Poor pundits. Most have been pooh-poohing the latest Newsweek poll showing a double digit lead for Barack Obama over John McCain, nationally. Is it still considered an outlier if another poll comes out that's just like it? LAT/Bloomberg's latest:
In a two-man race between the major party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll conducted last weekend.
On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by an even larger margin, 48% to 33%.
So to paraphrase and reverse Pat Buchanan, what's wrong with McCain? In a word: enthusiasm...
McCain suffers from a pronounced "enthusiasm gap," especially among the conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who describe themselves as conservative, only 58% say they will vote for McCain; 15% say they will vote for Obama, 14% say they will vote for someone else, and 13% say they are undecided.
By contrast, 79% of voters who describe themselves as liberal say they plan to vote for Obama.
Even among voters who say they do plan to vote for McCain, more than half say they are "not enthusiastic" about their chosen candidate; only 45% say they are enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters say they are enthusiastic, and almost half call themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal that only 13% of McCain's supporters display.
Say it isn't so, John! What about Barack, and all his problems with white and women voters?
Meanwhile, Obama is doing well among a broad range of voters," she said. "He's running ahead among women, black voters and other minorities. He's running roughly even among white voters and independents."
Among white voters, Obama and McCain are dead even at 39% each, the poll found. Earlier this year, when Obama ran behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) among white voters in some primary elections, analysts questioned whether the African American senator could win white voters in the general election.
But the great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll found. Only 11% of Clinton voters have defected to McCain.
They key in this poll and the Newsweek and other recent surveys is that despite McCain's best efforts, his signature issues, terrorism and the war in Iraq, don't rank high on the priority lists of most Americans. Maybe that's why Camp McCain is not-so-secretly hoping for a terror attack, bin Laden video or handy assassination of a foreign leader just before the election...
Meanwhile, a new Zogby poll shows Obama with a 16-point lead in South Florida. He's leading McCain 46-30% in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beaches combined, according to the relatively small sample poll, which also shows Obama with a 40-35% lead among Hispanic voters in the tri-county area. Early, but interesting...
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%>
Tell a friend
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'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
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'put the webmaster address here
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sendmail.To = email
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sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
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%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
