2008 Presidential Election Blog

McCain Concedes

2008-11-05T10:48:00.001-05:00

President Obama

2008-11-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Backdoor bragging

2008-11-05T08:36:00.002-05:00

My Prediction: Obama 52%, McCain 47%.

Actual Result: Obama 52%, McCain 47%

My Prediction: Obama wins PA, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, and Missouri.

Actual Result: Obama won PA, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, and Virginia, with Missouri too close to call

My Prediction in the Electoral College:

Obama 360

McCain 178

Actual Result in the Electoral College:
Obama 349 (could be 360 if he wins Missouri as I predicted)
McCain 163 (could be 178 if he wins NC as I predicted)

I have to say I'm happy I made that prediction post! It's gratifying after all the hours I've put into following the election, I just about nailed it with my predictions.

The Hispanic vote

2008-11-04T22:31:00.003-05:00

...was 8% of the electorate. McCain got only 30%! That's less than the realistic estimate of Bush's percentage in '04 (44% was always unrealistic, due to an exit poll urban oversample--the middle thirties was much more realistic).

It's remarkable given McCain's record on immigration. There's no one with a more favorable record on immigration from the Hispanic point of view. Or is there? Polls show that Hispanic immigrants who have been here the longest are the least likely to favor the kinds of immigration policies McCain pushes, and most likely those immigrants are the ones with higher turnout, since people who are established in a locale tend to vote in higher percentages.

Plus McCain downplayed the immigration issue ever since it all but killed his candidacy in the summer of 2007.

West Virginia for McCain

2008-11-04T22:20:00.002-05:00

McCain is clobbering Obama in West Virginia. Bush won the state with 56%, 423,000 votes to 326,000 for Kerry. McCain's winning it with similar numbers. The Democratic governor and senator both got reelected there.

Appalachia really doesn't like Obama, but he got OH and PA despite that. McCain really needed those states. Right-wing bloggers are congratulating Obama now.

The campaigns matter

2008-11-04T22:14:00.003-05:00

This presidential election has convinced me more than anything that campaigns matter. I felt McCain was running a very good campaign when his polls were going up; his numbers fell when his campaign went astray.

McCain always had less resources to expend. Obama has raised $639 million. Amazingly, he has been campaigning for president for ... 639 days! That's a per diem calculation even I can make.

According to the exit polls so far, 27% of the electorate was contacted by the Obama campaign, while 18% was contacted by the McCain campaign. Obama won the people his campaign contacted 66-32. McCain won his 59-40.

Ohio goes to Obama

2008-11-04T20:53:00.003-05:00

Obama is walloping McCain in Ohio. It's no contest; they called it with less than 20% reporting.

McCain narrowly won the white vote in OH, but the black vote was 12% of the total and it was unanimous for Obama.

40% of the electorate were Democrats, only 30% were Republicans. In 2004 it was 35% Democrat, 40% Republican.

Obama killed on "cares about people like me" in OH, 78-19.

Bush won college grads in Ohio in 2004, Obama won them tonight.

How many people have voted early?

2008-11-04T18:59:00.001-05:00

I got a question on how may people have voted early yesterday. This from earlyvoting.net:

32 states allow no-excuse pre-Election Day in-person voting - either early voting on a voting machine or in-person absentee voting

14 states and the District of Columbia require an excuse for in-person absentee voting

1 state is all vote-by mail

4 states do not allow early or in-person absentee voting

28 states allow no-excuse absentee voting by mail

22 states and the District of Columbia require an excuse to vote absentee by mail

(The all-mail voting state is Oregon.)

In the news yesterday: 28.9 million people voted early this year.

From the Atlantic:

Historically, Republicans have had an advantage over Democrats in terms of absentee balloting; Democrats tend to outperform Republicans in terms of in-person early voting. These disparities are rooted in geography - it's easier to get people to vote in person in cities, and Democrats do well in cities, and it's easier to get people to vote by mail in more rural areas, and Republicans tend to do better in rural areas. Republicans tend to bank more absentee votes than Dems do early votes, in part because a key Democratic urban constituency: African Americans, have been suspicious of early voting.

27.7 million people voted early in 2004, 22.5% of the total. This year, 31.7 million people voted early. That would be 25% of the '04 total, but turnout will be higher this year. By the looks of that increase, the turnout of 123.5 million people in '04 will increase to 141.3 million this year. We'll see if that's correct; it would mean a turnout of 62% (the Voting Age Population of 2008 is 227.7 million).

My Prediction

2008-11-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

Obama 52%, McCain 47%.

Obama wins PA, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Missouri and Virginia.

Electoral College:

Obama 360

McCain 178

Landslide or close race?

2008-11-02T08:19:00.003-05:00

That's the question at this point. I define a blowout by a candidate winning with 350 electoral votes or more. There's about a 50-50 chance that it will be a blowout for Obama, according to the chart above from Five-Thirty-Eight.

Five-Thirty-Eight has also been contending that the race nationally needs to tighten five points for McCain to have a chance. There's been no movement in McCain's direction, however, and he's never been over 44% since the Ides of September, when some crazy bloggers were predicting a McCain blowout, but after which his campaign went south.

Something dramatic would have to happen for McCain to win now. But this is not impossible. The 2000 election featured a surprise release of Dubya's DUI right before election day, which had an impact on undecided voters. It seems less likely now, but there could be an international incident. The Bush administration has been very reckless in provoking Pakistan and Syria in recent days, bombing inside Pakistan and conducting a raid inside Syria, and a cynic could with a lot of justification say they were trying to provoke retaliation that could create such an incident.

An international crisis is the only thing that can save McCain now.

Why McCain will lose

2008-11-02T07:13:00.005-05:00

I've been paying less than close attention to the race recently, as the dearth of recent blog posts indicates. My new job being very demanding, I haven't had much time at all the last ten days. But I almost feel like saying, what does it matter? What has really changed in the interim? Nothing. The state of election has remained the same. The national polls are identical. The Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Dakota polls are basically identical to what they were. Obama's gained a small lead in Florida. The Missouri, Virginia, and Pennsylvania polls have tightened in favor of McCain. The Georgia, Indiana, Arizona (!), and Arkansas polls have tightened in favor of Obama. The West Virginia polls are all over the place. The big story is Palin's wardrobe! Who cares about that. Of course she has to buy new clothes. What a non-story. You're really running out of anything substantive to talk about when this dominates two news cycles.

I'm not trying to justify my lack of blogging enthusiasm, but my forced hiatus seemingly at the worst time of the campaign has not missed anything major. The fundamental dynamics of the race has remained the same. So much in electoral politics comes down to the argument you make. McCain has been unable to make an effective argument as to why he should be president, and that's why he will lose on Tuesday.

The NYTimes a week ago had a cover story on the incarnations of McCain. There is such an eerie similarity to Hillary's loss to Obama (though she basically tied him). At first McCain was the experience candidate. The RNC are still running ads attacking Obama on this. They way the ad is phrased is "No Executive Experience." A telling phrasing -- Palin does have executive experience, so she's "most experienced" than Obama. But of course she's not. She's way more inexperienced than Obama.

The Palin pick has really blunted this line of attack. It can no longer be the main reason to elect McCain. However, that doesn't in itself mean the pick was a bad idea. Running on "experience" doesn't work anyway, in my view. If experience is so great, why is this the first time in nearly fifty years that a senator is going to be president? Senators have a greater claim to be presidential timber in terms of experience than anyone else. The reason is voters don't care about experience as a reason to elect someone. It is, rather, a threshold you have to pass in order to be a serious candidate. Once you're there, more experience doesn't help you. The problem is that Palin has issues with that threshold, making Obama look more experienced by contrast. So she has taken away this factor, but again this is not a decisive thing.

Abandoning "experience you can trust" McCain chose the "maverick change" tack with the Palin pick. That is, "Change is coming" but not such radical, untested change. Change that contrasts well with Obama's change. So McCain tried to run against Bush, against Washington, as Obama-lite. This was an interesting chess move. As I've detailed previously, it didn't work because McCain didn't take it seriously. If you are going to bring change, if you are going to be a fighter for the people against the establishment, then you can't be the candidate of bipartisanship. McCain wanted to have it both ways. He wanted to be the bipartisan candidate, which he could have laid claim to with some plausibility. He's bucked his own party to work with the other side, etc. etc. But being the candidate who plays nicely with the other children in the sandbox is a good strategy if you are ahead, and is at cross-purposes with a claim to be a maverick and shake things up.

In a highly-charged, visible race for the presidency, you have to be consistent. You can't be the candidate of change if you want to continue the policies that the party in power has implemented in the recent past. You can't be the candidate of bipartisanship if you are going to shake things up. You have to choose an argument, and hammer away at it. McCain didn't want to choose, and the bailout bill was his Rubicon. He refused to cross. I contend that he had to oppose the bill to win. The problem was that he couldn't. To oppose something with such an elite consensus behind it, a candidate has to be uber-persuasive and hyper-articulate. It is a very difficult thing to do. McCain didn't have it in him.

It is all well and good to say a candidate should do this or that, but in reality the positions a candidate can take on issues is pretty constrained. When everyone agrees that something is good or bad, you had better really know your stuff if you are going off into heterodoxy. The safe view is always the one that most people hold -- this is a democracy after all! McCain couldn't oppose the bailout because with the debates coming up, he could not persuasively make the case that the Washington consensus was wrong. So opposing the bailout was not even an option for him. I make this judgment based on McCain's debate performance. When the questions were on the economy, he would breathe heavily into the microphone, and his words sounded hesitant, like he didn't know what he was going to say next. When the questions were on foreign policy, the adrenaline went rushing through his body, and he spoke with passion and conviction. It's because he knows his stuff with foreign policy, but doesn't have a clue on economic issues.

So McCain was really in a bind. But it's not unexpected for him to be in a bind. Here is a candidate with a lot of liabilities. He's not a great speaker or stump campaigner. (In an appearance at my institution last week, McCain said "agree with Obama" rather than "disagree with Obama" and didn't catch his misstatement until he had finished a 3 minute diatribe -- it was embarrassing, and was played all over the local news.) His great asset was that he was a media darling, yet it's no contest who the media prefers when it comes to him or Obama, or even Hillary. His signature issue set is foreign policy, but he's identified with a disastrous decision on that front, the Iraq war. So it was never going to be easy for McCain. If the financial crisis had come after the debates, McCain might have been able to take a different path and oppose the bailout forcefully in sound bites and canned speeches. Not having to talk about it for extended periods of time from memory might have given him other options. But the way it played out put him in a tight spot.

Why should we elect McCain? That question has not been answered by the campaign. And that is why McCain will lose.

A double-standard?

2008-10-21T11:21:00.001-04:00

Can you imagine if Sarah Palin said "When the stock market crashed in 1929, President Roosevelt got on television and told everyone to calm down"? Can you? Can you? It would be pandemonium!

Now Biden has said this: "We"re about to elect a brilliant 47-year old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help."

This is the downside of Biden, straying off-message. Especially by being too into himself and not the good promoter of the top of the ticket.

In the end it doesn't matter. The economy is the main issue, and unless we bomb Iran soon, foreign policy is not going to reach the top of voters' concerns.

I've always liked Biden. He gets a pass on the silly comments because he's been around and knows his stuff. So doesn't he deserve a pass? Palin, one could argue, does not. But it still is a double-standard.

Biden was a great pick because it showed Obama being serious about being president. It was a pick with a view to governing, not to winning. I think in the end a running-mate who is a gimmick (Palin) doesn't help you. The political advantage of a running-mate comes when the political advantage is secondary to governing. Reagan picked Bush, Clinton picked Gore, W picked Cheney, and now Obama picks Biden.

The Last Debate

2008-10-15T21:04:00.014-04:00

(This is PotusBlog's 400th post!)

Obama came out strong, just like the first debate. McCain got the question first and started with a typical politician's response, not giving specifics and somewhat avoiding the question. The contrast with Obama, who seems sharp and direct by contrast. McCain followed up with a good personal appeal to a man Obama met on the campaign trail, and the Obama just took all the wind out of his sails with a quip that was actually funny (!), "Joe the Plummer's been watching Sen. McCain's ads." Got a small audience response--that's important, because all the studies show that audience reaction has a huge impact on TV viewership evaluation. McCain's joke, "We're talking about Joe the Plummer" when Obama mentioned Buffet, was just as funny but got no audience reaction. Obama's joke a little while later about Fox News also got a laugh, as did his joke a little past that saying "congrats" to McCain for the Cardinals beating the Cowboys. A pro-Obama audience it seems.

McCain came out with passion on taxes after his opening two salvos, and made up for lost ground, putting Obama on his heels. McCain had a great moment, looking Obama in the eyes and saying "I'm not President Bush. If you wanted to vote for President Bush you should have run four years ago." Oh yeah! Where was this passion in the last two debates? McCain should have done this from the beginning. The anger and passion makes him seem a lot more vigorous. The late night comedy shows have had a field day making fun of the McCain ticket, and McCain himself as old and doddering. As has been widely remarked, they don't know how to make fun of Obama. Call it the comedy gap. McCain showing controlled anger I think would mitigate this a little bit. But only a little.

"I give you tremendous credit for that" Obama on McCain's opposition to torture. Why do politicians phrase it this way? I think it would be better to say "You deserve tremendous credit for that."

McCain was passionate about negative ads, defending the people at his rallies, the relationship of Obama with Ayers and ACORN, putting Obama again on his heels. "I've roundly condemned" his despicable acts, Obama said. I think it would be more effective to look into the camera and say "I condemn them." But Obama ran through the whole story on Ayers and ACORN with a lawyer's closing argument that brought overwhelming evidence to bear that these are distractions that a desperate McCain is focusing on because he's got nothing else. I give the exchange to Obama.

Obama's a pro. Speaking well of Biden and not even mentioning SP when asked to compare the two. That's exactly right. McCain had a much more difficult time (of course). It's hard to listen to him refer to SP without SNL ringing in your ears. McCain flubbed his "breath of fresh air" line about her, and I had a jolly laugh about McCain accidentally saying "breasts." If he said that word on live TV in a debate in reference to Sarah Palin, his campaign would be over! Bush could nuke Iran and Russia and Pakistan on Nov. 3 and Obama'd still win!

Obama would smile when McCain spoke about him. That made it seem like McCain was distorting Obama's positions. It was a subtle "there you go again" message implicit there. I thought it was a very funny moment when an hour into the debate Obama looked into the camera and told Joe the Plumber that his fine for not providing health care would be "zero." McCain had said that "he'd sure like to know what that fine's gonna be." "Zero!" said McCain, and then went on a flurry of blinking that just looked so funny on the split screen.

McCain went over the line with Joe the Plumber. He should have dropped it. His obsession with J the P became a parody of itself. SNL must be so happy for this; their script writes itself on this one.

I thought the rest of the debate was super boring. I was bored. I thought McCain through everything and the kitchen sink at Obama, and the former did well, but Obama weathered the storm with aplomb. He is our next president; that's what I kept thinking watching his performance--not based on the polls as much as his performance.

McCain's Insane Tax Plan

2008-10-15T11:55:00.004-04:00

I have to wonder what this campaign would be like if there were different nominees from the parties. I have to think that Hillary would be up on McCain as least as much as Obama, but would have moved into the lead even earlier. The real difference would be with the Republicans--had Mitt Romney been the nominee, the GOP would have been in much better shape to argue that their candidate is the one who understands the economy and could fix it.

Or would they? Romney lacks the popular touch even more than McCain. However, McCain's age works against him through the comparison with the youthful Obama, which would have been more neutralized with Romney. McCain doesn't exactly connect with voters--support for him in large part stems from unease with Obama. That same unease would've worked for Romney, but other than age I don't think Mitt would've been a much better nominee even given the financial mess.

And then there's the Huckster. The only other viable Republican nominee, Huckabee has what the other two lack, which is the common touch. It would have been a dangerous comparison with Obama from the Democratic perspective. Huckabee could have smeared him on the Rev. Wright stuff, and been able to bring it up again and again without really bringing it up.

I was prompted in the direction of these wild what-if speculations due to McCain's tax cut proposal yesterday. What a disaster. For a campaign that I had so much respect for strategy-wise prior to the Ides of September, their stock has rapidly declined in my mind. McCain should have opposed the bailout. This would have given him what he lacked and what he was vulnerable on--a populist appeal. He could have done it with conservative bona fides, since a lot of the GOP base opposed it.

The whole reason Palin was picked was precisely for an injection of the popular touch. But Palin, like McCain's strategy in the last four weeks, is a gimmick. All McCain's trickery has turned his campaign into a laughing stock. And now this--his response to the financial crisis is a capital gains tax! Unbelievable.

I don't care if it's right. I don't care if it is sound policy. This is not college ECON 202 class. This is a presidential campaign, and a capital gains tax cut does nothing for McCain's campaign. Nothing, but give Obama a gift complete with wrapping and a red bow. It fits the stereotype of McCain being out of touch, flailing around with his proposals, and in the tank with Bush big-business policies. That's a stereotype that McCain needed to work against, not comfortably slide into.

McCain had his chance on the economy to rally disaffected voters, and he chose the safe route. This is why he's down and will probably lose.

Obama and the Bradley Effect

2008-10-15T10:30:00.000-04:00

One thing I've been thinking about recently as Obama has increased his lead on McCain is whether a predicted blowout for the Dems will turn into Obama scraping by, as a small percentage of white voters change their minds last minute. Besides the fact that an important segment of the electorate makes up its mind last minute. The late deciders swung against Bush in 2000, costing him the popular vote, partly due to the DUI story that broke right before election day. They split evenly in '04, which sunk Kerry. What will they do now? Will they balk at electing our nation's first black president? There's of course the racist angle. There's also the lack of experience angle, which I have always defended as legitimate. McCain is not doing a very good job right now of portraying Obama as inexperienced. But there's still some time left, the late deciders haven't decided, and events could swing McCain's way. Obama could be peaking right now. The only good time to peak is right before the election. This campaign isn't over yet, and I continue to obsess about the possibility of an October surprise of an attack on Iran. McCain's numbers go up in a foreign policy crisis.

Concerning the Bradley Effect, Andrew Hacker writes:

Some people who are telling pollsters they're for Obama could actually be lying. Such behavior has been called the "Bradley Effect ," after Tom Bradley, a black mayor of Los Angeles who lost his bid to be California's governor back in 1982. While every poll showed him leading his white opponent, that isn't how the final tally turned out. Things haven't been far different in some other elections involving black candidates. In 1989, David Dinkins was eighteen points ahead in the polls for New York's mayoral election, but ended up winning by only a two-point edge. The same year, Douglas Wilder was projected to win Virginia's governorship by nine points, but squeaked in with one half of one percent of the popular vote. Nor are examples only from the past. In Michigan in 2006, the final polls forecast that the proposal to ban affirmative action would narrowly prevail by 51 percent. In fact, it handily passed with 58 percent. That's a Bradley gap of seven points, which isn't trivial. Since 1968, the Democratic Party has not been able to muster a majority of white Americans. Al Gore fell twelve percentage points behind among white voters in 2000, and John Kerry had a seventeen-point gap four years later.

McCain hates Obama

2008-10-08T12:23:00.003-04:00

We've seen it before. Hillary (and Bill) Clinton's rage and disbelief over Barack Obama's candidacy did them no favors in the primaries. Rule Number 1 is "don't underestimate your opponent," and the Clintons were a textbook example. You need to hate your opponent in any contest (e.g., sports) in order to get motivated to beat them, but it has to be that right mixture of hatred, fear, and contempt. If one of those elements is out of whack, then there's trouble.

McCain seems to be falling into the trap of too much contempt. "How can this young'un be on the same stage with me? With me?" McCain seems almost to be asking himself. And it comes out in various ways. Byron York has the rundown on it today. McCain was trying to be funny in his "that one" comment in the debate. McCain really doesn't have that good of a sense of humor. His contempt for Obama seeped out a little there. After the debate he *looked* like he didn't want to shake Obama's hand. So what if he had already? He looked like he didn't on TV. A Freudian slip, in view of all the voters.

This really was the only interesting thing in a boring debate. Obama's line in these debates has been "He's misrepresenting my positions." McCain's contempt seems to validate this to people.

The Second Debate

2008-10-07T21:16:00.011-04:00

Obama did a good job at the beginning on the economy. McCain just looked like he didn't have a clue. He looked old. He breathed heavily into the mic. He stressed energy independence as a economic solution, which didn't strike a chord. He stressed $700B going overseas for oil, which reminded people of the total for the bailout. Obama said $700B when he was talking about what we've spent on Iraq; also reminiscent of the bailout.

McCain's problem is that he wants to steal Obama's message of a new politics, yet he has to attack Obama, which looks like the old politics. Obama had this great line early saying "Look, you don't want to hear politicians attack each other" as he pivoted to what he was proposing. I thought he really connected with the young man who asked the question. McCain talked about bipartisan Reagan and Tip O'Neil in one breath, and in the very next sentence he mentioned how he himself "wasn't very popular sometimes in his own party, much less the other." It's a fundamentally flawed argument.

"What sacrifices would you ask for?" The first internet question. McCain repeated lines about cutting programs, without giving any (unpopular) specifics. Obama first spoke about Bush saying "Go out and shop" after 9/11. Good start. He then started talking about government programs--not personal enough. Then he started talking about people using less energy in their own lives...but then related it back to government giving incentives. I thought that could have been more powerful. Too Jimmy Carterish? But the people liked Carter's "malaise" speech--it was only the cynical media who turned on him and turned the speech into a laughingstock. I thought Obama missed a real opportunity to issue a politically risky call to individual Americans to share the burden of consuming less. A lot of talk about "sharing the burden" but I thought it could have been even more specific. (But that means more risky.) McCain hit Obama on looking to the government too much on health care. I think McCain could have pressed this aspect a lot more.

Obama's tone was good, and I'm continually impressed with how he doesn't say "uh" anymore. McCain said "my friends" a ton, and his "s's" whistled into the microphone.

