The Golden Report for Saturday October 04

It’s October 4^th, 2008. On November 4^th 2008 we will be up looking at election results from across the country—indeed from every Congressional district, every state and every time zone. It is hard to believe that this long election campaign—essentially beginning in early 2007, is coming to an end. And today we got the first look at how both campaigns are going to frame the final month of the race.

 

McCAIN: Spokesperson Tucker Bounds on Fox & Friends this morning hinted that the McCain strategy is going to go extremely negative—bringing up Obama’s past relations with William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright & Tony Rezko. Some thoughts: With the nation’s attention still focused on the economy, and American’s legitimacy and seriously concerned about their personal financial health—not to mention their savings for the future—how will they react to a negative discussion about Obama’s past associations. Of particular note is that none of this information is new—the country has already been through Jeremiah Wright & Barack Obama once, during the primaries back in February and March. Yes, it did some damage then, but is it possible that America has already made a judgment? Also, is it a strange strategy that McCain has leaked his campaign strategy—and gotten the media to talk about what he is “about” to do, without actually doing anything? Does that raise the subject by itself without McCain taking the heat? The biggest question is going to be how the media handles this. Again, the media has already been through Wright/Obama—and exhaustively at that. If there is no new information, will they run with the story? Did the New York Times try to preempt anything with a front-page story in Saturday’s paper?

 

OBAMA: Is not going to go down without a fight. According to Mike Allen at Politico, the campaign is going to release a new—very hard—ad on Monday morning which accuses McCain of trying to change the subject from the economy (the issues that matter) to unfounded attacks. Expect a full-throated response from the Obama Campaign, who is riding an upper hand in the race one-month out and who is definitely campaigning with the wind at his back this weekend. This morning, the aforementioned Allen reported that the long-planned “health-care week” kicked off today, with a very tough ad released by Obama accusing the McCain campaign’s plan for a $5/K health care tax credit of being actually subject to taxes and therefore unfair and misleading. Expect this issue—which fits into a discussion about the economy—to be the issue the Obama campaign attempts to drive the upcoming week with.

 

With both of these strategies---obviously in conflict with one another—the real showdown is going to take place on Tuesday night in Nashville, Tennessee as Tom Brokaw moderates the Second Presidential Candidates Debate from Belmont University. McCain is down for the rest of the weekend at his ranch in Sedona, Arizona to prepare for the town hall meeting exchange.

 

In just a little bit, how does Saturday Night Live play off of the debates? Sure to be a good time.

 

Saturday's Tracking Polls

Diageo/Hotline Daily Tracking: Obama 48%/McCain 41%/Undecided 9%

Rasmussen Daily Tracking: Obama 51%/McCain 45%

Gallup Daily Tracking: Obama 50%/McCain 42%

 

*Note: Obama has held a statistically significant lead in the Gallup Track for eight consecutive days. Also, Obama has tied with 9/25 in the Diageo/Hotline poll for his largest lead over McCain.