To Vote or Not To Vote: What If You Are Not Allowed?

On October 8th the New York Times ran an article that was the result of an investigation it had done regarding voter registration rolls (The article can be found by clicking on the title of this post). The article states that "tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times." The states in question are Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina and are all states in which Obama's performance is due in large part to the large advantage his campaign has had in registration new voters for this election.

Before people start crying that partisan politics, cheating state election officials, and political operatives are to blame, it is important to note that the New York Times found that "the actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, indented to overhaul the way elections are run." The 2002 federal law in question is the ironically named Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was designed to provide federal money to help states modernize their voting systems. However, buried in the bill was a relatively innocuous and highly vague subsection that required that if states received Federal money under this program they would also have to ensure that their registered voter rolls were accurate and modern and that states create statewide voter rolls. Previously, these voter lists were kept on a local level. It is the combining these local rolls up to the state level that is probably causing all the problems since it is a huge process and removes the local factor of knowing who lives in the area, who has similar names, etc.

In the past, state voter resignation rolls are notoriously out of date. In fact the organizations that have the most up to date valid voter registration lists are of course the two major parties. They use these lists to contact likely voters of their party to make sure they have ways to get to the polls, know who the party would like them to vote for, etc. and since they use these lists on a regular basis to figure out their parties position in a state, they regularly update them when they find people have moved out of the state, died, or been convicted of a felony. While only the state election rolls are valid in determining who can and cannot vote on election day, state election officials have none of the incentives that parties do to make sure that their voter registration rolls are up to date. As a result, in the past, registered voter rolls would regularly have voters listed who had moved out of the state or died.

In 2002, the republicans were on a mission to end what they conceived as nation wide voting fraud. As a result, between 2002-2005 we saw lots of new voter identification laws crop up in many republican controlled states and as we have already said at the Federal level we had the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The key aspect of all of this is that with a few exceptions states are free to conduct elections and register voters how ever they want. So, when the conditions of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 are put into play, they have a slightly different effect in each state, based on how that states existing election law is set up. In some states it may require updating of lists in others that have electronic record keeping it may require no action. The net result is that since the Help America Vote Act of 2002 is so vague as to what exactly states have to do to their voter registration rolls to qualify for Federal aid, that many states have taken actions that are not required and in fact my actual violate existing federal election law by incorrectly disenfranchising qualified voters.

I will refer you to the New York Times article for details about what states are exactly doing that is illegal, but the key result is that the New York Times found that for every voter that has been added in some of these swing states, two have been removed from the rolls. Now, it is important to point out that such a ratio could reflect how out of date the rolls are and that there really are a large number of people who have left or have died and thus shouldn't be on the rolls. However, considering the advantage Obama has had in registering new voters, even if the purging was random of qualified voters, its effect is likely not to be since there are now so many newly registered democrats. The actions taken by these states has to be of concern and warrants an investigation by the FEC and state officials to ensure that all qualified voters are able to vote on Nov 4th.

Beyond this election, even though I am a strong supporter of federalism as an important check on Federal power, we must consider nationalizing our election systems so that we have a common set of rules and procedures for how we vote in this nation. As long as we have 50 different systems with little oversight and transparency the risk for disenfranchising legal voters is too high.

Debate Part II: Rumble in Tennessee

Last night featured the second debate between Obama and McCain and although there has been a recent sharpening of attacks in the last few days between these candidates, last night was quite civil. Overall, we saw a repeating of a lot of the same positions and attacks that we saw in the first debate. However, there were several things that I think are important to note as we evaluate this debate. 

First, McCain clearly was doing well early on. The first two questions he hit out of the park. Even though his idea of having the government buy and renegotiate mortgages is already in the current bailout plan that passed last week, his presentation of it was well timed and delivered well. Also, it is interesting that if you had asked an alien to pick which party McCain was from based on those comments, I don't think you would have heard republican in response. This is important because it implies to win, McCain has to, in essence, have anti-republican proposals. 

However, that is where the good performance stopped for McCain. For the rest of the debate Obama consistently provided better answers to questions and rebuttals to attacks. The basic problem McCain faces is that even though he is not your typical republican, he is still tied to that party which, rightly or wrongly, is at the moment being held responsible for causing the current recession. 

Beyond what they said, McCain did three things during last night's debate that struck me as odd, and will probably be what most people will remember from this debate. First, when McCain was speaking Obama sat on his chair and appeared to be listening intently to what McCain had to say. He showed him respect and courtesy. But when Obama was speaking, McCain was walking around and was almost never facing Obama when he was speaking. His moving around was constantly picked up by the cameras. While I do not think McCain intended to be seen, his moving around appeared disrespectful. The tacit feeling that came across was that Obama was someone who listened to ideas, even ones he doesn't agree with, while McCain is only interested in giving his opinion and not what others have to say. I don't think this is actually true, but their nonspeaking actions seemed to communicate this last night.

Second, during Obama's follow up to McCain's attack of him on Afghanistan, McCain interrupted him to say "thanks" in response to a nice comment Obama was making about McCain, but this backfired in two ways. First, Obama was making a serious comment while McCain's interruption looked like he was looking for a laugh. His interruption made Obama look presidential since Obama ignored the interruption and continued in the same tone. Second, Obama was doing a very normal debate technique where you turn a complement into an attack. The result here was that McCain actually said "thanks" right as Obama was delivering the attack. So beyond the fact that McCain appeared rude for interrupting Obama, the timing of the events made it appear as if McCain was saying thanks and agreeing with Obama's attack. 

Third, during one of McCain's attacks on Obama he said that voters should just compare their records in deciding who to vote for. McCain said you have me or (and, then pointing at Obama) "that one". I am not sure what he was going for here, but that was about as close to a gaff as we we had last night. It was a very derisive attack that did not play well with voters in the room and probably not at home either. If you watch the playback of the debate when McCain makes that comment you seen some very uncomfortable shifting and body language by many of the voters in the town hall room. 

Overall, last night was a pretty clear victory for Obama in terms of both the information he spoke as well as how he carried himself throughout the debate. As a final example of how McCain misfired last night was after the debate. Typically at town hall debate candidates go around and talk to the uncommitted votes there, pose for pictures, etc. McCain did this for about 5 min and then left the room. Obama continued to chat with voters and pose for pictures. All of this was captured on TV before the commentators started their analysis. McCain yield a room of uncommitted voters to Obama and the public got to watch how they all responded to Obama, while McCain was no where to be found. This was the icing on the cake and spoke volumes regarding how the campaign is going.  

VPs: Bring it On

Tonight's VP debate was very interesting in many ways. I will admit to screaming a few times at the tv screen when ridiculous things were said and for those interested in the score: ridiculous things said by Biden two, ridiculous things said by Palin six. But taking the debate as a whole, there were three aspects that stand out to me and will probably be what most people and media remember from this debate. 

First, Palin was relatively good and much better than she has been in the media interviews. This was hands down the best she has done since her speech at the republican national convention. She, for the most part, was able to answer questions without going into long stories that led to nowhere and she spoke in simple terms. More importantly, she showed herself to be a Washington outsider, which is clearly how the McCain campaign wants her seen. 

Second, don't like the question? Its cool, just answer the question you made up in your head. At two points in the debate Palin either did not understand the question or misheard it because she provided speech that never approached an answer to the question posed. The first time was when the moderator asked her whether she believed there should ever be an instance in which the United States should use nuclear weapons. Rather than answer this question, Palin instead talked about how we should stop nuclear proliferation. I agree with her. Nuclear proliferation is an important issue and we should stop it, but the question was asking about when she thought the United States should use nuclear weapons. The goal of these types of questions is to try to establish how risk adverse a candidate is in foreign affairs. If you say never, then you are very risk adverse, if you say only if attacked by nuclear weapons, you are considered rational, and if you say always, you are nuts. Clearly, this is an oversimplification, but the basic idea is that your answer to this question is supposed to be a kind of bellwether to how you approach crises. Do you panic? Do you over-react? Do you under-react? Are you decisive? Do you Plan? etc. Palin completely avoided this softball question and missed another opportunity to show that she might actually be competent in some foreign affairs issues. 

The second question that Palin completely disregarded is the standard job interview question: What is your greatest weakness? Instead of saying that she might have a weakness, she instead talked about all her strengths. From someone who used to do a lot of job interviewing, when I have a job candidate not answer a direct question like that it immediately tells me one or both of the following about the person. One, this person has a real weakness that he doesn't want me to know or two this person is unable to analyze himself, which means that he will be very difficult to work with because he will believe he is always right. Either way, whenever I had a candidate not answer that question it usually ended the chance that person had of getting the job. Unlike Palin, Biden made sure he answered this question and I think it will payoff because beyond my own feelings about this question, most people get annoyed when people pretend they have no weaknesses. 

The third memorable aspect of the debate were two responses delivered by Biden. The first was his comparison of McCain's health care tax credit as the ultimate bridge to nowhere. It was such a well timed response that even the audience and the moderator could not help but laugh. I think it spoke volumes to what people think about that particular policy proposal by the McCain-Palin ticket. The second aspect was Biden's response on the kitchen table issues. His response here was incredible and possibly one of the best moments in recent debate history. After being accused of being out of touch by Palin in a very gimmicky and winking manner, Biden told a story about his family that was deep, sincere, emotional, intense and real. I don't think he actually cried, but he came across as really understanding what people are going through. This, I think more than anything else this is what will be remembered from this debate. He took her attack and made her look small and childish, while he displayed deep empathy for being in tough positions. 

Overall, I think the debate went slightly to Biden, but in the end nothing happened tonight that should shift voters. While this last note may be lost on most voters Palin's closing statement was probably the sign that the McCain-Palin ticket is in trouble. She attempted to present voters with a clear division of which ticket to choose in Novemeber. The key aspect of this type of tacit is that you never say which ticket you are discribing. The key is to have the voter associate everything postive you are saying with your ticket and everything negative with the opponents. The problem that she had though is all of the McCain-Palin ticket's ideas that resonate with voters are issues they borrowed from Obama. Thus, when she listed the choices, it sounded like she was saying you can vote for the change ticket (Obama-Biden) or more failed policies and half baked ideas (McCain-Palin). It could just be me, but her closing statment seemed to confirm to me, who is winning control of the messages of this campaign.

The Debate

So I apologize for not having a post up for a few days. Life has been a little hectic, but hopefully things will slow down just a tad in the near future.    

Last night featured the first of three presidential debates that are going to take place over the next several weeks (there will also be one vice presidential debate this coming Thursday). After some drama created by McCain stating that he may not attend the debate because of the need for him to be on the hill to get a compromise on the bail out bill, the debate itself went rather well for both candidates. The reason for this is that both candidates had different objectives coming into this debate and that made the result, in some ways, a non-zero sum game (i.e. that it was possible for both candidates to win and no one to lose).    

For Obama, success in the first debate was in accomplishing mainly four things: 1) being gaff free; 2) relaying that he is the candidate for change; 3) showing himself to be rational, level headed, and even keeled, while not coming across as aloof; and 4) portraying readiness to president. Obama clearly accomplished all four of these tasks by not getting frustrated when McCain made attacks and coolly refuting the claims made against him with well constructed, but simple, explanations. At no time last night did Obama become flustered and, in fact, many of his prepared responses and exchanges with McCain showed that he is deeply knowledgeable about key economic and foreign affairs issues. 

Obama's theme of the night seemed to be that we have had 8 years of impulsive executive leadership based on feelings and emotion. This leadership style lead us to the current crises we now face, and McCain embodies more of this style of leadership, while I (Obama) am collected, rational, and deliberate.    

As for McCain, success for him last night was also based on mainly accomplishing four things: 1) being gaff-free; 2) distancing himself from Bush on the economy and spending; 3) showing himself to be the candidate who could actually bring change to Washington; and 4) maintaining vigor and energy to assuage fears that his age is an issue. I think McCain pretty much accomplished all of his tasks as well. McCain drove home repeatedly that he is against spending and that he has a record to prove that he can reform Washington. His remarks were well animated  with a great deal of enthusiasm. 

In examining McCain's message of the night, it seemed to be that the voters should trust him on foreign affairs because he has been on the ground and he has surveyed the terrain on which we are going to fight, while Obama “doesn't get it” because he hasn't been there. This was an interesting attack strategy by McCain. I think it would have been very effective if Obama hadn't demonstrated each time that even though his feet may not have been on the ground, he had a very accurate picture of what needed to be done. However, I do think that this type of attack by McCain should play well with the Republican base, so I am sure we will see it used again and again.    

Thus, since both candidates accomplished what they set out to do, in some ways this debate was a win-win for both candidates. One thing to note is that unlike in recent past debates, such as Bush vs. Gore or Bush vs. Kerry, the candidates had to do a lot less to differentiate themselves on the economy and foreign affairs issues. Polls show that not only do voters recognize that Obama and McCain have different views on these issues, but approximately 65% can correctly place the candidates and their views together and provide at least one major difference between them. Thus, I think we saw a lot less time being spent on trying to say “here is how I am different from my opponent” and more time spent saying “this is why I am right.”    

The key aspect to remember of any debate, however, is that unless someone makes a gaff, very few people actually remember what was said. Rather, what people take away from presidential debates are feelings about the candidates and what the candidates represent. It is in this category that I think the edge went to Obama. It was clear from the debate last night that both candidates are for change. But, as we saw at the conventions, McCain is for change by fighting and defeating those who are resistant to change; he said he would be the sheriff of spending, veto every spending bill he deems no good, and make Washington change by bringing the fight to them. By contrast, Obama is for change by bring people together to work out differences and make compromises; he repeatedly stated that he understands that there are deep divisions, but that the president's job is to bridge these gaps, not to increase them. History has clearly shown that both strategies can be effective in the right situation.   

However, in today's political climate, the idea that voters want more division and fighting in politics seems silly. We have had 8 years of very derisive politics, and the situation created by the Bush era is unlikely to be fixed by the next president simply wielding a big stick. Rather, it is going to take carrots and compromise to really bring change to Washington. This notion of how to bring change is in many ways really the heart of the election. It could just be me, but my gut tells me at this decision node, voters don't want change through force, but through reconciliation that brings people together.    

Traditionally, debates do not have a huge effect on how people will vote unless one of the candidates makes a huge mistake. However, debates are important because they give voters a chance to not only hear the candidates’ issue positions side by side, but also their tone and message. While I don't think last nights debate will have any real impact on who votes for whom, it did reinforce what type of leadership style voters have to choose from in the next election. 

The Need For Speed?

Today, President Bush announced that the whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to resolve/contain the U.S. finical crisis. The message he was trying to deliver was not directed at the American public, but at Congress, to act quickly in passing his 700 billion dollar bank bailout proposal. Bush felt that this was necessary as many congressional democrats and a fair number of republicans have questioned the wisdom of the Bush bailout in its current form.    

It is clear that Bush wants to react quickly to this financial crisis, but a key question to consider is whether speed at this juncture creates more problems down the road. In other words, while waiting to take action in the short term main cause additional drops in the stock market, if we take the time to work out a compressive rescue and correction for what went wrong in the financial markets, will we be better off in the long term?    

I am not an economics expert, so it is difficult for me to offer a real analysis of this inherent economic tradeoff. However, from a political standpoint, the current situation is rife with potential political gains and losses. To understand the likely outcome of this situation, it is important to take a look at the different political motivations for several key players: President Bush, congressional democrats, the Republican Party, McCain, and Obama.    

For President Bush, a large part of his legacy as president will be affected by how this economic crisis unfolds. If the crisis leads to another great depression, then regardless of any good he has done in his political career, he will always be remembered as the president who failed to prevent a great depression. President Hoover’s legacy supports this point of view. Hoover was an extremely accomplished public servant before he became president, and he was an immensely popular president until the economic downturn in 1929. The result of his presidency coinciding with the start of the great depression is that his legacy is forever tied to that event.  Thus, beyond any personal conviction Bush has regarding  the best present course of action, from a political motivation stand point, Bush is best served by having a short-term solution rather than a more long-term comprehensive fix.    

Congressional democrats have competing political interests. From one perspective, they should be in favor of a short-term fix because if it temporally rights the economy, they can go back to their districts and say "see I was there to protect you. I saved the economy." However, initial responses by the democratic base have been very negative towards the Bush bail out plan. Thus, if they were to fast track the bill with just an up or down vote with no amendments, they risk being seen as weak to these key supporters.    

