Simple Man Politics

Good day to all of my friends out there. It’s Monday and we all know what that means…it means that it is time for another installment of your Simple Man Politics. Today’s post will be mercifully short compared to some of the marathon posts I have put up in the past, so lets get started, we’re burning daylight.

Today we are going to talk about the pre convention poll numbers and what they actually mean or should I say don’t mean. Let’s start with Barack Obama and the Democratic National Convention. After the DNC, Obama received a 5 point bounce in his poll numbers last Tuesday vaulting him out in front of McCain - 49% to McCain’s 43%. In the Gallop poll conducted by the Republican Party, Obama hit 50% for the first time in the election while McCain dropped to 42%. A 5 point convention bounce in the polls is not uncommon and was to be expected for Barack Obama.

John McCain over took Obama for the first time in the polls after the Republican National Convention according to the USA Today Gallup poll Where he received a 5 to 6 point bounce. These numbers are right in line with historical expectations. The Today’s Gallop poll includes some reporting from prior to McCain’s acceptance speech. As of Sunday Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll indicates that with the leaners included that McCain and Obama are tied at 48% and that Obama’s lead has been erased.

The Nielsen Media Research also reported that RNC earned more than 34.5 million television viewers while the DNC earned approximately 30.2 million television viewers giving the RNC 4 million more viewers than the RNC which is incredible considering the types of conventions we saw from the respective parties. The DNC was definitely the big show seemingly like the Academy Awards and the RNC was more like a big town hall meeting so you would have thought the numbers would have been reversed.

Now basically what all of this means, as far as the polls go, is that the bounces in the polls were normal and to be expected, although in McCain’s case I do believe that Sara Palin as an addition to the ticket might have done a lot for the RNC viewership and McCain’s bounce in the polls. I do believe however that as the days and weeks move toward November 4th that the race and the numbers will tighten up considerably unless one of the candidates really screws up and falls out of favor with their party base or fails to appeal to the independent vote.

That is all I have to say for now other than to tell you what you already know, and that is that you have to decide for yourself who you will support. A person who commented on one of my blogs named Gladys said correctly that if you are at least 18 years of age or new to this country then please register to vote and then VOTE!!!!! I will also be posting more often now that the conventions are done and we are inside 60 days till the election so keep your eyes peeled for more of my posts in the coming weeks. I hope you like the video to. Have a great day and CIAO4NOW!!!!!

Well here we are. Its Friday again and we have made it through another week thank God!!!!! But as is usual for me on Friday I have to write about what has happened on the political scene in the last couple of days. Luckily for me we have had the end of the Republican National Convention and part one of Barack Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly, which was interesting I might add. On that note let’s start with Obama’s interview last night.

Yesterday Barack Obama sat down for an interview with Bill O’Reilly the host of Fox News Channels the O’Reilly Factor. The interview will be aired in four parts with part one being aired last night. The interview seemed to be on the war on terror and was remarkably well done and O’Reilly was at the top of his game and he kept Obama from trying to spin or make the interview about his talking points. They discussed everything from the Iraq war, Afghanistan, and Iran to the problem of getting Pakistan to do its share in the terror war. In the interview Obama stated that the troop surge in Iraq had worked which surprised me. He said the surge had worked not just because of the soldiers we have over there but because of the Sunni awakening in the Anbar province by way of example.

He also went on to say that we need more resources in Afghanistan to bring security and stability to that country. He was very candid about Pakistan being a part of that problem by not going after Taliban and Al Qaeda personnel and bases in the tribal areas and stated that we should withhold military aid until Pakistan does what it agreed to do instead of using our military aid to prepare for war with India.

On the subject of Iran Obama stated that if Iran obtained nuclear weapons it would be a game changer which sounds good but I have no idea what that means. He did say however that all options for dealing with Iran are on the table military, diplomatic, and economical although he did stop short of saying he would prepare for the military option citing it as inappropriate for either McCain, or himself to tip their hands has to their Presidential policies towards Iran during their campaigns for the White House.

Last evening John McCain gave his acceptance speech at the RNC. (Republican National Convention) The speech followed a video biography of John McCain narrated by actors Robert Davi and Fred Thompson. The speech was remarkably well written and delivered. The polling this morning showed that McCain’s acceptance speech had 500,000 more viewers than Obama’s and that according to the ABC tracking poll McCain and Obama are now neck and neck after McCain’s convention points bounce. John McCain really made the case for why the McCain-Palin ticket is the right choice for America in this election, citing both his military and legislative experience and Palin’s administrative experience. He also did a very good job of describing his economic and energy policies, and how he would deal with national defense and the war on terror. I don’t really believe that John McCain is out of touch with the blue collar kitchen table issues that most of the voting public are dealing with and worried about.

Also it seems that my Wednesday post was somewhat offensive to some readers and for this I apologize. However if the press and the Republicans had treated Hillary Clinton the way the Democrats had treated Sarah Palin I would have reacted the same way I did in that post. I wrote nothing in that post that was not true and I will not apologize for my words or actions. As for people’s disappointment or anger at what I said I can’t please everybody no matter how hard I try. I said what I said and there is no taking it back so it is time to move on.

In closing that is all I have for today but I will be back on Monday with political commentary and I hope you all will continue to read my blogs. and enjoy the video. Have a wonderful weekend,
ciao4now!!!!!