NYT: History Suggests McCain Faces an Uphill Battle

[OmahaBlueDog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13caucus.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

<<In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Mr. McCain’s deficit in that survey has remained seven percentage points or more for most of the last two weeks.

Since Gallup began presidential polling in 1936, only one candidate has overcome a deficit that large, and this late, to win the White House: Ronald Reagan, who trailed President Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct. 26, 1980.>>

[NMDemDist2]

1. McLame is no Ronald Reagan n/t

[Eric J in MN]

2. What to make of 1980?

"Jimmy Carter 47 percent to 39 percent in a survey completed on Oct. 26, 1980."

Was the poll wrong?

Was the election fraudulent?

Or was Ronald Reagan so charming in the October 28, 1980 debate that a massive number of voters changed their minds?

[OmahaBlueDog]

3. The article spells that out: It was the debate

They only had the one debate, and we all know what happened.

Also, I question, to some extent, the accuracy of the '80 poll. I was in my teens at that time, and I don't remember any President, save for Nixon, who was as unpopular as Carter in fall of '80, and I lived in a heavily Democratic neighborhood. Anecdotally, it doesn't jibe with what I remember.

[katmondoo]

4. The Carter years were terrible

Interest rate at 20% or more, business's failing, the hostage problem. No wonder Reagan won.

[OmahaBlueDog]

5. Carter got to take the bad medicine for Nixon's failed economics

Let's hope Barack can do better with George W.'s disaster.