In addition, congressional democrats don't want to be seen as obstructionists (because they held up necessary legislation at a critical juncture) or partisan (since conventional wisdom argues that economic downturns favor the party out of power for the presidency), as it could result in an electoral backlash from voters who are hurt by an increasingly worsening economy. A key fact to remember is that even after the election, the new president will not take office till the end of January. If no action at all is taken, a lot could go wrong in those four months. As a result, if we weigh all of these pressures, it appears that the motivation for congressional democrats would be to pass some package to rescue the economy, but likely some altered form of the Bush Plan.    

As for the Republican Party, its motivation is quite similar to that of President Bush. Survey research has shown that up until Carter, the Democrats were consistently rated as more competent in handling the economy. When experts studied this empirical regularity in detail, they found that this opinion was the result of the Republican Party's association with control of the White House at the start of the Great Depression. For voters who lived through the Great Depression, the Republican Party was, in their minds, inextricably linked with economic failure. Thus, the Republican Party should do everything in its power to make sure we do not enter another depression while it holds the presidency. Therefore, republicans should also be in favor of quick action to ensure that the economy doesn't slide into recession or depression while they are in control.    

The last two actors to take a look at are the two presidential candidates. As both are senators, they are both going to have to cast votes on the Bush Plan. This is one of the few opportunities that voters are going to get to see how both candidates act at the same time and at the same level of policy making. Both candidates are running on a message of change. Well, I can almost guarantee that the bail out plan is going to get spun as more of the same in Washington. So the question becomes whether both candidates can take the comprehensive change approach and vote against a simple bailout of the banks and get away with it with their supporters.    

In looking at Obama, he clearly cannot support a simple bailout; that would go against all of the themes of his campaign about reform in Washington. However, he cannot be seen as not working to find a solution for the crisis. The problem for him is that he is not the President of the United States in the senate. Thus, he is just one of 100 and it would be difficult for him to dictate a completely different plan. As a result, it would appear that Obama's best course of action would be to vote against the Bush Plan, but support any modification that provides some regularity reform. This way he can say "I have fought for reform in good and bad times and if you elect me, you will keep seeing reforms coming."   

In the case of McCain, he is in a much tighter spot than Obama. If he is truly a candidate for change, then how can he simply vote for the Bush Plan? He has tried so hard to distance himself from Bush, and there is no way he could cast a “yea” vote for the Bush Plan and win the presidency; in the minds of most voters that would be the same as saying he endorses how Bush has handled the economy for the past eight years.    

However, McCain also could not easily vote for a Democratic Party sponsored bill that calls for reforms and regulations. If he were to sign on to the bill, he would look like a follower of the Democratic Party and a deserter of the Republican Party. In addition, a lot of his support comes from fiscal and small government conservatives who are outraged over the level of government spending and intervention that democratic reform plans for the finical markets call for. As a result, McCain is stuck in a hard position of not being able to support the Bush Plan, but also being equally unlikely to support a democratic reform bill. His best bet is to try to sponsor a bill himself, but in a democratically controlled senate, that is very unlikely to happen.    

Taking all of this analysis together, it seems that the likely outcome of this crisis is that the democratic controlled Congress will write their own bill that incorporates large aspects of the Bush Plan (so that they can move quickly), but that also provides for additional regulation and protections for the taxpayers (thinking more long term). I am not sure this is the best outcome as it may rush the passage of critical reforms for the finical markets, but given the nature of the crisis, it is probably the best-case scenario.   

Ah, What A Mess

I don't have much time for a post today so this one is going to mostly be posing a question for everyone to ponder for the remainder of the weekend. Feel free to post your thoughts on the matter below. 

On Friday, President Bush announced that he wants congress to pass a 700 billion bailout of the financial markets. The basic idea is that the government will buy all the bad loans and mortgages that banks have on their balance sheets from homeowners defaulting on their loans. Most analysts agree that if all of these bad loans were taken off the hands of the banks, then they would once again be able to turn a profit.

There are two key points to notice here. First, when Bush says the government is going to use 700 billion to buy these loans, the government doesn't just print more money, it has to generate it from somewhere. To raise this amount of money, it can do three things. One, it can raise taxes to cover the cost (very unlikely in this case). Two, it can cut current spending levels in social programs or a war effort to off-set this new cost (again very unlikely in this case). Three, it can take very high interest foreign loans to finance the deal (most likely option). In essence, this last option is how the Bush administration has financed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without raising taxes at home. The take home point is the money doesn't just appear, it has to come from somewhere.

The second point to note is that there is another way to solve this crisis that hasn't been discussed. The Bush plan focuses on saving the banks, but does nothing for the home owners who have these loans. A viable alternative would be to have the government either help homeowners make their payments, or restructure of all floating loans that have been made in the last five years to fixed rate loans with affordable monthly payments (i.e. lower fixed interest rates and perhaps extending payment periods beyond 30 years) so that people can make their payments. The effect would be that banks would not be making big profits (and perhaps might even be taking small losses as opposed to their current huge losses), but they also would be able to remove the bad debt off their books, since payments would be coming in. 

So, the big question is which plan is better? I personally come down on bailing out homeowners over bailing out banks, or at least having a combination of bailing out both.  The idea that only the banks should be bailed out with my money seems both morally wrong and financially unsound. I completely agree with idea that these banks can't simply be left to fail. They are too integrated into the financial system. However, that doesn't mean the solution to the problem has to let the banks completely off the hook, while individual homeowners get nothing and are led to financial ruin themselves. It seems to me if you are going to use taxpayer dollars to solve this problem that the solution better address both sides of the crisis. 

In the end, the question comes down to who should get rescued: the banks, the homeowners or both? Both banks and homeowners are guilty of greed and have both made mistakes, but why should only one side get bailed out?

The Six States To Election Victory

Recent polling that has come out in the last two days has capped off quite an impressive shift in both the national and state polls for the presidential election. In essence all the gains that McCain made after the republican convention have been wiped out and even more impressive, Obama is leading by larger margins in most swing states than he was before either convention. 

While this may cause many democrats to celebrate and republicans to be concerned, this interpretation of the polls is not quite accurate. If one inspects the polls carefully, it is easy to understand why we are seeing such movement in polls trying to project electoral vote counts. 

The first aspect to remember is that the president is not elected by a national popular vote. Thus, national polls that do not control for likely voter location are not incredibly useful in determining likely electoral vote outcomes beyond overarching trends. Since most states are winner take all systems, as soon as a candidate gets 50%+1, all of the extra votes a candidate gets in that state are wasted. So for example, in New York, even though Obama will likely win the state with about 70% of the vote, 19% of this vote is wasted. Thus, when national polling is done, it is hard to weed out this wasted vote effect. In my opinion, national polling is pretty worthless unless you have a candidate up by more than 15 percentage points. 

So, since the president is elected via the electoral collage, when trying to project the outcome of the race, the key statistic to look at is how candidates are doing in individual states. Luckily for us, most polling outfits agree with me and this election marks an unprecedented amount of state polling. 

Before we go to the analysis of the seesawing projections of who is going to win the election, it is important to remember there are 538 electoral votes and that to win the presidency, a candidate needs 270.

So with our electoral math hat on, let's take a look at state polling numbers.  The most striking result is that of the 538 electoral votes, about 459 (or 85%) electoral votes are immovable. These are electoral votes from states that are strong supporters of the respective candidates, and have showed no signs of moving since June, with very high poll numbers in favor of a respective candidate by at least 12 to 15 percentage points. States in this category include NY, CA, TX, AL, GA, etc. When we break down these 459 electoral votes by candidate, we find that Obama has 259 electoral votes, while McCain only has 200. 

This is where things get interesting. The remaining 79 electoral votes are split between only six states: CO-9, FL-27, NM-5, NV-5, OH-20, and VA-13. Every time one of these states moves back and forth between the candidates, it drastically affects who is projected to win the presidency. Hence, the seesawing that we are getting in the polls and projections is not because the nation as a whole is really changing its level of support for the different candidates, but rather, is the result of small movements in these six states where split between support for both candidates is very close. 

