Gallup Tracking Poll Thread [Obama vs McCain]

[TomC]

Amazing numbers; any ideas on why Obama's suddenly jumped ahead the last few days?

Is it at least comortable underneath that rock?

Serious answer is the market, which has cooled (did it end the week up?).

I'll comment on this as well, even though I don't like to do that very much.

The market is probably the majority of the reason, but I also think Palin is losing some of her momentum in this campaign. She had the blip in the interview in which she wasn't clear on the Bush Doctrine and now there's this issue with her husband not testifying in the state trooper scandal. She's supposed to be the biggest asset McCain has in his campaign, but it's not showing right now. The Market thing will pass (hopefully there won't be another thing like this happen for Mac's sake) but as small as these two incidents are, this could be the more drastic long term issue. Republicans everywhere better hope a pattern isn't developing.

Without Palin, McCain never would have taken the lead.

What I can't understand is with Obama taking complete command of the race, why is there all this whining about racism doing him in?  He and his surrogates (mainstream media) really do think he's the Messiah and he is entitled to win, having to expend little to no effort.  The guy has NOTHING to complain or be worried about.  His beyond favorable...more like fawning...coverage by the MSM is probably good for 2-3 pts that he wouldn't have if he was covered like a mere mortal.

The GOP convention would have still given McCain a decent boost without Palin; might've even given him a smaller but more lasting boost if his message of bipartisanship wasn't undercut by the tones of others' speeches.

I agree that Obama shouldn't complain about racism. Though the "messiah" thing from the right is wearing just as thin.

I disagree Obama is in complete command of the race. I only recall one poll with him at 50%, and none with him over 50%. No one has really held a commanding lead in a Presidential race since 1996.

[TomC]

The financial markets have not truly recovered. We may be able to see how they are going to recover, erasing some of the fears of early in the week.

But the markets weren't just stock prices going up and down, that's just the visible reaction to the credit crisis and failure of some financial companies. The markets are reacting to news that not only impacts the prices of those stocks but they looked ahead to the macroeconomic impact over the next six or so months. The pain is far from over. Big layoffs begin next week.

If indeed last week held a long or intermediate bottom, it's likely we'll retest that bottom. Bottoms are often a "W" not just a "V." There's still tons of uncertainty out there to cause uncertainty in the market, including, even moreso now, the Nov 4 electon itself.

There's also the decent possibility we haven't even seen the bottom. After 9/11, stocks mostly dropped for the year following, the bottom being in Oct 2002.

I'm sure many are aware of all this; I've just seen repeated comments about the "recovery" in the stock markets on Thurs and Fri, and it seemed people felt it would only get better from here. I'm not your typical "gloom and doom" on the economy Democrat.  But recent events are a once-in-a generation economic crisis. This could seriously get worse before it gets better.