From 538.com, "538's Battlegrounds as of Mid-August" by Sean
I've mentioned 538.com in the past, but here's a timely reminder. It is without question the best site for poll analysis on the internet. If you like following the presidential horserace (and who doesn't?), it should be a daily stop.
This article on the battleground states came out a few days ago. Mea culpa for taking so long to link to it:
The last month has seen a nearly across-the-board uptick for John McCain. That's his good news. The good news for Barack Obama is that no states have flipped in our projections since mid-July. Since that month showed more of the McCain states inside of five points closer to the dead-even line, it's now Obama whose states are slightly closer to that line. Two Obama-projected states sit on the precipice of flipping: Ohio and Colorado.
The mid-August projection -- using a winner-take-all model rather than the probabilistic version that we usually use here -- remains at Obama 293, McCain 245.
You'll want to read the whole thing.
Personally, I partially credit the McCain campaign's newfound pugnacity as embodied by the unfairly maligned Celebrity ad for its August "McGain." The remainder of the credit rests with the moribund Obama campaign. A vague message of Hopenchange was bound to get stale, especially when it got mixed up with unprecedented amounts of overexposure.
The question then becomes whether Obama can do anything else besides the Hopenchange shtick. The Washington Post reported that he assured an assemblage of Obamaphiles yesterday that he was about to unveil the new, pugnacious Obama. He signaled the oncoming transformation with the bravely butch pronouncement, "You have a candidate who doesn't take any guff." So here was the non-guff taking Obama addressing the VFW convention today:
"I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same."
Is it just me, or does the new, pugnacious Obama sound a lot like the old, whiny one?
