Anyone have any theories on why the polls have shifted so hard for Obama?

Just a few days ago it seemed like we were seeing the race tighten. We all expected the race to tighten. Everyone from DU to CNN was saying this race would close to within five by election day. Then, suddenly, every single poll shows this race blowing apart. Any theories as to what's driving it?

and then Americans said, awww hell naw....we cant let this tighten.

are finally waking up after 8 years.

..for some of the really recent shifts we've seen, maybe not all of it. It's true, though, and some people will just climb on board whatever looks like the most inevitable ticket.

In that election, voters wanted change. The election polled close most of the way, because voters had doubts about Reagan as President. When they got over that, they flocked to him.

The same thing this year. Voters want change, but they had doubts about Obama. Those doubts are not gone with a clear majority comfortable with him being up to the job. So they are flocking to him.

Still, I'm pretty confident it's going to go up tomorrow.

I think WardrobeGate has sunk Palin for good--it's totally out of character for this "Frontier Mom" image she's cultivated for herself.

moderate conservatives.

In 92, Bush came within a point of Clinton before he pulled away. Even Dole came within four of Clinton six days before the election, then the weekend polls went for Clinton. Gore came from behind in 2000 about that time. Kerry had tanked in early October but came back right before the election.

nt

1. people looking at 401ks

2. stock market

3. economy

4. people looking at 401ks

5. stock market

6. economy

7. I think people are getting really exhausted by the McCain/Palin campaign. It is just nerve wracking even trying to follow it.

Jumping from one thing to the next, calling Obama everything from a celebrity to a socialist.

but they do eventually catch on

...and the same old lies just aren't going to work this time.:patriot: JMHO...but just look at INDIANA ! :)

But one thinks that born-again evangelicals are 44% of the population (AP/GfK) and the other thinks that 18-24 year olds are going for McSame by a 74% margin (IBD/TIPP).

HAHAHAHA!

Magical thinking has proven to have limitations: it doesn't work in the reality-based community.

That is, once the polls started swinging to someone, I think that a lot of the undecideds make their decision based on who they think will win.

Maybe not so much thinking "I want to vote for the winner!" but thinking "Okay, more people are choosing this guy, so I'll trust the judgment of the collective".

As the undecideds jump into the game for the winner, then the polls go even more toward Obama, and then even more undecideds join in, and it escalates.

And I do think that McCain's utterly deplorable attack ads, and Palin's outrageous behavior and rhetoric at rallies, are turning off a lot of people.

over the weekend because of the Debate, the Joe Plumber story and the Socialism jab.

i dont think obama lost any ground, but that simply the GOP base got momentarily energized... so some of the "likely voter" polls showed a burst of excitement.

and then reality sunk in when colin powell struck and monday came.

for the most part, lots of bizarre samples. The 43% white evangelical poll from AP really stands out (that still had Obama up!!!)but they also were oversampling Republiscum in a couple too, giving them equal weight to Democrats.

Assuming there was really some tightening then I think we might just be seeing the sinking ship effect. McCain hasn't won a single day in weeks.

I'd say it was McFailedStunt's campaign suspension that turned the trick. Wall Street banks failed, world leaders were pulling chicken little routines right and left and McFailedStunt pulled a huge obvious stunt. It didn't help him much that Letterman put his stunt on full display for all of its manifest stuntlyness. Suddenly, all across the nation, the specter of economic collapse dope slapped the stupid out of people. They took another look, saw that there was one really smart candidate who happened to be black and have a funny name, and another not so smart candidate who seemed to be pulling one stunt after another, looked like death warmed over, and was running with the soccer mom from hell as his sidekick. Game over. They chose the smart guy.

nt

And most people have figured it out ?

I think also the 90% voting for Bush ad has been effective.

are really scared. Unemployment is on the rise and it's looking worse and worse every day.


Many that were in the alter-net universe of repuke land (you know the one were Sadam Hussein had something to do with 911 and the economy is going strong) are getting a sobering dose of reality.

