Pollster.com

Gallup stays at 5 point lead for McCain, FoxNews comes in at 3 point lead for McCain. Huge movment amongst women and independents to McCain.

One big point in the FoxNews Poll was that McCain leads Obama by 20 points as far as "who is more action vs. more talk".

Again, this exposes Rasmussen's faulty technique of using 3 month old numbers to determine his party affiliation weightings and ignoring recent events such as the selection of Sarah Palin.

The fact that Gallup has had McCain up by 3 days in a row is very telling and should cause great concern for Obama.

The thing that should concern Obama the most is that now America is actually paying attention, Obama's support is evaporating.

Gallup is on Drugs...

Obama leading by 3-7% (averages of polls in June, July, August)
MSM response: "Why isn't it 10%"

McCain leading by 1-2% (averages of polls in first week of September)
MSM response: "Great news for McCain. McCain is winning. Obama in trouble."

This whole "lipstick on a pig" thing is a purely partisan affair.

Obama supporters will think it was nothing and McCain supporters will think it was a slight againts Palin.

No matter what Obama "meant", it was a foolish comment to make given the current atmosphere.

If voters were paying attention they would note that McCain IS the party in power and wants to fire himself. They would want to know what he actually plans to do to fix problems and they would want to know why all of the alleged maverick advantages of Palin have been debunked. They would also want to know how Sarah can be such a good mother to FIVE children while running the State of Alaska. (both parents work) They might also ask how such a wonderful mother teching abstinence only feels about the failure to prevent her 17yo from getting pregnant.
We have 7 more weeks for her newbie star to fade...and it will.
I don't see trouble for Obama unless McCain is still ahead in any polls in 1-2 weeks....then for SURE voters are asleep.

This is the first real test for Obama and it is really important for him to respond fast and hard. Kerry never recovered at this point in 2004, but Obama is going to have a nice war chest and he seems to be better suited to deal with adversity than Kerry was.

It is going to help Obama now that the McCain pettiness is starting to come out. People are going abandon him again if he keeps it up.

SwingVote - Obama has enjoyed nothing but the best press. The only hot spots for him involved Reverend Wright, and the media was enthusiastic about helping him "move beyond" that problem. All he had to do is announce a "major speech" on race or the economy, which the media described in such glowing terms that everyone forgot his trouble. Problem: now we have conservative media too -- serving as a check on the mainstreamers. The WSJ, Wash Times, Fox, National Review, etc., are paying much more attention to the national election than they did to the Democratic primaries. A lot of the media worship of Obama has been blunted by the presence of conservatives, who have "truth squads" and who can call out their bias. I am a proud liberal but I have been very upset by the media coverage of Obama. It's as if he does nothing wrong.

My RealClearPolitics map has Ohio as the only gray state. Ohio will determine who wins.

The lipstick thing is understood by the average person....but my guess is that it was calculated to get Obama back on top of the news. They probably suspected the Reps would target the comment....I think O won on this round.

On the Lipstick comment...
While I know for a fact that Obama wasn't talking abour Palin, and that the McCain camp isn't really "upset" by this, I definately know that the people sitting behind Obama (supporters) took it as a direct insult directed to Palin. Just look at the reaction of Obama's supporters and the way he paused for a reaction. I watched more than just the clip repeated on the news and noticed that the lipstick quote received more applause than anything else.

I dont believe Obama's intend was to insult her, but it was interesting that the word lipstick hasn't been used by either candidate for several months, Palin uses it during an off scripted speech moment, and then Obama and Biden BOTH use the word again on the same day. I think Biden comment was a bit more questionable though. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13315.html
"Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan on Tuesday — introducing Joe Biden at a campaign event — ripped into Palin’s record and punctuated it with this snarky jab. “There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,” he said. Later in the day, Obama used a variation "

While it may not be a direct insult, it makes about as much sense to say that as it would saying "His policies have come up a bit short" when referring to a dwarf candidate. Try and be a bit more classy with your analogies candidates!

Hi,

I am new to pollster and I am also a survey statistician. Based on my viewing of the various poll sites, there is really not enough information from any of the polls to assess their accuracy.

