More Polls: AZ Prez Race Tight!

We saw the Obama campaign’s “Rear View,” a negative ad targeting John McCain, on KVOA, Channel 4, this evening, so it appears Barack Obama is not just running the positive ad “Something” in Arizona.

Meanwhile, a Mason-Dixon poll released today shows Obama trailing McCain by just four points.

You have to consider the source, but Daily Kos commissioned a poll that shows Obama within one point of McCain and ahead among early voters. That sounds a little optimistic to us, but we still think the close race helps Democrats in down-ballot races.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com calls Obama’s big ad buy “irrational exuberance”:

I have to say that I’m not a big fan of this from standpoint of marginal electoral strategy. A slew of recent polls in Arizona show the state close, by margins ranging from 1 to 8 points. However, this is the time of year when “close” means something very different from “functionally tied”. A 3-to-5 point lead in a state, which is where the Arizona polls average out, is fairly significant at this stage of the contest. That lead still belongs to John McCain.

And needless to say, it is hard to elucidate a scenario in which Arizona serves as some sort of tipping point state. Obama will not perform better in Arizona than in

“Something” Happening Here: Obama Team Calls Arizona “Functionally Tied”

Here’s an ad you’ll be seeing a lot of in the next few days. The Obama campaign announced this morning that they believed they had “a real shot in Arizona” and would be making a major buy to run “Something,” a positive spot that’s getting play in other battleground states.

One Obama staffer, playfully borrowing language from the McCain campaign, called the Arizona race “functionally tied.”

They’re splashing some cold water on the idea that Arizona is in play over at Nate Silver’s excellent Fivethirtyeight.com.

Obama himself will not be making a visit here, according to Jon Carson, the campaign’s national field director.

As long as it’s Halloween, we thought we’d bring you this ad, just because it has robots in it.

Cronkite-Eight Poll: Arizona Prez Race “A Toss-Up”

A fourth poll in Arizona shows a tight race between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

The Cronkite-Eight Poll shows that 46 percent of voters surveyed said they were supporting McCain, while 44 percent said they were backing Obama.

Three other recent polls have shown McCain losing support among Arizona voters.

Poll director Dr. Bruce Merrill:

“The race in Arizona is very close. Supporters of both candidates are highly committed to their candidates, with 94 percent of Obama’s supporters and 93 percent of McCain’s supporters indicating that they are firmly committed and won’t change their mind before Election Day. In addition, the undecided vote is very low, which means that there are few people remaining to be persuaded during the last week of the campaign. Obama has been closing the gap by attracting independents and women to his campaign. McCain does well among conservative Democrats and evangelicals. Still, a week is a long time in a political campaign and anything can happen. Who wins will be determined by which candidate gets their supporters out to the polls on Election Day.”

Merrill notes that 62 percent of Arizonans believe that Obama will win on Election Day, while just 20 percent believe McCain will make a comeback.

The poll also shows that 51 percent of the voters surveyed opposed Prop 105, aka Majority Rules, while just 27 percent support it. If passed by voters, the proposition would require that future initiatives that raise taxes would require a majority of all registered voters, not just the ones who bother to vote in the election.

Three Polls: Obama Closes Gap With McCain in AZ

Three polls in the last few days show that Democrat Barack Obama is closing in on Republican John McCain right here in Arizona.

A Rasmussen Reports survey released today shows a five-percentage-point gap between the candidates, with 51 percent of voters supporting McCain and 46 percent Obama.

That’s a staggering drop from a Rasmussen poll released late last month, which showed McCain with a 21-percentage-point lead. In that survey, 59 percent of voters were supporting McCain and just 38 percent were supporting Obama.

The Rasmussen survey comes after the release of a poll commissioned by Project New West, which shows that 48 percent of voters are supporting McCain and 44 percent are supporting Obama.

The survey of 600 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minor 4 percent.

Finally, local pollster Carol Zimmerman has released a poll that shows that 43.5 percent of voters back McCain, while 41.5 percent support Obama.

The Zimmerman poll showed that Obama clobbering McCain by roughly 19 points in Pima County, 53.5 percent to 34.9 percent.

Napolitano on Joe the Plumber

We asked Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano about the story of Joe the Plumber today while she was on a campaign stop to motivate Southern Arizona Democrats.

Napolitano said the plumber’s story about planning to buy a business wasn’t holding much water and he appeared to be the kind of citizen who would benefit more under an Obama administration.

“McCain’s been a senator for 26 years and I haven’t seen him help a ‘Joe the Plumber’ yet,” she said.

Speaking of benefiting from an Obama administration, we asked Napolitano if she would be sticking around the state or moving to Washington, D.C., if Obama were to win the presidency.

“I’m not looking for another job,” Napolitano said.

But that’s no guarantee she wouldn’t take one if an offer were to come along…

New AZ Polls: McCain Pulls Ahead While Lead Narrows

Two new polls released today give us completely opposite pictures of the presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama in Arizona.

A Cronkite-Eight Poll says that Obama is closing in on our senior senator. There’s only a 7 percentage point gap between the candidates, according to pollster Bruce Merrill.

From the Cronkite-Eight press release:

Republican John McCain maintains a 7-percent lead (45 percent to 38 percent) over Democrat Barack Obama in Arisona, according to a new Cronkite/Eight Poll conducted Sept. 25-28. The statewide poll of 976 registered voters also found that Independent candidate Ralph Nader received 1 percent and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney each received less than 1 percent of the vote. Sixteen percent were undecided. Last month, the poll found that McCain led by 10 percent with 40 percent of the vote, while Obama drew 30 percent, Nader drew 2 percent, Barr had 1 percent and 27 percent undecided.

