Between Elsewhere and Here

RIP McCain'08 3.1.07 - 9.24.08


On March 1st, 2007 McCain appeared on David Letterman to announce his bid for the Presidency. On September 24, 2008 McCain skipped an appearance on Letterman’s show under the guise of suspending his campaign only to then do an interview with Katie Couric. It’s my belief that any shot McCain had at becoming the next President of the United States died on the 24th of September.

I don’t think skipping Letterman’s show is tantamount to political death. Rather, McCain’s skipping Letterman is a visible result of the state of his campaign. Instead of saying something as simple as, “In this time of crisis, we feel it’s best to focus on the issues. We’ve asked David Letterman to postpone Sen McCain’s appearance on his show so that Sen McCain can attend an interview on CBS’ Evening News.” Nothing wrong with that statement or the idea of it.

The McCain campaign, on the other hand, is so lost in its own spin that they couldn’t manage to tell Letterman the truth. They’ve become the pathological liar who – even when the truth is on their side – still feels the need to embellish, exaggerate and lie. Their spin is so out of control, McCain seems lost within his own campaign as if he’s being handed the script not in its entirety, not even page by page, but word by word. He makes a big show about suspending his campaign and then continues to campaign. He makes a big show about a meeting at the White House and then – as multiple sources have reported – says next to nothing at the meeting, achieving nothing.

But it’s more than this. We all know Democrats are beating Republicans on the generic ballot, and if you look at the polls, it would seem to suggest that Obama is under preforming in comparison. Sure, technically speaking, he is. However, I believe the polling itself is actually forcing an appearance of under performance. For one thing pollsters have a very hard time getting a hold of people (like myself) who only have a cell phone. These cell phone only voters are disproportionally younger voters who are disproportionally going for Obama.

Since youth turn out in the past has been low to low-ish, pollsters don’t know exactly how to weigh their polls with the proper spread of under 30 voters. Nate Silver has a great post up about this, but basically, it’s harder to get a hold of youth voters and there is very little preexisting data on which to predict their turn out. Both of these factors play heavily against Obama in the polls.

There’s another factor at play here: race – and it’s not what you’re thinking. Pollsters also believe that African Americans are not reporting their race when asked. This is much like a reverse Bradley Effect, but with the strength of Obama’s performance in the black community (close to 92%) and the expectation that the turn out in the black community is going to be historic, Obama is also probably under preforming in polls among the black community.

For Obama’s two most passionate and dependable support groups, he’s probably under preforming with in the polls, which pulls down his overall poll performance. Yet, he’s still a head everywhere it matters and only slightly behind in states like Ohio, Virgina and Florida. And with McCain running around in circles claiming he’s running in a straight line, I think we’ve reached the point where we’ll all look back and say, “September 24th, 2008 is when McCain lost the election.”

Could I be wrong? Sure. Absolutely. Plenty of time left on the clock, but McCain’s problem is that the clock is ticking.

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By Christopher on 09/26/08 05:01 PM | | Link

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RIP McCain'08 3.1.07 - 9.24.08

The McCain has become the pathological liar who – even when the truth is on their side – still feels the need to embellish, exaggerate and lie. Their spin is so out of control, McCain seems lost within his own campaign as if he’s being the script not in its entirety, not even page by page, but word by word.

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