Unfortunately many in my area can't bring themselves to realize the truth. I live in East TN with some of the stupidest people I've ever met. But it's nice to see the rest of the country waking up.

McCain/Palin.

fear-and-smear tactic.

The economy has collapsed on the Pukes and the Pukes are the cause of the collapse, and the people the collpase most hurts vote Democratic.

The pResident has the lowest approval rating in modern U.S. history, worse than Nixon. Bush is outpolled these days by Duke Cunningham, Charles Manson, and Satan.

Reagan is too dead to help any Republican these days.

We have the best music, too. Stevie Wonder. The Boss. James Taylor. Many others.

The fundies never liked McCain much and are unenthusiastic about him now. He needs them in higher vote total percentages than he has them and without that percentage of that part of the Puke base, McCain falters.

The Big Money types don't seem to know what to do with McCain. He's not entirely acceptable to them, in addition to McCain's wobbly and inconsistent observations on finance. McCain's grasp of finance appears to be less than the average 11th grader. If that.

The Senate candidates the Pukes are offering are in significant danger of being sent packing. Between scandal (Stevens) and stupidity (Dole), and sheer smarminess (all the others), they aren't drawing county-level organization support. Blue candidates on the other hand are strong-to-terrific, and are mobilizing record-number volunteer and grassroots organizations.

McCain's ads are ugly and nasty and untrue. He's offering no affirming energy to the vision of our country. Obama is. Big time.

Sarah Palin is demonstrated now to be a huge drag on the GOP ticket, and understandably so. She's a vacuous dumbass with a mean streak a mile long, possessed of both a contempt for equality of women and the impulse to censor what others have a right to read. She sounds like an 8th grade girl, pretty and popular, who makes life hard for the other girls in the class who aren't in the clique.

When they've lost David Brooks, they've lost the election. He's as Republican as they come, and a talented if deluded writer. And he's for Obama.

Do these cross tabs levelling, really indicate stabilization?

Why is it, Obama can turn polls around so radically in so short a time?

And since he has proven that ability, why is it the "cross tabs" caught the wonks by surprise?

How come they didn't see the curve coming, if they are so reliable?

No pollsters claim to be 100% accurate, all polls have a + or - 3% or higher margin of error usually. So one or two percent shifts either way in either candidate's numbers are just noise.

If you look at the last like 2 weeks of Gallup's numbers Obama and McCain are remarkably consistently. McCain is always between 41% to 43%, Obama is consistently between 50% to 52%, with like one or two days in the last 2 or 3 weeks of being at 49%.

At times McCain looks like he's making a comeback from him polling at his highest average rating, and Obama scoring a hair below his lowest average.

At times it looks like Obama is pulling away when he hits his highest average rating, while McCain hits his lowest average rating.

The average ratings of these two are capable of shifting the race by 4 or 5 percent, and when you poll people daily you're bound to notice some of that noise. It's the law of averages, if you flip a coin 100 times you won't always get 50 heads and 50 tails, sometimes you'll get a few more heads, sometimes you'll get a few more tails.

starting to wake up in this country - McCain is getting nuttier by the day.

That's probably one of the factors. I hadn't seen anyone mention it yet. Likely the soft voters who had been describing themselves as undecided are now coming around to Obama. It remains to be seen what the true undecideds will do. Many pundits assert both camps expect McCain to win them heavily. But I don't know about that. Why would undecideds break so sharply against the overall tide? I'm always skeptical of theories like that. You are asking undecideds to swarm toward the party with lower approval and candidate with much lower favorables.

Still, the averaging of the polls is more likely to be accurate than the extreme high margins. I keep thinking Obama's over/under is 51.5%, which is what I posted a couple of months ago before the economic collapse, but now that looks increasingly low.

The more you get to know McCain, the more you want to scratch a

In your face.

So many repubs have come out for Obama and that does not happen often enough for me.

:bounce:

:shrug:

Get out the vote! Act like we are behind... do not stop working till it's over!
CR