Rasmussen Reports 10/25 - 10/27 3000 LV 2.0 51 46 Obama +5 Gallup (Traditional)* 10/25 - 10/27 2448 LV 2.0 49 47 Obama +2
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby 10/25 - 10/27 1202 LV 2.9 49 45 Obama +4
"I have alluded before to this strange, magnetic pull that brings Obama down to 48% or 49%, a danger zone for him. McCain's gains are among white voters, where he now leads by 12 points, and with men, where he again has a healthy lead. There is still a lot of campaign to go. A lot of campaign to go." - John ZogbyRasmussen shows Barack up 8% again today... and yesterday's Gallup has it a7% game.
"Things are trending back for McCain. His numbers are rising and Obama's are dropping on a daily basis. There seems to be a direct correlation between this and McCain talking about the economy," pollster John Zogby said.Democrats like to make elections about class warfare, and they've succeeded.
Barack seems to be losing ground with the ladies.Obama's lead among voters making less than $35,000 per year remains substantial at a little over 70 percent. But McCain, who had previously scored well only with the highest income brackets, now holds slight leads among voters in all income groups starting at $35,000 and above.
"You've got to think that it is tax-and-spend that concerns them. Is McCain starting to connect with the middle class?" Zogby said.
Obama still had solid, if slightly diminished, leads among two important groups which could play pivotal roles in the November 4 election. Among independents he had a 14 point lead, down from a peak of 29 points. Women also still backed Obama by a 14-point margin, down from 20 points late last week.
McCain, who once had a 4-point deficit among male voters, now has a 4-point lead at 48-44 percent. And whites back McCain by a 12-point margin, up from 6 points on Friday.
This is reminicent of the leadership McCain showed during the Russian invasion of Georgia over the summer, but coming 10 days into this crisis rather than with immediate sure-footedness shown by his campaign during the Russian situation. Will Barack go along with suspending the debate?
It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration' proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.
Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me.
I am calling on the President to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself. It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.
However a senior Obama campaign official said Obama "intends to debate."
"The debate is on," a senior Obama campaign official told ABC News.
But a number of Democrats, including advisers to the Obama campaign, are worried that the Democratic party’s overall electoral advantage this year has not yet translated into comfortable leads for Mr Obama.The race is now tied.
But the signs are that Mr McCain’s continuing attacks – most recently in a commercial that portrayed Mr Obama as a vapid celebrity against images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears – may be striking a chord with the white working class voters who shunned Mr Obama so emphatically in many of his primary contests with Hillary Clinton.And Barack's campaign has been able to accomplish nothing since Jeremiah Wright emerged in mid-March.
With just one month to go before Labour Day – the traditional beginning of the general election – and only three weeks before the Democratic convention, many Democrats fear that time is running out for Mr Obama to overcome the suspicions of this key swing vote.What do they expect?
“We have got to move away from these beautifully choreographed speeches which appeal to groups of voters who are unassailably in the Obama camp already,” said a non-staff adviser to Mr Obama. “What plays well with the educated liberal voter sometimes grates with the blue-collar folk, whom we need on our side if we are going to win.”Barack doesn't resonate. He's not happening. And it's only going to get worse.
At this stage in the 1988 presidential race, Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate, had a 17 percentage point lead over George H.W. Bush, who went on to win the election. John Kerry emerged from the 2004 Democratic convention with a strong lead over George W. Bush only to lose the election as well. In 2008, conventional wisdom says Mr McCain is running a much less effective campaign than either of the Bushes.
That only reinforces disquiet about Mr Obama’s inability so far to take a decisive lead.
But this is a hysteria around a personality that's attractive, but when you look under the hood, there's not a whole lot there. So fame without portfolio is, sort of, fashionable. But leadership without experience is dangerous.
During his trip to Germany, Obama was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl, but cancelled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate.
I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisors (Major General Jonathan Gration), a former military officer." Continued Obama, "And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn’t on the Senate staff. That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political.