Response rates to surveys have plummeted over the last 25 years due to new technologies. Therefore, random digit dialing (RDD) as a sample frame has become rather deficient. As well, it seems that many of these polls could benefit from "post-stratified" weighting, which involves weighting to most recent census count. It would also be interesting to see weighting for propensity to vote based on demographic characteristics.

@laguna CA

your comments marginalize the brains of many women. did you know that before women's lib and NOW, many many years ago, women had even larger
families and worked longer hours?

there was nothing holy about what they did. it was called life.

it was only after the 'leave it to beaver years' of post war america that women left those factories chose to organize their lives around the home. or so the story goes.

neither sarah palin nor most women for one minute believe that they will cast their vote in lockstep with any candidate.

what sarah palin has chosen for herself as far as faith and family has little to do with her ability to acquit her job with elan and verve.

i suggest to you that the time a man takes in public office golfing with his cronies or drinking with his buddies to cement those
"ties' is the time that palin puts to far better use on the home front.

it is also why she will be less beholden to those 'ties'.

you might want to download the footage from her pastor in alaska, a non denominational church that makes reverend wright look like ahmadinejad.

the polls will reveal more and more moving over to her. not once did she integrate her non-political stance with her platform.

she was even the one who cut off debate on anti-abortion bills in alaska.

but WE are moving to her. i might disagree with how she raises her daughter but i certainly have the same issues with bush and the way obama trots his kids out for photo ops in major magazines. i have problems with the way my brother and sister raise their kids as well. who doesn't?

it comes down to OIL and WAR and who tends to lie.

the more obama sweats the more his cool bravura falls away to a man, applying far above his pay grade and not able to sustain his mental powers in the face of utter PANIC!

I don't care much about the polls, especially daily tracking polls. I think InTrade is much better indicator (unless it is manipulated). Today McCain took the lead in InTrade. That's really bad news for Obama.

THINGS OBAMA NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT:

1. He is younger than John McCain.
2. He is better looking than John McCain.
3. He is a better speaker than John McCain.
4. He has raised more money than John McCain.
5. He has had a tongue bath from the MSM for months.
6. Bush is very unpopular.
7. The economy is dicey.
8. People want change.

On paper, it looks like an easy 20 point win for Obama, and yet, he is losing. Now that people are actually paying attention to this election, Obama's support is evaporating.

Why?

It is actually an easy answer. America is a CENTER/RIGHT country. Obama/Biden is a LEFT/LEFT ticket. McCain/Palin is a CENTER/RIGHT ticket. McCain/Palin "looks" like America.

It's scary out there. The economy is troubled. Russia is resurgent. Terrorists still want to kill us. During uncertain times, people don't like to take big chances on unknown and UNTESTED people. Not only is Obama unknown, he is UNTESTED and America has no idea how he will respond under real fire because, honestly, he has never done anything of note except run for office.

People know what McCain is made of, but do they know what Obama is made of? No, and that's the problem.

You know, it is possible a kid right out of medical school could perform brilliant brain surgery on his first try, but I for one wouldn't want to be the one under the knife.

I think THAT is how America views Obama and THAT is why he is losing a race he should be winning.

Rasmussen's methode is not viable. He just gets his Voter ID information from State Election Offices and proceeds with those figures. For example in NC,according to Election Office there, Registered Dems enjoy a 11 point lead over Registered Reps. But these figures does not take in to account the preference change after the Registration. A lot of Southern Democrats actually bacame Republicans during 80s and 90s. The same people will identify themselves as Republicans when Rasmussen calls them.

@boomshak

If you are at the "far right", everybody is on the "left" for you. Obama and Biden are much closer to center than Palin. McCain used to be center, now he is not.

Obamacenter-left
McCain: center-right

Biden: center-left
Palin: far right

To Hope Reborn--

Remember Gallup and Diego are "registered" voters. Both compare equitably to one another if one looks at sampling error.

Rasmussen is "likely" voters. Their weighting for self-identified political ID is based on 3-months of polling and thus slower to respond to "bounces" or a "surge" in Republican ID. Such as been explained by Rasmussen as to why their polls are more "level" over time.

