A panoply of new poll numbers came in today, all pointing in the same direction: the post-debate verdict is in. Between Friday's tussle between Barack Obama and John McCain and this week's continued dire news on the economic front, Obama is now surging far ahead. Thursday's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin presents a badly needed opportunity for the McCain campaign to regain its footing. But a poor performance by Palin looks like it could, at this point, cripple Republican chances beyond repair.
Numbers from today's plethora of surveys indicate the Democratic ticket is not only building its national lead past five percent, but opening leads in many battleground states. See the data here.
Support for Obama is gelling in the upper Midwest states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. Out West, Colorado and New Mexico are moving into the safe category for the Democrats, as is Pennsylvania in the East. Even more ominously for McCain, Obama has opened up undeniable leads in Ohio, Virginia and Florida. Nevada and Missouri have drifted in to the undecided camp along with such former Republican strongholds as Indiana and North Carolina. If the election were held today Real Clear Politics projects Obama-Biden would carry 353 electoral votes to McCain-Palin's 185.
The immediate speed bump in all this has to be the vice presidential debate. Sarah Palin must prove herself capable of engaging reasonably convincingly on issues, above the level of memorized talking points. Up to now her credibility has been damaged by her inability to answer basic questions from Charles Gibson and softball serves from Katie Couric. If she cannot do better than this in her debate with Joe Biden she will be relegated to Dan Quayledom. John McCain will suffer just as greatly for having chosen her as his running mate. If she flops the race will be effectively over, barring an earth shaking set of events in the next few weeks.
If she does well then the McCain campaign will remain viable and live to fight another day. It will still face an uphill struggle in an environment strongly favoring the Democrats this year, but at least a chance for victory will remain.
I do not feel the bar for Palin to hurdle is low. A perception of vacuousness has infected her image with undecideds thanks to her uninformed comments whenever she is off script. It will be up to her to reverse that perception. After four weeks on the campaign trail and three solid days of preparation at McCain's Sedona compound, she ought to be able to do that if she has the requisite smarts. And there is always the possibility of the garrulous Biden committing a few of his famous gaffes, too. But if she cannot do better than merely survive a pummeling at the hands of the highly experienced and knowledgeable Delaware Senator it will be lights out for McCain's chances.
1 comment:
Well she held her own this evening. It was a good debate, with both sides getting in their respective points. However, it still gave me the feeling that she was scripted for most of the night.
She danced around a couple of questions. I don't recall Biden doing the same thing, although I could be mistaken on that account.
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