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Susan Estrich
The Big 5-0
Susan Estrich 9/5/2008
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He hit it this week. The big 5-0. No, I'm not referring to the age — an age that, whatever anyone says, is not the new 30. It's still 50. It's something no one I know looks forward to unless they are ill and afraid they won't make it that far.

The big 5-0 in politics is different. Fifty-percent means that you have, at least at that moment, in that snapshot, assuming the polls are accurate, made the sale. It means that all you have to do is hang on to the people who are already with you, rather than persuade new ones, and you win.

Barack Obama hit the big 5-0 in two major polls this week. In both the Rasmussen Reports (Thursday) and the Gallup daily tracking (Tuesday) polls, he made it to a majority. It doesn't mean — to quote Peggy Noonan, who now says it wasn't what she meant — "it's over" for McCain. It doesn't mean it's time for the Obama gang to pick out their offices in the West Wing and start thinking drapes and decor. But it's still a major milestone.

Of course, the polls may be wrong. They might be overestimating the population of new voters and the number of African-Americans who will turn out. They might be underestimating the percentage of Americans who will tell pollsters they are voting for Obama, what for them may be the politically correct answer, but
then vote McCain instead.

Even so, the chance that two polls two days apart are both wrong in the same way is at least slightly less than the chance that any single one is. And even if they're off, they still depict an unmistakable trend. It's a little like your old bathroom scale. It may be high or it may be low; the absolute number it registers may not be the same one you'd get in the doctor's office. But if you climb on it every day religiously, or once a week at the same time and day, you're going to know for darn certain in which direction you're heading. Obama is heading up.

That Obama reached 50 percent is significant, but that he has reached it in the middle — or even at the end — of the Republican convention is even more significant. What it tells me is that this Republican convention is not working the way successful Republican conventions of the past have. It has not turned into a four-day prime-time negative ad against Obama. It has not been one speech after another making the case that McCain is qualified and Obama is not, that McCain can face up to Putin and Obama cannot, that Obama will raise your taxes and McCain will not — with the few Democrats who are scurrying around St. Paul or hanging out at satellite studios scrambling to rebut the charges.

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Obama and McCain in cycle race on percent sign
By Riber Hansson - Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden * Posted 9/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
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Obama and McCain in cycle race on percent sign
© Copyright 2008  Riber Hansson - All Rights Reserved.
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