Has McCain actually already LOST?(Yes he has)

[RedImperator]

I think that's definitely part of what's going on. They'd especially love to unseat Jack Murtha, who was cruising to re-election until he called his constituents racists. I mean, I do think they're genuinely trying to win, and the only workable strategy they have left is to try to flip Pennsylvania and pray for the Bradley effect to save them in the swing states, but most of their detached-from-reality statements are probably more about motivating the troops than anything else. They're already suffering from a crippling enthusiasm gap amongst their voters and they're getting clobbered in the ground game, which is going to damage enough downballot Republicans as it is. If they give up on the presidential campaign, the bloodletting is going to be even worse.

[Qwerty 42]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

[Big Phil]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

Have you voted yet? Are you going to vote early tomorrow? Do that and stop worrying; there's not much else you can do at this point.

[General Zod]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

What? I can't recall a time throughout this year's general election when Ohio wasn't seriously considered anything other than a tossup.

[ArcturusMengsk]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

RCP tends to cherry-pick the polls it includes in its rolling averages; for instance, it incorporates the Fox News and Investor's Business Daily polls, but excludes Quinnepac and Gallup's expanded model, both of which show significantly higher leads for Obama. In no uncertain terms, don't rely on it; Pollster and 538 are much more useful, as they include every poll.

[RedImperator]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

Have you voted yet? Are you going to vote early tomorrow? Do that and stop worrying; there's not much else you can do at this point.

Besides that, Real Clear Politics cooks their books. They've been arbitrarily excluding Democratic partisan pollsters (without similarly excluding Republican pollsters) and even exclude DailyKos/Research2000 while including the wretched IBD/TIPP poll. And even with all that, they have Obama winning without the toss-up states.

[FireNexus]

I thought this was too cute not to post, and since this thread is the defacto election 2008 thread, I thought I'd put it here. My 3-year-old neice saw a picture my Randroid sister plastered on her PC's desktop (it was a picture of Obama with the words "covering socialism with a smile" next to it. Here is the conversation that occured:

Emily (my neice): That's Barack Obama!
Angie (her Randroid mother): How do you know that?
Emily: He's on the TV and he says "I approve this message."
Angie: He's a bad man!
Emily: No he's not!!
Angie: He wants to raise taxes.
Emily: That's not bad.

I've loved that little girl since I first saw her, but that put her way over the top.

[Darth Wong]

And, in the last RCP update, Virginia and North Carolina have switched to toss-ups, along with Ohio. This does make me nervous.

Have you voted yet? Are you going to vote early tomorrow? Do that and stop worrying; there's not much else you can do at this point.

Besides that, Real Clear Politics cooks their books. They've been arbitrarily excluding Democratic partisan pollsters (without similarly excluding Republican pollsters) and even exclude DailyKos/Research2000 while including the wretched IBD/TIPP poll. And even with all that, they have Obama winning without the toss-up states.

I've been operating for some time now on the rule that if an organization tries really hard to convince you up-front that they're not partisan, they're probably partisan. With a name like "Real Clear Politics", I was inclined to assume that they were right-wing mouthpieces right off the bat.

I'd rather see a commitment to complete and accurate reporting than a commitment to "non-partisan" reporting. The very phrase "non-partisan" has taken on such a stench of bullshit that I read it the opposite way.

[Mr Bean]

I've been operating for some time now on the rule that if an organization tries really hard to convince you up-front that they're not partisan, they're probably partisan. With a name like "Real Clear Politics", I was inclined to assume that they were right-wing mouthpieces right off the bat.

I'd rather see a commitment to complete and accurate reporting than a commitment to "non-partisan" reporting. The very phrase "non-partisan" has taken on such a stench of bullshit that I read it the opposite way.

The name to go with currently favored by everyone is http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
For three things

1. They published their methodology
2. They explained their weighting curve for various polls
3. They REALLY explain their methodology and have refined it as time goes by.

Which is funny since the site is run by one baseball statistician and has been out-preforming polling since this election started.

[D.Turtle]

4. The "On the Road" series that gives a very good impression of the ground game of the Obama campaign (and the lack of a McCain ground game).

The Obama ground game is a factor mostly overlooked and ignored in most reporting on the election, while being one of the main factors of Obama being competitive in so many states. And also the reason why I expect Obama to outperform the polls tomorrow.

When people in the future look at why Obama won, they will look at the ground game. In fact, this ground game will be the one future ground games will be compared to. I really hope the Obama campaign releases some statistics about it (number of volunteers, phone calls made, doors knocked, information packets handed out, total volunteer hours, etc.). The last time camparable numbers were available (This post on 538.com is from August 8) the discrepancy was humongous:

However, we need a bit of a reality check, since we are talking about voter contacts – numbers of phone calls and door-knocks. According to Martin’s reporting, the McCain camp made 20,000 combined door knocks and phone calls nationwide in the previous entire month. (Yes, you read that right.) With the resurgence, they are up to 324,000 in one week, an approximately 6500% increase.

