Presidential Poll Updates from Associated Press 7-31-08

[Scoops]

Poll: Obama, McCain tied in Ohio, Florida

By The Associated Press – 6 hours ago

THE RACE: The presidential race in Florida

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THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 46 percent

John McCain, 44 percent

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OF INTEREST:

Independent voters in the state have shifted toward McCain — 46 percent support him compared with 41 percent who prefer Obama. In the same poll taken last month, Obama led among independents, 47 percent to 37 percent. White voters prefer McCain, 53 percent to 39 percent. Black voters overwhelmingly favor Obama, 89 percent to 2 percent.

When it comes to addressing the nation's energy woes, six in 10 respondents back President Bush's call for more offshore drilling and want Congress to go along.

Obama has opposed lifting a moratorium that blocks energy development in 80 percent of the country's coastal waters. He proposes that oil companies be required to use existing drilling leases or pay a fee. McCain supported the moratorium in the past, but last month called for lifting it.

Floridians also back drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, 53 percent to 42 percent. Both Obama and McCain oppose oil drilling there.

Respondents are split over who has the best energy policy — 34 percent of likely Florida voters say Obama and 32 percent say McCain. Thirty-four percent are undecided.

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THE RACE: The presidential race in Ohio

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THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 46 percent

John McCain, 44 percent

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OF INTEREST:

Obama had a 6 percentage-point lead in the same poll taken last month. Both men and women are closely split in their support of either candidate. When it comes to their pick for first lady, respondents preferred Cindy McCain to Michelle Obama by 6 points, 33 percent to 27 percent.

Most Ohio voters back drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, 55 percent to 40 percent. Neither candidate's energy plan has an advantage with the voters. Thirty-four percent support Obama's policy, 33 percent favor McCain's and 33 percent are undecided.

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THE RACE: The presidential race in Pennsylvania

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THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 49 percent

John McCain, 42 percent

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OF INTEREST:

Obama's lead in the state has narrowed. The same poll taken last month showed him ahead of McCain, 52 percent to 40 percent. Women favor the Democrat by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent. Obama has a 4-point lead among men. White voters are divided, with 46 percent for McCain and 45 percent for Obama. More Pennsylvania voters support drilling for oil in the Alaskan refuge, 55 to 41 percent. More respondents also say Obama has a better energy policy than McCain, 36 percent to 30 percent.

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The Quinnipiac University polls were conducted from July 23-29. They involved telephone interviews with 1,248 likely Florida voters, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points; 1,229 likely Ohio voters, with a 2.8 point margin of sampling error; and 1,317 likely Pennsylvania voters with a 2.7 point margin of sampling error.

[Scoops]

these polls and the slow erosion of a more than 10 point lead is reminiscent of Kerry losing his lead over Bush last time around. : )


Gallup/USA Today Poll


Republican presidential candidate John McCain moved from being behind by 6 points among "likely" voters a month ago to a 4-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama among that group in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. McCain still trails slightly among the broader universe of "registered" voters. By both measures, the race is tight.

The Friday-Sunday poll, mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his much-publicized overseas trip and released just this hour, shows McCain now ahead 49%-45% among voters that Gallup believes are most likely to go to the polls in November. In late June, he was behind among likely voters, 50%-44%.

This is the first poll showing McCain with a lead over Obama since a May 1-3 Gallup/USA Today survey showed him with a slim 1 point lead. A Fox News poll at the end of April had McCain up 3.

With today's Rasmussen and Gallup tracking both ticking down for Obama (-2 and -1, respectively) and a new Dem Corps poll showing Obama up five, the new RCP National Average has Obama's lead over McCain dipping to 3.2% :

[Scoops]

Just want to say that Obama looked like a presumptuous idiot on his trip abroad...don't think it helped him at all...think it was awful that he chose playing basketball with a few soldiers rather than visiting the troops in the hospital because cameras weren't allowed in hospital....


on a somewhat positive note for him ...I think it's nice he won over the Germans,(in a sort of creepy JFK impersonation) but as I recall a quarter million of them showed up for David Hasselhoff, so the big O still has a ways to go. LOL!!!

