A website dedicated to the man so uniquely unqualified to be President. This blog by by radio talk host Todd Feinburg has been replaced by RealClearThinker.com.
Now that liberals are in power, it's important to remind ourselves just how dangerous they can be. For example, the Boston Globe has a delightfully humorous editorial today on fixing the "election mess -" funny but for its utter maliciousness.
BARACK OBAMA'S superior get-out-the-vote operation spared the country from another squeaker presidential election, with the claims of voter fraud and intimidation that have become so familiar in the previous two cycles. But that doesn't mean the problems in the nation's electoral system have disappeared. They're just not as visible at high tide.
It's true that the voter system isn't up to snuff for the close elections we've been turning out lately, although it would be more accurate to credit the financial meltdown with Barack's victory margin - but I'm nitpicking. What's funny about the Globe position, and demonstrates the paper's maliciousness, is what they think the real problem is - lack of access to the polls.
After the 2000 election made the United States look like something out of a Marx Brothers movie, former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter co-chaired a National Election Commission. Their report concluded that the country has one of the most burdensome voter registration systems - and one of the lowest participation rates - in the developed world. Even with the Obama wave, voter turnout this year was only about 61 percent of registered voters.
Huh? Burdensome voter registration? You have to fill out a form and attest to your residency - that's a world class burden?
One simple change would solve several problems that have bedeviled recent national elections: universal voter registration. Under this plan, promoted by the watchdog Brennan Center for Justice and others, the government would be responsible for automatically registering citizens when they turn 18.
I have a better idea. Why not automatically register all voters at age 18, and then automatically submit a vote on their behalf in favor of the Democratic candidate? That way, only Republicans would have to show up at the polls to alter their auto-vote. This would be the green solution, helping to curb global warming by keeping people off the roads. And it would lead to good government, as only Democrats would win elections.
Change is hard to accept for a Congress that, after all, got elected under the current registration system. But any technical or political obstacles pale in comparison with another election marred by fears of ballot-stuffing, voter suppression, and undermined confidence in democracy.
Not so hard to shift to a system that favors Democrats for a Congress controlled by Democrats.
I suspect this led to a reduced turnout for Democratic voters considering how they're registering anyone who can breath - or could at one time, anyway.
Boston morning hosts Gerry Callahan and John Dennis told listeners to their WEEI show today the election was postponed and that Democrats should show up to vote tomorrow to vote. That led to complaints to the Massachusetts Secretary of State's office, which told the hosts to "knock it off."
But a couple of Black Panthers at the door to a voting place? No problem.
Suggesting that McCain is too old to be president, a new TV advertisement tries to scare voters away from him because of his bouts with Melanoma.
‘‘John McCain is 72 years old and had cancer 4 times,’’ the ad’s text says over a black-and-white image of McCain with the left side of his face bandaged after surgery in 2000. ‘‘Why won’t McCain release his medical records?’’
The ad is being produced and run only on a liberal news network - by two liberal groups.
The 30-second ad, so far airing for $50,000 only on MSNBC, is paid for by Brave New PAC and Democracy for America, a political group headed by James Dean, the brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
Do you remember 15 years ago the Dateline NBC scandal, when the TV news program put an ignition device on a pickup truck in order to make it explode for a feature on faulty truck design?
NBC had acknowledged that in the demonstration it used "sparking devices," or tiny rockets, strapped to the bottom of one of the trucks, to insure that it would ignite if its gas tank leaked. But the network did not reveal the presence of the sparking devices.
This case provides an insight into television works, which, in turn, offers insight into the way politics works in America today.
Take it from an expert. Karl Rove, known as the architect of President George W. Bush’s electoral victories, believes White House candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have gone too far in their attacks on each other.
Everything on TV is fake. The most mundane news creation, like a reporter sitting doing an interview, involves shooting the interview over the shoulder of the interviewer toward the guest, and then after the interview, the reporter restates his questions as the camera aims at his face - the guest having moved on with his life. It is a medium that, in order to create images of reality, depends on illusions - using special lighting and makeup, at a minimum.
“In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove — the man who held the previous record — said McCain’s ads have gone too far,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.
Campaigns today are fought on the platform of TV, where falsehoods are used as tools to portray reality. Deliberately, they misrepresent the facts - lying, it's called in the real world. As Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor was doing when he made the above statement. Because, at the same time that Rove said McCain had gone to far, he said:
...an ad by the Democratic presidential nominee and Illinois senator criticizing McCain for not being e-mail savvy was unfair. “His war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can’t type. You know, it’s like saying he can’t do jumping jacks,” Rove said of the Arizona senator and former U.S. prisoner of war in Vietnam.
