McCain, Obama in dead heat, poll says
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A new national poll puts Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in a dead heat - 42 percent to 42 percent - as they begin their two-month sprint to the Nov. 4 presidential election
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 12P0NG.DTL
Some times VP choices don't matter somes times they do, in this race they matter.
For Obama it mattered because he was being attacked for his sparse political record and almost zero foreign policy experience.....bam Biden and he can counter some of that.
It matters more for McCain for several reasons.
It is a Dem year, the economy is down, the Republican President is unpopular. The war, while being won, is unpopular. It should be a Democratic landslide everywhere and the Republican base is demoralized. They also tend to disagree and distrust Mac, as unlike Obama, Mac really has brought change even when it meant challenging his own party, which he has done time and time again on big issues.
So Mac was not been raising much money from traditional Republican sources and they looked like they might sit the election out.
Then Palin.
The conservative base fell in love with her almost instantly; sje brought them back on board and re-energized the convention.
Now with his base solidified he can use her record of reform (once again she, unlike Obama, challenged her own party to change), and say that she is more proof about how this is going to be a reform (Teddy Roosevelt) type Republican White House.
She also polls well with a group Obama has not, blue-collar workers.
She may pick up more female votes, although women seem so conflicted as to just what feminism is, (many of the group believe it consists solely of reproductive rights (or the right to kill if one is honest), that many will not come her way.
Palin has helped in another way, the press has practically fawned on Obama, every statement he makes is "historic" (Obama eats a "historic lunch at Maccas ect) or reporters abandoning completely any journalistic ethics such as Matthews saying Obama gives him a tingle up his leg (Matthews had hoped for a late night, one on one interview), Obama has had the lions share of media time, Palin has changed that, she has pulled some of the media oxygen from the Obama love fest and refocused some attention the other way.
Still it is remarkable that the Dems have nation wide double digit leads in so many races and a Presidentail candidate who is a great orator (different from a great leader or thinker) that the Presidential race is this close.
This is a testimate to the decisions Mac has made.
He picked Palin, an act of outragous political courage and it is paying off.
Palin has kept him in the game.