[beekeeper]

I was only half listening the other morning (morning radio talk show) but I think they said there was musical groups on before him (or after, sorry I don't have the facts), so I don't think the huge crowds showed up ... just for Obama.

[Jinh]

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Scoops;1770482:
Just want to say that Obama looked like a presumptuous idiot on his trip abroad...don't think it helped him at all...think it was awful that he chose playing basketball with a few soldiers rather than visiting the troops in the hospital because cameras weren't allowed in hospital....


on a somewhat positive note for him ...I think it's nice he won over the Germans,(in a sort of creepy JFK impersonation) but as I recall a quarter million of them showed up for David Hasselhoff, so the big O still has a ways to go. LOL!!!
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<<don't think it helped him at all...think it was awful that he chose playing basketball with a few soldiers rather than visiting the troops in the hospital because cameras weren't allowed in hospital....>>

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That is not true at all Scoops. Andrea Mitchell who was there with them said that it is "emphatically untrue that he didn't visit because the press was not allowed".

The fact is, they/he choose not to visit there, because it was on the political leg of his trip and he/they said the Pentagon even urged him not to visit as to make it look as though he was "using the troops for political gains".

So, damned if he did, now damned that he didn't. What is truly sad is that McCain is using the troops for political gains.

P.S. I thought he did a wonderful job on his trip!!!

[Jinh]

Oh, one more thing...Obama did visit two military hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan - without reporters.

[Scoops]

I beg to differ....of course. lol.....oh and then why the basketball game but not the hospital?

(CNN) — A top aide to Barack Obama said Friday the campaign canceled a scheduled visit to an American military base in Germany the day before because the Pentagon expressed concerns it would be viewed as a campaign trip.

The incident is representative of the delicacy with which the Obama campaign has attempted to navigate the Illinois senator's entire journey abroad — at once staging elaborate photo-ops beamed back to the American media while at the same time insisting that Obama's trip is not a political one by definition.

The Illinois senator had planned on visiting a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany — currently housing American troops injured in Iraq. The visit was expected to come after Obama's speech in Berlin. But the campaign suddenly announced Thursday the stop had been canceled, saying then Obama had determined it would be "inappropriate."

But speaking to reporters Friday, Senior Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said Ret. Major Gen. Scott Gration, currently a policy adviser to the campaign, received a call from Pentagon officials earlier in the week who expressed concern with the trip — specifically because Obama was heading there on his campaign plane and campaign staff would be accompanying him on the visit.

After speaking with Gration, the campaign decided to cancel the trip. Gibbs said Obama is "comfortable with the decision" because he did not want to make the troops part of a campaign event.

But the decision to cancel the event drew widespread criticisms from conservative blogs and the McCain campaign.

"It is never ‘inappropriate’ to visit our men and women in the military," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters later Friday the Pentagon did not explicitly say Obama should not visit the base, but was concerned with whether his capacity there would be one of a presidential candidate, not a senator.

"We do have certain policy guidelines for political campaigns and elections. And what is appropriate and what is not appropriate in those situations. But the Pentagon certainly did not tell the senator that he could not visit Landstuhl," Whitman said.

"Generally speaking, the military tries very hard not to get involved in political campaigns," he said. "Conducting a campaign speech for example on a military installation is not something that would be appropriate to do."

In another sign the Obama campaign has at times had difficulty maintaining the notion the presidential candidate's trip is devoid of politics, it also received criticism Thursday night for distributing an e-mail to supporters that highlighted Obama's Berlin speech and included a link for online donations.

The campaign insists it was not a fundraising e-mail.

[Scoops]

and from the LA Times:

The varying explanations for the cancellation of Barack Obama’s planned visit today to the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany are leaving campaign-watchers puzzled.

Obama had been scheduled to greet U.S. troops at the hospital just before leaving Germany this afternoon for Paris, where he met French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.

But first, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs released a statement Thursday night saying the senator had decided "out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign."

The campaign amended that explanation this morning. Obama wanted to thank the troops for their service, but "we learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as....

...a campaign event.," Obama advisor Scott Gration, a retired Air Force major general, said in a statement.

On Obama’s flight from Berlin to Paris, Gibbs offered more details. Around July 15, the Pentagon approved Obama’s visit. But military officials later invoked a rule on political activity at military bases and questioned whether it would cover Obama’s visit, Gibbs said.

Obama spokesmen said they were seeking clarification on what the rule is. Gibbs also declined to speculate on why the Pentagon did not cite the rule until Wednesday.

READ HERE It CLEARLY STATES THAT IT WAS FINE WITH THE PENtAGON>>>JUST NO PRESS ALLOWED!!!!!!!!:

That account, however, didn’t square with the Defense Department’s explanation. The Pentagon said it informed the Obama campaign on Monday that he and his Senate staff could visit Landstuhl, where wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated, but that no press would be allowed.

"Sen. Obama is more than welcome to visit Landstuhl or any other military hospital around the world," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "But he has to do so, just as any other senator has to do so, in his official capacity. It is not acceptable to do so as a candidate."

"In an election year," Morrell said, "I don’t believe that any candidate is allowed to visit a DOD facility with press."

He cited a Pentagon directive that activities "reasonably viewed as directly or indirectly associating the [Defense Department] with a partisan political activity" should be avoided.

Morrell said the U.S. military was prepared to accommodate Obama’s traveling press and campaign staff at the passenger terminal at Ramstein Air Base, the U.S. Air Force base in southern Germany where Obama’s plane had been cleared to land.

-- Michael Finnegan and Peter Spiegel

[Scoops]

Just to be fair...it could also be interpreted as extremely poor advance planning by Obama and staff and not a snub of troops....I still find it funny that if he was not planning on taking press or cameras as he stated then why didn't he just still go? I don't think going without extra staff or press would have or could have been interpreted in any way as negative.


From Fact Check:
Reporters were not allowed to accompany him when he visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Medical Center on June 28. The small "protective pool" of reporters that routinely accompanies him was told by Obama's staff to remain outside, in the van, according to a reporter covering the campaign. Similarly, Obama visited wounded troops in Baghdad earlier in his overseas trip, but he did so without reporters and "without a lot of fanfare, just to say 'Thanks'," according to Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who accompanied Obama.

It's true Obama made time for at least one workout while he was in Germany. And he has been known to dedicate more than a few minutes to his exercise regimen. Two reporters who cover Obama, and who were on this trip, tell us that the candidate works out every day, and sometimes twice a day. However, the video of Obama playing basketball featured in McCain's ad is from his time in Kuwait, not Germany.

What Happened and When?

The military's stated policy is to avoid "[a]ny activity that may be reasonably viewed as directly or indirectly associating the [Department of Defense] with a partisan political activity." Members of Congress are allowed to be photographed with the troops and appear with them while serving as public officials, but not as political candidates. When Obama was in Kuwait and Iraq, he was traveling without reporters or campaign staff and visited military installations as part of a congressional delegation that included Sen. Reed and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Hagel said afterward, on CBS' "Face the Nation" July 27: "We saw troops everywhere we went on the congressional delegation. We went out of our way to see those troops."

But Hagel and Reed dropped off after the delegation visited the Middle East, and the European leg of Obama's trip was a campaign trip, not an official one. Even so, Obama planned to leave reporters behind for a visit to Landstuhl, according to a press briefing by campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs. Gibbs said reporters would have been left behind, though there "may have been" a pool report afterward. Since reporters would not be allowed inside the hospital, any pool reports would have noted only the fact of Obama's coming and going, with no photographs, as was the case with Obama's June 28 visit to Walter Reed. Here's part of the transcript of Gibbs' briefing:

Q: Did it not occur to anybody that this might be viewed as a political stop?