This is how the campaigns do business. And they use the sniping over whose ads are deceptive as cover, it seems, to keep people from noticing the big lies - like Obama's lies on ending the war in Iraq. The truth about what Rove said?
Rove said both campaigns were making a mistake by pushing the envelope with their assaults. “They don’t need to attack each other in this way,” he said. “They have legitimate points to make about each other.”
The Sarah Palin effect has been enormous. It has 1) tied the race, 2) swung the cameras off of Barack and onto the McCain/Palin ticket, 3) energized Republicans, and 4) made affiliating with the GOP seem more desirable.
In recent months, polls have shown that voters prefer Democrats over Republicans this election year by 10 to 15%. That has changed.
A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters' "generic ballot" preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.
We have all been expecting that Democrats will assume strong control of Congress even if Barack loses the presidential election, as I expect he will. What if the anti-GOP feeling has run its course already?
Democratic voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Democratic candidate in their congressional districts (92%), Republican voters are nearly uniform in their support for the Republican candidate (94%), and independents are closely split, with 44% backing the Democrat and 40% the Republican.
One caveat to keep in mind - it is too soon after the conventions for reality to have set back into the numbers. Take these indications with a larger grain of salt than usual.
Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.
That, my friend, is an incredible turn of events.
The sustainability of all of these findings is an open question that polling will answer over the next few weeks.
It is fascinating to see just how wrong the Democrats were on the war in Iraq - even just months ago! Here's another debate flashback, one that makes it clear just how much they were responding to polls, rather than principles, in making their points.
Many liberals are belittling the choice, suggesting that as a mother of five children — including an infant with Down syndrome — she has neither the time nor the experience to become vice president... Change and reform are getting top billing by Republicans, a mantra that had all but belonged to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Sarah Palin, meanwhile, doesn't like the idea of using charges of sexism as a shield.
But use it they must, as it hits Democrats so delightfully where they sit. Andrew Romano quotes McCain adviser Carly Fiorina on his Newsweek blog:
I am appalled by the Obama campaign’s attempts to belittle Gov. Sarah Palin’s experience. The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a mayor and governor than Barack Obama has made in his life. Because of Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Governor Palin.”
As Rudy said on all the morning shows today:
...I am really upset….Where are these feminist groups? I mean she is being asked questions like 'Can you be a vice president and a mother? But what about Barack Obama -- can you be a president and a father? Or John McCain? I was never asked that question, or George Bush or Al Gore. All these men have run, most of them had families -- some of them had young children -- none of them were ever asked 'Can you be a father and can you be president or vice president?'"
Barack has tried to tread carefully around the Palin issue, knowing first hand how delicate the feelings of women voters can be.
Obama and running mate Joe Biden issued a joint statement calling the choice "yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics."
The old barriers aren't coming down, however. Just as Barack, through his relationship with Reverend Wright, has revealed the role Democrats play in partnering with the race baiting industry, sexism by Democrats is now also in clear public display, as they now support the old barriers in order to try to stop Sarah Palin.
We're all well aware of the Hillary / Obama split in the Democratic Party. But there's another split, perhaps bigger, and perhaps hidden behind the television appeal of the tension between the victor and the vanquished.
Walk into almost any hotel here this week and you can find an odd sight: Liberal Democrats starting their day by lobbying moderate and conservative Democrats.
The lobbyists are members of the Progressive Democrats of America, an activist group working to keep the party true to liberal priorities, and they have been assigned to every hotel housing Democratic convention delegates.
Barack won the nomination as a liberal. In the weeks since he secured the nomination, he has aggressively moved away from the underlying principles that defined his candidacy.
“At breakfast, where they go to get their talking points [from the national party], we will be there,” says Tim Carpenter, a veteran of Democratic campaigns and national director of the PDA.
As powerful as devotion to Hillary may be for some Democrats, the feeling of having been betrayed by Barack must be, at least, equally upsetting.
The fact that Mr. Carpenter and his cohorts feel compelled to buttonhole other Democrats to push a liberal agenda is a sign of a quiet tension lurking within the Democratic Party. That tension is a potential complication for Sen. Barack Obama now, and it is certain to be one for him and his party if he is elected president.
