This year's presidential election has always been the "Democrats' to Lose,"....

Sort of how it was the New England Patriots' Super Bowl to lose last season.

Oops.

Anyway, this is July, not November when it counts. Although I think your analysis for his dip in the polls is pretty accurate.

i have an alternative explanation for you, lee. people are finally looking past his great speech making skills and seeing what poor decisions he has made and what crappy politics he's advocating. so naturally, they support him less. i know for a fact that is true for at least some people i've talked to personally.

Those people you talked to personally - they would be the same people who are Republican union members, right? lol...

People I talked to personally said you're making this crap up, ke_future, but other people I talked to personally said there's no harm done.

The chart does show some normal patterns of slightups and downs for both candidates. There really isn't any need to worry that I see. Once the campaign really steps into high gear, and both candidates are able to cement a real identity with voters, then for any candidate to be on the short end of that....Well, that's reason for worry.

McCain's biggest problem is that the candidate is far better than his campaign. With Obama, both the candidate and the campaign are very good. That's a real advantage.

For now, I expect Obama will be able to take the oath of office after the November elections, while McCain will move on to a role promoting those Rascal Scooters to the retirement crowd.

As far as waffling, a British politician once proclaimed that, "I may change my mind as facts change", and asked his opponent, "What do you do?".

On the other hand, in the last few days, Obama is actually improving over McCain or holding the same lead in the other big daily tracking presidential opinion poll, Ramsussen Reports.

Well -- I'm not under-estimating the power of the Netroots Nation to rally the Democrats to defeat. After all, they were the group that backed Ned Lamont's stunning victory over Joe Lieberman...

feh...

Obama had a 6 point lead over McCain in the Gallup poll on July 6, which shrank to a 4 point lead on July 7, and shrank to a 2 point lead on July 8. I'll keep an eye on the Gallup and Rasmussen polls and see what develops going forward.

July 9 update -- The Gallup poll results are unchanged.

The Rasmussen poll results show Obama's lead shrinking from 6 points to 4 points.

actually, lee. they aren't republicans, but a couple are indeed union members. i really don't care if you believe me or not. it's obvious that you ignore anything that doesn't agree with your particular world view. i was just tossing out my personal experience. take it as you will.

likewise...

Since dispatching the Clintons, Obama is sounding a bit like Ronald Reagan. The problem is his position on any issue appears to be whatever his speechwriters loaded onto his teleprompter that day. I hope his speechwriters are wise enough to run the country during the Great Depression II while sucking in radiactive fallout from that "inconvenient" Iran-Israel nuclear war.

Or Obama was bending with the wind back then, stringing along the Netrooters and far lefties in order to get them to pack the caucuses for him, knowing Clinton would ignore the caucuses...

The caucuses and heavy African American states won the nomination for him. Stringing along the lefties and positioning himself left of Clinton gave him a powerful primary army that won it.

And what we see now in Obama's positions is the centrist that I've been predicting Obama was for months now.

I used to argue with Crickmore and Larkle -- I told them repeatedly that Clinton is the true progressive and Obama is a centrist in leftist clothing... a consensus builder who would maneuver into the middle. I wanted Clinton in large part because I knew Obama would wiggle towards the middle, and I felt that with the wind at our backs Democrats would be able to sweep a true progressive into the White House in 2008 -- in the form of Hilary Clinton.

Looks like maybe that was truer than I knew at the time.