ARG has Obama down 20 points, a number which serious observers seem to put almost no stock in beyond the fact that it would indicate a shift in momentum. Obama had been gaining in Pennsylvania for weeks, and all of a sudden a poll shows things moving in the other direction in a big way. The race is still probably very tight there, but Survey USA, which tends to be far more reliable than ARG, has Clinton gaining seven points in Indiana in just the last two weeks. According to their survey she’s now up 16 points that state. And besides insulting the very voters Obama needed to court, blue-collar Reagan Democrats, his involvement with shady slumlord Tony Rezko has been revived, and Rev. Wright has started sermonizing again. Still, I think the most interesting of Obama’s potential problems is overexposure.
I’m dubious that a politician can ever have too much money, but it would be ironic if his fundraising prowess hurt him in Pennsylvania. Also, the notion that Obama’s ads are about him and not about the issues–well, that’s pretty much what Clinton has been saying all along: Obama’s campaign is ‘just words.’ So maybe she does win by more than ten points in PA and Indiana and Puerto Rico. In which case, the past week might have been a real turning point. Or maybe not.
