About That North Carolina Poll...

Noam Scheiber is agog over Barack's surge in North Carolina:

Wow, this is either a statistical fluke or a pretty remarkable turn-around. A week ago, Public Policy Polling, an outfit I hadn't heard of before this year but which has had a respectable run during the primaries, had Obama up only a single point on Clinton in North Carolina. In a poll out today, he's up 21 points.

Statistical fluke, dramatic turn-around, or... change in methodology?  Go with "methodology" - Mickey Kaus had this, emphasis added:

In North Carolina, Obama doesn't seem to be losing ground. He's up 21 points, according to the RPP poll. He was up only one point in the same poll a week ago--although the results aren't strictly comparable because RPP expanded its universe of "likely" voters this week to include all 2006 general election participants. Still. ... Obama gained substantially (19 points) among white voters.

DIVIDED THEY FALL:

Gallup has a survey of likely Dem defectors:

If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain;
If McCain vs. Clinton, 19% of Obama backers go for McCain

My guess?  It is easier for elderly and working class whites to defect to the war hero than it is for blacks and hipsters to defect to the old white guy.  Or from a more negative perspective, I bet it is easy for elderly and working class whites to resist the appeals of the Glib Lib grievance candidate, although it can't be hard for blacks and hipsters to be turned off by the nagging white woman.  But a caveat - I am not nearly smart enough to be a Dem strategist.  Just for example, I would never have figured out to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan.

HILLARY'S APPEAL:  Help me here - do youngsters see Hillary as the cool aunt they would like to go shopping with or the nagging grandmother always pushing Brussels sprouts at them?  Tough call!

FWIW, I am advised by a youngster who met John Sidney McCain at a barbecue in New Hampshire that he is a lot of fun in a small group, or at least, not nearly as boring as might be expected; must be those Annapolis hellion days.

Comments

[Terry]

A new Rasmussen poll out this morning has data that support the Gallup results. In brief, Rasmussen found that 22 % of Democrats thought that Hillary AND Obama should each withdraw from the race!

[Porchlight]

It is easier for elderly and working class whites to defect to the war hero than it is for blacks and hipsters to defect to the old white guy.

Well put. I would add that if Clinton is nominated, blacks and hipsters may not be likely to vote for McCain, but I think they are likely to stay home in large numbers. Elderly and working class white voters are less likely to stay home, even if Obama is nominated. The question is will they go with Obama, or jump to McCain.

[DebinNC]

TM: "I am not nearly smart enough to be a Dem strategist. Just for example, I would never have figured out to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan."

LOL

[buford gooch]

I'm still having trouble remembering which one is Moe and which one is Curly.

[GMax]

I found this nugget of comic relief buried in the Rasmussen verbiage:

Six percent (6%) of Democrats would like both Clinton and Obama to drop out of the race.

You think the Operation Chaos guys are spoofing ol Ras?

[clarice]

Pre-Clinton I thought the Dem party was made up of such disparate groups with conflicting interests that it would fall apart . He was able to triangulate and (lie) to keep a more or less centrist coalition together. It doesn't appear that (a) anyone else can do that or (b) anyone else can do that in a time of rapid response alternative media.

Urban blacks have not much in the way of common interests with Hispanics who want freer immigration; Jews have nothing in common with the pro-Palestinian wing of the party; Kos and Koch in the same party--get real?

This is very interesting to watch.

[GMax]

Jeff gets another instalanche. This is getting to be a habit. If you are not careful someone may start looking at you to write for one of the late night monologues!

[Soylent Red]

You think the Operation Chaos guys are spoofing ol Ras?

Naw. I'm surprised it's only 6%. Rational people in the party have to see these two as political cripples and want an alternative. How could you not?

I'll bet Dodd is kicking himself right now. Compared to these two clowns he looks like Thomas Jefferson.

[JB]

"You think the Operation Chaos guys are spoofing ol Ras?"

Maybe with some Goreacle disciples thrown in.

[GMax]

I would never get Dodd and Jefferson in the same paragraph.

[GMax]

Dodd is Al Gore without the personality.

