Bill Ayers' Wikipedia entry has been accessed between 49,500 and 96,000 times
over each of the past five days, as the McCain campaign has sought to
stress the linkages between Barack Obama and the former Weather
Underground frontman. This is a high figure; Jeremiah Wright, at his
peak, was getting about 38,500 hits per day; Obama and McCain themselves are generally in the high five figures or very low six figures. The Obama campaign, for its part, got "Keating Five" up to 84,800 hits on Monday, although those numbers have since leveled off.
It is less clear, however, whether these attacks are having any tangible effects on perceptions of the candidates.
Three of the daily tracking polls -- Rasmussen, Hotline, and Research
2000 -- chart the candidates' favorability scores on a daily basis.
Let's compare the candidates' ratings on 10/3 -- before the Ayers
attacks began -- with those from yesterday,
10/8. (Why yesterday rather than today? Because we don't want to
conflate the Ayers impact with that of the presidential debate, which
began to be reflected in today's figures).
First, Barack Obama:
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Rasmussen 10/3 57 42
Rasmussen 10/8 56 (-1) 42 (n/c)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Research 2K 10/3 59 32
Research 2K 10/8 57 (-2) 33 (+1)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Hotline 10/3 58 36
Hotline 10/8 56 (-2) 39 (+3)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Average 10/3 58.0 36.7
Average 10/8 56.3 (-1.7) 38.0 (+1.3)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Rasmussen 10/3 52 45
Rasmussen 10/8 52 (n/c) 46 (+1)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Research 2K 10/3 41 45
Research 2K 10/8 44 (+3) 49 (+4)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Hotline 10/3 53 40
Hotline 10/8 53 (n/c) 41 (+1)
Pollster Favorable Unfavorable
Average 10/3 48.7 43.3
Average 10/8 49.7 (+1.0) 45.3 (+2.0)
McCain's
unfavorables increased slightly over this window, by an average of 2
points, although only the Research 2000 result is outside the margin of
error. McCain's favorables also increased by an average of 1 point.
What
we also don't know is which types of voters, if any, were swayed by
this stuff. When comparing the 10/8 and 10/3 releases of the various
tracking polls, Obama lost a net of 5 points in the Hotline poll over
this window, and a net of 1 point in Research 2000 and Rasmussen, but
gained a net of 4 points in Gallup and a net of 1 point in the
Battleground poll, producing an ambiguous overall trend.
If the
McCain campaign wants to make any traction here, it will probably need
to press the attack continuously, as it has little tangible news value
and as interest in these things tends to fade rather quickly.
Obama's
best strategy may simply be to appear before a national audience as
frequently as possible, as voters have always almost reacted favorably
to Obama when he has had such opportunities. Obama's favorables ticked
upward in all three trackers in today's
release, suggesting that his strong performance in Tuesday night's
debate may cancel out or exceed any traction that McCain had been able
to make on Ayers. This may also be the impetus behind Obama's decision
today to make a 30-minute, prime time ad buy
in the week before the election, as candidates have few opportunities
to reach a mass audience once the final debate has come and gone. If it
so desired, the Obama campaign could probably also drive a decent
amount of attention to the Keating Five, as the traffic metrics on the
story essentially matched that of Ayers for the 48 hours or so that
Chicago was pushing it.
--Nate Silver