A Political Glimpse from Ireland

Ditching McCain

Senator McCain has been hemorrhaging republicans of late with a few GOP members actively supporting Senator Obama:

The group, called Republicans for Obama, is led by two moderate Republicans — James Leach, a former U.S. representative from Iowa, and Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator from Rhode Island — along with Rita Hauser, a prominent fund-raiser for President George W. Bush.

This is no surprise to some politicians and conservatives who have experienced the complexities of Senator McCain’s flip floppishness in the past. You might ask what of PUMA? They are allegedly millions strong who will vote for Senator McCain if Senator Obama is nominated however thanks to the excellent investigative journalism at the DailyKos we find out the truth:

The truth? The overwhelming and unstoppable PUMA coalition that Bowers and other selected-not-elected leaders have repeatedly claimed numbers in the 2-2.5 million members range could only get together sixty people for the “conference” and, because they didn’t meet the 250 registrant requirement imposed by the Wardman, they had to move the conference to … get this … the Country Inn next to Dulles Airport in Sterling, VA. Is it any wonder they got way secretive and polished up their double agent decoder rings before this monumental event? Their “conference,” which was scheduled to be held at a picture-perfect symbolic location in the heart of our nation’s capital (the press woulda loved it!), had to be moved due to poor attendance numbers to a crappy, middle-of-nowhere airport hotel located approximately 30 miles away from D.C. proper.

This little excerpt does not do the whole article justice but do head over there if you have been worried about the PUMA’s like I have been.  Now that I am less worried about Senator Obama’s problems with a minority of the Democratic Base, what about Senator McCain, how is he going to convince conservatives that he is really conservative? Yesterday I wrote about the USA Today game in which you could match your opinions with the respective candidates however the key thing to note is that Senator Obama and Senator McCain have similar policies on 3 issues.

1. Same-Sex Marriage
2. Global Warming
3. Immigration

It could be argued that Senator McCain effectively leans progressive on the issues of Global Warming and Immigration upsetting a lot of conservatives. I am not going to make that argument given the time constraints tonight but it can be said without hesitation that these stances reflect the big pool of independents in the general election. If Senator McCain can win these independents decisively then he just might take the election though the likelihood of that happening is slim at best. Rachel Maddow has the politicians take on ditching McCain:

You + Issues = Candidate

USA Today have an interesting game on their website allowing you to match your opinions on various issues with those of the two presumptive nominees. It is version 2 of the game though I don’t remember seeing anything about version 1 however the issues it analyzes are: Iraq, Diplomacy, Gas Tax, Taxes, Social Security, Healthcare, Abortion, Judges, Same Sex Marriage, Global Warming and immigration. You are allowed to weigh the different issues and rate these issues on a 5 point scale. During my game, I kept all the weights equal even though personally I think certain issues would mean more to me than others but at the end of the day this is how I scored:

1. For 8/12 issues I side with Senator Obama (No surprise there!)
2. For 1/12 issues I was directly in the middle of the political divide. (Social Security)
3. For 3/12 issues I agreed with both candidates who have similar positions on Same-Sex Marriage, Immigration and Global Warming according to USA Today.

What About Globalization?

So my cousin left just a few hours ago and I am back working on this blog, it has been raining for the majority of the last three days with flood warnings in some areas. Thankfully I am lucky enough not to live in these areas otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this entry at this very moment. I have had so many articles in the pipeline of late that it is hard to keep everything in chronological order however I would be remiss to forget to talk about The Century Foundation:

The Century Foundation, founded in 1919 by the progressive businessman Edward A. Filene, is a nonprofit public policy research institution committed to the belief that a mix of effective government, open democracy, and free markets is the most effective solution to the major challenges facing the United States.

