Rasmussen Tracking Poll [Obama vs McCain]

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Obama will slaughter McCain in the debates? With what? A barrage of uhs and ums?

Yeah, he's pretty bad off script.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Note that her ready to be President numbers have dropped substantially from Friday. Now its 48%-29% no, a 19 point deficit compared to a 2% one on Friday. That is the number that is going to drive the McCain-Obama numbers, not Palin's favorables. People seem to view her as a nice lady who is maybe a bit too busy to be Vice President.

Be careful.  It does not necessarily follow that because someone is unready to be president that they are also unready to be vice president.  It would be hard for her favorables to be as high as they are if people didn't want her serving in any capacity.

Count me as one of the 48 percent who doesn't want her as president but thinks she'd do a fine job at being number two.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

2/3 of the sample were interviewed prior to the Palin speech; all were interviewed prior to the McCain speech.  This is going to get uglier for Obama before it gets better.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The debates won't hardly mean jack squat, since most people will watch them with already preconceived notions.
 
Didn't Kerry "win" all the debates against Bush 4 years ago?  A lot of good that did him.

It did indeed do him quite a bit of good. He was behind be a healthy margin going into the debates, and almost managed to pull off a comeback win, largely due to his performance in them.

McCain's lead now is smaller than Bush's was at this point 4 years ago.

Hopefully, McCain will focus more on his future as President than on his future as a wood salesman.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The assumptions that this race is over because one candidate has a 5 point lead over the other is more than a little amusing to me, especially given that we're over a month away from election day.