I want to comment on some of the polls that have been released of late and what they indicate about the race right now.

The polls in the Southern states indicate that John McCain is pulling away.  For example, Rasmussen has McCain now leading by nearly 20 point in Alabama.  While some polls in North Carolina and Virginia indicate the race continues to be closer in both states, McCain will pull away in both states as state polling catches up with national polling.  In two battleground states from the past two elections, Florida and Missouri, SurveyUSA has numbers up tonight showing McCain up 6 in the former and 5 in the later.  These numbers are similar to George W. Bush’s performance in 2000 and 2004.  Indeed, McCain has been polling better in Florida than Bush ever did, at this stage of the race.  In short, John McCain should feel comfortable about his performance in the South and in the peripheral battleground states of Missouri and Florida.

In the other part of the L that elected George W. Bush twice, namely the Plains and the Mountain West, the race continues to be close in several states, especially Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana.  (I do not include North Dakota for the simple reason that, despite media fantasies aside, it has voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1940 with one exception.  Indeed, it has voted Republican in every election since 1916, with the exceptions of 1932 and 1936)

Interestingly, Rasmussen has a poll just released showing McCain pulling away in his homestate of Arizona to 21 points (with leaners).  Given that the incumbent won the state by roughly half that in 2004, I have to believe that McCain will have some pull in the region, especially in Nevada.  That said, these states account for 22 electoral votes.  I view them as more troublesome in November than any Southern state, including Virginia. 

I now move to the Northeast and to the Midwest.  The first poll is a poll in Connecticut that has Obama leading McCain 51% to 36%.  In 4 polls conducted in a state Obama won in the Democratic primaries, he has never exceeded 52%.  The second is the poll from Massachusetts today indicating a single digit race and the poll in New York yesterday showing a dramatically tightening race.  While Obama continues to be running decently in the Midwest (more on this in a second), he seems to be hovering around 50% in reliably Democratic states in the Northeast. 

The polls in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa have been all over the place, with some showing Obama probably beyond reach and others showing a deadheat.  Michigan and Ohio continue to be close, with McCain holding an edge in the later.  Indiana is also very close, but in the end, it should go Republican as well.  (The Hoosier State, since native son Benjamin Harrison lost the state in 1892, has voted Republican in all but 4 Presidential elections, one of them with native son Thomas Marshall as the Democratic Vice President in 1912 (Wilson lost it in 1916 to Charles Evans Hughes, whose running mate Charles Fairbanks was from Indiana) and the other 3 being the Democratic landslides of 1932, 1936, and 1964.)

In short, the situation for the GOP has not been this bright since 2004.  For the first time, we have a reasonable shot at amassing the electoral votes needed to win the election. 

This article is reprinted with permission from Sunlit Uplands. Im pretty sure I know Metro’s response already.-BP

From what I have observed, John McCain only consults conservative voices in the Republican Party to ensure he is working against their interests. It may be the result of the drugs and brain washing that Soviet doctors applied during his imprisonment in Vietnam. Nevertheless, some conservative leaders are making one last attempt to salvage the 2008 presidential election. The following was reported by Right Wing Watch, published by People for the American Way.

A few weeks ago, we wrote several posts about the meeting in Colorado where a large group of right-wing leaders finally decided to support John McCain. At the time, all we had were second-hand accounts that those in attendance had decided that Barack Obama would “decimate [the] moral values” they hold dear and, as such, collectively decided to support McCain as the lesser of two evils.

Glossed over in the press coverage was the fact that their support for McCain seemed to rest heavily on his choice of candidate for Vice President, with those in attendance making their preference known that they really want him to pick Mike Huckabee:

Those in attendance also reached a consensus that they would send a letter to McCain, R-Ariz., encouraging him to consider former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as his choice for vice president.

“It’s not a demand; it’s a request,” said [Mat] Staver, who couldn’t say when McCain would be contacted about Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor who resonated with some evangelical voters during the Republican primaries.

Until now, the content and signatories of that letter remained unknown. But recently Clark Vandeventer, founder and CEO of World Changers, Inc, who reportedly attended the meeting and signed the letter, posted it on a blog called Veritas Rex and it seems clear that they were not so much “requesting” that McCain pick Huckabee as his Vice President as outright warning him that doing so is “necessary for [his] success”:

-Daniel J. Cassidy

Well, a little taste, at least.

Whether today’s VP buzz over Mitt Romney comes true or proves just to be a bit of smoke and mirrors is not the issue. The willingness of the McCain campaign to pass along “valuable information” to the media and the blogosphere, in the process encouraging speculation, is a promising sign.

John McCain knew this week would be rough; the drooling media was bound to make Obama’s trip aboard a wildly celebrated tour. McCain’s face has vanished behind graphics and videos of Obama playing basketball with troops in Kuwait, greeting state leaders, and reviewing battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, despite the love affair, it seems that McCain and his surrogates have succeeded in capturing a small foothold with this recent running-mate frenzy.  

