Susan Estrich was the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential run. She is a leading Democratic Party strategist. In this interview, she finds that between concerns over Senator Obama’s inexperience and over outrage from the overt sexism now being hurled at Governor Palin perhaps a third of former Clinton supporters will bolt for McCain. She cites the recently announced endorsement of Washington attorney John Coale as but one example as to why Democrats are backing the Republican ticket.

Return to Main

This ad was released in late June and ran in the Cincinnati market. It has been re-released to run in Dallas, Atlanta and Colorado. The ad is a 30 second spot and is produced by the conservative Family Research Council that is led by Tony Perkins who appears in the ad.

Return to Main

A new ad from the McCain campaign with clips from the Dayton, Ohio rally where she was introduced as McCain’s running mate. The ad is a 60 second spot and is set to run nationwide during the Republican National Convention.

Return to Main

Survey USA hasn’t released any new state polls in over a week, so I am limited to the national polls which frankly aren’t as interesting nor as telling as local polls. At the end of the day, this race will be decided in the battleground states. Still having said this, the polls (Rasmussen Reports, CBS News, and Gallup) today all point to a widening lead for Senator Obama and significantly outside the margin of error.

I covered the Rasmussen Reports poll earlier today running my favorability ratio analysis. To sum that one up, McCain’s numbers did not change at all but Obama’s numbers did improve slowly and steadily after the Clintons gave their speeches and as the argument that McCain is more of the same took hold. Movement in Obama’s direction began on August 28th and picked up over the next two days and is now holding steady.

Here’s the Gallup Poll:

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, finds Barack Obama leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date. Fully half of national registered voters now favor Obama for president, while 42% back John McCain.

(more…)

Time to update the favorability ratio.

The Lemos Favorability Ratio
One of the tools that we use on Wall Street to measure movement is by expressing data as a ratio and then tracking the movement of the basis points. A basis point is a unit that is equal to 1/100th of 1%, and is used to denote the change in any financial instrument. The basis point is commonly used for calculating changes in interest rates, equity indexes and the yield of a fixed-income security. The relationship between percentage changes and basis points can be summarized as follows: 1% change = 100 basis points, and 0.01% = 1 basis point. Tracking any movement is possible and movements can be very clearly delineated. Last week I decided to track both Senator Obama’s Favorable versus Unfavorable ratings as well as Senator McCain’s Favorable versus Unfavorable ratings. I take the the favorable rating and divide by the unfavorable rating to get a ratio which I have named the Lemos Favorability Ratio.

I am using Rasmussen Reports Daily Tracking Poll as my raw data. Rasmussen Reports is putting out a daily tracking poll with the national favorability versus unfavorability percentages. Their data extends back to June 4, 2008 and I have created a weekly Excel spreadsheet tracking the data. Here’s that data broken out by candidate and then a side-by-side comparison of the Lemos Favorability ratio is below the fold along with data from a recent poll in Colorado.

McCain Favourable versus Unfavourable Ratings Nationwide

Takeaway
In terms of the ratio, you want a higher number. The higher the number the greater the spread between your favorable and unfavorable ratings. For McCain, this is good news. As of right now he is enjoying the highest number to date, 1.36 in the favorability ratio showing no change over last week (though as we shall see, he did dip during the week only to recover). But as McCain held steady, Obama recovered.

Obama Favourable versus Unfavourable Ratings Nationwide

Takeaway
Again in terms of the ratio, you want a higher number. The higher the number the greater the spread between your favorable and unfavorable ratings. As of last week, Obama was at his nadir, 1.18 in the favorability ratio but now he is at his zenith at 1.41 gaining basis points during the week. Obama’s previous peak was in late June/early July with a 1.33 favorability ratio. He is eight basis points higher now. It was a very good week for Senator Obama.
(more…)

Hurricane Gustav’s impact has already been felt throughout the Caribbean where it has killed at least 94 people, mostly in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cuba have also suffered massive damage. This report from Al Jazeera looks at the impact of Hurrican Gustav on the US Gulf Coast but also looks at the uptick in both the number and the strength of tropical storms (hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons) and what it means for coastal communities across the world.

Return to Main

I am more interested in what you think especially comparing the Anderson Cooper interview of Senator Obama in the previous post.

Return to Main

Watching this interview, I got the impression that both CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Senator Obama think that Obama is already President. In the interview, Obama takes credit for the recommendations that led to reforms at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). He calls for wetlands restoration, not a bad idea but he likely isn’t aware the Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed a $1 billion wetland restoration project into law on August 13th. It is interesting to see Anderson Cooper run through his series of questions that purport to show that Obama in command of the situation. I’ve talked to Secretary Chertoff, spoken with local authorities, I passed this law, recommended this and we need to do this that and the other. Cooper then asks him if he has enough experience to handle a disaster like this. Talk about a set up. The other funny part is that he intentionally mispronounces Governor Palin’s home town calling it Wasilly.

Return to Main