Poll shows McCain ahead in Ohio, 48-42

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/09/19/ohio-presidential-poll.html


<<In the battle for Ohio's 20 electoral votes, Republican presidential nominee John McCain holds a 48-42 percent lead over Democratic opponent Barack Obama — but with lots of time left in a volatile race, according to the first Dayton Daily News /Ohio Newspaper Poll.

The poll also surveyed Ohio voters on health care, energy, and their personal financial situations — with nearly half saying they are worse off today than four years ago.

While McCain is in front, the poll showed his margin is less than secure. Four percent favored Independent Party candidate Ralph Nader, 1 percent opted for Libertarian Bob Barr, and 5 percent said they were undecided. In addition, 19 percent said they could change their mind by election day.

The poll revealed deep dissatisfaction about Ohioans' personal economic situation: Asked if they are better off, worse off, or the same as four years ago, a slight majority said they were either the same (34 percent) or better off (19 percent), while 47 percent said they were worse off.<<<
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More interesting reading here, though, is a brief glimpse into the mindset of some Ohio voters:

* Soon-to-be unemployed 57-year-old man: "I'm still on the fence but mostly for McCain," said Martin. "It just seems like he's a better choice than Obama at the moment."

* Entrepreneur supports McCain because "I like smaller government. I don't like national health care." This guy goes on to say that McCain will win Ohio because Bush did, twice, an because McCain is "10 times" smarter than President Bush.

And, of course, we have those all-important issues, abortion and family values, coming into play.

* Democrats are not "pro-life in any way, shape, or form."

* "(McCain)is not for same-sex marriage, he is not for abortion. And for me that's two important things." This person goes on to say that because her husband is also a Vietnam vet, a "maybe it's a sentimental factor also."

And, there is prejudice.

* "The color of Obama's skin — he will not carry this area."

* "There's a lot of prejudiced people out there. I'm not one of them. If it's not a reporter asking the question, they'll say it's because of his color."

Speaking as a native Ohioan, I'm done trying to figure out this state. And I am embarrassed, angered, and saddened by that. If people continue to vote for what they know is against their best interests -- and Ohio is Example No, 1 of the decline of the economy under Bush over the past eight years -- then they deserve whatever they have coming. No sympathy here. Not anymore.

Taken while McCain was still ahead nationally in the polls and doesn't include the past horrible week for McCain.

And yes Ohio has dumb ass born again red neck racists but:

We have 1 million more registered dems than repugs

We have Jennifer Brunner

We have a 31% poverty rate .... pocket book issues # 1 in voting behavior

We can vote early or on paper

W/ our wins in 2006 we control many BOEs and local precincts

As for that poll my guess is that much of the "old media" in the state
has a stake in making it seem close or having McCain win .... they know
they have been lying to cover up the 2004 election.

Some folks can't be helped, and Ohio seems to have a surplus in that category.

Ohio seems to have some very racist people combined with people who put so called "family values" ahead of economics. We will see if it has gotten bad enough that they will vote for their well being instead of over "family values". I guess it is cities vs rural turnout again.

Who knew :shrug:

Glad Obama made a big map instead of a two state map this year.

The McCain support is soft, enough can be moved to take it. It'll be far to close for conditions on the ground to justify but it's possible.

I have a lot of faith that our early voting will get a lot more people to the polls this year.

We are living through the abject failure of conservative policies in Iraq (no reason for expensive war; now can't get out), in our economic system (big profits for the wealthy; big debt for the people), in our health-care system (most expensive in the world; mediocre results), and in all of the other "broken" government systems we constantly hear about.

So, what do voters in Ohio and elsewhere propose to do about it? That's right. Let's elect a man who is committed to carrying forward every single one of the failed bush policies that have 80+% of the public saying the country is on the wrong track! And, as a bonus, let's have an ignorant dimbulb for vice president to seal the deal.

If you needed a critical operation, would you choose a surgeon who was just convicted of malpractice in that very kind of surgery to save your life? Apparently so.

The problem is ignorance. Fox "News" and the right-wing radio gasbags spread false information and breathtakingly ignorant Americans mindlessly lap it all up without a question. Democracy requires a free press and an informed electorate. America has neither, and so it must die. We're watching the death throes now. Whee!

So I will give McCain voters in Ohio the benefit of the doubt, and say that they are intelligent, and they must just like losing jobs, houses and health insurance.

and who's been giving him a raw deal

...that was taken over by DHL, in what may or may not be an antitrust issue (Sherrod Brown is working long and hard on this), in a deal that was supported by John McCain, whose campaign manager was a lobbyist for DHL's European interests.

In terms that those in rural, Southwest Ohio may understand: Shit rolls downhill. And it stops with the soon-to-be unemployed 57-year-old. He's gonna find that out soon enough.

This dovetails nicely with a completely idiotic letter to the editor I came across in a community newspaper a few days ago. Another unemployed man said that he is voting for McCain because he fears Obama's economic and health care policies, as well as his tax hikes (when, or when will someone put Obama's tax plan in monosyllables so that people will understand it??? but I digress...). Plus, McCain stands for change. Them, in the next sentence, he said, "maybe McCain will be like George Bush. But that's OK...at least under Bush I HAD A JOB."

Craziness. How else to explain this?

~

I don't think you see a pattern either way.

The polling was concluded on Tuesday and it began on Thursday the 11th...

so, automatically, there's a 2% head start.

See my post above.

As far as the economy is concerned; an issue that should be at the top of every working, unemployed, underemployed and multiple-jobbed American’s priority list (and Republicans, this means YOU as well. When I say “Worker” I mean “YOU!” Worker: YOU! Worker: YOU! . . ..): Every Republican skeptic has historically adhered to the tried-and-true Republican chestnut and falsehood that (cue scary female voice) “Democrats Will RAISE YOUR TAXES!” and this year seems to be no exception.

When it comes to Obama vs. McCain however, it’s been proven MORE than a few times that 90% of Americans would pay fewer taxes under Obama's proposed tax plan than under McCain's.

READ IT AGAIN: If you make less than $112,000 as an individual (this is NOT household income, it's individual), you will pay fewer taxes under a president Obama than you would under a president McCain. (thx, ihavenobias)

But let’s go even further: What is McCain’s position on other economic issues facing working Americans?

According to ontheissues.org, the pro-free-traders couldn’t have picked a better candidate. He’s stated that “NAFTA has had an unambiguously positive impact on US”, “Every time the US went protectionist, we paid a heavy price” and told workers in Youngstown, Michigan and Wilmington, Ohio that their jobs either were not coming back or that he didn’t know if he could save them. He voted YES on CAFTA, YES on several free trade agreements (including permanent free trade to China), is pro-NAFTA, pro-GATT and has been rated 100% by the Republi . . . er. . . libertarian CATO Institute.

In case you were wondering, Ohio workers . . . all of that is BAD for you.

And while he was an early opponent of the Bush tax cuts, he became favorable of them in recent years, stating that the tax system is fair since the “wealthy pay the bulk of taxes”. He’s also lent his support of Social Security privatization, which in a sense means he wishes to "invest" (read: gamble) money that is supposed to be available as insurance for retired workers in their later years.

Bilking retiree dollars for the purpose of “investment” . . . hmmmm, where have I heard that before . . . oh yes, that’s right. The S& L scandal (which McCain was involved in as a member of the Keating Five)! That’s a little crime in which pretty much every citizen of America paid for and is still paying for . . . . everyone, that is, except for the parties involved. They mostly got off scot-free.

So if you're thinking about voting for John McCain in November, know that you're voting against YOUR best interests and YOUR CHILDREN'S best interests. THAT is beyond argument.

Wake up. Read. Turn off Fox News, who are nothing but Reagan/Bush propagandists.

Don't dig your own graves and don't dig mine.

A corporate tool cannot and will not fix YOUR economy. He can only put more weights on HIS people's side of the scale, and in case you were wondering, you AIN'T on that side.

is generally very close. With the economy, Bush, the Taft Administration and a popular Democratic governor I just can't believe McCain could possibly have a 6 point advantage. Governor Strickland was a Hillary backer, is he backing Obama now, I don't know?

and I've seen only 2 McCain bumper stickers and 3 McCain yard signs. Since the primaries ended, I've actually seen more Bush-Cheney bumper stickers than McCain.

In 2004, I saw Bush-Cheney stickers and signs everywhere.

FWIW..

Glad I don't stay in Ohio. Where the idiot voters continue to hurt their on state

Sunday, September 21, 2008
By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

VIENNA, Ohio -- Election night, 1960. The Buckeye State is slipping into the column of Richard M. Nixon. John F. Kennedy, watching the returns in his Hyannis Port home, displayed a hand and forearm scratched and swollen from countless handshakes.

"Ohio did this to me,'' he said.

The episode, recounted in Theodore H. White seminal campaign chronicle, "The Making of the President 1960," would not be the last time that Ohio's voters frustrated a Democratic candidate.

Four years ago, Sen. John F. Kerry rolled up big early margins in Cuyahoga County and Franklin County, the counties that surround Cleveland and Columbus, and down through the Mahoning Valley, the product of one of the most effective turnout operations in the state's history.

"If you had told me the day before the election the kind of margins Kerry would get , I'd have been celebrating," said Jim Ruvalo, a veteran Democratic consultant and former chairman of the state Democratic Party.

But President Bush benefited from an even more potent get-out-the-vote drive elsewhere in the state. After a long night of counting, the Republican ticket was ahead, 51 percent to 49 percent, enough to deliver the state, the nation and a delayed concession speech from Mr. Kerry.

A state that has been part of the electoral vote majority for every successful Republican presidential candidate would seem ripe for a Democratic candidate this year. Its unemployment rate is 7.2 percent, well ahead of the national rate of 5.5 percent after years of losses of manufacturing jobs. The faltering economy has forced the new Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, to cut nearly $1.3 billion from the state's budget this year. Mr. Strickland led a political resurgence for his party in 2006, as Democrats captured the governor's mansion, a Senate seat and a U.S. House seat.

But Ohio is again a bellwether for the nation as the site of an extraordinarily close battle between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, one that has the potential to again determine the next occupant of the White House. Reflecting that status, both sides have poured money and candidate time into the state.

And in their no-stone-unturned competition, both hope to prevail in part by poaching votes from regions within the state that normally favor the other party.

The Mahoning Valley is one of them. With his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, Mr. McCain appeared here again this week, lavishing his attention on a working class corner of the state that's normally a reliable cache of Democratic votes.

"He's been here as many times as he's been any place in Ohio,'' former Sen. Mike DeWine, Mr. McCain's Ohio chairman, said over the din of workmen clearing away the debris from his candidate's rally Tuesday. "John McCain believes he is competitive in the Mahoning Valley. I don't think there's any place else he's been three times.''

Counting this week's appearance, Mr. McCain has spent all or part of 18 campaign days in Ohio since securing his nomination. According to his campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has visited the state eight times since he locked up the Democratic spot.

The imbalance is a little deceptive, however, since Mr. Obama campaigned in the state extensively before its March 3 primary. But it's clear that few states have had so much collective attention from the campaigns. On Thursday, hot on the heels of the opposing ticket, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in Youngstown, at the end of a cross-state bus tour.

Edge in polls to McCain:
In the weeks since their nominating conventions wrapped up, the two campaigns have spent roughly $800,000 each on Ohio television, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Advertising Project. For the McCain campaign, that spending trailed only Pennsylvania and Florida. In the same period, Mr. Obama spent more only in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and Virginia.

The result, according to a variety of polls, is a state very much up for grabs less than seven weeks before the election. Here, as nationally, the McCain-Palin team bounced up in the days following the Republican National Convention. But in recent days, the numbers moved back to near even.

Just last week, a CNN/Time survey put Mr. Obama ahead, 49 percent to 47 percent. A Fox/Rasmussen survey had it the other way, 48 percent for Mr. McCain and 45 percent for the Democrat. The common denominator in almost every one of the slew of surveys this past week was that the difference between the candidates was within the polls' margins of error.

Aggregating the results, the web site Pollster.com saw a McCain lead of 47 percent to 44.6 percent. Realclearpolitics.com sees a similarly close race, with Mr. McCain up in its polling average by 1.2 percent.

Mr. Strickland, who represented a congressional district that covers part of the Mahoning Valley and the state's traditional manufacturing communities has expressed incredulity that Mr. McCain would even seek votes in the area. These communities, he argues, were battered by the trade policies of the Bush administration.

Four years ago, Mr. Kerry carried Trumbull and Mahoning counties, the sites of the unusual attention from the McCain campaign, with more than 60 percent of the vote.

The race issue:
But the governor is also among a handful of Ohio Democrats who have spoken out in recent weeks expressing concern that some traditional Democrats in these and other Ohio comminutes will balk at voting for Mr. Obama because of his race.

