Obama Campaign Manager: "A Lot Of Hyperventilating About National Polls"

(CBS)

From CBS News' John Bentley:

(CHICAGO) -- With John McCain's traveling press corps cooling their heels here as they waited for McCain to wrap up a fundraiser, Barack Obama's campaign knew a captive audience when they saw one. The Obama campaign extended an invitation for us to drop by Obama's campaign headquarters for a briefing by their campaign manager David Plouffe.

Sitting under a charcoal sketch of the Obama family that was donated by a supporter, Plouffe said that they weren't concerned by the bump in poll numbers that McCain has experienced after the Republican convention and the announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"There's a lot of hyperventilating about national polls," Plouffe said, which wasn't a surprise since both a CBS News poll and the Gallup daily tracking poll showed McCain taking the lead nationally in the presidential race. "When you look at battleground states, we feel very good about where we are."

Plouffe argued that McCain has "jettisoned the idea" that this election is about experience with selection of first term governor Sarah Palin on the ticket. McCain is now trying to make the election about change, Plouffe said, and "that's a debate we're happy to have."

Plouffe said the election would boil down to which campaign could appeal to undecided voters in battleground states and who could bring out the highest turnout numbers. "We have a huge ability to grow turnout," he said. "We have a more credible path to 270 [electoral votes, the number it takes to win] than McCain does."

Both campaigns have attempted to take race out of the campaign, and Plouffe rejected the notion of a "Bradley effect" – voters telling pollsters they would vote for a black candidate, but changing their mind in the voting booth. "Swing voters that are up for grabs are not going to factor race into the equation," he said.

[lemview]

Last night I saw Obama''s TV ad which included excerpts from his DNC speech.
I thought it was inspiring and tasteful. We need more ads like that. Ads
that concentrate on issues while expressing that vigor, sense of unity,
honesty and common sense in Obama''s rhetoric.

About Palin, why aren''t people pointing out that she has not added anything
new to her speech? OMG same speech over and over, can someone out there write
another speech for her? Please I''m begging you. Its nauseating.
I''m begining to think she''s just as boring as McCain.

Please start demanding interviews with her. We still don''t know who she is
and we are less then two months away from elections.

What is going on here?

[lemview]

Last night I saw Obama''s TV ad which included excerpts from his DNC speech.
I thought it was inspiring and tasteful. We need more ads like that. Ads
that concentrate on issues while expressing that vigor, sense of unity,
honesty and common sense in Obama''s rhetoric.

About Palin, why aren''t people pointing out that she has not added anything
new to her speech? OMG same speech over and over, can someone out there write
another speech for her? Please I''m begging you. Its nauseating.
I''m begining to think she''s just as boring as McCain.

Please start demanding interviews with her. We still don''t know who she is
and we are less then two months away from elections.

What is going on here?

[lemview]

Last night I saw Obama''s TV ad which included excerpts from his DNC speech.
I thought it was inspiring and tasteful. We need more ads like that. Ads
that concentrate on issues while expressing that vigor, sense of unity,
honesty and common sense in Obama''s rhetoric.

About Palin, why aren''t people pointing out that she has not added anything
new to her speech? OMG same speech over and over, can someone out there write
another speech for her? Please I''m begging you. Its nauseating.
I''m begining to think she''s just as boring as McCain.

Please start demanding interviews with her. We still don''t know who she is
and we are less then two months away from elections.

What is going on here?

[lemview]

Last night I saw Obama''s TV ad which included excerpts from his DNC speech. I thought it was inspiring and tasteful. We need more ads like that. Ads that concentrate on issues while expressing that vigor, sense of unity, honesty and common sense in Obama''s rhetoric.

About Palin, why aren''t people pointing out that she has not added anything new to her speech?
OMG same speech over and over, can
someone out there write another speech for her? Please I''m begging you. Its nauseating.
I''m begining to think she''s just
as boring as McCain.

Please start demanding interviews with her. We still don''t know who she is and we are less then two months away from elections.

What is going on here?

[swr112261]

Obama wins in a walk, policy wise? Not if you don''t believe in a big government, higher tax, socialist agenda.

[gun_tower]

Both camps have been admirable in their efforts to minimize race and gender as issues.

Now...back to the real issues!

I''m tired of hearing about Palin''s baby.

I want to know what the two sides'' policies are.

Because here, clearly, Obama wins in a walk.

[oldertoo]

Oh for God''s sake people! Did you think Obama was going to waltz into the White House? He has beaten the odds to get where he is now and I, for one, believe he can finish it off. The campaigns are looking like the front page of "The Enquirer" these days -- all soap opera, no issues. Let''s see where we are after the debates -- which will, hopefully, be about leading the country through difficult times instead of who can dress a moose.

[madmargie]

I think we need to factor in the race question. There are many "undecided" voters who really mean they will not vote for a black man.

Then the pollsters have forgotten that the younger generation does not have a land line but just relies on their cell phone. They are not being polled and they are the "newly registered" voters for the Obama campaign.

[wetzelwest]

The whole idea of "a different kind of politics" was a great idea, but it''s run it''s course. As an avid Obama supporter, I worry that things are slipping just like they did with Kerry & Gore. We all know polls do matter.
Obama''s relationship to voters is tanking right now because, in my opinion, Obama is wordsmithing too much. When he attacks McCain, his voice rises & he sounds like he is apologizing. He needs to focus his vocal energy on direct hits like he did in his convention speech. Obama must start making his points more concisely (a la Hillary''s ''No Chance, No Way, No McCain'' phrase). Barack says, "eah" way too much and it starts to look like he is struggling for ideas. McCain rarely pauses to say, "eah" and Republicans'' have wordsmithing down to an art form.
Obama''s campaign knows what questions are going to be asked of him. Give hims some pat answers ahead of time. He looked surprised when O''Reily asked him about the surge. We all knew the surge question was coming. Obama and Biden need to both make their points in the style of a PowerPoint presentation...

McCain-Palin seem to have a message because they aren''t messing around with vague explanations and nuanced answers. Sound bytes over soliliquy. Barack may loose if we can''t get this lesson learned.

[krikkit-2009]

The analysis of polling that is done in the media is completely misleading. Polls are a sampling only. Many polls will give a better indication of the minds of the voters at any given moment in time. However it is illegitimate to present that data as a "trend" in predicting how voters will vote. Because polls use such a small sampling, it would make more sense to treat differences from day to day as polling errors rather than changes in voter preference. That''s why polling analysts nearly always get their predictions wrong.