Sen. John McCain was old the first time he ran for President. So, you know his mother is real, real old. Not that I'm a fan of Roberta McCain, but this little, 97-year-old, post menopausal woman could crush the cojones of most the the GOP leadership right now when it comes to Rush Limbaugh with the size of her bigger, non-existent ovaries.
Veteran diplomat Chris Hill, tapped to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, is getting a taste of what it's like to be a black President in the White House. Even though he has a totally awesome resume with demonstrated experience, leadership ability, and the support of his future boss and people who deal with the mess in Iraq everyday, he still has to fight off more old white men than a South Carolina State House intern...male or female.
Graham said it "absolutely" helped that Hill was liked by both General Ray Odierno, U.S. commander in Iraq, and General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command that oversees military operations in the Middle East.
"They both seem high on him," Graham said outside the Senate.
... Graham said on Tuesday that Hill had been very knowledgeable on Iraq during their meeting last week.
Interestingly - but perhaps not surprisingly - among cellphone users, Obama leads 49%-48%: from Princeton Survey pollster Evans Witt:
"Unlike many state polls during the 2008 campaign, this survey included interviews on both landline phones and on cellphones in South Carolina. Among the landline interviews, McCain holds a 50% to 42% margin. But among cellphone interviews, the candidates are tied: McCain 48% and Obama 49%. Those interviewed on cell phone are more likely to be young and young voters heavily favor Obama."
The poll was conducted from October 25-28, and it has a margin of error of plus-minus 4% for registered voters and plus-minus 5% for likely voters.
Trying to find crosstabs to give you a better look at this poll. By the way, my own prediction is McCain by 3-5 points, well down from Bush's +18 in 2004.
One week out, junkies need their poll fix. Get yours every morning by about 7:30 at DKos. Daily Kos/Research 2000 and Zogby numbers will be up up over there probably before you are, and as the other trackers are released, the daily post is updated.
From now until election day, a link to the daily numbers will be posted in the Quick Hits over there. Today's numbers: Obama 50-43, up one point for McCain.
If you make less than $250,000 per year, John McCain will make you pay higher taxes than Barack Obama will. McCain will then take your money and give it to someone making more than $250,000.
How come "spreading the wealth" is only bad when you're spreading it to people who actually need it?
Is it just me or is the Saturday Night Live depiction of this election beginning to look more plausible than what is actually happening in the real world?
We have the tape of a 911 call made by John McCain's brother earlier this week.
He called the police emergency line because he was angry he was stuck in traffic.
The 911 call came into the City of Alexandria on Oct. 21st That's creating some buzz because it appears to come from Joe McCain, John McCain's brother.
Operator: 911 state your emergency
Caller: It's not an emergency but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic's coming the other way?
Operator: Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic? (pause)
By now, every political junkie in South Carolina has seen the Winthrop/ETV poll released last night and is either expressing glee, shock orr disbelief that McCain has an apparent 20-point lead in the Palmetto State.
I'm intrigued - maybe a little skeptical - of the methodology of conducting the poll over a 22-day period. I'm not saying it's good or bad - I've just never seen it done before, and I'm anxious to see how it plays out.
I think one thing people do find perhaps questionable about the poll - and will probably use as fodder for discrediting it if they are Obama supporters - is the extremely high number of undecided voters in the Senate matchups. I don't know anyone who thinks Lindsey Graham (SC), Liddy Dole and Kay Hagan (NC) and Jim Gilmore (VA) are actually trailing "undecided" this late in the race.
But Scott Huffmon, the Winthrop professor who designed the poll, has a good explanation for it - one that will be far more interesting after the election than any snapshot pre-election is. He detailed it in a note he sent me this morning:
I really should have either not released these or sent out an explanation. For the Senate match-ups, they were asked who they would vote for.... "last name" or "last name".
The purpose was to gauge what I call "True" or "Core" support. This factors in any incumbency advantage for name recognition and captures those folks who REALLY support that individual candidate. But forces those who - in the end - will only support the party (not the man/woman, but the party) to end up as undecided. i.e. "soft support" falls into undecided.
Why do this? Well....it is the political scientist in me....I plan to take these numbers and estimate what support would be in a "coattail free election" by counting every "undecided" who is a partisan or partisan leaner as supporting that party's candidate and splitting the pure independent undecideds. I will compare this to the ACTUAL election totals after 11/4 and be able to estimate coattail effect. I am especially keen to do this in SC where there has been very little presidential or senate campaigning (relatively....compared to, say, NC on both counts).
