Obama Goes Negative

77 per cent of Mr Obama's ads in the past two weeks have been negative compared with 56 per cent of Mr McCain's, according to a University of Wisconsin analysis.

And it's working.


OBAMA WIPES OUT MCCAIN'S FLORIDA LEAD

BARACK Obama has gained ground on John McCain in key battleground states, wiping out the Republican's lead in Florida and trailing by just one point in North Carolina, according to a new CNN/Time poll.

The poll comes as other surveys show Mr Obama regaining his national lead over Mr McCain as the impact of Sarah Palin's selection as the Republican running mate appears to fade.

The CNN poll puts Mr Obama ahead by two points in Ohio and by three in Wisconsin, with Mr McCain leading by six points in Indiana. It shows the two candidates in a dead heat in Florida, with 48 per cent each.

Mr Obama's poll surge follows days of aggressive Democratic campaigning aimed at portraying Mr McCain as out of touch on the economy, which voters identify as the most important issue in the campaign.

A University of Wisconsin analysis found that 77 per cent of Mr Obama's ads in the past two weeks have been negative, compared with 56 per cent of Mr McCain's.

The two campaigns clashed yesterday over a Spanish-language ad in which Mr Obama linked Mr McCain's views on immigration to those of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance," the ad's announcer says as a picture of Mr Limbaugh appears on screen with quotes of him saying, "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out".

"John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families."

Mr McCain's campaign hit back, pointing out that the Republican braved the hostility of his party's base to back comprehensive immigration reform while Mr Obama backed Senate amendments that killed a bipartisan immigration Bill.

The McCain ticket came under friendly fire yesterday when Nebraska Republican senator Chuck Hagel said that Ms Palin lacked foreign policy experience and called it a "stretch" to say she was qualified to be president.

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

From The Irish Times

Denver Prepares For The Main Event

Check out the best reporting on the Democratic National Convention from Campaigns and Elections Blog live from Denver

CNN DNC Coverage

Article taken from Irish Times be Reuters

Democrats prepared a grand celebration today for Barack Obama, who will accept a historic presidential nomination with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

Mr Obama, the first black presidential nominee of a major US party, will deliver the address in Denver's open-air football stadium before 75,000 supporters on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech - a landmark in the US civil rights movement.

The televised speech by Mr Obama, who was formally nominated yesterday, will give the first-term Illinois senator his biggest national audience until he meets Republican rival John McCain in late September in the first of three face-to-face debates before the November 4th election.

In an unannounced appearance in the hall at the end of yesterday's national convention program, Mr Obama said he shifted the event to the football stadium as a tribute to the grass-roots energy of his supporters.

"We want to open up the convention to make sure that everybody who wants to come can join in the party," said Mr Obama (47) who appeared on stage after the acceptance speech of his newly minted running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden.

National conventions are often the first time voters start to pay attention to a presidential race. Opinion polls show many voters are still unfamiliar with Mr Obama and concerned about his readiness for the job.

Republicans, who hold their own convention in St Paul, Minnesota next week to nominate the veteran 71-year-old Mr McCain, hammered on their theme that Mr Obama is unprepared and his soaring speeches mask a lack of substance.

"The question for Obama is 'What have you done and what have you run?'," Minnesota Govenor Tim Pawlenty, named as a possible running mate for Mr McCain, said on ABC's Good Morning America . "He has good oratory but when you shut off the teleprompter there's not much there," he said.

Speakers at the Democratic convention have addressed those concerns, led by rousing testimonials for Mr Obama from former rival Hillary Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and Mr Biden.

"Barack Obama is ready to lead America and to restore American leadership in the world," Bill Clinton told flag-waving Democrats.

Mr Obama is running even with McCain in opinion polls. The back to back-to-back nominating conventions will give voters a chance to compare and contrast.

Mr Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters the speech would focus on Mr Obama's vision for the country's future.

"He's going to lay out a case for change. He's going to set the stakes of this election, the risks of continuing down the road we're on which is plainly what Senator McCain is offering," Mr Axelrod said.

Democrats tie Mr McCain's name to that of the unpopular President George W. Bush, whose eight years in power are associated with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and an economic malaise.

Some Democrats have said Mr Obama needs to be more specific about his priorities as president, and draw a sharp contrast with Mr McCain. Mr Axelrod said both elements would be included.

Republicans, seeking to draw attention away from the Democrats on their big day, tried to build up anticipation over Mr McCain's vice-presidential pick. A party official had said yesterday Mr McCain had made his choice, but the senator denied in an interview with KDKA NewsRadio in Pittsburgh today he had yet made a decision.

He did say, however, that two men considered potential running mates would join him at a rally in Ohio on Friday, his 72nd birthday, when the announcement is expected. They were former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.

