Week in Review

RCP poll avgs on 8/2
Obama 46.5
McCain 43.9

RCP poll avgs on 8/8
Obama 46.9
McCain 43.3

McCain Intrade


Obama Intrade


Ohio
Republicans:


Democrats:


The most significant event of the week happened on August 5th. Almost every battleground state price shows a sharp increase for McCain on the 5th followed by steady erosion of the increase over the rest of the week. New Mexico and Nevada, where the increase disappears entirely, and Indiana, where the increase is maintained, break the pattern. Michigan also had a Pro-McCain reaction on the 5th but lost that and more by the end of the week.

More "who is Obama" blather

I think Barack's flexibility on energy has helped him out in the polls already. Here's a few points you can take out of his poll numbers right now to get ahead of the game:

"His rapid rise benefited ironically from his ability to "transcend race," we have been told repeatedly. That's another way of saying that he seemed to offer Americans a way to reduce race to something that would not matter anymore. Americans want to believe that race doesn't matter and apparently we will only believe it if we hear a black person say it."
Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune

Contrast that with the Kurtz's Barack Obama's Lost Years in The Weekly Standard.

"Indeed, race functions for Obama as a kind of master-category, pervading and organizing a wide array of issues that many Americans may not think of as racial at all. Understanding Obama's thinking on race, for example, is a prerequisite to grasping his views on spending and taxation."

Status update: Obama still had a radical left-wing pastor who preached for 20 years and this has yet to be re-introduced as a general election issue.
Does Obama think white supremacy is the organizing principle of the USA? (As Wright does.)
Does Obama think 9/11 was an inside job? (As Wright does.)

Due Credit and Caution

Now that McCain has moved to 39 on intrade and Obama to 58, the millions of you who regularly read this blog and follow its suggestions have made tons of cash. Good job. Now be careful over the next two weeks. The current narrative --the race is ugly and the race is tied -- might yield to the realization that a tie goes to Obama. I assume it has been the changed poll numbers which have driven the market. If the changes in the polls stall out at even, people will realize that all Obama has to do is win one swing state and hold all of Kerry's states. The market will then shift back toward Obama even as the polls stay put. On the other hand, it goes without saying that if a state like Pennsylvania or Michigan looks to lean-McCain, the McCain upside is like 25. (But I don't see that happening.)

Super Ugly Obama Rumors

Advance Indiana, which previously posted a youtube clip of the Ludacris song about Obama, has recently posted two rumors which threaten to become major MSM driving scandals, or just powerful whisper/blogging campaigns. 1. Obama received illegal campaign contributions from Palestinians. 2.Obama's birth certificate is forged.


"Piecing together facts in the public domain, the investigative journalist was able to surmise that Sen. Obama's step father had adopted him and his name had been legally changed from Barack Hussein Obama to Barry Soetoro. When an adoption occurs, the child's birth certificate is re-issued with the name of the adoptive parent and the original birth certificate ceases to exist. Records of the adoption are sealed. The investigative reporting at Texas Darlin concludes this is the reason Obama's campaign is using a fake certificate of live birth to prove his natural born status. Indonesian records indicate that Barry Soetoro was an Indonesian citizen identified in his public school records as being a Muslim, the religion of his adopted father. It is unclear if and when Obama had his name legally changed back to Barack Hussein Obama, II."

A special birthday present for me!

www.rove.com now exists.

The Soon To Be Ubiquitous Demographic

"Older women", "Senior Mothers", "The Hillary Voter"

Senior Lecturer Obama

The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other faculty members dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship.

The school had almost no black faculty members, a special embarrassment given its location on the South Side.

“On the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection,” Mr. Obama said.