In SC, Graham's support was at 63.7% and Conley's was at 36.3% using the support rubric described above. This is in line with other polling. The actual election numbers will likely have a good deal more votes for Conley. Since I used the method I did to measure existing "core" support, I'll be able to measure a coattail effect by comparing these numbers to the final vote totals. I couldn't have done this had I not chosen the quirky methodology that I did.
Similarly, in NC, using the support rubric described above, our numbers show Dole's support at 53% and Hagen's support at 47%. Again, since I used the method I did to measure existing "core" support, I'll be able to measure a coattail effect by comparing these numbers to the final vote totals. While in SC I can measure the coattail effect of Obama absent a rigorous campaign, in NC, the effect is likely to be smaller - due to how hotly contested the election is....creating more "core" supporters - BUT the hotly contested nature of the election has made it so close that the Obama coattail may (MAY) tip the election. Again....if I hadn't used the quirky methodology I did...I wouldn't be able to see the impact of coattail versus core and wouldn't know if the campaign or coattail effect was the final tipping point (IF the election tips).
I know that journalists and activists don't care about the post-election analysis that geeky political scientists are keen to do so I apologize for the confusion. I REALLY should have made it clear.
We all speculate about coattails. By using this method, Dr. Huffmon has given us a way to potential quantify the coattail effect, and I for one will be anxious to see his post-election analysis.
UPDATE: I wanted to include this in the original post, but needed to get permission to use it first. To satisfy some of my questions about the "22-day" methodology, I asked a friend who's a respected pollster for his take. It pretty much confirms what Winthrop says:
That is long for any kind of study, but especially for political polls. Here is why - most political polls are conducted to measure a moment in time - where are voters just before a debate, where are they right after. Where are they before Tina Fey does Palin on SNL, where are they after, etc. My guess is they were trying to avoid those very spikes. In other words, their goal was to gauge where people are on the candidates, not on the issue of the day. I'm not sure how they are reporting on the data, but it would make sense for the analysis to include week-by-week data along with the "total."
As for the demos, you might be surprised. With that much time in the field, I would hope they got it right. When polling over a 3 - 5 day period, you kind of "get who you get." With weeks to get the job done, you are able to call households multiple times, etc. to get a representative sample.
UPDATE 2: One other caveat about this poll. I'm told the percentage of African-Americans surveyed is "south of 20%." In 2000, non-whites accounted for 25 percent of the total votes cast; in 2004, the number was 27 percent. That could make a big difference in the numbers you see here.
Just below this post, my IJ partner Not Very Bright makes an eloquent case for honor in blogging. This was prompted by the petty crusade of Adam Fogle of Richard Quinn & Associates, purveyor of the The Palmetto Poop, to "out" South Carolina's anonymous bloggers.
As anyone who's followed our respective blogging careers can tell you, Not Very Bright provides thoughtful, disciplined analysis of the major issues facing our state and nation without engaging in the kind of cattiness and immaturity that characterizes so much of blogdom.
I, on the other hand, am an asshole, and I enjoy pointing out other assholes and the bullshit they wallow in.
With that in mind, I'm announcing our first ever competition here at Indigo Journal - The Ask Quinn Clients If They Know They're Funding A Homophobic Shitbird's Blog Contest.
We can start, obviously, with Quinn's political clients, who - being Republicans - are probably gleeful that Richard employs a partisan hack and alleged drunk driver to blog on their behalf. For starters, these include:
John McCain
Lindsey Graham
Joe Wilson
Glenn McConnell
Far more importantly, though, I'd like to expose the corporate and state-funded clients who provide the bulk of Richard Quinn & Associates - and by extension Fagle, oops, Fogle's - income. These are people who might be surprised and perhaps embarrassed to be associated with the kind of hateful drivel that Richard Quinn's employee is spewing daily, using their money. (Well, I doubt Friends of the Hunley will be that embarrassed, since that's really pretty much just Glenn McConnell's slush fund for refighting the Civil War).
I can go ahead and "out" Palmetto Health on this count, the Midlands largest employer. I happen to know this because I've worked with Richard Quinn & Associates on numerous projects over the years, so as my memory improves, I'll start sharing more names and companies.
And here's where you come in. Do you know any Quinn clients? If so, post them in this thread. The winner of this contest will be the provider of the Quinn client who first threatens IJ with litigation, something I've become quite familiar with in the last two days.
