Rasmussen released a survey of 700 likely voters taken in Missouri on October 15th (?) and released on October 17th. The margin of error is 4%.

McCain – 46%

Obama – 52%

Other – 0%

Not sure – 2%

This poll shows that Obama’s lead is expanding when compared to the Rasmussen October 12th and October 5th Missouri presidential polls, though the sample sizes and methodologies (that is, including third party candidates or not) appear to be different.

Zogby Interactive:

Missouri

Obama-Biden  50.1%

McCain-Palin  44.4%

Note sure/Other 5.5%

Missouri Oct 9 – Oct 13 n=692 – MOE +/- 3.8 percentage points

Fox News/Rasmussen released a survey of 1000 likely voters taken in Missouri on October 12th. The margin of error is 3%.

McCain – 47%

Obama – 50%

Ralph Nader – 1%

Bob Barr – 0%

Not sure – 2%

There’s no change (except for Bob Barr) from the October 5th poll.

Fox News/Rasmussen released a survey of 1000 likely voters taken in Missouri on October 5th. The margin of error is 3%.

McCain – 47%

Obama – 50%

Ralph Nader – 1%

Bob Barr – 1%

Not sure – 2%

That’s quite a change from the September poll.

Can you spell “g-i-m-m-i-c-k”?

I wonder if this…

McCain suspends campaign, calls for Obama to do same

NEW YORK (CNN) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the “historic” crisis facing the U.S. economy….

…is because of this?:

New York Times

McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON – One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement…

tiny URL

Ahem. You think?

Of course, the cable network boviators and gasping are fawning over the “breaking news”.

Gimmick. I’m not the only one who thinks so:

MyDD

…Sen. Reid as quoted on CNN said the debate should go on and is framing postponing the debate and having the pres candidates return to Washington as “injecting presidential politics” into the process. Good…

Open Left

…So, McCain moves to upstage Obama after Obama made the first “bi-partisan” move. Several things to learn from this. First, trust McCain, and get a fork in your eye. Second, why on Earth was Obama looking to remove the contrast between himself and McCain on this issue? Third, McCain is crazy out of control. He will do anything crazy if it is perceived as helping him, no matter how ludicrous it actually is (such as, say, picking Palin as VP.) What an incredibly dangerous President this guy would be….

dday and Digby

…I actually think this is pretty savvy. He doesn’t want to give the country a chance to see the two of them together right now and make the logical comparisons. He also wants to show that he can “take charge” in a crisis and the optics of this are that he’s rushing back to to Washington to knock some heads together.

But, this is the second time in a month that McCain has grandstanded like this. First it was “suspending” the convention because of the hurricane and now this. At some point, someone should point out that leadership requires something more than canceling events and posturing for the cameras.

I would love to see Obama say that he agrees to go back to Washington and hold the debate on the floor of the senate — about the economy…

So, Senator McCain, why haven’t you fired Rick Davis?

As for our useless media: “Ooh, look! There goes another shiny bauble!”

It’d be very interesting to be a fly on the wall today at the McSame campaign damage control bunker:

Uh yeah, saying “I didn’t do any work for that $15,0000.00 a month” doesn’t look so good.  

Research 2000 conducted a poll of 800 likely Missouri voters September 15th through the 18th. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV sponsored the survey. The margin of error is 3.5%.

McCain – 49%

Obama – 45%

Other/Undecided – 6%

tiny URL

American Research Group released a poll of 600 “likely” Missouri voters taken from September 11th through the 15th. The margin of error is 4%.

If the general election were being held today between John McCain for president and Sarah Palin for vice president, the Republicans, and Barack Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president, the Democrats, for whom would you vote – McCain and Palin, Obama and Biden (names rotated), or someone else?

McCain – 50%

Obama – 45%

Other –

Undecided – 5%

We’re going to be seeing a lot of polls in Missouri on the presidential race leading up to the November general election. The good folks at FiveThirtyEight have a nice statistical rating system on pollster introduced error. Just for the purposes of comparison.

This ad, hitting McCain for saying yesterday that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, will begin airing in Missouri and other swing states today!

Rasmussen released a survey of 700 likely voters taken in Missouri on September 11th. The margin of error is 4%.

McCain – 51%

Obama – 46%

Other – 1%

Not sure – 2%

There are other interesting numbers:

1. How do you rate the way that George W. Bush is performing his role as President? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?

Excellent – 14%

Good – 19%

Fair – 17%

Poor – 49%

Not sure – 1%

Think about that for a moment. One third of the people you pass on the street think dubya is doing a good job. That’s a really frightening indictment of the state of critical thinking in our state. The good news is that almost have of the people in Missouri think he sucks. There’s hope.

10….How do you rate the U.S. health care system? Excellent,  good, fair, or poor?

Excellent – 7%

Good – 22%

Fair – 35%

Poor – 35%

Not sure – 1%

So, people aren’t too happy with the state of health care in this country, but…

13. If you had a choice between keeping your existing insurance or switching to an  insurance program administered by the government, which would you choose?

Keep existing insurance – 61%

Switch to government insurance – 17%

Not sure – 22%

…the anti-government rhetoric of the right has people a might skittish about trying something to make it better.