WEDNESDAY,  AUGUST 13,  2008

HISTORY LESSON

Posted at 6:45 p.m. ET

The Politico brings some of the Obamiacs down to Earth with a well-researched piece suggesting that, no, it probably won't be a landslide in November. 

From the fever swamps of the blogosphere to the halls of academia, there is a chorus of voices who have come to the same conclusion about the presidential election: Barack Obama is going to win in November, by something resembling a landslide.

Yet for all the breathless analysis and number-crunching that has convinced observers Obama is en route to an epic victory, there is one key historic fact that is often overlooked — most popular vote landslides were clearly visible by the end of summer. And by that indicator, 2008 doesn’t measure up.

And am I glad.  An Obama victory would be bad enough.  An Obama landslide would send his ego into overdrive, where it would remain for four reckless years.

In five of the six post-war landslides (defined as a victory of 10 percentage points or more) the eventual winner was ahead by at least 10 percentage points in the polls at the close of August, according to a Politico analysis of historical Gallup polls. Over the past week, however, Gallup’s daily tracking poll pegs Obama ahead of John McCain by a margin of 2-5 percentage points.

Well, actually Gallup has Obama up six today, but Rasmussen says two and Pew, out today, says three.

Analyst Charlie Cook, one of the best, comments:

“I don’t think you see leads in presidential races over 5 points in this day and age. He’s averaged leads of 3 points since spring. The key is that Obama hasn’t closed the sale,” Cook continued. “It wasn’t until Reagan reached the threshold that he was able to close the sale.”

“The question is,” Cook added, “does Obama ever close the sale?”

Shanto Iyengar, a Stanford University political scientist, notes that several political forecasting models today predict the Democratic candidate winning a clear majority of the vote, a threshold that has thus far escaped Obama in polling. But he adds that those predictions are for a generic Democrat under “normal circumstances” in a year where the Republican Party is in dire straits.

“The real question is: Why is Obama, then, underperforming?” Iyengar added. “There is something about Obama that is causing something of drag.” Iyengar believes that something is Obama’s race.

That's a factor, and many in universities will obsess over it.  But there are other factors.  The American people, after all, have the right to assess the candidates.  Pollster Brad Coker says:

Coker said that, in his view, two factors along with race are anchoring down Obama. He cites Obama’s political inexperience and that “you’ve never had a young guy win by such a large margin, post-war.” Coker added that Obama’s ideology and geography were also factors, though of lesser importance in his view.

And...

But even if Obama built a big lead, it would also not necessarily presage a big win. In 1976, Carter led Gerald Ford in the summer by about 20 percentage points in some polls. Ford closed in by Election Day. Carter barely pulled out a victory.

I find it fascinating that nowhere in this piece does the word "upset" appear.  Don't any of these chaps think McCain can win?  He is running close in the polls.  Obama has been campaigning for months, and is hardly an unknown at this point.  Yet, he can't break though to a clear, unassailable lead. 

If I had to bet, I'd agree that Obama is the strong favorite.  He may pull a surprise or two at his convention to increase his appeal - like having a string of endorsements from prominent citizens like Colin Powell.  But he's shown himself to be a poor closer, and the crush of foreign events may expose his weak points. 

There's a long way to go.  In my better moments, I find it hard to believe that this country will turn its back on John McCain to elect an amateur.  But I confess to having a shortage of better moments.

August 13, 2008.      Permalink          

BRAINSTORM

Posted at 5:59 p.m. ET

Scholar Charles Murray, in today's Wall Street Journal, writes the kind of piece you hope gets wide circulation.  It's called, "For Most People, College is a Waste of Time."  And it's about time someone said it.

I've believed for a long while that the college education is the most oversold product in America, and it is a product.   Murray proposes de-emphasizing the bachelor's degree in favor of a certification system, much like the kind used to certify CPA's.  Whether you agree or disagree, his piece is worth reading.  We've become cynical about college.  While claiming that we value the "higher education," what we really value is the piece of paper the student gets at the end, the meal ticket. 

Murray begins:

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

It's unfair to try to summarize Murray's antidote.  But I encourage you to read the piece.  It's time for a national discussion, the kind that was common in mid twentieth century, about what an education should be.

August 13, 2008.      Permalink          

POLLS

Posted at 1:25 p.m. ET

Both our standard trackers and a new poll are out, and show varying results.  Rasmussen, as reported at SNIPPETS, continues to show Obama with a two-point lead among likely voters.  But Gallup has increased Obama's lead to six points, although Gallup measures registered voters.  A new Pew poll shows Obama in general decline, with a lead of only three, as compared with five a month ago, and eight two months ago, among RVs.

The recent polls have been in the same general range.  Obama is ahead by low single digits, and tends to poll better than he delivers.  A very close race.