Tonight is the final major event of the campaign season - the third debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. It seems McCain needs a dramatic win tonight to get back in the game. Join us here on this thread this evening to share your thoughts - and feel free to let the speculation begin now as well!
UPDATE: 8:53 PM
Good placement - a Rob Miller TV spot just ran in the commercial break on MSNBC 7 minutes before the debate starts.
While Obama has made some inroads in South Carolina, McCain leads 55-41, according to SurveyUSA.
Three weeks ago, SurveyUSA had McCain up 58-39.
Obama's gains have come primarily from women and younger voters. McCain's 18 point lead over Obama among women is now eight, 52-44.
SurveyUSA has an interesting way of looking at voters age, in addition to the traditional "18-34" type breakdowns. Among voters younger than Obama, McCain's lead has dropped from +15 to +6, 51-45. Among voters over 50, McCain continues to hold a 20 point advantage, 58-38.
Geographically, the Upstate is not surprisingly McCain's strongest region, where he leads by 2-1. In the Midlands, there's been a nine-point swing, with Obama now leading 48-47. The race has also tighted in the Lowcountry, where McCain leads 52-44, down from a 16-point advantage in the previous poll.
Methodology:
"SurveyUSA interviewed 725 South Carolina adults 10/12/08 and 10/13/08. Of the adults, 658 were registered to vote. Of the registered voters, 561 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely voters in the 11/04/08 general election. South Carolina has 8 Electoral College votes. George W. Bush carried South Carolina by 17 points in 2004 and by 16 points in 2000."
A source contacted Indigo Journal today with evidence that Cynthia Bensch, Second Congressional District representative on the S.C. State Election Commission, has violated state law by campaigning on behalf of Sen. John McCain.
In August, Bensch and her husband Gary used a Beaufort County Republican Party listserv to send email from the McCain campaign seeking "...full-time volunteers for positions available immediately in our regional offices located throughout the nation, including our National Headquarters in Arlington, VA."
According to Section 7-3-10 of the S.C. Code of Laws, "No member of the commission may participate in political management or in a political campaign during the member's term of office. No member of the commission may make a contribution to a candidate or knowingly attend a fundraiser held for the benefit of a candidate. Violation of this subsection subjects the commissioner to removal by the Governor."
But sending emails on behalf of presidential candidate certainly seems to fall under participating in a political campaign. Below is a copy of the email sent to the listserv on behalf of Ms. Bensch. IJ also confirmed that the original exists in the archives of the BCRP listserv.
Today I'll be conducting one of my sociological experiments - similar to the "Parking Lot Poll" over at Crack the Bell or at Zannel - that tell me as much about the mood of the public as does opinion polling.
I'm talking, of course, about the S.C. State Fair. I find that the sheer number of lapel stickers for candidates are a pretty accurate barometer of What's Happenin' Now. No, I can't tell you if McCain is going to win South Carolina 53-47, or if Rob Miller really is going to pull an upset, but I can give you a pretty good idea of the state of enthusiasm for candidates.
For instance, I think it remains highly unlikely that Obama can carry South Carolina. But I can tell you that I see far more bumperstickers and yard signs for him than for McCain - meaning that if enthusiasm for McCain sucks in South Carolina, he's very likely to lose North Carolina and some other red states.
Look, I've talked on Crack the Bell about John McCain's age, and Jon over A Lie A Day has explored the issue often, but you have to think something is going on. There are gaffes, and then are gaffes, and then there are just slips of the tongue that are just to damn incredible to believe. Watch the faces of Barracuda and the blonde I believe is McCain's daughter.
Debate Round 2 is tonight at 9 p.m. During last week's vice presidential debate, our live blogging feature proved so popular that our CoverItLive account crashed - so tonight, we're going with the more traditional open thread.
Jen, NVB and I will be weighing in on this thread throughout the night, and your own thoughts and comments are welcomed in the comments. Sorry, but yeah, you'll have to hit refresh frequently to keep up.
Don't wait until 9, though - start sharing your debate predictions here now.
Given that tonight is a townhall format, conventional wisdom says McCain should have an advantage. After all, he challenged Obama to hold seventy-gazillion of these things alongside him, so he's pretty good at it, right? But we'll have to see if we get Grumpy Ol' Man McCain or POW Hero McCain tonight to judge how it's going. I do propose that every time you hear the word "maverick" in the post-debate spin, you take a shot of whiskey, just to keep it interesting.
Veteran diplomat Chris Hill, tapped to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, is getting a taste of what it's like to be a black President in the White House. Even though he has 
