Palin Is Sinking the McCain Campaign

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 10:59 AM on October 22, 2008.

Every single Democrat should be worried about the outcome of this election until at least midnight of November 4th. Still, the polls are encouraging, and they are showing, amazingly enough, that Sarah Palin hurts John McCain’s candidacy worse than does George Bush. There’s no turning that one around.



The first polls are out with even a hint of a reaction to the Powell endorsement of Barack Obama, and those polls should make Republicans weep.


The NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll gives Obama a 10 point lead nationally. 60% of respondents in the CNN poll think McCain’s attacks on Obama are unfair, a figure that hurts McCain’s chances further with independent voters. Reuters/Zogby has an 8 point Obama lead in its latest tracking poll. And the Pew poll, which takes into account cell phone users, has Obama up by 14 points. The prediction here is that these totals will go up in the next couple days as the impact of the Powell endorsement fully hits the polling results.



What’s the big news here? Sure, McCain has been hurt by his association with Bush for a long time. But in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, it appears that Sarah Palin is a bigger drag on the Palin/McCain ticket than is Dubya. She’s now seen as unqualified for the vice Presidential job by 55% of the public, and her negatives are now 47%, higher than her positives for the first time. Here’s a bit from the Pew results about the Palin drag on the ticket, and about McCain’s lack of judgement:

In addition, Sarah Palin appears to be a continuing – if not an increasing – drag on the GOP ticket. Currently, 49% of voters express an unfavorable opinion of Palin, while 44% have a favorable view. In mid-September, favorable opinions of Palin outnumbered negative ones by 54% to 32%. Women, especially women under age 50, have become increasingly critical of Palin: 60% now express an unfavorable view of Palin, up from 36% in mid-September. Notably, opinions of Palin have a greater impact on voting intentions than do opinions of Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate.


McCain may also be getting hurt by opinions of his campaign. A large majority of voters (64%) give McCain a grade of C or lower for his efforts to convince people to vote for him; only about a third (34%) gives McCain a grade of A or B for his campaign efforts. These grades are lower than those accorded to George Bush during his two successful campaigns and are nearly as low as the grades for Dole’s campaign in 1996 (29% A or B).

Man, it takes a lot to be a bigger negative than George Bush. Those numbers will only go higher, what with the scathing comments by Colin Powell, and the fact, reported all over today, that Sarah Palin doesn’t even know what the job of Vice President is all about.


All of this, of course, goes to McCain’s lack of judgement. While one can say McCain supported George bush a whiole bunch over the last eight years, he could at least argue that he’s not Bush. McCain can argue that he’s not Palin, but he simply can’t argue that someone else chose this know nothing as his Vice Presidential running mate. He’s stuck with that one, and he’s going down because of it.


My wife worries. Every day she worries about the latest poll. She used to be a Republican, but converted this year. She is very anxious about this election, worried that the Republicans will find a way to pull it out. Hey, this is a very real worry, but my confidence is nearly there, right where it should be. Man, I wish I were in Grant Park on November 4th. I’ll bet there will be a million people celebrating.


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Tagged as: polls, mccain, palin

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone