WASHINGTON, Oct. 28, 2008
Early Voting Undercutting McCain?
Expert: Even If He Mounts Late Comeback, Its Impact Could Be Blunted By Ballots Already Cast If Obama Is Truly Ahead
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Photos Pursuing The Presidency Images from the debates, conventions and campaign trail in the 2008 presidential election.
But, says CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Bill Plante, a comeback isn't entirely out of the question.
Most polls have McCain down anywhere from 3-to-13 points. Still, Plante points out, he's been counted out before and come from behind.
So, what are McCain's chances of pulling off any upset?
"It's rare at this stage ... that candidates will come from behind and win," says James Thurber, director of the
But, Plante notes, it's happened before. In 1980, Ronald Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter in the polls, but surged ahead in the last week following their only debate.
"He turned the election into a referendum on Carter and what Carter had done the previous four years," Thurber explained.
In 1968, Hubert Humphrey almost overtook Richard Nixon "promising to get out of the war in Vietnam and that got a lot of people excited about him and he almost won," Thurber says.
Al Gore was down by 12 points in 2000, and came back to win the popular vote, though not the election.
So, what would it take in 2008?
"What it would take," Thurber says, "is to have a clear strategy theme and message by McCain on the economy and have people believe in it."
This year, early voting means the choices of millions of voters are already locked in.
"If some event occurs in the next (seven) days to help McCain," Thurber observed, "he may still lose, because a whole lot of people have already voted for Obama."
Another problem, Plante says" There simply aren't that many undecided voters left -- perhaps five percent.
So, the bottom line, according to Plante: A McCain comeback is possible, but it would take a very large swing of already committed voters.
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- Joe the dumber plumber should be out working and trying to pay his taxes. He thinks he is a hero wait till after nov4 he and Palin will be on the list McCain is not very smart.
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- Hey, A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
www.garyinthemorning.com - Reply to this comment
- insite4U: "Does the president have to be at every natural disaster to make him look presidential? Heck man I was on vacation when Katrina hit I was smiling and having a good time."
Yeah, that was kind of the problem right there. Bush was busy smiling and having a good time eating his birthday cake with McCain after being told a Cat 4-5 hurricane was probably going to hit NO in two days. Meanwhile FEMA chief "Brownie" was emailing his assistants, asking them to reserve a few hours at a posh restaurant so he could have a good sit-down meal.
You not being in NO doesn''t mean diddly, Bush and the head of FEMA having a good time instead of mobilizing emergency forces? Total screwup. Just another reason why Obama has already won, we''re all quite tired of those kinds of Republican screwups. - Reply to this comment
- "What it would take," Thurber says, "is to have a clear strategy theme and message by McCain on the economy and have people believe in it."
Hmm, a clear strategy and message on the economy out of McCain, that people would believe. Well, there goes this election, congratulations President-elect Obama! - Reply to this comment
- "It''s rare at this stage ... that candidates will come from behind and win,"
Not even Mark Foley ... - Reply to this comment
- why is it that out of all the years that i have been republican; it''s only this year that i''m called a racist?
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- there is the bradley effect that some have forgotten.
i know of people that changed thier party and voted for clinton , just to knock obama off the ticket and when time to vote; will vote mccain - Reply to this comment
- "REPUBLICANS.....what a bunch of idiots!! Nobody..and I mean nobody is listening to you pathetic whining!! You are completely responsible for the current condition of this country!! John NcCain is an angry old man in the early stages of senile dementia....and Palin is pure Alaskan TRASH!! So do us all a favor and shut the h### up!
Posted by bhamgrad at 10:49 PM : Oct 28, 2008"
You whinny little, kool-aid drinking lemming. Go back to ''bama and get a real education, especially in HISTORY. The housing fiasco stems from DEMOCRAT programs dating back to Jimmy Carter. John McCain WARNED the Democrat Congress years ago that this was coming, but they ignored it. What did the Democrat Congress DO for the last two years? Steroids in Baseball!
Do us all a favor and use the brain you were born with, instead of your arse. - Reply to this comment
- REPUBLICANS.....what a bunch of idiots!! Nobody..and I mean nobody is listening to you pathetic whining!! You are completely responsible for the current condition of this country!! John NcCain is an angry old man in the early stages of senile dementia....and Palin is pure Alaskan TRASH!! So do us all a favor and shut the h### up!
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- What the Democrats have mischaracterized as a "negative campaign", is simply John McCain warning Americans of the dangers of Barack Obama as president.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama promises you pie-in-the-sky, and a chicken-in-every-pot, while setting a trap for middle-class taxpayers to become hopelessly ensnared in a Socialist dictatorship.
"We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism."
- Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959
Reject Barack Obama.
Posted by OneAmerican7 at 07:35 PM : Oct 28, 2008
And life has been just grand the last 8 years that we want to return to the past with McCain... - Reply to this comment
- Why isn''t the Los Angeles Times releasing the videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on Rashid Khalidi former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat? Because it shows Obama standing next to Bill Ayers? Now that would damage Obama severely and since LA Times opening supports Obama they won''t release the tape.
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- Posted by silver1237 at 06:42 PM : Oct 28, 2008
I LIVE in Chicago and you are the BIGGEST liar on these Boards!! - Reply to this comment
- For those of you who adhere to tromboneman3''s perspective on Obama''s tax plan -- "The middle class is screwed either way. Both candidates suck, but I would prefer the people who are paying me to work not fire me because Obama wants to tax them more and they have to start cutting costs where ever they can."
The people paying you to work were paying people to work before Bush lowered the tax rate on the top earners and corporations.
During the Clinton years, the tax rate was not prohibitive to the free market, to profit nor to employment rates. Obama only wants to put the tax rate back to that time -- a time of relative financial stability and prosperity without the enormous national debt the Bush years have given us.
Certainly the current financial climate is more volatile, but be assured businesses will not be hemorrhaging jobs to cut their costs JUST because they will be paying -- or finding clever write-offs to offset -- a 4-5% increase in federal INCOME tax.
Taxes are not the only issue in an unstable economy. We have to look at many more factors when we search for solutions and the return of stability.
I, for one look forward to the American ideals of innovation and hard work that will be required in companies in order to keep them competitive. - Reply to this comment
- thought the numbers out of Illinois were very telling%u2026%u2026%u2026.then scan down%u2026..
CHICAGO POLITICS
BODY COUNT IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS
292 MURDERED IN CHICAGO
221 KILLED IN IRAQ
OUR LEADERSHIP IN ILLINOIS ;
SEN. BARACK OBAMA
SEN. *** DURBIN
REP. JESSE JACKSON, JR.
GOV. ROD BLOGOJEVICH
HOUSE LEADER MIKE MADIGAN
ATTY. GEN LISA MADIGAN
MAYOR RICHARD DALY
ALL DEMOCRATS
THANK YOU FOR THE COMBAT ZONE IN CHICAGO
OF COURSE THEY ARE BLAMING EACH OTHER.
CAN''T BLAME THE REPUBLICANS, BECAUSE THERE AREN''T ANY.!!!!!
STATE PENSION FUND $44 BILLION IN DEBT, WORST IN THE NATION.
COOK COUNTY (CHICAGO) SALES TAX 10.25%, HIGHEST IN THE NATION.
CHICAGO SCHOOL SYSTEM ONE OF THE WORST IN THE NATION.
THIS IS THE POLITICAL MACHINE THAT OBAMA SAYS HE COMES FROM IN ILLINOIS.
AND NOW
OBAMA SAYS HE''S GONNA ''FIX'' WASHINGTON POLITICS.!!!!!
SPREAD THE WORD ***** SAVE AMERICA
VOTE the facts not the glamour - Reply to this comment
- Everyone seems to forget the mechanics-of-voting questions from election to election, such as: what happens if Obama appears to be behind in vote counting in states where early balloting was allowed, or even declared a loser in certain states by news agencies, but is actually ahead in early ballots which might not be counted for days? Will that hurt Western turnouts? Will it take several days to know the result of the election? What happens when a candidate concedes but then turns out to be the winner in both the popular and electoral vote--would the concession be legally binding? Us political junkies want to start speculating on this stuff...
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- In the last two Bush elections, Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Tobacco bankrolled Bush to the hilt.