I thought Obama won the "what's your priority" question. He said, "We need to prioritize" while McCain said "We can do all of them." Bush 43's political genius at the beginning of his first term was to portray himself, at least, as someone willing to prioritize. People roll their eyes when politicians dodge this type of question. McCain knew he was beat and returned to it in a follow-up that I thought smacked of desperation.

McCain continues to be the strongest when he preaches his record against earmarks. Obama is the weakest when he reminds everyone that McCain is part of the problem in Washington in the last 26 years--this only reminds people that Obama is the newbie.

When talking about health care insurance companies Obama bashed Delaware--interesting given his choice of running mate!

When McCain started talking about foreign policy he got animated and was at his best. The contrast with his speech when he's speaking about the economy is marked. McCain said, "The United States of America is the greatest force for good in the history of the world." More overweening American exceptionalism you cannot find--not that the nation is blessed by God in his providence, but rather takes the place of God's providence. He had said at the beginning of the debate that the economic problem was caused by Washington and greed on Wall Street.

McCain had more malapropisms. McCain: "Let's keep never forget the trouble we're in today." McCain: We have to make sure we're not "exacerbating our reputation."

I thought Tom Brokaw was obnoxious from beginning to end. He sniped and snarked, was schoolmarmish and a know-it-all, yet at the end he didn't even know what to say without the teleprompter.

Palin on SNL?

2008-10-07T08:32:00.000-04:00

Consensus: McCain missed the boat

2008-10-06T13:23:00.002-04:00

I agree with the Hammer over at the Washington Post--McCain is throwing too many hail marys, making Obama look cool and stable.

I've always argued that he had to throw hail marys. The real problem is not that he's doing so, it's that the last one fumbled badly. The gimmicky "let's-suspend-the-campaign" when he had no intentions of following through on skipping the debate was really bad. The fill-in for Rush Limbaugh today was bemoaning the chance McCain had to rally voters for change by opposing his party's capitol hill leadership and taking a very popular position opposing the bailout.

I advised McCain's team to oppose the bailout on 9/22. I guess they aren't reading this blog, or else they felt that the downside I listed--that McCain couldn't pull it off because he doesn't know enough about economic issues--certified the decision not to oppose the plan.

Yet it is becoming more and more clear that this might be *the* turning point in the campaign. McCain had a shot, and he blew it. Airball. He is sinking in the polls. On the ground in Ohio people have the sense that the tide has turned. A former White House employee admitted to me over the weekend that McCain missed a big opportunity.

Palin in the debate was all about stealing the change message. Effective--if it had been backed up with substance. Palin didn't provide substance. McCain could have provided it for her, by taking a popular position sharply divergent from Obama's on such a visible issue.

McCain shot an airball with time running out. There's still time left, but it starting to look like desperation-ball for the Republicans.

Palin survives

2008-10-02T22:05:00.004-04:00

Joe Biden outclassed SP at every turn in the Veep debate, and it didn't matter. He had to be deferential to her, and that worked in her favor.

The format worked massively in her favor. She would wilt in a format like the first presidential debate, which allowed for detailed follow-ups. Basically, Biden would say something, Palin would respond, Biden might respond to SP but then Ifill would move on to another question. Palin got lucky, I thought.

Palin would have won the debate if she had dropped completely the word "also." By the end it was so painful. The end of the debate was grating--I agree completely with Chuck Todd that Biden had a great end of the debate.

Palin successfully stole Obama's message of change. That was impressive. She also played up seeming real and in touch--also impressive. McCain has to be very happy. She gives his ticket a softer edge, allows him to steal Obama's change message, and fires up his base, all while complementing his maverick image. Everything he needed.

Fighting Biden to a draw is exactly what Palin needed to do. She garbled and mangled answers. She got facts wrong. But she will be forgiven it. I think this gives McCain a short little bounce, but that's it. Biden was too impressive. His tear-up when he was talking about his injured kids was powerful. He made a very substantive case that McCain is not a maverick. But he was hampered by the debate format and his opponent's gender.

The Veep Debate

2008-10-02T20:55:00.001-04:00

Palin needs not to be humiliated

2008-10-02T15:42:00.002-04:00

The Veep Debate tonight might well decide the election. If SP is humiliated, the combination of McCain's bungling and the economic crisis will combine to sink his campaign, perhaps for good. If SP really tanks, it's even probably sunk for good, I would say, though nothing's for certain (especially with Bush possibly orchestrating an October surprise).

The expectations are super low for SP. This favors her, big-time. If she makes a barely passable showing, the story'll be her come-from-behind triumph. Or at least her supporters will think so; the media is another story. Will they gang up on her? I think so, but I also think they have to be sensitive to their clientele, and they don't want to be seen picking on her. So they'll gladly make fun of whatever is awkward and unbecoming. I really don't see how SP can avoid the mockery she is about to get dumped on her. However, if she's poised, they vipers can't unleash their venom, because they'd be picking on her.

And of course Biden does not want to be seen this way either! But he won't. He's too good of a politician to flub it up. Democrats don't have to worry--this one's all on SP. Biden will be fine, he's done this numerous times. He won't mess it up. But he can be fought to a draw by the ordinary gal Pal(in) if she's passably articulate.

But I just don't think she will be. Best odds, 40% she pulls through.

House votes it down

2008-09-29T14:59:00.003-04:00

The House voted the thing down! Amazing. Now both McCain and Obama can fret and blame someone else, and be spared a controversial vote. They will perhaps blame each other for failing to convince their own partisans in the House.

Here's the vote tally. 95 Dems voted no, out of 235 (40%). 133 Republicans voted no, out of 198 (67%).

Democrats figure that the bill is unpopular anyway, so why not do the popular thing which will also benefit the party--people will want a change of party if there is a deepening recession.

Republicans must have voted their principles, which makes them popular in Republican districts.

Let the blame game begin.

Post-debate reflections

2008-09-29T11:24:00.002-04:00

True to this blog's motto, "We're only two or three news cycles behind," I want to give some post-debate reflections.

This was probably the most important debate, as long as there's no major fumbles in the next two (as there was not in this one). The first thing of note is that the debate was indeed a draw, as the commentators have stated. And the reason is that the middle of the debate was even, and was bookended by two bad moments for each candidate--Obama looked so sharp at the beginning while McCain was embarrassingly bad, and Obama was hammered by McCain at the end of the debate.

So if voters are making up their mind based on actually watching the thing, it really matters whether you tuned in ten minutes late and watched until the end, or whether you caught the beginning of the debate and broke off without seeing the end. Like the very first TV debate between Nixon and Kennedy (which resulted in different winners depending on whether people listened to the debate or watched it on TV), these two scenarios would result in vastly different impressions of who won.

If you watched the whole thing, you thought it was a draw. I agree with conventional wisdom that a draw favors Obama. I think Obama won. He proved he can be president. The VP debate this week will validate Obama's choice of Biden, humilitate McCain's choice of Palin, and last Friday's debate will be but a memory.

SNL lampooned McCain the night after the debate for his gimmicks. McCain can get away with gimmicks because he is such a substantive candidate, has a long record. He has capital to spend on this score, and I think he should spend it. I thought he should have opposed the bailout--that would have been a really substantive way to shake up the race, instead of a gimmicky way, but he decided to play it safe. That won't win him the election. The bailout will probably pass today, in which case McCain could have his cake and eat it too--posturing in a popular way (no one likes the bailout) while not taking the blame for it not passing. Of course, would it have passed if he opposed it? Perhaps not. And what the bailout is doing is delaying the (inevitable) economic pain that has to come sooner or later. You don't run for president nowadays talking about how short-term pain is good. You run by promising everyone the world.

McCain really came into his own last night. He doesn't think much of Obama, but managed to conceal his contempt. He started out so flat, it was just terrible. But he gained his footing when he started talking with passion about earmarks. That passion never left him. It made him seem really genuine, in contrast to his gimmicky campaign. If Palin has any chance against Biden it's to seem genuine as opposed to Biden's slick Washington mountebank demeanor.

But Obama won the debate. His flubs at the end were even excusable, I thought. McCain was snearing in his face, and Obama can seem like he has a legit beef that his positions are misrepresented. His line the next day was a powerful one: "John McCain had a lot to say about me in the debate, and not much at all to say about you. He never even mentioned 'the middle class' once."

Likewise, McCain's flubs at the beginning were excusable, in the sense that he was really sharp the whole rest of the debate, which is tough for a 72-year-old in the bright light standing for 90 minutes.

Obama won because he did exactly what he had to do. Unlike McCain, Obama can't resort to gimmicks. He can't go after McCain passionately. He can't get down and dirty. The reason is the bubba vote--a young black upstart attacking an American hero would only produce backlash. He had to show that he's up for the job, presidential. He had to get people comfortable with him as a leader. He did that.

I think he should have mentioned his Christianity and how it guides him in life. Why doesn't he do this? America doesn't elect secular candidates, or at least hasn't yet. Change might be around the horizon, but why risk it? Obama could have boxed in McCain, who would sound too much like Bush with his belligerent attitude to every major foreign policy problem, mixing in any God-speak. Obama's married with two kids, McCain ruthlessly cheated on and then divorced his wife, who was faithful to him while he was a POW and remains faithful to him to this day, in order to wed a young heiress. But there's one reason why Obama can't do this: it conjures up Wright, and there's no way Obama wants that. He's better off with the whole thing being a forgotten piece of ancient history.

Neither candidate has much of a sense of humor, and McCain's jokes fell flat, but he did have two moments when he really flummoxed Obama with humor--the line about not being able to hear Obama, and the imaginery sit-down with Ahmadinejad.

The Debate

2008-09-26T23:14:00.000-04:00

It's not as bad as you think for McCain

2008-09-26T16:07:00.006-04:00

I know it's an overstatement. But John McCain's attempt to shake up the race, which I praised to the skies yesterday, has failed (despite Fox's reporting that McCain's #s are up as a result of the suspension). There's no deal on the bailout. McCain didn't show decisive leadership, a meeting with the pres and the two pres wannabes devolved into a shouting match, and McCain blinked on the debate. So the debate's going to happen. My wife's reaction was to roll her eyes and condemn McCain--I think that's telling.

Axelrod is saying that McCain exploited the economy for political purposes, and the Huckster is saying that McCain's move was a "Big mistake...You can't just say, 'World, stop for a moment. I'm going to cancel everything.'" The Democratic line is that McCain is "injecting presidential politics" into the issue. It's appealing, no matter Rush Limbaugh's rants about Obama's failure at the meeting with Bush, McCain and co.

So McCain is skulking with his tail between his legs to the debate, and Obama has an edge going in. Or does he? I still firmly believe that McCain has to continually shake up the race. There are risks to every move of this type he makes, but he doesn't have a choice.

And the proofs still in the pudding. What's going to happen tonight? Everything is riding on it. The whole presidency. More people will watch this debate than the other two. There's enormous anticipation, and it comes right smack dab in the middle of an economic crisis.

What's the expectations game for McCain? I always thought that McCain would debate, and never considered that he would back out. "He's playing the expectations game," I thought. If he goes unwillingly to the debate, the expectations will be lower. And there's an argument here. If McCain hadn't pulled this stunt, what would everyone be talking about? I'll tell you: they'll be talking about the debate on foreign policy, and how that's McCain's specialty, and how he should blow Obama out of the water, and yet, wow, isn't it kind of irrelevant to what is the pressing concern right now? That's what the chatterheads would say. Instead, the talking points are different. Still not favorable to McCain, but doesn't it take some of the pressure off of him? There is a setup for McCain to do well. He could still lose, or he could still win with the pundits and lose with the people, that's very possible. But at least the setup isn't: an out-of-touch rich Washington insider gets ready to debate foreign policy, ignoring the biggest financial crisis of a generation.

You have to look at the opportunity cost with campaign moves like this.

McCain's brilliant gambit

2008-09-25T10:11:00.004-04:00

John McCain will probably lose this election. But even if he does, his top adviser Steve Schmidt should go down in the pantheon of legendary political consultants.

So far, the McCain campaign has done two things I have found to be brilliant.

1. The Celebrity ad.

2. The Palin pick (risky, but necessary).

Add to that now a third. Is it a mess in the McCain campaign? I got this email:

Could McCain possibly do anything else to reduce his chance in November? Backing out of the first debate (or trying to) makes him look weak and unprepared, and I assume that you've heard about the fiasco with canceling Letterman (supposedly because he had to leave for the airport), being interviewed by Katie Couric when he should have been on Letterman, and Letterman broadcasting part of the Couric interview. David offered to "drive him to the airport" since apparently he must have been running late! What a mess.

The Letterman thing was a fiasco. But who watches Letterman? Young people, who will vote for Obama anyway. The Letterman thing was bad. It really made McCain seem like he's a faker.

And of course he is. This whole thing about "suspending his campaign" is a gimmick (like Palin). But the reason it's all brilliant is that McCain needs gimmicks. His poll numbers are sliding. The economy mess only helps Obama. He has to shake things up--he just has to.

He is doing so by, again, stealing Obama's message of "new politics." First he stole "change" at the convention. Now he's going after Obama's post-partisanship message. He has a claim to it with the maverick image, so he can pull it off.

The Letterman fiasco is a bad piece of scheduling perhaps. But McCain will be forgiven by voters. Letterman is a comedian. Going on a comedy show is not the first priority of the day in a crisis. Obama canceled SNL because of a hurricane (and it stunk as a result). At least Couric is a journalist.

People can understand that the rules change in a crisis. That's what gives this move of McCain's plausibility as something other than the gimmick that it is. Yes, shouldn't we abandon partisan politics and all work together in a crisis? McCain is seizing the initiative, which is exactly what he needed to do.

This move by McCain is another brilliant stroke by a campaign that understands that it cannot coast into the White House. It has to continue to shake things up, again and again, in order just to stay even with Obama, and have a chance to win in a squeaker.

Can Obama lose Appalachia and win the Presidency?

2008-09-23T21:17:00.005-04:00

It's a question that's been on my mind for over a month. Can Obama just cede all of Appalachia and still pull off a victory? He ran so weak there in the primaries, as Jay Cost has documented with the first map above. Appalachia was an ocean of blue--blue for Hillary Clinton.

What if Obama loses all of Appalachia in the general election? That is to say, every state with a portion of the region in it, within reason (i.e., excluding NY and Maryland). This would include the swing states of Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania. What if McCain wins all three of these, West Virginia, and the southern states he'll win anyway?

This scenario, based on the polling we have today, would give McCain 243 and Obama 219 electoral votes. There would be 7 swing states left outstanding. Obama could win 6 out of the 7 and still lose--if McCain won Florida. So McCain would be pretty close to winning in this scenario; he'd only have to win Florida to clinch it. Or he could lose Florida, but still win Indiana (Bush won in 04), Nevada (Bush won in 04), Colorado (Bush won in 04), and New Hampshire (Bush lost in 04 by a paltry 9,000 votes). If McCain picked off Minnesota, where the race has tightened over the summer and is currently tied, and the Dems in the state might be dragged down by Al Franken's Senate candidacy, then he's in even better shape because he could then win with just Indiana and Colorado, or Indiana, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

Hillary Clinton was a tougher candidate for electoral college reasons. But so much can change. I still think Obama could win in a blowout. McCain cannot win in a blowout. But I would not be surprised with Obama wining in a blowout. He is a realigning candidate, which we might see in 2012 even more than now. But now I'm getting way ahead of myself.

The race in Ohio

2008-09-23T10:35:00.003-04:00

I got polled last Sunday (at 3pm) by Rasmussen. I live in the Ohio's swing-district-of-all-swing districts, so it was thrilling to think that my opinion would actually be listed to. A few interesting things about the poll. It was a robo-poll which moved along at a fair clip. There were a few demographic questions in the middle of the poll. It gave the option to vote for Barr, Nader, and McKinney. The most interesting question was, "If you had to make the toughest decision of your life, who would you ask, Barack Obama or John McCain?"

In the local paper here, the fact that McCain was up in a poll (not the Rasumussen one) was front page news. Of course, McCain was not really up in the poll--he had 48, Obama 42, but the margin of error was 3.3% so it's a statistical tie.

Obama is having difficulty in Ohio. It's the same old story--people feel uncomfortable with him waltzing in and taking over the country. And why shouldn't they? Obama's inexperienced. He's not tried and true. There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical of Obama without being racist. There was a forum last week in West Virginia blaming racists there for not supporting Obama. I heard the same opinion from a WV native at APSA in Boston. I said recently here that there was no way that Obama could win West Virginia; however, he's been creeping up on McCain in the polls, to the point where they're basically tied in the Mountain State.

In Ohio, there was an Obama volunteer who had a hilarious venting in the letters to the editor section of my local Sunday paper. It was well-reasoned, even eloquent, if it wasn't so sarcastic. The lady was choking on her own disbelief that people would support McCain/Palin. It was an interesting snippet of the race, because this lady obviously has knocked on a lot of doors, or made a lot of phone calls, or both, and has heard the same thing over and over--that people relate to McCain (and especially Palin) in a way they don't with Obama.

That's why money is not so much a factor in this race. Obama might raise more, and will continue to be able to raise more while McCain's finished (he's taken his $84 million of government money and can no longer accept private donations), but both have enough money to compete, and that's all that matters. Obama poured money into Ohio and PA in the primaries, and he got creamed by Hillary. Money is not the answer. It pays for legions of enthusiastic volunteers to become disillusioned and crabbed like the lady who had to vent in public about how stupid the people are who she's trying to pursuade to vote for Obama.

McCain needs to oppose the bailout

2008-09-22T10:14:00.002-04:00

Reading through the NYT today, it became clear to me that John McCain needs to oppose this huge bailout.

First of all is the front page story, "2 Candidates Back Bailout, With Caveats." It's a misleading title. Read the story, and it says McCain could back the bailout. It never says he does. So he's leaving his options open. The theme of the article as far as McCain is concerned (based on a phone interview with him) is that he's trying to appear bipartisan. He's doing that in other ways--promising to make the WH less political, saying he'd appoint Andrew Cuomo to be SEC chair.

Yet McCain is also sounding more populist. He has to. The convention featured the rollout of McCain's message: "Change you can trust." A little change, not too much, not "Change you can believe in." It's a brilliant strategy. If your opponent has a popular message, you need to steal it, or lose. McCain wants to win with this strategy.

The strategy requires that he oppose the bailout. I base this on my conviction that McCain needs to make bold gambles to win. He can't coast into the White House. Only by making bold gambles will he put Obama on his heels, outside his comfort zone. If Obama makes this a race on personality and telegenicity, which he did with Hillary by blurring any distinction between their positions, and is trying to do with McCain, he'll win. McCain can't let that happen. He needs bold moves. Palin was a bold move, and it seems to be working out so far. But that's not enough, as I've argued.

William Kristol's column today in the NYT clinched it for me. Here you have a neocon agreeing with Paul Krugman across the page. There are a lot of reasons why a massive bailout is a bad idea. The reason why it might be a good idea is simply that: "It might work." But what if it doesn't? McCain could draw out the consequences of that. He could show he's a maverick by opposing the Bush administration. He might be able to appeal to some independent voters who are dissatisfied with a bailout as a solution. He can appeal to small-government conservatives who think massively expanding the size of government is a bad idea. And perhaps most of all, he can appeal to ordinary people with populist rhetoric that incenses the Wall Street Journal editorial board. But that's exactly the right crowd to incense.

Making this move might shift the focus off of McCain's ties to the vested interests he would otherwise be seen to be tied to. A damning article on his advisor's ties to Fannie and Freddie is on page 18 of the NYT. Take the attention off this, take the initiative, and put Obama on his heels by opposing the bailout--that's what McCain needs to do. What would Obama's response be? I think it would put him in a quandary. Supporting Bush when even McCain isn't? That would get Obama clobbered, I think. Yet Obama would clearly like to play things cautiously and bipartisanly, and rely on his own charm and eloquence rather than policy differences to carry the day. He'd have to oppose the Democratic Congress, if the latter decides to pass the thing.

Of course, what's inhibiting McCain from doing this really is his total lack of understanding of what's happening. He doesn't have the vocabulary and knowledge to argue the case effectively, and that's a prerequisite.

Yet one could argue that Palin doesn't have the vocabulary and knowledge to take on Biden in a debate, and yet McCain picked her anyway. The presidential race is not for the faint of heart. I say, go in there and get your hands dirty arguing for the common man. If you slip up, you'll be forgiven more readily than if you were arguing for the bailout of the rich--that's the same way with Palin, as she'll be forgiven more readily for her faults because she's an "ordinary person."

It's still Obama's race

2008-09-19T10:18:00.010-04:00

A lot has happened in the presidential race to reflect upon. And then again, not a whole lot. The dynamics of the race still favor Obama. Yet I would agree with a headline I saw two months ago, that it's Obama's race to win, not Obama's race to lose.

First of all we can assess the conventions from a distance now. The Democrats had a good convention. The Republicans had a spectacular convention. Obama received a bump, but the Republicans quickly neutralized it with the Palin pick the Friday after, and a solid convention that highlighted their VP pick. McCain took his first lead in the polls since the head-to-head with Obama was secured in June.

You can see how the race has looked from the graphs above. First is the intrade price for McCain. This is driven by a market consisting of people who are putting their money where their mouth is, picking McCain or Obama to win. Only very recently has McCain been given over a 50% chance by this market.

After the Palin pick and the Republican convention, Democrats were all in a tizzy. Glum. Doom and gloom. The Palin picked worked on so many levels. First of all is the "regular person" effect. McCain is a longtime senator married to a rich heiress--he's more like John Kerry than Joe Sixpack. Palin gives him the regular-person feel, which they can use against Obama, portraying him as an elitist. It really was so remarkable, and was remarked upon ad nauseum, that Obama did not get a bump from his overseas trip. His polls did not nudge. Not a bit. In fact he actually lost ground to McCain, as can be best seen in the supertracker poll aggregation graph (from fivethirtyeight.com), and also in McCain's rise in the intrade graph. All the Obama team's hard work down the crapper, with one McCain Paris Hilton ad. That ad has over 2 million views now on YouTube.