The net result of this is to interpret polls that keep showing drastic shifts in the outcome not as drastic shifts in levels of supports for the candidates, but rather as an artifact of how we elect a president in this country.  Very small amounts of support shifting in very few states can have a drastic impact on the outcome, which is what the polls are picking up. Thus, if Obama falls behind by a large margin in a outcome projection, it is not because he has lost vast amounts of support, but rather that a very small number of people in one of the six states has sifted their support. 

This volatility is likely to continue until actual election day because the numbers needed to switch one of these six states to either candidate is around 1-3%. 

Now, an astute mathematician who has been following the math may have noted that based on the safe electoral vote count, Obama is in a much stronger position since he has to win far fewer of the six swing states than McCain does (Obama only needs 11 more electoral votes to get to 270, compared to McCain's 70). I think that this line of reasoning is spot on and is why you have see Obama and Biden shifting away somewhat from their 50 state strategy to focusing on these six key states in this critical period of the election. For those that want to know the current break down in these six states, Obama leads in NM and CO, while McCain leads in VA, OH, FL, and NV. Under that scenario, Obama would win with 271 electoral votes. 

When The Music Stops Will There Be 60 Democrats Sitting?

Today we will take a break from the presidential race and take a look at the Senate races that are occurring this fall. While they have garnered far less attention in the national media, the break down of Senate members is a critical factor in the ability of a president to get anything done.   

The magical number that is required to get anything real done in the senate is 60 votes. This is because it takes 60 votes in the Senate to invoke cloture and end debate. As the Senate is designed to be a more deliberative body than the House, the rules for debate in the Senate are much less structured than in the House. Consequently, a single senator can prevent all senate business from occurring by refusing to yield the floor. If 60 of his/her colleges disagree with the filibuster, they can vote to end debate by invoking cloture.   

The net result is, in order to get any major or controversial piece of legislation to a vote in the Senate, the majority party needs to have 60 reliable votes so that it knows it can end debate and get a vote on a bill. Based on the current breakdown in the Senate, if the democrats can take nine seats currently held by republicans in the fall, they will reach the magical number of 60.   

It is important to note that the democrats actually have only 49 members in the Senate currently, but the two Senate independents caucus with the democrats, which give them 51 votes on procedural matters. On top of this, one of the independents is Joe Lieberman, who has angered many democrats for his support of Bush and McCain. Thus, in reality while the math may say nine seats, there is the chance that the democrats will really need ten seats to switch party lines, without losing any of their seats that are up for grabs.   

So the $64,000 question is can they do it?   

There are several factors to consider. First, only a third of the Senate is up for election at a time. So only 34 seats are actually up for grabs (the extra seat is a special election in WA). Second, of these seats, 22 are currently held by republicans, and 12 by democrats. Thus, more republicans are up for reelection this time around than democrats. With such a high number of republicans up for reelection it is unlikely that all 22 seats will remain republican.   

A third factor to consider is the number of incumbents that are rerunning in these 22 republicans seats. The incumbent advantage is well documented in the Senate. According to latest data, about 85% of incumbents win reelection. So, while it is not impossible to knock off an incumbent in a reelection, the odds of the democrats winning a previously held republican seat drastically improve for elections in which a republican incumbent is not running. In examining the 22 republican seats up for election, seven do not have incumbents (CO, ID, MS, NM, NE, VA, WY). Of these seven, only CO, NM, and VA are states that are not solidly republican.   

The last aspect to consider is in what states the 22 republican seats are from. Clearly, it should be easier for a democrat to be elected to the senate from a “blue state” than a “red state,” where blue and red are defined in how they voted in the 2004 Election. Taking a look at the 2004 Election map, of the 22 republican seats, only two (MN and ME) are from blue states in 2004.   

Taking all of this together, while it seems that the democrats will pick up seats in the Senate, it is unlikely to be the nine (or ten) needed to reach 60. It is much more likely to be 3-5 seats. The reason for this is simply that while there are vastly more republicans up for election and a lot of republican retirements, these seats are predominantly safe republican seats from states that reliably vote republican. Of the 22 republican seats, 14 are very safe for republicans, with polling numbers all above 90% that a republican will be elected.   

This is not to imply that it is impossible, just highly unlikely. The current polling, while not as frequent as for the presidential race, backs up this analysis. If the race was held today, based on current polls, the democrats would hold on to all of their existing seats and gain seats from CO, AK, NH, NM, and VA. Thus, they will shift their majority from 51 to 56. Between these five pick-ups and the 14 safe seats, this only leaves 4 other races (NC, MN, OR, MS) out there. While republicans in these races are not up by the 90% mark, they are all leading by about 70%. Since the democrats would have to win them all to get to 60, it seems unlikely to happen.  

Thus, while the democratic majority in the Senate will increase, it will still be short of that magical number 60.  

Let's Play a Word Association Game

The continued bad news from the financial markets has clearly shoved the economy into the limelight as one of, if not the key issue in this election. Many pundits believe that this has the potential to shift the race in Obama’s favor. I happen to agree with this sentiment, but it is important to understand why; the reasoning is not as simple as it may seem.   

The traditional logic of the economy and presidents is that since the president is the only nationally elected official, he is held (rightly or wrongly) accountable for the overall wellbeing of the national economy. In many ways, the president is kind of like a quarterback in football: when things go right he gets too much credit, and when things go wrong he gets too much blame. The key fact to remember is that while a president is a critical player in the health of the economy, he is still only a single person among many other players in the game. Thus, he can make all the right choices and still get stuck with the blame for other players’ poor performance.   

Rather then trying to actually assess how much blame we should attribute to the Bush administration for the current economic crisis versus mistakes made by key finical institutions, it is more important to examine how the current set of events is likely to be interpreted by likely voters in November. Intuition may suggest that if people are personally feeling the pinch of a bad economy (i.e. they suddenly have less in their purses or wallets than they did previously), they should hold the party in power of the presidency responsible and vote for the opposing party’s candidate.    

However, most reputable research disputes this theory. Rather than voting based on ones own economic situation, the vast majority of voters tend to vote based on what they perceive as the general condition of the economy as a whole. This raises several important questions regarding the current election.   

The first is that for the first time in the history of the United States, most adults have some stake in the stock market. Either as a result of personal stocks or retirement funds, peoples’ well-being is much more closely tied to the welfare of the stock market than ever before. The result is that even if the overall fundamentals of the economy are strong, if people perceive that the overall stock market is in crisis, then the nation is in a national economic crisis. Thus, using the same logic as before, if people perceive a national crisis in the stock market, which I think most currently do, they will likely vote democrat in November.   

The second aspect that is unique to this financial market crisis situation is that in some ways the republicans are guilty of their own image success. In terms of associations, if you asked most people which party they associate with big business or Wall Street, they will say republicans. Thus, even though the Republican Party is not probably directly responsible for the current finical situation, republicans are guilty via association.   

If this association theory is correct, then all Obama should have to do to win on this key issue is to hammer on this association and pose the question “who you would rather have clean up this mess: the people who are in bed with big business or an outsider who knows what is right?”  

The third aspect to take note of is that in terms of the abilities of the candidates, McCain will be hard pressed to win an election that is based on the economy. McCain’s best chance of winning this election is to keep the agenda on national security, experience, and social conservative issues. He has almost no experience with economic issues and his age, race, income (via his wife), and own statements on the economy all make him ill suited to play the understanding white knight to the rescue.   

This is not to imply that Obama would actually do a better job at attempting to resolve the situation. That question will largely be the result of what kind of economic teams are put in place by the respective candidates. But actual chance of success is much less important in the economic arena of politics than association with ability. On this count, Obama is clearly far out ahead of McCain. 

Back To The Future

The Iowa caucuses not only marked the beginning of this election season, but also ushered in what was to become the theme of the election: Change. In Iowa, all the candidates from both parties saw that the two candidates that campaigned on a message of change did incredibly well (Obama and Huckabee).

Since then, the theme of change has remained a constant in the campaign. Obama has stayed with his message of "Change We Can Believe In," while McCain has attempted several different change themes prior to the republican convention (remember "The Change You Deserve" back in May).

After the convention, an interesting development occurred. Somehow Obama lost control of the theme of Change. All of a sudden McCain was all about Change. He had taken what Obama had been saying, and started campaigning as the Maverick team that could bring change to Washington. Instead of trying to come up with an original theme he simply used the media spot light of the republican convention and flatly stated, as if no one had ever thought of this idea before, that he was the candidate for change.

