Over the weekend, Iraq’s cabinet “overwhelmingly approved a proposed security agreement that calls for a full withdrawal of American forces from the country by the end of 2011.” Noting President Bush’s long-held opposition to “artificial timetables,” one reporter asked at today’s White House press conference if the inclusion of a deadline in the security agreement was a “departure” from or “repudiation” of Bush’s views on Iraq.

Press Secretary Dana Perino demurred, claiming that the security agreement is, in fact, in line with Bush’s views on Iraq because it included only an “aspirational” deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq:

QUESTION: The President has said for months that he opposes any timetable and that any decision should be based on the conditions on the ground. How much is the latest agreement a departure, if not a repudiation — ?

PERINO: [W]hen you work with a partner on a negotiation, you have to concede some points. One of the points that we conceded was that we would establish these aspirational dates.

Watch it:

In reality, there is nothing “aspirational” about the security agreement’s withdrawal deadline. Members of the Iraqi government are referring to the pact as a “withdrawal agreement” and the Washington Post reported just how firm the deadline is:

“The total withdrawal will be completed by December 31, 2011. This is not governed by circumstances on the ground,” the [Iraqi government] spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told Iraqi reporters, pointedly rejecting the more conditional language that the U.S. government had sought in the accord.

In addition, the “Iraqi spokesman noted that his government could cancel the agreement if its own forces became capable of controlling security at an earlier time.”

The agreement guarantees a more complete withdrawal from Iraq than even President-elect Barack Obama proposed. As Spencer Ackerman noted, “Obama’s plan for a 30,000-troop residual force? Officially overtaken by events.” The agreement also prohibits the U.S. military from conducting raids on Iraqi homes “without an order from an Iraqi judge and permission of the government,” and requires U.S. forces to “leave the streets of Iraq’s towns and villages by the middle of 2009.”

The media haven’t been able to get enough Palin 2012 speculation in the run-up to her speech today at the Republican Governors Association (RGA) convention. In almost every interview with GOP governors over the past couple days, hosts have been asking them their thoughts on a future presidential run by Palin. These governors, however, have been less than enthusiastic to embrace Palin as their future candidate:

CNN: So let me ask you point blank, governor. Is she the future of the party?
MARK SANFORD (SC): I don’t think I’d define it that way. [11/13/08]

TIM PAWLENTY (MN): She [Palin] is going to be one of the voices that will help lead the party for months and years to come, clearly. … I also think it is too early to be talking about 2012. My goodness, we just had an election. People are sick of that. [MSNBC, 11/12/08]

FOX: What do you think her future is?
HALEY BARBOUR (MS): Well, I think the future she’s talking about is 2009 and 2010. [11/13/08]

MATT BLUNT (MO): I think Republican governors were surprised when she [Palin] was selected, but at the same time they were impressed. … There are a lot of great candidates out there for 2012. I don’t think the American people want to — want to hear much about that at this point.[Fox News, 11/13/08]

MSNBC: So broad hints there from Palin again today with reporters, certainly with Matt Lauer. Is that the solution?
JON HUNTSMAN (UT): The solutions are going to be many-fold. You can’t look to one personality in particular. [11/12/08]

Watch a compilation:

Yesterday at the RGA convention, many of these same governors and other top GOP figures were reluctant to say that they would have been comfortable with Palin as president.

Some leading conservatives may also be getting jealous of all the attention Palin is receiving. When Newt Gingrich — who is also rumored to be eyeing a 2012 run — was on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes last night, he listed the names of governors who have the potential to “rebuild” the GOP. Gingrich never once mentioned Palin’s name until Hannity pointed out that he had been one of her earliest backers. Gingrich simply replied, “Well, she’s now become, in many ways, a national figure. I’m curious to see what she’ll decide to do.”

DALLAS - According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a 19-point lead over Republican rival John McCain among U.S. voters who have already cast their ballots.

The Pew poll, released on Tuesday, gels with other reports of a Democratic surge to the polls in states that allow early voting.