You know, if anyone ever doubted the cynicism of McCain's pick of Palin, those doubts should now be gone. This is the lowest point in presidential politics of my entire lifetime.

I guess McCain couldn't have picked Michael Steele and then create an air of racism to charge Democrats with, so he picked a woman and then created this whole sexism thing, and then this whole victimization thing.

I wonder how much of this the press bill buy, or if they will instead shoot it down forcefully as it should be. If the press is deserving of being the 4th Estate, they need to live up to their responsibilities.

Who's really changing their party identification on a weekly basis during the convention? Who really declared themselves a democrat or republican because of the conventions? Polling the average of party identification seems like a pretty sound technique to get rid of statistical noise of some unlikely voters suddenly becoming republicans.

@SwingVote

Intrade reflects conventional wisdom fairly well, but that's all it does. The Sarah Palin as VP contract closed at 4 the day before she was selected. Between the Iowa caucuses and Super Tuesday, both Clinton's and Obama's nomination contracts fluctuated by something like forty points.

The race is still closer than most people expected it to be. But Intrade's ability to predict the future is nothing more than the sum of the collective judgments it represents.

@Laguna

The issue of "Family Values" and Sarah's motherhood were GOP issues. They put them in play so they are fair game. I just pointed out the difference between what they practice and what they preach.
I owuld like anyone to tell me what good parenting includes having one parent in a major political position and the other in a fulltime job. With 5 children how many hours a day do you have to raise them? Divide that by 5 for a per child attention and you have a neglected family. It is simple MATH.

As for the shifts in polls or Intrade, no one was calling it for Obama as a done deal when he was ahead. If I were a Republican all I would see ahead was danger:
Attack on Iran
Deterioration in Iraq
Deterioration in Afghanistan
Stock market crash
Continued economic disasters
Sarah Palin is actually found out to be an empty dress
Americans visualize waking up after election day and nothing has changed!!!!
And of course a mini-stoke or coronary for a 72 yo who is running way faster than he should at this age....
For Obama there are not a lot of scarey prospects....

Swingvote,

I am not far right, I am center/right. I am fiscally conservative but personally think politics should stay out of the morality business.

I believe abortion should be available in the 1st trimester since the child is not viable at that point outside the mother's body and is thus "a part of the mother's body". However, I also believe that later term and partial birth abortions to do anything but save the mother's life are abhorrent.

Roe v Wade will not be overturned until a majority of Americans believe it should be. A President being pro-life is mostly symbolic as we have had many pro-life Presidents and we still have Roe v Wade. However, having a pro-choice President such as Obama who has even spoken in favor of killing babies born alive during abortions is a horrid possibility.

Given a choice between the two, I'll choose a symbolic pro-life candidate over one who can actually cause the murder of viable babies any day.

As far as saying Obama/Biden is not far left, the record would argue with you. Obama is known as one of the MOST liberal members of Congress, as well a Biden. They both receive terrible scores on pork-barrel spending.

Nope, America will not allow far-left liberals unchecked power in America.

I just looked at the Fox News Poll and I feel better now. It shows Obama losing no support from Democrats or Independents, and it also indicates he is only getting 74% of AA votes. What a joke!!!

RaleighNC:

My RealClearPolitics map has Ohio as the only gray state. Ohio will determine who wins.

Non sequitur.

Hey, Laguna_b.... The Obamanation keeps conveniently forgetting that the oldest of Palin's children is an adult enlisted in the Army and that he is shipping out TOMORROW to Iraq. The next in line is going to be married with her own family (and do not fret because the Palins have heck of an extended family nearby for support). And maybe you missed the fact that husband Todd is also a experienced caregiver.

And to be fair, please ask Obama and Michelle about how they can govern and be First Lady respectively with two small children.

Also Biden lost his first wife and little girl, making him a widower with two young boys, and yet he carried on. Ask him if caring for a family is a reason not to serve in elected political office. (He says not an issue.)

SEXISM abounds in Obamanation!!!! Time to be PROGRESSIVE and get over it.