Secondly, Palin fires up the base of the party. They are drooling about getting one of their own in power, grooming her for the future from Mass. Av. She is such an attractive politician, and the effect she has on conservatives is similar to the effect Obama has on liberals--finally we have someone who can represent our views and look good on TV doing it, without bringing up the baggage of the past (Clinton, Bush).

Third, Palin appeals to a key demographic--married voters in the midwest. Palin sounds exactly like a Wisconsin hockey mom. This helps McCain in Minnesota, a key swing state in that it's the only one McCain really has the ability to take from Obama. As Jay Cost has noted, it was winning the demographic of white women that made the difference for the GOP from losing in '96 to winning in '00 and '04.

So Palin was a great pick. She just has to look poised on TV from now until the election, as Jay Cost has also noted. That's doable.

However, I stand by my early analysis of Palin. As we go along, Palin will lose some of her star appeal. She will begin to wear more thin. Attention will be diverted to other things.

Democrats should not panick. Even already in this past week there has been a rebounding in the polls for Obama, who is now barely up. Democrats should ask themselves this question: did they honestly think that McCain would never be up in the polls against their man? McCain had a great convention and a great VP pick, and he benefited from that. But he will need more than that. He will need Obama to fail to close the deal with Americans. If Obama stumbles, McCain will win. If Obama does not stumble, but fails to close the deal, McCain could back into the White House just like he won the GOP primary by a whisker.

And that was the problem with the Democratic convention. It did not close the deal with the American electorate. I had one big problem with the convention: it did not give us a reason to vote for Obama. Voting is about emotion, but not just the emotion of an indefinite mood. Emotions are tied to explicable reasons. There are reasons you feel angry or hopeful or pensive. Campaigns need to conjure them up. Playing not to lose, in sports as in politics, means you will lose 95% of the time. The Republicans are too good for Obama to try to coast to victory. Plus Republicans have a natural presidential majority--Democrats haven't won a majority of the votes cast for president in the last 30 years.

The Democratic convention did not go after McCain enough. It simply didn't. It seemed like all the "new politics" bs was being taken seriously. I've had some conversations with the Obama organizer in my county (I live in Ohio's swing district par excellance--the middle of the Democratic "C" in the eastern part of the state), and it was almost worrisome how he took the "new politics" line so seriously, and indeed seemed to be already making excuses as to why Obama would lose the state! The Republicans had no qualms about going on the attack.

Obama did better in his speech at the convention, and he's starting to go on the attack now. There's plenty to attack. One of the pitfalls of having a long voting record is there's plenty of things to attack. From Bill Press:

In 2000, McCain supported legislation authored by Sen. Phil Gramm that forbade federal agencies from regulating financial derivatives that greased the skids for passing along risky mortgage-backed securities to investors. Today we’re suffering the consequences.Gramm’s legislation was the key. Without it, AIG could never have veered from the solid ground of life insurance onto the shaky ground of sub-prime mortgages. And John McCain championed that legislation.

The changing economic situation clearly benefits Obama. It reminds everyone of the failures and lies and mismanagement of the Bush administration. Bad news on the ins watch will almos always help the outs. But it has to be utilized. From David Sirota:

Until this week, Obama largely avoided the contrasting FDR-style populism the nation wants and the moment demands.

For example, instead of endorsing forceful re-regulation months ago when the financial meltdown commenced, Obama responded with a vague white paper that not only offered few hard-hitting prescriptions, but denigrated key Depression-era regulations.

Likewise, despite slipping in the industrial heartland, Obama has muted his criticism of NAFTA. Indeed, one Obama adviser last week called trade only "an issue of symbolic importance."

Tina Fay is SP

2008-09-16T20:25:00.001-04:00

McCain playing it safe

2008-09-05T09:41:00.003-04:00

RCP linked to a great piece by Rocky Mountain News this morning on McCain's speech. Here's the best parts:

I've known for a while that I missed the real John McCain - the one who didn't care what anyone else thought - but I didn't know we'd get the John McCain who would, on the night he accepted the long-sought nomination of his party, not seem to care if anyone thought at all.

[T]there he was - standing where he must have thought he'd never be standing - and basically telling everyone to calm down.

[T]here were no new ideas. There wasn't even a theme, unless it was that McCain favored victory in Iraq. (You can start the USA chant anytime.)

This is one thing you never thought you'd say about McCain, but in this speech, it was as if he simply wanted to make the case that he was the safe vote. And in this campaign season in which nothing seems safe, where nothing is typical, where nothing is foretold and little is even foreseen, it's hard to see how playing it safe (see, for example: Obama's pick of Joe Biden) is the best strategy.

I disagree with disparaging the Biden pick, but agree with everything else. I've been trying to put my finger exactly on what was so wrong about the speech last night. McCain was playing it safe--this is the best description. But he can't! That's why Palin was a good pick, or at least seems so at this point. McCain can't play it safe and win. He has to go out on a limb. Instead, he played it safe, and looked really old doing so.

There should have been more red meat. He should have told people why Obama would be dangerous. He should have drawn sharp contrasts. Most importantly, he should have led with his bio but then connected it with what that means for the future. I just thought he looked way too much like Bob Dole.

McCain's Speech a "C"

2008-09-04T22:18:00.007-04:00

It's all USA all the time with McCain's speech. "He's a true American." "He loves his country." I've never seen a more blatant wrapping of a party around the flag. This is the alterization of Obama through a positive message. The Republicans are very good at doing this--attacking through implication, never mentioning what they are even attacking.

The protesters. "Please don't pay attention to the ground noise and the static." McCain smiled. "Please...please...please...please." Smile--"Americans want us to stop yelling at each other." I thought that was a good line. But then McCain looked really annoyed when the crowd started yelling "USA!" when he was trying to speak again. It got under his skin.

"She's worked with her hands and nose." A funny flub: "She knows...", was what it was supposed to be. He did it again with the "parents and students" line, when he had to start over and emphasize the right word to make the line make sense.

"Change is coming." McCain stole Obama's message. Pretty good. Palin allows him to do that.

McCain's timing was off. He couldn't decide when to stop for the applause. Also, he kept looking down too at the end of each line. Palin was much better at delivery, and Obama too. McCain's speaking was really horrible. It just doesn't come off as believable.

He did show passion with fighting the big pork-barrel spenders in Congress. He had kind of a Sister Souljah moment talking about how Republicans "lost the trust" of Americans. "We're going to change that." He delivered this line so flatly, however. "He's really not a good speaker," said my wife. "He strikes me as very insincere. Let's get him off the stage and get Palin back up there."

There was a big monitor on the wall right under to the camera. (I finally saw it in a wide shot.) So McCain kept looking into the camera, just like Palin and Rudy last night. It was much more effective than the Dems, because looking into the camera connects with TV viewers.

McCain looked stiff walking out. The podium was the right size--he didn't look like he was hiding behind it. His arm disability was very distracting. Brian Williams explained it last night, so we were looking for it subconsciously, and we never got over it.

He talked about hearing the news of Pearl Harbor as a kid. He's old! A contrast with Obama, reminding me of Dole, of looking to the past. He talked about "changing the way government does almost everything." But this was belied by his look, which I always describe as doddering. Does he have the energy to deliver all this new change? He just didn't seem vigorous enough. The night before he praised Palin on the stage and didn't know where she was and had to do a 360-degree turn, looking like an old grandpa who's not sure where people are when he's talking about them.

The phrase "caretaker government" was ringing in my head as a description of what a McCain term would be. All the talk of his biography--he's had a great life. Now he should be put out to pasture? I think the Republicans overdid it with his bio. Why can't he be satisfied with the life he's led? In other words, the question was not answered, why should he be president? "Because he puts his country first." That's alterization, not an answer. The answer is "Because he's a maverick who will shake up Washington." This answer was an afterthought, however. It's clearly stealing Obama's message, but the important point is that it was actually McCain's bio that was front and center. But loving your country and serving your country is not a reason why you should be president. Then we would all be president! His call to service was fine and all, but it did not answer the question, "So McCain serves a cause greater than himself, so what? Why should he be president?" It is an attack on Obama--he's only in it because he's power-hungry.

At the end it was "fight this, fight that; stand up, stand up, stand up and fight." I thought it fell flat. My wife: "That was good." I suppose it was. What do I know?

I give it a C. Not bad, but certainly not good.

Palin and the teleprompter

2008-09-04T22:11:00.002-04:00

It's not exactly Bill Clinton level (who gave the first six minutes or so of his first State of the Union Address from memory), but Sarah Palin handled the malfunctioning of the teleprompter with alomb. It only happened a few times, apparently, but Palin had to deal with a teleprompter that would skip ahead, and she did so smoothly, it seems, by repeating lines from memory and by ad libbing (the "lipstick" line).

Well, whatever. I'm more impressed with how smooth she was and how she could look into the camera.

Palin for President

2008-09-03T22:16:00.006-04:00

A great night in primetime for the GOP. Rudy was good and Palin was great.

Rudy at one point said, at the end of a litany of Democratic errors on the economy: "and sent jobs elsewhere." What? That's a criticism of Democrats? I was scratching my head. It seemed like Rudy was too--he stumbled and stuttered and paused going into his next line. Did he add that? Was it an accident? It sure seemed like it at least.

Rudy's speech had so many red-meat attacks. Why couldn't the Democrats do that? As Pat Buchanan said last week, Rush Limbaugh attacks McCain a lot more harshly than the Dems. I didn't understand it. Paul Begala's line keeps ringing in my ears: "You can't go on the attack with a fist in your face."

The Dems ignored the fact that the US went into a war on false pretenses, which is costing $400 million a day. Why did they ignore that? It baffles me. Tie Iraq to the economy. Obama did it in the primaries. But it was ignored at the convention.

"Can you imagine how they are going to shake up Washington?" said Rudy. Wow--it's amazing how after 8 years of nearly completely solid Republican rule, that this line could be effective. Yet it is, because a lot of (mainly married) people, a lot of Republicans, perceive the media, academic and government elites to be stacked against the values of ordinary families. The elites vs. the common people--the protests of an EJ Dionne or The Nation notwithstanding (and apart from its truth)--is not something that inherently favors liberals. A lot of people in the flyover states feel with good reason that rich urban liberals look at them with patronizing contempt. So the Republicans can get away with running against the establishment, when for crying out loud they are the establishment.

One teleprompter or screen for the Republicans seemed like it was in front of the podium. It didn't seem like the Dems did that. Why didn't they? Everything in Obama's speech was left, right, left, right, always looking at his face at an angle, never into the camera right at the TV audience. It's clear why the GOP does it. McCain's face doesn't look great at an angle! But I think it's much more effective on TV to look the camera straight in the eye.

Palin: "I guess a small-town mayor is kind of like a community organizer, except that you have real responsibilities."

The clinging to guns and religion comment was hammered hard by Rudy and even harder by Palin. Some great lines. "John McCain won't talk about small town folks one way in Scranton and another in San Francisco."

"Here is a man who's authored two memoirs [memoirs!] but not a single big law or reform in the Senate."

"Here is a man who talks about the wars America is fighting without ever using the word 'victory,' unless he's talking about his own campaign."

"There are some candidates who use 'change' to promote their careers. And then there are some, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change. They are the ones who's names and images appear on monuments, not buttons and banners and self-designed presidential seals."

"The American presidency shouldn't just be a part of a journey of self-discovery."

She used the phrase "our opponent" rather than "Sen. Obama" or "Obama." That's classic political tactics going back to FDR.

She played up her fighting the special interests in Alaska. This is a big reason she was picked, because it really does fit with McCain's image.

How many times did Palin slip up? On Venezuela she clearly did, but smoothed it out semi-nicely. I still have the slipups of Obama, in a home-run out-of-the-ballpark speech, he still slipped up a few times. Biden slipped up. It's inevitable. But Palin was really remarkably smooth.

SNL hasn't done a parody of Palin yet, but I can already hear Amy Poeler in a wig imitating her accent.

She hammered Obama on taxes and growth of government to choruses of boos. Relating it back to her family members who own a small business. Very good--relate it to a personal level. Not something Obama's great at. Clinton was brilliant at it, and he never got over 50%.

Palin was able to mix up the speed of her speech with facility. It keep the thing moving, and kept it interesting. It never really lagged.

Tom Moe was trotted out as the Lenny Skutnik of the speech.

Social issues were never mentioned. Smart. The picture of that little Down syndrome baby was worth a thousand words. Plus, you want to run away from your strength when your supporters are already aware of it, in order to court those who aren't supportive.

Right after the convention coverage ended, the local news coverage began, and it talked about Obama's trip to my county. The coverage was not good for Obama--the people interviewed seemed to think Obama was out of touch. And then Obama messed up the name of the town, calling it "New Pennsylvania" instead of "New Philadelphia." Not a great night for Obama, and a great night for Republicans.

After Palin's speech, the question should be whether the GOP ticket shouldn't be reversed.

Republican Convention Tuesday: Not Bad, Not Great

2008-09-02T22:36:00.002-04:00

I'm watching the convention on network TV. NBC messed up the feeds with President Bush's speech, such that his pauses for applause were batches of silly silence. Really weird--Brian Williams gave a long explanation and apology. But it was still really weird!

Laura Bush tried to explain why her hubby couldn't get on a plane and come, the first time in 40 years that a sitting president didn't address his party's convention in person. She didn't have an answer--it was awkward. Plus Bush wasn't even in prime time--it was only clips that were replayed on the networks.

What I caught of Thompson's speech was terrible. Just terrible! What a lousy speaker! It's really remarkable that he could be that bad. At the end he mentioned how McCain can't raise his hands over his head. Interesting--the Republicans were too good to feature Dole's combat injury in 1996, but they're not above it now. Also, it conjures up the image of Obama not saluting the flag--McCain can't, Obama won't.

There was an ad in Ohio during the convention attacking Democrats. Very effective. At the end McCain is pictured and his voice approves the message. Will voters hold the negativity against him? No way. Negative ads like that one ("The Democrats will bring you unbalanced budgets and higher taxes") work. Nobody likes the Democrats in Congress. Even the hard-core Dems are mad, because the '06 election was about the war and Congress did nothing to end it.

The signs in the hall are "Country First." Lieberman said, "I'm here because country matters more than party." The message is obvious: Obama is not really about country first. This works on two levels. The first is alterization--he's not really a true American, since true American's always put their country first. The second is about Obama's meteoric rise to promenance--he's about "me" first and country second. Brilliant! If he was about country first, he would pay his dues, put in his time, and wait for his turn. But he elbowed his way to the front, knocking over a woman to be first in line. That's not someone you want as your leader, since he won't put the real common good of the organization first, but will always be thinking about his own prospects and perhaps abandoning everyone when a higher opportunity awaits. I've already heard a joke somewhere about Obama running for President of the World his second year into office.

The troops coming home in honor--Lieberman's statement. Lots of cheers and USA!'s. A great line, since it both conjures up ending the war and being able to forget about it without guilt, a twofer. He spoke directly to Democrats and Independents towards the end, urging them to vote for McCain. It was powerful stuff. This is why they had Lieberman speak.

Gustav messes with GOP

2008-08-31T20:58:00.002-04:00

Gustav is putting a damper on the GOP's weeklong infomercial. It will touch down Monday.

Coming three years after Katrina hit New Orleans, this can only be a reminder of Bush's incompetence, right? And only hurt Republicans, right? That's the first reaction.

But events only benefit those who take advantage of them. McCain could turn this into a let's-all-lend-a-helping-hand moment. One of the problems with Obama's speech (one of the only problems) was, in his zeal to show that he understands ordinary folks' suffering, a tendency to wallow in depressing facts. Who knows? Obama could come off badly, perhaps. And Republicans could come off well as being "Americans first."

That's what McCain said: McCain said he’s asked organizers and delegates to “take their Republican hats off and put their American hats on.”

Palin is a gimmicky prop

2008-08-31T19:52:00.003-04:00

A comment to the last post reads: "I'd love you hear your ideas on how Obama-Biden can neutralize this republican shot in the arm, while still courting women voters. Also, how comfortable are you of Palin's ability to lead the country? Did McCain show a lack of judgment in this regard?"

A "Republican shot in the arm" indeed. John McCain needed precisely a shot in the arm. When I heard the news about Palin I was outside a panel at APSA in Boston. So I got to tell a few people as they came out and get their assessments. The first person I told had a reaction which was mine precisely: "Oh, so McCain does want to win!" The next was also interesting: he thought Palin could turn into a liability, a Geraldine Ferraro all over agin.

I think both are right. I think McCain had to go outside the box, outside of the Romney/Pawlenty yawn-fest. McCain can not back into the White House, these summer polls notwithstanding. When asked for my pick the evening before, I said that Romney/Pawlenty would not surprise me, but that Palin or Huckabee would show that McCain wants to win. The reason Huckabee would have been better is because he is a tested campaigner. He has experience in the bright lights. He can bring in a lot of votes and excitement in corners of the GOP.

On Meet the Press this morning, the comatose Andrea Mitchell opined about Palin:

She is not appealing to the same women who were really voting or supporting Hillary Clinton on ideological issues, but they think that they can peel off some of these working class women, not college-educated, who--the blue collar women who were voting for Hillary Clinton and may be more conservative on social causes.

That's right. So much of national politics comes down to culture. True-blue Hillary ideologues are not going to support McCain over Palin. But Palin does have cultural bona-fides to appeal to the lower-class Dems who supported Hillary but not because of her feminist roots.

This evening I got the feeling that it's all downhill for McCain-Palin. I just think everything has gone so well this weekend for them. I mean, Palin got such a great reception, that I think it will become apparent, even relatively quickly, that she can't meet the high expectations. She's going to make gaffes. She's just going to. McCain's team better start planning now what to do when that happens. Her showing up and giving McCain a fresh face and incredible backstory will only last so long. And what happens when wears off? The press will gleefully tear her apart. Precisely what Hillary was hoping they would do to Obama. But Obama is a white-wine liberal, a Harvard Law man. He is one of the elites' own. Palin's angle is appealing to the working stiffs. The conclusion to this syllogism should be crystal-clear: the press will have no compunction in tearing her to shreds when given the opportunity.

So Obama/Biden should bide their time and focus on looking presidential. Obama had an edge on Hillary--he looked presidential. I forget who it was who had a sister teaching politics, I believe, and who insisted at the beginning of the primary season that "America will elect a black man first before they'll elect a woman--you watch and see." We watched and saw it happen on the Democratic side. The press is ga-ga right now for the Alaskan beauty queen. But the novelty will wear off. Again: then what? McCain's choice was more important than Obama's because McCain's a geezer. No one in their right mind would ever dream of insisting that Palin is qualified to be president. And the argument, "So Obama isn't either," would hold good for me two years ago--it doesn't hold now. Obama earned the right to be president with his grueling slug-fest that deposed the reigning heavyweight champion of the Democratic Party. Campaigning is a lot like what you have to do as president. So don't tell me Obama isn't ready, he is. Palin will have two months of very hard campaigning before the election. She can't grow into it. There's no room for error. If she really did try to get her sister's ex fired, that could be the October-surprise of all October-surprises.

The one thing McCain was smart about was getting a solid conservative, to generate excitement with the base that he just doesn't generate on his own. Today on MTP, Mitchell also said:

And in terms of the abortion issue, it has so fired up the base. The evangelical base, the, you know, the foundation of what John McCain needs, the people who came out in Ohio and elected George, you know, George Walker Bush, this is the, the key group that now is so energized. They were sitting on their hands, they were not excited about the other alternatives. They would have completely rebelled with Joe Lieberman.

Mitchell, of all people, was actually more in tune that Republican "strategist" Mike Murphy, who said:

[I]f we get into a social issues debate with those particular swing voters, we're in big trouble. I believe that McCain cannot win in this environment without ticket splitters, people who vote for him for president but vote Democrat down the ticket. He may need as many as one out of five of his ultimate voters to be a ticket splitter. So the question is in a bad base year for Republicans, if we get caught on pure base issues--I agree, the evangelical vote loves her, but I, to the point I said earlier, I'd rather have lukewarm evangelicals and a whole lot of voters.

This is the failed median-voter model of elections which has been so thoroughly disproven in the last two presidential elections. Of course, each election is a new situation, and if any election would follow a median-voter model, it would be this one. But it is insanity for Republicans to be more concerned with the lakefront set--these largely mythical independent voters, who will probably go with the tide and vote Obama anyway--than the lower-class cultural voters and married people, who vote in much larger numbers anyway. Focus on the base, get them excited--this sound principle has not gone out the window no matter who is running.

David Gregory (who I'd see in my Starbucks when I used to live in DC) said:

A lot of the working-class voters in states like West Virginia or Ohio, where she was debuted, or Pennsylvania were Democrats primarily for economic issues if not social issues. Obama still has an advantage there, even if he hasn't grabbed the issue completely. I think Sarah Palin helps John McCain get it.

Well, there's no freaking way Obama's going to win West Virginia. Obama has given up on it completely--he hasn't even opened up a campaign office there yet. This is why Hillary would have been a better nominee--WVA and Arkansas would be states she could move into the Democratic column, but Obama doesn't have a chance.

Here's the ultimate truth about Palin: she's an affirmative action pick. She undercuts McCain's "experience" and "judgment" motifs. This is not clear now, but it will be when Palin's novelty fades. Voters can sense gimmicks. They can sense desparation. McCain is desparate to win, but Palin is a gimmick. She's a prop. Unless she has a flawless two months, in which case it was a brilliant move. I doubt it. But then again, I doubted that the inexperienced Obama could muscle his way to the top of the greasy pole.

Palin a knockout?