[GMax]

Dodd is Al Gore without the personality.

[GMax]

Dodd is Al Gore without the personality.

[Cecil Turner]

Just for example, I would never have figured out to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan.

Yep, that was a masterstroke. Looking over Rassmussen's "Balance of Power Calculator", the Dems go into the toss-ups with a 200/189 electoral vote lead. Expected battlegrounds are:

Twelve states with 149 Electoral Votes are either a pure Toss-Up or just slightly leaning to one party or the other. These are likely to be the early battleground states of Election 2008: Florida (27), Pennsylvania[**] (21), Ohio[*] (20), Michigan, (17), Virginia (13), Missouri (11), Minnesota (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Nevada[*] (5), New Mexico[*] (5), and New Hampshire [*] (4).
[emphasis added--* denotes Hillary primary wins, ** an expected win]

So they managed to annoy the crap out of a magical 44 electoral votes, and seem poised to promote the loser in states worth 55 more. Nicely done, chaps.

[Neo]

Well, Bill Clinton was supposed to be in town last night, but that's not the story here in PA.

No, it's payback time for PA conservatives.

Over at Hot Air they are making hay about the "Chaos" factor here. Well given that Governor and former DNC head Ed Rendell told his Democrat friends back in 2004 to register Republican for the primary to make sure Alren Specter beat out Pat Toomey but then to switch back in the fall, it's now payback time. Well sort of.

"Eddie" is backing Hiliary, and my bet is so are a bunch of the "new Democrats". Not because they like her, but to make sure that Hiliary make life a living hell for all Democrats, just to return the favour.

Politics does make strange bedfellows.

[Other Tom]

I am enjoying this battle like nothing I can remember in politics since the Starr Report, or perhaps since Jimmy Carter was booted out in disgrace. It's what Gibbon would have called intestine discord, and he wasn't talking about upset stomachs (although I'm sure there are plenty of those at DNC headquarters these days).

I'd like to volunteer the following as a Dem strategy. Ordinarily I wouldn't offer them any advice whatsoever, but I'm confident that they're too dumb to take it in this case, so what the hell. Here's what they could do:

The dynamic party leader, Howard Dean, calls a meeting of all superdelegates for Saturday, April 5. At that meeting he lays out the delegate arithmetic and says folks, we are well past the point where any superdelegate action that gives the nomination to Clinton will bitterly alienate black voters and will injure the party grievously for decades. Apart from that, it will hand the 2008 election to McCain. So what I want right now is an immediate and final pledge for Obama from enough of you to ensure that he will be the nominee. I'd like it to be unanimous, but if there are a few of you who would be in fear for your lives if you voted against Hillary, you're excused. But let's nail this thing down, irrevocably, and let's do it today. Beginning tomorrow, the party will refer to Obama as the presumptive nominee, and announce detailed plans for his coronation in Denver. Sure, it may be that the nutball Wright and other increasing doubts about poor Barry make him unelectable--but having him lose will cause far less permanent damage.

Before he presents this brilliant strategy, Dean is advised to perform some exercises that will give his alarmingly strange mouth something of a normal shape. As it stands now, no one who sees him speak can concentrate on what he is saying--everyone is mesmerized by that weird mouth. But I think it could be corrected through exercise.

[Syl]

The Goracle's name has gone from a whisper to a shout and soon will be a scream. It's funny that the Dems who claim they want every vote to count (except MI and FL) are so willing to throw out everyone's vote and annoint their 'dream' candidate.

I don't think Gore wants to be in the public eye when the AGW stuff hits the fan, though.

[Porchlight]

FWIW, I am advised by a youngster who met John Sidney McCain at a barbecue in New Hampshire that he is a lot of fun in a small group, or at least, not nearly as boring as might be expected; must be those Annapolis hellion days.

A (very liberal) friend of mine runs a lighting design company that does work for MTV. He's been on the road with the MTV/MySpace "town hall" campaign tour for a few months (since before the primaries started) and says that McCain actually does really well with that audience, on the whole. Maybe it's a little like the Huckabee/Colbert phenomenon.

[Anon]

Gah!