The permission to consider disrupting the convention, or losing interest in Barack, was given by Barack when he abandoned his principles on issues like Iraq, FISA, or public financing.
Progressives — the term of art for the party’s liberal wing — contend, with some justification, that they have provided much of the fuel that could propel the party to win control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time in 16 years. They have contributed and raised large amounts of money, fired up their troops on the Internet, and generally are thrilled at the prospect of a Democratic sweep.
We can expect that Democrats will, for the most part, unite around Barack. But his potential for victory is driven by the ability to bring new voters into the fold - to get record numbers of young people, minorities, illegal aliens, etc, to appear at the polls when they otherwise wouldn't. What is the motivation for their engagement if the guy who got them excited turns out to be just another lying politician?
Yet they aren’t sure the party they think they are leading to victory is really following them. Sen. Obama has been essentially nonideological in his campaign, has made much of his desire to reach across the ideological spectrum to Republicans, and spent several weeks this summer moving away from the left and toward the center on issues ranging from warrantless wiretaps to abortion to gun control.
Liberals have a right to be mad, and to feel abandoned.
More than that, liberals realize that if the party expands its control of the House and Senate, it may do so by electing moderate and conservative Democrats who vanquish sitting Republicans. Thus, while Democratic control in Congress could expand, liberal influence may not.
Bill Ayers is not about the sixties, he's about right now. Why has he played a role in the political career of Barack Obama considering his past as the co-founder of a domestic terrorist group? Simple question, which Barack tries to dodge in his new ad.
This ad is a response to a pro-McCain ad run by an independent 527 group, the American Issues Project - funded by the same guy who financed the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry.
The lone financier of the anti-Obama ad, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, was also one of the main funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who targeted Kerry. Simmons, a McCain fundraiser, contributed nearly $2.9 million to the American Issues Project, according to documents filed by the group with the Federal Election Commission.
Barack, determined not to resemble Kerry in any way, is fighting back aggressively - trying to intimidate the TV stations that accept the ad, and by taking legal action to block its airing.
Obama not only aired a response ad to the spot linking him to William Ayers, but he sought to block stations the commercial by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The campaign also planned to compel advertisers to pressure stations that continue to air the anti-Obama commercial.
It's the type of going-for-the-jugular approach to politics many Democrats complain that Kerry lacked and that Republicans exploit.
Is Barack doing the right thing - trying to trick people into thinking that Ayers doesn't matter? Or should he offer some intelligent explanation for the close ties between himself and Ayers, one that voters could understand? Why doesn't he want to take that approach? He doesn't want Americans to know just how tight he is with the Ayers family.
Mayor Daley's defense of Ayers doesn't help Barack continue the deception that Ayers is just a guy in the neighborhood.
"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama," Daley said. "It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."
It is convention eve, and the latest Gallup tracking poll shows the presidential race as a tie.
PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds a precise tie between John McCain and Barack Obama, with 45% of nationwide registered voters currently supporting each candidate for president.
Barack Obama's selection of U.S. Sen. and former presidential candidate Joe Biden as his running mate is not generating a momentous immediate reaction from the nation's voters. Just 14% of registered voters interviewed in a new USA Today/Gallup poll say Biden makes them more likely to vote for Obama in November and 7% say less likely while 72% say he will not have much effect on their vote.
And while Democrats continue to have a 10% advantage in registration, Barack continues to struggle to get Democrats to support him.
Whereas 84% of Republicans polled from Aug. 11-17 say they will vote for McCain in November, only 79% of Democrats say they will vote for Obama. A similar gap in party loyalty has been seen each week since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in early June. Over this period, Obama's Democratic support has ranged from 78% to 82% while McCain's Republican support has ranged from 83% to 85%.
I have to admit it - I'm a cynic, and I never really believed that Democrats were the more compassionate of our political parties. But now there's proof!
The City of Denver has been working to make sure everything is in tip-top shape for all the visitors coming to town for the Democratic National Convention, and now a local salon is helping in that effort.
Democrats care so much about Denver's homeless that they're going to give them all free haircuts!
It seems to be a first -- don't move the homeless, clean them up. That was the work of one salon and the recipients didn't even seem to care if the Democrats were coming to town. Sly's Salon at 17th and Grant was offering free haircuts to the homeless Monday.
Colorado Democrats are just oozing compassion!