To the uninitiated, that may sound impressive. Led by Steve Hildebrand, the Obama camp has been tight-lipped about its own numbers, as Martin's piece notes. But the reality is that on Monday alone in just Ohio, without revealing my sources, the Obama campaign made 109,029 persuasion phone calls.

[Tribun]

Oh boy... When they want to look like total assholes, they go all the way.
The story

California GOP Files FEC Complaint Over Obama Visit to Grandmother

By Matthew Mosk
Perhaps the most ill-timed press release of the 2008 campaign arrived shortly after 1:30 p.m. today, sent by the Republican National Committee.

The release forwarded word that the California Republican Party filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, in part because of a visit Sen. Barack Obama made to his dying grandmother.

"Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama's personal use," the release stated. "Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do -- at his own expense -- but it was not travel that his campaign may fund."

At issue was whether the trip should have been paid for with campaign funds, based on the law that forbids candidates from using such funds to pay for personal travel. The Obama campaign said the trip had been vetted with lawyers beforehand and was allowable. The Republicans argued that, because Obama did not campaign during the quick journey to Hawaii, it should not have been a campaign expense.

But filing the complaint today now seems to have been ill-advised, if not legally, then certainly politically.

Obama and his sister released a statement this afternoon announcing that their grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died peacefully after a battle with cancer.

[Slacker]

*wince*
Besides being petty, that's gotta be the worst timing of any sort of partisan nonsense in the history of politics.

[The Yosemite Bear]

so if he had included some sort of speach in that visit to his granny it would have been kosher.

well I hate these bozos totally.

[Garlak]

What... the... boop?

How can they say that after Palin's shopping spree? Which they tried to dismiss by saying "meh, why are people so obssessed over this? So unfair..."

Why would Obama not simply use his own money to make the trip to Hawaii, however? Maybe he hoped the Republicans would be stupid enough to try to call him out on using campaign money? *sigh* I'm just glad he managed to have a talk with her before she passed on... pity she didn't get to see him as POTUS, though.

[Duckie]

What... the... boop?

How can they say that after Palin's shopping spree? Which they tried to dismiss by saying "meh, why are people so obssessed over this? So unfair..."

Why would Obama not simply use his own money to make the trip to Hawaii, however? Maybe he hoped the Republicans would be stupid enough to try to call him out on using campaign money? *sigh* I'm just glad he managed to have a talk with her before she passed on... pity she didn't get to see him as POTUS, though.

Probably because he's thinking less about campaign finance laws and more that he wants to see his dying grandma and so just grabs whichever pile of money he sleeps in at Obama headquarters (he's got like 50,000,000-80,000,000 1 dollar bills left he hasn't spent on ads as of yesterday) and used it to get a plane ticket.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Do we have an explicit statement stating he used campaign funds and not from a bunch of jackals who are known to stretch the truth?

[CmdrWilkens]

Do we have an explicit statement stating he used campaign funds and not from a bunch of jackals who are known to stretch the truth?

I think they are mostly going on the fact that he flew the campaign's charter jet to Hawaii and din't fly commercial. Now I don't know if they have some specifics about this but sure as hell their timing was about as shitty as it gets.

[Darth Wong]

Anyone who has ever flown commercial will know how many hours you'll spend waiting for your plane. The mere fact that a private jet saves so much time is a perfectly reasonable campaign expense, particularly in a campaign where each man has been burning the midnight oil to visit as many places as possible, in as little time as possible. Lost time is lost campaigning.

It's much more reasonable as a campaign expenditure than Sarah Palin's Barbie Funtastic Clothes Shopping Experience.

[SirNitram]

Remember: Using the same jet you chartered for your campaign to visit you dying grandmother: ILLEGAL BAD EVIL.

Using your wife's jet for campaign travel because you wrote a loophole specifically for that jet: MORAL GOOD YAY.

Another reminder of the GOP's nature.

[SirNitram]

Link

MADISON, Wis. - Four employees hired by a temporary staffing agency to encourage absentee voting for Sen. John McCain in Wisconsin say they were instructed to tell people they were Republican volunteers.

The employees told The Associated Press in interviews on Monday they were hired by Allstaff Labor Group to go door-to-door in the Milwaukee suburbs locating McCain supporters and distributing absentee ballot request forms.

Allstaff recruited the workers under a contract with a consulting firm hired by the Republican Party of Wisconsin to run its absentee ballot program.

The workers claim they were told to say they were GOP volunteers even though they were getting paid $10 an hour for the work. They were required to sign agreements stating they would not speak publicly about their work with anyone including reporters, but they decided to speak out because they were angry they had not been paid for their final few days.

"I told the Republican Party and Allstaff, I wanted to know why we were lying to these residents," said Loyalty Dixon, 26, a Milwaukee resident who worked about two weeks in Waukesha. "I said, isn't that fraudulent? They didn't give me a good explanation. They said, you guys know you're getting paid. Don't worry about it."