And while it is all just talk, that is exactly why is important. Let us make no mistake: Barack Obama, no matter how liberal his views or how lacking his record, is a calculating and shrewd politician. He has demonstrated this fact repeatedly in his short time on the national stage. From his campaign’s decision to focus on the smaller, organization-friendly caucus states to accumulate delegates to the recent silence over his, eventually strong, June fundraising numbers, the Obama brand continues to run on timing and symbolism. You have got to hand it to a man that wants to make his acceptance speech in a football stadium instead of an arena.

In that light, John McCain must do everything in his power to shift the narrative.

John, you must ignore those who insist that this election is about your opponent alone. You are virtually tied in the latest Rasmussen poll. for heaven’s sake. Polls out of Michigan and Pennsylvania show promising signs despite increased Democratic registration and enthusiasm. Now is the time to set the tone and establish a clear message for the fall campaign. You can prove to the American people that their best bet for increased energy security, government accountability, and an honorable exit from the Middle East is through an McCain Administration. Something tells me that the electorate is not quite ready to hand the keys to a recent State Senator whose only true ideal is to get himself elected.

Your move, Senator. Make your own headlines rather than rely on Obama’s move to respond. As others have suggested in the past, I would go on as planned with the televised town-hall meetings. Add an empty chair on stage to remind the public of Obama’s reluctance and his ongoing refusal to campaign without the comfort of a teleprompter.

Announce major cabinet appointments during the campaign to enhance your reputation as the experienced statesman ready to lead the nation. Sec. of Energy Sarah Palin anyone? (Only if she cannot secure the Veep slot…) How about Eric Cantor for Homeland Security and Paul Ryan for OMB?

Heck, you might as well give a major speech on the floor of the Senate, one that bemoans the single-digit approval ratings of Congress and reminds the American people that you are the only thing that stands in the way of Barry & Co. leading both the Executive and Legislative branches.

Create some buzz, Senator, and I am confident you will pull this one out. You have spent your entire life serving your nation’s interests as a leader with both principle and courage. Now is not the time to cede these qualities by taking Obama’s bait and following him as if on a leash. 

Give us change we can trust, not change we think we may be able to possibly believe in.

If you mention the name “Mitt Romney” in a post, you generate a lot of comments. Most of those comments could have been copied and pasted with minor changes from posts written months ago. Why does a conversion about Mitt Romney generate so much heat and so little light?

We’re not covering new ground on the Mitt Romney front. The arguments for him and against him have been rehearsed for months. We all know what the arguments are.

Still a post about Romney generates 200-300 comments in a few hours. There’s some deep emotion there.

I think a lot of Romney supporters feel robbed. They defend Romney so emotionally because he (and by extension they) were wronged by the primary voters. When you come so close and lose that’s not an unusual reaction. As a former supporter of Mike Huckabee I had an easier time letting go.

The opponents of Romney seem motivated by different things. Many of them resent Romney’s flip on social issues. Some social liberals see it as a selfish betrayal and some social conservatives see it as insincere pandering. The back and forth during the primary also turned off some supporters of other candidates. On a deeper level a lot of people seem turned off by Romney the man. He could be championing everything they believe in… and they’d still hate him. For a few there are religious undertones to the hatred.

I think it’s a sign of the fractures in the Republican Party that so many still feel deep personal loyalty to Romney and that so many others feel antipathy towards the man.

I’m lukewarm about Mitt Romney. I’d like to see some more polling to gauge whether he really helps or hurts in battleground states.

Make no mistake about it, evangelicals are still very important to the GOP electorate. In 2004, 34% of the Bush vote came from self-proclaimed evangelicals (of which I identify).  69% of evangelicals in general voted for Bush. I’m not sure what the other 31% were thinking, but you can be sure that they do not listen to Dobson. (just kidding).

This year, (so far) McCain is attracting 61% of that same demographic. That is a catastrophic loss of support. It is still a great majority, but with this election being so close, and with evangelicals being courted left and right by Obama (The Joshua Generation, anyone?), you can be sure that the left sees this as available swing voters. (The Joshua Generation has been scrapped because of a naming conflict with a legitimate Christian organization, but you can be sure the the concept lives on)

In a recent interview with Beliefnet.com, Mark DeMoss of Spirited Public Relations believes that Obama could get some 40 percent of the Evangelical vote in November.

There’s a reaction among some evangelicals to swing out to the left in an effort to prove that evangelicals are really not that right wing,” DeMoss said. “There’s some concern that maybe Republicans haven’t done that well. And there’s this fascination with Barack Obama. So I will not be surprised if he gets one third of the evangelical vote.

I strongly disagree, and feel that when people evaluate the issues, they will follow solidly with the party that has been the torch bearer for Christian ideology, but too may people do not look at issues, they follow emotion. If that is the case, then the RockStar will siphon some badly needed electorate away from McCain.

We need to be promoting the “truthing” materials about BHO to our friends and families. Our grassroots (and netroots, but not to the same extent) need to be well fertilized. We need to get the word out to the other undecideds about how the Big “O” is just another Big Chicag”O” democrat.

