I don’t know why people writing about the election – especially conservatives – keep getting this wrong. Today it is Edward Luce writing in the Financial Times.
The RealClear Politics website’s average of polls, which gives Mr Obama a lead of 6.8 per cent over Mr McCain, offers a better guide to the situation. It compares to John Kerry’s lead just a few weeks before he lost the 2004 election to Mr Bush.
Ok, here is the RealClearPolitics average of polls from 2004:
Notice something? After late August of 2004, Sen. Kerry never had a lead on President Bush. That’s exactly the opposite of what the Financial Times said.
Again, I don’t think the election is in the bag. I think Sen. Obama is going to have to fight, fight, fight the last few weeks against a Republican attack machine who has never faced a situation this negative before. But let us not rewrite history – recent history – in order to create some narrative for John McCain that doesn’t exist.
Here is the current state of the race, using the RCP average.
At this point, Sen. McCain’s trajectory has more in common with Sen. Kerry’s.
I was Kerry volunteer throughout 2004 and had electoral-vote.com as a daily read. They had Kerry and Bush exchanging the lead throughout much of October (see http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/oct/oct19.html), but not by the same margins we’re seeing now. I’m just saying that it didn’t seem quite so cut and dried at the time – there was a real sense that Kerry had a chance at winning.
Fuzzy math is the right’s strong suit
Seems to me they keep getting it wrong because it helps them feel better about their flickering chances, and America likes a winner. Same principle as the Iowa Caucus, and how the winner usually goes on to win the nomination. Fence sitters are less inclined to vote for a ticket that appears to be going the way of the dodo.
John Kerry has won all three debates and is leading by 10 points in 13 key swing states.
Oct. 17, 2004
has anyone from MSM reported on the front of their websites that Obama drew over 100,000 in St. Louis today?
nope, I didn’t think so
stop reading/watchin MSM and even cable news. It’s infotainment at best. Even the most red areas of W. Virginia are reporting more and more people voting early and voting dem.
If Joe (the Plumber or Sixpack) stick with MSM, they will not know or understand that they are voting away their best interest by voting for ANY republican.
This story specifically referenced the RCP average, and said Kerry led in that average. The data I’ve shown above makes crystal clear that that isn’t true. Is anyone here disputing that?
In 2004 Sen. Kerry was up in some polls and down in some. I was one of those who thought he could close the deal. But the compiled data from that era shows us that Kerry was behind in most composites, a figure that was reflected in the electoral results.
The data we currently have shows Sen. Obama ahead by a similar or greater margin to President Bush in 2004. Does this mean he is a lock to win? Heck no, but let’s not pretend as if John McCain is ahead in this race.
And Dennis, I read Free Republic too.
“John Kerry has won all three debates and is leading by 10 points in 13 key swing states.
Oct. 17, 2004″
While I complain about the number of times these morons spout baseless opinions as if they were facts, it’s even funnier when they post evidence.
If you look hard enough, you can find one or two polls that showed Kerry ahead, however, the overall picture was clear. Kerry was behind and needed to play catch-up.
Similarly today, if you look hard enough, you can find one or two polls that shows McCain looking strong, or at least not looking as weak as previously. But the overall picture is still good for Obama.
From now until November the 4th, McCain needs to close the gap by 0.4% per day to have a shot at winning. And, it is likely that if neither party did anything for the final 2.5 weeks, McCain would close the gap by close to half of that. In elections undecideds who don’t like either choice tend to break for the underdog in the end, because then they can say, “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other guy.”
That doesn’t mean Obama has won and he can coast till the end. But Republicans who think McCain has an advantage are delusional.
Bush vs. Kerry is irrelevant.
Look at the polls on realclearpolitics from the primaries. Obama had a lead in many polls, like NH, CALIFORNIA, while polls overestimated him in Pa and NY.
The Bradley Effect is real, and has been demonstrated in the primaries. It’s going to be a close race.
Primaries are not the same as general elections. There are states like New Mexico that went Clinton that were supposed to be tough for Obama, yet it ain’t so.
[...] ALSO: What diabolical game was being played by the blue-state pollsters in 2004 when they showed Bush in the lead? [...]