I can only assume your second "McCain" in that penultimate sentence was supposed to say "Florida", Mike.  But kudos to you for plugging away at the office at 5:13pm on a Friday! :)

I dunno. Clinton's fallen quite a bit too. Look, Obama puts a lot of the western states in play- he's ahead in Oregon and Nevada and Minnesota (all of which Clinton is behind on). With her, things are a lot shakier in Wisconsin, Washington, and Connecticutt and even California (!!!). Obama's map looks worse than it did a while back. But it looks about like Clinton's map did in terms of strength. Hers looks worse still.

Yeah, this shit has a lot of meaning considering McCain has come under 0 attacks yet.

Weird.  There's a typo in the post as viewed in the main blog, "training McCain in McCain" that's corrected when I click onto the specific post in order to comment.  Here it reads "trailing McCain in Florida."

Uncorrected, however, is the infelicitous "non-insignificant."  What's with the double negative?  Seems like a verbal hedge, as if "non-insignificant" commits the writer less than "significiant."  Ya, I know, this is a blog, where knowing, somewhat clunky neologisms are the stock and trade, but still...

As for the content of the post, what's the point of all this speculative navel gazing?  Anyone who says he knows right now in the heat of the moment how the J Wright situation will play with voters in November is talking out of his ass, as is anyone who thinks he can call the GE electoral map.  What was Gore's poll lead over Bush in March of 2000?  Where was McCain in GOP polls and fundraising in July of 2007?  You guys can't predict jack shit.  No one can.  So why don't you shut up about it and tell us where the candidates stand on Iraq, the economy, Afghanistan, China, Darfur, etc?  And if there's no information on where they stand, why not find out why there isn't?

Sorry, guys, but this is just mindless bullshit. We have no idea what these numbers will look like when the *real deal* begins. McCain's numbers are going to go way down when he starts getting hit on a daily basis, as both Clinton and Obama are right now.

Does anyone know why Obama hardly ever talks about the fact that he used to be a teacher, and a teacher of constitutional law of all things? Seems like it would only benefit him. It sure beats being a former trial lawyer, and I think it beats being a career senator.

I think there's a kind of resistance to teachers at a subliminal level.  Teachers remind people of when they were kids and had no control over their lives, and they don't want to relive that.  Admittedly, college is different, but still there's a serious undercurrent of unease with the academic/professorial arena -- the old "egghead" motif in American politics.  Paul Wellstone was one of the few to break through that barrier.

Hillary carry Arkansas and Hispanics throughout the southwest.  She will also carry big, industrial swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Obama will loose Hispanics.  He will have to spend millions so McAmnesty doesn't slip up in California.  He will loose working class Democrats, who will vote for the American hero in droves.  Younger voters will probably do what they did in Texas, which is to say, not show up.

Obama will be toast -- big toast, like Mondale toast...

And we'll all suffer for our elite-bubble stupidity in nominating him.

Hillary has an advantage over Obama in FL, NJ (although it's not yet clear how much Obama would really have to worry about NJ), possibly OH, and AR, where polls have either shown a large lead for Clinton or a large lead for McCain.  Obama, meanwhile, has advantages pretty much everywhere else west of the Mississippi, possibly VA, and could potentially compete in states that Clinton has already publicly written off (e.g. ND, NC).

I think the argument about expanding the map refers to the number of states where the Dems would be competitive.  Hillary does better in a couple of the states where both of them would be competitive anyway, and would probably put NJ solidly in the Dem column.  The question is whether you want to bet on Hillary taking 3 out of 4 among FL, PA, OH, and MI, while still holding off McCain in the Pacific Northwest, where she's been polling poorly.  At least at the moment, Hillary seems to have fewer viable paths to 270 (that was one of the big problems with the Gore/Kerry map).  Hillary might be a bit more likely to pick up FL or OH, but do we really want the election to hinge entirely on that again?

He will "loose" Hispanics and working-class whites? As in, loose them from their reins to wreak havoc on the Republican party...or what?

Perhaps this is why he doesn't want to play up the professor angle. He'd have to go around putting red pencil marks on everything, and that's no way to win a vote.

