Palin Outdraws Obama Big Time in Indiana

Is there an effort afoot to overestimate the strength of Senator Obama while underestimating the strength of the Republican ticket?  Both the Obama campaign and the media have been pushing the meme that the race is all but over because Obama is campaigning in traditionally Republican states.  The latest fuel for this storyline is the claim that Indiana is up for grabs.

Indiana should be a solid Republican state anyway, but how unusual is it for a vice presidential candidate to draw substantially more people to a rally than showed up to hear the opposing ticket's presidential candidate the previous week? Perhaps it's not so unusual when the vice presidential candidate is the popular Sarah Palin.

One other interesting note.  Both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune covered the October 17 Palin rally.  The Sun-Times estimated the crowd at 24,000.  The Indianapolis Star estimated that about 20,000 attended.  Let's split the difference and say the crowd numbered 22,000. 

The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, pegged the Palin rally at only 10,000.  That's an awfully big disparity for a simple mistake, but it plays well into the "Indiana is a toss-up" theme.  The story reports that a compilation of polls has Obama down by only three points in the Hoosier State.  I'm simply not buying it.  I have no doubt that Obama probably leads nationally at this point, but I also believe that many polls over the last few weeks have overestimated the sampling of democrats.

Something else is a little unusual.  The Chicago Tribune story mentions that Palin outdrew Obama, who visited the state fairgrounds last week, by 3,000 people.  (In reality, we know that Palin outdrew Obama by at least 12,000 people.)  The Indianapolis Star reports that Obama drew 10,000.  The Tribune estimated the Palin crowd at 10,000.  Does this mean that the Tribune has estimated the Obama rally as drawing 7,000 people?  That certainly wouldn't be a number that inspires confidence in a democrat candidates chances at flipping a republican state.  Even so, it sure didn't stop the Tribune from pushing their story.

The Tribune story also mentions that the Obama campaign has 44 field offices around the state.  I wonder how many of those are just somebody's house?

Obama Veep Rally in Springfield

We'll find out on Saturday whom Senator Obama has selected to join him on the ticket.  Since I'm a McCain supporter, I'm not going to be at the big Obama event in Springfield.  I did walk by the Old State Capitol on my way to lunch this afternoon, though, and watched some of the preparation for the rally.  I snapped a few pictures if anyone's interested:

This is  a CNN truck setting up for Saturday's coverage.

Here's the truck from the other side.

The seating is being constructed in the foreground, while a large flag is draped over a building in the background.

Here's a shot of the Old State Capitol.  I'm told that Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign was run out of the corner office seen just beyond the van/truck.  The Lincoln-Herndon Law Office is right across from the Old State Capitol (out of the picture to the left).

Another shot of the seating and flag.