Now that the nomination campaign business is over - there are a trickle of straight match polls coming in - and some of the results are not what McCain and the GoP would have hoped for.

The LA TImes reports a Gallup poll giving Obama a 62%-29% lead against McCain amongst Latino voters - one of the groups which had previously been touted by the Clinton Camp as having a problem with Obama

Rasmussen have a poll in the state of Missouri showing Obama ahead of McCain there for the first time in 2008, by 1%. The poll represents a fall from the 2004 result of more than 10% for the GoP, and shows a loss of 7% in McCain support from the last Rasmussen poll - making Missouri a competitive state for both candidates.

Most of the big pollster firms will have polls coming out over the weekend - so it should be interesting to see which way they'll be going.

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Like I've said, all those polls are useless.

The youth may say they support Obama, but they won't go vote anyway.
The older folks say they support McCain, and they ALWAYS vote.

On top of this, Obama's supposed minority advantage isn't a true advantage anyway, all of those black voters that say they support Obama would have voted Democrat anyway.

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Economic Left/Right: -2.12 | Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21

In 2004 you would have been right, the youth never turned out for John Kerry...and can you blame them?
But they have been turning out for Obama in the primaries.

The third presumption is VERY false, black turnout has never reached it's full poitental, ever, because alot of it was in states repubicans were presumed to be able to win and democrats never campagned hard in anyway.


It's also WAY to early to be reading too much into head to head polls, interesting, but take them with a grain of salt.

I know there was a massive backlash against the republican patraitism attack ads in the special elections during the primaries and it meant all 3 republicans who used them lost, but keep in mind the GOP attack machine hasn't gone to work on Obama yet, and neither of them have chosen running mates

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I would expect to see Obama at least ten points ahead in head to head polling in the next ten days after Clinton endorses at weekend and they hold some joint campaign stops. Anything less than ten would be a little worrying for Obama even at this early stage given the magnitude of the economic and geopolitical fundamentals which favor Democrats. That said I agree polls at this stage should have a health warning remember Dukakis and his 17 point lead in '88

All I remember was a guy called Willy Horton who was a black killer who I think reoffended while on bail or parole, race card played effectively.

To be fair to McCain nothing in his record up to now would suggest he would encourage using Obama's race against him but will he actively prevent those around him from using it?

Google the term 527 group and you'll realze even if he wanted to stop them he could not,

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Up to this point Obama has got ten times as much media attention as McCain, so if Obama wasn't ahead he'd be screwed.

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"If we do not act until we know the answers to all possible questions, we shall never act, we shall never achieve the certainty for which we have been waiting, and we shall be swept along by events which we have forfeited the power to control". Jean Monnet, 1952

I was bit surprised McCain criticized group that was using Rev Wright against Obama, of course it was probably an exercise in proving he is against negative campaigning but i think Wright is a legitimate issue as Obama has cited him as a major influence on him in the past.

He was used as an issue in three special elections to the House, in all threee cases the republican lost, and one of the losses was the district of the former republican speaker

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