Insidious Real Goal of Reporting on Supposed Obama "Flip-Flop" on Iraq

All the chatter over the last 24 hours on cable news has been about Obama’s supposed "flip-flopping" on the Iraq War.  Besides the fact that these "allegations" are utterly baseless, the right-wing-inspired blathering has distracted us from a very substantive discussion of policy which Obama offered in Fargo.

On Fox News Sunday this morning McCain camp surrogate Tom Ridge had this to say about off-shore drilling:

http://www.foxnews.com/...

A Geographic Analysis of PA, OH and VA General Election Polling

A number of state polls have come out in recent days for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia.  The numbers overall look good for Barack Obama, with him leading John McCain in Pennsylvania in all four polls released in May; Obama leading outside the margin of error in one poll in Ohio while being within the margin in two others; and a very competitive race in Virginia as well, with one poll there showing Obama up by seven points (links to polls used are provided at bottom of this diary).  What I wanted to do in this diary is to look at the regional breakdown in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia to examine Obama’s geographic areas of strength and weakness.  

McCain Criticized Bill Clinton When Clinton Attacked Osama Bin Laden; while Democrats and many Republicans praised Clinton, McCain said Clinton was ignoring Iraq !

For all of John McCain’s tough-talk on national security, it looks like the man was as clueless ten years ago as he is now.  I found this news article from August 21, 1998, the day after Bill Clinton ordered U.S. strikes against Osama bin Laden:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I saw the following in my newspaper today and almost spit out my coffee:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

The Pennsylvania primary results are reinforcing a belief, among many, that because Hillary was the choice of more moderate/ conservative, religious (and more "gun-friendly") white voters in the state, Obama will have a hard time appealing to this demographic in the Fall.  As with much of conventional wisdom these days, this belief is simply not supported by any solid evidence.

(cross-posted from MyDD)

In a diary from last night, Jerome Armstrong on MyDD posted a set of polls which purported to show how badly Obama is supposedly doing in selected states:
http://www.mydd.com/...

But looking at all the recent state polls shows a far different picture.  In this diary, I want to discuss all the latest polling for swing states, and do so from the perspective of how the Rev. Wright controversy may be affecting these polls.

(From the diaries -- kos)

Measuring Size of Obama’s (Relative) Coattails on Congressional Races

This is a long diary to read so I will tell you upfront what my conclusion is after examining the recent SurveyUSA 50-state polling:  Yes, Barack Obama may indeed have huge coattails for Senate and Congressional races in the fall.  Now, to the long explanation --

The recent SurveyUSA polling indicated a relatively even match between Obama and Clinton re. who would have the most electoral votes when facing McCain.  Obama’s total came to 280 EV, while Hillary’s was 276 EV – a seemingly even match:

http://www.surveyusa.com/...
http://www.surveyusa.com/...

Several days ago Survey USA released their 50-state polling matching Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton against John McCain.  Their polling indicated that currently Obama would receive 280 electoral votes while Hillary would receive 276.  While SUSA is by far my favorite pollster because of  their relative accuracy, I went ahead and examined results from other state polls available.  In addition to the 50 state polls SUSA released, another 37 state polls were conducted recently.  I look at data from these polls – including all polls from the last 30 days only (all polls included are therefore done beginning at least two days after the Feb. 5 "Super-Tuesday".)  

Since I wrote my last diary ...
http://www.dailykos.com/...

... almost a week ago, a number of new state general election polls have come out matching Hillary and Obama against McCain.

Yesterday I wrote a diary here re. the general election matchups between Hillary and McCain and Obama and McCain –

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Another state poll has come out today from SurveyUSA for Wisconsin and the trend I discussed is further amplified.  It seems that Obama continues to clobber McCain in these matchups, while Hillary is struggling mightily.  Electability has always been the top issue for me in whom I support.  Unlike a large number of people on this and other blogs, I have always for the most part liked both Hillary AND Obama in terms of personality and their positions on the issues.  The deciding factor has always been electability for me.  

Several months ago I wrote a diary re. comparing general election matchups between Hillary and Obama and the top Republicans –

http://www.dailykos.com/...

At that time Hillary was arguably performing better than Obama when matched against the leading Republicans in general election polling.  Several polls have come out recently and it is interesting to note that currently Obama seems to be performing better than Hillary in these polls.  As in my November diary, I have compiled several maps via which we can more clearly see the numbers from the recent polls - please scroll below.  (I apologize as I have already deleted the maps from the November diary; but you can still read the analysis.)

This is a short diary – just to gauge who readers believe should become our nominee if the race between our two Democratic candidates is a virtual tie (as you can see there’s many possibilities; I probably missed some scenarios).

There’s been a lot of talk on the blogs about who should win if it’s a virtual tie scenario, and it would be interesting to know how people feel about this.

After the Florida primary I wrote a diary in which I looked at how the vote broke down along demographic groups – specifically among traditional "swing" voters in that primary – http://www.dailykos.com/...

We are now many primaries and caucuses ahead, and I wanted to look again at where swing voters are in terms of partisan preference – this time looking at all the states which have voted so far and for which exit polls are available – http://www.cnn.com/...

I found this interesting story in the Legal Times this morning:

http://www.law.com/...

"The Battle for Superdelegates Heats Up in D.C."

"James Zogby is firmly in the Obama camp — so much so that he’s worked other superdelegates on behalf of the Obama campaign. The president of the Arab American Institute says he first heard Obama speak at the 2004 convention, when Obama burst onto the national political stage, and he was impressed.

When I opened the newspaper this morning (Washington Post) the headline proclaimed "Obama, Clinton Are Even in Poll".  The accompanying article indicated that in a national poll Hillary is now leading Obama by 47 to 43, within the margin of error.  I went online to look at the crosstabs and one thing immediately jumped out from the numbers:  "sex (in sample): 48% male, 52% female"

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Looking at the results from Florida last night, we can see that the total of all persons who voted in the Democratic primary is only about 200,000 less than the number who voted in the Republican primary -- despite the fact that the Democratic primary was only a "beauty pageant" while the Republican primary was heavily contested by candidates on their side.  Approx. 1,925,000 voted in the Rep. primary, while 1,725,000 voted in the Dem. primary -- http://www.cnn.com/...

"Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it."

– this is what Barack Obama told the conservative Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board prior to the Nevada caucuses.

This is a short diary for me; just wanted to point out one thing:  Does Obama really believe that if the Republican-controlled Supreme Court had not given the election to Bush in 2000, would Bill Clinton’s legacy still be less of a legacy than that of Ronald Reagan.  After all, Reagan governed for 8 years (all of those with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and an initially Republican Senate which turned Democratic during Reagan’s last two years), while Bill Clinton also governed for 8 years (with an initially Democratic Congress that later became Republican).  The difference is, of course, that Reagan was followed by his Vice-President Bush Sr., while Clinton was followed by Bush Jr.  As we all know, Bill Clinton’s Vice President, Al Gore won the popular vote, and Florida as well – but that was taken away from him by the Republican machine, courtesy of the Supreme Court.