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I figured that Obama would run away with the election, as he had been ahead the whole time, and still held a lead after both conventions.

But, today, Gallup has McCain leading nationwide 48% to 45%.

I wonder where this latest bounce came from...

It's Sunday. All the God worshipers are out in force.

People worry that Obama's not ready for prime time.  And while people have the same worry about Palin, she MAY only lead the nation someday if voted in, whereas Obama WILL lead the nation.  Plus, the guy's very new on the scene.  Nobody knowa anything about him.  He has 60 days to make a stronger impression than "wow, he's inspiring".

Again, I'm always wrong, but -- I don't think that's it.

I don't think the experience thing is as much of an issue.  People who are rallying behind that cause were going to rally behind the GOP candidate anyway.  ...and Obama's not getting any less experienced....why is the number shifting now.  If experience was an issue, you'd think it'd would've shown up before now.

I think it's a perception of taxes.  People think Obama is going to raise their taxes, I guess.  ...at least in the circles I talk to.

Well, let me tell ya Dave, my wife would have voted Hillary in 3 seconds flat, but is unlikely to vote Obama because she distrusts his experience.  As for the tax thing, I worry about it a bit because I don't see how 5% of taxpayers are going to make up for the other 95%.  I think I need to see a lot more on this before I can bless his tax plan (it's my thing, as you know).

I don't know what you mean by "5% has to make up for 95%".

I saw a graph on the news the other day (which I cannot reproduce) and it showed the tax payment for both Obama and McCain, for varying tax brackets.

They were basically the same for everyone under 250K/year.  Above that number, the rate increased exponentially as you made more money with Obama's plan, but kept steady with McCain's plan.

If you're making 2.3 million or more, the taxes were drastically different -- something like 100K for McCain and 700K for Obama.

You may think that's unfair -- and that's fine -- but it's not a "make up for the other 95%" type situation.  Obama's plan will just bring in more money, from the pockets of 250K+.  Below that, the tax breaks are the same.

I mean that Obama has stated he would cut taxes for the middle class and poor.  The numbers I hear the talking heads spout over and over again is that Obama's tax increases would affect only the top 5% wage earners.  If this is so (I've seen no graphics) I don't know how those 5% will make up for the cuts (or no change) in tax liabilities of the other 95% of taxpayers.

As for the numbers you mention, a person earning $2.3 million in 2008 (ordinary income) would pay approximately $776,000 in taxes (before deductions and credits).  That's current law.  Maybe it was $700K McCain and $1M Obama?
I don't know.

Current tax brackets for businesses and individuals (if you're curious)

  http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html (http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html)

If you make 2.3 million per year, you can afford to pay taxes.  If you make $35k a year, you can't afford to pay rent.

That's neither here nor there.  I'm not asking for a defense of his tax program; I'm just saying that I think if you cut taxes on 95% of people and only raise it on 5% (which, according to Wiki, are people making over $167,500 and up...link>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Income)) you won't make up the difference in revenues lost.  Now, I could be wrong, but that's what I think.  I also think that any gains in income tax would not help unless there's a corresponding cut in spending.  A DEEP cut in spending, which I've only seen McCain promise (not that it means it'll happen).

In theory yes, but in the reality of our current complicated tax-system, no.  People who make more than $250,000 can afford accountants who know all the loopholes.   Those in your $2.3 mil example will gladly pay $100,000 to accountants before they pay $600,000 to the government.

In addition, Obama's whole reasoning for raising taxes on the rich is fairness, not revenue.  He said so.  When it was brought to his attention that raising taxes might lower revenues he repeated, (paraphrasing), "It's not the revenue, it's an issue of fairness."

As far as income tax goes, REAL fairness would be a flat tax in which everyone pays the same percentage.  Even better would be the consumption tax idea that Frimp has talked about.  People who buy just the basics wouldn't pay tax.  People who buy more would.

Again,

When the government lowers income taxes, tax revenues rise.

Tax Cuts vs. Government Revenue

In each of the last three cuts in marginal tax rates, revenues received by the U.S. Treasury have increased. Coolidge cut income tax rates in the 1920s, Kennedy cut marginal income tax rates in the 1960s, and Reagan cut them in the 1980s.