In an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer earlier this summer, the governor referred to the racial issue as "the elephant in the room,'' that many voters and commentators would rather ignore.

"There are good people, who won't vote for Obama, because he's a black man,'' Mr. Strickland said at another point.

"Anyone who doesn't think race is an issue has their head in the sand," said Mr. Ruvalo. "Is it an issue that will be determinative? I don't know."

Mr. DeWine eagerly anticipates McCain making inroads with working-class white voters, but he dismisses the suggestion that race is the motivator.

"I think people are mistaking the race issue for other things,'' he said. "Obama is too much like John Kerry. People have a hard time relating to him. And like Kerry, he has a hard time relating to the average person, the average guy."

Of his own candidate, the former Republican senator said, "I think on some gut issues, he's much closer to where people are in the Mahoning Valley, someone along the Ohio River, someone in Parma. I think on some gut issues, he's much closer to where people are ... guns, abortion, marriage, the things commonly referred to as the social issues. I think you'll find that's true for much of the state."

Every Ohio survey, however, finds the economy as the prime issue in the race. David Leland, another former state Democratic chairman, sees that as the key to an Obama victory.

"Ohio is ground zero in terms of what's been happening to the national economy," he said. " needs to connect with the Mahoning Valley, with southern Ohio ... on an economic message. But you do have people who have never voted for an African-American. ... That's a challenge not just for Barack but for every Ohio Democrat.''

Mr. Obama has one key asset that neither Mr. Kerry nor former Vice President Al Gore enjoyed in their close but unsuccessful attempts to capture the state's 20 electoral votes. That's the support of an incumbent governor.

Pennsylvania shares more than a border with Ohio. Among their demographic similarities are their ethnic mix, with German the most common ancestry followed by Irish. African-Americans represent about 11 percent of Ohio, just about 10 percent of Pennsylvanians. Their urban-rural proportions are an almost identical -- 77 percent to 23 percent. But their political characters are different. Republicans have traditionally been stronger in Ohio compared to the more seesaw relationship of the parties in Pennsylvania.

Democratic surge:
The recent past has been tough on Ohio Republicans. The economy, opposition to the Iraq War and financial scandals battered the GOP prior to the 2006 elections, which brought major gains to the state's Democrats, Mr. Strickland's landslide victory for governor chief among them.

Mr. Strickland was firmly in the camp of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primary that she won handily over Mr. Obama. By then, Mr. McCain had already wrapped up the GOP race.

Now, Mr. Strickland is lined up behind Mr. Obama. His former campaign manager, Aaron Pickrell, directs the Obama effort in the state, one that Democrats describe as potentially the most robust ground game in the state's history. Mr. Pickrell was also the political director of former Sen. John Edwards's Iowa organization, an effort that produced a strong second-place showing against Mr. Obama.

Throughout the primaries, the Obama campaign cultivated a reputation for their grass-roots prowess in states across the country. In Ohio, that's melded to the homegrown apparatus that produced for Mr. Strickland.

"I think it has an impact that we finally have a Democratic governor,'' Mr. Ruvalo said. "He has an organization; he knows how to win. We haven't had that in 16 years.''

The operation includes a network of offices across the state.

Pointing to the unprecedented turnout that the Bush campaign produced in the state's rural and exurban communities, Mr. Ruvalo said, "Democrats have learned that we can't concentrate on the same eight or 12 counties. The Obama campaign has opened offices everywhere, not that you are going to win everywhere, but you can get votes everywhere; you can hold down the margins."

Mr. DeWine dismisses the suggestion that the GOP will be out-organized in the state.

"What is true is that they have a more extensive paid organization,'' he said. "I think we have the better organization, and we've done it before. We're building on what we did four years ago and eight years ago."

The Republican campaign, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, is quarterbacked by Jon Seaton. A veteran of the White House office of political affairs, Mr. Seaton was national field director of the McCain campaign last year before the financial implosion that nearly ended the senator's White House bid. He went on to head Mr. McCain's Iowa operation before signing on as regional campaign manager for Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"We had a late start," Mr. DeWine acknowledged, "but it's kicked in hard in the last month. ... I can tell you we're ahead in phone calls from where we were four years ago. They may have more paid people but we have more Ohioans on the ground."

Post-Gazette politics editor James O'Toole can be reached at jotoole@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1562.
First published on September 21, 2008 at 12:00 am