“Obama holds a 53 percent to 34 percent lead among the sizable minority of voters (15 percent) who say they have already voted. Among those who plan to vote early but have not yet voted (16 percent of voters), 56 percent support Obama, while 37 percent support McCain,” Pew said.

The election will be held a week from today and most national polls give Obama a commanding lead, although not by the margins suggested by Pew’s survey of early voters. This could well be a sign of energized and enthusiastic Democrats heading to the early polls.

Obama’s lead over McCain has narrowed from 12 points just five days ago to four points, according to the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll. You can see our report on this  here. 

The latest Pew poll gave Obama an overall lead of 52 percent to 36 percent among the 1,325 registered voters surveyed from Oct 23- 26th.

As part of his new economic outline - The Pension and Family Security Plan - Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has proposed cutting the tax rate on long term capital gains and dividends to 7.5 percent in 2009 and 2010. The current tax rate for these capital gains is 15 percent.

Today, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center (TPC) released an analysis showing who would benefit from this cut. Like the rest of McCain’s tax cuts, this one overwhelmingly aids the wealthy, with two-thirds of the benefit going to those making over $1 million:

In 2009, under a plan that lowers taxes on both gains and dividends, those making $1 million or more would get two-thirds of the benefit, and an average tax cut of more than $72,000. Those making less than $50,000 would get, on average, nothing.

As the TPC pointed out, “75% of the benefit of low taxes on capital gains and dividends already go to those making $600,000 or more. Half goes to those making $2.8 million or more.”

In fact, as the Wonk Room noted when McCain first toyed with including this provision in his economic plan, under the current 15 percent rate, 93.9 percent of the benefits go to the top 5 percent of taxpayers, and 84.8 percent to the top 1 percent. The other 80 percent of taxpayers see only 1.7 percent of the benefits of today’s rate.

The McCain campaign claims that the cut will “strengthen incentives to save, invest, and restore the liquidity of markets.” But given the current economic situation - one in which “people do not have an awful lot of capital gains” - this measure will do nothing to stimulate the economy.

Furthermore, The Street noted that McCain’s cut “might have unintended consequences,” like encouraging investors “to make one-time sales to capture lower capital gains and increased tax write-offs,” which “would facilitate capital flight.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced a new economic stimulus plan this morning that features a new round of tax cuts for millionaires. McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer was stumped this morning when asked how much those new tax cuts would cost and how McCain planned to pay for them. “Obviously…it’s going to cost some amount of money,” she said. Watch it:

The AP reports McCain’s plan would cost $52.5 billion.

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain  . All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with the R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter.

                 Obama      McCain    MoE +/-   RV/LV
Today
Research 2000:  52 (53)    40 (40)    3         LV
Reuters/Zogby:  48 (49)    44 (43)    2.8       LV
Battleground:   51 (51)    43 (43)    3.5       LV  last reported Friday
Rasmussen:      50 (51)    45 (45)    2         LV

Yesterday
Diageo/Hotline: 49 (50)    41 (40)    3.4       LV
Gallup:         50 (51)    43 (42)    2         RV

On successive individual days in the R2K poll (different than the topline, which is a combined three day sample), Obama was up +12 Fri, +13 Sat and +11 Sun. Post-debate polling shows no benefit for McCain. Obama's percentage has been at or above 50 since 9/29. +13 is Obama's largest three day lead in the R2K poll.

The new  ABC/WaPo reads like a "closing the deal" affair:

Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.

More:

McCain has made little headway in his attempts to convince voters that Obama is too "risky" or too "liberal." Rather, recent strategic shifts may have hurt the Republican nominee, who now has higher negative ratings than his rival and is seen as mostly attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues that voters care about. Even McCain's supporters are now less enthusiastic about his candidacy, returning to levels not seen since before the Republican National Convention.

More:

Registered voters by a 24-point margin, 59-35 percent, now say McCain is more focused on attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues. That’s grown from a roughly even 48-45 percent split on this question in late August.

There's far less criticism of the tone of Obama's campaign: Registered voters by 68-26 percent say he's mainly addressing the issues, not attacking his opponent, a slightly more positive rating than in August.

