Obama Wins in Weekly Reader Poll

Last update: 5:00 a.m. EDT Oct. 29, 2008
PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y., Oct 29, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- America's most trusted and accurate student survey has predicted the winner in 12 of the past 13 elections.
Just days before Americans choose our next president, voting has concluded in the Weekly Reader Student Presidential Election Poll. And the nation's students resoundingly say that Barack Obama will be the country's next leader. In the 14th Weekly Reader election survey, with more than 125,000 votes cast from kindergarten through 12th grade, the result was Obama 54.7% and John McCain 42.9% (with "other" candidates receiving 2.5% of the student vote). The Obama victory in the classroom electoral vote was even more resounding: The Democrat won 33 states and the District of Columbia, garnering 420 electoral votes, while McCain took 17 states and 118 electoral votes.

For the past 52 years, the results of the Weekly Reader poll have been consistently on target, with the student vote correctly predicting the next president in 12 out of 13 elections. (The only time the kids were wrong was 1992, when they chose George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton.) This year, as in 2000 and 2004, the student election was conducted in conjunction with noted polling organization Zogby International.

Below are more thought-provoking, and perhaps prescient, results from the Weekly Reader Student Presidential Election Poll: -- While the election results may appear one-sided, they actually were extraordinarily close in many places. In three states, less than a tenth
of a percentage point separated the winning ticket from the losing one.
Iowa and Missouri were the states where Obama barely squeaked by, while
in North Dakota, McCain won by the same slim margin.
-- Most, but not all, swing states went to Obama. The Democrat took
Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia. McCain won Minnesota and New Hampshire, each
by a surprisingly wide 8 points, as well as North Carolina in a 4.6%
victory over Obama.
-- McCain took Republican strongholds Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky,
Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming. Obama
romped in the deep blue states of California, Illinois, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, and the District of
Columbia.
-- The Democratic candidate had a few startling triumphs -- such as
sweeping the vote in the Republican slate's two home states of
Alaska and Arizona, registering a big win in Georgia, receiving 82% of
the student vote in Nevada, gaining a 34-point win in Mississippi, and
logging a 10% victory over McCain in George W. Bush's home state of
Texas.
-- Obama was the victor in every grade -- except grade 10, which chose
McCain. The results were the tightest in the 11th grade, where Obama
slid by with a 1.5% victory, followed by second grade, where Obama won
by a margin of 1.8%. The widest spread appeared in the ninth grade,
where Obama's gigantic 85.6% beat McCain's 12.4% -- a whopping
73.2% margin!

"Historically, our poll has been an amazing indicator of the presidential race's outcome, so we're all waiting with great anticipation to see what happens on Election Day," said Neal Goff, President of Weekly Reader. "Throughout the past few months, we've delivered cutting-edge multimedia election materials directly to schools so that students could cast an informed vote. We're excited to have given kids this important forum to express their opinions about who should be the next president."

Barack Makes Calls in Missouri

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGraCrU_mR8

Pennsylvania Republicans Send out Smear

The Pennsylvania Republican Party is mailing a vile leaflet to independent voters attempting to link Barack Obama to Professor William Ayers. Smears like this are often spread as part of a broader strategy to scare people who aren't very familiar with Barack by spreading false information.

Here’s the truth: the smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” “tenuous,“ – even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.” They have served together on the boards of local charities, but do not know each other well. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Barack has publicly denounced the acts Ayers committed in the 1960’s (when Barack was only 8 years old). The leaflet manages to skip over 25 years of time and then associate the Obama of the 90's with the Ayers of the sixties.

You can get more details and help spread the truth about these shameful attacks:
http://my.barackobama.com/AyersSmear Tell your neighbors if they ask.

Obama Rally Draws 100,000 in St. Louis

October 18, 2008, 1:48 pm
Amy Chozick reports on the presidential race from St. Louis.
Barack Obama attracted 100,000 people at a Saturday rally here, his biggest crowd ever at a U.S. event.
The crowd assembled under the Gateway Arch on a sunny Saturday afternoon to hear Obama speak about taxes and slam the Republicans on economic issues.
Lt. Samuel Dotson of the St. Louis Police Department confirmed the number of attendees piled into the grassy lawn by the Mississippi River.
To be sure, big crowds don’t always signal a big turnout on Election Day. But Obama’s ability to draw his largest audience yet in a typically red state that just weeks ago looked out of reach, could signal a changing electoral map.
For months Missouri polls put Obama as much as ten percentage points behind Republican John McCain. It was widely believed that McCain’s pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate would have won over the state’s conservatives and boosted his chances there. So far, that hasn’t happened.
A Rasmussen poll released on Friday shows Obama leading in Missouri 52% to 46% for McCain.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill had harsh words for Palin when she introduced Obama on Saturday. Referring to comments Palin made earlier this week in North Carolina about “pro-America” states, McCaskill said “We have reached a new low in America politics when a candidate dares to say that one part of America is pro-America and another part is anti-America.”
She also took a dig at McCain for selecting a vice presidential nominee with limited experience. “One [candidate] picked one of the strongest candidates for vice president he could’ve picked in the United States and well, the other didn’t.”
Recognizing that big rallies don’t always result in cast ballots, the Obama campaign has dispatched thousands of field organizers and volunteers to Missouri to knock on doors in a statewide get out the vote effort.

Interested in Polls?

Here's a web site that will help you monitor the Presidential and Congressional polls in every possible way: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters

Here's a wonderful story about a kind deed that Barack did many years ago and has brought him support.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/5/183340/309/352/621029

Ralph Stanley Endorses Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUOfaIyv4Bs

A New Kind of Patriotism

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08friedman.html?em

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman analyzes Palin's statement about taxes.