McCain’s character, experience push his poll numbers higher
Larry Meacham's "The coming Republican fall" in last Sunday's Star-Bulletin is a sad example of a political science professor providing information to students. University students must be provided information allowing them to research, evaluate and decide for themselves. Meacham "instructs" them to vote for Sen. Barack Obama.
For the record, I am a Republican, a Vietnam combat veteran, and trust Sen. John McCain to be president of the United States because of his experience, judgment and character.
Meacham blames the media by writing, "Meanwhile, in order to keep their ratings high, they are desperately trying to make the November election seem tight. Good luck."
Meacham does not identify any of the political polls or explain how he evaluates such polls. Polls can provide valuable information in a snapshot of time of how people are thinking and provide data for strategic campaign planning.
Meacham is concerned with the national and individual state polls because they are trending the past three weeks toward McCain. Obama is currently leading in electoral votes, but the trend is rapidly shifting towards McCain as more voters are beginning to pay attention and are making an intense appraisal of what each candidate brings as our president.
The Nov. 4 General Election is now 79 days away. The critical polling is during the last seven days before the election when surveys begin to reveal the possible election result. Today, we are just evaluating trends.
I follow Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) and use the Zogby, Gallup and Rasmussen polling organizations as my base. The many other polling organizations are my supporting data. I am a political junky and follow Real Clear Politics results at least once a day. I pay special attention to trends following the news reports on various issues.
Last week my data had Obama in a fairly comfortable lead with 240 electoral votes to McCain's 179 electoral votes, based on polls with a 4 percent or more separation. I also have 24 electoral votes leaning to Obama and 95 electoral votes leaning to McCain in polls of 3 percent or less separation. In total, there are 119 electoral votes that could go either way come Nov. 4.
I have a special interest in California with its 55 electoral votes. The issue of marriage being between a man and a woman is on the ballot for the General Election. California has voted once in 2000 supporting traditional marriage between a man and a woman by 4.6 million to 2.9 million votes. The California Supreme Court this year ruled against the voters by a 4-to-3 vote allowing same-sex marriage. Will there be a backlash by the voters? And will the backlash be similar to Ohio in 2004 giving the electoral votes to President Bush? The polls have begun to show us how California voters are trending on this issue. McCain supports traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Obama supports same-sex marriage as civil marriages.
The second critical issue is drilling for oil off the coast of California. Current polling released on July 17 shows a majority 51 percent of California voters supporting drilling offshore, an increase of 10 percent from a year ago. How will this affect the presidential election? California voters are solid, by 10 percent, for Obama. McCain supports drilling offshore when the state supports it. Obama opposes offshore drilling.
Both McCain and Obama have been vetted by their respective parties and it now comes down to the voters who show up at the polls to decide.
Again, I support McCain for president of the United States because he has the experience, judgment and character to represent all of us.
Jimmy Kuroiwa Jr., a longtime Hawaii Republican leader, is working in the Hawaii campaign of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Kuroiwa lives in Honolulu.