If elected Mr McCain would be the oldest first-term president to take office.

Mr Obama was formally nominated on Wednesday in an emotional show of unity after Hillary Clinton, his vanquished rival, appeared on the convention floor to ask Democrats to suspend their roll call of the states and make Mr Obama the nominee by acclamation.

Former Vice President Al Gore will speak to the convention before Obama today. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic, will also make an appearance. Hispanics are a fast growing segment of the U.S. electorate and a potentially vital voting bloc.

The last presidential candidate to accept the nomination in an open-air football stadium was John Kennedy, who spoke to the Democratic convention at the Los Angeles Coliseum before 80,000 supporters in 1960.

Is The Race Really As Close As We Think?

From Campaigns and Elections by Doug Daniels

With our voracious appetite for 24/7 cable news and online coverage of the presidential race, everybody seems obsessed with scrutinizing every shred of polling data out of the race for president. Daily tracking polls, national averages, and even polls of polls have become standard metrics by which pundits and politicians alike steer the political discourse.

And in a political climate that is universally viewed as terminally grim for Republicans, the fact that Sen. Barack Obama has been unable to pull farther ahead of GOP rival Sen. John McCain has many wondering why the presumptive Democratic nominee isn't doing better.

The latest Gallup tracking poll has Obama with a 3 point lead over McCain-46 percent to 43 percent. Rassmussen's latest tracking numbers have Obama ahead by 2 points. A recent CBS News poll gives Obama a 6 point lead.

But despite the media frenzy over the surprising tightness of the race, Obama's campaign has avoided, at least publicly, exhibiting any sense of panic. Maybe that's because Democrats claim to see plenty of promising data in the state-by-state polling.

"Remember, in the primary there was a lot of talk about how the white, non-college educated vote would not go to Obama in the general election, but those voters have come back to him," says McMahon. "Plus, he's still ahead in all the states John Kerry won in 2004, and ahead in three or four of the states Kerry lost, so the playing field still tilts to Obama."

On Sunday, former presidential advisor and George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove suggested Obama should be much farther ahead than he currently is in national polling. On CBS' Face the Nation, Rove said the Illinois' senator's slim lead suggests that far too many voters have doubts about his ability to lead the country.

But Obama backers counter with the numbers that they say really matter on Election Day-those measuring the race in key battleground states-which appear to offer Obama a somewhat brighter picture. The latest Rassmussen poll has Obama up by 4 percentage points in Michigan and seven points in Wisconsin.

Most polls out of Ohio have Obama with a slight edge in that state, and the latest Quinnipiac numbers out of Pennsylvania have Obama up by 7 points.

Of course, history suggests that both candidates should be cautious in reading too much into any of these numbers, since the national summer polls have traditionally been an unreliable predictor for what will happen on Election Day.

Even former vice president Walter Mondale actually led President Reagan by a handful of points in a Gallup poll in February of 1983, only to suffer a crushing defeat in November. Reagan won the most Electoral College votes of any candidate in history that fall.

And four years later, in July of 1988, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis lead George H.W. Bush by a similar margin, only to lose in a landslide in November.

And don't forget polls back in the summer of 1992 that showed Ross Perot defeating both Bush and Bill Clinton.

Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International, says summer polls aren't necessarily unreliable, simply snapshots of where the electorate stands before voters really engage in the campaign.

"You start to see public opinion solidifying more after the conventions or after the debates, and there are people who don't make up their mind until the last week of the campaign," Zogby says. "Most people are doing more important things right now than following every detail of a campaign, like keeping their job or putting food on the table."

Still, Zogby says he's not surprised by the closeness of the race, despite the damaged Republican brand. "Structurally the country is still competitive," he says. "If you subtract George Bush from the equation you still have two parties that are pretty close, and if any Republican can run away from Bush with some credibility, it's McCain. And so I think those factors, along with Obama's race and perhaps his inexperience, are keeping it close. But there are still enough undecided voters out there who may feel more comfortable with Obama the more they get to know him."

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Winning Votes The Left Way

In a bid to destroy the image of being a Muslim, as portrayed in a recent New Yorker cartoon, US Presidential candidate Barack Obama is pictured below on his current trip to Israel. Next month's New Yorker cover is expected to contain a caricature of Obama in Jewish clothes in a bid to win back vital votes that this month's New Yorker cartoon lost him. A recent poll revealed that 10% of the electorate believe Barack Obama to be Muslim, while some believe he was educated in a Madrassa (Islamic religious school). Mr Obama said the ties between Israel and the United States were unbreakable.

JibJab Presidential Campaign Video '08

It's that time again. Time for the US Presidential campaign video from the boys and girls at JibJab! This time you can even put yourself into the video by visiting their website and uploading a picture of yourself! To watch the video just go here

Political Cartoon Of The Day

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