I agree with mmathog and ralphnelle that these numbers are absolutely meaningless until McCain starts to absorb some real whacks by the Democratic nominee. These minor skirmishes we've been having don't amount to anything. The real campaign is many, many months away and the maps are bound to change many times, especially after Obama, the least know of the three candidates, gets another chance to reintroduce himself to the nation at the Denver convention.

Actually in Iowa, he had a riff where he said something along the lines of 'as a consitutional law professor, I know where the limits of executive power are, and I won't be redrawing them like our current president'...but better of course...

dhuff,

That rings a bell. I think he should bring it back. He could use it in the context of choosing supreme court justices: "it's an important job for the president, and who's better qualified than a constitutional law prof.?" etc.

John  McCain = Bob Dole.

Take this for what it's worth: every DC democratic consultant is laughing at the prospect of facing John McCain.

It's an easy +8 election. I know you journalists love to read your polls, but this election is a joke.

Obama is the next President. The only question is how many Senate seats he brings with him.

I'm reading all of these comments.

I can't help noticing how stupid the Hillary supporters are. They think that hispanics are going to go to McCain.

It's typical of HRC supporters. They think that hispanics are morons.

Hispanics know that the GOP is a racist party. I'm sure they appreciate what McCain tried to do...but at the end of the day, they're going to vote Democratic by 75% this year...

The only way they won't vote Democratic is if our presidential candidate decides that they can microtarget certain whites by appeaing overly hawkish on immigration. Gee...I wonder which candidate would do that?

One of McCain's top advisors, Phil Gramm, was one of the key architects of the deregulation wave that has caused the subprime disaster, the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression. And if you want to look at numbers in Ohio, look at the soaring increases in food stamp enrollment. As well as in Florida.

It's going to be about the economy, stupid.  And McCain is going to take a lickin'. His close economic advisors are all Michael Milken types - they just haven't been indicted...yet.

So VC, let me see if I understand you correctly.  Obama has the nomination wrapped up so tightly that Hillary Clinton should drop out now.  But your strategy to win over her supporters is to call them stupid and racist.  Brilliant!  With geniuses like you working for Obama, I'm as confident of his victory today as I was that a experienced member of the team that brought us 8 years of peace and prosperity would beat an inexperienced and inarticulate right wing mouthpiece in 2000.  

The GOP can say what they want about Obama being easier to beat but I dont beleive it for a second. Hilary going up against McCain Weakens her for the experience argument and she can't run on change cause that will be a joke. Obama running against McCain strengthens his argument for change, the past Vs the future and turning the page.

Something else that the GOP is ignoring Obama isnt merely running a campaign there is a movment sweeping across this country. Fighting the American populace that is loving the message as much as or even more than the messenger is much more difficult.

Hilary quite frankly is nasty and divisive she appeal to the nastiness in people. Obama on the other hand appeals to the angels in people when you've made such a huge mess like the GOP have with the war in Iraq the ecomony and whole host of other problems appealing to people coming together to solve them is a lot more appealing than dividing them.

Polls change they fluctuate and the dems bringing the party together before NOvember will likely reverse some of these numbers.

I personally think McCain is WEAK with all that mudslinging going back and forth with the dems McCain should be up by 10 at least instead he is either up by a couple of points or neck and neck. Thats something the GOP should worry about their candidate is weak. The media hasnt gone after him the same way they have the democrats imagine if the democrats put forth the idea that the media is giving him a free ride and they decide to go after him. They are going to put him under the microscope sooner or later and he is only up by 2 points.

I agree that polls this early are pretty goofy, but I heard Rachel Maddow on MSNBC make an interesting point last night.

In the past several weeks, John McCain has been off the radar in terms of campaigning. He has traveled abroad and what little media coverage he has gotten has been its usual, loving best, to the point of calling a repeated statement (about Iran/Al Qaeda connections) a "misstatement"

Yet still, in spite of the fact that no one is attacking him, he has a statistically insignificant lead against two candidates who have spent the better part of three weeks absolutely beating the shit out of one another...

What's going to happen to him when people actually attack him?

Can't tnr afford to have the graphics department MAKE us a map so we can see what yer talking about?