During the early months of the election season, Republicans are keeping busier than ever — seeking the national spotlight by speaking out against Obama, writing books, giving interviews, and publicly supporting the GOP candidates. See which VP Hopefuls have been in the news recently! In other news, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell would make the perfect [...]

Public Policy Polling has a couple of new polls out focusing on Virginia. So far, it’s all good news for the Dems.

It is an open question whether there is anything meaningful to be gleaned from polls 20 months out from an election. At least these polls offer a baseline set of numbers to watch when the campaigns kick off in earnest.

For me, The most interesting element of the PPP summary is the highlighted question “…could there actually be a group of independent voters that go Obama/Allen in the interest of divided government?”. Regardless of how you would answer, it is significant that the question of whether independents are consciously making divided government voting decisions is even being asked. As you might expect, I offered my answer in the comments on that post

What seemed likely last fall is now a virtual certainty – the Republicans will retake the Senate majority in 2012. The only way to retain our happily divided government and avoid a rerun of One Party Republican Rule in 2013, will be to re-elect Barack Obama.

Less than half. Good god. This is after we found out that a majority of Republicans either don’t think or aren’t sure that Obama is a United States citizen. (h/t: Political Wire)

And McAuliffe lost…big time. Even with all that money spent and Bill Clinton campaigning for him…he only got 26% of the vote. The Clinton era is officially over. From Wash Post: Running with the least money and fewest ties to vote-rich Northern Virginia, State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has won the three-way Democratic primary for [...]

Would we really be talking so much about the Democratic primary if not for McAuliffe? And does anybody really think McAuliffe cares about being Governor of Virginia? MSNBC doesn’t think so… Here’s one way to look at today’s three-way Democratic gubernatorial in Virginia: It’s all about Terry McAuliffe, and he probably wouldn’t have it any [...]

Please, please, please let this hack get defeated. From Political Wire: Creigh Deeds has a slight lead with 27%, followed by Terry McAuliffe at 24%, and Brian Moran at 22%. However, the momentum is with Deeds. Over the last month he has gone from 14% to 27% while McAuliffe has dropped from 30% to 24% [...]

Ugh. McAuliffe is one of the most intellectually dishonest people I’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to and he’s linked to millions in questionable fundraising and stock deals. Basically, he represents everything that’s wrong with the Clinton wing of the Democratic party. From Wash Post: In a three-minute video e-mailed to supporters yesterday afternoon, [...]

The king of the Democratic hacks just won’t go away? Seriously, I watch him talk and my skin crawls. The guy is so oily that just reading this story makes me want to go take a shower. Ugh… RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe signed papers Monday signaling a possible [...]

That’s right. Fox News. They’ve actually been very aggressive tonight. However…I’m not so sure. I think they could be right, but it’s a bit too early for this call. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Again, via Hotline… – Obama leading men by 6% and women by 12% – African-American turnout is 21% — unchanged from ‘04 – 90% of voters think the economy is not so good/poor — a group breaking 56-43% in Obama’s favor – McCain leading 59-38% among white men and 57-43% among white women More as [...]

And actually, just to give you a preview of my election night prediction…this is pretty close to what I’m thinking. First, the Obama leads… Florida: Obama +2 Obama: 47% McCain: 45% Virginia: Obama +3 Obama: 47% McCain: 44% Pennsylvania: Obama +4 Obama: 47% McCain: 43% Nevada: Obama +4 Obama: 47% McCain: 43% Colorado Obama +5 [...]

The poll of polls reveals Obama holding steady. Colorado… CNN’s new Colorado Poll of Polls shows Obama leading McCain by 6 points 51% to 45%; The last Colorado Poll of Polls –- released Saturday –- showed Obama leading McCain by 7 points. Florida… An average of polls conducted in battleground Florida, shows Obama leading McCain [...]

The big news here is that Colorado is really starting to turn blue, and nearly every news organization has changed it to lean Obama. Because while wins in Georgia and Missouri would be nice, Obama doesn’t need them. But he does need wins in Colorado, Virginia and Nevada if he doesn’t want to worry about [...]

Good signs on the state level (.pdf), even if Obama’s numbers are slipping a bit nationally in the past couple days. Colorado: Obama +9 Obama: 50% McCain: 41% Florida: Obama + 2 Obama: 45% McCain: 43% Nevada: Obama +12 Obama: 52% McCain: 40% New Hampshire: Obama +18 Obama: 55% McCain: 37% North Carolina: Obama +2 [...]

Obama – 52% McCain – 43% Want to know how stable Obama’s lead is at this point? Look no further than Virginia. Public Policy Polling ran the numbers back in the early part of October at the numbers were 51 to 43 in favor of Obama. Virginia’s going blue this election. Count on it. Some [...]

The only good news here for McCain is that West Virginia is still in his corner. Still, that’s only a single digit lead and these are all states that Bush carried in 2004. Nevada: +5 Obama Obama 51% McCain 46% North Carolina: +4 Obama Obama 51% McCain 47% Ohio: +4 Obama Obama 50% McCain 46% [...]

I wonder how a third of the voting population would react to the McCain’s Nancy Pfotenhauer characterizing them as basically “fake” Virginians. And even given the chance to take it back, she didn’t? No wonder Virginia’s turning blue this year. I can’t wait for Doug to weigh in on this.

Not much change from last week to this week, so the story is essentially that Obama’s numbers are holding steady in these key battleground states with 21 days left. Florida Obama 51, McCain 46 Week ago: Obama 52, McCain 45) Missouri Obama 50, McCain 47 Last week: Obama 50, McCain 47 North Carolina Obama 48, [...]

I’ve been posting a lot recently about the various attempts to paint Obama as foreigner, a muslim, of Arab decent, a friend of terrorists and a terrorist himself. Well, now this is the first (to my knowledge) that explicitly involves a high ranking member of the GOP, at least at the state level. From TIME: [...]