Under Coolidge, marginal income tax rates were cut from the top rate of 73% to 24%. The economy rewarded this policy by expanding 59% from 1921 to 1929. Revenues received by the federal treasury increased from $719 million in 1921 to more than $1.1 billion 1929. That's a 61% increase (there was zero inflation in this period). Growth averaged more than six percent annually.

Under Kennedy, marginal income tax rates were cut from a top rate of 91% to 70%. In real dollar terms, the economy grew by 42%, an average of 5 percent a year from 1961 to 1965. Tax revenue to the U.S. Treasury increased by 62%. Adjusted for inflation, they rose by one-third.

Under Reagan, marginal income tax rates were cut from a top of 70% to 28%. Revenues (from all taxes) to the U.S. Treasury nearly doubled. According to the Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 1997, Office of Management and Budget. Revenues increased from roughly $500 billion in 1980 to $1.1 trillion in 1990.

In each case, the personal income taxes paid by "the rich" increased when their tax rates were cut.

I misspoke...the 100K thing I estimated was a difference.

Here is the exact clip that I saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbxpMw4mco

It explains the difference.  Everyone gets tax cuts ...but once you get to over 2 million, you start paying out the ass.

Which is why they probably pay $0 net income tax.

38% of income earning Americans pay $0 income tax.  Under Obama that will allegedly go the 50%.
 

Seriously...wow.  I can see a jump in expatriations if this happens (people renouncing U.S. citizenship).

To get back to the original question, these polls mean crap anyway. A pollster can get any result they want by simply knowing where to target the people they poll. That's why.

the polling will change after the debates if obama isn't a pussy.  if he goes into the debates and keeps calling mccain "george the second" then you'll see the polling change .. if he's overly polite .. you'll see him getting killed.

why anyone would vote for four more years of bush is beyond me .. at least with a 80% negatives on his approval rating .. how would the 30% of people that dissaprove of bush end up justifying voting for mccain is beyond my comprehension.

also nationwide polling is worthless .. we don't tally nationwide vote counts to elect the president .. obama leads in every swing state .. who cares if 80% of montana doesn't like him .. he doesn't need to win montana .. all he needs is 50.1% of florida, penn, ohio, michigan and that's all she wrote

QFT.  It was in 1936 I believe that Literary Digest magazine polled several million voters and then predicted former Kansas Governor Alfred M. Landon would defeat incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The actual results were very different as Roosevelt won by a landslide. 

And that pales in comparison to the famous headline "Dewey defeats Truman"

McCain got a nice bounce from the convention and his trophy VP ;). We still have weeks of campaigning and debates to go through. If McCain does not improve how he talks, Obama could kill him in the debates. I think a debate between Biden and Palin would be a wash.

Also how the phrase the question.  For example in one poll

"As mayor she obtained 27 million dollars in federal funding for projects in her town of about 7,000 people"

32% more favorable
19 % less favorable
48% no change
1% unsure.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm

32% were impressed with the accomplishment and only 19% went holy sh!t thats a lot of pork.

I bet I could rephrase that question so less favorable wins.

Also the problem with these polls are there are huge demographics that no longer own landlines (they don't poll folks who only own a cell phone)

Too bad "Mayors and governors don't allocate pork, congressmen do" wasn't one of the choices.

 ;)

That would be a real dumb response to a question about what she did as MAYOR. 

The fact remains, as a mayor the only money she was in charge of was her own budget.  She may have requested pork from the state or federal government but it was their choice to give it.

Many feel that it's a congressman's job to deliver the pork, especially those on the left who usually favor bigger government and more spending.  Is this just MORE hypocrisy on your part? 

Why are you ignoring McCain's pork spending?  Please expose that since he's the one we're actually voting for/against. 

What about Obama's?  As reported in the Seattle Times:

Obama's 2007 Defense earmarks: $3,300,000
2001-07 Campaign contributions from earmark recipients: $97,250

Obama's 2007 earmarks were $97.4 MILLION dollars. Obama's 2008 earmarks total more than $330 million dollars in taxpayer funds.