A few months ago I became aware of progressive institutes like the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institute whose policy papers I have referenced in this blog. I became aware of the TCF through their public affairs office and upon inspection of some of the work, I realized that they would be a valuable resource for future blogging. The TCF recently ran a conference entitled: “Billionaires and their Impact” in which various personalities discussed issues surrounding the super rich in America. One such personality is Jeffrey Frieden a Professor at Harvard University whose recent video ties in to both candidates and their policies on globalization:

The audio is not crystal clear so you might have to listen to the video twice but the professor makes some poignant statements. The most interesting statement is his suggestion that governments should compensate people who lose out due to globalization. The problem with this compensation is that it cannot be done through taxation when the wealthier population can just move their money to other countries. I would argue that this movement can be curtailed with the appropriate legislation if not closures of a few tax loopholes. Conservatives might not like this but Professor Frieden states that there is a 1:1 correlation between globalization and the increasing income disparity in America therefore can anyone think of any other solution?

Professor Frieden’s opinions clash with those of Senator Obama who tends to be more protectionist with regards to U.S trade policy which many critics feel would negatively impact the U.S economy. Senator McCain on the other hand openly supports free trade such as the FTA with South Korea and Columbia which the McCain camp argues will benefit the U.S economy. Both sides make good points however what approach will benefit the U.S economy while minimizing losses to the people?

I Won’t Buy These Obama Books

I received an email from MoveOn this week about the two factually lacking books attacking Senator Obama. The first book is written by Jerome Corsi entitled: “The Obama Nation.” The second book is written by David Freddoso entitled: “The Case Against Barack Obama.” Both these books have been scoured by the non-profit Media Matters and here is what they found:

Sampling from The Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi-co-author of Unfit for Command:

1. Troops in Afghanistan: To paint Obama as weak on security, Corsi claims Obama supports “de-escalating” troops from Afghanistan. In fact, while Obama does support ending the war in Iraq, he has been calling for an increase of U.S. troops in Afghanistan since at least 2006.3 This is a policy John McCain long opposed before recently agreeing with Obama.
2. Killing newborn babies: Discussing his book on FOX, Corsi claimed, “Even if a child was born, [Obama] said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.” He repeated this claim on numerous Sean Hannity shows. This claim is blatantly ridiculous. No politician, Obama included, holds that position. Corsi was referring to a fabricated claim that choice opponents made about a piece of legislation in the Illinois Senate.
3. Obama’s sister: Corsi casts doubt on Obama’s description of his past by saying Obama’s autobiography “devotes the entire second chapter…to his time in Indonesia, but remarkably, he makes no reference to [his sister] Maya’s birth.” In fact, in the chapter discussing his time in Indonesia, Obama specifically writes about “the birth of my sister, Maya.”
4.  Obama’s campaign blogger: Corsi writes of Obama campaign blogger, “After leaving Harvard, [he] published an article in an avowedly socialist magazine.” In fact, the article was published in well-respected progressive magazine The Nation. It was later reprinted by the Socialist Viewpoint-and CBSNews.com! The link Corsi uses as a citation clearly says that the article was reprinted from another publication.

Sampling from The Case Against Barack Obama, by David Freddoso:

1. Fighting terrorists in Pakistan: To diminish Obama’s stance against terrorism, Freddoso claims that it was only a “slip of the tongue” when Obama said in a major foreign policy speech that America must be able to go after Osama bin Laden, even if Pakistan wouldn’t. In fact, Obama’s prepared remarks and the excerpts that Obama’s campaign emailed to reporters prior to the actual speech included this line: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”
2. Meeting with foreign leaders: Freddoso claims that Sen. Joe Biden, who is highly respected on foreign policy, was “against Obama” when it came to meeting with foreign leaders. In fact, in the ABC interview cited by Freddoso, Biden was agreeing with Obama’s position.
3. Ethics reform: Freddoso cites a book by a Chicago journalist to characterize ethics legislation Obama passed in Illinois as “relatively harmless” and to claim the bill merely made Obama “look like a reformer.” In fact, the Chicago journalist said pushing the bill “was a tough assignment for a new lawmaker, since he was essentially sponsoring legislation that would strip away long-held privileges and perks from his colleagues” and that the bill “essentially lifted Illinois, a state with a deep history of illicit, pay-to-play politics, into the modern world when it came to ethics restrictions.”

