Poll: Obama opens biggest lead over McCain

Dem leads rival by 10 points among registered voters in NBC/WSJ survey

By Mark Murray | Deputy political director | NBC News | 10/21/08

WASHINGTON - With voters’ increased confidence in his ability to serve as commander in chief, as well as a majority who now believe he would do a good job as president, Barack Obama has opened up his biggest advantage over John McCain in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

With two weeks to go until Election Day, Obama now leads his Republican rival by 10 points among registered voters, 52 to 42 percent, up from 49 to 43 percent two weeks ago.

Obama’s current lead is also fueled by his strength among independent voters (topping McCain 49 to 37 percent), suburban voters (53 to 41), Catholics (50 to 44) and white women (49 to 45).

In early September, after the Republican National Convention, McCain was ahead with independents and Catholics, and narrowly trailed Obama among suburban voters.

“To me, the voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “The doubts and question marks have been erased.”

Newhouse adds, “Obama’s beginning to meet a threshold of acceptance among voters.”

Palin’s drag on the ticket?
That doesn’t appear to be the case with McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin. Fifty-five percent of respondents say she’s not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll.

In addition, for the first time, more voters have a negative opinion of her than a positive one. In the survey, 47 percent view her negatively, versus 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

That’s a striking shift since McCain chose Palin as his running mate in early September, when she held a 47 to 27 percent positive rating.

Now, Palin’s qualifications to be president rank as voters’ top concern about McCain’s candidacy - ahead of continuing President Bush’s policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq.

By comparison, voters’ top concerns about Obama include, in order:

• Being too inexperienced.
• Being too liberal.
• Raising taxes on some Americans.
• Being too influenced by people like his former pastor Jeremiah Wright and the ‘60s radical Bill Ayers.

Hart argues that voters have turned against Palin. The negative opinions of her have “reflected badly on McCain and essentially hurt the ticket dramatically.”

Obama’s strengthened standing
The poll — conducted of 1,159 registered voters from Oct. 17 to 20, and with an overall margin of error of plus-minus 2.9 percentage points — comes after the presidential debates and in the midst of Colin Powell’s public endorsement of Obama on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Those events appear to have strengthened Obama’s standing with voters. Forty-eight percent say they have confidence in Obama serving as commander in chief, which is nearly identical to the 50 percent who said the same of McCain.

A month ago, however, just 42 percent said they were confident in Obama’s commander in chief abilities, compared with 53 percent for McCain.

Moreover, 56 percent say they are either “optimistic or confident” or “satisfied and hopeful” that Obama would do a good job as president. Only 44 percent say that of McCain.

And now 55 percent believe that Obama shares their background and values, which isn’t far off from the 57 percent who believe the same about McCain.

On the issues and candidate qualities
In the survey, Obama also holds commanding leads on the issues — especially economic ones. He has a 39-point advantage over McCain in handling health care (59 to 20 percent), a 21-point edge on improving the economy (49 to 28), a 21-point lead on the mortgage and housing crisis (45 to 24), a 17-point edge on dealing with the Wall Street crisis (42 to 25), a 14-point lead on taxes (48 to 34) and a 12-point advantage on energy and the cost of gas (44 to 32).

McCain, meanwhile, holds advantages on which candidate would do a better job in catching Osama bin Laden (39 to 19 percent) and handling the situation in Iraq (45 to 40).

McCain also narrowly leads in having strong leadership qualities needed to be president (40 to 36 percent). But Obama has the edge in offering hope and optimism (53 to 23), improving America’s standing in the world (51 to 31) and having the right temperament to be president (50 to 30).

One other key advantage for Democrats is the enthusiasm gap. Fifty-two percent of Obama voters in the poll say they’re excited to be voting for the Democratic presidential nominee.

That’s compared with just 26 percent of McCain voters who said that about the GOP nominee, a percentage that’s down eight points since the Republican convention in early September.

Winning the base, but losing the middle
Hart, the Democratic pollster, believes there is one good sign for McCain in the poll: The Arizona senator is holding on to the GOP base. McCain has a sizable advantage over Obama among evangelicals (76 to 20 percent), small town/rural voters (53 to 40), and those living in the South (54 to 40).

But what the poll shows is that McCain — with 14 days until Election Day — has lost ground with independent and swing voters, Hart says.

“If you don’t win the middle in America, you don’t win the election."

October may yet yield a surprise

by Lisa Van Dusen | October 16, 2008

The October surprise has become such a reliable element of U.S. presidential elections that the most surprising October surprise between now and the end of the month would be no surprise at all.

But with Barack Obama 14 points ahead of John McCain in some polls with less than three weeks to go until Nov. 4, with the Straight Talk Express veering like a runaway beer truck, and with few obvious traditional strategic, tactical or voodoo options left available to the Republicans, guessing what an October surprise might look like has become the new parlour game.

Will Rev. Jeremiah Wright stage a four-night Vegas comeback run the week before the election? Will the FBI, the CIA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announce during a live remote media availability that Osama bin Laden has been hiding out with Bill Ayers in the Roanoke, Va., Holiday Inn directly behind them?

Like the Great Pumpkin, nobody has ever been able to prove the October surprise really exists, which only enhances its enormous mythical status in the imaginations of pollsters, consultants, reporters and commentators.

The term October surprise was first used publicly during the 1980 campaign by Republican vice-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush.

The Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, had been battered by the nightly national nightmare of Ted Koppel reporting on the unchanging status of American hostages being held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Republican challenger Ronald Reagan's surrogates, including campaign director William Casey, feared an 11th-hour game-changing hostage deal. So Bush pre-emptively portrayed any pre-election release as a cynical vote-getting tactic.

SAVVY CARTER

"All I know is there's a concern, not just with us but I think generally amongst the electorate, well, this Carter's a politically tough fellow," said Bush, in all apparent seriousness. "He'll do anything to get re-elected and let's be prepared for some October surprise."

It was Casey who had first used the term privately (according to language guru and former Richard Nixon speechwriter William Safire) in 1968, when he was working for Nixon, to anticipate another October surprise that never happened -- a Vietnam peace deal by outgoing president Lyndon Johnson to help Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic candidate.

The 1980 October surprise, which is considered the granddaddy of October surprises, turned out to be a January surprise when the hostages were released 20 minutes after Reagan was inaugurated.

Allegations that Reagan's people had negotiated with the Iranians to hold a release until after the election while accusing the Democrats of doing the same thing were never proven but, if true, would make the first October surprise not only notable for its absence, but one of the most awesome examples of electoral psychological counter-projection ever.

In 2004, John Kerry was ahead in the polls on Oct. 29, when Osama bin Laden released what was basically a campaign commercial reminding voters of the 9/11 attacks and that he was still at large. Overnight, President George W. Bush opened a six-point lead heading into Election Day.

SCANNING THE SKIES

These days, the term October surprise has come to include everything, orchestrated or not, from natural disasters to a candidate's runny nose and the Republicans are scanning the skies and praying for something, anything, to land with a thud between now and Halloween.

It's hard to imagine what that might be. Maybe an un-American terrorist trifecta tape of Wright, William Ayres and bin Laden having brunch together on the Upper West Side.