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Originally Posted by Tully Mars
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. One thing I keep reading is many people aren't really voting for Obama but rather voting against McCain/Palin. Palin's played well for the base but is pushing a lot of independents away. Will it be enough to put Obama over the top? We'll see. I honestly think Obama needs to be up 10-12 points in the polls to win by 3-4%.
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To what degree racism will affect polling data and the election is an interesting question. I'm thinking that it will, but not to the same degree as before. Ann Selzer, who was the only pollster to get the Iowa caucuses right, has said that a certain degree of Obama support generally goes under the radar due to his support among young people/first time voters. According to Selzer, this support goes unregistered because it is harder to reach via the usual polling method, i.e., calling a land line.
Obama's Senate race did not test the race issue, but he had surprisingly wide support from conservatives and Christians. Kerry won a few counties -- Cook, Rock Island, Jackson (E. St. Louis), Alexander (Cairo), Champaign (barely), and around Quad Cities & Galesburg. In contrast, Obama did very well all over the state, including the suburbs of Chicago and downstate. I don't think it was just because he was running against Keyes. He probably would have beaten Ryan as well, even without the pervy divorce papers. (I think he was up 22% on Ryan when the race started.)
So, the pattern of support for Obama is different than Jesse Jackson's or Bradley's -- or Kerry's for that matter. He does get votes from cities & industrial workers, but that's not really his base.