Thursday, October 16, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN, BARACK OBAMA, HORSERACE

Word From Obi Wan, Another Insider, and a Third Sign for Optimism

My mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, checked in, perhaps worried by this post, as a few other readers were. (Folks, I don't like sharing bad news, but what am I supposed to do when I hear it?)

Obi Wan was very positive about last night's debate.

"McCain won every question, looked like a leader and not the law professor that Obama looked like. McCain hit the themes of Joe the Plumber and big government as the basic difference and then hurt Obama's credibility on issue after issue.

The media types will try and take the win away. — they tried in 1980 to say Carter won or that the debate was a draw. But the voters thought otherwise.  It may take more than a couple of days, but as people start making judgments and ending their mood swings, the numbers should really help McCain."

The second bit of good news for McCain is comes from a source in the Midwest, plugged into various GOP operations, who told me that “key metrics” in “bellweather areas” of Ohio are showing very favorable McCain numbers and that these indicators may also signal important metrics for Pennsylvania, esp. western Pennsylvania. This source has no illusions, and is worried about other states — the same ones you and I are worried about when we look at an Electoral College map — but those two states are looking surprisingly strong for McCain, with some evidence that the same folks who were skeptical of Obama in the Democratic primary are still not on board and may not ever be on board.

(Interestingly the Dayton Daily News released its own poll on Sunday showing McCain winning Ohio statewide by 2 percent.)

Finally, my third sign is a bit lighter, but interesting in measuring GOP enthusiasm for McCain, which I think had been waning in the past two weeks or so. I've got a reader who writes in regularity, reminding me that I am a gutless squish, that John McCain is just about indistinguishable from a Democrat, that it's up to real conservatives like him to keep fighting the good fight (which apparently consists mostly sending me e-mails reminding me that I am a gutless squish). He's never had a good word to say about John McCain that I can recall. And then, this morning, he writes:

IF, and that's a big if, McCain stays on the message that he had last night for the next two weeks, next year you won't even remember who "B.O." is.....for two reasons:

1.  [Reagan Democrats] will not vote for a commie, liberal, anti-American, anti-military, anti-guns, baby killing, tax raising, al qaeda sleeper cell member from indonesia who pals around with and accepts $ from terrorists while his con men buddies in congress steal billions from the U.S. taxpayer.

2.  Hillary Democrats do not want "BO" to win because "you know who" has only one more chance to become prez and that has to be in 4 years.

The undecided vote has increased and will break enough for McCain to put him over the top no matter what the [conservatives in name only] and liberals will be saying for the next two weeks.

(Lest there be any doubt, I remain unconvinced that Barack Obama is an al-Qaeda sleeper cell member.)

UPDATE: A fourth sign. Another state-level GOP guy I talk to regularly says that what he is seeing in internal polling lines up with the commentary you see in this RedState post, purportedly from an Obama campaign internal pollster, indicating that they are "very worried about how Palin appears to be energizing whole groups of people who don't typically get energized about politics, precisely because she appeals so strongly to the middle class, as well as women and dissatisfied republicans that stayed home in 2006."

10/16 08:45 AMShare