Partly based on data from the Pew Forum:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a smaller lead among white evangelical Protestants than Republican George W. Bush had at a similar point in the 2004 campaign, even though Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has made few inroads into this key constituency. Those who are unaffiliated with a particular religion, on the other hand, are just as supportive of the Democratic candidate as they were at this point in the 2004 campaign and are substantially more supportive of Obama than they were of Democratic candidate Al Gore in June 2000. 

“White evangelicals are more undecided today than they were at this point in the previous two presidential elections. More than one-in-ten (12%) white evangelicals say they do not know who they would vote for if the election was held today.”

“And as was the case in 2004, people who seldom or never attend worship services are more supportive of the Democratic candidate, as compared with those who attend services at least once a week. In June 2004, 52% of those who attend church seldom or never expressed support for Kerry, compared with 41% for Bush. This year, Obama enjoys an even larger lead of 21 points over McCain among this group (55% to 34%).”

This bloc of “Non-attending” Christians is growing at much larger rate than that of those who attend church at least once or more a week. This is a problem on multiple levels.

h/t: Adam Graham

You can follow more on the Evangelical Outreach at The F3 Coalition Blog

Part I can be found here.

Landslides as re-alignments

The easiest alignment theory to dispense with is the idea that we will know it has happened by its size. The gist of the theory as proposed by Bowers is that a 400+ electoral landslide would be a re-aligning election.

Of course, this would be noteworthy, given that the Democrats have only won more than 51% of the popular vote once since FDR passed from the scene. But this is almost an historical accident as much as anything: Clinton likely would have done this in 1992 but for Perot (who actually pulled slightly more from Clinton than Bush, according to exit polling) and certainly would have done so in 1996 when he *almost* won 400 electoral votes, and picked up states like Arizona that had not gone Democratic since 1948. But this victory was passing, not re-aligning.

In fact, history is replete with electoral landslides that no one seriously considers a re-alignment, and many of the elections that are thought to be re-alignments were actually quite close. Consider the chart below, which shows the percent of electoral votes won in Presidential elections where one party or the other won 75% or more of the electoral vote (which is the equivalent of the 400 electoral vote threshold set by Bowers):

As you can see, there have been several massive wins for one side or the other that no one seriously considers re-alignments: Ike’s two victories stand out in particular, though at the time one could have pointed to the GOP taking the House in 1946, making big gains in 1950, and then winning outright in 1952 as signs of a realignment that would never come to pass. The Whig’s big win in 1840 over Martin Van Buren did not portend a generation of Whig hegemony, nor did Millard Fillmore’s 1852 landslide foreshadow great things for the Democrats. There are also Nixon’s 1972 win and LBJ’s 1964 win, which were not re-alignments.

Indeed, landslide victories are often followed by the collapse of the winning party; such was the case for the Democrats in 1966, the Republicans in 1974, the Republicans in 1958, and the Republicans in the House in 1982 and in the Senate in 1986. And narrowing the threshold for a landslide to 65% of the electoral vote adds little clarity, as years like 1992 and 1996 find their way onto the list.

On the other hand, several of the supposed re-aligning elections have been quite close. Not listed on the table are the 1800, 1828, and 1860 elections (of those, only 1828 involved the victor receiving even 65% of the electoral vote). 1876, which Mayhew posits as the “critical” election, was one of the closest in history, and is absent. 1896 misses the list (though the Republican victories in the 1894 midterm still represent the largest pickup in U.S. history), while 1932 was clearly a landslide, but 1968 was extremely close.

Nor is the fact that Democrats won control of the Congress in the mid-terms of any great import. Consider that in 1890, Democrats took advantage of the inept Presidency of Benjamin Harrison to take a massive 238-86 advantage in the House of Representatives (about 75% of the seats). In 1892, Republicans bounced back somewhat, picking up 38 seats, largely as a result of reapportionment, but Grover Cleveland stormed back and won a resounding 62% of the electoral college. But this did not translate to a re-alignment; in 1894 Republicans picked up the most seats in US History (+130 seats), and in 1896 they maintained a large majority while electing William McKinley, and setting in motion a pro-Republican re-alignment (arguably).

In other words, sometimes landslide wins are considered re-alignments, and sometimes they are not. It is not consistent enough for us to read anything about this election based upon the size of Obama’s (or McCain’s) victory. Sometimes narrow elections are not re-alignments, and sometimes they are. When it comes to re-alignments, size doesn’t really matter.

The NYT has decided to reject Sen. McCain’s OP-Ed:

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES — less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper’s decision to refuse McCain’s direct rebuttal to Obama’s ‘My Plan for Iraq‘ has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

‘It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece,’ NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain’s staff. ‘I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.’

Update from Drudge (13:09 CST):

In McCain’s submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: ‘I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it… if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.’

NYT’s Shipley advised McCain to try again: ‘I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft.’

[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]

A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator’s Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not “re-work the draft.”

McCain writes in the rejected essay: ‘Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. ‘I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,’ he said on January 10, 2007. ‘In fact, I think it will do the reverse.’

Shipley, who is on vacation this week, explained his decision not to run the editorial.

‘The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.’

Shipley continues: ‘It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.’

