Motley Moose – Archive

The following email originated from a professor of classics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  It is making the rounds on the Internet, and I thought I would share it with you.  It reflects the personal experience of a person who had this misfortune to vacation with John and Cindy McCain on Turtle Island in Fiji.  She previously had shared it with members of her family, but now that McCain is running for president, she decided she needed to forward to people to let it circulate on the Internet in an effort to dissuade undecided voters from voting for John McCain:

Wowzer.  For the first time, Rasmussen pegs Obama’s support at 52% and now matches what Research 2000/Daily Kos has been saying now for a few days:

Obama 52

McCain 44

Perhaps even better is Rasmussen’s comment:

This is the highest level of support ever recorded for Obama and is his largest lead of the year. It also continues a remarkable twenty-five days in a row where the Democrat’s support has never declined by even a single point.

(Cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

On Saturday night, there were reports not just that Obama was making a major play for the one electoral vote that comes with a victory in Nebraska’s second congressional district, but that this move sufficiently concerned the McCain campaign that they decided to send Sarah Palin to Omaha to do a rally there.  Well, guess what?  Sarah denies that she went to Omaha to shore up flagging support.  

Rasmussen has Obama up one point further over McCain than this poll showed him yesterday:

Obama 51

McCain 44

That’s a seven-point spread.  Rasmussen had this interesting and pithy analysis based upon his analysis of persuadable voters:

One way of understanding the difficult challenge now facing McCain is to consider the relatively small group of persuadable voters who could still change their mind. The Republican hopeful would have to win nearly 80% of those votes to pull ahead in the race. That’s especially challenging because most of those voters are currently leaning towards Obama. In other words, while the race is not over, McCain needs a significant–game-changing-event to win the White House. Simply doing what he’s been doing a little better will not be enough.

Moreover, as I posted in the immediately prior post, there is no way to guarantee that a major event will work in McCain’s favor; game-changing events have tended in this race to work in Obama’s favor.

(Cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

Okay, it’s Friday afternoon, and the McCain campaign has dropped Sarah Palin’s tax returns onto its web site.

Even a cursory inspection of the documents suggests there’s something fishy going on here.  For instance, why was the tax return prepared on the day she accepted the nomination for the vice presidency?  Either that’s just an extraordinary coincidence, or there’s something really fishy going on.

(Cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

It’s funny.  If I hadn’t seen the debate with my own eyes, the noise from the main stream media might make me think that Palin last night actually was better than mediocre.  

Rasmussen has released its numbers.

Obama 51

McCain 44

The race is even with the candidate’s numbers from yesterday.  Notes Rasmussen:

For each of the past eight days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45%.

Diaego Hotline

Obama (D) 48%

McCain (R) 42%

This is a one improvement over yesterday’s numbers.

Ten days ago, conservative columnist George Will took a cool hard look at the two candidates and came to the conclusion that what he perceived Barack Obama lacked could be corrected, but that what he perceived John McCain possessed could not be:

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected . . . by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

There seems to be a growing chorus among the conservative chatting class that Obama’s temperament, that is, his cool and unflappable style when he is under pressure, trumps McCain’s experience.  

(Cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

That’s the title of an interesting article in Newsweek.  The article provides an overview to polling data, demographic shifts, and economic influences that have put the Hoosier State within the grasp of the Land of Lincolner. The Republicans clearly see Indiana in play, because they’re buying airtime there.  

Katie Couric interviewed Joe Biden to get his take on Roe v. Wade and the issue of privacy in the Constitution.  Privacy, of course, is a touchy subject with conservatives.  The Constitution does not by name grant a right to it, but liberals cite the 9th Amendment, which reserves rights not named in the Constitution to the states and the people, and the 14th Amendment’s liberty clause as sources that found an argument for an inherent privacy right.  The right to privacy was a fundamental legal argument in the decision of Roe v. Wade.  Anyway, Couric contrasted Palin’s whacky and adorable answers with Couric’s interview with the lucid and commanding Joe Biden.  This is the result; here is a video from TPMtv: