Obama Left Town Hall with 80% Favorability

By: Josh
Published On: 10/8/2008 11:58:51 AM

Stan Greenberg polled voters about Obama's performance last night and found that They Liked Him, They Really Liked Him:

Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that's about where Obama started the evening-54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama's favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats.

This is an epic failure of the McCain strategy to brand as inexperienced and dangerous.  In fact, McCain may have run smack into the "I'm rubber, you're glue principle".

Overall, McCain's goals for the evening were to make Obama seem like a risky-perhaps even unpatriotic-figure, to paint him as a liberal extremist, and to pin him down on taxes. From the reactions of these undecided Denver voters, none of those efforts worked. Greenberg's assessment of the evening is a partisan one, but a plausible explanation for the lop-sided response. "McCain is just not wearing well with intense exposure," he says. "But Obama wears very well."

McCain has gone from "Hero and Maverick" to "Grumpy and Erratic".  Let the GOP death spiral continue all the way down.

Comments



That's nice, but....... (bamboo - 10/8/2008 1:07:41 PM)
I'm reassured that Obama did so well last night. But all these polls of undecideds at this late hour are frustrating as hell. Who are these people who are just discovering one of the most talented politicians in American history after campaigning for more than 18 months? They must be either very apathetic and inattentive voters or very stubborn ideologues not to have connected with this man until now. If these are the kind of citizens we're left to convince, so be it. But it's neither psychologically nor intellectually satisfying that the obvious has to be proven again and again before this country is ready to support the Obama-Biden ticket. It's merely one more exhausting hurdle in our weirdly designed representative democracy that has to be crossed.  


Welcome to American Politics (Josh - 10/8/2008 1:35:34 PM)
We're always in this situation, but Republicans understand it and have fought to convince middle-of-the-road Americans of their radical ideas for decades.  It's called the Overton window, and it's the job of partisans to fight for public opinion to expand our opportunities and give electeds the cover to pass our legislation.  The right has been at this for a generation, we're just catching on.

On issue after issue Americans who call themselves moderates are actually raging lefties, but again, the right wing noise machine has made Americans terrified to identifiy themselves as such.  This is the hate at the heart of concepts like Palin's "American Exceptionalism", and the true purpose of Hannity, O'Rielly, and Limbaugh.

What Democrats must understand is that even though we're right and America is with us on every issue of significance, the right has created a myth of American conservatism.  The "culture war" has been an exceptionally effective cudgel, and it has taken a market disaster of unprecedented scale, $8 Trillion in value lost in a single year, for Democrats to run an election on real issues.

There are some other key numbers, to watch, btw.

Party ID is going towards 40% for Democrats and dropping towards 30% for the bad guys.  This is good news.  If our party ID is in the low to mid 40s on election day (as measured by exit polls), it will be a sign that not only has Obama won a landslide, but that there is the will for a true governing majority with a mandate for change.

A landslide victory for Obama will merely be the beginning.  In order for Progressives and Democrats to rebuild America after the armageddon of American Conservatism, we must learn the lessons of the right.  That means, institution building, movement building, party building, issue advocacy, and a new commitment to partisanship for the sake of allowing candidates the cover to carry our policies.

Progressives must take up the fights so that Democrats can deliver the solutions Americans need.  Conservatism has been winning this battle for years and they have laid waste to the greatest nation in the history of the world.  We must hold them accountable, learn the lessons of their failures and never allow them the chance to regroup and foist their dangerous policies upon the world again.



Very well said (Teddy - 10/8/2008 2:51:07 PM)
Good comment, Josh. You are correct; when a question is carefully framed, or a policy presented, all without labelling it conservative or liberal, the majority of Americans of almost every age, color, and religion, immediately go for what is actually the progressive or liberal choice. There may be a quibble here or there on details, but Americans are indeed "liberal;" you just can't call them that. You are also correct in your final statement: "...never allow them the chance to regroup." I look at Obama's top advisers, most of whom are free market and free trade types, and remember how Clinton backed off his progressive stance during the campaign and turned into a free trade buff once he was in the Oval Office.

We have an incredible window to accomplish some really progressive reforms during the first 100-200 days of an Obama Administration, thanks to the meltdown of September-October '08. You can bet the Paulsons and free marketeers will be re-grouped and fighting for their kind of "reforms."



The undecideds (jbvgoode - 10/8/2008 1:31:18 PM)
Bamboo:  For an analysis of the undecideds you may want to watch last last night's installment of The Daily Show.

Josh:  I couldn't agree more with the idea that "Obama wears very well."  His calm demeanor and reasonable rhetoric may be a perfect match these turbulent times.  



Essential viewing (bamboo - 10/8/2008 3:59:57 PM)
Of course, I rarely miss TDS or Colbert. My question was rhetorical and goes to the point that we are in that phase of the campaign where a relatively small handful of unresponsive (I hesistate to say irresponsible, but that's how I feel about them) voters are holding the country hostage. But I like Josh's larger thesis. It explains the knee-jerk labelling that constantly goes on with the right, and to some extent on the left, too.
In asking his readers to consider what would happen should Obama win, a local Republican consultant here in Massachusetts lead off his op-ed column in the Boston Globe last week with the question "Would Obama be extremely liberal or only moderating liberal?" This is an example of that manipulative framing which tries to keep discourse focused on labels and away from issues and problems to be solved. It has been effective for too many years now.