Here is the full text of Sen McCain’s New York Times Draft that was recently rejected by the paper for your reading pleasure:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

h/t: Drudge

This series of posts seeks to address the question of whether 2008 will be a re-aligning year. I had initially intended this to be a single post, but it was way, way too long. So I’m breaking it up into five smaller posts, to be published daily this week. At the end, I’ll re-publish it as a single post.

We begin our exercise with four maps.

Obviously these are maps of South Carolina, and they represent four different elections. Take a look at them closely, and decide for yourself what the similarities are, if any. We’ll return to them in a bit.

Ever since I saw the first map and the last two maps earlier this year, the idea for this post has been percolating in my mind. They’re part of the reason that I don’t think the 2008 election will be a re-aligning election. Rather I think that 2008 will represent the continued aftershocks of the basic alignment we began entering in 1932, and which solidified in 1938. We will return to this shortly.

Theories of re-alignments

Much commentary has focused on the idea of the 2008 election as a re-aligning election. Yet there seems to be no consensus on what a re-alignment is, or how it can be pulled off. In this post, I’ll explore four different theories that have been put forth as to why 2008 will be a re-aligning election and why I believe that each is incorrect.

(1) The simplest theory of a re-aligning election is the landslide election. Chris Bowers at OpenLeft seems to imply that the landslide win in Congress, followed by a landslide win at the White House, would be a re-alignment:

If Democrats were to gain only five more points on this map, an entirely doable proposition given the overwhelming Democratic advantage among fundraising and volunteers, and this is a realignment map. At that point, Democrats would win over 400 electoral votes, something we have not accomplished since 1964.

(2) Other theories emphasize that inorganic nature of re-alignment, as if it is something made by particular powerful Presidents. Chris Bowers urges a Clinton-Obama ticket because it is the only way to “achieve a realignment.” (emphasis mine). Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama echoed Bowers’ theory on realignment, as something that is made by a sufficiently persuasive President, when he discussed Reagan’s transformation of the nation’s politics. Likewise, Paul Krugman is just one of many who refer to Reagan’s transformation of the nation from a liberal country to a conservative country.

(3) Michael Barone does not use the term re-alignment, and perhaps doesn’t believe that 2008 will be re-aligning. He nevertheless envisions a potential “redrawing of the map” in 2008 (and has had such visions repeatedly).

(4) John Judis and Ruy Teixeira take a somewhat different view of things. They argue that we’re in the midst of a more long-term realignment, where the center shifts to the Left. As they argue: “The 2006 election represented a shift in American politics, away from the right and toward the center-left, on a range of issues that go well beyond the Iraq war, corruption, and competence.” In Judis and Teixeira’s view, we are in the midst of a realignment such as the Republican realignment of the 80s and 90s, and perhaps even the Democratic realignment of the 30s.

Problems with re-alignment theory

I am less certain. Part of my disagreement flows from the disagreement above: whether you think an election is a re-aligning election depends largely on what your definition of a re-alignment is. Even political scientists don’t agree on the definition. Some, such as Poole and Rosenthal (on whose NOMINATE program I based my Master’s Thesis – you really should check out their page here), argue that there has only been one re-alignment, culminating in the 1890s. Others, espousing the more “classical” view if you will, see roughly a 30-to-50-year cycle to realignments, with re-alignments having occurred in 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932. Under this theory, assuming that there was a re-aligning election in 1968 or 1980, we are due (or even past due) for a new alignment.

But there are many problems with even this view. The early alignments are not re-alignments as they are understood today. They represent not so much re-alignments of the citizenry as they do from the serial extinctions of non-Democratic-Republican/Democratic parties, until the Republicans (or Unionists as they were often known at the time) finally set up a permanent competing party.

1896 certainly wasn’t a re-alignment in the sense that 1932 was; after all, the Republicans went from winning the Presidency in 7 of 9 elections from 1860-1896 to winning the Presidency in 7 of 9 elections from 1896 to 1928. The difference was that Republicans only narrowly won most of the first set of elections and rarely held Congress in that time period, while they routinely won large majorities in the latter elections and almost always held Congress. Still, that is quite a different matter altogether than the 1932 election, where Congress switched more-or-less permanently to the Democrats, who also proceeded to win five elections in a row (though one could argue that the “real” New Deal re-aligning election occurred in 1958). Indeed, some take the opposite view from Poole and Rosenthal, and consider the 1896 election not to be a realigning election at all. Some, such as my old professor David Mayhew, have argued that 1876 was actually the re-aligning election.

And when exactly did the last realigning election occur? Or did it ever? Was it 1968, when Republicans began their stretch of winning seven of ten elections, and but for some fairly out-of-left-field events (Watergate, Perot) might have won all ten (yes, I know that some exit polls showed Perot in 1992 drawing disproportionately from Bush, but that is a subject for another post)? 1980, when Reagan showed a true-blue conservative could win? 1984, when he won his landslide? 1994? Or are we still in the New Deal alignment? A case can be made for all of those propositions.

