Pollster.com

Voters are sending a pretty simple message: We like you Joe, but we just don't trust you with the President.

It would actually make more sense to the people of west Virginia to have a GOP governor and Manchin for senator. He will be closer to a Sen. Nelson Democrat than a Russ Feingold democrat, so he won't exactly be liberal. If they have a GOP governor, there will probably be huge state tax breaks, and WV being a fairly poor state, isn't going to benefit from keeping the Bush tax cuts at the federal level on the wealthiest 2 percent. That is sort of why Mass and VT voters sometimes go for a Republican governor, yet send Democrats to Washington, other than when they might have a special election on a cold day in January.

This, I think, shows the problem with Rasmussen's model pretty clearly. Registered Democrats in WV, no matter how conservative they are, are not going to vote against a candidate from their party who has 67% job approval ratings and a net +40 favorability spread.

If Hoeven was a Democrat, Rasmussen would have him at 50% in ND, too...

BH:
Voters are sending a pretty simple message: We like you Joe, but we just don't trust you with the President.

Some in Maine thought Susan collins could be defeated when Bush's favorabilty was 30 percent in 2008, but that didn't happen. The people of Maine obviously felt that Collins was a different kind of Republican who has a mind of her own. I think Manchin likewise has a mind of his own and would probably be a thorn in Obama's side on many issues.

I predict progressives will wake up after this election and realize that if they live in Burlington VT or San Francisco, that they will realize just what a Center/Right country we are, and stop denying it. Much of mid-america, Pa and the south is never going to see it that way.

I think Manchin will win. Nevertheless, in some of those Inland south states, a lot of registered Democrats are "in name only". They don't have the greatest loyalty. One poll had 27 percent of Democrats supporting Rand Paul. That is insulting, and wish these people would just leave the party. I have heard of the Reagan Democrats, and those who voted for Olypia Snowe, Scott Brown or Mitt Romney, but the Rand Paul democrats sounds ludicrous, since he is so out of line with his own party on many issues let alone the Democrats.

Farleft out of curiosity why didn't Markowitz win the primary, I was very annoyed about that one, you guys are practically handing Dubie the gov machine in Vermont.

Nice article from Time Mag.

Charlie Cook, along with "senior Democrats" is accusing BOBO of channeling already illegally obtained funds, that were illegally designated for 2010 Dem campaigns, into BOBO's 2012 campaign.

So earlier this year, when the White House gave OFA a whopping $30 million — more than half of the party's entire budget for 2010 — senior Democrats suspected a hidden agenda. Several tell Time that OFA boss David Plouffe, who ran Obama's 2008 campaign, is using the cash to rebuild an army for 2012 under the cover of boosting turnout in 2010. OFA is putting staff into such states as Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona, which have few close statewide races this fall but which are all prime targets in an Obama re-election campaign. "This is totally about 2012," Cook says.

Face it, it's all about BOBO, 100% of the time. As long as he gets to throw nightly WH parties, ride AirForce One, and slurp ice cream coast to coast for four more years, he doesn't really give a $h!t about anything else. That's the real agenda.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2016973,00.html

OFA went into full force on Tuesday.

They knocked on over 200,000 doors at the end of August.

Their goal is to defend and go on the offense in 2010, and be in a strong position in 2012.

Stop whining about the party, and the head of the party, President Obama, doing everything in their power to win elections. You can't govern unless you stay elected.

I'm sure you would have liked for the Democratic Party and their election wings, including OFA, to sit back and let Republicans distort reality, but that's not going to happen.

They have a strong apparatus in OFA, and they're going to use it in a very strategic manner. Plouffe is very good at his job.

Manchin must be cringing at Obama's latest foray into class warfare which he kicked off in Ohio. The more Obama delves into economic and social issues (i.e. Ground Zero mosque, Skip Gates affair, etc), the more he wounds moderate to Blue Dog types like Manchin. Manchin expects a cake walk coronation a la Martha Coakley. We all know how that turned out.

jerseyite
Nice one. The Cordoba House situation is not a "social" issue. It's a constitutional issue.

