PPP NC/OH polls to be released tonight; Obama surging past 2008 margins

[pbrower2a]

These numbers appear to me much better than they may appear on the surface. You have a wider margin than the margin was in 2008 with a D+4 sample, as opposed to a D+8 sample. Could we see an 8-10 point MoV for Obama if turnout if D+8 this year? Perhaps Slick Willie's sweet nothings wafted into the ears of some of those SEOH blue-collar folk.

To paraphrase John McCain, the fundamentals of the Democratic Party are strong.

If that (southeast Ohio) is where President Obama made his gains, then Mitt Romney may be collapsing in some places where conventional wisdom has assumed that President Obama just could not win. Bill Clinton has much credibility in Appalachia and the Ozarks.

This is an election in which both Presidential and VP nominees of the two main parties are unambiguous d@mnyankees. Bill Clinton did far better than Gore, Kerry, or Obama in the Mountain South.  Southeastern Ohio is much more like West Virginia than like southern Michigan.

[pbrower2a]

What is everyone going nuts about. He gained a point in NC and 2 in Ohio, at the height of his convention bounce. I think PPP got ahead of themselves based on nigh one numbers. Based on that, Romney probably did much better nights two and three

North Carolina and Ohio may be close to max-out conditions to President Obama at this point, parallel to Indiana in 2008. Whether these gains can last is indeterminate.

We need remember that Bill Clinton came close to stealing the show at the Democratic Convention. Many Americans look fondly upon the Clinton era, a time before the political disaster of 2001-2008. I have yet to believe that Bill Clinton was a great President, but I also recognize that he got oodles of votes that seem off limits to the current President. Clinton twice won five states in an arc from Louisiana to West Virginia -- states that Barack Obama lost by huge margins (10%+) in 2008. Clinton won Missouri twice, and Obama barely lost it -- and southern Missouri is much like West Virginia. The difference between Barack Obama winning Missouri and losing it is that President Obama fared badly in the part of Missouri more like West Virginia than like Iowa.

It has been hard to see how President Obama could pick up the Clinton-but-not-Obama vote... but Bill Clinton may be make more of a difference in states that have been considered off the table.