"To give them haircuts and make them all spiffed up for the Democratic National Convention, because they are part of our community as well," said GhandiaGohnson, co-owner of Sly's Salon.
Hopefully, the only haircuts offered will be crew-cuts, because as much as Democrats like to put people on permanent charity, these haircuts are only a one-time thing.
Rusty Johnson hasn't had a haircut in three-to-four months. He said his appearance during the convention made no difference to him.
"I just want to look good and feel good for myself, that's all," Johnson said.
Apparently, Democrats, having found religion with Barack, asked themselves what Jesus would do, as their largess this convention season isn't only skin deep.
Free medical checks were provided and a bit of food to make the day even better.
Heartwarming, isn't it?
It makes the homeless people feel better and those giving the haircuts as well.
"It's a heart-felt reward to give to the community and get it back," Kohfahl said.
I'm not sure what Democrats have in mind for the homeless in the rest of the country, but they must be working on legislation to make the program national and permanent. After all, isn't being properly groomed a basic human right?
The free haircut coupons were distributed through Denver Human Services.
As Senator Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic presidential nomination next week, party leaders in battleground states say the fight ahead against Senator John McCain looks tougher than they imagined, with Mr. Obama vulnerable on multiple fronts despite weeks of cross-country and overseas campaigning.
Apparently, they believed the hype, and thought this election was going to be a tiptoe through the tulips.
These Democrats — 15 governors, members of Congress and state party leaders — say Mr. Obama has yet to convert his popularity among many Americans into solutions to crucial electoral challenges: showing ownership of an issue, like economic stewardship or national security; winning over supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; and minimizing his race and experience level as concerns for voters.
And it's only going to get more challenging as voters learn what's behind the hype.
Mr. Obama has run for the last 18 months as the candidate of hope. Yet party leaders — while enthusiastic about Mr. Obama and his state-by-state campaign operations — say he must do more to convince the many undecided Democrats and independents that he would address their financial anxieties rather than run, by and large, as an agent of change — given that change, they note, is not an issue.
Change is not an issue? Who knew?
“I particularly hope he strengthens his economic message — even Senator Obama can speak more clearly and specifically about the kitchen-table, bread-and-butter issues like high energy costs,” said Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. “It’s fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas that bring hope and change to life.”
Or, in the blunter words of Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”
Democrats just have so little faith.
A New York Times/CBS News poll last month found the race between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain to be a statistical dead heat, not unlike where Senator John Kerry and Mr. Bush stood in a Times/CBS News poll in July 2004. The poll four years ago was conducted after Mr. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, picked Senator John Edwards as his running mate, yet before both the party conventions and the most intense period of political attacks on Mr. Kerry’s war service record as skipper of a Swift boat in Vietnam.
That should strike panic, rather than fear, into the hearts of party elders. Hillary is still there, in waiting. And she's going to be the star at the convention!
To a considerable extent, political analysts say, the closeness of the race at this stage reflects the fact that many voters are not paying attention to it, after the long, wearying primary season. Many Democrats pointed to the election of 1980 when voters, choosing between a relatively inexperienced former governor, Ronald Reagan, and an unpopular incumbent, Jimmy Carter, finally flocked to Mr. Reagan at the end after resolving whatever qualms they had about him.
They can hope, can't they? (Ouch - there's that word again!)
But some Republicans disputed that analogy, saying the difficulty Mr. Obama faces getting traction in public opinion polls reflects the country’s reservations about this relative newcomer to national politics — both because he has little experience in national security but also, inevitably, because of his race.
“I think Senator Obama is a motivational speaker, but at the end of the day I don’t think that will translate into votes, and certainly not the image of strength that Ronald Reagan had,” said Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party.
In response, several Democrats said that choosing a seasoned party leader as his running mate would help Mr. Obama in the fall if he is unable to fully allay voters’ uncertainty that a one-term senator is ready for the presidency.
Perhaps that's all it will take. Or maybe, as voters start to learn that Barack is just John Kerry, sans war hero resume, avec Reverends Wright, Pfleger and the rest of the Obamafia, then they'll be running away in droves.
...I've sometimes wondered in recent months: Whatever happened to that Obama, to that enemy of excessive partisanship and evangelist of national unity?
He was a uniter, not a divider.
"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes."
He was going to change the way Washington does business.
Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."
He was going to cut through the ugliness, reach into the heart of America, tapping into such innate power that the forces of evil would be thrown to the side.
