05 July 2008

Obama Maintains Lead Over McCain & Looking Ahead

Obama remains up, albeit by a slim margin:
Gallup has him at a 5% advantage over McCain nationally: 47% to 42%.
Real Clear Politics has Obama leading with an average of 5.7%.
Rasmussen reports that Libertarians back Obama over McCain 53% to 38%, and in a national poll, Obama leads McCain 47% to 40%.

While it's a slender lead, Obama has remained consistently ahead of McCain since he was declared the presumptive nominee. In fact, Gallup notes that McCain "has not held a statistically significant lead since early May." No wonder McCain has, once again, shaken up his staff.

My guess is that polls will remain thisclose up until November 4th. There will be bumps and dips as we move through the Democratic and Republican conventions, and as 527 ads begin to overtake our television screens and radio broadcasts, but it does look as though the country will maintain the near 50/50 ideological split that we've had in recent years. (Hey--Charlie Cook agrees! )

Aside: I missed blogging on Wesley Clark's commentary that suggested John McCain's military service, and his experience as a POW, didn't qualify him to be president. Not only was this ludicrously inappropriate, but it was just an asshole thing to say. I'm mighty pleased that Obama chucked him. I won't say "threw him under the bus" for this reason.

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