And what of the role of luck (and I don’t necessarily mean good or wished for luck, just things entirely outside of a party’s control) and poor candidate decisions plays? Had Hitler waited a year and a few months to invade Poland, Roosevelt may well not have been re-elected in 1940. If Huey Long’s doctors hadn’t butchered his treatment, Roosevelt might not have lasted that long (Long’s strategy was to run a third-party candidate in 1936 to split the left-liberal vote and get a Republican elected, then run himself in 1940), and then we might now talk about how things swiftly reverted back to the alignment of the 1896-1928. Had the economy not showed weakness in 1948, Truman might not have been re-elected, and the Jeffersonians might have re-asserted themselves in the Democratic party. Had the recession of 1981-1982 lasted a few months longer, we’d be talking about the swift end of Reagan’s accidental Presidency (as many Democrats expected would be the case after the 1982 midterms). Had Al Gore spent a little more time campaigning in New Hampshire in 2000 . . . well, you get the idea.

At any rate, enough theory for now. Let’s examine the various theories of re-alignment in turn.

(tomorrow: The Landslide Theory of Realignments)

Read Michael Barone. Like right now.

This edition of the electoral map has Obama beating McCain 320-218, which is better than the 344-194 beating McCain was taking two weeks ago. (Montana and Florida traded hands in that time.)

Here’s a graphic history of the Electoral Vote count, mostly every 15 days since the beginning of April:

Other sites’ current predictions based on their calculation of current polls:

• Intrade: Obama 65 - McCain 30
• The Hedgehog Report (R): Obama 358-McCain 180
• 270towin (D): Avg. of Obama 305 - McCain 236; Obama with 95% of winning with current polls
• The Blogging Caesar at Election Projection (R): Obama 306 - McCain 232
• Electoral-vote.com (D): Obama 320 - McCain 204
• RealClearPolitics (R): Obama 304 - McCain 234

Comment away.

By Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report
____________________________________________________________________________________

Cockstradamus, who predicted the accelerated pull-out, now crows: Victory in Iraq will help McCain and the GOP

Imagine that? Winning a war is a political plus to those that won it!

Victory in Iraq is ours (see July 13 below), and, as predicted by Cockstradamus weeks ago, the victory will be declared before the November election.

Rooster crowing from from June 22

Accelerated troop level reductions will be announced based on success.  For many moons now, this announcer of dawns has been nagged by an idea that dawned on me after Iraq’s security forces started winning battles on their own against Sunni-backed al Qaeda, Shia militias and even Iranian backed militias. We may be able to declare victory in Iraq very soon and announce accelerated withdrawals of victorious troops whose services are no longer required due to their success. I have always maintained that, while I want to maintain a major presence in Iraq, much like we did in Europe and the Pacific after WWII and Korea, it is vitally important that at some point there be an acknowledgement that we have won the Battle of Iraq and that any withdrawals be due to and seen as a result of our victory over the al Qaeda, radical terrorists, and Iran. In discussions with people that didn’t favor the war but who now want the USA to win, I found myself thinking to myself that my mantra of opposing troop reductions could and should soon yield to the most important mantra: victory.

News report from July 13

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago. Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007… Even as the two candidates argue over the wisdom of the war and keeping American troops there, security in Iraq has improved vastly, as has the confidence of Iraq’s government and military and police, raising the prospect of additional reductions that were barely conceivable a year ago. While officials caution that the relative calm is fragile, violence and attacks on American-led forces have dropped to the lowest levels since early 2004. “As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in Fort Lewis, Washington State, on Tuesday. “And I think that this transition of control and of responsibility, primary responsibility for security is a process that’s already well under way and based on everything that I’m hearing will be able to continue.” General David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, has already begun the review of security and troop levels. He and Bush promised in April that such a review would take place. Petraeus is expected to be more cautious than some policy makers in the administration and at the Pentagon might like. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were discussing military planning, said he was more likely to recommend a smaller reduction, but still a withdrawal. One senior administration official cautioned that the president, who will have the final say, would be reluctant to endorse deep or rapid reductions if they jeopardized his goal of establishing a stable and democratic government in Baghdad.

When I wrote my June 22 forecast, questions were raised as to who, in the Presidential and congressional campaigns, would be helped. On June 22, I wrote:

the long list of accomplishments that lead inevitably to my pre-Election Day 2008 expectations: 1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias. 2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki’s direction confronted them and prevailed in every town — Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah — from Basra to Baghdad. 3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold. 4. Maliki flew to Mosul, directing a joint Iraqi-U.S. offensive against the last redoubt of al-Qaeda, which had already been driven out of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala provinces. 5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation. 6. Parliament also passed the other reconciliation benchmarks — a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget. 7. With Maliki having demonstrated that he would fight not just Sunni insurgents (e.g., in Mosul) but Shiite militias (e.g., the Mahdi Army), the Sunni parliamentary bloc began negotiations to join the Shiite-led government. (The final sticking point is a squabble over a sixth cabinet position.)

My June 22 article also cites a Frank Rich column that evidences fears on the left that America will be seen as having won the Iraq War before November, yet many conservative nervous nellies still ponder that victory could hurt John McCain.

Poppycock.