Do anyone here really believe like SwingVote that Obama or Biden is center/left? Their voting record sure doesn't line up with that claim. If that's true, then Pelosi must be a little to the left of Gingrich, the moderate.

When did Obama say that Palin wasn't fit to serve because of her children? I'd like to read that article. Or is this another liberal media blah blah blah thing?

boomshak:

If you are OK with abortion in the 1st trimester, many people would call you "baby killer" as you called Obama.

McCain and Palin both announced that they want to overturn Roe vs Wade. Your opinion matter less than what they said (fact!) because they are running for the office, who will appoint the judges.

If Obama and Biden are far left because they got pork-barrel spending, Palin is far left too (Bridge to Noweher and 27M for small town thanks to lobbyists)

@ KipTin:

I pay Scott Rasmussen $25 a month to take a look at his cross tabs. He's not too respected because Fox News uses him alot, and CNN prefers to use Gallup. That said, when you're out ahead of the Fox News Poll, then you're doing something wrong.

ABC and CBS had it +2 McCain
NBC +1 Obama
CNN Tied
Hotline Tied
Rasmussen Tied with back and forth

Gallup is all alone out on a limb here and I simply don't think they're to be trusted in the current batch of polling. When 7 other polls say it's McCain +2 ~ Obama +1, then the one poll outside that range is either pure genius or awefully inaccurate.

FYI, tomorrow debutes a new poll, commissioned by dKos, and conducted by Research 2000, adding another daily tracker into the mix. I predict the first polling day will be much closer to Rasmussen than Gallup. If that's a case, an arguement can be made that both Fox News' prefered pollster and far left dKos's poll are showing a tied race, while Gallup is off in la-la land with McCain +5%.

Not hard to tell whose right and whose wrong in that case if you ask me.

and to all the people talking about lipstick on a pollster forum, get a life please. this is a place to talk about polling and maybe strategy; arguing or even mentioning the daily bric-a-brac really muddies up the conversation.

PROOF ABAMA INTENDED TO CALL PALIN A PIG!

Check this out from Politico:

"Democratic Congressman Russ Carnahan on Tuesday — introducing Joe Biden at a campaign event — ripped into Palin’s record and punctuated it with this snarky jab. “There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,” he said. Later in the day, Obama used a variation of the lipstick line, though he was clearly talking about the McCain-Palin reform rhetoric. "You can put lipstick on a pig," he said. "It's still a pig."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13315.html

Now what are the odds bot the Obama Team and the Biden Team would make "lipstick" comments on the same day accidentally?

Wow.

one thing i find interesting is that, for some reason, American's "identify" as Center-Right, but, when asked more specifically about the issues they support, we come out Center-left. For example: Americans favor affordable health-care, comprehensive education, civil rights, more diplomacy/less war, legalized abortion, and the list goes on and on....

You see, we aren't REALLY Center-Right, we've just been TOLD we are for years by the right-wing oligarchy. Now, they see their rule slipping away from them, and they're scared. Terrified. I have a feeling both campaigns know that the public opinion polls are flawed. Why else would Obama be so cool and collected right now? And why is McCain flailing for something? He's gone on offense on three ridiculous things this week, and has gotten no traction. The only thing that seems to have gotten him traction is Palin, and we'll see how long that lasts, and even if her impact is actually as big as pollster's think it is... You see, underneath the surface, the ruling Republican party is scared ****less. They are running the nastiest, most dishonorable campaign ever in American politics. You think they're doing it cuz they know they're ahead? Think again guys.

I think what Obama was going for was the "polished-turd" analogy that its really just the same just packaged differently.

Excuse me while I go and get a pulled-Palin sandwich.

What do you want to bet the last 9/7/08 RCP poll taken off their board is the 10 point McCain lead in the USA Gallup Poll

"lipstick on a pig" produces 1.8 million hits on Google. I use this saying all the time. McCain has used it this campaign, Obama has used it this campaign, and it's fairly common in politics.

Obama was talking about McCain entirely all the way up to the point where he uttered this remark, and followed up with another colloquialism that had the exact same meaning.

