Pollster John Zogby reports that Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is now increasing his lead over Republican Sen. John McCain in what could be shaping up as what Zogby calls a “blowout.”
Zogby predicts this could be a politically-transformative landslide like Ronald Reagan’s.
Democrat Barack Obama moved very close to a double–digit lead over Republican John McCain in the national horserace for President, continuing his slow push forward above the 50% mark, gaining 1.3 points in the last day.
McCain is slowly losing ground, having lost another 0.4 points in this latest report on the Reuters/C–SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll.
John Zogby then writes:
Three big days for Obama. Anything can happen, but time is running short for McCain. These numbers, if they hold, are blowout numbers.
They fit the 1980 model with Reagan’s victory over Carter — but they are happening 12 days before Reagan blasted ahead. If Obama wins like this we can be talking not only victory but realignment: he leads by 27 points among Independents, 27 points among those who have already voted, 16 among newly registered voters, 31 among Hispanics, 93%-2% among African Americans, 16 among women, 27 among those 18-29, 5 among 30-49 year olds, 8 among 50-64s, 4 among those over 65, 25 among Moderates, and 12 among Catholics (which is better than Bill Clinton’s 10-point victory among Catholics in 1996). He leads with men by 2 points, and is down among whites by only 6 points, down 2 in armed forces households, 3 among investors, and is tied among NASCAR fans.
Still, less than two weeks can be a lifetime in politics. But this and other polls suggest that the electorate is coming to some conclusions and it may be less about being zealously pro-Obama than deciding to vote using the Big Broom approach and sweep those who’ve been in charge of the federal government out of office, even if a new manager would be at the helm.
Plus there are these facts: McCain’s campaign has not made the case strong enough in recent weeks FOR John McCain, his policies and specific attributes but kept everything within an increasingly-negative framework of allegations that Obama is a socialist and perhaps even less than patriotic.
All as the biggest horror story continues to be the stock market, banks, world markets and retirement accounts’ plummeting values. The Dow has dropped 280 so far today..
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.