When I say that “we” have won the war, I mean the United States of America, but it is the left and most of the Democratic Party that has called this Bushlied’s War. They opposed funding when they were in the minority during the stay the course years that won the trust of the Iraqis as well as the surge McCain had long called for that tipped the balance.

Obama brags that he opposed the war while in Kindergarten, I mean the Iliinois State Legislature and has opposed troop funding. The words “win” or “success” in Iraq never cross his lips.

Take heart my friends, not only will America benefit from victory, but so will those that worked to acheive it, and that is Joe Lieberman, President Bush, John McCain and most all Republicans sans Chuck Hagel.

Cockstradamus has not yet determined whn Iran will be bombed or McCain’s margin of victory. Stay tuned.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns

Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice

Race 4 2008

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

The New York Times is reporting that President Bush is planning to step up the withdraw of troops from Iraq as conditions have improved. They are reporting between 1-3 combat brigades (of the 15 in Iraq) may be withdrawn or slated for withdraw before the end of Bush’s term.

The decision would likely be made in September.

How does that change the political argument over Iraq?

If Bush does reduce our troop presence in Iraq who does that help or hurt in the Presidential race?

You can argue over whether Phil Gramm is right in his assessment that we’re in a mental recession and that Americans are whiners. You can’t argue over the idiocy of saying something like that to a newspaper.

John McCain’s presidential campaign distanced itself Thursday from a comment by economic adviser Phil Gramm, who said the U.S. has become a “nation of whiners” suffering from a “mental recession.”

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. “We may have a recession; we haven’t had one yet.”

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline” despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

Mr. Gramm has hurt McCain here in an area where McCain is already weak. Quibbling over whether we’re in a recession or not, is irrelevant to voter’s economic problems. It makes McCain appear out of touch like George Bush in 1992 who also claimed the recession had ended (it had but voters didn’t want to hear that when they were still struggling).

As we know, Nevada will be one of the more hotly contested battleground states of this presidential election. This news, though, does not bode well for John McCain:

The Democrats now have a 55,560-voter lead over the Republicans in a state that was dead even a presidential cycle ago. But the numbers in NV-3 should be the most worrisome to the GOP, as Democrats now have a nearly 24,000-voter lead in a district that was even only two years ago. The slow-but-sure Democratic spread in that district means that Rep. Jon Porter will have to run a kitchen sink campaign against state Sen. Dina Titus to survive and will have to do so flawlessly, too.”

The current RCP average for Nevada shows a tie (43.3 to 43.3) between McCain and Obama.

Although many would argue that Nevada’s 5 electoral votes do not compare to those of Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, every state is key when the chances of a 269-269 finish are conceivable. Furthermore, Nevada will play an increasingly important role in the 2012 and 2016 elections, since their chances of adding additional electoral votes is likely. Take a look at these statistics:

According to the Census Bureau’s 2007 estimate, Nevada has an estimated population of 2,565,382 which is an increase of 92,909, or 3.5%, from the prior year and an increase of 516,550, or 20.8%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 81,661 people (that is 170,451 births minus 88,790 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 337,043 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 66,098 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 270,945 people. According to the 2006 census estimate, Nevada is the country’s second-fastest growing state.

The majority of the people moving to Nevada from within the United States settle in the booming metropolis of Las Vegas. Many make the move from the East Coast, carrying with them their Democratic identity. This population shift could loosen the GOP’s grip on the Mountain West and desert regions, as we witness similar trends in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.

I remain very worried about Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. I believe that McCain will hold Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Given the liberal left domination of the MSM, leftist democrats Mondale, Dukakis and Kerry led by much larger margins over Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 in past June-Sept leap years than Obama currently leads McCain in most of the between election polls this year.

But, the un-Dukakis-like “lead” has provoked desperate Obama via surrogates Clark and Webb (and others months earlier), Clinton-like projection writ large attacks against McCain’s heroic military deeds via MSM attempted “swift-boat” covers.

The Clinton war room tactic of attacking one’s opponent’s greatest strength that mirror’s their greatest weakness is axiomatic. But the problems here are legion:

1-Obama had no Sistah Soulja moment in the primaries;

2-Kerry didn’t respond because the Swiftboat vets’ attacks were factually true;

3-McCain turned down freedom and stayed in the commie pow torture Hanoi Hilton for many years;

4-Let #3 sink in;

5-Unlike Kerry, McCain didn’t come back to America and toss medals over a fence or equate US armed forces with Khan’s Genghis; and

6-McCain’s recently read lips favor tax cuts.

Vietnam vet, junior Old Dominion Senator James Webb recently broke protocal as Obama’s limp-wristed security resume wafts:

WEBB: John McCain’s been a longtime friend. If that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it’s that. Don’t be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them, because they don’t, any more than when the Democrats had political issues during the Vietnam War. Let’s get politics out of the military, take care of the military people, and have our political arguments in other areas.

