Senator Barack Obama has taken the high road and the public has noticed:
An ABC poll shows dramatic change in the public's perception of the Obama and McCain campaigns. We at dKos have long known this, but it's great that a national, traditional-media poll shows this as well. Here's their result:
Candidate is mainly:
Addressing Attacking
the issues his opponent
Now:
McCain 35% 59
Obama 68 26
8/22:
McCain 45% 48
Obama 64 29
As ABC's Gary Langer points out, this is a 24-point margin. Excellent news for Obama.
Our candidate has shown that his core principles of respect and dignity are winning the hearts and minds of the American people. As he's said so often, we can disagree without being disagreeable. We can win without demonizing our opponents. By running his campaign with those principles, he's helping our country immensely: imagine if attacks and smears are shown to help a candidate lose an election!
Obama's campaign mantra, going back to Iowa has been "Respect. Empower. Include." I love it. This man is a true leader, and has inspired me so much. I really hope that this campaign is a blow-out and that post-voting interviews show people voted for Obama in part because they liked this new kind of respectful politics.
NOTE: : as dKos user sgilman notes, we don't have data on if those polled have changed their vote because of this perception. ABC states that the full results of this poll come out at midnight, so if I'm up then I'll try to post the update.
UPDATE 1: The ABC numbers aren't out yet, but Huff Post is reporting that the Obama campaign agrees the McCain attacks backfired, based on their internal polling on McCain's fav/unfavorability numbers.
Obama sources shared internal campaign polling figures that show a sharp fall in positive feelings for the Republican ticket. Following the most recent spat of negative ads, they say, McCain's unfavorable rating has gone over 50 percent, notably higher than anything detected in recent public polling.
Excellent news! Also, it sounds like the blowback helped fuel record campaign donations!! Instant karma indeed!
Update 2: ABC doesn't have the pdf or story up yet but I see that they just posted an October 11 National Poll with Obama 53, McCain 43! The last ABC/Post poll was August 29th, with Obama 50, McCain 45. Good night, kossacks!