            Candidate is mainly:
           Addressing    Attacking
           the issues   his opponent
Now:
McCain        35%           59
Obama         68            26

8/22:
McCain        45%           48
Obama         64            29

Note the expected move byGallup to a likely voter (LV) model:

Obama's current advantage is slightly less when estimating the preferences of likely voters, which Gallup will begin reporting on a regular basis between now and the election. Gallup is providing two likely voter estimates to take into account different turnout scenarios.

The first likely voter model is based on Gallup's traditional likely voter assumptions, which determine respondents' likelihood to vote based on how they answer questions about their current voting intention and past voting behavior. According to this model, Obama's advantage over McCain is 50% to 46% in Oct. 9-11 tracking data.

The second likely voter estimate is a variation on the traditional model, but is only based on respondents' current voting intention. This model would take into account increased voter registration this year and possibly higher turnout among groups that are traditionally less likely to vote, such as young adults and racial minorities (Gallup will continue to monitor and report on turnout indicators by subgroup between now and the election). According to this second likely voter model, Obama has a 51% to 45% lead over McCain.

The first LV model is 2004, and the second is 2008, in all probability. That's because of new voters, young voters, cell phone voters, etc. who may fail the first LV screen by not having voted before. This will probably cause a minute amount of 'tightening' in an otherwise stable race.

Here are some interesting Newsweek poll factoids compiled by pollingreport.com. A sampling:

• 58% of people who have seen McCain ads think they are "misleading or   distorting".  Only 36% said the same about Obama's ads.
• 47% of those surveyed think McCain shared their values
• 54% think he would "fit in well" with their local community
• 54% think he's honest and trustworthy
• 51% think he has the "right judgment and temperament" to make a good president
• 60% think he will stand for what's right, even if it's not politically popular and just 42% think he can bring the country together

In contrast:

• 59% think Obama shares their values
• 63% think he would fit in in their community
• 62% think he's honest and trustworthy (+8 over McCain)
• 66% think he has the right temperament and judgment (+14! over McCain)
• 62% think Obama can bring the country together (+20 over McCain)

A recent Gallup commentary answers why we are not talking about Bob Barr:

A recent Gallup Poll in which four third-party candidates were explicitly listed for voters along with the two major-party candidates found only minimal support for any candidate other than John McCain or Barack Obama.

For a good review of the Bradley effect, the Reverse Bradley effect, and other things to wring your hands over until the day after the election, see this NY Times piece by Kate Zernike.

Whatever its causes, the Bradley gap seems to be disappearing.

Richard Dunham at the Houston Chronicle summarizes every polling chestnut and bromide (in a helpful way - good to have it in one place.)

• In every election since the Nixon presidency, Americans have chosen the candidate they feel is more likable. After the second presidential debate, an Oct. 7 CNN poll found that viewers found Obama more likable, 65 percent to 28 percent.
• According to a Democracy Corps poll released Friday, 46 percent of Americans say there are "just too many questions (about Obama) to take a chance on him as president." In the closing weeks of the campaign, McCain will try to nudge that number up past 50 percent.
• Four years ago, Republicans rode a wave of enthusiasm for George W. Bush and a lack of Democratic excitement about John Kerry into a 3 percentage point win. But the GOP enthusiasm edge seems to have evaporated. A Diageo/Hotline poll released Friday found that 70 percent of Democrats enthusiastically support Obama; 49 percent of Republicans eagerly back McCain.

None of the above is a guarantee, given that no election is really the same as any other, and many precedents will be shattered this year.

Finally, senior polling expert John Oliver explores a neglected demo.

On Saturday, one day after Gov. Sarah Palin was cited by an official state investigation for unethically and unlawfully abusing her power, Sen. John McCain said he would end “abuses [of power]” in Washington as president. In another bout of irony, Palin today echoed McCain:

See as a senator, John has confronted the corrupt ways of Washington. And the wasteful spending. And the abuses of power. As president, he’s going to end those once and for all.

