Well, Aureliano, I used 700 words to make it unequivocally plain that, so far, McCain/Palin have gone absolutely nowhere. The numerical evidence of this is overwhelming and I wanted to show just how
overwhelming it really was to people who are not really used to looking at primary evidence instead of quoting conclusions from secondary sources.
So lets take a look at corresponding figures for Bush vs. Kerry 60 days from the election, the same distance we are right now, using the same primary sources as I used above. Two are available, one for popular votes and one for electoral votes.
The same compiled regression trendline of all national polls now available at Pollster.com for 2008 can be found at Political Arithmatick for 2004. Sixty days from the election George W. Bush was polling 3 points ahead of John Kerry and one week later Bush was polling 4 points ahead of John Kerry. This was GWB’s largest lead of the election on this measure and it occurred barely a week from now. Despite being in the lead, GWB still won.
Obama’s current lead on the same regression trendline is precisely double GWB’s lead at 60 days from the election. The lowest John Kerry fell on this trendline was 46%, about the same as Obama. The lowest GWB fell was 48%, so Kerry’s largest lead was 2% [not 14% as someone speculated above] and was the equivalent of six full weeks before today.
The lowest John McCain has fallen is 41%, almost double the distance Kerry fell at his worst, and 3 times the distance GWB fell at his worst. And McCain is still down there.
Most important of all, for the last 300 days on this same measure, John McCain has only led Obama once, for a bare four weeks, more than 150 days ago. John Kerry led GWB for 12 full weeks, three times as much as McCain, and Kerry lost that lead a bare 85 days before the election.
In 2004, the magic number was also 270. On September 3,2004 Electoral-vote.com predicted GWB at 280 electoral votes and John Kerry at 241 with 16 toss-up–quite close to the final figures of 286 GWB & 251 Kerry.
In 2008 on the same measure and the same date it is Obama 278, McCain 247, and 13 toss-up. So in 60 days McCain has to gain, once again, no fewer than 23 electoral votes
In other words, at 60 days, the Bush/Kerry numbers are almost exactly the reverse of the Obama/McCain.
So I reiterate, so far McCain/Palin has gone absolutely nowhere. Now maybe they will take off like a rocket in the next 8 weeks and make up all this lost ground.
But I’m not betting any of my money on it, given what I’ve seen of them so far.
By the way, since I’m 56, my dumbs no longer gallop, but must plod; my English is lengthy, rather antique, and full of fusty old things such as real vocabulary, complete sentences, and fully developed arguments; and I am far too contrary to coordinate with anybody, let alone any wet behind the ears text messagers from Kos or the DNC.