RUSH: Get politics out of the military? John McCain needs to calm down? This from a rookie Senator Jim Webb. Needs to calm down, don’t be standing up and offering your political views and implying that all people in the military support them. This is again more smoke and mirrors. None of this McCain is done. But Webb gets up and says it, the Drive-Bys report what he says, and that becomes the official record of what McCain says, i.e., what Webb says that McCain is doing. Who infused politics into this? Who infused the military into politics? It was Clark who claims, by the way — grab audio sound bite number four. Here’s Wesley Clark last night on MSNBC, asked for his response to being criticized for his remarks.

CLARK: I wasn’t representing the Obama campaign in anything I said yesterday about John McCain. I want to assure you, I would never, never diss someone’s service. When people choose to serve in uniform, I honor it. I came home from Vietnam on a stretcher. I was shot, I took a burst of AK, I got four rounds, so I think I know a little bit about what it’s like to honor men and women who serve in uniform. And I do, and I would never dismiss somebody.

RUSH: Twilight Zone time. This is after he did diss somebody. This is after he did diss somebody specifically on the basis of their military service. Claire McCaskill on MSNBC Live today, the infobabe asked her, “General Clark is not backing down from those comments that were critical of Senator McCain. What’s the campaign’s response to hearing that he’s not stepping away from those comments?”

MCCASKILL: Senator Obama has been very clear. It is inappropriate in any campaign ever to devalue anyone’s service to our country. That’s what they did to John Kerry four years ago. He will not be a part of it. This campaign will not be a part of it. I think he respects the service of General Wesley Clark. I think Senator Obama understands that General Clark is speaking from his own perspective. But for this campaign, for the Obama campaign, it is never about devaluing someone’s service to our country. Patriotism is about serving your country and your community, and that’s what Senator Obama wants this discussion to be about.

RUSH: What does this remind you of? Here we have two Obama supporters, Claire McCaskill from Missouri, a senator, and Jim Webb, both recasting reality. Obama, (paraphrasing) “Our campaign never said anything, why, we would never do this. We’re not going to put up with this. We would never, ever do it.” Webb said, “McCain’s gotta calm down.” I wish McCain would act in a way just one day that somebody could legitimately say “calm down” and have it mean something. The Official Obama Criticizer nailed this in his critique in the first hour of this program. Barack Obama and his campaign, he is the first black Clinton. He will not be the first black president because that’s Clinton’s. But he is the first black Clinton. That is exactly what’s happening here. Living in an alternative reality, and knowing full well that the Drive-Bys are going to cover for you and make reality whatever it is you say in response to things. So Clark gets a total pass. Obama gets a total pass. Obama gets treated as though he has rebuked what Clark has said, when he hasn’t, and then Webb goes out and says that McCain’s the one that needs to calm down. Meanwhile, the only official response from some elected Republican has been Bob Dole’s.

An astute conservative democrat in Alabama advised gamecock that Obama spoke to Bill Clinton this week, just as flip-flop moves to the center multiplied and just before Webb came to Wes, Clinton-fired former NATO chief that was about to bomb Russians, Clark’s defense for off the high-dive denigrations of McCain’s heroic service in Vietnam.

And why did Obama feel the need to declare his patriotic love for America in a post-WrighthateAmericaSermon-like context?

Why?

Because Obama’s stance in the polls at this juncture is worse than any Dem since…

Worse than any Dem.

June 1988 Plus Seventeen Dukakis, won ten states, went on to teach at Harvard.

Jim Webb will be the underside of the Obama ticket. Why else would he be embarrassing himself in public this way?

McCain will carry Virginia.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
www.race42008.com
Legal Editor for The HinzSight/Minority Reports @ www.theminorityreportblog.com
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” - The Chief Justice and “One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

This post is a reaction to Dave’s suggestion for McCain to attack Obama as out of the mainstream. Dave thinks that non-ideological voters will respond to that sort of campaign.

He offers 7 questions McCain can ask Obama to set the debate.

1. Most Americans want the government to spend less. Does Barack Obama?
2. Most Americans want the government to spend less. Does Barack Obama?
3. Most Americans want abortion to be generally unavailable during the third trimester of pregnancy. Does Barack Obama?
4. Most Americans don’t want judges to be superlegislators. Does Barack Obama?
5. Most Americans don’t want taxes to go up. Does Barack Obama?
6. Most Americans want to drill for oil. Does Barack Obama?
7. Most Americans think individuals should be able to own guns. Does Barack Obama?
8. Most Americans want Osama bin Laden to be put to death. Does Barack Obama?

I disagree with Dave here. Now I agree McCain needs to focus on issues against Obama, however I don’t think this line of attack will work. Obama will parry on issues and adjust where necessary with the media’s assistance. The media will fight any effort to portray Obama as out of the mainstream.

I don’t think the underlying theme is a winner. It’s not incisive enough. I think non-ideological voters will just ignore or discount this sort of theme. They’ll think:

“Hey, Obama looks moderate, he sounds moderate, this is just campaign nonsense”

Perhaps I’m just skeptical of the political awareness of my fellow citizens. In my opinion Obama’s personal weaknesses should direct the theme.