What happend next was quite surprising, it caught on. All of a sudden McCain, who remember is from the party who has controlled the presidency for the last eight years, as well as the House and Senate for the first six of those eight years, was the Change man. It appears to me that he was able to pull off this transformation because the base of the republican party has never embraced him (and in fact still haven't--remember they really only got on board once Palin was on the ticket), so he was able to sell himself to moderate republicans (and perhaps independent leaning republicans) that he is different than the last eight years. He can bring Change. Not the Change the democrats want, but he can bring a different kind of republican control to Washington.

With such a high level of success on the overarching theme of Change, McCain started very slowly to adopt a lot of the exact same language that Obama has been using over the last year. If you examine McCain's speeches post convention with Obama's remarks, there is no mistaking that McCain has become somewhat of a mimic or echo of Obama.

McCain has been able to pull of his copy cat nature of Obama's messages, in essence by using the same language and ideas, but in slightly different patterns and cadences. The result has been quite remarkable in the short term. McCain's national and swing state polls have shot way up. This development however has clearly made many Obama supporters quite angry. The claim is that McCain has usurped Obama's issues and is a charlatan or a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What is interesting is that this is not the first time the strategy of co-opting your opponent's popular ideas and messages as your own has occurred in a presidential race and it is not even the first time it has been done by a republican presidential candidate.

Issue and message co-option was the bread and butter of the republican party in presidential elections of most of the 1930s and 1940s. The most famous example is probably the election of 1948, in which the republican party took Truman's entire campaign platform and passed it through congress during the election in an effort to take the issues away from Truman.

The good news for Obama, is that in each historical case when the republican party attempted to take a democratic platform as their own they have lost the election in November. The historical argument for why this is the case is that in the end, issue co-opting by a rival candidate signals to the voting public that there are really only one set of options for moving forward. So when forced with a choice, why would you choose the imitator over the real Mccoy?

What has generally happened is that while issue co-optation can cause short term excitement by the partisans of the candidate that co-opted the issue, because there is no previous record of the candidate having such a position the candidate cannot make a credible commitment to actually carrying through on the co-opted issues once elected. Thus, faced with a choice between candidates that are saying the same thing, voters choice the candidate who is more likely to actually carry out those issues as promised.

As a result, issue co-option helps with popularity in the short term, because the issues themselves garner attention, but in the long term, results in the original candidate being elected. Of course there is no way to know for sure if the same will happen in this election. It is up to Obama to ensure that he remains the authentic choice by showing that McCain is merely echoing his ideas. But it cannot be denied that Obama has history on his side in this development.

Why Tell a Lie?

Today may mark the first and only time in history that Karl Rove and I agree on something. In a recent interview with Fox News, Rove stated that "McCain has gone in some of his ads one step too far...and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test."    

I find several aspects of this development quite interesting. First, let me put it in writing that I do agree with Rove. Several recent ads that have been put out by McCain have been quite nasty and border on actual slander.    

A recent example is an ad, released in areas with high latino populations, that stated that Obama voted against immigration reform and was instrumental in stalling the creation of any guest worker program or a path to citizenship. The problem with this ad, of course, is that Obama and McCain actually worked together on this bill, each voting to end the filibuster in the senate; in fact, they voted identically on the procedural and final passage votes.    

All political ads lie to some extent, and to pretend that Obama hasn't produced negative ads either would be a mischaracterization. However, Obama has not been foolish enough to create an ad that states a lie that can easily be verified and shown to be untrue. What is more startling, however, is when one examines where the nastiest attack ads are being run, it is pretty clear that the demographic groups that are being targeted are those containing individuals who are statistically on the lower end of the income and education scales.    

This tactic is about as low as it gets as it amounts to directly lying to confuse people who will not be able to gather complete information about the candidates due to limitations regarding time, resources, and language ability. Candidates launch such attacks because they can be very effective since these voters are not constantly tuning in to see what is occurring in the campaign, and reserach has shown that first impressions of a candidate are very important in deciding who to vote for among voters with lesser educations.    

The decision to go negative is not a surprise, but the manner in which is has occurred is highly questionable. It raises questions about McCain's ethics that I myself would not have thought possible. It is clear though that the straight-talking express has broken down.    

I think it is silly to argue that campaigns should always be positive; that’s not how the world works, and it isn't how campaigns are won. We may all hate negative ads, but they are really effective. I don't deplore McCain's choice to go negative, but the degree to which he has done so has the potential to backfire in a big way. 

Is the Tide Turning?

Quick post tonight, as with Hurricane Ike going full force there is not much election coverage.  Over the last few days an interesting set of events has been set in motion that may set the stage for a poll reversal this week. 

The first is that, unlike the relatively unsubstantiated attacks that were leveled at Palin, the media has actually started to find cracks in the Palin armor that cannot be whisked away. Neither crack is that large, but both highlight an odd trend on the McCain/Palin ticket: to lie about information that can easily be fact checked. 

One, claimed earlier in the week, is that Palin had visited Alaska troops in Iraq. This has been disproved quite easily by the media, who got access to her travel record. Another is her claim that she brought in both republican and democrats to work in the executive branch in Alaska when she was elected Governor. The New York Times is reporting that this claim is false and that the appointment and civil service records show otherwise.

The other event is that the Obama campaign has learned that it needs to stop going after Palin, as it makes her an issue. Instead they have returned to attacking McCain. In my opinion this is the correct course of action. Palin appears vastly more popular than McCain. Obama's best bet is remind voters that they aren't voting for Palin, but McCain. In addition, McCain has a much longer record to defend, which clearly shows it is hard for him to be a candidate for change. Remember, before Palin came on the ticket, people were not excited about McCain. This is probably still true and Obama needs to remind them who is running for president on the republican side.

Lastly, as a poll update, the numbers still look terrible for Obama in both national polls and key swing states. We still have a long time to go, but if we don't start to see some halting to the McCain gains in swing states by the end of the week it may be time to start getting concerned. 

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?

Taking a brief break from the election today, I want to talk about some of the other political news in the world. The Russian invasion of Georgia caught many in the West by surprise. What is even more of a concern, beyond the actual invasion, is the pretext for why it occurred and some of the direct events it caused.   

First, Russia claims that it had to protect ethnic Russians who were living in Georgia. I do not have enough information to know whether or not there is any validity to this claim, although I am personally very skeptical. Second, since the partial Russian withdrawal, there has been a clamoring in many Eastern Europe states for NATO to finally extend membership to Georgia and Ukraine (another state that does not have great relations with Russia and has a sizeable ethnically Russian population).   

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been searching for a reason to exist. Its alliance structure is designed to defend Europe against a communist invasion force from the then USSR and calls for each member nation to commit to the defense of any other member nation that is invaded or attacked. In the interest of full disclosure, I am about as strong a supporter of international institutions as one can find in the United States. I am not against NATO, and in fact, I think NATO has the potential to be the military force that other international organizations, such as the United Nations, need.   

What strikes me as disturbing however, is how similar these current events are to those surrounding the outbreak of World War I. For starters, NATO represents a fixed alliance structure that contains some states with moderate to large ethnic Russian populations.  

There is a good chance that based on latest Russian actions, the membership of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO will be considered very seriously. In both cases (WWI and now), the alliance structures call on their member states to defend any member state that was attacked as if that state was its own homeland.   

Next, in many ways, World War I began because Tzarist Russia felt that it had to protect Slavic populations in Serbia. As a result, when attacks in Serbia began, Russia felt obligated to become involved to protect those populations. In many ways, Russian claims at the outbreak of WWI are very similar to their claims over Georgia today.   

I am not suggesting that we are heading towards another world war centered in Europe, nor am I claiming that the West will be going to war with Russia; however, I don’t think the similarities can be ignored either. The key in WWI was that many believed that any war would be short, and no one had then seen the destructive power of all-out war with the power and horrors of modern weapons. I think these are important lessons that could prevent the outbreak of a new world war.   

Mark Twain is famous for commenting once that history doesn’t repeat itself, but rather it rhymes. I don’t think for any reason that we are in immediate danger of facing another world war, but I do think now is a time to remember the lessons of history to ensure we don’t head any farther down that path that would lead to such a terrible end.  After all, as Albert Einstein once stated, “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Together Forever?

