It sure is nice when someone else does the heavy lifting for me, knowwhutimean?? In this case, it's the fine folks who put together the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Only 21 days until we reclaim our nation, and it really is beginning to look as if John McCain and Sarah Palin may well be out of bullets. Despite the precedent set by the past two elections, it seems that, this time at least, a Republican isn't going to be able to lie, propagandize, or "fear and smear" his way into the White House. It's almost enough to make me feel something resembling optimism.
No matter how much they continue to appeal to the ignorance, fear, and racism of the American Sheeple's lowest common denominator, it appears that, barring an electoral shift of a massive, historic proportion, Barack Obama is going to be our next President, and it just might be a blowout. Things aren't going to be all better immediately, of course, but with a workable majority in both the House and the Senate, it's going to be hard not to be optimistic about being able to turn this country around.
Powered chiefly by the public's economic concerns, Obama leads John McCain by 10 points among likely voters, 53-43 percent, in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Though every race is different, no presidential candidate has come back from an October deficit this large in pre-election polls dating to 1936....
Obama holds the reins on economic woe. Registered voters trust him over McCain to handle the economy by 53-37 percent. Obama holds his largest lead yet, a remarkable 30-point margin, in better understanding the economic problems Americans are having, 58-28 percent. He leads McCain by about as much, 59-31 percent, in trust to help the middle class, and by 11 points on taxes, two prime points of contention in the last presidential debate....
McCain's receiving blowback for what's perceived as negative campaigning; registered voters by 59-35 percent say he's been mainly attacking Obama rather than addressing the issues. Obama, by contrast, is seen by an even wider margin as issue-focused....
[A] drop in McCain's favorability rating, to 52 percent, a loss of 7 points since the Republican convention; 45 percent now see him unfavorably, a new high for McCain in polls since 1999. Obama's rating, meanwhile, is 64 percent favorable, near its high and up 6 points in the same time frame.
Enthusiasm for McCain's candidacy, never strong, has softened alongside his favorability rating. Just 29 percent of his own supporters are "very enthusiastic" about his campaign, the fewest since August and down a sharp 17 points from his post-convention peak. By contrast, 63 percent of Obama's backers are very enthusiastic, steady since September.
McCain's portrayal of Obama as a risky choice, further, is not resonating, and indeed may be backfiring. By 55-45 percent registered voters see Obama as safe rather than risky; by contrast, they divide 50-50 on whether McCain himself is safe or risky down from 57-41 percent "safe" at McCain's best on this measure in June.
Before long, we'll be cueing up Don Meredith singing "Turn Out The Lights". I can't wait....