Earlier this year, Obama made dozens of additional earmark requests. More than half a dozen requests were meant for clients of a lobbying and law firm whose partners have donated more than $38,000 to Obama in the past two years.

Obama requested $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center to help pay for construction of a new pavilion. The very hospital Michelle Obama worked at.

Just a few months before he joined the presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored a little-noticed proposal to require the Pentagon to spend $2 million on brain trauma research for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The beneficiary of this earmark from him and Sen. Richard J. Durbin was undeniably close to home: the University of Chicago Medical Center, again, the same hospital his wife worked for.

Hoodie/Run, There are other threads for talk about Palin's work as governor/mayor/whatever.  Please don't derail this thread.



McCain got another bounce today, and now leads by 5 points.

^^^ you really have goal to take every discussion off course don't you.

The point of my post was that with a little bit of tweaking I could radically change the outcome of the answer.

And that is one of the inherent flaws of poll data. 

Curious, I don't remember you ever bringing this up while Obama was up in the polls. 

The bounce is from the convention these numbers usually take a week to take effect. Basically O'Bama had no bounce but where McCain went with Palin it gave him national headlines and a bounce. These numbers don't mean anything at this point and the polls depending on the one you are using are slanted to a certain candidate.
Example CNN will do a poll with a huge O'Bama lead then Fox will do one with McCain with a big lead, depends on the questions they ask and who they call.

I don't remember a thread about polling data accuracy before this one. 

And national popular vote poll is only marginally relevant, which is why I don't pay much attention to it no matter who is winning.   You don't get elected by winning the popular vote, what matters is the electoral vote.  This game is like watching football and ignoring the score and only paying attention to which team had the most yards.  They may be the same, but they may not be. 

As much as nobody here wants to admit to it or even discuss........Race has alot to do with it as well. America is just not ready for a Black President. They should have started by electing him as a vice President first. As an incumbent VP in 8 years it may have been different. Seeing 50 Cent and P Diddy out in full force campaigning for Obama doesn't help either...........

These observations are very much interconnected: (link (http://www.hecklerspray.com/diddy-offers-his-thundering-political-insight-into-sarah-palin/200815902.php))

You forgot Ludicrous  :P (link (http://www.236.com/blog/w/kevin_allocca/this_week_in_rap_music_ludacri_1_8046.php)).

The videos have been removed from you-tube but the stories are still available.


"Alaska? Alaska? Alaska. Al- come on man. I don't even know if there's any black people in Alaska."

"Alaska muther****er?"

You are right, and I am sure Mc Caine's pork allocations will be all laid out in glaring detail, even more than the billions that us taxpayers ate due to his buddies in the old S & L scandal a couple decades ago. But to answer your remark about mayors not having anything to do with pork, Palin was a big supporter of the Bridge to Nowhere when she was mayor, and only after the massive outcry over it, did she change her stance once elected.

Com on The Eskimo's need a Minority to vote for!!   ;D


Seriously though........these Rapper Pee Brains have no Idea how they are hurting Obama instead of helping him. Same goes for Jesse and Al Sharpton,  and remember Obama's personal Preacher? This is the guy that Obama went to for years , he brought his entire family to that guys church and listened to him..........and this guy is calling the White man the devil and stuff.   ::)(Shaking my head) If your a middle aged white man in America this kinda stuff scares the shit out of you just thinking about having someone surrounded by these assholes in the white house. We know of course Obama is not really connected with them and he has severed all ties with that Preacher and even has publicly put down Black fathers in order to make up for any Ties people might think he has............but its just not enough. Not yet anyway. America just ain't ready for it.

Agreed.  That's why their outlandish comments don't scare me or make me cringe. 

The conservative version of George Soros (moveon.org) couldn't get someone to parade as an Obama supporter and do the same amount of damage to Obama as these celebrities no matter how much he paid them.  That's undoubtedly why their videos have been removed.  Those who would be positively influenced by them don't seem as likely to vote.

I saw the Puff Daddy thing.  That was pretty embarrassing.

Obama is probably sitting at home wishing all of his Black support would just go away so the white folk would just vote him in........... :P