It turns out that there may be a reason that Obama is reneging on his gentleman’s agreement to participate in public financed campaign, it appears that McCain is catching him in donations. In May, McCain raised about $22 Million dollars, roughly the same amount that Obama raised. According to the Politico:
McCain reported having about $32 million in cash for primary-related expenses at the end of May. Obama reported having $43 million in hand at the start of June — but about $10 million of that is dedicated to the general election.
So it appears that even their cash on hand is fairly close. What is really amazing is that the GOP had a insanely fortuitous month. The RNC raised about $53 million while the DNC raised only $4 million. Yeah, nothing to see here, the Democrats are united under Obama though (/sarcasm off). Furthermore, if you count the money on hand, the RNC has about 13 times the amount of money to spend compared to the DNC. I thought everyone was sick of the GOP and everyone was excited over Democrats this year?
I realize you can’t compare fund-raising to actual electoral results, however this has to be a glaring red-flag to Democrats. Particularly since Obama was still in a knock-out drag fight with Hillary in May, you would have thought he could have raised a bit more money. McCain has been sitting back almost forgotten since February and he has done much much better then anyone thought he would.
I think the fund raising this year will be interesting. If I were the GOP I certainly would not sit back and think happy days are here again. Reportedly Hillary is trying to get her fund raisers together to help Obama. Say what you like about the Clintons, but they know how to raise a buck. The real question is how willing are the die-hard Clinton supporters going to be to turn around and give money to Obama now? June and July will certainly be interesting to watch from that point of view, if for nothing else.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Question for the McCain supporters – every poll shows McCain falling further behind. If you look at the electoral college map, Obama could win 300 or more delegates, including states such as VA. Obama is now polling as well as any recent Democratic nominee among his own party.
Meanwhile, it’s obvious Conservatives still dislike McCain, they aren’t excited about him, and his comments of late on global warming and his willingness to address La Raza are only fanning the flames. He’s now got to defend places like GA, LA, NC, WV, and MS, states Republicans can normally consider a lock.
So given we’re about 2 months out from the convention, are we going to see momentum among Republicans to dump McCain and nominate someone else? Maybe Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour, Fred Thompson or someone else who the base might actually ‘want’ to vote for?
June 21st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
btw, McCain almost lost the Montana GOP convention delegate vote today to Ron Paul.
June 21st, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Bob, what polls are you looking at (don’t even say Newsweek, that poll has so much garbage their own blog is making fun of it). Gallup and Ras daily tracking have McCain and Obama within the margin of error of each other. There was essentially no bounce after Obama clinched the nomination despite predictions on this site and others of a 10 point bounce. Similar state polls also show a very close race with in the margin of error in NV, OH, MI, PA, WI, MO, CO. Obama could win with 300 EC votes, but so could McCain. In fact, the way the EC map works out, McCain actually has a stronger starting position.
There is no doubt that many GOPers are lukewarm at best about McCain, I personally can’t stand the thought of voting for him, but you’ve seen me write that many times. I saw a button that said “Vote for McCain . . . If I have to.” In the end, Obama may be his own worst enemy because he is driving the base of our party who might have stayed home to voting for McCain because Obama is so unacceptable and viewed as dangerously inexperienced and much too liberal. The few that will stay home will be made up by the centerists/independents like my mom who is a life long Democrat but is going to vote for McCain because she can’t stand Obama. If McCain picks Palin as his VP that will also help shore up some of those pesky women
The GOP is not going to dump McCain and any fantasy you might have about Bob Barr effecting the race is not well placed. Even in Ga, with Barr included in the poll all the polls show McCain still leading Obama.
As for Montana, who cares. The Paul supporters are probably the only ones who really knew about the GOP convention and bothered to show up. You got a bunch of Breechers and black helicopter folks out there trying to stick it to McCain. The Paul people hurt Obama as much as they do McCain because there are a bunch of libs who support Paul as well.