Now it is no surprise that McCain has latched on to this. The day before he put out a fully false attack ad claiming that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergartners, when that bill was all about teaching kindergartners to avoid and report sexual predators.

This is all just a continuation of McSleaze.

Republicans think that Americans are stupid, and surely some are, and they likely vote Republican in the first place because they are so vulnerable to being taken advantage of and Republicans exploit that. However the majority of Americans will not respond to such a thing.

This whole line of attack does not support McCain's claimed maverick status and it will in fact make him nothing but a whiner when it comes to election day. You can either vote for a bulls$it artist come election day because you are a sheep that believes this stuff, or you can vote for a candidate that is running for president and a new agenda. Choose your side.

"Rippleeffect:
On the Lipstick comment...
While I know for a fact that Obama wasn't talking abour Palin"

do you read palms too?

http://www.electoral-vote.net/evp2008/Senate/lib_senator_ratings-2007.html

http://www.electoral-vote.net/evp2008/Senate/con_senator_ratings-2007.html

This is a good ranking of the senators. As you can see Obama is far from the most liberal senator. But don't let your personal opinions get in the way of facts.

I think the economy is going to be an area of strength, not weakness, for McCain. After all, he knows how to make money the old fashioned way -- you marry it!

@Mike_in_CA:

Blah, typical left wing nonsense.
Americans favor lower cost healthcare? What republicans want high prices? Everyone wants a lower cost system, the debate is wheather we want the g'ment to provide it or find a better free market solution. The g'ment can't runthe post office and you want them to run healthcare........
Comprehensive education? What does that even mean? Teaching our kids reading, writing and math? Or teachign them sex education in first grade? Does it mean handing out textbooks or building transgender restrooms on campus? Does it mean more science fairs or passing out condoms and birth control pills in grade school? Does it mean lowering college tuition? you mean those colleges that are all run by leftists???
Civil rights? the gop hates black people right? Kill the gays right? or do you mean affirmative action where you give someone speical treatment over someone else based only on race? If the building is burning down and your stuck on the 30th floor, do you want the best qualified person to come save you? Or the guy who got the job because his skin was a certain color?
More diplomacy and less war? How many more resolutions on Iraq shoudl the UN have gone to? 50? 100? How many times does a country have to spit on the UN before enforcmenet is mandated? n. korea promised to stop building nukes in hte 90's, clinton said cool, thanks...turns out they lied and were building them. ya lets talk to radical dictators who wanna destory nations off the map without preconditions, lets negotiate with bin laden....maybe he will take a check? JFK and Reagan were just a coule of war mongers cus they stood up to communism and didnt back down right? Oh those evil war mongers.
legalized abortion? Does that include infants born alive after a botched abortion attempt? Does that include 3rd trimester abortions where the baby is fully able to survive outside the womb?
and yes the list goes on and on.......you guys honestly cannot figure out why you guys lose time and time again? Its quite simple, your policies are a joke. lets talk to terrorists, maybe they will learn to love us and forget there evil ways right? lets take the obama apporach and kill babies born alive.
No wonder the left is so out of touch and cannot win national elections. Condoms in school, no time for math, sorry.
Oh ya, don't forget to ban everyones guns. It will lower crime...yep, ban guns and the criminals well just say, oh darn, i'll hav eto use a knife now.
The g'ment can't work its way out of a wet paper bag and you want them to run everything for you, from healthcare to retirement......what a joke.

Kevin- according to your link, Obama ranks as a more conservative liberal. (The higher the mean %, the more liberal. Doh!)

@stilow

One would assume by your post that unlike the VAST majority of this country, you think the direction is just fine...fact is that they are not and after 8 years (6 unfetterred by opposition) none of the problems have gotten better only worse. When Americans imagine the nightmare of waking up Nov. 5th to the SAME for 4 more years, they will be moving over....watch the next few weeks and after the bump is gone we will be discussing a diferrent race....

"Kevin- according to your link, Obama ranks as a more conservative liberal. (The higher the mean %, the more liberal. Doh!)"

Thats what I said. I said Obama is FAR FROM the most liberal senator.

