Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sunday Reading: Should Democrats Panic, Petraeus in Iraq, Tied in Minnesota

I have a busy day so I thought I'd just post a few interesting articles and blog posts you might want to check out today.

Time to Panic?

Powerline has a post titled "Panic in the Streets" that suggests that it time to panic for Obama. However, in the same post, another Powerline author edits the post and offers a differing opinion. He feels that the Obama will get back on message and that the election will be decided by independents in the final two weeks. Which one is right? Impossible to say but regardless the post is an interesting read.

Petraeus in Iraq

Linda Robinson has an article in the Washington Post about Petraeus in Iraq. The whole piece is interesting and gives some details on why he has been successful in Iraq. But most of all, I like the way she finishes up:
No, the Iraqis can't finish the job on their own now; at the same time, no, we don't need 100,000 U.S. troops to stay in Iraq and do it for them. It would be heartening if we could understand the real record of Iraq's turnaround -- and talk about its future like grown-ups.
Tied in Minnesota

The Star Tribune released a poll last night suggesting that the race is tied in Minnesota. Since Minnesota was thought to be +12 for Obama just before the RNC and the Star Tribune is a very very liberal paper (so you'd expect them to over-sample Democrats), this results has garnered a lot of interest. You should always question one poll that seems to be an outlier, but there's one internal that could be troubling for Obama. The respondents were pretty split on whether Palin was a good thing or a bad thing. Which means--if the poll is accurate--that McCain has gained against Obama without the help of Palinmania in this case. From Hot Air:
Palinmania is only a marginal factor, surprisingly, with 30 percent saying it makes them more likely to vote for McCain and 26 percent saying less likely.
I am still very skeptical of this results until a couple of other polls support it. Suffice it to say that if Minnesota is indeed in play, Obama is in serious trouble.

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