"We worship an awesome God in the blue states," Obama thundered. "And yes," he added, "we've got some gay friends in the red states."
That was the concept he laid out in his 2004 convention speech, the template for his candidacy that would begin in earnest just 2 years later.
...those lines stood out for a reason: They articulated a deep yearning, held by many Americans of varying beliefs, for less polarization and division. This theme was precisely what catapulted Obama to the front rank of Democratic politicians.
Now we're left with Barack Obama - Business As Usual. What happened?
The question is laid out by Michael Tomasky, writing in the Washington Post, who fails to offer a solid anwer, perhaps because, it seems, he likes Barack too much to state the obvious, loud and clear.
The guy who was going to change the way business is done in Washington was a character developed by Barack to win the nomination. The deep yearning for the end to partisanship isn't so deep or so wide. The fantasy he offered was a good angle for winning the nomination, but with the nomination in hand, Barack has shed his sheep's clothing.
I recently asked David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, what became of post-partisanship. "Oh, I think he still speaks about it, and I'm sure it'll be a theme at our convention," Axelrod told me.
Now, the concept of the Obama campaign is, "This is the year in which a Democrat can't lose, and we're not going to blow it. We'll do anything to win."
Proving his maverick credentials, John McCain has a new ad starring Democrats - who come to praise McCain, not to bury him.
One of the delightful things about these video bombs is that they're allowing McCain to compete with Obama in the contest of who is hip.
The McCain campaign strategy of hammering away at Obama in funny videos comparing the Illinois Senator to celebrities has pushed the McCain YouTube channel to the sixth most watched sites this week.
The timing is good, as there are signs that Barack's appeal is waning.
According to a front page report in The Washington Times , McCain has beaten Obama's channel for seven straight days and 11 of the past 14 days.
With good reason, the mumblings have begun in Democratic circles - What's wrong with Barack?
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.
Barack had a short-lived bump, with a Gallup poll of registered voters showing him with a 9 point lead a few days ago. Now it's down to four, with Rasmussen at 2%.
Barack is unelectable - except for one thing. As noted previously on this page, he's good at being lucky.
Presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who has a history of dangerous melanomas, had a spot of skin removed from his face today, his campaign said.
It's entirely unlikely that an unknown quantity like Barack, with no leadership experience and a checkered collection of allies - including links to anti-American radicalism - two Muslim fathers, a Muslim sounding name and a groundbreaking racial configuration can capture the hearts of America, even given the huge structural advantage that any Democrat enjoys today.
The patch of skin was removed from McCain's right cheek during a routine checkup in Arizona, the candidate said. In 2000, an invasive melanoma was removed from the senator's left temple.
Which presents Barack with his best chance to win - a catastrophic event that torpedoes the viability of the McCain campaign. Like a diagnosis of cancer.
McCain denied there were any serious problems when he discussed the procedure at a campaign stop in Bakersfield.
Which would be just the sort of luck that's gotten Barack this far.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Barack Obama attracting 42% of the vote while John McCain earns 41%.
The one point lead for Barack is an improvement - it was tied yesterday. But,
That’s the lowest level of support measured for Obama since he clinched the Democratic Presidential nomination on June 3. Obama’s support peaked at 48% with data released on June 8, 9, and 10. During that same time frame, McCain’s support has remained steady in the 40% to 42% range (he’s had just one day a point below that range and two days a point above it).
Is this all Barack will be able to muster - a glass ceiling?
When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 46% and McCain 45%. With leaners, Obama reached 50% support in mid-June and was at 48% or 49% every day from June 13 until July 10. Since then, he has reached the 48% level just once while polling consistently at 46% or 47% (see recent daily results). Tracking Polls are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day.
So, Barack's downward trend continues - his campaign remains essentially stalled since Reverend Wright first appeared in mid-March. I continue to believe that the media is failing to see, or report, a huge structural problem for Barack. It just may be that he can't do any better than this - that he is unacceptable to most Americans. His drops have taken place while McCain has remained flat, with a campaign that has yet to find its footing. What happens when it does?
Despite the illusion created in the media, voters like McCain better. This holds true amongst what we're told is the key battleground group, independent voters.
McCain is viewed favorably by 57% of voters, Obama by 53%. McCain is currently supported by 86% of Republicans and holds a modest--four percentage point—lead among unaffiliated voters. Obama earns the vote from 77% of Democrats (see other recent demographic highlights).
