Right Wing Rhetoric

Politics in Massachusetts is anything but predictable. For example, we have John Kerry and Ted Kennedy for Senators and a completely majority democratic legislature. On the other hand, we elected Weld and Romney to the Governor's office.

So we're used to sudden shifts in the weather. If you don't like the politics right now, wait a minute.

It didn't much surprise us to see the drop in Obama's standing in recent Massachusetts Suffolk University poll. Here's the poll analysis and here's the poll itself. After all, Obama had a 53 to 30 percent lead. That's an absurd amount and clearly had to shift. Now it's a bit more believable 47 to 38 percent. It's going to be a race in November.

What is interesting is how the right has leaped on this change. The Suffolk analysis had this to say:

"Barack Obama’s campaign has hit a soft patch this summer," said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston. "With November just three months off, it still appears an Obama outcome in Massachusetts is not in question, but the margin certainly is."

Not a surprising thing to say. Now, look at the Washington Times article:

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's lead in Massachusetts has plummeted 14 percentage points since June, a new Suffolk University-7 news poll shows.

Mr. Obama leads Republican John McCain 47 percent to 38, down from a 23 point spread in June, and is bleeding support from male voters, independents and older voters. "

If we didn't know the Washington Times point of view, this makes it pretty clear. Even more interesting is the reaction of the readers:

"Can you say "Freefall"? Obama is going down faster than the Travelocity dwarf going off that cliff in Acapulco. To 50general---you cited one gaffe by McCain (that old Sunni/Shiite slip that most Americans are also guilty of) when Obama has made DOZENS of gaffes including not knowing HOW MANY STATES THERE ARE IN THE U.S.! "

Pat Buchanan had this to say:

"For all its gracelessness, the McCain campaign, given openings by Barack, stepped in and put Muhammad Ali on the canvas. "

Going to be interesting to see how things are spun the morning after.


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