The Golden Report for Tues October 07

Three down—one to go. And to use a baseball analogy, for the McCain/Palin ticket they enter the Hempstead Debate one week from tomorrow night already in the Ninth Inning. That’s not to say that McCain couldn’t hit it out of the park next Wednesday night and bring this ballgame—but there comes a point when you keep fouling out (akin to a debate being described as a “tie”) when you strike out. For McCain, is it now a full count?

 

The headline: No game changer from the Belmont Debate.

Going Inside: That means that Obama continues to come across as appearing presidential and competing toe-to-toe with McCain on a very intense level. That means that both candidates reached (at least) the expectations that they and their opponent set. That means that there were no major apparent gaffs (more on that in a little bit). That means that the economy goes back to the being the issue that this country is most concerned about tomorrow morning when the Dow opens over 500 points below where it did at 9:30am today. And it means that the direction of nationally polling in this country and in the key battleground states are unlikely to change direction.

 

First Thoughts: Obama won. He was the frontrunner going into the debate and so it was his to hold or lose. And he held and he surpassed. Right from his answer to the very first question, he was in command of the debate, speaking to the questioner and to the American people. He stood straight, he was calm, he was presidential. Obama had some very good answers to some very tough questions. McCain suffered through several small awkward moments. Plus he entered the debate with extremely high expectations—because this was his format, the town hall meeting that he had challenged Obama to join him in a series of meetings throughout the summer. And there is no doubt that Obama performed on McCain’s court tonight. At one point, and we’ll have to recheck the transcript, but he might have even forgotten the name of one of the audience members who asked him a question.

 

Neither candidate did a good job of actually answering the questions that were asked.

 

Visually, John McCain did stand and walk around more, but likely because of his war rounds, each movement appeared to be labored and stressed. It made the contrast, at times, uncomfortable.

 

As Brian Williams noted on the NBC Coverage within 5 minutes of the debate ending, the Internet is abuzz tonight with two moments of potential McCain gaffs during the debate

1)       When he seemed to infer that a questioner did not know about Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac before the current economic crisis

2)       When talking about the early Bush Administration Energy Bill and he turned and asked rhetorically who the audience thought voted against it, and said “that one”

a.        Watch that line to get play—or none at all—tomorrow. It is a potentially bad and damaging moment for McCain

 

I believe that a turning point in the debate for Obama, and a turning point for his candidacy as it nears the end, was at 30 minutes in when asked about how a greater number of Americans could take ownership of the problems facing their country. McCain seemed not to utilize the answer to this question to his advantage. Obama invoked 9/11 and said that Bush was wrong to ask Americans to “go shopping” and then he turned it into an argument for a sense of national service. It is a message that Americans are yearning to hear and which connects with them. It was a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the question and a missed opportunity for his opponent.

 

Another contrasting moment occurred during the end when—like during the first debate—the final questions involved foreign policy, including Iran and Russia and Georgia. Obama used this as an opportunity to talk about his view of America in the world and his view of the world in this new Century. Every time that he is able to paint this contrast, to imply that he is the candidate best fitted for the 21^st Century and his opponent is from the 20^th (as I believe he did at one point by mentioning the “computer” tonight in answer to a question), he establishes an indelible contrast that serves him well.

 

And finally, a third moment that was significant was when the presidential candidates were asked about their views on whether health care was a Right, a Privilege or a Responsibility and McCain said it was a Responsibility and Obama said that it was a Right. Watch to see that moment—and the candidates responses—used in an Obama television advertisement tomorrow.

 

WATCH THE MEDIA’S ANGLE: As this election looks more and more like a pre-determined victor going into Election Night. How does their tone and coverage change? If at all? We haven’t had an election like this in over a decade—and coming after two very close elections it is a new experience.

 

Four Weeks from Tonight, at this Hour, we should be very close to projecting the 44^th President of the United States, with all states save Alaska closed.

Liveblogging a Presidential Candidates Debate

Tonight May Be About the Next President...

…But it’s Never Too Early to Look Ahead

 

To the presidential transition and the cabinet that the 44^th President of the United States will seat:

 

From The Hill, “Next President Likely to Create Senate Vacancies”

·         Including this handy CHART

 

From CQ, “The Cabinet: Who Will Fill These Seats?”

·         Including this unbelievably exciting and pure political junkie Interactive “Pick Your Own Cabinet” feature

 

Tuesday's Polling Data

Tuesday’s Daily Tracking Polls:

Rasmussen: Obama 52/McCain 44 (Obama continues to hold his largest lead in the Rasmussen Poll this year)

Gallup: Obama 51/McCain 42 (Obama continues to hold his largest lead of the campaign)

Diageo/Hotline: Obama 46/McCain 44

                This poll shows some very interesting internal poll numbers which indicate an extreme tightening, and in fact an overtaking, on the question of who is better to handle the economy—with McCain regaining a lead that he last held three weeks ago.