The main point is that it is way way way to early to even predict how this all might shake out. I posted back in February that I could foresee Obama winning an EC landslide and I can see McCain winning one as well. It all depends on how this all shakes out over the next couple of months. I would say this, typically at this point the Dems are leading by a decent margin, Kerry had a double digit lead most of the summer, and you can go clear back to Carter who had a 35 point lead nearly the entire summer and won by less then a percent. When the 527s get going on Obama and he starts to wear thin on people we could see an entirely different scenario. On the other hand, maybe the libs show up en mass this fall and McCain gets his lunch handed to him. I wouldn’t put a dime on either candidate right now.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Bob, the Newsweek poll is nonsense. The Gallup and Rasmussen polls have it close.
Basically, Dems are always up in the summer, and usually by more than Obama is up.
Is it that Obama supporters are very young, and don’t remember past elections? Kerry was up huge against Bush and lost. Dukakis was up 17 in September and lost in a landslide.
The fact that Obama is up only 5-7 in most polls right now is troubling for Obama.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I saw the Newsweek poll and laughed.
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:53 am
I’m looking at various polls on RCP. Obama currently leads McCain by 5 points in Rassmussen’s daily tracking poll (outside the MoE). USA/Gallup have him up by 6, FOX news has him up by 4, Zogby has him up by 5. The USA Today poll released this week shows him up 48-36 among independents.
The state-by-state breakdowns are especially good news for Obama, he now leads in polls in FL, OH, MI, and PA. If he wins either FL or OH, he’s the next president.
At this point there isn’t a single Kerry state that McCain is ahead, while there are about 9 Bush states that Obama is either ahead or competitive (including places such as GA, NC, and VA). Based on current polling, Obama is ahead in states that would give him 334 electoral votes.
Is it just denial at this point, or wishful thinking? Or, will the GOP come to grips that they’ve got a presidential candidate that a great deal of their own party doesn’t like?
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:08 am
Bob, I welcome you to engage in all the wishful thinking you would like to. The fact is that these polling agencies have been crap all year. Ras has been the closest thing to consistent and in his latest polls McCain is up in both Ohio and Florida.
Also, take a look at the internals of these polls. Half of them are “adult” polls which are beyond stupid, if you can’t even poll registered voters much less likely voters why even bother. The other thing I think we are going to find very misleading when this election is all said and done is the way that these polls are weighted for party break-down. Ras uses something like a 45 Dem, 30 Rep 25 Ind breakdown for party identification, even in states like MO, VA, FL, etc. That makes no sense at all. I understand that the Republican name is damaged (as well it should be ya bunch of RINOs) but the fact is that this country is still pretty much a 50/50 country. You can’t honestly expect that weight to hold up for the generals do you? If it doesn’t, Obama is in real trouble, because even with a heavily weighted poll he is basically within MOE everywhere.
June 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
I’m not out to offend anyone. Its just a personal observation.
But it blows my mind how at every election how people start throwing these numbers around at this early stage of the game.
I’ve seen enough elections to know that all this matters not so much right now.
There are so many variations of applications and systems that are used in taking polls that after a while it just becomes a mind numbing clusterf**k of irrelevance.
I understand that its a means to gauge what people are thinking.
But when I see people getting into battles where they start throwing these numbers back and forth as ammo it gives me a little chuckle.
My moonbat mother was deeply upset when I moved to the right back in the late 90s.
So upset that she bought me a subscription to newsweek saying that I needed to be better informed.
That was probably about 15 years ago and I still get one in the mail every week
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Rasmussmen’s latest daily tracking poll now has Obama up by 7. Remember all the talk about how the long primary was destroying the Democrats?
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I am having fun watching you guys hope/imagine/fantasize that you might actual win. Give it up! A yellow dog would beat the Republicans in this election. Save you energy until 2012.
June 23rd, 2008 at 1:42 am
truth is mcains got 6 million the gop is broke they got all those house seats to defend and senate seats to defend and no money they are out broke skint aint got a razoo a nicle man thats the gop and mcain and thats the truth .
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 am
mcain the mavrick what a myth that is hes no mavrick waht a joke the mavrick thats just a media myth not supported by the facts. mcain is nothing more than a great pandara he will say anything to what ever audience he is talking to at the time . told gop conservitives he wants conservitives he told hillary dclintons estranged suportors he wants libral judges on the supreme court. hes juat a pandra no mavrick at all . obama 08 .
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:48 am
Bernard.
Sounds like you’re right in the loop.
Fruit loop.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 am
He’s a trufer.