Gibbs: We had taken some of that into consideration, but we believed that it could be done in a way that would not create, it would not be created or seen as a campaign stop.

Q: The schedule was for this plane, with us in it, to fly to Ramstein. By the way we were expected to pay for the flight, what were you suppose to do with the entourage then?

Gibbs: You would have stayed on the plane.

Q: We would have stayed on the plane, would there have been any pool report?

Gibbs: There may have been, I don’t know if we ever came to a decision on that.

Obama "More than Welcome"

At first, it seemed the Obama camp was blaming the Pentagon for the cancellation. Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jonathan Scott Gration, an Obama adviser who had planned to accompany him to Landstuhl, issued a statement saying, "We learned from the Pentagon last night that the visit would be viewed instead as ... a campaign event." That prompted a response from Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell, who said, "Sen. Obama is more than welcome to visit Landstuhl or any other military hospital around the world. ... But he has to do so, just as any other senator has to do so, in his official capacity. It is not acceptable to do so as a candidate." Los Angeles Times reporters Michael Finnegan and Peter Spiegel went on to quote Morrell as saying, "In an election year ... I don’t believe that any candidate is allowed to visit a DOD facility with press."

Gibbs, and later Obama himself, then confirmed that it was the Obama campaign and not the Pentagon that decided to scrub the visit. Obama told the press that he had never planned to take reporters inside: "We were treating it the same way we treat a visit to Walter Reed ... without any fanfare whatsoever." And he said the discovery that Gration would not be allowed to come prompted the cancellation.

Obama: And we got notice that [Gration] would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn’t on the Senate staff. That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political.

We note here that Obama might still have gone on the visit, leaving Gration behind and accompanied only by Secret Service security. But with or without Gration, there would have been no news reporters or news photographers to record the visit.

[lavender]

Jinh;1770506:


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Andrea Mitchell was there
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With all due respect Jinh, Andrea Mitchell is a known partisan and advocate for Obama, she works for the network (NBC) that openly supports and advocates for Obama even if it means ruining their credibility with the American people. The NBC network is an arm of the democratic party now.

If it's the truth your looking for Andrea Mitchell is not able to provide it anymore, sorry to say.

You're more likely to find the truth with Lou Dobbs, lol. (MO)

[Scoops]

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lavender;1770543:
Jinh;1770506:


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Andrea Mitchell was there
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With all due respect Jinh, Andrea Mitchell is a known partisan and advocate for Obama, she works for the network (NBC) that openly supports and advocates for Obama even if it means ruining their credibility with the American people. The NBC network is an arm of the democratic party now.

If it's the truth your looking for Andrea Mitchell is not able to provide it anymore, sorry to say.

You're more likely to find the truth with Lou Dobbs, lol. (MO)
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ITA Lavender...she is looking pathetic lately, and I have always liked her, but she should be removed from his press corp.

[Jinh]

Hi Scoops...

Since when has Andrea Mitchel been a "known partisan"? That's news to me...I always thought she was very conservative, especially being married to Alan Greenspan...maybe not, but she's always seemed VERY chummy with the Republican pundits...

My feeling is, she is pretty mad at the way McCain is running this negative campaign, and how they are saying out-right lies. I've been watching her for years, and have never seen her be this angry towards anything before.

Anyway, I've ALWAYS felt she was a Republican...I honestly think she's upset by McCain's actions. JMO

[Scoops]

I always thought she leaned conservatively too Jinh, but watching her lately I have changed my mind. She seems under the "spell" lol (for lack of a better description).

Personally I think as far as Republicans go, there ain't gonna be a more bipartisan candidate than McCain....it's the best hope to unite both parties in government.
Just look at his relationships in congress...especially with Joe Lieberman. No one else has gone across the aisle more.

They both have had some negative campaigning, but nothing like we have seen in past elections. Hey...you have to point out the negatives in your opponent or you just cannot win. What are they supposed to do..ignore the obvious flaws in their opponent or their campaigns? I am fine with a little negative stuff. both ways of course. lol