1. Obama thinks he’s better than you. (contrast with McCain who humbly wants to serve America). A corollary of this is that Obama doesn’t relate to you. (contrast with McCain who understands your concerns)
2. Obama is inexperienced and has foolhardy plans. (contrast with McCain who has experience and prudent plans)

I’ve seen hints of this but McCain doesn’t seem ready to commit to it. The gas tax holiday was a good opportunity to subtly hit on the first theme. Obama’s comments in support of talking to Ahmadinejad need to be addressed using the second theme:

“Obama only thinks he can talk to Ahmadinejad because he has no experience facing off against dictators. As Hillary Clinton said, America needs a President who’s ready to serve on day one.”

What say you?

Here’s the latest from Matt’s Electoral Map Update… as usual, all the public polls over the past month have been averaged together to get the results shown on the map.

This map leads to a landslide victory for Obama, 344-194 over McCain.

Some other sites’ projections:

• 270towin.com - Obama 344, McCain 194; 98.2% chance of Obama victory in November
• fivethirtyeight.com - Obama 313.5, McCain 224.5
• electoral-vote.com - Obama 317, McCain 194, Tied 27
• RealClearPolitics - Obama 304, McCain 234
• The Hedgehog Report (davidwissing.com) - Obama 317, McCain 221
• Election Projection - Obama 338, McCain 200
• Intrade - 65.1% chance of Obama victory in November

Per Jonathan Martin:

Republicans might have a reason to smile: John McCain and his allies seem to have finally settled on a way to draw a stark contrast with Barack Obama.

After weeks of criticism from Republicans about the leisurely pace at which they seemed to be preparing for the general election, McCain’s campaign has apparently settled on a highly personal campaign theme that aims to differentiate McCain and Obama on both character and issues.

The strategy: Paint Obama as conventional politician who always takes the safe and easy political road, then amplify the distinction by framing McCain as a patriot, somebody who has put sacrifice above self.

It’s seemingly an effort by McCain to remind voters of his Vietnam-era heroism and compelling life story while touching on key issues to avoid running purely on biography. The message also is designed to underline McCain’s unique record of service to his country without touching on subterranean questions about Obama’s patriotism.

Whether it will work — or if the famously improvisational McCain will even stick to it — is an open question.

But it is finally clear that McCain and many of his allies — including Karl Rove and Mitt Romney — are finally working in unison to push one message, and push it aggressively.

Read the whole thing.

The Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty is unconstitutional for child rapists.

This was a 5-4 decision. Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion:

“The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child”

At one time in America, a child’s innocence was sacred. There was a general understanding that for our society to continue we had to protect children as our most vulnerable members. So any attack on the safety of children had to be dealt with more seriously.

This is a common behavior in the animal kingdom for species that only have a few offspring.

Here in America, married couples with a children are a minority of voters. They used to be an overwhelming majority. On the private side I notice parents taking extraordinary measures to keep their kids safe as our society becomes more dangerous for children. Children are becoming segregated from the rest of society as non-parents relax their attitudes about protecting children.

You may agree with the Supreme Court’s decision, out of opposition to the death penalty. However what this ruling signals is that children’s innocence and safety is becoming less sacred to us.

I hope John McCain makes our irresponsible Supreme Court an issue in this election.

Today, Dr. James Dobson, a psychologist and founder of Focus on the Family, took Obama to task for comments he had made in a June 2006 speech.

Dr. Dobson focused on Obama’s comments describing America as no longer a “Christian nation”. Obama also equated psychologist James Dobson with Reverend Al Sharpton.

“And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s?”

I agree with Obama that America is not a Christian nation and hasn’t been for many years.

However equating Dr. Dobson and Reverend Sharpton is just foolishly ignorant.

Al Sharpton led racist mobs to a fevered pitch. His racist haranguing led to the death of a Jewish student in Crown Heights, New York. Dr. Dobson leads an organization that mainly focuses on helping parents to raise their children and helps spouses with their marriages. A look at Focus on the Family shows politics is a tiny part of Dr. Dobson’s activities.

Obama also engages in rank hypocrisy in his speech (remember this speech was in June 2006):

“No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. They don’t want faith used to belittle or to divide. They’re tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that’s not how they think about faith in their own lives.”

So Obama decries pastors who deliver screeds and not sermons. It’s amazing he said that after decades of sitting under Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s racially tinged screeds.

Doing some recent summer cleaning, I came across a crumpled copy of the November 15, 1999 issue of Time Magazine. It was buried at the bottom of a box devoted to old periodical subscriptions. Curious, I leafed through the pages and found that a few articles were dedicated to the 2000 race for the Republican presidential nomination. With the exception of some pictures showing much younger and more energetic versions of George W. Bush and John McCain, I was not particularly intrigued by the passages that detailed the respective temperaments of the two men or McCain’s steady rise in New Hampshire.

The final article, however, did catch my attention. Entitled “Why Bush Doesn’t Like Homework,” the piece is not meant to ridicule the President’s intelligence or question his much-discussed academic past, rather it is a candid assessment of then-candidate Bush, his leadership traits, and his managerial skills. I believe that the arguments made in the article shed some light on the failures and inadequacies of Bush’s presidency. Furthermore, I think the lessons we will learn from the following passages could go a long way in evaluating McCain’s chances in Novemb