But Rasmussen Reports released a poll today that shows McCain has opened up a 21-percentage-point lead over Obama here in Arizona:

John McCain, in his home state of Arizona, now has a 21-point lead over Barack Obama, the biggest gap yet in the race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds McCain leading 59% to 38%. In late July, the Arizona Republican had a 16-point lead and only led by nine a month earlier.

McCain has a dominating 59% to 40% lead among unaffiliated voters in Arizona. He also leads 63% to 36% among men and 55% to 41% among women.

They can’t both be right…

Napolitano at DNC: “LET’S DO IT!”

Yesterday was a busy but exciting day. We were bombarded with speeches and differing opinions throughout the day but one that remained constant was that AZ is mobilizing for Obama and that AZ is in a very good spot to push the Obama agenda. Everyone in the AZ delegation believed that it’s quite possible to turn AZ into an Obama state.

We started the morning by attending the AZ State Delegation breakfast. I sat at a table with Prescott delegates, many of whom expressed their stories of getting involved with AZ politics. As I picked the brains of these knowledgeable and welcoming delegates, a man approached the podium to introduce Jim Pederson, Co-Chair of the AZ Delegation. Pederson spoke briefly and commended AZ’s diversity and tribal leadership.

The next speaker was highly enthusiastic about making AZ blue. Governor Janet Napolitano took the podium and expressed her feelings about bringing Denver back to AZ.

“All conventions share a

New KAET Poll: McCain Leads in Arizona

The latest Cronkite/Eight Poll shows that Arizona Sen. John McCain continues to lead in his home state, although the numbers are significantly lower than a Rasmussen poll taken at the end of July.

The survey shows that McCain has the support of 40 percent of those surveyed, Obama has the support of 30 percent, Ralph Nader has the support of 2 percent and Libertarian Bob Barr has the support of less than 1 percent. About 28 percent are undecided.

It appears that Obama’s supporters are more inclined to like their choice than McCain’s supporters are. (We call that the lesser-of-evils scale.) Pollster Bruce Merrill notes that 30 percent of McCain supporters say they’ll vote Republican because they don’t like Obama, while only 16 percent of Obama supporters say they’ll vote Democratic because they don’t like McCain.

Here’s the release on the poll:

TEMPE, Ariz. ––Republican Sen. John McCain continues to lead Democratic challenger Sen. Barack Obama by 10 percentage points in Arizona, according to a new Cronkite/Eight Poll conducted August 14-16. The statewide poll of 402 registered voters found that 40 percent support McCain, 30 percent favor Obama, 2 percent support independent candidate Ralph Nader and less than 1 percent will vote for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr. Twenty-eight percent were undecided.

The undecided vote is surprisingly high for this late

A Burger With Obama

So I had two goals I wanted to accomplish when I set out for my vacation in the foreign and exotic land known as Hawaii: Catch up with Barack Obama and learn to surf.

I accomplished the first one when I walked into Kua Aina Sandwich Shop and Obama was in front of me in line. He told me to go ahead of him because he didn’t know what he wanted yet. How elitist is that? Not knowing what you want to order? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he had Swiss cheese on his burger.

I passed up Obama’s offer to go ahead of him because I was waiting for Jennifer to park the car. By the time I got around to ordering, I was told by the guy behind the counter that he got the last avocado, so I couldn’t have one on my burger! I had to settle for a pineapple.

The Secret Service guys had all caught the Aloha spirit–they were decked out in casual wear rather than the dark suits. One of them kept telling me I was standing in the wrong place while I was snapping my photos. I thought about asking him some of the questions that Travis Bickle asked the Secret Service guys in Taxi Driver, but figured it would just get me detained.

The burgers, by the way, were great. We headed to another branch of Kua Aina on the North Shore the next day, but there was no sign of Obama.

I did see some footage of him body-surfing on the news last night. I’ll bet you won’t see John McCain doing something that undignified during his campaign.

And, in case you care, I did learn how to surf today, though I’m not ready for any 30-footers yet.

Covering Obama: Is The Media Biased?

The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.

—H.L. Mencken

Mencken probably would have been horrified by the crowd of journalists who attended Barack Obama’s talk on Sunday, July 27, at UNITY ’08, the largest conference for journalists of color in the United States.

Despite pre-emptive calls for restraint and professionalism, a huge crowd of black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and white journalists gave Obama a standing and screaming ovation as he took the floor in his hometown of Chicago just after his tour of the Middle East and Europe.

The hall was less than half full but overflowing with support. When Obama took the stage at 11 a.m., wearing a tan suit with a red tie and an American flag pin, the crowd gave the candidate a loud, warm welcome.

Obama fielded a series of questions about Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy and religion. The journalists in the crowd groaned at some of the tougher questions and cheered, applauded and laughed at some of Obama’s responses. During CNN’s commercial break, when the audience was allowed to take pictures, the auditorium looked like the inside of a high-speed strobe light.

After the interview concluded, Obama stepped off the stage to shake hands with the media. The crowd rushed the stage as if the headlining band at a rock show had just played their first note.

“He really is a rock star,” said one journalist rushing toward the stage.

As the weak barrier between Obama and the crowd wobbled and shifted