The interesting fact I found out about the recent publication of the Obama Nation is that it is currently number 1 on the New York Times best sellers list. The problem I have is that why haven’t anti-McCain books made it on this list, like Cliff Schecter’s: “The Real McCain” or Brock and Waldman’s: “Free Ride: John McCain and The Media.” I figure there are four possible reasons; the first being that these books were not well written enough to be popular, the second being that no one wants to buy books about John McCain because he is that unpopular, the third being that Senator Obama’s popularity is a double-edged sword where people take in both the bad and the good and the last reason being the Media’s obsession with keeping the McCain “maverick” image intact. You decide…

On Obama and Polls

Crian hits on some good point in his piece concerning the media’s continued concern with Obama’s “poor poll numbers” (odd how the fact that McCain hasn’t led once among RVs all summer doesn’t reflect poorly on him). Crian notes that given Obama’s quick rise to prominence, people are more likely to view him as an unknown quantity whereas McCain’s been in the public spotlight ever since he began his bid in 1999. This is a fair point, but I also think it’s important to note that Obama is, in fact, leading, and he has been all summer long. Obama’s five point lead has been almost unbelievably consistent. The most recent Gallup poll has Obama at a — you guessed it — five point advantage over John McCain (47-42).

Another oft-overlooked fact is that Obama has reached fifty percent support in the Gallup polls several times this summer. McCain has yet to break 44 percent support among registered voters. The best the McCain camp can do is point to some brief leads their candidate has enjoyed among likely voters, but historically, this far from the election polls of registered voters are likely to be more accurate than those of likely voters (the reverse is true in the closing weeks of a campaign). This comes directly from the editor of Gallup himself, Frank Newport:

The July 25-27 USA Today/Gallup poll shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by a 47% to 44% margin among all registered voters but McCain leading Obama among likely voters by a 49% to 45% margin. This difference between registered and likely voters indicates that now McCain voters are disproportionately represented among the estimate of those most likely to vote if the election were held today.

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So, as a rule of thumb, registered voters are the relevant group to trend to establish basic patterns of change in voter support for presidential candidates. Likely voter modeling at this point is an additional analytic tool.

Even the conservative magazine National Journal views the likely voter models as suspicious, especially in light of how far off they are from the registered voter models:

Emory University political science professor Alan Abramowitz is undeterred. “A 7 point difference in [the vote preference] margin between actual voters and all registered voters,” he wrote me, “would be much larger than that found in American National Election Studies surveys in any of the 14 presidential elections between 1952 and 2004 — the largest gap in pre-election margin was 3 points way back in 1952, and the average gap was only one point.”

I think he has a point. Gallup’s data tells us that Obama’s narrow lead among registered voters depends on those who tend to score lower on measures that typically correlate with turnout. So, not surprisingly, the Obama campaign is investing heavily in efforts to register and turn out new voters.

What is less clear is whether news accounts ought to be emphasizing such snapshots in July when the mechanism for those estimates is so inherently hypothetical and potentially shaky.

But even giving McCain the benefit of the doubt here, among likely voters, McCain has lead only twice, once by four points, and once by a single point, and the poll which put McCain at a four point lead significantly underrepresented the youth vote even by 2004 standards despite the fact that the youth vote is likely to increase this year. Obama has carried every other likely voter or registered voter poll since the middle of May. Moreover, Obama leads McCain in total number of field offices by nearly 3 to 1. Effective voter outreach combined with a solid GOTV plan can add an extra two points to a candidate’s numbers on election day. The extended primary helped Obama in this sense, forcing him to organize and invest in states very early in the year, and putting him at a significant advantage over McCain.

To put it more bluntly, Obama is leading. He has the better ground operation, and it’s probable that the likely voter polls are filtering out many of Obama’s supporters (the youth vote), while over-representing likely McCain voters (the elderly). And yet, Obama is still leading. The fact that the race is narrow may actually benefit Obama by keeping his core supporters fired up, and guarding against an inevitably meme that could hurt the Senator in the long run.