 

National Head-to-Head:

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby: Obama 48/McCain 45

 

Time/CNN Battleground State Polls:

Ohio: Obama 50/McCain 47

North Carolina: McCain 49/Obama 49

Wisconsin: Obama 51/McCain 46

New Hampshire: Obama 53/McCain 45

Indiana: McCain 51/Obama 46

 

Real Clear Politics Battleground State Movement:

Today: New Hampshire from Lean Obama to Solid Obama

Today: Minnesota from Lean Obama to Solid Obama

Yesterday: GEORGIA from Solid McCain to Lean McCain

By Far The Best Debate Prep Out There

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14366.html

 

From Ben Smith & Jonathan Martin at Politico

Special Coverage

Good Evening and welcome to The Golden Report’s special coverage of the Second 2008 Presidential Candidates Debate. It has been another big day both in the presidential race and in the economy and in the roughly 90 minutes leading up to the debate, we’ll be going through some of today’s developments. Beginning at 8pm EST, we’ll introduce our liveblog 2.0 embedded widget, which we hope will not experience the technical difficulties caused by high traffic volume that we experienced during Thursday’s Vice Presidential Debate. The Cover It Live company assures us that they are prepared for what will likely be another night of high volume.

 

Tonight’s debate, which will be held at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and moderated by Tom Brokaw of NBC News, will be held in a town-hall meeting format. In this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times, reporter Lynn Sweet provided a preview of the procedure and rules which we will see tonight:

 

“Tuesday's match-up at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, with the questions to be culled from a group of 100 to 150 uncommitted likely voters in the audience and another one-third to come via the Internet. The Gallup Organization -- as in past debates like this -- has the job of making sure the questioners reflect the demographic makeup of the nation.

Brokaw selects the questions to ask from written queries submitted prior to the debate, according to the "contract."

An audience member will not be allowed to switch questions. Under the deal, the moderator may not ask followups or make comments. The person who asks the question will not be allowed a follow-up either, and his or her microphone will be turned off after the question is read. A camera shot will only be shown of the person asking -- not reacting.

While there will be director's chairs (with backs and foot rests), McCain and Obama will be allowed to stand -- but they can't roam past their "designated area" to be marked on the stage. McCain and Obama are not supposed to ask each other direct questions.

As in all the debates, the contenders cannot bring in notes, though they can take them once at the lectern.”

 

But according to Politico’s Ben Smith, Brokaw has not agreed not to ask follow-up questions, which would be uncharacteristic for his style

 

“But Brokaw wasn't a party to the deal, I'm told, and hasn't agreed to it, so the campaigns are expecting follow-up questions, a senior campaign official said,” Smith writes.

 

And as we alluded to in Monday’s Report, the stakes for this debate are being raised as John McCain’s standing in national popular opinion polls—and especially polls in the swing states that result in tabulation projections of the Electoral College—drop. A campaign that looked to be playing full-court offense at the beginning of the week now faces an opportunity in front of millions of television viewers. However, there are complicating factors, as Washington Post Reporter Dan Balz reported today,

“What are his options? Even his running mate, offering encouragement from her perch, says it's time to take off the gloves and go after Obama. Through advertising and in campaign trail rhetoric, that's the direction McCain has charted. But the other piece of wisdom that must be rolling around in McCain's head is the warning that town hall audiences don't like confrontation, attacks or anything particularly nasty.

So calibrating his performance Tuesday becomes especially difficult. In the first debate, McCain wouldn't even look at his younger rival. That's not really possible when the two will be less tethered to specific spots on the stage at Belmont. Can he be engaging and still engage?
Town halls invite civility. That's one of the reasons McCain proposed doing a series of town halls with Obama over the summer and fall. It was, his advisers know, his hope of conducting a different kind of campaign, one in which the two nominees might even share a meal after their joint performances. McCain long has envisioned this kind of a presidential campaign, something out of the ordinary.
The irony now is that, when McCain finally gets Obama on the stage for a town hall style debate, the pressure on him is to discard his traditional instincts and go after his opponent. That reality may cause McCain to be even more resentful toward Obama for rejecting what seemed like an eminently sensible proposal. But this campaign is leagues away from all that now.”

 

The crux of Balz’ online reporting? McCain needs to find his voice tonight. Reiterating the question we poised last night, “Which John McCain will show up tonight?”

 

And it cannot be overlooked that it was another tremendous day on Wall Street, as the Dow Jones gave up over 500 points. Reading the front page story in the New York Times this morning about the growing and wild expansion of a global economic crisis, which is literally becoming too hard for even the shrewdest economic regulators to contain, was yet another reminder of the difficult times in which we live. The biggest question leading into tonight is whether the debate we see tonight, between the two men who would be the next President of the United States, accurately reflects the leadership that the country not only desires, but needs, in its next Chief Executive.

