An Audacious Hope

The first election to which I paid any attention was 1964, when Democrat Lyndon Johnson trounced Republican Barry Goldwater with something like 70% of the vote. The Republican Party was in complete disarray, the Democrats were dreaming of being on top forever, the pundits were wondering if the Republicans could survive as a party. Sounds sort of like this election.

You can’t carry the analogy too far because on his very best day Obama does not hold a candle to LBJ on his very worst. And “McCain: in your heart you know he's less wrong than Obama”, does not have much power to inspire. Apparently, Arizona is a nice gentlemanly place where they don’t practice the gutter politics of Texas or Chicago.

The Republicans won the Presidency in five of the next six elections.

Obama Says Bomb 'Em???

Listening to the Debate last night I heard an exchange in which sounded like Senator Obama was proposing a major escalation of the Afghanistan war by attacking into Pakistan if they did not comply with an ultmatum.


The text in question.

OBAMA: No. 3, we've got to deal with Pakistan, because al Qaeda and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we've been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens.

snip

MCCAIN:Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you're going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you'd better be prepared to pull the trigger. We've got to get the support of the people of -- of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.
Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.

snip

OBAMA: Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here's what I said.

. . . . . .

Now, Senator McCain is also right that it's difficult. This is not an easy situation. You've got cross-border attacks against U.S. troops.
And we've got a choice. We could allow our troops to just be on the defensive and absorb those blows again and again and again, if Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate, or we have to start making some decisions.



The text does not seem as clear in print as the way it sounded listening on the radio.

The clear impression I got from Senator Obama’s first quote above is that he was advocating unilateral military action into Pakistan to deal with Al Quaida.

Senator McCain’s response:

I'm not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I'm not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.

was a response to what Senator Obama said.

Seantor Obama’s clarification seems to be saying that he was not talking about attacking Pakistan per se but aggressively attacking AQ and Taliban targets that happen to be in Pakistan. Which Pakistan would consider a major violation of it's soverinity, if not a causus Belli


Of course The US has been conducting very limited attacks against targets in Pakistan. Quietly with UAV launched weapons against targets that are clearly AQ, well away from Pakistan government controlled areas and according to some news reports with the knowledge and permission of the Pakistan government, which it is understood they will deny. These have increased lately as has Pakistani protests especially since there is a new Pakistani President.

The tenor of Senator Obama’s comments is that we should inform Pakistan that we expect of them as a client, not the help we need from an ally, to take complete control of that area or we will cut off aid and publicly launch a major air (and ground?) offensive to clear AQ and the Taliban from the border regions.

Some problems.

Like Senator McCain he made no mention that we are woking with NATO allies in Pakistan.

Pakistan is conducting military operations to regain control in that area. An offensive that would obtain the results he wants is probably beyond the short term ability of the Pakistani Army to say nothing of being political suicide to the Pakistani government.

We have troops in Pakistan. What will happen to them?


What happens to our relations with every country in the area if our public actions are those of dealing with a client rather than a difficult ally?

Afghanistan is a land locked country. You get their though Iran, Pakistan or the Russian dominated Confederation of Independent States. If Pakiastan drops out of the alliance for any reason our supply lines are at the whim of Russia’s Putin. We could be cut off from effective resupply unless we did things the way Russia wants them done.


Senator McCain’s comments sounded much more responsible considering the complexity of the situation. Certainly the comments of a person who is thinking ahead to the possibilty of winning the election, not basing policy proposals on focus groups.


Well, I am glad the printed text is not as serious as the way it sounded, but still he is saying we should take unilateral action without considering the probability of success or the opnion of our NATO allies and Pakistan.

As Ohio Goes . . .

One of the best blogs for a technical analysis of the the election is Jay Cost's Horse Race Blog He is starting a series on the swing states. The first is on Ohio. In part one he reviews the electoral history of Ohio. The state has had stable electoral patterns for the last forty years and reflects the national pattern.

This chart shows the “Partisanship Swing” for the state based on the last twenty years. If the pattern shifts red or blue that is the way the state and perhapps the country will go.




In part two he reviews this years election and the opportunities and problems for both candidates. He points out:

What To Watch in the Buckeye State

(1) If the national vote is close, expect Ohio to be close. It's a bellwether.
(2) Watch the mid-sized cities. They tend to vote with the winner. If Canton, Dayton, Springfield, and metro Toldeo go for the same candidate - he'll have the edge.
(3) Watch Franklin County (Columbus). If recent history is any guide, it will go for Obama. The question is by how much.
(4) Watch the exurbs. Obama promises to appeal to Republicans. These Republicans here are probably his best bet. McCain should still win the exurban counties of Cincinnati and Columbus, but Obama will be in good shape if he can turn them pink.
(5) Watch the eastern border. There are lots of "working class whites" here, the ones Obama had trouble with in the primaries. But it's not the strong Democrats he needs to worry about. It's the swing voters. If they vote McCain, these counties will be a lighter shade of blue than what Obama needs.
(6) Watch the south. It voted heavily for Clinton in the primary. The bigger the margins, the better for the GOP. and there are good reasons to expect it to support McCain
(7) Watch Hamilton County (Cincinnati). Obama promises game-changing GOTV efforts. If he delivers, the first sign of success should be here. Traditionally, Hamilton County votes Republican, but just barely (and by steadily decreasing margins over the years). If Obama amplifies African American turnout enough to flip it, that's a sign that his plan's on track.



