From GoogleNews : WASHINGTON — The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda — from health care and climate change to education — could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar. Obama's widely publicized effort to defuse the first racial flare-up of his young presidency by inviting the protagonists to the White House last week for beers and conversation ended well by most accounts, even though there were no apologies. Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. Joseph Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. agreed to disagree about the July 16 confrontation at Gates' home and pledged to meet again. Obama's impromptu comments about the incident could become a defining moment. Nearly immediately after Obama's remark that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, his approval rating plummeted among whites, dropping over two days ...

Unstable Isotope had a good post up a few days back regarding the fact that most polls agree that 72% of the American people want a public option in healthcare. Aside from the fact that you can't get enough information into a single question to move beyond people's preferences for the concept of a public option (which they may or may not endorse when they see the details), I don't dispute the polling. What interests me is the conclusion drawn by UI at the end: This is a huge majority of people. I sure hope Democrats can find a spine to get real health care reform. I’m getting a bit tired of the Congress thwarting the will of the people. A public option for health care is not controversial! People are not buying the status quo defenders scare tactics about wait times and protecting the profits of those poor, put-upon health insurance executives. What I am left wondering is at what polling point the will of the people kicks in. According to the most recent ABC News/WaPo p...

...and also points out that negative campaigning is actually benefitting the Libertarian candidate for North Carolina's Senate seat: “Despite relentless negative TV ads attacking her accomplishments in Washington, Senator Dole is able to hang onto a slim, two point lead. It appears that all of the negative attacks on Senator Dole have aided Libertarian Chris Cole not Senator Hagan ” said Francis De Luca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute. This is critical: a Libertarian Senate candidate who is now both (a) outside the margin of error; and (b) being credited by a major polling organization as a factor in the race. Cole's numbers: May – Dole 45, Hagan 43 June – Dole 48, Hagan 38, Cole 1 July – Dole 47, Hagan 38, Cole 2 August – Dole 44, Hagan 41, Cole 4 September - Hagan 41, Dole 40, Cole 6

As we move closer to Election Day, Libertarian candidates are starting to show up in the polls. This is not necessarily because they are suddenly gaining adherents from zero, but because the pollsters have started to include them. Michigan's Libertarian Senatorial candidate Scotty Boman, for example, has been working away, but only recently has his name been included in polling in the State's 7th and 9th Congressional Districts , where he is pulling down 2% and 3% respectively. Statewide polls still have not included Boman, but are consistently showing a 5% vote for Other , a category including Boman, Green Party candidate Harley Mikkelson, Taxpayer Party candidate Mike Nikitin, and Natural Law Party candidate Douglas Dern. Mikkelson, Nikitin, and Dern, however, only score a combined 1-point-something in the 7th District and a combined 3-point-something in the 9th, which suggests that Boman's numbers are probably running in the 2-3% range across the State. Bob Barr, on t...

From the kos : Research 2000 for Daily Kos. July 28-30. Likely voters. MoE 4% (4/28-30 results) Dole (R) 50 (48) Hagan (D) 42 (41) Not much change, with Dole right at that 50 percent mark considered "safe", though I doubt anyone really thinks Dole can just slack off. There are several races in which Obama's strength will have a say in the outcome of the Senate race, and this is certainly one of them, so let's see how he does: McCain (R) 47 (50) Obama (D) 43 (41) Yeah, this one is a tossup. And it's likely even better than this. According to the 2004 exit polls African Americans made up 26 percent of the North Carolina electorate. The sample size of this poll is 22 percent black, and does anyone think black turnout will be down this year? Didn't think so... So all things considered, these are pretty darn good numbers. You Tarheelers are going to be really busy this year. Never let a little stand in the way of creating gigantic White Houses in the air, as To...

Of course it's in North Carolina... Real Clear Politics reports on the recent Civitas poll that shows Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger and lieutenant governor candidate Chris Cole both at 2%, actually mentions both by name . I have my doubts about the validity of this poll, as it suggests that Munger is drawing 2% of Democrats, but no Republicans at all , which bespeaks a sampling issue. Still, it is a major breakthrough just to be discussed.

Presidential polling has now become one of the weapons that the Demopublican electoral monopoly uses to continue to marginalize third-party efforts--especially those of Ralph Nader and the LP's Bob Barr. See, the potential Barr effect , right now only considered by the MSM in Georgia and North Carolina , is far more worrying than the Nader effect of 2000. Why? Because the evidence is starting to suggest--if only in whispers--that the Libertarian candidate may well be drawing votes away from Barack Obama as well as John McCain. Two examples: The recent Insider Advantage poll of the presidential race in Georgia shows Barr with 6% of the overall vote, but also that the Libertarian candidate takes 5% from the Democrats while garnering 7.5% from GOPers . Fox News (yeah, yeah, I know) shows Bob Barr at 2% nationwide, but has him drawing equally from Democrats and Republicans . Meanwhile, at Lindsay Politics , we get some of the only numbers of available on how Barr is polling in othe...