  When you add Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, Obama’s support drops by 2% and McCain’s by 3% – giving Obama an additional cushion.  Per Real Clear Politics, that gives Obama a 9% lead, with 6% undecided.  As I keep saying, it will be very difficult for Obama to lose the popular vote.  Things got a little tighter over the weekend, but as you can see from the trends, not a significant difference.  At this point, McCain needs to pick up .8% per day.  McCain’s best performance, around naming Palin and the RNC, he picked up .9% per day for six days.  McCain has the end of the election looming, which will force movement.  However, on Wednesday, Obama will have his 1/2 hour network time.  It’s very evident that only an October surprise will move the popular vote dramatically.   More evidence to that fact – Rasmussen is reporting that, per their poll, about 90% of those who have made a selection WILL NOT CHANGE their vote.  In Rasmussen’s poll, that means Obama is ‘guaranteed’ 48% and McCain 39%.  Assuming Barr/Nader garner the 5% they have been polling, that would still give the popular vote to Obama.

The Electoral College map continues to be relatively static.  However, my polling sensitivity is very low.  That’s for a couple of reasons.  The first is that as a Poll of “Poll of Polls” I am two degrees away from the actual data.  This is good to toss bad polls and not get lost in the noise, but does reduce sensitivity if there is a dramatic change in the race.  Second, my model assumes throwing support to whichever candidate is leading in a poll, regardless of the size of that lead. So a .1% lead for Obama means he gets the state.  The good news is we haven’t seen much movement back and forth over the small leads.  To further make an Obama supporter feel comfortable, all pollsters are giving Obama at least 330 Electoral Votes right now.  

I did run a model today based on Real Clear Politics projections.  I gave Obama and McCain only states where they had at least 50% of the support (some barely making it, some barely missing).  The theory being if you have 50% of the vote, you have a majority of the electorate.  Under that scenario, Obama has 286 Electoral Votes and McCain 160.  Toss-ups include Nevada (5), Montana (3), Missouri (11), Indiana (11), Ohio (20), North Carolina (15), and Florida (27).  Obama is at 49.9% in Ohio.  That means that if he only wins states he has 50% of the vote or higher, he wins the election.  Most polls also give Ohio to Obama – raising his total to 306.  You can see why Pennsylvania is so important.  Without picking off a big state like that, McCain has no chance.  But even if Obama loses Pennsylvania (and Ohio), he’d only need 4 Electoral votes.  Nevada, which he has a 3% lead, would still give him the election.

To sum up – McCain needs to win Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida (along with Nevada, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina) to win the election.  I doubt any other combination will get him there.  A combination of Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, and Florida (along with Montana, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina) could also work.  With eight days to go, he has eight or nine states he needs.  Which goes back to the other point – without a paradigm shift (i.e. a massive movement of the popular vote to McCain – which is a losing cause), he can’t win.

My gut tells me the election is far from over.  But the math and logic shows it to be an extremely difficult path to justify.

Sunday Polls – Mid-Day Update

Just looking at some of the polls that were released today.  Weekends are slow.  However, Gallup (2 polls), Zogby, Hotline and Rasumssen released polls – all of them a rolling average for the last three days.  The average lead for Obama is 7 points.  If you take out the upper and lower extremes, he’s still at about 7 points. He is over 50% and undecideds are 7%.

I also did another examination – if you use the Margin of Error to the extreme in both directions (which basically doubles the effect), Obama would still have a 2 point lead.

The polls really haven’t closed at all.  Weekends, as we have seen for the past few weeks, tend to be Obama’s softest polling days.  This is probably because of the young demographic he pulls, among other reasons.