Watch it:

Recently, the AARP asked both presidential candidates about their positions on issues related to senior citizens. McCain, however, “chose not to check any statements in the survey” on “health care, long-term care, Social Security and retirement security,” the Washington Post reports. The McCain campaign declined to answer whether it commits “to help end gridlock by working across party lines to develop and support common-sense, bipartisan solutions on health care and financial security”:

McCain and Obama did provide written answers on the issues in the survey.

Today's tracking polls (updated):

                 Obama      McCain    MoE +/-   RV/LV
Today
Research 2000:  51 (51)    41 (41)    3         LV
Reuters/Zogby:  48 (47)    44 (45)    2.8       LV
Battleground:   48 (49)    45 (45)    3.5       LV
Rasmussen:      50 (51)    45 (45)    2         LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (45)    41 (44)    3.2       LV  
Gallup:         52 (52)    41 (41)    2         RV

Obama's lead runs from +3 (Battleground) to +11 (Gallup). Obama's range is 47-52, while McCain's is 41-45. IEM has it at 80.6-18.2 Obama-McCain and Intrade has 74.9-25.4 if you want to bid on the election. Fivethirtyeight.com figures it a 90.7% chance of an Obama win (Nate notes the same bemusement we all have about the ARG poll with an 8 point Obama lead in W VA.)

Sarah Palin's unruly mob campaign rallies are a news story, but Sarah Palin's dropping fav/unfav in the face of a stable race are a bigger news story.

Diageo/Hotline:

Palin's approval ratings are also sliding and she has almost a 1-1 fav/unfav rating, with 46% rating her favorably and 43% rating her unfavorably.

Research 2000:

There's no reservoir of good will with either Palin or McCain (look at his unfav's as well). This background is going to drive a good deal of reaction in the next few days, regardless of what you hear on cable TV.

How well are the Palin/McCain attacks working? Rasmussen and Gallup are viewing this as some variation of a 'stable' lead. For example, Gallup:

Signifying a general stability in the race, Obama has maintained a share of the vote between 48% and 52% over the last two weeks, while McCain's share during that same time period has been between 41% and 45%.

and Rasmussen:

The race remains quite stable--for the past fourteen days, Obama’s support has ranged from 50% to 52% every day while McCain has been at 44% of 45%.

Here are some new post-debate polls to add to the previously described CNN (Obama 54-30), CBS (Obama 40-26) and SUSA - WA (Obama 54-29) polls that showed a clear Obama win.

USA Today/Gallup (MoE +/- 4):

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama convinced many more viewers to think more favorably of him during Tuesday night's presidential debate than did his Republican opponent, John McCain, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll signals.

While 53% of the 735 people surveyed said their opinions of Obama had not changed, 34% said they thought more favorably of him and 12% viewed him less favorably. All 735 said they had watched the debate.

The reactions to McCain were almost mirror opposites: 54% said their opinions about him had not changed, 33% felt less favorable and 12% felt more favorable.

The poll also shows that among those surveyed, 56% thought Obama did the "better job" at the debate, to 23% who said that about McCain. Fifteen percent said the candidates' performances were "equal.

Rasmussen (MoE +/- 3):

Voters say Barack Obama beat John McCain in Tuesday night’s presidential debate 45% to 28%, but they also think McCain is better prepared to be president than Obama by an 11-point margin.

Over one-quarter of voters (28%) didn’t pick either man as the winner of the debate, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken Wednesday evening.

Sixty-one percent (61%) say McCain is prepared to be president, while 50% feel that way about Obama. While 28% say McCain isn’t ready to be the chief executive, 43% say that of the Democratic nominee.

Amusingly, some of the cable show hosts are trying to rewrite history and reclaim their right to set the narrative by calling this week's Presidential debate a draw. That won't work. The public has already decided it was a decisive Obama win, and tomorrow's trackers will likely continue to reflect that there was no gain for McCain. Due tomorrow is the report on Palin's handling of her employees in Alaska, and that will drive narrative as well.

In any case, the Dow will frustrate Palin/McCain's attempts to manipulate the media into talking about nothing else but guilt by association. Americans are interested in leadership, not fear, smear and cowardice. Palin will lose the suburbs, the indies and the election.