The President didn't delve into it, he's supporting someone's constitutional right to build a Mosque wherever they please.

@farleft

I think what this poll demonstrates is extraordinary. That you can have a 70% approval rating and still potentially lose to a challenger with a lower approval hints at how strategic voters are thinking in this cycle. That is, they're thinking national first, not local, about those races with national implications.

haha, yeah right. Obama was pretty quick to take a stand (and rightly so) on the issue of this guy burning the Koran in Florida even though he definitely has the constitutional right to do so. If Obama was really such a constitutionalist he would simply be saying the guy has a first amendment right to show disrespect to islam and that it wasnt an issue other than that. I hope this moron doesnt go through with burning the Koran and I hope the planners of the mosque project decide to build it somewhere else.

Looking at this poll, it seems to be a case of having two guys that the public holds in pretty high regard. Now, one of these guys is an Obama buddy, and the other isn't. Is it really shocking or unbelievable that the race is close?

"
This, I think, shows the problem with Rasmussen's model pretty clearly. Registered Democrats in WV, no matter how conservative they are, are not going to vote against a candidate from their party who has 67% job approval ratings and a net +40 favorability spread.
"

If they elect Manchin as senator, they lose him as governor. The polling I've seen says that the people of West Virginia would rather have him as governor. Presumably he is leading in the polls because some people are either showing deference to Manchin's own stated preference for the senate, or they are unaware that it means that his term as governor will be cut short.

It's reminiscent of the William Weld senate race against John Kerry where Kerry used that line of argument to turn Weld's popularity against him

The last time this president saw something through the realm of the constitution was when he was using the document for toilet paper.

Constitutional issue. Ridiculous.

If Raese launches an unceasing ad blitz tying Manchin to Obama, he will snatch this race from Manchin's clutches. Scott Brown can attest to the efficacy of that strategy. Manchin and his supporters feel that he has an almost divine claim to the seat. Clearly, the voters have begun to rebel against that notion no matter what their nominal party registration. I bet Raese wins it by 51 to 48.

jerseyite:

If Raese launches an unceasing ad blitz tying Manchin to Obama, he will snatch this race from Manchin's clutches. Scott Brown can attest to the efficacy of that strategy. Manchin and his supporters feel that he has an almost divine claim to the seat. Clearly, the voters have begun to rebel against that notion no matter what their nominal party registration. I bet Raese wins it by 51 to 48.

Well...they've already tried that...by using a photo of Obama and Mancin together. Of course it turned out that the photo was taken at Byrd's funeral where these two would naturally have to be together. Byrd's family complained. Way to go Raese!

Manchin + Obama:
As I have said here before, Manchin's support is broad but thin. He is competent and moderate but not at all charismatic. Hence, voters will not be weeping as they vote against him.

It would be difficult to overstate the unpopularity of Obama and the lib congress throughout Appalachia. In WV, Obama pleased a handful of lib environmentalists by effectively stopping mountain top removal by simply refusal to grant permits. WV is heavily dependent on coal and knows that fact very, very well. It is especially important to the impoverised southern part of the state. That region should be a bastion of dem voters, but they see a frightening threat to the livelihoods and to the state of WV. They may actually vote Republican rather than just staying home.

Being no fool, Manchin has spoken out strongly against this, but Byrd, before he died shocked everyone by backing it. Message: dems are ready, willing, and able to vote for lib disasters, even if it hurts their own state.

Being no fools themselves, the voters of WV no doubt are at least considering voting against Obama and his program in the only way they can. Besides, if Byrd can go DC, so can Manchin.

Manchin, so far, is not running against Obama. If he starts, you will know that he thinks Rasmussen is accurate once again.

Manchin probably is hoping to run out the clock. If so, he is making a fatal error. My prediction: if he harshly and loudly denounces Obama and pledges to reverse every single thing Obama and Nancy have done, he will win handily. If he does not, he will lose.

Moore-Capito would be beating him handily now if she had had the courage to run. However, my bet is that she wants to be governor and rehabilitate her dad, who was convicted of hubris for governing while Republican. He actually thought he could get away with corruption just because dems get away with it so often!