She recalled getting praised by Waukesha residents at gas stations and at a McDonald's for being a McCain supporter. Some residents at their doors even asked whether they were getting paid, she said.

"We had to lie to these people and say we were volunteers," she said.

Three other employees shared similar stories on Monday.

"They had us say, 'I'm volunteering for the Republican Party of Wisconsin," said Marquis Mayes, 23. "I asked them, why would we say we were volunteers and we're not? They didn't have an answer for that."

The workers claimed they were owed between $200 and $300 for their last few days of work. They said they needed the money to pay upcoming rent and utility bills; they had found out about the job while they were at a Milwaukee YWCA looking for employment.

Two of the workers said they planned to vote for Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday; two others said they were leaning toward McCain but were unsure now because of the dispute with the Republican Party over their pay.

GOP spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed there was a dispute over how many hours they worked, and the party's vendor was working to resolve it.

She said the program's managers were instructed to "accurately represent the program," and if that didn't happen it was a mistake. The paid workers may have picked up a script that said they were volunteers since they were working at GOP offices alongside volunteers, she said.

She insisted that if anyone brought the issue to the party's attention it would have been promptly fixed.

"We did not instruct them to misrepresent themselves," she wrote in an e-mail.

Allstaff representatives did not return phone messages.

Allstaff was only one of many temporary staffing firms hired by GOP consulting firm Lincoln Strategy Group to run the party's absentee ballot request distribution program.

Kukowski released a copy of the confidentiality agreement signed by the temporary workers, in which they agreed not to discuss the project "with anyone outside of Lincoln Strategy Group and the Republican Party apparatus.

"In addition," the agreement says, "I acknowledge that I am not authorized to speak to any member of the media (i.e. reporter, journalist, camera crew, etc.) should they inquire about the details of this project."

Kukowski said the agreement was required because workers were handling sensitive personal information about voters.

She said the workers spent three weeks distributing the forms to McCain supporters around the state.

The state's top election official, Kevin Kennedy, said the effort ran into problems in the Green Bay area, with at least one employee turning in numerous absentee ballot distribution forms that were falsified. He said the worker was promptly fired and the local clerk tossed out the forms.

He said he also received complaints that the workers were told to mislead voters into believing they were volunteers. Those complaints have been forwarded to local district attorneys, he said, but it's unclear whether it would be a crime.

"I've heard the argument made that somehow this was falsely facilitating absentee voting but I think that's a stretch," Kennedy said. "I think the issue more is, what does that say about the tactics of a political party? ... I don't think it's illegal to do but it creates all sorts of problems."

Kennedy compared the problems to those seen during voter registration drives by the liberal-leaning group ACORN, which Republicans have accused of voter fraud. Anytime workers are paid for campaign work they have an incentive to cut corners, he said.

You know, this lie would never have come out if McCain hadn't decided it'd be brilliant to yank the GOTV money and splurge on 'WRIGHT IS SKERY' ads.

[Chris OFarrell]

Yes, the outstanding, upstanding moral people hired...who spoke out because they didn't get the last few days of their pay, but were happy to do the job until then despite happily lying their ass off to everyone.

Still, at least its coming out.

[The Big I]

Rather than fix your lazy formating I'll simply snip your post.
Next time check make sure people can read it-Bean

[ArcturusMengsk]

Why do you post this mindless shit? There are maybe fifty thousand PUMAS in the country, including those who thought of the idea independently. They notion that there's a secret army throughout the country artificially inflating Obama's poll numbers is ludicrous - they'd need thousands upon thousands of supporters coincidentally being contacted by polling companies to pull it off.

[Edi]

I found this article on another site I hope it not true but if it is it's fucken bullshit, fucken PUMAs I can't understand why they are so sour she lost fair and square, I know its long but it makes me so angry when I read I can't be arsed dressing it .

<snip>

Why the fuck do you post this sort of ridiculous conspiracy theorist bullshit and laughable claims here? And are you unfamiliar with the goddamn quote function? That alone would have made your post somewhat more readable.

[RedImperator]

I found this article on another site I hope it not true but if it is it's fucken bullshit, fucken PUMAs

Mistake #1. The PUMAs are liars and possibly crazy. Even if McCain wins, it won't be because of them. The claim they could have been manipulating the polls, the media, and even the Obama campaign's press releases for the last five months puts them in the same credibility ballpark as the Truthers, and if you had a lick of sense, you would have realized that before you hit the panic button.

I can't understand why they are so sour she lost fair and square, I know its long but it makes me so angry when I read I can't be arsed dressing it .

Mistake #2, sonny. If you can't be "arsed" to properly dress an article, then keep it the fuck out of my forum. Normally, I'd leave it at that, but since you can't be "arsed" to do the bare minimum to make your post readable, I can't be "arsed" not to warn your ass.