No complaints from Republicans, as a small oligarchy of corporations bought the US Presidency away from 300 million Americans!
This succeeded because we didn''t do enough to support Gore''s & Kerry''s campaigns & help them defeat the Republican sleaze machine.
They lost, and we, the people, lost big time - Republican-made disasters just keep on breaking down on us every day!
But we''ve learned from that experience - today, more than 3 million citizens have donated, and tens of thousands are working day & night for Obama.
By the sheer cumulative power of this huge public response, we will enable Obama/Biden to win this campaign, and to beat the sleaze machine of McCain/Palin/Rove & Fox News. - Reply to this comment
- The two recently apprehended skinheads planned to take the hatred and vindictiveness of the McCain/Palin campaign to its final, logical step.
That would be the one step further that Ashley Todd, the white woman campaign operative who made up the story of being mugged and brutalized by a black Obama supporter just three news cycles ago, had also been willing to provoke. (Remember Ashley? PITTSBURGH, Oct. 24 - McCain Worker Made Up Attack Story - To Be Charged With Making False Report).
Rogue actors, sure!
But they have been shown the way, and incited to their actions, by the rhetoric of Sarah Palin and John McCain, - who%u2019s gutter campaign tactics have been bringing just this element to the surface at their rallies these past weeks.
And that is the point.
This McCain-style campaign from the gutter must not be rewarded with victory at the polls, but rather, must be soundly defeated on Nov 4th, election day, just 7 days from today! - Reply to this comment
- By the way...
Remember Republicans posting about "Berg vs. Obama, Civil Action No. 08-cv-4083", seeking a Declaratory Judgment and an Injunction that Obama does not meet the qualifications to be President of the United States?
Let me pass on to the readers of this blog the following info:
This lawsuit has been thrown out of court (i.e., dismissed) as "frivolous and not worthy of discussion", as of Oct. 25th.
If there are more of these bogus law suits in other courts, this decision will become the precedent for tossing them out, too.
Too bad for McCain, but as the old saying goes, when something appears too good to be true, it''s not - same with McCain''s chances this would ever save him from his well-deserved election thrashing in just 7 days. - Reply to this comment
- In just 7 days, the politics of ploys, stunts, slime, sleazy robocalls, zingers, & culture wars will be on the ballot!
On Nov. 4th, the politics of Bush/Cheney, McCain/Palin, Rove/Steve Schmidt, & Rupert Murdoch%u2019s Fox News, will be defeated.
Americans, remember! We need a huge turnout & a landslide victory, because as we can today see, the Republicans are again trying to steal this election at the polling stations, just like in 2000 & 2004!
Americans, black, white & brown, will vote with strength and courage, elect Obama/Biden in overwhelming numbers, & return honesty, decency, & integrity to American politics!
Starting Nov. 5th, we%u2019ll begin the hard work of repairing the immense damage these Republican Party thieves and scoundrels have done to our economy, our country, & our people. - Reply to this comment
- Firstly tromboneman3 it wasn`t Clinton`s policies that got us into this mess, we all know that. Secondly even if what you say is true you guys had 8 years to get it right.....need more evidence. Under Clinton we had a surplus of $559 billion, under bush the national Debt has passed $10 trillion.....so we have gone from a surplus to a major deficit in just under 8 years. Under Clinton, Yes the wealthy got taxed more, and the middle class got tax relief so they could afford to spend on heating their homes/college for the kids which lead to more money back into the economy which lead to growth in business = more jobs and higher pay. Obama supports the same policies. Bush came to power and what happened next is well and truly redistribution. Bush lowered taxes dramatically for the wealthy and raised it on the people who needed it the most.....Working Americans. Not to mention spending 10 billion dollar of taxpayers%u2019 money each month in Iraq...did all this lead to more jobs, definitely not. The fact is, and you can check it out yourself, under Bush we got 393,000 average Jobs per Year, whereas under Clinton we got 2.9 Million Jobs per Year. The fact is more people get laid off today than ever before, so don`t tell me these same policies are all of a sudden going to start working now. They are a failure today, and they will be a failure tomorrow. The bottom line is.........Vote Obama/Biden and you get to not only keep your job, but also get more in your wallet.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
