50%

From DJ, it seems that the McCain-Palin bounce is real and it is big.  

I truly believe that Barack Obama peaked before the Democrat convention.  This long campaign has kept Barack Obama in the news for much longer than any normal political campaign.  Had this been a normal election cycle, with Obama announcing at the end of 2007 instead of the beginning, he would now be just hitting his stride.  The end came with the Biden choice, it occurs to me.  Not that Joe Biden was a bad choice, but his biography goes against everything Barrack Obama has been talking about.  Biden is a DC insider, hardly an agent of change.  Had Obama decided to go the route McCain did - with a female governor (Janet Napalitano would have been a tremendous choice, given her experience and the fact that she is also from Arizona), he would have enhanced his narrative rather than contradict it.  Americans do know that John McCain has always been a maverick, the MSM never stopped pointing it out as they held him up for seven years as what a Republican should be.  Combine that with his well know status as a true hero, McCain was able to hold steady in the polls.  Palin's choice not only electrified conservatives but showed, for the first time, that perhaps McCain was a better agent of change because of his long experience fighting Washington from the inside.  The GOP convention speeches by Rudy and Palin eviscerated Obama in terms Americans had not yet heard, thoroughly thrashing his record and his pretensions.  Then came McCain's speech, who's theme was service and country first.  I think that "Country First" is more what Americans are looking for than change.  Americans are looking for unity (dare I say, normalcy?).  President Bush ran the country based on party majority, and I think Americans have reacted against that.  But Rudy and Palin, before record audiences, exposed Obama in a way Americans have never seen before, and seem to believe.  Contrast that message with the proof and experience that McCain gave American last Thursday, and I think that is why we see this rise in the polls for McCain/Palin, and why I think its going to go up some more.  Obama has not effectively answered the GOP convention yet, and thats a problem.  Right now he's flat-footed and sounds like a broken record and rather uninspiring.  In front of nearly 40 million viewers, the Republicans defined Obama as a promiser who has no specifics.  Obama has yet to prove them wrong.

This will be a terribly close election, that I have no doubt.  But Sarah Palin has reinvigorated the McCain Campaign and the Republican Party, and the message behind McCain's acceptance speech seems to have caught a more nuanced position the American people hold right now.  

Comments

[DWu]

Don't know if you saw the SUSA poll of VA today. Has Mac up 49-47, but that's with a Dem oversample of about 4 points or so (based on 2006, 2004, 2000 exit polls).

Here's the key stat: among indepedent voters, Mac leads Obama by 21%. If Mac even wins indep voters by 10 points he'll win VA very comfortably.

Very good poll results for Mac.