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The Note: Veepstakes Cloud Dulls Obama Messaging
August 20, 2008 8:31 AM
ABC News' Rick Klein reports in Wednesday's Note: Whether or not a pronoun tipped a hand . . . or Joementum is back . . . or Ralph Nader’s advice matters . . . or the schedule means anything . . . or Joe Biden is or isn’t the guy . . . the race looks markedly different than it did just a few weeks ago, even before any running mates join us for the ride.
Between the aftermath of his foreign trip and his Hawaii vacation -- and the new, crisp (if juvenile) messaging from Sen. John McCain -- Sen. Barack Obama has lost his swagger in the race.
Now it’s Obama who’s having trouble driving a sustained message -- subsumed by his own veepstakes fog, even while he continues to see himself defined by outside forces and events.
(McCain meanwhile, plays a dangerous veepstakes game: If the first rule for a running mate is to do no harm, is it possible that McCain is harming himself even without making a choice?)
As he prepares for a return to the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Saturday (when he’ll finally have company), the race is still more about Obama than it is about McCain.
Read the rest of The Note -- and get all the latest on the 2008 election, Congress, the White House and the wide world of politics every day -- from Rick Klein by bookmarking this link.
But Obama caps a summer slide with a big national poll that reminds us that this race is just about tied. (Mark this down a convention storyline -- one that raises the stakes of all of Denver’s mini-dramas.)
The Bloomberg/LA Times poll has it Obama 45, McCain 43, among registered voters. That’s a tie race, folks.
“John McCain has begun rallying dispirited Republicans behind him, while Democratic rival Barack Obama has made scant progress building new support, leaving the presidential race statistically tied,” Michael Finnegan writes in the Los Angeles Times.
Think the McCain strategy is working? “Obama's favorable rating . . . has slid from 59% to 48% since the June poll. At the same time, his negative rating has risen from 27% to 35%. The bulk of that shift stems from Republicans souring on Obama amid ferocious attacks on the Democrat by McCain and his allies.”
Among the trouble spots: “More than eight out of 10 voters say McCain's patriotism is strong, compared with just 55 percent for Obama,” Bloomberg’s Catherine Dodge and Heidi Przybyla report. “Overall, McCain has a slight edge on the question of honesty and integrity, while more than three times as many voters say Obama would change the way things are done in Washington.”
A hallmark of the Obama operation has been its self-confidence. Outside events, public polls, intra-party sniping -- all of it is essentially ignored in Chicago. That’s why the plan hasn’t changed -- but should it?
Continue reading today's Note by clicking HERE.
ABC News' Hope Ditto and Amanda Temple contributed to this report.
August 20, 2008 in Biden, Joe, Bush, George W., Hunter, Duncan, Kucinich, Dennis, Palin, Sarah, Romney, Mitt, Tancredo, Tom, Thompson, Fred, Veepstakes, Vote 2008: Democrats | Permalink | User Comments (57)
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Might be. To me he looks silly waiting for the opportune time to make his choice known.
While Obama might have the media's and public's attention, he doesn't seem to know what to do with it.
He successfully made this Campaign about him, what about policies?
To hell with the "Change" theme, the only change I want, or care about are policy changes. So while he is so careful about his image I am not winning.
Make the announcement and get on with hitting McCain and the Republican Party hard.
Posted by: Thinking | Aug 20, 2008 8:47:55 AM
Your news today is obsessed with this vice presidential pick. No fun to read this stuff over and over.
Posted by: rafraf | Aug 20, 2008 8:52:34 AM
Wait until Joe Biden starts working on McCain. Obama has stayed above the fray, but once Joe gets in the mud, which he is not afraid of, things are going to get very exciting!!!!!
Posted by: carl29 | Aug 20, 2008 8:56:53 AM
He's really starting to annoy his supporters at this point by dragging this thing out. It shows he really doesn't have a clue. Welcome to an Obama presidency. Long on fluff and short on results.
Posted by: Kitty | Aug 20, 2008 8:59:45 AM
pls txt the omg vp choice to my cell like you promised. text message really, and the press will not need to follow up for its readers. Guess Sen. Obama's managers did not think America would decline the chance to be on a spam list. I hope he changes his advisors.
Posted by: blockthespam | Aug 20, 2008 9:05:49 AM
The fact that he won't just come out with it makes him look indecisive.
Posted by: Angry Democrat | Aug 20, 2008 9:23:40 AM
Come on people! So you have to wait a few days? Big deal. Be grateful Obama thinks things through. There's a change we can all be grateful for.
Posted by: KRJ | Aug 20, 2008 9:35:39 AM
An oxymoron - President Obama
Posted by: Grizzly | Aug 20, 2008 9:38:18 AM
I have a question, why is it that no one is caring as much to Bush McCain VP pick as they are with OB's
Posted by: A. simmons | Aug 20, 2008 9:40:14 AM
What Message. The whole Obama campaign is all style, no substance.
Obama is Toast.
McCain'08
Posted by: tom | Aug 20, 2008 9:42:27 AM
So tired of this endless blather. How I pine for the days when news was news. Now even the so-called giants of the industry have become producers of pap and vanilla. The 24-hour news cycle has proven to be about 23 hours of nothing, intersperced with a nugget or two of news occasionally. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Posted by: Craig | Aug 20, 2008 9:55:56 AM
Obama '08. Nuff said.
Posted by: djh | Aug 20, 2008 10:00:42 AM
The idea that Obama should be praised for taking his time and thinking this over reminds me of the deer-in-the headlights Bush sitting there reading to kids for a long time when he was just told about WTC terrorism. So, Obama is like Bush in this regard. Scary.
Posted by: Kitty | Aug 20, 2008 10:01:32 AM
Forget all this VP talk. Doesn't mean much. The next BIG story will be that Obama gets no bounce out of his convention. In fact, he probably drops a couple points. The Obama faction will start muttering that the Clintons have sabotaged Obama (for sure they did), then they'll get mad. The Clinton loyalists will fire back, and like Hillary said, "this is where the fun begins". It will be a beautiful thing. A Democrat circular firing squad. And the lib-loonies of the mainstream media as usual, will blame everything on the Republicans. Too funny.
Posted by: Leon A Davis | Aug 20, 2008 10:10:08 AM
Nicholas: All those POLLS are meaningless. What we know Obama big supporters are THE YOUNG ONES. This group are using mobile phones and no one takes polls at this group!
Posted by: Peace | Aug 20, 2008 10:18:29 AM
It seems to me that the DNC must, by now, realize that they made a terrible mistake by forcing Obama down our throats. He's a loser, period. A liar, a waffler and an arrogant-on-slender-grounds talker. Maybe his hesitation about choosing a VP is more about the realization that he just might not win the nomination at the convention after all.
Posted by: A.L.L. | Aug 20, 2008 10:19:18 AM
this is getting silly and the draw out on an obvious correct choice to almost all...seems to be making this seem like it is Obama weighing what is good for him or what is good for the position.
and whether that is true or not...the impression of that is building by the day.
It looks more and more like the Paris Hilton campaign he is being accused of.
It is this impression of them using the choice for marketing more than substance...
whether that be right or wrong that is the impression that people are getting... "the roll out" beign so important...
it's like some moron bridezilla who thinks her wedding is more important than the marriage.
the longer this goes the more it looks self serving and not nationally serving.
Posted by: dl | Aug 20, 2008 10:26:11 AM
I have been watching the developing story of BO and it is as predicted, fresh from academics and a very short stent in the senate, Obama the orator shows flair and beats the drum of change, the only problem is; that is the only message. There is no substance, nothing new here that Gore, Kerry, HRC or BO has been able to bring to the table. Weak on defense, foreign policy, energy and the ability to lead.
Good to see the end game is as predicted regardless of the shills at ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN.
Posted by: GARY | Aug 20, 2008 10:28:32 AM
“Obama's favorable rating . . . has slid from 59% to 48% since the June poll. At the same time, his negative rating has risen from 27% to 35%. The bulk of that shift stems from Republicans souring on Obama amid ferocious attacks on the Democrat by McCain and his allies.”
I would assert a lot of this is from Obama himself. He switches his position from day to day and thinks his ambiguous wording will trick people into believing he never really switched.
Saturdays questions were a perfect example; Obama can't give a straight answer to save his life. I guess now we know for sure the reason for a refusal of town hall meetings since he is a disaster without a friendly environment and teleprompter.
Posted by: Cryos | Aug 20, 2008 10:29:10 AM
Hey Here's a POLL:
Is McCain just an older version of Bush? Or
Is Bush just a younger version of McCain?
Answer: Both are true
Relax. Real Americans aren't going to vote for the geezer mcBush! The rest of the Noise is from Conservatives, pretending they have brains!
Posted by: McBush | Aug 20, 2008 10:40:08 AM
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