Parting ways can be difficult, which would be one explanation for why McCain and Palin are still campaigning together now that the convention is behind us. That explanation would be wrong, but it makes for a nice lead in for today’s post.   

Traditionally, after the conventions, the newly foraged party candidates for President and Vice President head off and do about 3-4 days of heavy campaigning together. After that, they bid each other ado and separate. The logic in separating is that two people can cover far more ground than a single person, and since a party ticket is usually designed to appeal to different types of voters, the splitting of the two candidates allows each to go and campaign separately to court these voters. It is not unusual for the ticket-mates to meet back together for large events, big fundraises, or meet for rallies in swing states, but generally each will spend the month of September campaigning alone.   

Obama and Biden have followed this traditional form to the letter. After the convention, the two drew huge crowds at several joint events and have since separated to court voters individually.  Since separating, Obama and Biden have done several big events together, but by and large they have been keeping separate travel schedules, events, and hotels.   

Over on the republican side, the original plan coming out of the convention was for something very similar for McCain and Palin. They would do a few events together and then separate to hit their respective bases of support. However, this has not occurred. Rather, they have repeatedly added joint events and have not really separated yet (take today’s joint campaign stop in northern VA).   

The pundits have noticed this occurrence, but have attributed it to the fact that when McCain was campaigning alone before the convention, he was pulling crowds in the 100s, whereas after the convention, he and Palin together have been attracting thousands. Thus, the two have not split yet because they want to ride the wave.   

While there is clearly merit in this explanation, I have trouble with it because logically it doesn’t make sense. It is not the fact that they are campaigning together that is drawing larger crowds, but that the republican convention really energized republicans. So whereas the support for McCain was luke-warm before the convention, that indifferent sentiment has been completely replaced by an air of excitement and enthusiasm.   

Now some will claim that if Palin wasn’t with him, he wouldn’t get the crowds. So what? If Palin is the reason they are getting crowds, then her campaigning on her own would still pull the large crowds and McCain could be working a different, if smaller, group of people at the same time. To me, the republicans’ strategy here makes no sense if the explanation is to ride the Palin wave to bigger crowds for McCain.

However, there are two alternative hypotheses that do explain why the republicans have not yet shifted to the split campaigning. The first is that the McCain staff is very afraid that if they separate, Palin will pull more people to her events than McCain will to his. Such an event would clearly be covered in the media and make McCain look weak. Obviously, the VP candidate should not pull more than the boss.   

The second alternative hypothesis is that the McCain camp is afraid to have Palin campaign by herself on the national stage at this point. It is clear that she can be very powerful when she is protected and in a controlled environment, but if she is on her own at her own events, the McCain campaign will have little control over what she says or how she answers questions.   

In both cases, these alternative hypotheses are good news for Obama. The longer McCain and Palin campaign together, the more ground they will lose as Obama and Biden each individually reach out to voters. Plus, McCain and Palin will have to separate at some point, and in terms of having something embarrassing happen, the farther it is from November 4th, the better off it will be for the campaign that makes the mistake.     

The Power of Lipstick

Well who would have thought that lipstick on a pig would cause such a ruckus? For those who are not following the constant news feed of the campaign, here is the back-story before we get into some analysis.   

In a recent speech (I believe it was yesterday), Obama said that McCain’s economic plan is like putting lipstick on a pig. The phrase was supposed to imply that one cannot make a bad plan better by simply dressing it up. Thus, Obama saying McCain’s economic plan was like putting lipstick on a pig was the equivalent of saying that McCain’s economic plan is worthless and tries to fix the economy by making only cosmetic changes.   

Obama’s comments immediately caused outrange in the McCain/Palin camp, but not exactly as one might expect. Rather than being upset that his economic plan was called into question, McCain responded that Obama’s remarks were an unjustified sexist attack on Palin.  

The connection, for those who are lost and wondering why the McCain campaign would react the way it did, is that during Palin’s acceptance speech, she said that the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is that one wears lipstick. Thus, the McCain/Palin ticket reacted believing that the swipe was at Palin and not the economic plan.   

It will never be known what Obama intended, but to be honest, whether it was planned or not, the move by Obama was absolutely brilliant. Since the end of the republican convention, all that has been talked about is Palin and how strong she is, what a good selection she was, etc. She has been caught in a very powerful and positive media cycle. Since there hasn’t been anything else for the media to really cover since her speech, she has stayed in the news. However, McCain’s response seems to have ended that by giving the media something new to cover.   

Now, you might ask, why is this comment by Obama good? Because McCain’s response is completely irrational based on what was said. Palin’s name was never mentioned and Obama was talking about economic plans. It shows that McCain can’t talk about real issues, but would rather talk about unrelated aspects of the campaign. It feeds into the image of the republicans that the democrats are trying to build: republicans are out of touch, they have no new ideas, and they can only win by relying on platitudes.   

Luckily for Obama, McCain took the bait, and the resulting news cycle has done two important things. First, the post-convention positive coverage of Plain has ended. This is possibly the most important change the democrats could hope to effectuate. They had to find a way to shift the focus without attacking Palin directly because doing so would just add to the media frenzy. Second, they were able to once again show that McCain/Palin would rather talk about lipstick than real issues. Obama attacks an economic plan and McCain responds by calling the attack sexist. I think I can see the campaign ad already.   

Clearly, this is not going to be remembered as a key turning point in the election, and for the vast majority of people, it will remain completely unknown. But in reality, this little comment has once again shifted media focus back to Obama and gotten Palin’s name out of the positive news cycle. For this to really be a turning point, Obama now needs to capitalize on McCain’s mistake and really drive home that McCain would rather talk about lipstick than issues that matter to Joe America.   

As one final note on this story, McCain’s response becomes even more bizarre when you take into account that he was actually the first person in this election to make the comment that someone’s ideas were like putting lipstick on a pig. He was referring to a plan by Hillary Clinton in the early primaries. Don’t think that that aspect won’t make it into the news cycle as this story passes. 

Emerging Trends

Today will be a brief post because I have a mound of reading ahead of me. Today, two trends have emerged in the wake of the conventions that will be very important to watch. The first is that at campaign events at which both McCain and Palin appeared, the campaign drew thousands of people; on the other hand, where McCain previously appeared alone, he only brought people out in the hundreds. There is no question that the addition of Palin has caused a lot of excitement in the republican party. What will be really interesting to see is if McCain can continue to pull in such large crowds once he and Palin separate to campaign on their own. If not, I think this will be a telling sign regarding the actual level of support for McCain.   

The second trend is that Palin’s name is being mentioned with Obama’s in the media almost as often as McCain’s name is being so mentioned. This is certainly a result of the media attention Palin received prior to and during the convention. The key for Palin is whether she can convert all of this excitement and momentum surrounding her nomination into voter turnout. Two months is a long time to ride this initial burst of support, but barring some huge gaff, it is hard to see how she doesn’t turn at least some of her current support into higher republican turnout in November.   

The bright side for the democrats regarding Palin’s success is that it is being driven in large part by her attacks on and derisiveness towards Obama. The result has been an energizing of support on the left for Obama. While this is true, it is clear that this is a glass-half-full reading of the current situation. The Obama campaign has to find a way to respond to Palin’s attacks that simultaneously rebut what she is saying and defuse her media impact. Clearly this is a tall order, but if they are able to strike that balance, the Palin star will fade quite quickly. 

Today's Polls and Campaign Strategy

Not much has really happened campaign-wise today. I should note, however, that we are starting to see a lot more robust polling that is showing a nice convention bounce for McCain. Tuesday's numbers should be interesting, but as they currently stand in the national polls, Obama is holding on to a narrow lead of about an 1-3 points if we take an average of all major polls. 

What is more interesting and probably more important is the swing state polls, which have not really showed a convention bounce. So far, I have seen reliable polls for about half of the swing states. When we look at the swing state polls, we see that we are almost exactly where we were at the start of August. If this trend was to hold up, Obama would have approximately 305 electoral votes. As I have said before, Tuesday's numbers will be the most telling, but so far what I am seeing seems to indicate that the conventions essentially canceled each other out. 

The next big event will be the first presidential debate on September 26, 2008, which will be held at the University of Mississippi. This debate will be moderated by Jim Lehrer and will focus on foreign policy and national security. Between now and then I don't expect to many planned fireworks from either campaign. However, both campaigns will clearly be hard at work in swing states trying to win voters. 

