The political blog State of the Union compares John McCain’s support on daily tracking polls with the S&P 500 over the past two weeks.
The correlation between the market’s slide and McCain’s tumble is “a robust 0.77,” State of the Union calculates, even accounting for the Republican’s floor of support in the 40 percent range.
Invoking a phrase we’ll be hearing a lot in post-election analysis, the blog explicates why it’s more than a coincidence:
As Pollster’s Steve Lombardo says, “The economic situation has virtually ended John McCain’s presidential aspirations and no amount of tactical maneuvering in the final 29 days is likely to change that equation.”
In this election, as in nearly all before, a black swan has shaped the race’s trajectory: one of those unforeseeable external events that pops up in the last month or so, bearing an impact far greater than any of the daily fluctuations dissected by the punditry.
