This Day In History

Our buddy William H. Hobbs has a nice little "factoid" for us today: "Al Gore lead George W. Bush by 8 points on this day in 2000."

Looking at the Polling Report breakdown, this does not in fact seem to be true, as I can't find any polls that showed Al Gore leading by 8 points on October 7th; so I will assume Hobbs did what he normally does and pulled it out of his ass.

However, in seeking to debunk his claim, he did inspire me to look at previous polls, and we do see some interesting trends.

In the Gallup Tracking poll, in the 3 days leading up to the first debate, Al Gore lead by a 49-41 margin. In the three days after the debate, Dubya lead by a 48-41 margin. This shows that debate performances can have an impact on the tracking polls.

However, that was the first debate. We've already had one, and it showed, if anything, a slight increase for Obama in most tracking polls. Currently, he leads in Gallup by a 51-42 margin. I expect after this debate, those numbers will tighten a bit, but with an edge for Obama.

The question is, what dramatic thing can happen in this debate to change the overall outcome? We've already seen Obama debate 20 some odd times, and for the most part his performances have been pretty even. At worst, he's boring, at best, he gets in a few quips and holds his own.

McCain's performances can move between light hearted and playful, to angry and petty. Somehow, given the past couple weeks of negative media coverage, I can't imagine he will be in much of a playful mood (beyond, ha ha, Obama's a terrorist sympathizer).

I personally think McCain's "advantage" with Town Halls is over-rated. Yes, we know he is the "King of Town Halls," but the only place they have ever really worked for him was in New Hampshire where everybody does Town Halls of some sort because New Hampshirites expect it...and unlike his competitors, McCain was really banking on that state to win the primary in both 2000 and 2004.

Both he and Obama have both been doing Town Halls for the past year, and neither's are going to look like this one tonight. First, they don't have a moderator. Second, the questions are generally pre-screened in some fashion by the campaign. Third, the atmosphere at a single-candidate town hall is far different than a debate style town hall.

McCain has never really down town halls with an opponent, so we really don't know how either he or Obama will react. If he's avoids direct eye contact and has an angry demeanor, it will play even worse for him than it did during the first debate, because this is supposed to be a more relaxed setting.

McCain can't fake admiration and respect; Obama can. Neither like each other, both think each other is a phony, but Obama is much better at hiding his resentment than McCain, and it will probably show tonight to the detriment of the Senior Senator from Arizona.