Bush is an idiot...he campaigned as a conservative, governs his domestic policy like a liberal, spend spend spend, big g'ment program after big g'ment program.
We don't blame others in a party for being the same as somone else in thatparty do we? If we do, then are all dems kkk members like Senator Robert Byrd? Are all dems as insane as jimmy carter was? Did all dems molest interns like bill did? Of course not.

@stillow

while i love your posts, it does get hard to read when you dont break up paragraphs. so please, for the sake of everyone who enjoys your ideas, put spaces in!!!

anyway...

all of this; pig, war, bristol, lipstick, palin has put obama on the run.

um-ppity obama sat on a wall,
um-ppity obama had a great fall.
all the crimson phd's and
all the yuppie funds
couldn't put um-ppity
back together again.

Gallup has a terrible track record . Look atr their final poll in 2004 Kerry 49 Bush 49

Rasmussen's final poll Bush 50.8
Kerry 48.1

Final results Bush: 50.7
Kerry 48.3

Most reliable pollster's picked the winner and Gallup could not even do that.

In 2000 on October 24th they had Gore up by 1 pt

On Oct. 27th they had Bush up by 13 pts

A week before the election they had bBush winning by 5 pts Gore won the popular vote by 600,000 votes probably by 1 to 2 tenths of a pt.

They areng off of a past reputation, that is no where close to elections from election 2000 forward

@boskop

heheeh its tough man, I work in a data center which is kept at 60 degrees...I can't even feel my hands when i type.....try it, its impossible to type!

@Stillow

Typical right-wing nonsense. The Reagan and Bush presidencies prove that your system doesn't work. If you had had your way we would still be living under Jim Crow and women wouldn't have the right to vote. You're standing in the way of human progress and you're just trying to hold on to whatever power you have left. You're good at scaring people and creating wedges, but you've shown time and time again that greed gets the better of you, and you're woefully incapable of running anything.

@Napoleon Complex:

The middle class thrived in the 80's under Reagan....why else did he win two "huge" landslides? Because he could tell a joke? No,it is because the middle class was thriving and everyone benefitted from his policies......except those who are lazy and seem to be allergic to work....Bush killed Dukakis because people were thriving....economies all work in cycles, you have upswings and down swings....just how it is....bash Reagan all you want, he won what is probably the biggest landslide in history in 1984 because people were better off than they were four years ago, remember?

@Stillow
The middle clas did not thrive under Reagan Bush. Under Reagan we spent TRILLIONS towards the deficit "buy" prosperity. Under Bush we had a horrific recession. Under Clinton we went from DEFICIT to SURPLUS with the most sustained economic growth in history and without deficit. If you are such a conservative why did you buy into the Reagan HUGE deficits?

Hugh deficits that my grandchildren's children will have to pay off doesn't indicate they anyone was better off under Reagan. Remember the S&L scandal? He was asleep at the wheel and let hard-right zealots run his White House. I was a small businessman under Reagan/BushI and will never vote for a Republican again. Every great empire has fallen when the division of wealth becomes too great. Trickle down doesn't work and that's why our great country is in decline. Sad.

"The middle class thrived in the 80's under Reagan....why else did he win two "huge" landslides? "

LOL, a tautology

@Laguna_b:

Regan spent money on the military and went along with liberal spending to get that funding. Reagan solved hte communism problem so Clinton didn't have to deal with it. Clinton's economic success was driven by the tech bubble which went POP .....millions of people lost much of there retirment when it went pop, no one ever talks about that....or no one talks about the financial corruption of worldcom, enron, etc all took place i nthe 90's and all went bust in 2001. But dems never want to talk about that. The tech bubble is just like the housing bubble, in 2004 - 2007 the economy was rolling along, housing was on fire, but the ubble went POP....you had the clinton bubble cost millions there retirmenet savings....you have the bush bubble costing millions there homes.
Your claim the middle class was not better off under Reagan is bogus, people don't get elected in landslides like that if people were in bad shape......get real.

And what about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loan guarantees? When the republicans say the government can't run anything, they lie. Those two quasi-governmental institutions are the back bone of our financial system. What went wrong? A LACK of regulation in the sub prime secularization market.