2008-08-31T13:45:00.003-04:00

Here's what a POTUS reader writes via email:

Brilliant!

(unintentionally so, since according to the Prince of Darkness Ol' Blunderbuss was ready to pick Joe Lieberman up until last week, apparently)

Several advantages this gives McCain:

1.) Neuters Biden. Also, can't wait for him to make a gaffe at the VP debate and infuriate women everywhere.
2.) Woman = unprecedented, plus she's a regular person, something Biden and Obama most assuredly are not
3.) She will be ridiculed by the press and the elites, but no matter, it will play well in gun hugging, beer chugging, NASCAR watching Appalachia -- exactly the demographic Obama's gotta win.
4.) Can't be attacked on the experience issue since it will just boomerang back to Obama's thin resume. She has more executive experience than Obama (can't believe I'm writing that)
5.) She'll inspire the base
6.) Allows McCain to hammer Obama on Infant Born Alive Protection Act (see number 5)
7.) Proven reformer and about as far (3000+ miles) outside the beltway as you can go

Your thoughts?

I agree. It looks brilliant at this point. Palin's had a great weekend. But we'll see. She is not a battle-tested candidate on the presidential campaign trail. Obama and Biden are. As far as experience goes, Palin not only has very little but has a lot less than Obama when it comes to the national spotlight. A lot less. The blinding spotlight is now turned on full blast. It doesn't get any brighter. Palin is not going to be judged by voters in the voting booth in November on her fabulous introduction back in August. Rather, she'll be judged on what she's done since then. And if it's gaffe after gaffe, then she'll actually be a drag on the ticket. I would be shocked, completely shocked, if she didn't make any gaffes. I think it's impossible. She's going to make some, perhaps a lot. I don't anything about her, and need to read more.

So right now it looks like a great choice, but we'll see.

Hillary's Speech

2008-08-26T22:54:00.002-04:00

The first part of the speech was Me Me Me! But then: "Were you in this campaign just for me?" A litany of sob stories, "All the people who feel invisible." Builds to a climax, inspiring... and then "no limits" with tepid applause. "Fight to put a Democrat in the White House." Obama comes secondary to an anonymous "Democrat."

I don't think this is good enough. She's not effusive in her praise. She's just repeating Democratic lines, which could apply to her just as much to him.

Then comes the praise of Obama. "He knows that government must be about we the people, not we the favored few. When he's in the White House he will" blah blah blah "We did it before with President Clinton and the Democrats."

Clintons first, then Obama, who happens to be a Democrat.

"I can't wait for Obama to sign into law a health care plan." Smiles. Obama on Iraq. Barack will do this, Barack will do that. What about him as a person? Praise him!

She praises Michelle and Biden. "He's pragmatic, he's tough, and he's wise." Sheesh, why not him for president? No character praise for Obama.

Then attacks on McCain. We need more than the last four years. "More war and less diplomacy. More government where the privileged few come first." Good red meat stuff. Obama still is invisible.

America is great. Democrats are great. Obama is a Democrat, so he must be great. It's an inference, not a testimony that Hillary offered.

She spoke with passion about the women's movement. Hardly pumps people up for Obama, except by an inference. It was stirring. "Keep going! I have seen it!" "In America, you always keep going!" Hillary was really rolling at this point. It was a great speech. People were emotional.

"That is our mission, Democrats! Godspeed!"

Nothing about Obama. Absolutely nothing. She might as well have not mentioned his name, ever. Her fourth sentence, "I am a proud supporter of Barack Obama," is not worth a whole lot in my book, despite the pundits.

Hillary could have done a lot more for Obama. But Clintons always put Clintons first.

Democratic Convention Day 1

2008-08-26T12:52:00.002-04:00

I had to watch it with my wife. My perceptions were just totally off. I thought the whole thing was fake, I thought Michelle was fake, I felt that everything was focus-grouped, artificial, boring. I was not stirred by Kennedy. Perhaps I was just in a bad mood? I couldn't get into it, which surprised me.

My wife thought Michelle was a success. Not huge, but a solid success. She projected confidence and normalcy, and her dress was perfect. I didn't get any of this out of it.

Until the end. Giving the kiddos the microphone was brilliant. It was awkward for Obama. Brian Williams made a comment like "Anyone with kids can identify with this when they go in public." So what if it's shilling for Obama; he's right. It was a great use of the girls to humanize Obama. It was awkward to watch, but real people are awkward. Obama looked too uncomfortable for it to be a smashing hit, but so what. I liked the kiddos more than anything else.

Astute Suggestion

2008-08-26T12:45:00.002-04:00

A politically-informed voter in Western PA recently made a very astute observation regarding McCain's Veep selection.

He said that the housing comment of McCain's and the selection of Biden makes Huckabee a really attractive running-mate right now, "because he is more common." In other words, don't pick Romney, because he won't help you where he's supposed to, viz. economic knowledge, because of his privileged backstory. Huckabee on the other hand has the common touch, and can't be accused of elitism like Romney. Plus you get the contrast with Biden, who's been in the Senate forever. McCain can blunt the out-of-touch elitism charge and recapture more of a "change" mantra than with Romney. Of course, I'm only comparing Huckabee to Romney at this point, and perhaps McCain has already settled on Palin who might do all of these things better. But Huckabee is a tested presidential candidate and Palin is not.

Would Biden destroy Huckabee on foreign policy in the veep debate? Probably. But he'd destroy anyone. And that's only the conventional wisdom anyway. I thought Kerry destroyed Bush in the 04 debates, but the country did not agree with me.

Debates

2008-08-25T13:24:00.002-04:00

Here's the formats for the debates:

The first debate on Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi will focus on foreign policy and national security. The candidates will stand at podiums and the debate will include nine, nine-minute segments where each candidate will have two minutes to speak and then five minutes for debate. Jim Lehrer will moderate.

The second debate on Oct. 7 at Belmont University will be a town hall style forum where questions will come from the audience and on-line viewers. Each candidate will have two minutes to respond to questions, and it will not be topic-specific. Tom Brokaw will moderate.

The third debate on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University will focus on domestic and economic policy. The candidates will be seated at a table, and the question format will be the same as the first debate, with nine, nine-minute segments. Bob Schieffer will moderate.

All debates will begin at 9pm ET and last for 90 minutes. The lone vice presidential debate will take place Oct. 2 at Washington University. The format will de determined after the candidates are announced. Gwen Ifill will moderate.

A lot is riding on these debates. A Ford senior-moment could destroy McCain. I think three debates favors Obama. He's younger, sharper, and taller than McCain. The contrast will be there.

The first debate is certainly in Obama's favor with the long speeches. But what about the town-hall debate? Advantage McCain, unless Obama can get Bill Clinton to help coach him (haw!). Obama has difficultly connecting with people. Bill Clinton could do it--bring things down to the level of the ordinary working stiff. "What does it mean for me?" kind of thing.

On the other hand, can McCain really connect better? We'll have to see. If there's a gaffe, it'll override everything else. I tend to think the gaffe would come from McCain.

It's Biden

2008-08-23T08:47:00.003-04:00

I think it's a great pick. Biden is the Cheney pick of 2000. It reassures people that Obama's not a gimmick. If Obama had picked anybody else, except the unexciting Chris Dodd, it would have been spun mainly as a gimmick (i.e., Obama wants to win Virginia with Kaine, wants unity with Hillary, wants Hispanics with Richardson, wants Ohio with Strickland). But with Biden there's no gimmick. The main thing against Biden is that he's too good to be president; he's too outspoken, and needs to be more of a careful politician (like Obama, the epitome of cautiousness married to ambition) to get elected. The running-mate slot is perfect for him. He can train his tongue on the Republicans, and when they attack him it will only contrast with Obama.

Republicans are attacking already with this YouTube ad. It's very good, because it ties Biden back to who Obama is. And having it up and running for today!

But Biden will bring both security (his experience) and funness to the ticket. Obama lacks funness. He's a movement, an event, an epoch, a messiah. But messiahs aren't fun. Biden is. So I think the Republican attacks, using Biden's statements against him, can only go so far.

Biden will campaign in Appalachia, and I think he will be able to connect with people here, even more than Hillary would. Hillary as the candidate of Reagan democrats was surprising to begin with, and mainly had to do with Obama's lack of connection than anything about Hillary.

Hillary would be too much change. A younger veep than Biden would too. Obama is balancing the change message, which is just what he needs to do. With all of Biden's experience running for president, and experience in foreign policy, this is a better pick even than Jim Webb.

Here's the email Obama sent out last night. (I got it at 4:53am.):

I have some important news that I want to make official.

I've chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate.

Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois -- the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago.

I'm excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can't do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change.

Please let Joe know that you're glad he's part of our team. Share your personal welcome note and we'll make sure he gets it:

http://my.barackobama.com/welcomejoe

Thanks for your support,

Barack

P.S. -- Make sure to turn on your TV at 2:00 p.m. Central Time to join us or watch online at http://www.BarackObama.com.

Who benefits from foreign policy crises?

2008-08-12T19:22:00.002-04:00

I'm trying to make sense of the crisis in Georgia right now. The NYT played it off as Russian aggression to unseat Saakashvili, and Bill Kristol had a predictable column about using force first and asking questions about our national interest later. Russia Blog's take is that Georgia started it.

McCain has (also predictably) taken the hawkish line about helping plucky little Georgia. But can the US help? It doesn't seem like we are in a position to do anything about the Georgian conflict. Or that we want to even if we could.

From the Telegraph:

Mr Saakashvilli may also have banked on support from his closest ally, US president George W Bush, whose administration is said to have given tacit support for a Georgian assault on South Ossetia in the believe that the territory could be recaptured within 48 hours.

But as events have unfolded differently, Washington has offered Georgia - one of the largest contributors of troops in Iraq - little more than lukewarm vocal support.

In a demonstration of the fact that Georgia could be abandoned by its chief ally, President Bush warmly embraced Mr Putin at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing on Friday.

With the West apparently unwilling to participate in a proxy war with Russia at a time when relations with Moscow are already highly strained, Georgia now faces potential isolation in its conflict with its giant neighbour.

From the articles I've read, it seems like this was just a manifest total failure of US foreign policy. If this becomes evident, it can't help McCain. But Obama is on vacation. Obama is leading McCain narrowly, but he is going to have to get in his face when he comes back. McCain is making inroads in defining Obama. That definition is the strategy of alterization with a corrolary: Obama is a globe-trotting uppity elitist wannabe technocrat. That is to say, that he is aloof, as 2008Central has been saying. "My opponent wants you to inflate your tires" said McCain at Sturgis. That line has been ringing in my head. "All the experts say!!!!...." was Obama's response. This definition is gaining traction.

And now Georgia happens, and Obama could put the focus back on McCain and a failure of foreign policy, McCain's Achilles' heel. And he's on vacation!

Obama is going to have to abandon the "new politics" (which were never new to begin with) and go as hard-hitting as he possibly can against McCain, or else this will be 1988.

McCain holding his own

2008-08-07T15:24:00.005-04:00

The buzz is the same in the presidential race as it was at the end of the Obama's trip--McCain is hanging around, and might "back into" the White House like he backed into the nomination. The polls are tight at a time when you would expect Obama to be cleaning McCain's clock.

Why is this? Ever since McCain put Steve Schmidt in charge, his campaign has been humming along. I don't know if it's a coincidence. I can not emphasize enough the brilliance of the Paris Hilton ad. That is the gift that keeps on giving, as people make fun of it and of Paris. It's brilliant because it takes one of Obama's strongest points--that he inspires people, and that people turn out to hear him speak (unlike McCain)--into a negative. A negative! Politics is not fair. Something only has to be semi-plausible to stick.

McCain sounded great at Sturgis, shouting into a microphone that Obama wants us to "inflate our tires" as a response to the gas crisis. Great stuff. Puts Obama on the defensive. Obama's response cited "experts." Playing into McCain's hand! Makes him seem like a schoolmarm wagging his finger at us slightly. McCain should continue to portray Obama as Carter.

The Obama team needs to read or re-read Drew Westin's book. Obama should have used the tire-inflating spat to connect with real people who are suffering--inflate your tires, every little bit helps, etc. Instead he cites experts.

Perhaps the Obama team did go back to Westin's book, which makes the seemingly obvious point that when you do an attack ad, put an unflattering picture of your opponent on it. In the ad below, Obama's crew finally gets that elementary point down. They didn't in this earlier ad. Both of these are playing in the Pittsburgh market. Obama needs to work Appalachia, that's for sure. McCain at Sturgis plays a heck of a lot better than any of Obama's posing.

McCain's ad below is brilliant. I think he should embrace the Maverick image and screw the Republican base. Let them wallow in their skepticism--they have nowhere else to go. The Republican brand is in the tank, and the convential wisdom is that McCain is the best candidate the Republicans could have fielded because he is such a maverick. I'm extremely skeptical of this logic. I'm skeptical of the median-voter theory, too. But this year is different. McCain should go with what he's got. He's never going to be the most popular Republican. But perhaps he can play a game of hide the weiner--"you know where he stands," just like Bush in '04; he's a different kind of Republican, totally unlike Bush.

The veepstakes are high-stakes. Obama dodged a bullet with Edwards.

Remember with these polls, though, that they're meaningless. Interesting, a reflection of the race at this point, but totally and completely lacking all predictive value for November.

Obama Energy Ad

2008-08-07T15:22:00.000-04:00

McCain Maverick Ad

2008-08-07T11:52:00.001-04:00

More on McCain's Strategy

2008-07-31T19:10:00.003-04:00

My last post played up the strategy of alterization for McCain. Make Obama seem like he's not American enough to be president. But how to do this? The obvious way for McCain's campaign is to play up his personal bio as much as humanly possible. He's been doing that already, of course. The other is to portray Obama as a newbie, someone who doesn't deserve to just show up and lead, who hasn't earned it. This was tried by Hillary, of course, and she lost. But very narrowly.

The Britney/Paris/Obama ad was brilliant. Talk about getting bang for your buck, the ad only ran briefly on the air, yet got over a million views on YouTube! Right when Obama's overcoming a lack of presidential stature by appearing very presidential, McCain goes right for the jugular. Obama's a phenomenon--do you want to vote for a phenomenon, or for a president? People who are on the outside looking in to the rock star rallies feel left out. McCain can capitalize on this big time.

Letterman is now making jokes about Obama's overconfidence, how he seems like he is entitled to the presidency.

There's a debate online about race. This ties into alterization, of course. But every time race was brought up in the primary (by Bill or by Axelrod) Obama gained from the exchange. Will this be the same in the general? Josh Marshall thinks it won't, that it hurts Obama. Daniel Larison and Ana Marie Cox think not. I don't know. I suppose I agree that it will be like the primary, that Obama will look like he's being unfairly picked on, and the historic nature of his candidacy will be emphasized yet again. Obama certainly thinks so--his big Berlin speech began with "I don't look like previous Americans blardy blar blar." There could be backlash though, with the same idea as above, viz. lower-class whites (Hillary's voters) who already feel left out of
affirmative action will feel left out with having to elect a black president to prove you're not a racist. Lower-class whites don't have to prove that anyway; it's only in the higher echelons of society in which you actually have a lot to lose if there's any whiff of an emanating penumbra of racism.

McCain's Game Plan

2008-07-29T17:23:00.004-04:00

More bad news for Republicans--the Dept. of Justice violated hiring rules, and Ted Stevens is indicted. It just keeps piling on.

Charlie Cook has a great post today on the Obama bounce in the aftermath of his overseas trip. I want to go through it.

First of all, Gallup's tracking poll now has Obama outside the margin of error. As Cook notes, this is meaningless as a predictor of what will happen on election night. However, it gives us a sense about the present state of the race. Obama is up. He hasn't sealed the deal, as Cook notes, but he's up.

Cook writes:

But over the last two weeks, McCain and his campaign have taken on an edgier, angrier and even mean-spirited tone. As one observer put it, it gives the impression of McCain as a cranky old man standing on his front porch in a bathrobe and slippers barking at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

Should this race get to the point where Obama is seen as more presidential and McCain is perceived as angry and bitter, a campaign that is legitimately competitive won't be for long.

This is heading where I though it would. I always said that McCain's edge as a "Maverick" was due to the media loving him, and now that he is what is standing in the way of a historic Obama presidency, he has lost a major part of his advantage, viz. good media coverage. I have also said that McCain's temper and his free-speaking, qualities gained from a long period in the Senate, would be a hindrance on the presidential campaign trail. As soon as the spotlight is on, I thought McCain would wilt. That seems to be happening to some degree now. McCain's campaign is somewhat in a shambles. They could and will rebound, but right now ask yourself the question, What is their strategy? What are they going to do to beat Obama?

The strategy I thought they were going to use was alterization. But McCain goes to the NAACP and complements Obama. This left right-wing radio hosts scratching their heads. Why is he doing this?

The key to beating your opponent is to attack him/her without it looking like you are attacking, that is, without looking angry and mean and desperate. McCain's hammering of Obama just as it looked like his trip was a great success looks like all three of these.

Cook notes that 13% of people think the country is on the right track, and only 30% support President Bush. This is Watergate territory. But as Cook also rightly notes, the electoral college could be a lot tighter than the popular vote. Obama will run up the score in liberal states, but they're still worth the same electoral votes.

One last quote:

And for this particular matchup, when 55 percent chose "this is a time when it is important to look for a person who will bring greater changes to the current policies even if he is less experienced and tested," compared to 40 percent who chose "this is a time when it is important to look for a more experienced and tested person even if he brings fewer changes to the current policies," it does not bode well for McCain.

McCain needs Obama to fumble the ball. Bush 43 benefited greatly from Gore making all kinds of petty lies and then veering wildly from one style to the other in the debates. McCain should avoid the anger and pandering to hopelessly Democratic constituencies, and attack Obama subtly as not experienced enough or American enough to be President.

Obama's speech

2008-07-28T14:31:00.000-04:00

So far as I can tell, Obama blew McCain out of the water on his overseas trip. McCain was rowing while Obama was in a speed boat.

My reaction to Obama's speech in Berlin follows. The motto for this blog should be, "Only five news cycles behind!"

First he said "citizens of the world," a silly notion. I would have stayed away from that one. But perhaps that's why I'm not working for the campaign. It makes him look presidential, right? So what if it's silly. I'm worried about the whole aloof thing though--Obama cares more about strutting his stuff abroad to fawning foreigners than the economic troubles we face at home. Obama had better not get too far deep into this rut, and come back and mingle with the masses pronto. McCain's doing these town halls in Smallville USA. But those pictures of him golfing with Bush 41 were terrible. You don't look like you care about Joe Sixpack in a golf cart with a blue-blood former president who didn't get reelected because he was aloof.

However, he did look presidential. And he talked about all the dangers in the world. "We cannot afford to be divided." This resonates with the US audience. A president has to be somewhat aloof. And Obama's problem is that people hesitate to see him as president. So he can use his weakness as a strength, by appearing presidential. The only problem would come if there's a backlash and people want to stick it to him. People wanted to stick it to Bush 41 and John Kerry. But they have to be given a credible alternative. And McCain is part of a discredited administration, whether he likes it or not. That is to say, you can't rely on a fit of spite to win an election, since people would much rather be voting for something. If they are just voting against something, they'll stay home in higher percentages. You have to give them a reason to pull the lever for you. This is McCain's task; it's a tough one.

Obama has history going for him. The whole "hope" motif was interwoven in his address; he referred to the "lessons of history." Whites want to believe that race relations are getting better, and Obama offers tangible proof of that. A black president shows progress. McCain doesn't have anything like this. But I can bash McCain all I want to, but this is eerily familiar to last summer when I was interring McCain prematurely. When Obama slips up, it's a whole new ballgame.

It was interesting that Obama said "I know my country has not perfected itself." More awkward than just saying "My country's not perfect." Yet it fits so well into American exceptionalism!

Gaffes and such

2008-07-24T20:30:00.000-04:00

Rush Limbaugh made fun of Obama the other day for talking about dealing with foreign leaders "for the next eight to ten years." A minor slip up that won't hurt him in people's minds too much, I reckon.

Jon Stewart made fun of McCain two nights ago for speaking about the "Iraq-Pakistan border." McCain has talked about infiltration of Al-Queda from Iraq into Iraq. Jimmy Kimmel made fun of him last week for referring to the Czech Republic as "Czechoslovakia."

McCain's gaffes are much more damaging. To not know which country borders Iraq! This is venturing into Swift Boat territory, by which I mean something that undercuts the whole narrative a candidate is putting forth as to why they should be president.

What about Colin Powell?

2008-07-21T15:12:00.002-04:00

For Obama, that is. Obama has been wooing him, and Powell is impressed (despite decades of friendship with McCain).

Powell would bring the military and foreign policy experience Obama lacks. Obama would take the maverick centrist label away from McCain by picking a Republican. And what are the downsides? Infuriating a left-wing base that sees (correctly) Powell as being one of the architects of the Iraq invasion.

Yet that would be another positive. The left-wing base is in Obama's pocket. He's their candidate, for goodness sakes. They have nowhere else to turn, and they are not going to stay home in November. Infuriating them just makes Obama look more moderate and mainstream. He's no kooky liberal--just look what the kooky liberals are saying about him.

Powell is black; is that too much change for the country? I think it balances Obama's message nicely: change, but not too much, not enough to scare you. Basically change from the disaster of the Bush era. Is Powell too much associated with the Bush era? Well, he was viewed as a dissenter from Bush-groupthink, along with his deputy Dick Armitage. The fact that this is incorrect does not change the image they have.

Crucially, Powell is basically a democrat. He's for affirmative action, and crucially pro-choice. He would be acceptable to Democrats. Indeed, both parties were wooing him to be their nominee back in the early 90s.

A Zogby poll this weekend has Powell as the favorite veep candidate for voters in both parties.