Coming Tonight

A Decision 2008 Special Event

 

 

The Second Presidential Candidates Debate:

A Liveblog

 

Barack Obama and John McCain square off in their second debate,

a town hall meeting from the campus of Belmont University

in Nashville, Tennessee

 

Liveblogging begins at 8pm

 

 

THE GOLDEN REPORT

The Golden Report for Monday October 06

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or at least throw the kitchen sink at your opponent. That’s exactly what we’re witnessing from the John McCain for President Campaign in the final month before this election. A campaign that may be looking at the electoral map and the latest polls to come out of those states and worried about its prospects going forward—and how it will gain the states that Bush won in 2000 in addition to picking up any Kerry states from 2004. The Campaign is on the offensive in their must-win states of Ohio and Florida—they are losing ground in Virginia and North Carolina, have fell behind in New Mexico and Nevada and are in danger of losing control of Missouri.

 

Today it was William Ayers. Jeremiah Wright. Tony Rezko. And the vice presidential candidate from Wasilla, Alaska was charged with delivering the attacks. But ask yourself this question: who is Palin’s audience? It’s the Republican Base. Independents and Liberal Democrats—the groups that McCain needs to pick back up from Obama in order to take control of the race and win the election have a very low disregard for Palin. Put bluntly, they think that she is a subject of stupidity and blatantly unqualified. Attacks from her carry little meaning. Attacks from McCain run the risk of clashing with his straight talk, country first message. Both run the risk of no longer looking like a maverick and instead looking like desperate attack dogs.

 

Watch to see if a dynamic develops in the final four weeks where Palin seemingly breaks away from McCain to place herself for a future within the Republican Party and a run in 2012 or 2016.

 

Further, watch to see how John McCain positions himself in the final weeks and establishes his legacy. If McCain is realistic enough to acknowledge that his future political path will not lead him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but instead keep him in the Senate until 2010, will he begin to chart how he wishes his second and final presidential campaign to be remembered? Will it be recalled as the campaign which took the low road and brought a nation desperately concerned with its present economic vitality and future economic continuity into the gutter? Or will he try to regain the John McCain of 2000? Such an analysis is complicated by the existence of a campaign “bubble” in which both candidates live—almost an immunity from the rest of the world and its realities. Only this, many believe, will prevent McCain from taking his campaign where he—as just about every account suggests—does not want it to go.

 

JOHN MCCAIN NEEDS TO CHANGE THE RACE AND TAKE CONTROL OF IT ONCE AGAIN.

 

A lot of will depend on which John McCain shows up on stage at Belmont University tomorrow night at 9pm for a Town Hall Meeting; the Second Presidential Candidates Debate, moderated by Tom Brokaw.

 

WHICH JOHN MCCAIN WILL WE SEE?

 

Baring an unforeseen, unpredictable and unfathomable change of course as the results of outside events—namely a national security or domestic security crisis—the number of game changing moments that McCain has left are running low. AND he has already tried to seize control of the attention and trajectory of the race several times, and each one was less effective than the one it preceded. (“Suspending a campaign,” postponing the Convention, the Palin Pick, Town Hall Meetings)

 

There’s at least one guaranteed attention changing scenario left:

McCain announces—in a huge speech with tremendous media attention—that, if elected, he would only seek a single term and commit to not running for reelection. He ties this in to his plan to reform Washington for four full years and not be worried about the next campaign.

 

This raises a lot of issues:

Will it be seen as a huge ploy?

Will it be believable?

What does THAT say about Palin’s experience?

Will it resonate with voters?

Is that what McCain wants to do?

What about Republican down-the-ballot candidates and the GOP leadership

 

It is an unlikely scenario. But if things become so low, and so desperate, it may be attempted.

 

Of course, both tomorrow’s debate and the one a week from Wednesday are game changing opportunities by their very nature.

 

Monday Polling:

CNN/Opinion Dynamics: Obama 53/McCain 45

CBS News: Obama 48/McCain 45

ABC News/Washington Post-OHIO: Obama 51/McCain 45

NBC News/WSJ: Obama 49/McCain 43

Rasmussen Daily Tracking: Obama 52/McCain 44

Diageo/Hotline Tracking: Obama 47/McCain 41

Gallup Tracking: Obama 50/McCain 42

 

Rasmussen/Fox News Battleground Tracking Polls:
OHIO McCain 48/Obama 47

FLORIDA Obama 52/McCain 45

VIRGINIA Obama 50/McCain 48

COLORADO Obama 51/McCain 45

MISSOURI Obama 50/McCain 47

 

I don’t usually include SurveyUSA polls because I’ve found them unreliable, but this one bears looking at:

VIRGINIA Obama 53/McCain 43

 

Important Article that tells the story of this race, with that word used on multiple levels: “How Obama Targets Blacks”

 

And it’s another debate night in this country. Be sure to tune in for The Golden Report’s Liveblog 2.0 of the Second Presidential Candidates Debate beginning at 8pm.