Slip Sliding Away

In his daily poll roundup, DemFromCT finds evidence to support the thesis I offered on Friday - that McCain's recent slight uptick in the polls is his reclaiming ground he should have occupied any way and is not fundamentally threatening Obama's substantial lead.

According to DemFromCT's new charts, McCain had a very good week last week with his own partisans. Apparently, the cries of babykiller, vote fraud, terrorist, Jeremiah Wright, Muslim, socialist are having an impact with wavering Republicans, and helping get McCain's numbers up to the mid 40s - a place he should have been a long time ago. But as we discussed last week, only getting the GOP number to the mid 40s leaves the race in landslide territory for Obama, for as DFC's charts also show, there is some sign McCain has begun to slide with all important independents.  

While there was some evidence Obama was weakening a bit late last week, the data over the weekend indicates that any slide has stopped. With 15 days to go, Obama maintains a 5-7 percentage point edge, an overwhelming Electoral College lead, a huge financial advantage and and the best ground operation ever assembled.  I'm not convinced the Powell endorsement yesterday will be that a big a deal in the polls, but it may have done one very important thing - snuffed out a few days of modest McCain momentum.  With 2 weeks to go, this snuffing out of any last possible McCain surge may end up being the final straw that broke the aging elephant's back.  

So as we head to the final two weeks, it will be important not to confuse McCain's wavering GOP base coming home with his making this race competitive. The race may indeed "tighten," but unless Obama's number starts to come down, McCain's gain will only succeed in making the race interesting but not necessarily make it close.  

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