Some polls show a tightening in the presidential race, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden had another bout of ticket-damaging foot-and-mouth disease – but two new polls indicate Republican candidate Sen. John McCain continues to lose support and he continues to have a Sarah Palin problem with all but Republican stalwarts and Rush Limbaugh.
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama opening up his biggest lead over McCain yet, while a poll by the highly respected Pew Research center finds Obama widening his lead over McCain amid mounting voter doubts about McCain’s age and overall judgment. Meanwhile, two new news stories add yet more unfavorable imagery to the emerging portrait of McCain’s Vice Presidential pick — a pick that has excited the GOP base but has chased some other needed voters away.
The details are not good news for McCain, coming on the heels of an increasing number of stories (and blog posts) indicating a seeming fracture of the GOP in 2008, plus some moderate and conservative Republicans jumping ship to Obama — coupled with former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s indictment-like rejection of the McCain campaign and highly-publicized endorsement of Obama.
Here are the details of the latest batch of bad news for the battling and embattled McCain campaign:
Obama has opened a 10 point lead in the NBC/WSJ poll:
With voters’ increased confidence in his ability to serve as commander in chief, as well as a majority who now believe he would do a good job as president, Barack Obama has opened up his biggest advantage over John McCain in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
With two weeks to go until Election Day, Obama now leads his Republican rival by 10 points among registered voters, 52 to 42 percent, up from 49 to 43 percent two weeks ago.
Obama’s current lead is also fueled by his strength among independent voters (topping McCain 49 to 37 percent), suburban voters (53 to 41), Catholics (50 to 44) and white women (49 to 45).
In early September, after the Republican National Convention, McCain was ahead with independents and Catholics, and narrowly trailed Obama among suburban voters.
“To me, the voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “The doubts and question marks have been erased.”
Meanwhile, the Pew Poll is the biggest red warning flag to Republicans yet:
Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain has steadily increased since mid-September, when the race was essentially even. Shortly after the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, Obama moved to a 49% to 42% lead; that margin inched up to 50% to 40% in a poll taken just after the second debate. Currently, Obama enjoys his widest margin yet over McCain among registered voters, at 52% to 38%. When the sample of voters is narrowed to those most likely to vote, Obama leads by 53% to 39%.
Obama’s strong showing in the current poll reflects greater confidence in the Democratic candidate personally. More voters see him as “well-qualified” and “down-to-earth” than did so a month ago. Obama also is inspiring more confidence on several key issues, including Iraq and terrorism, than he did before the debates. Most important, Obama now leads McCain as the candidate best able to improve economic conditions by a wider margin (53% to 32%).
Obama’s gains notwithstanding, a widespread loss of confidence in McCain appears to be the most significant factor in the race at this point. Many more voters express doubts about McCain’s judgment than about Obama’s: 41% see McCain as “having poor judgment,” while just 29% say that this trait describes Obama. Fewer voters also view McCain as inspiring than did so in mid-September (37% now, 43% then). By contrast, 71% of voters continue to think of Obama as inspiring.
Pew also finds that Palin is proving to be more of an anchor for McCain than a voter magnet:
In addition, Sarah Palin appears to be a continuing – if not an increasing – drag on the GOP ticket. Currently, 49% of voters express an unfavorable opinion of Palin, while 44% have a favorable view. In mid-September, favorable opinions of Palin outnumbered negative ones by 54% to 32%. Women, especially women under age 50, have become increasingly critical of Palin: 60% now express an unfavorable view of Palin, up from 36% in mid-September. Notably, opinions of Palin have a greater impact on voting intentions than do opinions of Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate.
The poll also finds that the public gives McCain low marks on his campaign — while Obama gets the highest marks on a campaign since 1992:
A large majority of voters (64%) give McCain a grade of C or lower for his efforts to convince people to vote for him; only about a third (34%) gives McCain a grade of A or B for his campaign efforts. These grades are lower than those accorded to George Bush during his two successful campaigns and are nearly as low as the grades for Dole’s campaign in 1996 (29% A or B).
Obama, by contrast, receives the highest grades for a campaign dating to 1992. Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) grade Obama’s efforts at convincing people to vote for him at A or B; about a third (32%) give Obama’s campaign a grade of C or lower.
The new Palin problems now breaking in the news media aren’t going to help the Alaska Governor’s image, even though she was a smash hit on Saturday night live:
*The Politico reports that in a time of financial crisis, the RNC has spent big bucks on helping Palin make a fashion statement:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14805.html
The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
*The AP reports that Alaska picked up the tab for her kids’ travel expenses:
Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.
The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.
Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor’s children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.
The impact of this?
If past political behavior is any indication, these reports will mostly be spread by mainstream media and a few blogs (blogs still are of limited influence in the overall media scheme of things). The Obama campaign has been hesitant up until now to make Palin herself an actual campaign issue.
But taken together the polls and the new bad publicity about Palin won’t help the McCain campaign which has been trying to go on the offensive with its riffs about Joe the Plumber, suggestions that Obama is basically a socialist, and repetition of Joe Biden’s latest incident of political damage inflicted by mouth.
Still, the campaign is far from over. The last 10 days of political campaigns can often be particularly sleazy, where one side or the other dumps some sensational charges or ups the negative campaigning, figuring the other campaign will be unable to put out the political fires in time. McCain’s problem: polls show that his negative campaigning at this stage in the campaign is not significantly boosting his campaign — and could inflict further damage on his candidacy.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.