Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even.

The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.

Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Yahoo News>

In recent weeks, the Obama campaign has clear lost momentum.  What concerns me more is that the McCain campaign has gained momentum.  I think the reason is that the press has covered the two of them picking each other apart and refused to cover McConJobs many problems.

President Bush has set a record he’d presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

Bush’s rating has worsened amid “collapsing optimism about the economy,” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies presidential approval. Record gas prices and a wave of home foreclosures have fueled voter angst… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <USA Today>

Once again we see that Bush is the worst pResident in history.  Four years of McConJob is four more years of Bush.  But it’s not just Bush, a mere tool for the GOP Reich, who must go.  One Republican in office is one too many!

As far as history goes and all of these quotes about people trying to guess what the history of the Bush administration is going to be, you know, I take great comfort in knowing that they don’t know what they are talking about, because history takes a long time for us to reach.”— George W. Bush, Fox News Sunday, Feb10, 2008

A Pew Research Center poll released last week found that the share of the American public that approves of President George W. Bush has dropped to a new low of 28 percent.

An unscientific poll of professional historians completed the same week produced results far worse for a president clinging to the hope that history will someday take a kinder view of his presidency than does contemporary public opinion.

In an informal survey of 109 professional historians conducted over a three-week period through the History News Network, 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success.

Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administration…

…The reason for the hesitancy some historians had in categorizing the Bush presidency as the worst ever, which led them to place it instead in the “nearly the worst” group, was well expressed by another historian who said, “It is a bit too early to judge whether Bush’s presidency is the worst ever, though it certainly has a shot to take the title. Without a doubt, it is among the worst.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <History News Network>

The reason that Bush is so supportive of McConJob, is that he is the one person with an chance to remove this stigma from Bush by being even worse.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus

Democrats, looking for a way out, are pondering a new idea: an unprecedented “mini convention” to bring their punishing presidential season to an early close.

The proposal surfaced during another week of pushing and shoving between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns and a growing concern that the party may be hurting itself beyond repair.

Without some resolution, they fret, Republican John McCain will win the presidency.

“If we continue down the path we are on, we might as well hand the keys of the White House to John McCain,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.

The mini-convention would bring together nearly 800 superdelegates after the last primaries are held in early June.

Given the current math, superdelegates – party officials and elected leaders – will decide the nomination, one way or another.

“There would be a final opportunity for the candidates to make their arguments to these delegates, and then one transparent vote,” Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen suggested in the New York Times.

Superdelegates, both pledged and unpledged, reacted cautiously to the idea. But they all agreed that something needed to be done to bridge the growing gap between Clinton and Obama supporters.

“We’ve got to stop the bickering that’s going on,” said Leila Medley of Jefferson City, Mo., an uncommitted superdelegate. “There’s no doubt about that.”

“While you trade barbs, McCain is uniting the Republican Party,” U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon wrote both campaigns in mid-March. “In the next six weeks, McCain can sit back, amass his war chest, concentrate his base and delight as you deconstruct each other.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <AZ Central>

I have often said that great minds fall in the same ditch. I have no doubt that Politics Plus is not the source of this idea, but it is interesting to note that our poll, currently in its fifth day, is on this exact subject. Pardon my pun, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag and admit that I voted ‘Yes’.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus

Yesterday Barack Obama won the Wyoming caucuses. That surprised me, because Obama’s most solid demographic, black voters, are few in number there. However Obama has consistently outperformed Clinton in caucuses, because his grass roots organization, has excelled at getting his supporters to attend. Because there is no exit polling at caucuses, there are no demographics to report for this contest. From GOPerville, McConJob spent the week pandering to religious extremists, and Ron Paul polished his tinfoil hat as he announced his campaign is winding down.

The Democrats

The Wyoming Caucuses

Obama won by a margin of 61% to 38%.

The Delegates

Overall, the Democrats will have 4049 delegates at their convention. Of those 3,253 will be pledged delegates and 796 will be super delegates. I oppose the inclusion of the super delegates, because they give roughly 20% of the power to nominate to party insiders. They include Senators, Representatives, Governors, DNC members, and other party hacks, and they are not bound to represent the will of the voters.

The Republicans

Looking Forward

The Mississippi primary is on Tuesday 3/11. According to USA Election Polls, Insider Advantage has Obama leading Clinton 46% – 40%, and ARG has Obama leading Clinton 58% – 34%.

After that, there are no further contests until Pennsylvania on 4/22.

At this point it’s virtually impossible for either candidate to lock-up the nomination before the convention.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus

This week we have five contests coming up, sort of. On Tuesday 3/4 there are primaries in Ohio, where Clinton holds a narrow lead in the polls, but Obama is rising fast, Texas, where Obama has passed Clinton, Rhode Island, where Clinton holds a commanding lead, and Vermont, where Obama holds a commanding lead. In addition, Texas has caucuses. Their hybrid system is best described as weird, so you can me sure that delegate counts will be slow in coming. On Saturday, 3/8 Democrats caucus in Wyoming. There is no polling data available from there. I world recommend against going to Wyoming for political celebration. The GOP has already caucused there, and as a result, 90% of the prostitutes and 50% of the sheep now have social diseases.

The Democrats

The Polls

The following numbers and graphs are from Pollster.

Ohio

Texas

I’ve had considerable experience in opinion research, and I’ve never seen anything like those graphs!

The Delegates

The Republicans

The Delegates

Overall, Republicans will have 2,380 delegates at their convention. Of those 1,913 are pledged delegates and 463 are unpledged delegates. But of the 463 unpledged delegates, 340 of them are unpledged by stare rules. The remaining 123 delegates are RNC members.

Looking Forward

I’m not going to make any predictions until after the results, except that if Obama wins both Ohio and Texas, this may well be over.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus

In 1999, McCain wrote two controversial letters to the FCC on behalf of broadcaster and campaign contributor Lowell “Bud” Paxson. He urged the commissioners to make a “rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.” McCain had flown on Paxson’s corporate jet on four occasions, and received $28,000 in contributions from Paxson and his law firm.

McCain has insisted that his letter-writing had nothing to do with Paxson. In fact, he claimed that he wasn’t even on Paxson’s side; he simply wanted the FCC to make a decision.

Yet the Paxson case wasn’t an isolated incident. In 2000, reporters reviewed 2,000 pages of correspondences from McCain and his staff. They found that “in the vast majority of those particularly regulatory matters were Mr. McCain himself sent a letter, the interested parties had contributed to his presidential or Senate campaigns” [New York Times, 1/6/00]. Some examples:

• – In 1998, McCain wrote the FCC a letter asking it to give “serious consideration” to allowing BellSouth to enter the long-distance market. Just four months earlier, on May 6, 1998, BellSouth officials had donated $16,750 to McCain. [Boston Globe, 1/9/00]
• – In June 1998, McCain wrote to the FCC “on behalf of AT&T, Spring, and MCI Worldcom,” even though he had “long favored the so-called Baby Bells.” Two weeks later, Spring donated $2,000. In October 1998, AT&T officials gave him $25,800. [Boston Globe, 1/9/00]
• – In May 1999, McCain wrote to the FCC and accused it of “bias against Ameritech and SBC Communications,” two companies seeking to merge. Just before his May letter, “officials and lobbyists for the two companies helped him raise almost $120,000.” Ameritech was led by Richard Notebaert, a “friend and leading fund-raiser” for McCain. [Boston Globe, 1/7/00; New York Times, 1/6/00]
• – In 1998, McCain wrote two letters on behalf of satellite television companies Echostar and DirecTV, “in an effort help them win permission to carry local broadcast signals. Echostar’s chairman raised about $25,000 for McCain” in the period between the two letters. [Boston Globe, 1/9/00]
• – On Dec. 1, 1998, McCain wrote a letter to the FCC advocating against tighter restrictions, which were “clearly not in the spirit” of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In the months before the letter, Paxson and Sinclair officials donated about $17,000 to McCain’s campaign. [Boston Globe, 1/9/00]

…

Inserted from <Think Progress>

You be the judge. Straight Talk or Straight Schlock? From where I sit, McConJob is just another corrupt GOP hypocrite.

Cross-posted from Politics Plus

David Swanson is making much ado about a recent approval poll:

George W. Bush has set a record for unpopularity that may stand for all time: He now has a 19 percent approval rating. And, remember that Cheney has always polled LOWER than Bush. Imagine if the Democrats were to do something we care about (preserving the Constitution) by doing something they care about (winning elections) by forcing John McCain to choose between supporting impeachment and supporting these characters who may soon be less popular than the flu. Remember, Congress moved to impeach Nixon and STILL nobody liked him, but he was more pupular [sic] than Bush or Cheney: He stayed at around 25 percent through the process. Clinton climbed from about 60 to 65 percent as a reaction to Congress prying into his personal life and attacking him for a non-impeachable offense. Which scenario do YOU think is more like the current one, Clinton’s impeachment or Nixon’s? Truman’s popularity sank as Congress moved to impeach him too, but it never sank as low as Bush’s and Cheney’s… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <OpEdNews>

As much as I would love to gloat, honesty, combined with my background in market research demands that I point out that the basis for Swanson’s article is a flawed poll from American Research. Here are the questions, as asked:

Question Wording:

How do you rate the condition of the national economy these days – would you say it is excellent, very good, good, bad, very bad, or terrible?

Do you think the national economy is getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?

Would you say that the national economy is in a recession, or not?

A year from now, do you expect the national economy to be better than it is today, the same as it is today, or worse than it is today?

How do you rate the condition of the financial situation in your household – would you say it is excellent, very good, good, bad, very bad, or terrible?

Do you think the financial situation in your household is getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?

A year from now, do you expect the financial situation in your household to be better than it is today, the same as it is today, or worse than it is today?

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy? [emphasis added]

Inserted from <American Research>

A perfunctory look at the questions reveals that they are not weighted in themselves. However the problem is in the order of question. The independent question of overall job approval should have been the first question asked, because the economy-centered dependent questions of the rest of the survey focus the respondents’ attention on that one issue. Once so focused, respondents are likely to answer the independent question on the basis of that one issue only. To be clear, I am not accusing American Research of rigging their poll. I cannot judge their intent in this. I’m merely pointing out why the poll is shoddy workmanship.

There is so much valid data about which to fault Bush and the GOP, we must be careful not rely on data so easy to refute.

Nevertheless, calling our Fanatic Failure “Mr. 19%” is great fun!

Cross posted from Politics Plus