DAFFI DUMB **** is DESTROYING McCain's Chances! Failin' Palin's HATE
Campaign Makes Even Repubs Feel Uncomfortable!

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"Obama Up by 10 Points as McCain Favorability Ratings Fall"

By Anne E. Kornblut and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 13, 2008; A01


With just over three weeks until Election Day, the two presidential
nominees appear to be on opposite trajectories, with Sen. Barack Obama
gaining momentum and Sen. John McCain stalled or losing ground on a
range of issues and personal traits, according to a new Washington
Post-ABC News poll.

Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely
voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign,
voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing
strong leadership.

McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that
Obama is too "risky" or too "liberal." Rather, recent strategic shifts
may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative
ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent
rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even
McCain's supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy,
returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National
Convention.

Conversely, Obama's pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to
sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under
a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see
their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.

The poll was conducted after Tuesday night's debate, which most voters
said did not sway their opinions much. Still, voters' impressions of
Obama are up, and views of McCain have slipped.

Nearly two-thirds of voters, 64 percent, now view Obama favorably, up
six percentage points from early September. About a third of voters
have a better opinion of the senator from Illinois because of his
debate performances, while 8 percent have a lower opinion of him. By
contrast, more than a quarter said they think worse of McCain as a
result of the debates, more than double the proportion saying their
opinion had improved. McCain's overall rating has also dipped seven
points, to 52 percent, over the past month.

With the final debate set for Wednesday at Hofstra University in
Hempstead, N.Y., McCain faces a narrowing window in which to reverse
course.

Among the reasons McCain's path to victory seems steeper is that the
percentage of "movable" voters continues to shrink. Thirteen percent
of all voters are now either undecided or may change their mind before
Election Day, down somewhat from recent polls.

Relatively high numbers of movable voters this year have led to poll
swings. While McCain and Obama ran nearly even in Post-ABC polling for
months, the financial crisis began to accelerate in mid-September --
and so did Obama, stretching to a nine-point lead. That lead narrowed
slightly, to four points, after the first presidential debate, then
widened again to its current 10 points.

Adding to McCain's burden as the standard-bearer for the party in
power is an unprecedented grim view of the country overall: Ninety
percent of Americans now see the country as headed in the wrong
direction, the worst rating in polls dating to 1973.

There is also near-universal concern for the direction of the nation's
economy over the next few years, growing fear that the stock market
will perform poorly, and worry that household finances will suffer,
factors that contribute to President Bush's approval rating hitting
another low.

Twenty-three percent of all adults -- and 18 percent of political
independents -- gave the president good marks, putting him within a
point of Harry S. Truman's record low in a February 1952 Gallup poll.
The low ratings continue to have a dampening effect on McCain: More
than half of voters, 51 percent, said that McCain, if elected, would
largely continue to lead the country in the direction Bush has, and
those voters overwhelmingly prefer Obama.

While there are few signs of progress for McCain in the poll, recent
history suggests that mid-October leads are vulnerable, although
turning around a late double-digit deficit would be unprecedented in
the modern era. At this stage in 1992, Bill Clinton held a 14-point
advantage over incumbent George H.W. Bush in Post-ABC polling, and it
was as high as 19 points before the election, which he won by six
points. In mid-October 1976, Jimmy Carter had leads as big as 13
points in Gallup polling; Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford by two
points.

After weeks of international financial turmoil and a steep Wall Street
plunge, there continues to be remarkable consensus among voters that
the economy is the campaign's top issue. More than half of all voters,
53 percent, volunteered in an open-ended question that the economy and
jobs constituted the most important issue in their choice for
president.

Obama is winning "economy voters" by 62 percent to 33 percent, nearly
a 2-to-1 ratio.

The next most important issue, health care, was offered by 7 percent
of voters. A combined 11 percent of respondents chose terrorism or
Iraq -- national security issues on which McCain is relatively
stronger -- as their driving issues.

With the airwaves in battleground states reaching saturation level and
coverage of the campaign intensifying, 59 percent of voters said that
McCain is mainly on the attack, a marked increase over the 48 percent
who said the same in August. And 35 percent of respondents said McCain
is addressing the issues, in stark contrast with the 68 percent who
said Obama is doing so.

That follows a report issued last week by the University of Wisconsin
Advertising Project that found that nearly all of McCain's television
spots in early October were negative ads, compared with about a third
of Obama's.

On taxes, an issue that often benefits Republicans and that McCain has
worked aggressively to highlight, Obama holds a significant lead for
the first time as voters gave the Democrat an 11-point edge on whom
they trust to handle tax policy.

Nearly as many said they think McCain would raise their federal taxes
as said so of Obama, an apparent repudiation of Republican efforts to
portray Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal and one that follows an
intense advertising barrage by Obama asserting that McCain would tax
health-care benefits.

Nor has there been evident progress for the GOP campaign to label
Obama as an extreme liberal: Fifty-five percent of voters see the
Democrat as "about right" ideologically, and although 37 percent see
him as "too liberal," that is about the same as it was in June. By
contrast, the percentage seeing McCain as "too conservative" is up to
42 percent, higher than it was four months ago.

Obama continues to dominate on the question of who better understands
the economic problems facing the country. Both candidates have sought
to connect with voters on the issue, and 58 percent said Obama is more
in tune with their beliefs, more than double the number who said the
same of McCain.

More broadly, there were few signs that McCain's attempts to
reinvigorate his standing on economic matters have gained traction.
McCain lags 17 points behind Obama on protecting the Social Security
system, 28 points behind on helping the middle class and 29 points
behind on health care.

McCain's efforts to portray Obama as a risky choice do not appear to
have worked, either. In fact, voters are likelier to describe the
Republican candidate that way, and although 29 percent said they
consider Obama a "very safe" choice for president, 18 percent said the
same for McCain. Voters were evenly divided on the question of whether
McCain is safe or risky; 55 percent said Obama is safe, while 45
percent described the Democrat as risky.

McCain did make progress in two areas. He reclaimed ground on the
question of who is more honest and trustworthy, nearly matching Obama
on that question after trailing by 11 points three weeks ago. And he
cut into Obama's lead on the issue of standing up to lobbyists and
special interest groups.

McCain has also retained his strong support among white Catholic
voters, up 13 points over Obama in that group, the same margin that
Bush held in 2004.

Yet on the broader question of leadership, voters gave Obama a 14-
point advantage, saying, by 54 percent to 40 percent, that he is a
"stronger leader" than McCain. The two were about tied on that
question in late September, and McCain held a 13-point edge on strong
leadership in early March before the Democratic nomination battle
wound down.

Obama also continues to stay above the 50 percent mark on the key
question of his experience: 54 percent in the new poll said he has
enough experience to serve effectively as president, putting him about
even with where Bill Clinton was on this question in early October
1992.

The poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 8 to 11, among a random
national sample of 1,101 adults, including interviews with 945
registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three
percentage points for the full sample, and 3.5 points for the sample
of 766 likely voters.

[Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

On Oct 13, 8:40*am, perreigh wrote:
DAFFI DUMB **** is DESTROYING McCain's Chances! * Failin' Palin's HATE
Campaign Makes Even Repubs Feel Uncomfortable!

Why are they uncomfortable? Do they care what names the media will
put on them if they vote McCain/Palin?