The polls are meaningless (almost)

2008-07-19T10:40:00.000-04:00

Polls at this point in time are absolutely worthless in terms of their predictive value. At this time last year, if you had believed the polling, Edwards or Hillary would have won Iowa. Or nationally, Rudy Giuliani would be the Republican nominee! See what I'm saying?

Intrade is no better, pace Michael Brendan Dougherty. Buying Obama and McCain futures this time last year would have netted you a small fortune (more so with McCain, but also with Obama).

CBS Horserace writes:

In those blue states being talked about by Republicans as possible targets, Obama is doing more than holding his own. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average has Obama up by 7 points. In Michigan, it’s a 7.2 point lead, 11.2 points In Wisconsin and 12 points in Minnesota. When it comes to those states Obama is looking to flip into the Democratic column, the race is much closer. McCain holds an average lead of just 0.7 points in Virginia and just 3.8 points in North Carolina. Obama meanwhile leads by 3.6 points in Colorado and holds a slight 0.5 lead in Indiana. And in Nevada, it’s a dead heat. Meanwhile, some of the more traditional swing states look to be tilting slightly towards the Democrat. Obama holds the lead in poll averages in places Republicans have won in recent cycle. He’s up 4.5 points in Ohio and 2.5 in Missouri. Obama is holding strong in Iowa, with an average 7.4 point lead. McCain clings to a 2.2 point average lead in must-have Florida and New Hampshire is a toss-up. In other words, Obama is looking much stronger in the states Democrats have relied on in the past two close elections while appearing to make real inroads in traditional Republican states and competing very well in big swing states like Ohio.

Stuart Rothenberg says the bellweather states will be Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada and Michigan. Obama has small leads in all of these, except in Michigan where he's up by 7+.

Obama is doing the right things right now; moving to the center during the summer when nobody's paying attention; grabbing all the headlines (for those who are) by going overseas. The trip is looking like it will be a masterstroke; Barack looks presidential, McCain is diminished by comparison.

Could Obama slip up and harm his candidacy? Of course, but that can happen with anything. He's dominating the airwaves so far and will continue to with his overseas venture. The more people just get used to the idea of Obama being their president, representing them to foreign leaders, etc., the better off he is.

He's got four months to do this, yet the drawn-out primary campaign helped immensely. Obama was not dropped on us from heaven; he had to earn it gradually over a grueling schedule of primary after primary. All these voters seeing his name on the ballot, hearing about him on the local news. And the campaigning sharpening his presidential campaigning skills. I will repeat until doomsday comes that a plethora of democracy only helps a party (and the US as a whole) and the people who only see the divisiveness have no imagination and miss the big picture entirely.

So to pose the question put by CBS Horserace (not excerpted) why isn't Obama up by more? I think the answer is that the heat has not yet been put on John McCain. McCain is benefiting from the surge's short-term success, and the fact that the economy dominates the headlines distracting people from Iraq. People are not thinking about the election. When they do the poll numbers will move around. No doubt McCain will have a lead at some point in time. But there is plenty of ways for Obama to go after McCain, and not a whole lot of ways for McCain to go after Obama, except alterization, the impact of which is/will be blunted by the fact that Obama has/has had time for people to get used to him. The media fawning all over him doesn't hurt, along with the fact that McCain has finally met his match in the media-darling category; now he's standing in the way of what the progressive media elites most desire, which is new for him.

Bloggers of the World, Unite!

2008-07-16T14:10:00.003-04:00

There's a new addition to this site, a widget of feeds from other election bloggers from the 08 Bloggers Network. This is a great way to pool resources for bloggers to have a greater impact on the election and have greater access to information about the campaigns. If you are a political blogger, sign up!

The New Yorker Cover

2008-07-15T15:23:00.002-04:00

This week's New Yorker cover is all over the web. Philip Weiss claims it might serve Obama in the end. Weiss writes: "Shocking satire resonates in unpredictable ways. It provokes people to think about stuff. The outrage over the cover may well redound to Obama's benefit, it could actually help to blow the rumor campaign out of the water."

I don't know. I know very intelligent voters who are convinced Obama is a closet Muslim. I think Weiss could be right with a caveat--Obama's team has time, if they use it, to combat this smear. They should not ignore it. They should come out with guns ablazin' against it. This is no Jesse Jackson comment, which helps Obama, while all he has to do is accept an apology. This is a serious damper on his campaign if he thinks everyone is smart enough to see the truth behind the smears. They aren't. People don't pay attention to politics; little filters through; you have to pound a message down everyone's throats day after day to counter a rumor that has traction like this.

Do I think that the New Yorker should not have run the cover? Of course not! It's a free world. Andrew Romano writes: "This line of reasoning--i.e., don't satirize something stupid because the people who believe it might be stupid enough to take you seriously--strikes me as painfully paternalistic. " Absolutely. It's not the media's job to run Obama's campaign. It's a free country, and if that makes it hard on poor politicians, so what.

In other news, the NYT has a piece up about there being no comedic "take" on Obama. That's exactly right. How do you make fun of him? Rush Limbaugh derided the idea today--but then said that the funny thing about Obama was the same as John Kerry, that he's a flip-flopper. Well, that's the point. That's Kerry's comedic take, not Obama's. When Limbaugh makes fun of Obama it's always like he's making fun of Jesse Jackson. Really, the comedic take on Obama is his race. But nobody wants to go there. It's too hard to do. Obama's not a self-parody like the clownish Al Sharpton or the pretentious Jesse Jackson. He's too serious. This quality could itself become the comedic take, and I predict it will, over time. That is, after he's in the White House, they'll be some moment where it is revealed that he can't take a joke. Once he's president and we're used to him, then the jokes will come. But right now his character on SNL for example was the least funny presidential candidate impression probably ever.

Obama in Appalachia

2008-07-14T05:28:00.003-04:00

The ad below has been airing in Western Pennsylvania. Let's analyze it. First, it bashes McCain and ties him to Bush. That's fine, except the two pictures they use of McCain are not bad looking. In the one where McCain is standing with Bush they're both smiling and look great. Come on! That's bad ad-making. You need a photo that makes him look old and tired. Goodness knows there's plenty of them. It's too much cognitive dissonance to be bashing him while people are staring at a becoming photo of him.

It makes one think that there's no attention to detail in this ad. So I hesitate to analyze the part where Obama is talking with a family, but what struck me when I first saw the ad on TV was that Obama really looks white. He's wearing a white shirt, with a tan background behind him, and talking to a darker Caucasian male. Who knows if it's on purpose, and these things can be over-parsed, but it is interesting if this was the intent of the ad.

In other Obama-in-Appalachia news, Jim Webb said he will not be Obama's Veep. This is a stunning development, because as I have argued here Webb is a perfect choice, and who would turn down the running-mate spot? Webb says he'd "get more done" in the Senate. Eleanor Clift swallows this explanation. There's also the angle that Democrats might lose a Senate seat as a result of Webb going on the ticket.

I am a little bit incredulous. HuffPo thinks no never means no, and that Webb will continue to be courted. I would say so. Perhaps this is all a ruse, and Webb will then come out and say "for the good of my country, I will serve," etc. I don't know.

Al Gore might be chosen Obama's veep, to which my co-blogger said, "Oh that'll win him lots of votes in Appalachia! And Tennessee too--Gore's mom, and a couple other relatives!"

Obama Energy Ad

2008-07-14T05:25:00.001-04:00

The case for a Southerner

2008-07-08T10:29:00.002-04:00

John A. Tures from LaGrange College makes the point today that the presidential nominees should pick running-mates from the South. This means Huckabee or Thompson for McCain, and Webb or Edwards for Obama.

He writes:

My research shows that when a Southerner is on the ticket, the pair wins 63.7 percent of the time. That winning percentage drops down to a 41.2 percent likelihood of victory if no Southerner is on the ballot for the party.

The findings show improvements for both parties. The Democratic Party has put a Southerner on the ticket 16 times, with 9 victories to show for it. That's more than twice as good as their 12 elections with no Southerner listed on the ballot. Only three won in those cases: FDR in 1940, and Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916. Of course, Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, long before he became New Jersey's Governor, further cementing the party's ties to a successful Southern strategy.

The results are also impressive for the Grand Old Party. Since 1896, Republicans won half of their races where a Southerner was not on the ballot (going a dismal 4 for 11 between 1932 and 1976). When a Southerner made the ticket, the GOP prevailed 83.3 percent of the time, taking five of six races. The only GOP ticket to lose involved George Herbert Walker Bush, who was a New England Republican transplanted to Texas.

This is worth thinking about. The choice of running mate really does matter. It solidifies or challenges the image of a candidate. I posted five days ago that "Romney would be perfect for McCain," but I should have added that this is not what I think he needs to do to win. It is a safe choice, a solid choice. Many positives and few negatives. Normally that would cement the deal, but now is not a normal time, but rather a toxic climate for Republicans, not excluding McCain. McCain needs a big-time play. If he's going to win it, it's going to be 1948, not 1972. Only Obama has the possibility of a 1964. So McCain needs to be in risk-taking mode, starting with the running-mate.

Webb on the ticket, as I've argued since February, is perfect for Obama. Would Huckabee be the right risk for McCain? I tend to think so, but a comment on a previous post of mine claimed that Alaska Gov Sarah Palin will get the nod. I think that's probably more likely than Huckabee, who's despised by the Republican establishment. As the folks at 2008Central argued in a recent podcast, McCain needs to challenge the perceptions of himself. That's exactly right, because he cannot coast to victory. Obama can, but McCain can't. Kerry tried to coast to victory in 2004 and it almost worked. He had a southerner on the ticket, too. This time around the climate is much more demoralizing for the GOP. This doesn't mean that Obama shouldn't pick a Southerner though...

2008 is not 1988

2008-07-05T15:32:00.003-04:00

In that year it was Al Gore who brought up William Horton in a debate with Dukakis, which the GOP then used to great effect (first of all by changing his name to "Willie"). Twenty years later, it was Hillary Clinton who hammered Obama for his pledge to meet with foreign leaders in a debate.

McCain thinks he can use this position of Obama's to score some points, as you can see in the ad above. Of course, the ad was on the Jerusalem Post website, a nice piece of targeted advertising to get money and votes from Jewish voters (esp. in FL). But McCain will emphasize it to larger audiences, no doubt.

But he's wrong, as Dick Morris has said. Obama's comments polled well with Democrats after he made them. The whole point of his answer in the debate was to contrast needed diplomacy to Bush's Texas shoot-first-ask-questions-later foreign policy. Hillary tried to make it into a blunder, but it wasn't really. Contrasting a careful diplomatic style to cowboy diplomacy is a winner for Obama and the Dems. On the one issue that McCain should best Obama on, he's a miserable failure.

McCain will probably pick Romney

2008-07-03T10:44:00.003-04:00

So Politico says McCain wants Romney. The reasons are fundraising, already having been vetted, popular in Michigan, and economic expertise.

I always thought that Romney would not be McCain's choice, for one simple reason: he ran a terrible campaign. He spent all this money and time, and yet the more voters saw of him, the less they liked him. He couldn't overcome his fakeness.

Yet I now think that Romney would be a perfect pick for McCain. Romney's weakness on the stump, which I thought canceled him out, is actually a positive, because it contrasts well with McCain. Romney injects youth and vigor into the ticket, but without making McCain look old and tired next to him, and Romney's fakeness makes McCain's sincerity shine out.

Romney's image is that of a competent manager. That is exactly what McCain wants to contrast to Obama's greenness.

Romney has made his peace with social conservatives, and was widely praised for his speech on religion during the campaign. They could live with him.

And of course, if he switches Michigan, then the election is McCain's.

Romney is perfect for McCain.

Obama in WVA?

2008-06-30T11:43:00.003-04:00

The front-page story in the Wheeling Intelligencer today is about how great Obama is doing with fundraising in West Virginia--more than double McCain's.

Obama lost to Hillary 67-26 on May 13th. What a drubbing! The article says Hillary outspent him 3-1 in the state, but that's a misprint. Obama massively outspent Hillary and still got creamed.

Can Obama win WVA? A couple polls show him narrowing the gap. In February he was down 53-35 to McCain in a SurveyUSA poll, and a Rasmussen poll a month ago showed it to be 45-37.

WVA is not on my list of swing states. It has five electoral votes, and went for Bush 56-43 in 2004, and also in 2000, 53-46. It's an uphill climb for Obama.

Crist as veep if McCain needs Florida

2008-06-29T22:29:00.005-04:00

Race 4 2008 has a good post up today pushing for Charlie Crist as McCain's running mate, on the thinking that it takes Florida out of play, limiting the possibilities for Obama to flip Republican states.

He writes: By taking Florida out of play, McCain limits possible red state defections to seven states: Missouri, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. The geographical concentration of these states into two distinct regions would make multi-state campaigning easier on the part of a cash-strapped Team McCain, and would force Obama to make inroads into the very sorts of voters who are most suspicious of him in order to win. In this scenario, McCain could simply spend the entirely of the fall campaign jumping back and forth between Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, knowing that whoever wins the majority of those five states probably wins the election. And we all saw how far Obama’s millions went in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania during primary season.

The swing states can be seen at the bottom of this blog, with the margins from '04. If Obama wins Pennsylvania (and at this point seems like he probably will) and Michigan, he can win without Missouri, Virginia, and Ohio only by batting 75% in Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. That's difficult, but not impossible. As Chris Bowers has posted, Obama has had a lead in Iowa in every poll since January 2007, is ahead in every Colorado poll, currently leads by over 5 points in New Mexico, and is down over 2 points in Nevada.

So Obama is likely to win today. But oh how the polls can change!

Huckabee would accept veep spot

2008-06-28T15:48:00.003-04:00

This is the first time I've heard him say he would accept McCain's offer to be his running-mate.

The Battleground States

2008-06-28T13:51:00.008-04:00

The video posted below shows David Plouffe (the genius for the Obama campaign who saw early on that the primary could come down to delegates, and urged aiming for delegate-rich contests) mapping out Obama's strategy in the general. That strategy is, hold on to the Kerry states, and go on offense against some Bush '04 states.

He claims that Obama is doing well in the Kerry states, so that McCain doesn't have many opportunities to go on offense. He's right. The WSJ poll above of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan show Obama with leads right now beyond the margin of error. Of course that could change. But as of right now it looks good for Obama to hold onto the Kerry states.

Kerry got 251 electoral votes, 19 shy of winning. Where can Obama get these 19 votes? I've posted my analysis of swing states at the bottom of this blog for easy reference. Of course Ohio or Florida would do it. A combination of Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado would do it as well.

I'm going to be doing a series on this blog on the political situations for the campaigns in the states, starting with the battleground states. It's a fun way to pass a lazy summer. [I am no longer planning on doing this. Jay Cost is doing a great job of this over at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/]

David Plouffe on Strategy

2008-06-28T13:49:00.001-04:00

McCain stumbles

2008-06-27T20:30:00.002-04:00

It won't be the last time. The blogosphere is buzzing with McCain taking credit for a bill he opposed. Read Steve Benen here.

McCain shoots from the hip. When he's the media darling and their's a dozen other candidates, that's fine. But I've always said, when the spotlight is on himn (and now it is finally on him), he'll wilt.

He could get away with this kind of thing before, but not now. The long harsh primary was exactly what Obama needed to get ready for this intense general election. You have to watch every word, every gesture under incredible pressure. I just don't see McCain being as up for it. He's used to running the show, saying what he wants.

McCain Takes Credit For GI Bill He Opposed

2008-06-27T13:34:00.000-04:00

The attraction of Obama

2008-06-24T09:59:00.003-04:00

First my thoughts on Obama's jumping out of public financing. Hypocrisy reigns on all sides. Just like Mike Gravel's stuttering about being beholden to the special interests, McCain's rebuke to Obama is a function of the fact that he can't raise more than $85M after he's nominated. If he could, he'd drop out too! Meanwhile Obama has to pretend that public financing is still a good thing. I wish he'd just express how much more healthy it is to get the government out of regulating political speech by having exciting candidates like him and Hillary. Of course, Hillary followed the Bush-bundler model, and Obama's network of small contributors makes him much less dependent upon special interests. So much better and more participatory.

Those who pay attention know the misreporting on this topic--McCain staying in does not mean he's limited to spending only the $85M, but rather than he has to stop raising money on September 4 (when he's nominated) and the government cuts him the 85 mill, which he uses on top of everything he raised up to then.

Anyway, Obama won the reporting I thought, which inevitably feature what a successful fund-raiser he is, in contrast to McCain. Why is Obama so attractive to people?

I had a discussion with a friend who related to me how his grandfather, a longtime Republican, is infatuated with Obama.

One reason I think is his comfort within his own skin. He is a very careful, very cautious and calculating politician. He lacks a record, so is able to define himself in ambiguous terms leading people to read in their own desires into him. I've talked about this before. But he also exudes a comfort with who he is. Bill Clinton, with a much more empathetic political style than Obama, was the same. Hillary was not. She lacked the fluidity of style which masked her husbands chameleon-like nature, and people saw through her. Obama is still opaque.

I saw one clip a couple weeks ago of Obama walking across a stage. He seems so natural. In command, not stiff, not uncomfortable, yet not arrogant. That few seconds exhibited Obama's political strength to me more than any long-winded speech ever could. He looks presidential. He's tall and good-looking.

And his lack of empathy and inability to connect, it seems, with Appalachia, which would be so damaging under normal circumstances, might be a strength now. It's a scary time ahead for American voters. Someone who is serious like Obama might be more appealing for the time. In the 1990s Americans took a "break from history." The Cold War was over, the tech bubble was on the horizon, a Democratic president from the South who made us feel good and felt our pain was a good fit.

But we'll see. Obama is lucky lucky to be running against McCain, rather than against someone who can empathize more effectively than him, and has a better sense of humor (Huckster). McCain is an arrogant hothead, and I'd be surprised if that did not come out, with occasional flashes of the McCain temper making it a media item.

Tim Pawlenty for McCain's Veep?

2008-06-22T20:54:00.000-04:00

The London Times has this article today which makes a convincing case for the governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, as McCain's running mate. He sounds perfect for McCain. And he's a politician, not an untested businesswoman, like Carly Fiorina.

Pawlenty, 47, has the youth, working-class credentials and executive experience to attract independent voters and disaffected Democrats who find Barack Obama, 46, the Democratic party nominee, too exotic and untested and McCain, 71, too old and too focused on national security.

Minnesota, which narrowly voted Democrat in 2004, is one of many upper Midwestern swing states that they hope to carry.

The governor, who will host the convention, could help McCain to win farming and industrial heartlands from Iowa to Ohio. Recent polls show Obama leading McCain in Minnesota by 50% to 41%.

Pawlenty, an evangelical Christian who backed George W Bush in 2000, said his loyalty to McCain was never in doubt.

Pawlenty has sound relations with the conservative wing of the Republican party without being a perfect fit. He admires Ronald Reagan more for his flexibility than his ideological certitude. “He had an independent, pragmatic streak and I believe I have some of those characteristics as well,” he said.

Pawlenty’s working-class background helps: “My father was a truck driver, my mother was a home maker, one brother worked in a grocery store, another in an oil refinery, my sister is a special education aide and my other sister has been a secretary for her whole career.”

He put himself through university and law school. “I worked my tail off,” he said.

Obama to do to McCain what he did to Hillary

2008-06-20T09:10:00.003-04:00

The presidential race has been going fast and furious while I've had a blogging respite over the past few weeks. It's been interesting to pay less attention as I have been; this after all is what the vast majority of voters do. Those who pay attention daily are a minority after all. The advantage of paying attention is the ability to predict the future--what will happen when something becomes widely known. (I don't pretend to have a perfect record on this blog--I didn't think there was any way that McCain could win the GOP nod, nor did I think Obama could win--but I did predict Thompson's demise and Huckabee's rise.)

The McCain ad I posted a few days ago has been playing over and over in Ohio, the swing state of all swing states. I find it effective. The McCain team knows exactly its weakness--McCain will be portrayed as a reckless warmonger by the Dems. They also know their strong point--McCain's backstory. Iraq is obviously viewed by McCain's team as vitally important, a point I was complaining has been missed by Republican commentators, including Jay Cost.

There are big problems in the McCain camp. The biggest is this: what Obama did to Hillary, a target the size of a bull's-eye, he's going to do to McCain, a target the size of a barn. "Experience? You talk about your experience? Then why did you vote for the Iraq war?" With Hillary it was just her 2002 Senate vote, with McCain it is everything, his whole worldview. This is why McCain's going down, because his argument for why he should be president is fatally flawed.

Hillary's was flawed too, but not nearly so bad. Hillary, I have said here, would be a stronger general-election candidate based on the electoral math. But Obama is perhaps the stronger candidate when it comes to message. He offers a clear contrast to McCain. Sure, he has a lot of work to do: uniting the party, appealing to Appalachia. But these things he might be able to overcome. The primary campaign made him more able to do it, not less. Hillary would not be able to offer the message of a break with the past like Obama. She'd be a throwback, neutralizing the downfall of McCain's age. She voted for the war, enabling McCain to pull what saved Bush's bacon in '04, viz. repeating over and over that Kerry voted for the war. This was, in terms of message, why Bush won last time. He always had the last word in the debate: "You voted for it, then against it. You're wishy-washy, but I stand firm." It's why Hillary lost because Obama always had the last word on Iraq, pointing to her vote.

But this time around the Democrat will always have the last word. It's an incredible advantage. And it's an advantage that cuts down McCain right at the roots--because foreign policy is his expertise. Or is it?

Philip Giraldi has a stinging indictment of McCain in this month's TAC:

Intelligence analysts who have briefed Sen. John McCain on international issues generally report that he is not very knowledgeable about most parts of the world, despite his years of experience in government and his campaign's insistence that one of his principal strengths is foreign-policy expertise. When speaking with an area specialist or expert, McCain is primarily interested in stating his own perceptions and is not generally regarded as an attentive listener. Analysts do not like briefing him because he becomes angry and sometimes personally offensive when someone contradicts his view. One analyst stated that McCain's alleged expertise on international issues is essentially bogus. He speaks no foreign language, and his international experience drives from brief postings at military bases, junkets while serving as Navy liaison to the Senate, and the misfortune of his rather more extensive state in the Hanoi Hilton.

As a congressman, McCain served on committees dealing with Department of the Interior issues, Indian affairs, and the problems of aging--all areas of particular interest to his Arizona constituents. As a senator, he has served on the three committees dealing with the armed services, Indian affairs, and commerce. He is regarded as an expert on the military, both because of his background and due to an genuine interest. But McCain's only foray into foreign affairs as a senator has been his chairmanship of the International Republican Institute, a controversial quasi-public arm of the Republican Party engaged in democracy promotion overseas. McCain's position with IRI requires him to make an occasional speech on policy, but he has no hands-on role and is not much interested in particular issues. One of the private contributors to IRI is the notorious private mercenary firm Blackwater USA, which donated $15,000 to the group's coffers in 2005 and 2006 and in return received a contract for $18 million to protect IRI workers overseas.

McCain's foreign travel in recent years has been in the security and diplomatic cocoon that has become normal for someone with a senator's status. His comments during and after visits to Iraq have been lampooned in the media for being completely disconnected from the situation on the ground. Like George W. Bush, McCain has not been inclined to vacation outside the United States, and he appears to have little curiosity about the world and its peoples. According to the analysts who have interacted with McCain, his recent misstatements about various Muslim groups and other foreign-policy issues are not slips. They reflect a real lack of interest in other countries that makes it impossible for him to empathize with their problems, leading to a monochromatic view of the world and the facile assumption that it is always better to solve issues dealing with foreigners by dropping bombs.

McCain, whose foreign-policy advisers are exclusively neocons, receives regular briefings from the distinguished scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, which are presumably more to his taste than the less colorful information provided by the $42 billion per year intelligence community.

John McCain TV Ad

2008-06-18T13:10:00.001-04:00

The problem with Jay Cost

2008-06-11T22:28:00.003-04:00

I always read eagerly Jay Cost's blog over at RealClearPolitics. Now that the Democratic primary is over, I awaited his take on the race between McCain and Obama, and I caught his post last Sunday just as he was putting it online. I have to say I was disappointed.

He starts off by admitting that the macro-conditions for Republicans are terrible this election year. He then asks, incongruously, whether the parties can "master" the conditions they find themselves in. It is at this point that his post goes south. Politicians can't master conditions, no matter whether the "explosion of information technology" provides them up-to-the-minute updates on whatever.

Cost writes:

The Republican Party seems to understand that it faces a bear market. After all, it has nominated a bear market candidate. John McCain is not the first, second, or even third choice of most Republicans. However, they believe he has cultivated a stable image as an anti-Bush Republican. Whether this belief is accurate, we do not know for sure. What we do know is that there is a non-trivial probability that it is accurate. Therefore, we can conclude that nominating McCain was the safe choice for the party, given the macro environment and the party's goal of electoral victory.

This is nonsense. First of all, groups don't have consciousness such that they "understand" this or that. What does a "bear market" candidate mean? Cost describes it as being an "anti-Bush Republican." I shake my head in disbelief--Cost is usually so careful to distinguish between the average level, even among voters, of political knowledge (extremely low) and the knowledge of those who study politics daily, in order to not confuse the two. Can he seriously tell us with a straight face that a run-of-the-mill voter thinks of McCain as "anti-Bush"? This is Karl Rove spin. Frank Rich in a Sunday NYT op-ed came much closer to the truth:

In the woe-is-us analyses by leading Republicans about their party’s travails — whether by the House G.O.P. leader John Boehner (in The Wall Street Journal) or the media strategist Alex Castellanos (in National Review) — Iraq is conspicuous by its utter absence. The Republican brand’s crisis is instead blamed exclusively on excessive spending, scandal and earmarks — it’s all the fault of Tom DeLay’s K Street Project, Jack Abramoff and that Alaskan “bridge to nowhere.”

This transcends denial; it’s group psychosis. Nowhere is this syndrome more apparent than in the profuse punditry of Karl Rove, who never cites Iraq as a problem for Mr. McCain (if he refers to it at all) and flatly assured George Stephanopoulos last Sunday that Mr. McCain has no need to make a “clean break” from Mr. Bush.

The whole strategy of the Democrats is going to be to paint McCain as BushIII, as has been documented here. Cost's conclusion that the Republicans "got lucky with McCain" is such a stretch I can't believe I'm reading it on his blog. As Rich points out, McCain is most identified with the number-one unpopular Bush policy, Iraq. And that's his strength. He's weak on everything except campaign finance reform (yawn) and immigration (for a voting block that won't vote for him anyway).

McCain is not the strongest candidate the Republicans could have picked. A candidate who could pivot on Iraq would have been better. If that distinction is fudged, then the electorate could be willing to go GOP. But with McCain it's crystal-clear.

McCain did not win because of any Republican "thought process" such as Cost describes. He won by a whisker because he was the last man standing in a flawed field. Had he lost SC, it probably would have been Romney.

Cost then tries to explain why the Dems did not go with the "safe bet" Hillary. He never mentions the obvious--Obama did not vote for the war. What a chasm operating at the heart of Cost's analyses! According to Google, he's mentioned Iraq only 4 times on his blog in the last 6 months. His blog is not about issues, to be sure, but strategy. But this blog is too, and I've mentioned Iraq ten times more over the same period.

Israeli view of the election

2008-06-05T11:55:00.002-04:00

I've been out of the loop with my travels, and am eager to get back to US election news, since Obama has sewn up the nomination finally (limping over the finish line) and Hillary is set to make the big speech in a couple days dropping out.

It has been interesting talking to Israelis about the election during my stay. They pay a lot of attention to it. "It's more important for Israel than the election of the Prime Minister of Israel," was one comment. All the reports about Israeli views are correct, in my experience. They were rooting for Clinton. They are very wary of Obama. Why? Because he has an Islamic background, and he does not understand the situation the west faces against the threat of Radical Islamic terrorism. Israel is on the front-lines of that struggle, Europe is next, and the US is the rear guard. They were happy with Obama's speech to AIPAC. "He knows he has to flatter us to win." They would much have preferred Hillary. "I feel like this is a family reunion," said Hillary to AIPAC, which was played on Israeli radio.

The view is that the Iraq War was a wasted effort, because the real threat is Iran. Iran must be confronted militarily. That is the hardened position. Obama might not do this, which is worrisome. But the Iraq War was bad because it was a distraction from the real threat, Iran. If the US won't attack Iran, Israel certainly will.

The RBC, and McCain on Iraq

2008-05-31T10:27:00.004-04:00

The Rules and Bylaws committee of the DNC meets today to decide what to do with Florida and Michigan. The Politico sums it up: "As it stands, the RBC is in a quandary. If the sanctions hold, it could risk further alienating Democrats – especially Clinton supporters – in two big swing states. But some RBC members worry that seating Michigan and Florida with minimal punishment will diminish the party’s ability to keep states from jumping the primary calendar, which could either lead to an even more chaotic calendar fight four years from now – and possibly an Iowa caucus held as early as November 2011." Chuck Todd has the best breakdown.

The video posted below relates to my recent post, "McCain's Campaign Contradictory." This is how John McCain will lose in November, if he is seen as too old, too tied to President Bush, and too attached to a failed Iraq strategy to be president. He must be seen as way more competent on national security and Iraq than Obama--that's really all he's got, and if this image falters due to his own mistakes, then he's toast.

McCain has the disadvantage of being in the Senate for a long time. This means he's a blow-hard like John Kerry. Arrogant, accustomed to power, accustomed to media fawning over him, used to giving intricate and (relatively) subtle and long-winded speeches on the Senate floor, the traits of the longtime Senator do not translate well to being an effective presidential candidate.

The debates are going to be absolutely huge for McCain. If he is subpar in the debates, he won't be able to beat Obama.

Blogging will be light for the next couple weeks, as I'm traveling to Israel and then to Chicago.

McCain on Iraq

2008-05-31T10:06:00.000-04:00

Obama's Veep Pick

2008-05-26T15:17:00.003-04:00

In a WSJ article a few days ago on Obama's running-mate choice, Jim Webb's name wasn't even mentioned. Chris Dodd was presumed to be the front-runner. The folks at the Journal made up for it, though, on one of their blogs today by commenting on an Atlantic blog praising Webb for being able to assemble a coalition in the Senate on a bill for Veterans' Educational Benefits:

[T]he Virginia Senator has successfully maneuvered the presumptive Republican nominee into the profoundly unpopular position of being against a measure designed to honor the service and the sacrifice of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Can Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius say the same thing? Or Ohio Governor Ted Strickland?

The benefits will make it harder for the military to retain soldiers, so McCain has to be against it. He lashed out against it today, Memorial Day. Wow--being against benefits for soldiers, that's pro-military? That's supporting the troops? What a coup by Webb. He should be Obama's pick, as I've said many times.

McCain won't win a blowout

2008-05-23T21:11:00.004-04:00

McCain is losing Mark McKinnon. He had pledged to leave McCain's campaign if Obama was the Dem nominee. I speculated in February that it might be because McKinnon saw McCain's campaign as a sinking ship that might be able to beat Hillary, but not Obama. Who knows the real reason.

But is Obama the strongest nominee? I've been arguing that Hillary would have an easier time in the general because of her strength in Appalachia. Hillary of course won Kentucky this past week 65-30. Obama won Oregon, 59-41, and passed the majority mark for pledged delegates (that was the headline). The people in Appalachia really don't like like Obama. But voters elsewhere really don't like Hillary. One is tempted to say that the Democratic contest is one between which candidate you dislike the most.

But that's actually not true. A lot of people had negative impressions of Hillary, which along with her October 2002 Iraq vote gave Barack an opening. But both candidates were very strong with very committed supporters who prefer their candidate. And prefer does not mean "hate the other guy/gal."

It might seem like that with the results in Appalachia going against Obama, but as I've emphasized before, those were primary election results, and you can't generalize from them to November. The Politico today has an article on a McCain "blowout" being contemplated by Republicans. It's based on current polling. But of course you can't generalize from polling in May to November. Plus, it's all based on the idea that McCain is stronger than the Republican party, which everyone agrees is in shambles.

In short, I think that Obama is a very strong general election candidate. There is certainly an argument to be made that Hillary is stronger, and I've made it, but that is all based on the leap from primary results to general election results, which is actually a tenuous one. Though it certainly does seem likely that Hillary would have a better chance of winning Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, this doesn't mean that Obama can't win them. You just can't generalize that. That is not what the primary results mean.

If the primary results in Appalachia meant, "I don't like Obama and won't vote for him in the general," then that would be one thing. But they don't mean that, they mean that between him and Hillary Democratic voters preferred Hillary. But that is meaningless for a general election against McCain with all voters. It's two completely different situations.

The exit poll results reveal otherwise: 41.7% of Democratic voters in the Kentucky primary said they would not vote for Obama in November, and 39.43% of Democratic voters in the West Virginia primary said the same. That reveals a strong level of dislike. However, it's dislike in the current context of a heated primary race. Things will be very different in November, as the sources in the Politico's story admit.

In a heated primary race I'll say that I won't vote for the other guy/gal in the general. But the general election has not be framed yet. When McCain is in the hot seat rather than the Democratic candidates, it'll be another story. That is to say, when it's a contest between a Republican and a Democrat, it's a completely different animal.

And memories are short. What we have here is precisely the situation McCain himself was in a year ago. In the summer of '07 McCain's campaign tanked, and everyone was seeing the negatives with it--trying to win over Republican voters with issue-positions they disagree with. As with Obama now--his negatives with Appalachian voters resound strongly. But he has time to deal with them, like McCain did. And he doesn't have to beat Hillary Clinton in the general, he has to beat John McCain. The comparison's the important thing. McCain has an edge on Obama that he wouldn't have on Hillary, but that's an edge now, not an edge in November.

The NYT reports of dissatisfaction of Republicans with the disorder of McCain's campaign. It certainly seems like it's falling apart at the seams, with lots of advisers leaving. But this could be a strategic housecleaning, as the Washington Times points out.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

2008-05-23T15:12:00.001-04:00

McCain's campaign contradictory

2008-05-19T08:46:00.004-04:00

Peter Beinhart said this morning on Washington Journal that the Republican brand is tarnished, and that the long campaign, with the generation of excitement and infrastructure in so many states, has helped the Democrats. Mike Huckabee said the same thing about the Republican brand being tarnished on Meet the Press yesterday. NPR reported this morning on how Republicans are running twenty points behind Democrats on every issue ("Who do you want running the economy, etc."). But McCain is running ahead of the Republican brand. Was McCain a really smart choice by Republican primary voters?

Bill Kristol had a column in the NYT praising McCain's "exceptionalism." He's exactly wrong. I called into Washington Journal last week to make just this point. What's happening right now is similar to what was going on back in October of last year, when it looked like Hillary was edging out Obama and starting to become "inevitable." What happened then? Hillary stumbled in a debate over a question about illegal immigration. Her campaign put out a silly press release bashing Obama wanting to be president in Kindergarten. There was an overdone media frenzy over a hostage crisis in one of her campaign offices. Obama was outspending Hillary in Iowa, and she was losing ground, ultimately finishing third there.

All of this was nothing, however, compared to the real reason Hillary is going to lose the nomination. And that is her October 2002 Iraq vote. That is the big contradiction of her campaign, and she could just not overcome it. Obama exploited it to the hilt.

The contradiction is this: Vote for Hillary, she has experience. On the number 1 issue of the day, Hillary had a vote, a chance to weigh in when it counted, and she blew it. But vote for her; she'll be ready to lead; she has experience.

It's internally contradictory. Anytime you are trying to make an argument in politics it has to make sense. You can't paper-over a glaring contradiction on an issue people care about. You can emote, you can ask for forgiveness, you can say you're sorry, and that is really the only way to do it. I believe it was the YouTube debate on the Republican side in which Romney was asked about his position on abortion. He began with this: "I don't know how many times I have to say it, I'm pro-life." What a terrible response. Impatience with the audience, with voters, for not believing him that he's had a super convenient change of heart on an issue that the constituency he's after cares about. That was the time to emote, to show his sincerity, to sell his change of heart. Romney might have lost the nomination with that answer. Huckabee killed him by exploiting this contradiction in Romney's campaign--he was supposed to be the conservative candidate, but his record didn't support that.

It was the same way with Bush's Social Security reform plan. "Social Security is in a crisis; it won't be there for young people. We need to spend huge amounts of money to make private accounts." Well, if it's in crisis, then why spend so much money to change it to something different? And if you're in crisis mode, why not focus on Medicare which is in worse crisis?

McCain's argument for the presidency is internally contradictory. He trumpets his foreign policy experience. But he's been in favor of the war all along, and by any measure the war has been a disaster.

In a a speech in Columbus on May 15, McCain said this:

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted," Mr. McCain told reporters. This has to grate on anyone who's payed a modicum of attention to the disaster in Iraq. McCain will lose because his argument for why he should be president doesn't make sense on the most basic level. What if the economy was a bigger issue than Iraq? McCain said last December, "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." No, national security is all he's got. And it's internally contradictory. The reason McCain isn't hurting right now is that the attention is off of him, and he's benefiting from that.

In other news, following up on my post on electability in the general election, the Miami Herald has this report:

Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute, said Clinton can cite recent polls to bolster her argument as to why she should be the nominee. A Quinnipiac survey earlier this month showed Clinton leading McCain in Florida (49 percent to 41 percent), Ohio (48 percent to 38 percent) and Pennsylvania (51 percent to 37 percent).

The same survey showed Obama leading McCain in Pennsylvania (47 percent to 38 percent), but in a statistical dead heat with him in Ohio and Florida.

Also, The Politico reports on the DNC's new website McCainPedia, which includes opposition research and video footage of the Republican candidate shot by Democratic activists.

CA Supreme Court's gift to the Republicans

2008-05-16T10:52:00.003-04:00

The CA Supreme Court delivered a gift-wrapped present into the laps of the Republicans yesterday with its gay marriage decision. The LAT and the NYT both agree that this makes gay marriage an issue for November, despite the fact that all the candidates agree on it.

Why does this favor Republicans? Because it angers them, while for Democrats it excites some but basically provokes the rest into shrugging indifferently.

The Houston Chronicle has this commentary:

From a personal standpoint I could not care less what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. That being said, we live in a representative republic, where the will of the people, as voiced through their elected representatives, is the law of the land. The responsibility of a non-elected judiciary is not to make law, that is the job of the legislative branch. In my opinion, the California Court has clearly overstepped it’s bounds here.

In this case the people of California spoke clearly, when in 2000, 60% of the people voted for a proposition that recognized marriage as between a man and a woman. Now 4 Supreme Court justices make a ruling which overturns the expressed wishes of a state of over 36 million people.

It doesn't matter that all the candidates basically have the same positions. As the commentary above pointed out, it becomes an emotional thing for voters, where symbolism reigns and the candidate who can plausibly be seen to condemn it the most wins. That candidate will not be the Democratic nominee, but will be McCain.

The Republicans benefited from this issue bigtime in '04. The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared the ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional in late 2003, and marriages began in the middle of May 2004. In response 11 states put banning gay marriage on their ballots in '04. It passed in all of them: Arkansas (passed by 75%), Georgia (passed by 76%), Kentucky (passed by 75%), Michigan (passed by 59%), Mississippi (passed by 86%), Montana (passed by 67%), North Dakota (passed by 73%), Ohio (passed by 62%), Oklahoma (passed by 76%), Oregon (passed by 57%), and Utah (passed by 66%).

I don't think this issue will be as big as it was in '04, but it could be. Especially now.

Hillary a strong general election candidate, Obama a realigning candidate

2008-05-14T07:18:00.010-04:00

First of all, the stunning special election in Mississippi's 1st district. In the last two elections the Republican won with over 70% of the vote, and Bush won 59% in 2000 and 62% in 2004. But yesterday the Democrat won by 8 points. DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said this: "For the first time in more than 30 years the Democratic Party has picked up three Republican seats in special elections in one cycle. The NRCC broke the bank and spent nearly 20 percent of their cash on hand on a ruby red district."

Now to the blowout in West Virginia. It's clear that Hillary is the strongest general election candidate. And here's why--she wins Appalachia. The second picture above show's Hillary's wins in dark blue (from Jay Cost who got it from Sean Oxendine). You can mentally fill in the white West Virginia cutout with a lot more dark blue.

The Democratic candidate needs to win these states. The swing states are pictured in the top map. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are in Appalachia. If Hillary wins these states and Arkansas, then all she has to win is New Hampshire or Wisconsin (both of which John Kerry won in 2004), to be elected president. The path to the presidency is pretty clear for Hillary if she wins Arkansas and Appalachia.

Without Appalachia it's difficult. Kerry came 19 electoral votes short. Adding to what he won without Appalachia (and Arkansas) would mean either winning Florida (Kerry lost by 5%) or a combination of Iowa (7 electoral votes, Kerry lost by 1%), Missouri (11 electoral votes, Kerry lost by 7%), Colorado (9 electoral votes, Kerry lost by 5%), Nevada (5 electoral votes, Kerry lost by 3%), or New Mexico (5 electoral votes, Kerry lost be 1%).

This means, hold all the states that Kerry won, and then go on and win the three states in which Kerry got close (Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada), or get the bigger but tougher states Missouri or Colorado. That's definitely more of an uphill battle if you are Obama. Hillary's path to the presidency is much, much easier.

Yet Obama's probably going to be the nominee. Which might not be such a bad thing for Democrats long-term. New voters coming into the fold is always a plus, and young people are identifying with Obama. He did the better with them than any other demographic group last night in WVA (save those with "some postgraduate study"). Obama's the candidate of the future, Clinton the candidate of the past. Obama's the candidate of inspiration, Clinton's the candidate of short-term political calculations. At least that's the image.

There's only one answer for Obama: add Jim Webb to the ticket.

Tack away from your weakness

2008-05-12T06:53:00.006-04:00

Here's the schedule:

May 13 West Virginia--28 delegates
May 20 Kentucky--51 delegates, Oregon--52 delegates
May 31 DNC bylaws committee meets to decide fate of Florida and Michigan
June 1 Puerto Rico--55 delegates
June 3 Montana--16 delegates, South Dakota--15 delegates

Obama is ignoring Hillary and acting like the primary race is over, and that's the subject of this story from the Politico. What is going to happen when Hillary whomps him in West Virginia tomorrow? I guess there's no good way to manage expectations. The media have been pushing this idea that the contest is over, and not incorrectly, but it is also true that Obama and Hillary are basically tied, with Obama having a small lead in the endgame. "She missed by an inch, not by a mile," as democratic strategist Steve McMahon said on Morning Edition yesterday. By emphasizing that Obama will be the nominee, the headlines help Hillary because tomorrow's result will seem to surpass expectations.

Meanwhile the two presumptive nominees need to get their acts together. Of Obama, Doug Shoen writes this:

Exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina show clearly that fewer than 60% of white voters believe Mr. Obama shares their values. In a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 45% of the American electorate said they can identify with Mr. Obama's values, compared to 54% who say they can identify with John McCain's values.

The reason for this is perfectly straightforward: Michele, Bittergate, and Wright. Shoen concludes that Obama needs to start wearing a flag pin, in an all-out strategy to prove his true-blue Americanism. I absolutely agree. There's not a moment to lose for Obama. He should go out of his way on every occasion to talk about how he loves his country. McCain is going to hammer him on this. It's the only thing McCain's got, but it is a huge advantage.

The Jeremiah Wright matter really hurt Obama in Appalachia. I'm listening to West Virginia Public Radio and a woman just said she's so turned off of Obama that if Hillary doesn't win she won't vote for Obama, sheerly because he must share some of Wright's views. She wasn't the only one interviewed who expressed such sentiments.

