McCain 8 points behind Obama in the polls

Barack Obama is steadily gaining momentum in the right direction, so it appears. Right now he has an 8 point lead over John McCain.

While I wouldn't say anyone is rushing to judgement, I know Obama has to like the numbers he's seeing in the polls right now. Especially after Sarah Palin got alot of buzz after her appearance on SNL.

With Nov. 4 only weeks aways, no candidate can afford not to keep an eye on the numbers in the polls. Both Obama and McCain will be out campaigning like crazy these next few weeks. The race to the White House is really starting to heat up. And the media will be in full force.

Obama leads McCain 50 percent to 42 percent among likely U.S. voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, up from a 6-point advantage for Obama on Monday. The telephone poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

"It was another very big day for Obama," said pollster John Zogby. "Things clearly are moving in Obama's direction."

It was the second consecutive day that Obama gained ground on McCain as the two head into the final sprint to the November 4 election.

Obama, an Illinois senator, expanded his lead among two key swing groups. His advantage with independent voters grew from 11 to 15 points, and his edge with women voters grew from 8 to 13 points.

Obama also took a lead among voters above the age of 70 and expanded his lead among Hispanics and Catholics. His support among Republicans grew from 9 percent to 12 percent a day after he received the endorsement of Republican former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"Maybe this is the Powell effect," Zogby said. "That wasn't just an endorsement, that was a pretty powerful statement."

McCain narrowly trails Obama among men and saw his lead among whites drop from 13 points to 9 points, 51 percent to 42 percent. Zogby said Obama was doing better than 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry among crucial sub-groups.

This was the first time Obama has stretched his advantage over McCain, an Arizona senator, to more than 6 points since the tracking poll began more than two weeks ago. Obama's edge had been between 2 and 6 points in all 15 days of polling.

Some other tracking polls have showed the race tightening in the last few days. But with the help of his huge spending advantage, Obama has maintained an edge on McCain in key states.

The poll, taken Saturday through Monday, showed independent Ralph Nader gaining 2 percent support. Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and Libertarian Bob Barr each registered 1 percent support.

The rolling tracking poll surveyed 1,214 likely voters in the presidential election. In a tracking poll, the most recent day's results are added while the oldest day's results are dropped to monitor changing momentum.

The U.S. president is determined by who wins the Electoral College, which has 538 members apportioned by population in each state. Electoral votes are allotted on a winner-take-all basis in all but two states, which divide them by congressional district.

Obama’s Inexperience Will Prompt Nations to Test us

Joe Biden is out talking today about John McCain and his policies that he doesn't see working. While out talking to reporters, Biden had alot of words for McCain and Sarah Palin.

None-the-less McCain was out firing up crowds talking about Obama and his mentioning his past quite a few times. The polls do show Obama gaining ahead despite McCain efforts to combat them.

McCain should have alot to worry about being that it shows he's now behind in the polls. When asked, he responded, "it's to earlier". Sarah Palin wasn't available for comment.

Joe Biden continues to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Barack Obama. In a stunning statement, Biden acknowledged that Obama’s lack of foreign-policy experience will provoke America’s enemies into creating an international crisis. Biden apparently thinks this is just terrific:


ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.


“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”


“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”


Isn’t this an argument for electing someone with more experience? Why should we elect a man who will embolden our enemies and push us to the brink of disaster? Biden seems convinced that electing John McCain will make our enemies abroad much less sanguine about provoking us — which is one of the best arguments yet heard for electing McCain.


Even worse, Biden admits that an Obama administration will likely fumble the ball. “It’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.” Really? Why not? I’d say that Biden admits that Obama will deviate from long-held principles of American foreign policy and diplomacy, and expects to reap a whirlwind of disapproval because of that. Where will that be most likely to occur, given Obama’s previous political alliances with people like Rashid Khalidi?
Let’s not forget the example that Biden himself uses here. John Kennedy got tested because he met with Nikita Khrushchev with “no preconditions”. Kennedy acknowledged afterwards that it was an “unmitigated disaster“:
Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.


Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”


What resulted? The Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy wound up trading strategic intel and missile installations in western Asia in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of the nuclear missiles from Cuba. The entire Kennedy administration turned out to be a foreign-policy disaster that was only overlooked because of the tragic assassination of Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
I agree with Biden. Obama is exactly like Kennedy in this regard, and our enemies will test us by threatening our interests around the globe if we elect Obama. I’d rather avoid the problem altogether and elect a man who puts enough fear into the minds of our enemies to keep them from testing us at all.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama

After giving it lots of thought, Colin Powell has finally made his pick.
Says he's not comfortable with the direction that the GOP is headed. But not to take his pick as someone turning his back on his party.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will be voting for Sen. Barack Obama. "He has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press.

I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities -- and you have to take that into account -- as well as his substance -- he has both style and substance," Powell said. "He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.

Powell said McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the negative tone of McCain's campaign, as well as in his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president," Powell said. "And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made."

He harshly criticized some of McCain's campaign tactics, such as the robocall campaign inflating Obama's ties to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.

"Mr. McCain says that he's a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that's good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for."

Powell said he does not plan to campaign for Obama.

Following the interview, Powell told reporters outside NBC's Washington studio that McCain "is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda with a new face and a maverick approach to it, and he'd be quite good at it, but I think we need more than that. I think we need a generational change. I think Senator Obama has captured the feelings of the young people of America and is reaching out in a more diverse, inclusive way across our society."

Powell said that the Republican focus on William Ayers and Obama's religious affiliations were damaging America's image abroad.

"Those kinds of images going out on al Jazeera are killing us around the world," he said. "And we have got to say to the world, it doesn't make any difference who you are or what you are, if you're an American you're an American. And this business of, for example a congresswoman from Minnesota going around saying let's examine all congressmen to see who is pro America or not pro America, we have got to stop this kind of non-sense and pull ourselves together and remember that our great strength is in our unity and diversity. That really was driving me."

Powell continued, defending Obama against McCain's latest charge that the Democrat's policies are quasi-socialist:

We can't judge our people and hold our elections on that kind of basis. Yes, that kind of negativity troubled me. And the constant shifting of the argument, I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis the campaign said 'we're going to go negative,' and they announced it. 'We're going to go negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers.' Now I guess the message this week is we're going to call him a socialist. Mr. Obama is now a socialist, because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them, in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good. And there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more or who should be paying les, and for us to say that makes you a socialist is an unfortunate characterization that I don't think is accurate.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, John McCain said he had a "respectful disagreement" with Powell's decision, but "this doesn't come as a surprise."

Aside from their shared history as Republican military men, Powell's endorsement is significant due to the fact that McCain has repeatedly singled him out for lavish praise. In a July New York Times interview, McCain described the former secretary of state and Joint Chiefs chairman as "a man who I admire as much as any man in the world, person in the world" when answering a question in which Powell was not brought up. Meanwhile, near the same time as that interview, McCain was reportedly considering Powell as a potential running mate.

McCain's high opinion of Powell as one of the "most credible, most respected" men in America is not merely an election-year spasm, either. When asked in 2001 if he would have chosen Powell for a Cabinet position had he succeeded in his first presidential run, McCain said "oh, yes." During two December 2000 appearances on NBC Nightly News, McCain described himself as "exuberant" over Powell's selection as secretary of state, which he predicted would secure "a beneficial effect on the conduct of American foreign policy." McCain added in another TV appearance that President Bush was "blessed" to have Powell working for him. In 2003, when Powell faced criticism from Newt Gingrich over his plan to travel to Syria, it was McCain who rose to the secretary's defense on MSNBC's Hardball, when he said: "I think it's appropriate that Colin Powell is going there."

Even at the end of Powell's somewhat frustrating tenure in George W. Bush's inner circle of policy advisers, McCain praised his overall performance, saying: "When he took the helm at the State Department nearly four years ago, I was confident that Secretary Powell would lead with honor and distinction ... I have not been disappointed." And in a CBS interview during this year's primary race, McCain suggested that one of President Bush's chief failures "was not to listen more to our military leadership, including people like General Colin Powell."

The praise has not only run in one direction, as Powell described McCain the "toughest man I've ever met" last year. But in the end, what sounded like a compliment could have been the beginning of the end. During this summer's conflict between Russia and Georgia, Powell criticized McCain for being, in essence, too mindlessly tough. When asked by CNN's what McCain meant when he said "We are all Georgians now," Powell demurred. "One candidate said that, and I'll let the candidate explain it for himself."

When pressed for further opinion, Powell distanced himself from McCain's staunchly pro-Georgian line. "The fact of the matter is that you have to be very careful in a situation like this not just to leap to one side or the other until you take a good analysis of the whole situation," Powell said, tamping down the rush to herald the rise of a new Soviet threat.