The Associated Press is reporting that the Obama campaign has already approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as the Senators Chief of Staff. The latest in a long string of signs that the Obama team is confident they already won this election.

Nielsen just released last night’s ratings of Barak Obama’s national campaign spot for the 56 local markets where we have meters.

Overall, for the six networks that aired the program simultaneously, the spot had a household rating of 21.7% (meaning that 21.7 percent of all households watching television were tuned to the spot.)
In comparison, the final debate between the two presidential candidates received a 38.3 household rating in the top 56 local TV markets. The candidates’ first debate on September 26 received a 34.7 household rating in the top 55 markets; their second debate, on October 7, received a 42.0 household rating in those markets.

The last presidential candidate to air a paid simulcast was Ross Perot in 1996, which received a national household rating of 16.8.
Last night, the Baltimore market had the largest TV audience, with a household rating of 31.3, while the Portland market had the lowest household rating: 14.2.

From the Nielson blog

Update: Associated Press fact check of Obama ad

Boy did it suck…

There, I said it. Sorry, but it did. Anyone who thought that godawful half an hour was worth the millions of dollars it took to put it on the air, wow you need to get your pulse checked.

For those wanting to see for themselves, here you go

Says: “He’s planned his first address to the nation — an infomercial. By the way, I will never delay the start of the World Series for an infomercial.”

Three groups that were expected to turn out in heavy numbers this election are said to be lagging by the Las Vegas Review Journal. According to the report while 25% of the state has turned out for early voting only 20% of Hispanics, 14% of young voters (those under 30) and 15% of new voters have showed up to cast ballots.

The data provide a glimpse into the composition of the more than 300,000 Nevadans who had taken advantage of early voting over the first nine days of the 14-day period. The information comes from proprietary databases that political action groups purchase from commercial vendors, cross-referenced with the public data the state releases showing who has voted.

Joe Biden gave fresh ammunition to Republicans yesterday by condradicting the campaign’s position that they would define wealthy as those making above $250,000 and not place taxes on those making less. Biden instead said:

“What we’re saying is, that $87 billion tax break doesn’t need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million… It should go to middle-class people, people who make $150,000 a year.” blockquote>

The McCain campaign jumped on the remark saying:

“It’s interesting how their definition of ‘rich’ has a way of creeping down,” McCain said.

“Senator Obama has made a lot of promises. First, he said people making less than $250,000 would benefit from his plan.

“Then, this weekend, he announced in an ad that if you’re a family making less than $200,000 you’ll benefit - but yesterday right here in Pennsylvania, Senator Biden said tax relief should only go to ‘middle-class people’ - people making under $150,000 a year.

“At this rate, it won’t be long before Senator Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just $42,000 a year should get a tax increase.

The Obama campaign responded by calling McCain’s attack desperate:

“No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent, and if your family makes less than $200,000 - as 95 percent of workers and their families do - you’ll get a tax cut.”

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I have written about the polling data coming out of this race a few times now and always with skepticism. There was a sudden bounce for Obama around the time of the economic crisis and until late last week that bounce was holding. Something strange happened though late last week into early this week, a set of polling data came out showing that the race was in Obama’s favor but within the margin of error. Increasingly it the polls showed tightening with independent voters becoming somewhat more receptive to McCain.

The difficulty is that there are still polls showing Obama with huge gains. Most of these polls assume large turnouts among African Americans, young voters and a shrinking Republican population. The question becomes, are they oversampling and overestimating the turnout with youth and the effect of African American turnout or are they dead right?

A Pew Research Center poll released yesterday shows a 15-point lead for Obama, a result based on relaxed criteria for when to consider an African American respondent a likely voter, said Andrew Kohut, president of the center. He said the poll shows that roughly 12 percent of the electorate this year is black, up from 2004, with a similar increase among younger voters. Kohut defended this approach, saying there are historically high levels of interest in this contest among both demographic groups. At the same time, he added, “we’ve consistently shown less enthusiasm and engagement among Republicans than is typical, and the composition of the electorate shows that.” (Washington Post

Likewise state polling appears to have the same problem. Many of the estimates are placing Obama well above three hundred in the electoral vote. The same problems with the national polls exist with the states and so these polls are showing traditionally Republican states, including McCain’s homestate of Arizona, close to turning over for Obama. This seems unlikely unless you consider that in the last few years large portions of the population have moved. There has been a resurgence in the city populations of many Southern and some midwestern states as people seek jobs. Is this shift enough when mixed with the dislike of the president to turn conservative voters over to a liberal Democratic candidate? It could be or it could also be a sign of trouble in predictions.