We need a government that properly regulates our capital markets to insure our prosperity. That is why most of wall street backs Obama. And you should too.

http://theprolific.com/2008/08/meet-obamas-corporate-backers/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/stocksNews/idUKNOA53525520080605

@Stillow
Reagan did not win the Cold War, Mikhail Gorbechev ended it because he saw how futile the whole thing was for both sides. If you think we won the arms race try nuking Russia and see if anyone wins...
I am in Silicon Valley. The tech "bubble" didn't burst, those with bad business plans failed but Yahoo, Gogle, eBay etc, not to mention untold other companies were born and prosper thanks to the Clinton years.
You need to stand back and quit being so partisan. No party has a monopoly on success. As a conservative you should be ashamed of the Reagan deficit binge...be an honest agent of opinion...not a partisan cheer leader. At least you pegged Bush right...

@Laguna_b:

Most people would disagree with you. the nasdaq crashed, followed by worldcom and Enron....others like global crossing...all collapsed, bubble popping...cositng millions and millions of americans a chunk of there retirement. "Millions". Wher ewas the great clinton leadership on worldcom when they were cooking there books in the late 90's?
Anyone who thinks the soviets just gave up is beyond help in this area.....history disagrees with you on this my freind....and so do most people.
It was people like charlie rangall who demanded we give home loans to people with suspect credit histories.
You libs, just let the g'ment fix it, let them run it all....they are not corrupt, politicans are pefect people.....yikes!!! you guys are missing a few cards...

NeverAnsweredAStraight?Con

Why don't you answer for George Bush's policies, you should be proud the way your party has driven country into thr ground!

@Stillow

Your Candidates tell lies, the bounce is over.
I am so very sorry that the Republicans have been fiscally completely irresponsible.

I am sorry for our country that so many lives have been wasted in Iraq.

I am so sorry that the basic infrastructure of our country is falling apart and needs modernizing desperately.

I am sorry that we have been so late in investing in renewable energies and associated products

I can go on but I wont. Your candidates have supported the policies that have caused the huge problems that our country faces and apparently offer nothing but the same failed policies goin forward.

@Stillow

The Beatles and Levi jeans had as much to do with the fall of the Soviet Empire as anything, which proves my point. You can't suppress people indefinitely. They want freedom and equality. WorldCom and Enron were caused by Republican de-regulation, just like the S&L scandal under Reagan and the current mortgage crisis under Bush. McCain will lose because he is espousing these same policies.

@ Stillow

Napoleon and dave101 are right on the money re: de-regulation - I realize the rally cry of "the market will work itself out" sounds great at conventions and in political speeches, but history simply doesn't support the theory that the free market takes care of itself - which is why it is an idealized concept and not a working model.

And Laguna_B is correct that it wasn't Clinton that made a bunch of idiots and speculators invest in tech companies that were barely existent. The companies that were solid made it out of the 'bubble burst' and are still around. Worldcom and Enron are a different matter and were victim to internal corruption (and one could argue a lack of oversight).

The thing that should concern Obama the most is that now America is actually paying attention, Obama's support is evaporating.

In the case of the US electorate, I don't think the phrase "paying attention" is the right one to use. More like "vaguely aware that a shiny new object has been dangled in front of their noses."

Looking at what an absolute travesty the whole process has become, it's pretty hard to make the argument that American elections come anywhere close to meeting the legal test of "informed consent". About as close as an American Idol contest -- without the intellectual content.

Personally, I'm beginning to believe a military coup might be preferable to this ridiculous fascade of "democracy" -- especially if the alternative is a senile neocon and his babbling-in-tongues fundi sidekick in control of the most powerful and potentially destructive military machine on the planet.

At least it would make it obvious to everyone where things really stand.

National horse race polls may be great for the headline and media enetertainment,but they don't tell the story at all. If you want to track who's really leading check out the elecoral vote map. Remember, Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes,but lost to Bush. So , now take a look. Even if you win a state by 1 vote you get that states electoral votes. When Kennedy beat Nixon by .17 he still garnered more than 300 electoral votes. McCain has never led in EV since the race began.