Morning Polls

“Stop the campaign … I wanna get off!!!”

That seems to have been the big campaign news item from yesterday. And from my initial read, it did not go over well for John McCain … with David Letterman who was not at all pleased that McCain canceled on him at the last minute to “race back to Washington to deal with the economy.” When Letterman found out during the taping of the show that McCain was, in fact, IN THE SAME BUILDING taping an interview with Katie Couric, he made a point of calling McCain out on it … repeatedly.

So what are the initial polling results telling us? Gallup went from Obama +3 to a tie. So I guess people like McCain more the less they see both candidates. Actually, Gallup says this about their results: “A night by night analysis of interviewing results, however, does not suggest that McCain had a dramatically better night against Obama on Wednesday. Instead, the data show that McCain has been doing slightly better for the last three days than he had in the previous week, and with some strong Obama days falling off of the rolling average.” “Stop the campaign,” cries McCain! Rasmussen went from Obama +2 to Obama +3 overnight. Hotline’s tracker went from Obama +6 to Obama +4. Research 2000 tracker went from Obama +4 to Obama +6.

At the state level, there are some mixed results from last night. In Maine, SurveyUSA has Obama up by just 5. That’s disappointing and a little worrisome since Maine splits its electoral votes by congressional district. It is hard to imagine Obama losing more than one of the four electoral votes there but losing one could happen and it could hurt (if this poll is right). In Michigan, EPIC-MRA has Obama up by 10 … and Mason Dixon has it tied. My read of recent polling there suggests it is more like a 3 or 4 point lead for Obama. CNN has it Obama +5 yesterday. In positive news, Rasmussen has Obama up by 2 in North Carolina. Yow! SurveyUSA has Obama up by 6 in Pennsylvania (that’s very welcome news) and has Obama up by 11 in Oregon … so take that off your list of battlegrounds. And Research2000 has Obama up by 6 in Wisconsin.

Obama is up with this spot on the economy in key battleground states. It is a straight talk-piece, it is direct and clear, and I love it. It is exactly what he should be doing. Perfect tone:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1815802871