There's time for Obama to move beyond Michele, Bittergate, and Wright. But he needs to get on with it. I've been talking about the alterization strategy against Obama since early March. What I don't understand is why the campaign doesn't move aggressively on this front. If you know the line of attack you will face, why don't you do something about it sooner rather than later? It's the same with Huckabee failing to deal with talk radio and his religious marginalization, or Hillary failing to deal with Obama's edge in not voting for the war. If you know what the problem is, you need to act to deal with it. But it's different with candidates who don't really want to be president (the Huckster?), and Obama needs to start wearing that pin now and repeating that he loves his country to anyone who'll listen.

But back to Hillary and the war for a second. This is the reason she is losing/will lose to Barack. I praised her Iraq strategy in early August of '07 and again in late September. The idea was not to have any kind of big apology moment where she would take back her October of '02 vote on the war, but rather move her position to the antiwar side over time. OK, that's a good idea if you underestimate your competition. And I think it's clear that Obama was underestimated. He was underestimated by me first and foremost. But that Iraq vote gave Obama a major opening, and he took it to victory. What's the lesson here? That you can finesse a position or a speech but not a hugely important congressional vote. That's why it's so hard to become President as a Senator.

McCain has loads of votes that will be picked apart, Obama much less, giving Obama a major advantage in the general. Mitt Romney aide Kevin Madden said yesterday on Washington Journal that McCain can win because he consistently outpolls Republicans. David Yepsen repeats the "most electable" mantra. Karl Rove wrote this last week in WSJ:

Mr. McCain is very competitive. He is the best candidate Republicans could have picked in this environment. With the GOP brand low, his appeal to moderates and independents becomes even more crucial.

But is this true? Does McCain's vaunted appeal to swing voters make him the strongest candidate Republicans could have nominated? McCain has won elections in Arizona by 56% or more for over twenty years. His appeal in presidential politics definitely lies with swing voters and weak Republicans, based on 2000 and 2008 primary results. But inferences for general elections cannot be made based on primary results. Everyone assumes that McCain will appeal to swing voters and independents in the general election. Rove feeds this perception. But we simply don't know that this is necessarily true. The independent vote in primaries is not the same as the independent vote in the general election. Independent voters in primaries are less motivated by policy, it seems to me, and more motivated by candidate personality and backstory. McCain has the straightalker image and a great backstory, so he wins these voters. But swing voters in general elections are another animal. Are they primarily swayed by personality and backstory? Of course they are, to some degree. But there is something else which dwarfs this, I think. And that is "nature of the times." If things are going well, the "direction of the country" question which is constantly being asked, then you stay with the incumbent. If not then you kick the bums out. The 2006 election was clearly a nature-of-the-times election. Why won't 2008 be as well? In that case McCain's got big problems, because the economy and Iraq are not getting any better, and McCain is tied to the incumbent president on both of these.

McCain needs to break with Bush. I thought McCain was beginning the Big Tack back at the end of March. But since then it hasn't seemed to go anywhere. He's tried to shore up his base a little, giving a speech on the judiciary last week. He tried to make light of his connection to Bush on the Daily Show, also last week. But it's thorny, as you can see on this video. He's going to have a much harder time with his tack than Obama.

Obama the nominee

2008-05-08T08:43:00.007-04:00

The pundits are all saying that Hillary is finished, and the pundits are right. Obama's close loss in Indiana means that he'll be the nominee.

What's interesting is the power of the pundits, the gang of 500. They all assume that Hillary's finished, and that is an insuperable obstacle to her remaining in the race. A die-hard Hillary supporter could well complain--why do the elite chattering few control what happens? The voters should decide! It's an excellent point. Obama is not going to get to 2025 with pledged delegates. But this is old news, and of course what happens is that it goes to the superdelegates, and this is why it's really the arguments of the chattering class which matters.

And of course the pundits are right. After weeks of taking a pounding, Obama still comes out strong. The bad headlines he's had, the bad debate, the bad Meet the Press (the first half-hour was painful), voters stuck with their candidate.

What does this tell us?

The first thing might be the importance of election rules. Indiana was an open primary, unlike PA which is closed, and OH which is semi-open.

The second thing is Gary county, which is basically a suburb of Chicago. They saw all the Obama news stories throughout his political career.

The third factor is Marion county (Indianapolis), which has a high black population (24%).

And the final factor is erosion in Clinton's support among key demographics (notably white women and Catholics).

One might say that Hillary's team did a poor job of managing expectations. But this the fourth quarter, and you can't spin a point deficit when there's seconds left on the clock. They needed a big win, not better spin.

Perhaps we'll save the Clinton retrospective for a later date, but what a lousy campaign they ran. What was the message? It morphed from one thing to the next, ending up with this populist candidate for the working-stiff image. Basically, Hillary was willing to tell anybody what they wanted to hear in order to be president. Obama is similarly a power-hungry political actor, but he had a message: Unity, Hope, a Candidate Above It All.

Obama should have debated, though. Now there will be enormous pressure when Obama debates McCain, and memories of the PA debate will be dredged up. Obama could have put that behind him by debating in Indiana. Smart short term that he didn't, perhaps, but not long-term.

But Obama's been through so many grueling debates that he's ready for McCain. This is another advantage for the Democrats of having a drawn-out primary season. They end up with a candidate who's vetted, who throws out the garbage in April rather than October, and who's battle-tested. You don't get that with a coronation. I don't think you can say the same for McCain. Everyone's talking about the disunity of the Democrats. But that's because it's excited, spirited disunity. The disunity of the Republicans is just as strong, and it's a dispirited, disappointed disunity. McCain got barely half Obama's vote in Indiana. Over 20% of Indiana republican primary voters voted against him.

So the people who accuse Hillary of dragging the Democratic party down to the mud are way off base. It's stupid to say a candidate who is so close to a nomination should drop out. Things can change so radically overnight, and as a candidate it's all about hanging around, hanging around, until everyone else drops away. To say "you can't win, drop out" when the contest is going on is like telling the KU basketball squad that they should have sent in the subs with thirty seconds left in the final game.

Plus Democrats should want Hillary to stay in, as Mara Liasson said on NPR yesterday, Hillary is going to win West Virginia and Kentucky, even if she drops out, which would be embarrassing for Obama.

Karl Rove made an interesting point in his parsing of Obama's speech. He warned about Obama using the phrase, "We're going to tell the truth." Rove is right. Don't promise what you can't deliver. Truth-telling is the last refuge of failed candidacies. Obama shouldn't be claiming to be the straight-talker delivering uncomfortable truths.

On the ground in Indiana

2008-05-05T09:41:00.003-04:00

Obama's people are out in force in South Bend. Just this weekend, we had three groups of Obama campaign volunteers come to our house. (Of course, we live in a neighborhood that is almost the perfect Obama demographic -- African Americans, college professors, and college students. There is only one Hoosiers for Hillary sign in our entire neighborhood.) The first group to stop at our house was a black family of seven. The second group were two white Chicagoland professionals (they were by far the most knowledgeable and articulate). The last group was a retired Portuguese professor and her friend. Interestingly, all three were groups were very assertive -- all asked us who we were going to vote for. You can see why Obama does well in caucuses.

I have been thoroughly unimpressed by Hillary's campaign in South Bend. She has made several visits but otherwise has not made much of an impression. (Again, though, I live in a heavy Obama neighborhood and Hillary -- understandably -- has concentrated her efforts elsewhere in South Bend, targeting the large lower-middle-class white and Hispanic populations in west and south South Bend and in Mishawaka.) The picture from her latest visit in the newspaper (with her speaking outside her campaign office) showed only a few dozen people in attendance.

If I were just judging from my experience in South Bend, I would predict an Obama landslide. But South Bend is not indicative of the state. It is one of the few areas in Indiana that has an Obamacentric demographic -- a large African American population and a large, well-educated, and relatively wealthy Caucasian population. Hillary's key to victory is not so much South Bend but the smaller towns surrounding it, which are more typical of the Indiana demographic as a whole. She's made campaign stops at places like Plymouth and Goshen. Tomorrow should be an interesting day.

Obama should debate

2008-05-02T09:27:00.003-04:00

Carl Leubsdorf writes that by refusing to debate, Obama is intent on "running out the clock":

Outwardly similar to Ohio and Pennsylvania – where she scored recent notable wins – Indiana's electorate is younger and less Catholic and includes Republicans and independents. A Clinton win there would be a further warning sign about Mr. Obama's appeal beyond his base of liberals and minorities.

In this circumstance, Mrs. Clinton's requests for debates in Indiana and North Carolina may find a receptive audience. While most pundits suggest that the public is sick of debates and believes the issues have been discussed thoroughly, that makes the mistake of viewing this more as a six-month national campaign than a series of one- or two-week races.

Now is when Indianans and North Carolinians are paying attention. What happened before may be less relevant to them.

Mr. Obama might be right politically in trying to run out the clock. But that strategy could leave him vulnerable if the unexpected occurs and he lacks a high-level forum in which to respond.

Clinton challenged Obama to a one-on-one debate a week ago:

“What I think the people in Indiana deserve is a real one-on-one debate, where Sen. Obama and I discuss [the] issues.... Unfortunately, Sen. Obama has not agreed yet, and he’s turned down every debate that has been offered. So here I have a proposition my campaign sent his campaign today. You know, after the last debate in Philadelphia, Sen. Obama’s supporters complained a little bit about the tough questions (awwwwwww heard in the audience). You know tough questions in a debate are nothing compared to the tough questions you get when you are president.”

Clinton challenged Obama, saying, “And they complained about the moderators asking tough questions. So here is my proposal: I’m offering Sen. Obama the chance to debate me one-on-one, no moderators. Just the two of us going for 90 minutes asking and answering questions. We’ll set whatever rules seem fair. I think it would give the people of Indiana -- and I assume a few Americans will tune in because nearly 11 million watched the Philadelphia debate, and I think they would like seeing that discussion. Remember that’s what happened during the Lincoln and Douglas debates. Now we have had like four debates between Sen. Obama and myself.”

We've never had this in American presidential politics before. The candidates have always insist on moderators. This means that they have not really been debates. In a real debate, you can ask your opponent a question. But in presidential politics we have had only sham debates, with moderators who can be blamed for lousy questions.

Think about it. The moderators could, from Obama's perspective, engage in scummy dirty gotcha questions for the first 40 minutes of the Constitution Center debate because they are moderators. They're just journalists, totally unaccountable when compared to politicians for whom every vote matters.

But if Hillary had taken the low road for a full 40 minutes, well, there would be consequences. There would be backlash. So she wouldn't do it.

Instead we would have a debate on "issues." What would this look like, a debate without moderators? It would certainly be on a higher level. The two would have a vested interest in looking like they get along, and are in a common quest for a better America. This would be unlike the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which were between politicians of two different parties.

The format of the Lincoln-Douglas debates would be interesting--a long speech by one candidate, followed by a long speech by the other, followed by a response from the first candidate. But in today's television age there would have to be give and take. Who's quickest on their feet? Clinton's behind, so she has everything to gain from debating, which is why Obama doesn't want to.

It would be good for the Democratic party to have such a debate. And it would be a great precedent to set for American politics.

Obama looks like an elitist snob

2008-04-29T11:05:00.005-04:00

Right now, all the news stories are on Clinton's side. An AP poll out today has Hillary with a comfortable lead over McCain, while Obama ties him. SC Gov Mike Easley is endorsing Hillary. Obama has to endure all the Pastor Wright coverage.

Jay Cost has a wonderful post on Obama's problems in Appalachia. This is troubling for Obama-backers, because the Democrats need to win these states (and their electoral votes): Ohio (20), PA (21), West Virginia (5), Arkansas (6), and Missouri (11). John Kerry won only PA, and fell 19 electoral votes shy of taking the White House. Ohio would have done it for him. But so would have a combination of the other three: Missouri (where he lost by 7%), Arkansas (where he lost by 9%), and West Virginia (13%). Al Gore, who also won PA, would have won with any one of those states.

Obama has a big culture problem. He's getting hammered right now as an elitist snob. The article I cited yesterday also said this: "Obama is a Harvard-trained lawyer. Clinton went to Yale. Both pitch their economic message to middle America, but it’s often Obama who attracts college-educated, affluent voters and Clinton who pulls the working class." The same article had a picture of Obama playing hoops. This was what I suggested he do a little while back.

It's a clubby ivy-league elite that runs this country, and it's in the Appalachian culture trait, derived from their Scotch-Irish political culture, to be at odds with this Eastern establishment. To win these voters you need to get off your high horse and at least look like you are one of the people. If Hillary Clinton wins this primary election, she will have an enormous advantage in the general election, because she will automatically appeal to this group. She's their candidate; they voted her candidacy to victory.

This is a plus that was not at all obvious for Hillary going into this race. If she had sweeped to victory, she would not be as strong of a general election candidate as she might be if she eaks this thing out. She'll have a built-in appeal to just the group she needs to win in the general, which is precisely the group with which she seems like an awkward NY liberal.

Obama has not learned the Bush lesson. The Bush lesson is that you move to Texas, buy a ranch, acquire a Texas accent, and strain every nerve to appear as one of the people. Then everybody forgets your uber-privileged blue-blood background. Obama didn't have anything handed to him, so he doesn't see the issue with elitism. But as Karl Rove said in Newsweek: "It's not where you start in life, it's where you end up."

Democrat advantage in the general

2008-04-28T16:02:00.005-04:00

On Meet the Press Sunday, Howard Dean stated that he wanted the nomination battle ended by June. He stated that it takes about 3 months to stitch things back together. July-August-September, that's what the Dems need to come into the November election unified against the Republicans. "The only thing that's going to beat us is if we aren't unified," Dean said. That argument is persuasive--this is the Dem's year, but they'll be seriously hurt if this goes to the convention at the end of August. The reason the convention is so late is to jigger with campaign-finance rules that cut off fundraising when the candidate is officially nominated (if the party accepts the $70 million government handout, and both parties do). This could come back to haunt the Dems if it does go to the convention. Then McCain has a fighting chance. The Dems need time to shine the bright spotlight on McCain. McCain will wilt in that light. No doubts there. He's got a super-long record, and he will be hit hard by the Dems. But they need time. I had a fascinating conversation with a friend who is politically attuned this weekend, and he said that the key for the Dems in the general is to look like the nice guy/gal. If they can portray McCain as mean, then it's all over for McCain.

So how's the campaign looking? "It's essentially pretty much a tie" right now, Dean said. The superdelegates want to wait things out. They are simply in no position to tell Hillary to leave the race.

Now that Hillary's security-blanket Mark Penn finally got the ax, Bill Clinton is serving as Hillary's de facto chief strategist.

Only primaries are left. So Obama's advantage in caucuses is neutralized.

Fox News: "All seven remaining states on the primary calendar fall below the U.S. average for household income. The average in West Virginia is the second lowest in the country."

Obama is still likely to win if it comes down to superdelegates, according to a statistical model. But you don't need a statistical model, but just common sense: the superdelegates simply don't want to disillusion the new voters Obama appeals to, as well as black voters. So the lower-classes that are voting for Clinton will get the shaft. But they will come back and vote for the Democrat, if the Dems can make the case that McCain is just more of the same. The Dems have a great advantage in the general in that they can just attack a very unpopular president, with a bad economy and an unpopular war, which the Republican is identified with. Bush did this in 2000, attacking Clinton, even when Clinton was all that unpopular and the economy was better and Gore distanced himself from Clinton. The Dems will have a *much* easier time doing it with McCain.

The electability argument

2008-04-24T08:03:00.003-04:00

The Democratic race is basically a tie. Obama has won more delegates, Hillary has won more votes (if you factor in Florida and Michigan).

So what it comes down to is the argument each candidate makes. Everyone assumes that Obama has the stronger argument, as Robert Novak is reporting today. That argument is, I've won more delegates, so I get it. And you're not really going to deny a black man who's won more votes--because if you do the anger of black voters will ruin your chances to win in November.

Hillary's argument is that she's more electable. The problem is that there is a gigantic jump from primary results to general election results that you just can't make. Uber-blogger Jay Cost makes this point even as he meticulously breaks down Obama's weakness with lower-class white voters. Analyze all you want, but it's not meaningful to draw conclusions for the general election.

As Carolyn Lochhead reports:

"I've been there," [John Edwards campaign manager Joe] Trippi said. "Walter Mondale won all kinds of states against Gary Hart in 1984. Ronald Reagan beat him in every state but one, his own. I've never seen any argument that something you win in a primary means you're the lock on winning it in the general."

In Virginia at least, Obama is probably right, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, who said the state harbors a distaste for the Clintons.

In Pennsylvania and Ohio, "McCain has a chance to do against Obama what no other Republican could probably do against any other Democrat, which is win," Sabato said. "She's right about those two key states. She's wrong about most of the others."

What matters is the 13 states listed as battlegrounds this fall, said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a centrist Democratic think tank once closely allied with former President Bill Clinton.

Throwing out Florida and Michigan, which had flawed primaries, Obama has won six swing states (Virginia, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa) to Clinton's five (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico and New Hampshire), leaving Obama with more potential electoral votes.

Clinton's strength among working-class whites, Rosenberg said, is based largely on women, not necessarily men.

Pinkerton notes that Republicans would hammer Clinton just as hard as Obama, exploiting her own rich history and high negative ratings in polls.

Pinkerton argued that Clinton's apparent strength among working-class whites is a mirage based on a small subset who vote in Democratic primaries.

"She's not going to carry blue-collar workers against John McCain," Pinkerton said. "No way. She'll get creamed."

So Clinton's strength among lower-class whites is more with women, not men, and white women were a whopping 46% of the PA primary electorate (to 33% of men). Hillary got 68% of white women and 57% of white men. But these are a subset of the population--Democratic primary voters. Voters in a general election will not be as favorably inclined to Hillary. Lower-class voters without built-in sympathies with Hillary, based on being a committed Democrat, will be susceptible to Republican persuasion. So while she might do well with this subset, including winning white men, there might be a big drop-off for her, particularly with white men, in the general.

But we just don't know. It's impossible to tell. That's the fundamental flaw of any electability argument based on primary results.

A co-presidency?

2008-04-23T10:19:00.004-04:00

Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama last night in PA by 8.6%. The way this was reported makes a big difference--it was reported as ten points last night and this morning. Psychologically that's a lot bigger than 8.6%. If it had been 7 points all night and then crept up to 8.6, it would be a different story. Eight points is in the gray range, vulnerable to calls to step down, while ten puts Hillary above her critics.

Hillary's victory speech was exhilarating. She is the comeback kid for a third time. She's a fighter, and had this amazing line about "The American people deserve a president who doesn't quit." It's hard not to sympathize. When Barack attacks Hillary, he runs into a double trap--Hillary can gain sympathy as a woman, plus it tarnishes Obama's golden-boy image. That image has lost some of its luster. He outspent her 3-1, at least according to Hillary last night, and started attacking her a little bit (about half of the polled voters said he attacked her unfairly, with two-thirds saying the same of Clinton).

At this point Hillary desperately needs cash. If she doesn't get the money, she has to close up shop. Candidates bow out when they run out of funds, as Brownback said bluntly to the first question at his news conference dropping out of the race. Hillary was on Good Morning America this morning begging for money, sounding really excited about all the donations "flowing in," and giving the web address, etc. etc. etc. It was almost verging on pathetic.

So it's entirely possible that Hillary will run out of dough and be forced out of the race. But at this point the candidates seem tied. And I have to mention an idea that's on my mind.

Why can't the two of them agree to be co-presidents? Hillary would be president (since Obama's young enough to have his own eight years in office after Hillary's two terms). Obama would be vice-president. But Hillary would handle domestic policy, and Obama would handle foreign policy.

The response that comes back is, "What experience does Obama have with foreign policy?" Well, that's true. A veep choice of Jim Webb would be better for either of these candidates, to shore them up on it. Yet no one is really prepared to be president when they get in, and Obama could "focus like a laser" on international issues, where he is seen abroad as being a big change in America's relation to the world.

The international situation is so important right now that a VP slot and a foreign policy portfolio would mean major power, and set him up for future presidential runs of course. Could the two of them work together? Perhaps things would get really strained, and Hillary as pres would always have the upper hand. Obama thinks he can win this thing outright, so he's unlikely to accept it.

I'm intrigued by the idea, and interested in what others think.

Obama's Dark Side

2008-04-22T13:13:00.002-04:00

We know that Obama doesn't have a sense of humor. He's not self-deprecating like Bush. But he's also not warm and fuzzy and able to empathize. There's a fascinating post by Philip Weiss yesterday, on "Obama's Dark Side." He writes:

Obama was abandoned by his father and, in a sense, abandoned by his mother too. When he was 10 or 11, she sent him back to Hawaii from Indonesia to live with his grandparents and go to Punahou School. Obama had great fondness for his grandparents, but he also saw right through them. He grew himself up. He has always been by himself in the world. This has made him strong and self-reliant, and there is an edge of mistrust, too.

Halfway thru the book he quotes a long monologue he offered to Auma, his half sister from Kenya, visiting him in Chicago, about a white girl in New York who "I loved." Obama went out with the girl for a year, met her privileged family at their country home. The two broke up over racial issues. The story is beautifully told; Obama is an astonishing writer.

But it I found it weird and jarring to learn about this love affair nearly 100 pages after its actual place in the chronology, his New York chapters, when he had said nothing about it. And in a book filled with pseudonyms, the girl doesn't even rate a pseudonym. I wondered whether Obama still pined for her. Also a little strange that in a racial narrative, in which Obama anatomizes his feelings about his blackness at many turns, he's failed to tell us that he fell in love with a white woman.

The best judge of political character I know, Peter Kaplan of the Observer, told me a year ago that Obama was great because he is cold. "And Jack Kennedy was cold, too." My own sense is that other individuals don't fully register emotionally in Obama's consciousness, they're expendable, he's arrogant, lacks empathy.