This normally wouldn’t be too much of a problem as it wouldn’t be the first time Americans have had an election called a few weeks ahead by pollsters and pundits only to see a massive shift of expectations near election day. The race this year is altogether different largely because of race.

Many pundits are already building up the case that if election results don’t mirror the polls it will be because of voter racism. These voters seemingly would have told pollsters they were undecided or supporting Obama because they felt that was the socially correct answer, when left alone in the voting booth though some believe they will switch.

It seems likely with all of the evidence that Obama will win Tuesday, but there is enough reason to doubt the polling to hold off. Unfortunately many in the media and online haven’t done so, instead giving the perception that there is no discrepancy in the polls and instead that the race is already decided. My personal fear is that the polls are wrong and the only conclusion offered on election night will be one that puts race front and center instead of the perceptions of pollsters.

Lets just hope for the best.

Reminder Senator Barack Obama will have a half hour campaign commercial tonight on all of your network stations except for ABC. No one really knows what will be happening but it should be interesting. It probably won’t look like this unfortunetly:

You don’t need polls to tell you when a campaign is truly in trouble, you need only to watch the leaks coming out of the massive cracks in a campaign. In the late days of the Clinton machine the sights were set on Mark Penn after campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle had already been tossed under the bus. The message was clearly lost, the strategy wasn’t working, the anger inside was boiling as everyone worked hard not to take the blame. Fighting for their future careers and reputations while publically grinding axes the Clinton machine turned on itself in the final days while still projecting the “we can win, everyone is wrong, we can win” face. The same is now transpiring in the McCain campaign, the last signal that everything we know on the outside is similar to everything they know within.

The target of these attacks are focused on Sarah Palin where writers throughout the media are apparently getting earfulls from those representing McCain strategist Steve Schmidt and senior aide Nicolle Wallace and probably from those two individuals as well. Calling Palin a “Diva” the two have been fighting off suggestions that Palin’s horrible rollout following her triumphant convention speech was due to the candidates lack of knowledge. They have repeatedly claimed Palin is “off message” and give the impressiont hat she is a lone wolf who holds no trust in the campaign or even her family.

All of this may be believable if it were not so reflective of the campaign leadership itself. The McCain campaign, like Clinton’s, has been a stunning example of how not to organize. There appears to be no ground operation, no understanding of how the Internet works, no vision and no message. Day in and out the campaign seems to constantly be in a state of chaos, shifting messages, positions and struggling hard to define their candidate.

Reading between the lines many of the accusations hurled against Palin are probably true of McCain himself and those on his staff. The candidate is often completely absent on weekends turning this into a five day campaign that gets to a slow start on Sunday and is often puttering around by Friday. The power structure seem complacent, stale and incapable of seeing beyond their own wants and desires. They want to drive the media in directions and rarely adapt when it won’t go along.

McCain himself, destined to live up to the Maverick image, appears to go off what little “message” the campaign has, often throwing his own party, supporters and longtime friends under the bus for no apparent reason. While his party was chomping at the bit to exploit the Democratic record on Freddie & Fannie; McCain was hitting free market capitalism.

When he party won over the excitement of the population by opposing the bailout, he was charging forward a path that would add more pork to the bill completely shattering his claim to fiscal conservancy. McCain continually seems out of touch with his own campaign. When he is the attack dog, his campaign often is pushing a bipartisan message. When McCain goes into bipartisan mode his campaign is often running with very negative attacks.

Unable to simply blame their candidate directly, Palin seems to perfect scapegoat to lay all of their internal strife. Unfortunetly for Palin her entrance came at a moment that gives those seeking to lay their blame a perfect in. As Palin was entering the national stage, the economy tanked throwing the campqaign into a worldwind of negative press and sent their candidate off on an odd adventure that saw a suspension of activities and a weird backroom deal that still defies explanation.

At that moment Palin was bringing new life and the Convention saw a unified vision of McCain being broadcast to the people. The polls were up and it looked likely McCain was heading toward an electoral victory. The past few weeks have destroyed that trip to the top. Now those who oversaw this destruction are looking for ways not to be blamed.

I don’t know what Sarah Palin is like behind closed doors. Folksy may truly be replaced with Diva and its possible the McCain campaign really did have some kind of message after six months of drifting to nowhere. Maybe she did in two weeks destroy their plans. I find it doubtful though.

Instead we can probably read a lot more into this internal destruction, that they know what we all suspect, this race is coming close to being over and everyone inside is looking at how to jump ship.

Breaking news from the Associated Press, keep an eye out for more info on a plot by “skinheads” that was broken up by ATF to assassinate Barack Obama.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday.

In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.