What is interesting is that this election marks the first time that Democrats are stealing a page out of the Karl Rove playbook. We hear constantly on the news that independents will decide the election. In 2000 however, Karl Rove argued that republicans could win the election by getting conservatives, who don't normally follow politics, out to the polls (this was also a claim first made by Barry Goldwater in his unsuccessful 1964 presidential bid versus LBJ). Rove's argument was forget the middle and win without them by getting people who normally don't vote, but are on the right side of the political scale, to vote for republicans. While it can be argued whether or not this strategy works (remember Bush actually lost the popular vote in 2000), it was used again in 2004, which saw perhaps the most sophisticated voter mobilization program by republicans in the history of elections. 

While democrats are clearly not conceding the middle, Obama has already used Rove's strategy during the primary. Obama built his constituency based on two subgroups on the left that traditionally have low turnout: Young People (18-29) and African Americans. Had these two groups not come out in droves, exit polling shows that Hillary would have had the nomination by Super Tuesday. Obama's level of success in November will, in large part, be contingent upon his ability to expand, as he did in the primary, the size of the voting left. 

What is interesting to note is that both candidates are using the Rove strategy, but in slightly different ways. On the democratic side, Obama is the part of the ticket that is trying to enlarge the base, while Biden should appeal to the more moderate part of the party and independents. On the republican side it is just the opposite; McCain is working the moderate side of the party with Palin working the base. 

In my opinion,  this election is not going to be decided by independents. This is because I think they are by and large going to be split between McCain and Obama. In the end, whoever can get the most nontraditional voters to the polls will win this election. Given Obama's unbelievable ground campaign, and McCain's total lack of field offices in most key states, I think the edge has to go to Obama for now. 

Polls Post the Republican National Convention

Today marked the first full day after the republican national convention, which means today's polling numbers are the first time we get a chance to see what kind of impact Palin's speech has had. We will need another day to see the effect of McCain's speech and will probably need to wait until next Tuesday to see what kind of bounce McCain/Palin get from the convention. 

So, for everyone who was either frantically excited or upset regarding Palin's speech you all appeared to have canceled each other out more or less. Of the four major polls (I don't use polls that are done by the DNC or RNC as they are partisan polls and notoriously unreliable) that were put into the field (CBS/Rasmussen/the Economist/and Gallup) we have a 1-6 point lead for Obama. While this clearly shows a reduction of the 6-10 point lead that Obama had coming out of the Democratic convection, this reduction is more of a statistical correction than a big bounce McCain/Palin. 

Without giving a long and complicated explanation of how modern polling is done, the basic gist is that polls are constantly in flux. Taking a look at the sample size on the polls done right after the Democratic convention and the standard errors, there was a good chance that these polls had a little inflation in them. So, if there had been no republican convention at all, Obama's numbers should have come down to about a 6 points lead. Thus, the fact that 36 million people saw Palin's speech (Obama had 37 million) and they only got what amounts to a two point bounce, most likely means that Palin's speech energized both bases at once. She may have won a lot of social conservative hearts, but she also made a lot of liberals mad and energized to work for Obama.

Anecdotally, such a reading of the poling numbers is supported by the fact that after Palin's speech McCain claims to have raised 10 million, while Obama claims they had an influx of donations amounting 9 million, without a huge effort on their part to solicit. 

In addition, it is important to note that the CBS poll is the only poll that has Obama and McCain tied in a national poll, while the other polls have the race a little more separated (remember that national polling is not the best measure of who will win the election since we have electoral votes). Also, when the stats on the CBS poll are examined in detail it is important to note that it has a party ID distribution that is not the same as the other three, which may have lead it to overstate McCain's strength. We will have to watch this poll over the next week, but I am willing to bet as the sample size is increased, we will see the race separate between Obama and McCain again.

Also, what is even more interesting in today's polling than the national polls are some polls of likely voters in swing states. First, while some had believed prior to Palin that Alaska might be in play this year with the republican senate scandals of good old Ted, polling now shows the McCain/Palin ticket to have a 19 point lead. However, there wasn't much movement in key swing states, such as Indiana (McCain still leads by about 3 points), Penn (Obama by 2 points), Ohio (Tie), Florida (McCain by 5 points), and Colorado (Obama by 2 points). The key take away point here is that Palin's speech didn't really do much to move anything where it mattered. 

As we get a little farther away from the Republican Convention we should be able to see exactly what the bounce will be, but if these numbers are any indications, it appears that all Palin has done is to increase support in already red states that McCain was going to win anyway. 

John McCain

So I just finished watching John McCain's speech and I have to say that I think overall he did a good job. While he is clearly not as strong a speaker as Obama, I felt that his speech struck the correct balance between civility, attacks, personal story, and base energizing. And to his credit he even handled a protester acting up inside the convention hall about five minutes into the speech well. In addition, so far, no matter how many times I hear McCain's war stories they never cease to amaze me. That doesn't mean he should be president, but you can't deny that his personal story isn't powerful. 

As for the actual content of the speech, I was not very impressed from a substance point of view. McCain pulled out the regular republican tricks of democrats will raise taxes, enlarge government, and take away all your choices. Just to note, the size of the federal government has increased since WWII at essentially the same rate under both democrat and republican administrations. Republicans may claim to like smaller government in the abstract, but the data shows they have increased the size of the Federal government just as much as the democrats when they are in power. 

There were two aspects in McCain's speech tonight that I think were fairly telling of McCain's fall campaign strategy for winning the middle. The first is to run against a "do nothing Washington" that must be changed. Obama is running on essentially the same idea, but the difference is Obama hasn't been in Washington for over 20 years. I am not sure how McCain is going to pull off running against the Washington establishment, when he a fixture of it. I can almost already seem the Obama campaign's response to this approach by McCain: The ad fades to a somewhat odd picture of McCain in black and white and the announcer says "he says he wants to change Washington, but what has he been doing the last 20 years". I know his overarching theme is he is a maverick, but I am not sure he can pull off running against a system he has been a part of for more than two decades. 

The second aspect was that there was very little mention about the economy. McCain did talk about some tax cuts and that he feels our pain, but there were no new ideas. In fact, almost all of his remarks tonight about the economy sounded like democratic platforms from 1992 (job retraining for the new economy and better unemployment insurance). I don't know if McCain just took a pass tonight, but eventually he is going to have to put some real ideas about turning around the economy out their if he wants to win the middle. 

Overall though, McCain made a solid speech tonight. I think he is showing that he can be a very strong candidate and any democrats that expected this election to be a cakewalk should take note.

Palin's Speech

Today will hopefully mark the last time I have a post about Palin for awhile. Personally I am kind of tired reading about her as I don't think all the attacks on her have been fair, nor in the end do I think she will actually matter when people go into the voting booth. When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people will vote for the name on the top of the ticket when they pull the lever (punch the chad, push the electronic check mark box, or how ever you vote in your state). 

I have just finished watching Palin's speech and my initial reaction is mixed. Overall, I think she delivered her speech well, there were no real speaking mistakes, and it only seemed one time that she went off script with telling a joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull (the punchline is that hockey moms wear lipstick). I am not sure how those types of jokes play in small towns in America, but I am willing to guess that the McCain campaign advisers will make sure we don't see that again from her. 

The positives of speech were that she attempted to clearly define who she is, how she got to where she is today, and how her story is a lot like Obama's in that she started small and is now in the big time. I think it is hard to question that she hit that part out of the park. She also clearly showed herself to be the champion of family values and not just talking the talk, but walking the walk on social conservative issues by trolling her family in front of the crowd. 

Where I think mistakes were made was in making her the attack dog. Her speech was incredibly negative and loaded with personal attacks on Obama, as opposed to attacks on his ideas/polices. I was keeping rough track during her speech and I counted 14 interruptions when the audience gave supportive boos to her remarks versus 11 cheering interruptions. While the speech was strong in many ways, it was extremely negative and I think incorrectly frames her in negative terms. If the goal of having her on the ticket was that she is like your next door neighbor and can pick off independents, why would you have her give a speech that was very hostile, negative, and derisive? Was a speech like that needed? Absoultely. But I am surprised they had Palin give it at the same time that she is introducing and defining herself to the public. 