All of which is interesting since Rasmussen’s Balance of Power Calculator moved Ohio’s twenty electoral votes form "Leans Deocratic" to “toss Up” on the July 22d, even so Obama, including leaners, has more than the required 270 electoral votes.

Election Overview July 2008

I took the General Election Polling Results for the the candidates at Rassmusen Reports and copied them into a spread sheet starting from June Fourth, the first entry after Senator Clinton placed her campaign in inactive status. I averaged the results for each day with an average of the previous ten days. (The entry for the fourteenth is an average of the Fourth to the Fourteenth, the entry for the Fifteenth is an average of the Fifth to the Fifteenth) This smoothes the results eliminating minor day to day variances in public opinion or errors in a particular days samplings. The disadvantage of this method is it is not very sensitive to the last several day’s results.

On July 22d
Match up without leaners
McCain 42% Obama 46%
Match up with leaners
McCain 46% Obama 47%


Senator McCain in the “with out leaners” column started at 40% occasionally at 41% until July Eleventh when it stated at 41% and has progressed to 42%. In the “With leaners” column he was at 44% every day until the Thirteenth when he increased to 45% and then 46%

SenatorObama in the “without leaners” column started at 46% and occasionally hit 47% but since the twelfth has dropped to 45% and 44 % for the last three days. In the “With leaners” column he started at 49% and except for an occasional 48% held that until the Twelfth when he went to 48% and 47& since the Seventeenth.

Both candidates have had about equal number leaners over non-leaners, orgianlly McCain had slightly higher numbers but Obama now has the largest difference, but the difference has gone down in both cases.

In the ‘With Leaners” column 7% and occasionally 8% have been uncommitted.

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It appears that after Senator Obama’s initial jump when Senator McCain suspended his campaign it is now settling into settled pattern with Senator Obama holding a slight lead. They both should get a short jump after their respective conventions.

Assuming neither one of the commits a major stupidity (as understood by the voters not the pundits) the election will be decided after the World Series by the uncommitted voters. Conventional wisdom says they will break in proportion to the declared support for each candidate in the polls. This year is so strange I would not bet on it. The uncommitted voters usually tune in for the conventions and the debates. How the candidates do there will be what makes up the uncommitted voters minds

I did the same analysis for the 2004 election; it was even closer with President Bush always maintaining a slight lead which with the uncommitted breaking proportionally and the numbers were within a very narrow range from the final result.

The other daily tacking and poll averaging services show similar results. The chart from Pollester dot com on lead post has consistently shown Senator Obama a point or so higher than most of the others.



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It seems to me that it is Senator Obama’s election to lose, but a year ago the Democratic nomination was Senator Clinton’s to lose and Senator McCain was at the bottom of the list.

Is Barak Obama

Luke Skywalker?





Or our personal Jesus?




Not my first choice, but no need to hold my nose when I vote either.

The Measure of the Man

The Cafeteria is Closed found a reprint in Slate of an excerpt from a 1997 article in the New York Times Magazine.


"Mo reached out to me in 50 different ways," McCain recalled. "Right from the start, he'd say: 'I'm going to hold a press conference out in Phoenix. Why don't you join me?' All these journalists would show up to hear what Mo had to say. In the middle of it all, Mo would point to me and say, 'I'd like to hear John's views.' Well, hell, I didn't have any views. But I got up and learned and was introduced to the state." Four years later, when McCain ran for and won Barry Goldwater's Senate seat, he said he felt his greatest debt of gratitude not to Goldwater—who had shunned him—but to Udall. "There's no way Mo could have been more wonderful," he says, "and there was no reason for him to be that way."

For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church, only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influential Democrat.

One wall of Udall's hospital room was cluttered with photos of his family back in Arizona; another bore a single photograph of Udall during his season with the Denver Nuggets, dribbling a basketball. Aside from a congressional seal glued to a door jamb, there was no indication what the man in the bed had done for his living. Beneath a torn gray blanket on a narrow hospital cot, Udall lay twisted and disfigured. No matter how many times McCain tapped him on the shoulder and called his name, his eyes remained shut.

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. "He's not going to wake up this time," McCain said.

On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold's speech when he described the first call from John McCain. "When you called Feingold … " I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. "Yeah," he says, "I thought of Mo." And then, for maybe the third time that morning, McCain spoke of how it affected him when Udall took him in hand. It was a simple act of affection and admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life. It was one man saying to another, party political differences cut only so deep. Having made that step, they found much to agree upon and many useful ways to work together. This is the reason McCain keeps coming to see Udall even after Udall has lost his last shred of political influence. The politics were never all that important.

Exercpt from “The Subversive,” New York Times Magazine, 1997 By Michael Lewis, republished in Slate

Morris (Mo) Udall, born June 15, 1922 died December 12, 1998, played Basketball for the Denver Nuggets and represented Arizona in Congress from 1961 to 1991.