Mitch Gann’s

Newsweek, in a story about its latest political poll, is reporting that Barack Obama has opened up a 15 percentage point lead among registered voters. In contrast, notes Newsweek, during June 2004, John Kerry held only a six point lead over President Bush in the same poll. At this point in 2000, Al Gore and Bush were in a dead-heat.

Newsweek acknowledges that its poll shows a much greater lead for Obama than other national polls, but insists that Barack’s Bounce is real and far beyond the poll’s four point margin of error.

I downloaded the PDF of the poll results and took a look.

Among independent voters, Obama leads 48% to 36%. Among men voters, Obama leads 47% to 40% and among women voters, 54% to 33%.

Hillary Clinton’s supporters prefer Obama over McCain by a 69% to 18% margin.

Now comes the rub: age. Younger voters (18-39) are going for Obama by a ratio of greater than two to one. But the middle-aged and older voters — the voters who actually show up to vote — display a much lower degree of Obama-mania. They give the younger candidate the nod, but by a margin that is within the poll’s margin of error. And twice as many over-40 voters are undecided as compared to the under-40 voters.

So, a considerable chunk of Obama’s lead is among younger, less reliable voters. Newsweek admits that “the two candidates are statistically tied among older voters,” but makes nothing of it. What I would make out of it is this: Newsweek is polling registered voters, not likely voters. Now, it could be that the young people will turn out this November in great numbers, on a par with their elders, even though they never have before. Sure, it could.

But don’t bet on it, Barack. Youth is fickle. Go for the mature types — the grizzled ones who know which school gym to line up to vote in.

“Life Expectancy Hits Record High in United States” (Washington Post):

The overall U.S. life expectancy of 78.1 years was up 0.3 years from 2005. Life expectancy for women was 80.7 years, and for men, 75.4 years. The disparity between the sexes — 5.3 years — has been declining since it peaked at about eight years in 1979.

White women had the longest life expectancy, at 81 years, followed by black women (76.9 years), white men (76 years) and black men (70 years). The gap between men and women is markedly greater in blacks (6.9 years) than in whites (five years).

This is good news for Hillary Clinton. She can bide her time for two Obama terms, get elected in 2016, and still have more life-span left than John McCain does now. Indeed, according to the statistics, it is unlikely that McCain will live out even one presidential term, except maybe Bush’s second. Meanwhile, if Obama were as old as McCain is now, he would have been dead three years. That would’ve been a severe blow to his chances. I would say insurmountable, but he is from Chicago.

Of course, factor in regular doses of red wine and herring, and anything could happen.

Over at the Huffington Post, blogger Kathleen Reardon is pondering the question “Why let McCain win?”

Why would a Hillary Clinton supporter vote for McCain? It does seem ludicrous. After all, he represents four to eight more years of George W. Bush. The country can’t afford that. What would prompt a Hillary supporter, especially a Democrat, to even consider backing such a despicable outcome?

Reardon has no answer to her question. Her real purpose is to promote Clinton as the Dem’s VP candidate, which she thinks would take away any excuse for Clinton’s supporters to vote for McCain instead of Obama.

So I will step into the breach and tell you why some of Clinton’s supporters will vote for McCain. First, they may figure that whoever is unlucky enough to be elected President this year will have a hopeless task on his hands, and will not be re-elected in four years. Better that be McCain than Obama. Then Clinton can run again before she reaches McCain’s advanced stage of “experience.” Second, some Clinton voters may actually value experience above youthfulness. Those voters will obviously lean heavily toward McCain. Third, some Clinton backers may not view McCain as another Bush, and therefore may not view his election as a “despicable outcome.” This makes sense if you see both McCain and Clinton as moderates, and Obama as far to the left of center. Fourth, some of Clinton’s supporters simply cannot stand Obama. I don’t know why exactly. Is it racism? Is it a matter of personality and style? Is it that they did not get to go to Harvard? Beats me, but there is a genuine antipathy out there.

Personally, I don’t care if Clinton is Obama’s running mate or not. Who votes for a VP? I’m just offering some answers to the question Reardon posed.

“It’s decision day for Democrats” (CNN):

Bleary-eyed Democrats failed to reach consensus early Saturday on how to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, setting up a potentially explosive hearing later in the morning.

Comment: good grief.

Hillary Clinton is getting heat from the news media pundits and the Obama campaign for having noted that Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the month of June (“Clinton sorry for Kennedy remark” BBC News).

Although I have already stated here that Clinton should quit, I am on her side in this silly flap. In the context of her remarks, it is clear that her point was simply that Kennedy was still campaigning for his party’s nomination in June. She had just previously noted that her husband did not wrap up the nomination until the California Primary in June 1992. Kennedy was killed the night that he won the California Primary in June 1968. But Obama’s people want us to think she was wishing him ill. The news media lap it up like obedient puppies.

So much for new politics. It tastes like the same sour milk.

AP photo

On the campaign trail in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton is saying stuff like, “You don’t quit on people and you don’t quit until you finish what you started, and you don’t quit on America.”

OK, I get it. You don’t quit, ever. For any reason. Or is it just that you don’t ever admit that you have lost? I mean, lost in the galling way that Hillary Clinton, for example, has lost? Lost to a guy nobody even heard of a few months ago?

You can quit in some circumstances without being a quitter, and you can lose in some circumstances without being a loser. But apparently Hillary intends to soldier on to the bitter end.

Barack Obama has gotten into trouble for calling a female news reporter “sweetie.” This was the second time he publicly used the term of endearment with a woman he did not know; the other time it was a woman factory worked in Pennsylvania back in April.

Senator Obama says calling strangers “sweetie” is a bad habit of his. I’d call it an odd habit, too. It is the sort of thing you would expect from an older guy — John McCain, perhaps. I sometimes call my wife “hon” or my daughters “honey.” But never anybody else.

I do sometimes get called “honey” by waitresses in a certain class of restaurant. Not the class where Obama would likely eat, unless he were trolling for votes.

See: “Obama Sorry for ‘Sweetie’ Comment” BBC News.

Saying that “the government has run amok fiscally,” former Congressman and former Republican Bob Barr has announced his candidacy for the Libertarian presidential nomination. (See the LA Times article.)

I don’t know Bob Barr from beans, but I like his way of putting things. Run amok, indeed! Both the Republicans and the Democrats at the Federal level have lost any sense of fiscal responsibility. When we had the “tax more and spend more Democrats” and the “cut taxes and cut spending Republicans,” we could count on some sanity in the budget process. I’m not talking fairness or effectiveness, just sanity. Sure, the two sides seldom agreed on fiscal spending priorities, but they seemed to agree on the basic principle of having enough revenue to cover expenditures. At least most of the time. At least close to enough.

Then somewhere along the lines, both parties got hooked on the idea of borrowing. Well, why not? It’s the American way. We the people set a bad example for the politicos.

Or was it the other way around?

I doubt I’ll vote for Bob Barr, but I like his budgetary rhetoric.