Did you look at the cross tabs for that poll?

We are talking about the PPP (D) poll right?

First of all they had Obama winning 45-65 year olds by some 20% then they had blacks vs. whites according to who they preferred Obama or Clinton but no where in the pdf would they give you the ratio of blacks and whites in the entire sample.

Also what looked strange to me is that they seemed to have a large percentage of "unaffiliated" voters-but there again they did not tell you the ratio for the sample group.

What the hell else looked goofy...

Oh ya-they broke down the entire sample by area codes, not by gender, race or age-yet they divided the preference for Obama or Hillary by gender, race and age.

If a Democratic pollster- such as PPP goes out of it's way to not let you know the balance of the sample, be sure that something is suspect.

They overweighted somewhere and be damned if they want to define it for you.

They got the results they wanted.

North Carolina is going to be the race to watch-

If Obama loses North Carolina they are in for one hell of a mess in Denver

This might be a pre-emption.

[syn]

"I don't think Gore wants to be in the public eye"

Why does Gore need to be in the public eye when he has McCain to do the Kyoto signing for him?

If not for the troops and their mission I would be forced into voting for an eco-imperialist whose foreign policy is beginning to sound like Bill Clinton's 'peace, love and understanding'.

[JohnnyT]

I'm tellin' ya, if somebody wrote a script about all this two years ago, nobody in Hollywood would have bought it. Truth IS stranger than sniper-fire fiction.

Imagine how much it must SUCK to be a rational blue collar Democrat today? It's like who do you root for on the Russian Front, Stalin or Hitler, LOL!

Unbelievable! They HAD it! It could have been a cakewalk. McCain was down against both Clinton and Obama, and conservatives were ready to sit out the election en masse. That ain't happenin' now regardless of WHO the Dems nominate.

McCain may be no Reagan, but he sure as hell ain't a corrupt female Walter Mitty or a candidate with a sullen, resentful wife and a black David Duke of preacher he calls 'Mentor.' Oh, and McCain's's also the only POTUS candidate left with a +50% FAV rating. Obama's and Clinton's have reversed. Both +50% UNFAV now (Rasmussen).

Always crashing in the same car. Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory. I'm trying to figure out which storyline this political horrorshow most closely resembles: Hamlet, or the Three Stooges' "Disorder In The Court," LOL!

[Other Tom]

Let us now begin the Merrill McPeak death watch:

"The Clinton campaign is distributing an article in the American Spectator (!) about Obama foreign policy adviser Merrill McPeak and his penchant for...well, the article accuses him of being an anti-Semite and a drunk."

From Best of the Web Today.

[LindaK]

To answer the question posed at the beginning: A nagging older woman pushing brussel sprouts. Four of my son's college age friends showed up for dinner Friday night and I asked them for whom they were voting. All for BO. Why not RW? Reminds them of a man's worst nightmare -- nagging mother-in-law, nagging over-controlling wife. This is a perception she cannot overcome.

Changing the subject slightly, Operation CHAOS, aka the Democratic primary, is going to provide wonderful fodder for RNC commercials in the fall. Possible 30 second spot candidates: the RW Tuzla fable juxtaposed with the actual footage; RW extolling her leadrship skills over tape of her weeping in NH.

[Rick Ballard]

LindaK,

Do you think it will be commercials? I think it will be U-Tube and viral email. I expect to hear a ton of Tammy Wynette singing softly while RW spouts "35 years of experience" and the cut and splice begins. Steve Crawford, Janet Reno (Waco & the Cuban kid), WTC I and Camel Butt Seekers streaking accross the sky with a voice shaking "I did not have" followed by "First Elected President Ever Impeached" (with more Camel Butt Seekers and pictures of Osama in Sudan.

I'd love to script U-Tubes from now 'til election day while thumbing my nose at McCain-Feingold.

The real fun hasn't begun.

[clarice]

OT--too many threads--Obama's already disavowed McPeak on Israel LOL

[battery]

OT--too many threads--Obama's already disavowed McPeak on Israel LOL

[sophy]

I will thank for my friends bringing me in this world. I am not regret to buy habbo gold .