It's their fault because they didn't come up with a decent candidate to run against him.  Pretty simple.  Look at their recent selections.  Kerry?  Gore?  Puhlease! 

Sadly as I said many times earlier... The dem nominee will not beat McCain.

I dont want McCain to win remember, but I just dont see how Karl Rove will let him lose.

It ended for Obama this week and for Clinton last month.

NORTHERN LIBERALS CANNOT WIN A NATIONAL ELECTION!  Its a fact ....

While I agree with you about Kerry, Gore actually was a strong canidate and should have one the first time round. But yeah that discussion is old. Also if Gore would have run again, I believe he would have been a strong canidate once again.

Oh God...

Pandora's Box hath been opened...

well the laugh is on you as i was not referring to just florida.

Very good points. Part of the problem, IMHO, is there are so many polls (many of which contradict each other) that just about anyone can find one to their liking.

OswaldTheOsprey

No, YOU don't get the point. Here is what you said:


What gave you the impression that the election was "in the bag?" What now makes you think they "screw[ed] this up?"

Polls led you to all those conclusions. Polls only reflect what folks are feeling at the moment. Sometimes those feelings become permanent, as in the case of Bush's unpopularity. Bush's polls have been in the toilet for years now. Sometimes they reflect news cycles and a state of flux, like with Obama. McCain has had no rivals, so he has a free pass from the press. Obama is under attack fr/ Hillary and everyone else, because he is the Dems frontrunner. That has brought him down.

On way or another, Hillary will be out. She just doesn't have the numbers and never will. This is just pure ego at this point. She is destroying the party. But, eventually, Obama will stand beside McCain and guess what? McCain ain't gonna cut it.

We've got a long way to go, but I know this. Half the president's job is being popular. Why? He can make NO law. He can only convince the Congress to send him something he can sign. If the Congress won't move, then the president has to convince the people to move Congress. Policies and principles are a good start, but they are useless without a powerful charm factor. THAT is what stops a Ron Paul or a Howard Dean. Policies and principles are good to start with, being a nerdy wonk ain't gonna cut it. Being a good talker and convincer, being "popular" is a part of the job description. Voters know this in their gut and vote on their gut.

Guess what? Lined up together, McCain will look awkward (have you seen him hugging Bush?) and he comes off a bit testy, Obama has poise, is good with words and is comfortable with himself. The guy who [in comparison] looks more at ease ALWAYS wins, barring a huge scandal.

Carter looked more at ease than Ford
Reagan, better than Carter or Mondale
Bush Sr., better than Dukakis,
Clinton better than Bush Sr., Perot, Dole,
Bush better than Gore, Kerry. (Bush really should have won by larger margins with those two awkward nerds. But that reflects other factors.)
You have to go back to Nixon to find a president elected without a charm factor, but that was because the Democratic party had totally imploded on Johnson's refusal to seek the nomination.

Yes, it is a personality contest, because personality is half the president's job. Obama is a better personality than Hilary and that why he is beating her, regardless of this minute's poll. And he's better than McCain, too. In politics, a week is a year. The situation is in flux and we have a long way to go. 

Not true. When I was attacked for using polls to demonstrate how one can predict the fall of a Congress, I did not use ONE poll. I used a chart that showed an average of HUNDREDS. The idea of wildly contradicting polls is a media-generated myth. The fact is, most polls, within a margin of error reflect the same thing, one candidate ahead of the other. Now folks around here will pull up the exception. The exception is not the rule. That is why you average out MANY polls.

Why would the media promote the idea of unreliable polls? Well, they want clear headlines, which sell better: Obama Will Win New Hampshire is a more saleable headline than the more accurate Obama is Ahead in New Hampshire With Committed Votes, but Edward's Committed Votes are Weak and Most Others Are Undecided And Could Go Toward Hilary. Having made a "prediction" for a clean headline, when the media ends up looking stupid, they spin that "The people have defied the pollsters, again. This is great! Democracy at work!" How perfect, because it not only saves their face, it makes them look populist. They are not populist, they are a business. And most Americans, savvy, though they may think they are, have bought their product.

Polls are useless? Any politician that says that is a bold-faced liar, surrounded by hired pollsters, probably answering a raft of polls that say he is unpopular. "Oh, I don't follow polls." Bull SHIT. There is no campaign in this country run without them, no, not even that of the "pure" Ron Paul or Nader. No product comes to market without polling either. The media spends millions, even pooling their resources, (say MSNBC/Wall Street Journal) on polling. Polling organizations have been around for decades and do very good for themselves. Are all these politicians, corporations and media outlets who hire them stupid, into flushing money down the toilet? No. We live in a capitalist system. Polling orgs would have disappeared long ago if they were "dumb" or "useless."

Polls are not crystal balls, but they are not useless, and anyone claims to think so, ether doesn't know what they are used for, doesn't like their results, or doesn't know what they are talking about because politicians and the media have sold them hogwash.