I am not saying that Obama and Biden didn't take their shots at McCain. However, their speeches in almost all cases said, I respect McCain, just not his ideas. This type of civility was completely lacking in Palin's speech and for me and was the most disappointing part. Her speech demonstrated that republicans want to win the election by dividing the country, where as the democrats want to win by uniting. I know that this is a vast and unfounded generalization, but the tones of the speeches so far between the two conventions seem to fall that way. 

In the morning, the fact that is going to be most remembered of Palin's speech is that she aggressively attacked Obama personally. Perhaps she felt that she had to show she had a tough side based on the media backlash she has received. Maybe she was right and that this will get the critics off her back. But, I don't think the McCain/Palin ticket can win by running on a platform of "we are not Obama" or "Obama is not good". To win a presidential election you need to define yourself independently of your opponent, not merely attack your opponent and I feel Palin did little of that tonight. 

In the end, I think Palin did fine tonight, but if this marks the tone of how she will campaign, I think she will find little support from independents or disappointed Hillary supporters because she is doing little to reach out to them. Instead of trying to reach across the aisle, tonight was a speech that widened the divide. Palin proved she can be tough, but she did it at the expense of showing she could be a uniter, which I think the republicans are going to need if they are going to win in November. 

Republican Timing

While there are clearly some questions regarding the ability/competency of Republican Vetters (See yesterdays post), there can be no question of the ability of the republicans to use the news cycle to hide certain information while promoting other information in fine form. To start with, the announcement of Palin occurred a mere 12 hours after Obama's big speech. The result of this was that all headlines and top stories shifted from the historic nature of Obama's speech, the size of the audience both physically there as well as via TV, and the subjects covered to McCain's announcement of Palin as his VP. In most cases, any mention of the Obama speech on online news media was shifted down to the fourth to fifth slots on top news. There is no question that this announcement could not have been timed better. Not only did it move Obama and the democrats out of the top stories, but it also attempted to take a little wind out of the week long momentum that the democrats had been building. While we can debate the actual choice of Palin, the timing of the announcement was perfect.

In somewhat related news, I have been hearing of an interesting new theory regarding the release of information by the McCain campaign that Palin's 17 year old daughter is pregnant. The theory is essentially as follows. The McCain campaign knew that her daughter was pregnant and knew that the story would come out. They also felt that they wanted to story to be forced out by the democrats for two reasons that could not be achieved if they released the story themselves from the start. First, they were hoping Obama would take the bait and attack Palin and her family. In doing so, he would be attacking Palin personally which might create backlash among his female supporters. Second, most of the McCain campaign believed (probably correctly) that her daughter being pregnant would have a positive effect with the conservative base because she kept the child. So, they were not afraid of releasing the information, but wanted to do so in a format that would garner sympathy and perhaps trap Obama into a bad move.

Personally, I find this theory hard to believe. While I agree that the second part is probably true, it seems to be convoluted. Most things in politics are relatively simple. Clearly, if the daughter is five months pregnant, there is no way this information would have stay quite (she would be showing clearly at seven months which is during the election). Second, I believe the key to keeping control of a story (as the Bush administration has shown) is to be the first to release it in an attempt to control and frame the story. So, what I believe happened is that the bloggers forced the McCain campaign to respond with something because of the wild rumors that Palin's newest baby was actually her daughters. However, as some readers of this blog have pointed out, this could have been easily accomplished with hospital records. So why the release that her daughter was pregnant now? I think it was simply because at the moment the media is focused on hurricanes and the Republicans decided that if the story was given now it would get lost in the media cycle for a large majority of Americans and the party activists she is supposed to bring the ticket would hear it and support her since her daughter didn't have an abortion. Whether this happens or not, we shall see. Regardless, it is clear that the Republicans are still masters in the timing of the release of information.

Republican Vetting

So I have just gotten back from an amazing labor day BBQ in Boston, and didn't really have time to do a lot of posts about the end of the democratic convention. I was set to write a post about Obama's 40 million viewer speech, but I can't pass up the recent rash of events around Sarah Palin. Since I drove to Boston I had about a 6 hour car ride. In the time period on the hourly news breaks I heard the following stories surrounding Sarah Palin: 1) an interview she gave a few months ago in which she was asked if she was interested in the VP position and responded that she couldn't know until someone told her what the VP did on a day to day basis; 2) that she is being investigated for possibly getting a Alaska State Trooper fired for divorcing her sister; 3) that she only got a passport last year; and 4) that her 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant and unmarried (although the daughter is supposedly going to be marry the father at some point in the future). By the time I heard the fourth I felt like I was on the all Palin all news station. 

While none of these stories are astronomically bad for the McCain Campaign (Clearly the last is both positive (she kept the baby) and negative (she had sex before marriage and in high school), I find myself wondering what the heck happened to Republican vetting. The Republicans are claiming they knew all of this before Palin was named to the ticket, but I am finding it hard to believe. Also, considering that she has not even been on the ticket a week and we already have 4 negative stories on Palin, I really have to question whether there was even a full vetting process at all. The first rule of being a VP is do no harm and it clearly seems like Palin is violating this rule. I don't know what else is going to happen, but its hard to say that things are going well out of the gate. 

Hillary

Last night was perhaps one of the most important speeches of this presidential election and it wasn't given by any of the people who will actually be elected to an office this fall. Hillary Clinton took the stage at a little past 10:30PM EST and although many believed she would play the good soldier, her actual mission was much more difficult than giving a simple speech supporting Obama. Her job was to convince all of her die heart supporters who, for some irrational reason, have come to the conclusion that since Hillary didn't get the nomination, John McCain would be a better choice than Obama. At first, such a claim seems so far fetched that it must be made up drama by the media networks, but alas it was not. Many Hillary supporters have openly said that they may or even would not support Obama and may even cross party lines to vote for McCain. During the brief respite between the end of the Democratic Primary in June till the Democratic Convention last night, Hillary has given several speeches in support of Obama, but none were heartfelt and always felt fake. All of that ended last night. 

Hillary took the stage and delivered what was probably the best speech of her political career. It not only made it clear that she strongly supported Obama, but that if any of her supporters did not do the same they were not only disappointing her, but themselves and squandering what they had all worked so hard for in the last year. She knows that on the vast majority of issues she and Obama are essentially the same candidate. Her main task was getting her supporters to finally see through their anger over the loss to this simple truth. 

Hillary's speech was easily divided into three parts. Part 1 was--here I am and I support Obama. Part 2 was--thank you as my supporters and all the hard work you have done. Part 3 was--deal with the fact that we lost and get in gear behind our candidate. I have to admit that in parts of the speech it felt like a school teacher reprimanding her star students for acting arrogant and reckless, but it was also clear that the message got across. Hillary clearly took the high road and may have just saved the Democratic party from the implosion that it was heading towards. After last night's speech no Hillary supporter can stand up and say "For Hillary I am not going to support Obama". Perhaps the strongest part of her speech was when she used simple logic. She point blank told her supporters, we may not like that we loss, but when it comes to living the next four years can we allow McCain to be president? Will that help you? Will that make things better? So much of the bad feelings between Hillary supporters and Obama has been over the loss of the primary elections and not the future. Last night Hillary turned that around and essentially put the past behind her. She cut down any leg her supporters could stand on when claiming they didn't support Obama and showed them that their current behavior was unacceptable and had to change. I think that her speech last night not only saved the Democratic party, but also have won her a lot of respect and support.

Good Old Democrats

So, last night I watched the first night of the Democratic National Convention and was actually quite impressed with Michelle Obama's speech last night. I thought she hit all of the key points she needed to as well as softened her image slightly which will hopefully help her with the media.

One of the big stories from last night was whether Clinton supporters will in the end vote for Obama. I think CNN spent more time showing Clinton supporters debating whether they would vote for Obama in November than actually asking why they refuse to support Obama now or what it is about Obama they can't support. I feel that if pushed in this direction, a lot of Clinton supporters would realize that Obama and Clinton are not really that different. Being a person who played sports, I understand the difficulty in accepting a loss, but part of being an adult is learning to accept what has occurred and moving forward. This Democrat really hopes that post the convention, the Clinton supporters will realize that in the end Obama offers them the best hope for getting the ideals that Clinton stood for past.