Which may, in fact, be the character of a great leader.

What will happen in PA

2008-04-21T08:29:00.004-04:00

I blogged about the debate last week before I read or heard any reactions to it. I was surprised by the high level of negative response from the punditry. Dick Polman had a scathing post on Obama's performance that was very convincing. His point was that Obama failed to win over the conservative Democrats that he needs to win in higher percentages to cut into Hillary's lead. Very convincing. Almost.

I know that perceptions are shaped by media reactions to things, but this vote is so big that I don't see Pennsylvanians being swayed so much by Obama's supposedly dismal performance. It was bad in a number of respects, of course, but for reasons that are more relevant to superdelegates worried about McCain picking off lower-class white voters in November.

And here's the reason why: this is an extraordinary moment in American history. People are desperate for something different, and Clinton represents the politics of the past, while Obama clearly represents the future.

By a coldly realist standard, everything in the preceding paragraph is bunk, but nevertheless it is the aura the Obama campaign has successfully wrapped itself in. And it is going to triumph in the end. If this were a normal election year, it would not (which does not spell good news for McCain). But the perceptions are that things have gotten so bad that normal is out the window. Obama has been able to rally young voters, who normally are complacent. I didn't think he could pull it off, but he has.

It's been basically a 6-point gap for the last three weeks. I predict Clinton by six. That's enough for her to continue in the race. But it's not enough. She needs another 9-10 point victory as she did in Ohio. If she doesn't get it, with Obama seeming like the underdog going in, the story will be on his inroads with white voters.

Bill Clinton event in western PA

2008-04-18T12:25:00.005-04:00

I just came back from an event with Bill Clinton in Western PA. It was interesting; I got to sit up front in the third row to the left of the stage, and got to shake his hand afterwards. The county executive gave the introduction, with a speech "he came up with today in the bathroom" according to my friend who was next to me. The crowd was maybe 600 people, students and union members; it seemed kind of small in the big arena. I thought the response was surprising tepid. Clinton didn't have the crowd eating out of his hand or anything. He looked tired. There were big bags under his eyes.

He was an amazing speaker though. He only made one mistake the whole speech though, which he quickly corrected, and didn't say "um" or "uh" once. A dollar for every "um" and "uh" between Hillary and Barack and you could balance the federal budget. Everyone came away convinced that this guy would blow away Barack in a debate. "I would vote for him in a second" was one response. The event was at a university, a demographic more enthusiastic for Obama. Clinton had the pulse of the place he was at, getting the name of the University's president right, and understanding the nature of the institution and referring to it several times.

The introduction focused on economic issues, and that's how Bill began his speech, quickly abandoning the podium for a wireless microphone in his right hand, pointing his finger with his left hand for emphasis. After a short time on the economy he talked for an extended time on Iraq. It was powerful stuff, on how bad the situation is. The audience was very responsive. He said she promised "if conditions don't change" to bring home the troops in the first 16 months.

He was able to articulate very well why leaving Iraq will be better for the Iraqis. He had a homespun metaphor about going to the dentist. "What will it take to get the Iraqis to make the hard decisions?" he asked. "They have to decide how to divide up the oil wealth." It's tough, and we always want to put off tough decisions. "People don't make tough decisions until they have to--why do you think the dentist's office always makes you schedule the next appointment right away?" he said to laughs. "I'm 61 and I still don't like it when they put that needle into my gums!" Only a timeline for withdrawal will force the Iraqis to get their act together.

He talked about leaving a contingent in the north "to fight al-qaeda." That surprised me, since "al-queda in Iraq" is not exactly the same as al-qaeda that did 9/11. He was basically going along with Bush's position about the importance of fighting al-qaeda in Iraq. Why is that? Leave a contingent in the north--is that to protect the Kurds when we leave? Ended up talking about the harm to the troops, bolstered by the recent RAND study. This resonated with the audience.

He spent a long time talking about energy independence. He was really pushing this idea of a cheap hybrid car. Technology will solve all our problems. The same way with health care--just eliminate the paperwork and use the savings to pay for care for poor people. It sounded nice. It resonated. Yet the remarks were not a totally a frank assessment of what a european-style health-care system would mean exactly. But of course that would be too frank, and politicians are constrained by the receptivity of the American people, and have to work in increments.

The response on energy independence surprised me. A lot of enthusiasm when he was talking about this. "A hybrid car would mean that we could tell the oil sellers: 'Charge $100 a barrel. Heck, charge $200, or three.'" The audience was also surprisingly responsive when he mentioned finding an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian question--it got a big cheer.

Clinton praised his wife for "biting the bullet and talking straight" on the issue of trade. Said there was problems with NAFTA, and that we cannot enforce trade agreements with countries that are our bankers. "Would you go to your banker and slug him in the face?" "Would you buy a car from a dealership that violated the warranty on your last car?" Homey analogies for a complex international issue. Not as huge responses from the crowd on this stuff.

Not a syllable said about fighting terrorists. This is still in the air, of course; Obama just had a soundbite on the air this morning about fighting the important war in Afghanistan. But there is a shift in the public's mood. I think the Republicans will find it harder to play the national security card in the general.

They will also find it hard to play the typical managing-the-economy card. Bill played heavily to the need for a balanced budget "and investment in our future." Tax cuts for the wealthy were decried. Super-rich tax evasion was decried. "Never in our history has so much money rained down on so few people in such a short period of time."

The end fo the speech was him warmly praising Hillary. How much she cares, how experienced she is (that was a theme throughout). "If I wasn't married to her, I'd still be supporting her as the most qualified candidate for the presidency we've had in a long time." At the beginning of the speech he said she was "more qualified that I was when I took office." It was a little bit strange. Like Obama not just coming out and saying-like-he-means it, "I love this country," Bill didn't just say "I love Hillary so much." Of course, this would lead people's minds to the wrong chain of connections perhaps.

PA Debate Reflections: Hillary Has Become the Anti-Obama

2008-04-17T07:23:00.011-04:00

The Philly Constitution Center was a good venue for this debate, perhaps the candidates' last. Everyone kept quiet and the timing was relaxed--a breath of fresh air. With people sitting around in darkness it looked like the Galactic Senate from Star Wars.

Obama spun his "bitter" remarks as "not being properly phrased." He talked about reaching out to people of faith, which he says he does more than other campaigns, and of the support of sportsman in his state, "because he listens to them." Interesting turn of phrase--not because he supports the gun-control policies that they do.

Obama brought up the "baking cookies" remark of Hillary on the '92 campaign trail. A perfect example of how a long track-record bogs you down (as if Hillary's Iraq vote wasn't enough proof). Then he ripped into Hillary for not learning the lessons of Republican attacks and doing the same thing. Pretty good stuff. "What the American people want are not distractions," he said. The old way of doing things, he is against all that. He constantly brings everything back to his message of old vs. new. What discipline. You have to think this is why he's probably going to be the nominee. What's Hillary's message? She's become the anti-Obama! The opposite of what everyone thought would happen, which is that she would be the front-runner and there would be an anti-Hillary candidate challenging her. Obama's done a great job of not falling into that. "Vote for me, I'm not her" is not a winning mantra--you have to be for something to win. Obama is for something, Hillary is flailing around seemingly for only herself. This is the campaign's fault, Mark Penn's fault. She defined herself as a "fighter" going against the special interests. This is a loser-ball tactic (though I'd be singing a different tune if 269 people had changed their minds in Florida in 2000), at least as opposed to Obama's appeal to unity.

Hillary was on the defensive and halting in her response to Obama, and she sounded like an echo to his plea to "get things done" rather than playing politics. She did a little better perhaps on the next question on Rev. Wright, but again Obama looked like the front-runner.

On the Bosnia question, Hillary took another hit. She had no good answer to Tom Rooney, the everyman who asked the question via prior interview. She basically said "I lied, sorry!" Seemed like a pretty big admission. She turned it back to her experience as an advantage. At the end her emotion seemed like "Whew!" She was glad that was over.

Barack then hit it out of the park again, managing to seem like he was nice to her ("She has a wonderful record") when he really wasn't ("She wouldn't be here if she didn't") and again turning it back to "this moment of our history." He looks like the visionary, the leader, while she's stuck in the past with the old Clinton ways. Obama has really mastered the art of running against a woman. He seems courteous, gentlemanly, all the while his flaks are ruthlessly destroying her credibility. Except for the one bad "you're likable enough" he's done a A+ job. McCain is getting pointers all over the place. You can just see him staring at the TV jotting things down.

On the other hand, Obama flopped on the "do you love the flag" question. "I can't help but love this country." Not a good response. Where's the passion? This isn't academic--say you love the country, don't give an argument why people should infer that you must love it.

Hillary got a laugh-line with her suggestion that Republicans not run anybody at all, and just apologize for the Bush years. She was very direct in saying that Obama will have trouble running against McCain. Her baggage "has already been rummaged through." Obama: "I've showed that I can take a punch. I've taken several from Sen. Clinton." They weren't debating here to a PA audience, but to the superdelegates. Jay Cost has a great post on this, the real race.

Both were strong on the Iraq question. They were a lot more comfortable talking policy than personal stuff, when they each are halting and too deliberate. Same thing on taxes. Two Democrats preaching fiscal responsibility--Bush has made things so easy on them.

Also on taxes, they played a clip from McCain bashing Obama. Hillary laughed, and that brought the viewer's attention to her, and blurred the fact that McCain was speaking about Obama--without her laughing, everyone would have looked at Obama's reaction on the screen, and it would look like he would be the likely nominee, at least in McCain's mind.

The gymnastics on gun control were fun to watch. PA is a big hunting state, the NRA lobby has a lot of influence, and you had two candidates trying to appear to hold the direct opposite of what they have always held.

Meanwhile McCain's campaign has the freedom to portray an honest, open, tell-you-how-it-is candidate through town-hall meetings. The virtue to this is that McCain doesn't have to worry about running against someone yet, and can focus on building up his own image, running a positive Huckabee-esque campaign. And fundraising for an McCain smear-job has fizzled.

McCain is going to run on his personality. The Democratic nominee is going to run on policy. And the election will be heavily influenced by the environment--how Iraq is doing and how the economy is doing. If both are fine McCain will have a chance.

Obama's Comments Redux

2008-04-15T08:58:00.003-04:00

According to a Quinnipiac poll today, Hillary has a 6-point edge on Obama. That's a lot closer than the 20-margin I mentioned yesterday; this one shows that she's slowing his ascent in PA.

A reader commented on yesterday's post about Obama's statement being completely true, and not condescending. All this could be perfectly true, but this blog has been devoted to Henry Adams' quip, "practical politics is the art of ignoring facts." If candidates came out and said what they thought was true, they'd be toast.

Take Huckabee, for instance. His base would rally around him every time he would say something that was aimed at them, but by doing this too much he boxed himself in as a factional candidate lacking broader appeal. So while his base thinks what he says is totally true, it is still a mistake for him to say it.

Obama's statements were very harmful to his candidacy and will haunt him for some time now. The reason is the context.

Obama exudes the air of a smart Harvard-trained thinker. Now that's certainly a liability with a whole lot of voters. It is not a liability at all for the voters Obama has so far attracted, namely well-educated higher-income voters. But for lower-class voters a different style is attractive--President Bush's style. Bush beat Kerry because of voters without college degrees voting for him, and because he did well enough with low-income voters to pull out a narrow victory. Bush's style was mocked, but it was electorally effective.

Taking Obama's demographic appeal and style into account, we can see that he needs to win voters who are naturally more skeptical of him, by appealing to them through his campaign. A friend mentioned to me: "Obama smokes Marlboro Reds, for crying out loud! He should take that back up!" He also said, "Obama's a great basketball player--he should be out there playing basketball with people." I'd endorse both these ideas. Smoking is frowned upon in modern-day America not primarily because it is a health issue, but because it is a class issue. The upper classes frown on the dirty habits of the lower classes. What better way to show you're a regular guy than start smoking again? Obama should do it, the anguished cries of "What an example for our children! Humph!" being an opportunity for a Sister Souljah moment, and perhaps a chance to portray Hillary for the schoolmarm she is. Basketball too--at least, it's better than windsurfing, which nobody can really identify with.

Given that Obama needs to broaden his base to just the type of voter he was speaking about in him comments, his description of them is completely condescending. He's portraying their voting decisions as riddled with bitterness, their issue concerns a result of frustrations of being on the losing end of the market. If you are going to appeal to people by talking about their problems, you'd better make sure they identify with you as one of them. Otherwise it's just somebody coming in from the outside telling you you're all screwed up, and they've got the fix. Not very appealing.

Barack's gift to Hillary (and the Republicans)

2008-04-14T15:00:00.007-04:00

The bloom is off the rose. Barack Obama's seemingly effortless protean political skill to make people read into him their hopes and desires has hit a major roadblock. Obama made this remark at a fundraiser in San Francisco, which was captured on tape by a blogger:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The carnage followed instantly. Then came Obama's response while campaigning in Indiana:

"I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that it's hard for some working class people to get behind you’re campaign. I said, 'Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare. And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said 'We’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right' and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up -- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement -- so, here’s what's rich Sen. Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.' Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain -- it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Sen. Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America."

Then to Steelworkers in Pittsburgh:

"Senator Clinton and Senator McCain seem to be singing from the same hymn book, saying I am out of touch and I am an elitist because I said a lot of folks are bitter about their economic circumstances," said Barack Obama. "Now, it may be that I chose my words badly, it is not the first time and will not be the last. But when I hear my opponents, both of whom spent decades in Washington, saying I am out of touch, it is time to cut through the rhetoric and look at the reality."

Yikes. The cure is worse than the disease. When making a major blunder, don't make it worse by accusing other people. Just apologize and be done with it. That's hard to do. It's hard to accept that you're not really a golden boy who never makes mistakes. But this thing would go away a lot more quickly if Obama had issued a short apology, rather than a lengthy, rambling diatribe about how he's in touch. It sounded very condescending, proving Hillary's point rather than rebutting it. The whole "it may be that I chose my words badly" baloney compounds the problem.

When you are misquoted as a politician, you have the right to complain. But when you make a mistake, you should not play it off as someone else's fault. At least, not in the blinding glare of the presidential spotlight.

This is why it is so silly for people to say that Hillary should drop out because she's only got a 5% chance of winning. No one can calculate that. No one can know what can happen tomorrow. One day Obama's tied things up in PA, the next he makes this comment and falls 20 points. And that's exactly what happened. Hillary has been waiting what probably seems like a lifetime for her for this slip. Obama simply hadn't made one to this point. The bloom was still on the rose. Hillary could raise question after question, and insinuate that Obama is a gamble of a candidate (or come right out and say it's a roll of the dice, as Bill did), but nothing seemed to stick. This will stick. It will haunt Obama for the rest of the campaign. It plays right into the hands of Hillary and McCain.

In short, Obama has pulled a Huckabee. Huckabee was never able to break out of his base of voters in states where he didn't have a lot of time to campaign--that is, everywhere but Iowa. It was a vicious cycle--he had to appeal to his base for votes and cash, yet that only boxed him in more as a candidate who lacked broad appeal. He really made no effort to break out of this box, as I comment in this post from mid-January.

Obama has put himself in a box now. It was the box others were trying to put him in, and it's the box he fits into but wants (and needs) to transcend. That's why this is such a huge story. It fits a narrative for Obama, as well as portrays him as a certain kind of person (aloof, arrogant, cerebral).

It is the perfect disaster, really, in that it turns all his positives into negatives. In politics your strong qualities can also be liabilities, and your liabilities can be turned into positives.

Obama is the unity candidate, rising above the petty partisan squabbles. Now he's up there and looking down at us and we realize how disconnected to us he is, uncaring, condescending.
Obama's a candidate who can inspire people. Well, he can't inspire just the type of voter the Democrats need to win.
Obama has a broad appeal. Yet now this appeal seems based on the fact that he doesn't believe in anything, and is able to say anything to attract support. If he said what he really believed he would lose support.
Obama is super-smart. But now he's an elitist who distrusts common folk.
Obama speaks his mind and doesn't lie and fudge like the Clintons. Not now; he says something way different in private than in public.

In every respect it's a disaster. Hillary's got a greater than 5% chance now. If she wins by over 20 points in PA next week, how could she be denied the nomination?--that'll be her argument.

Obama's statement was worse than a crime; it was a mistake.

Bosnia story is Hillary's watershed

2008-04-04T08:11:00.004-04:00

Hillary's predicting a close race in PA. I think PA is going to be another Ohio. That is, if Hillary wins, but it is actually close. Then Obama fans are going to stage an intervention and press her very hard to drop out. She won't, but they'll continue the pressure.

Hillary has to be so furious at Obama. Her $20 million month gets overshadowed by Obama's $40 million. But under normal circumstances $20M would be an incredible haul, and everyone would be lauding Hillary for doing such amazing fundraising. (McCain hasn't released his figures yet, but he raised $11M the month before.) Instead the story is how exhausted her fund raisers are as she falls behind Obama.

A new poll in PA shows a race too close to call, and everyone's going crazy over it. One poll does not a trend make. However, there is a definite trend of Hillary slipping in the last week. Why is that?

The reason is the Bosnia story sinking in. That was just a killer for the Clinton campaign. That is the kind of thing that reminds everyone of what they don't like about the Clinton's--the petty lies. This is what killed Gore in 2000: he tried to distance himself from the Clinton's, but then got caught up in a bunch of petty lies, at which point the Bush campaign started gaining traction in the polls.

I talked with a non-political person last weekend who was utterly dismissive of Hillary because of her Bosnia story. It is the most damaging thing, practically, she could have done. It not only rekindles the bad Clinton memories, but also highlights the main flaw of her argument against Obama--that he's not experienced--by pointing out that even though she was in the building when the big decisions were being made, she wasn't necessarily involved in making them, and desperately wants to make it seem like she was.

The Bosnia story might turn out to be the point in which Hillary lost the nomination.

Hillary up in swing states

2008-04-02T10:42:00.003-04:00

Democratic bloodletting will continue for a long while; probably to the convention.

And here's why: each candidate is basically flawed. After a long string of votes and media coverage, we can abandon hypotheses and now state with certainty the score.

And that is: Hillary Clinton is unlikable, Barack Obama is untested. This was the narrative each campaign was trying to exploit in the other's. And they both succeeded all too well. Obama portrayed himself as above the fray, a shot at Hillary's divisiveness and unlikability. Hillary portrayed herself as experienced, a shot at Obama's lack of that particular commodity.

None of this is new. Except for the fact that now we can say that both were right. Obama did not have enough votes from voters who were sick of the Clinton's to put him over the top, and Hillary did not have enough votes from voters who wanted to stick with a known entity to put her over the top.

So the speculation can end. Hillary's strategy worked; Obama's strategy worked. We know that now. But there's nowhere to go from here.

All these calls for Hillary to drop out (Leahy, various and sundry pundits), are extremely counter-productive for Democrats. First of all, it becomes a self-fulfilling promise to say "it's hurting the party for Hillary to stay in." Why not focus on the high turnout? A little democratic competition is supposed to be healthy. This sounds stale coming from the candidates; other Dems should say it.

Secondly, that is even more true when you consider that there's no way in heck Hillary will drop out. She's going to win PA. Then she'll look like a big winner, and the narrative of all these stories on how she's only got a 5% shot at the nomination will be dropped in favor of something else completely. Obama's (extremely weak) statement saying she should stay in might have been motivated by the whole don't-look-like-you're-picking-on-a-girl strategic consideration, but it could also have the (wise) motivation of managing expectations. If Obama's the presumptive nominee, why would a crucial state like PA not rally behind him? Doesn't bode well for future coverage.

And there's the argument that she'll be the stronger nominee, that's buttressed by recent polls.

From Reuters:

She also runs better against the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio -- all important swing states in the general election.

In a general election matchup in Florida, McCain closely trails Clinton 42 percent to 44 percent but McCain leads Obama, who would be the first black president, 46 percent to 37 percent, according to the poll.

"The difference between Clinton and Obama in Florida is the white vote," said Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

In Ohio, Clinton has a 48 to 39 percent lead over McCain after months of too-close-to-call results, the poll found. In an Obama-McCain matchup, Obama gets 43 percent against 42 percent for McCain.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton tops McCain 48 to 40 percent and Obama leads the Arizona senator 43 percent to 39 percent.

Among Pennsylvania Democrats, Clinton leads 54 to 37 percent with women and ties Obama with men at 46 percent support.

Obama on race: a general election strategy

2008-04-01T08:13:00.005-04:00

Barack Obama's bid for the presidency attracted plaudits for "transcending race" because he ignored it altogether. As soon as he talked about it, he was seen to have fumbled. The best quote came from a poli sci prof: "Obama showed he's the type of president Americans would like to have, but not the type of president Americans tend to elect."

But I still think the speech was savvy, for the primary election and most of all for the general election.

First of all, Obama shored up his black constituency. The videos of Wright's inflammatory remarks is only inflammatory to whites who are used to staid church services. To blacks the really inflammatory thing is making the comments by Wright into something somehow offensive and unpatriotic. It seems to me that they are now more solidly behind Obama than they ever were, to the point of being willing to stay home in November if Hillary wins, seriously hurting the party's chances. This strikes fear in the hearts of superdelegates and helps Obama's case. However, it might be balanced out by Hillary's strong support threatening the same.

So the real virtue of the speech is for a general election strategy. With the passage of time, and because of the speech, the Wright imbroglio will blow over. It won't be an issue in November. Thus, Obama's speech serves a crucial purpose in his presidential bid when you take the long-range view. Get the race stuff over with now. Confront it head on, and then move on. If the pundits think it's bad politically in the short-term, who cares? They're not voting. If this stuff had come out a week before the election, then it would be everything. But now it's something that can be dealt with and gotten beyond.

It requires, however, that Obama shut up about race from now on, and go back to "transcending it."

In other news, Howard Dean says he wants the bloodletting over with and a nominee decided by July 1.