Week #6, Blog #2

At 8pm on 10/10/08 Fox News has published a poll on the election and claims that Senator Barack Obama is leading 46% to 39% over Senator John McCain. A previous poll that was conducted two weeks ago shows almost the same results. Obama has increased his lead among his own party as well as woman, black voters, young voters with a college degree, and unmarried voters.

The three debates that have been held so far including the two Presidential debates and the single Vice-Presidential debate seems to have helped Senator Obama more so than Senator McCain. The economy is another factor why Obama's lead has increased because we have had virtually eight years of Republican policies and as long as things are going well then people usually want to return the same party into power but when things are looking down the people want a change. This is exactly the same thing that happened in 1992 when President George H.W. Bush was soundly defeated by an Arkansas Governor named Bill Clinton, who was new on the national scene.

The following statement from the article that includes the poll illustrates the prior point, "There is no doubt the economy remains the single most important issue to voters this election. It is picked by 49 percent, which is more than all the other issues combined. " The economy is currently on shaky ground with the Dow Industrial Average sinking below $8000 for the first time since 2003. The economy seems to be a very big and important election predicting tool. As Ronald Reagan said in 1980, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" If the answer was no to that question then he felt that you should have voted for him to be President instead of the incumbent President Jimmy Carter (D-GA) because he already had four years and was unable to improve our economic situation so not it was time for a change. The American people agreed with that idea and President Reagan easily won the 1980 and 1984 Presidential elections.

At the end of the article it is interesting to note that Fox News has tied Congress and the Presidents low approval ratings as a factor as to why John McCain is not winning in the polls at this time.