August 13, 2008.      Permalink          

JOHN AND JOE

Posted at 6:50 a.m. ET

I won't deny that finding provocative, high-quality journalism in the past week has been a bit of a challenge.  It's August, there's a political news vacuum just before the conventions, Obama is on the beach, and Chinese gymnasts - most looking 12 - are tearing up the turf on native soil, in an Olympics where the minimum age is 16.

But Dick Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, have written a provocative piece on why Joe Lieberman should be John McCain's running mate.  I disagree, but their arguments are worth hearing, for a good analysis of the dynamics of the campaign:

John McCain has zero charisma. Next to the excitement of Obama, he looks like an old man defending the status quo. Ironically, his career has embodied exactly the opposite. He is what Obama symbolizes - a person who rises above party, confronts the special interests, and wants to change the way Washington works.

Yet despite his inability to campaign effectively, polls show him tied with Obama, due largely to doubts about the Democrat not to enthusiasm for McCain.

But if he chooses the right vice presidential candidate, McCain can give his candidacy excitement and meaning, transforming the drab into the unusual and the ordinary into the spectacular.

They argue that naming a woman would be the first choice, but that the Republican female bench is thin, with no obvious candidates.  So...

Instead, McCain should choose Senator Joe Lieberman. By choosing a Democrat - the party’s nominee for vice president only eight years ago -- McCain would dramatically demonstrate that his candidacy transcends the normal, vitriolic partisanship that grips Washington...

...Obama scares the daylights out of a lot of Democrats and Independents. With a Democratic running mate, McCain would become a viable alternative.

Sure McCain and Lieberman disagree on a lot of issues. But their very disagreements would be sources of strength - a statement that no one person has all the answers and that solutions forged in consensus and dialogue are the key to a functioning democracy. Would Lieberman alienate the Party base? Most top McCain advisors don’t think so. With anti-Obama sentiment rising with each new proposed tax increase he offers, the likelihood is that they will turn out with total enthusiasm whoever McCain picks.

I'm not sure.  Lieberman is pro-choice.  That's a deal breaker for many conservatives.  But read on.  Morris and McGann say Obama would love to choose a woman, but he can't choose any woman other than Hillary for fear of antagonizing her groupies, and he won't choose her:

So Obama will go with a safe choice: Virginia’s Governor Tim Kaine, Indiana’s Senator Evan Bayh, or Delaware’s Senator Joe Biden.

Finally...

So the race may boil down to Obama-Bayh vs. McCain-Romney. But it should be Obama-Biden vs. McCain-Lieberman.

Interesting analysis, but Lieberman, a man I admire, didn't add much to the Gore ticket in 2000, lost a debate to Dick Cheney that year, and may be seen as too ambitious if he runs with McCain on the GOP slate in 2008.

On the other hand...it would certainly make page one.

You decide.

August 13, 2008.      Permalink          

TO THE JUGULAR

Posted at 6:48 a.m. ET

I'm normally not a Maureen Dowd booster, but occasionally her killer instinct is too juicy to be ignored.  Today she goes after Hillary Clinton and her pre-convention "I didn't know anyone was interested" maneuvering, which Dowd finds fairly typical of the historic Clinton operation, which has never won the principal's integrity prize:

While Obama was spending three hours watching “The Dark Knight” five time zones away, and going to a fund-raiser featuring “Aloha attire” and Hawaiian pupus, Hillary was busy planning her convention.

Zap.

In just a couple of weeks, Bill and Hill were able to drag No Drama Obama into a swamp of Clinton drama.

Now they’ve made Barry’s convention all about them — their dissatisfaction and revisionism and barely disguised desire to see him fail. Whatever insincere words of support the Clintons muster, their primal scream gets louder: He can’t win! He can’t close the deal! We told you so!

Hillary’s orchestrating a play within the play in Denver. Just as Hamlet used the device to show that his stepfather murdered his father, Hillary will try to show the Democrats they chose the wrong savior.

The warmth, the kindness, the Arkansas charm.  John Edwards is a sideshow.

Hillary feels no guilt about encouraging her supporters to mess up Obama’s big moment, thus undermining his odds of beating John McCain and improving her odds of being the nominee in 2012.

She’s obviously relishing Hillaryworld’s plans to have multiple rallies in Denver, to take out TV and print ads and to hold up signs in the hall that read “Denounce Nobama’s Coronation.”

Hillary is probably running the press herself.

The Clintons know that a lot of Democrats are muttering that their solipsistic behavior is “disgusting.” But they’re too filled with delicious schadenfreude at the wave of buyer’s remorse that has swept the Democratic Party; many Democrats are questioning whether Obama is fighting back hard enough against McCain, and many are wondering, given his inability to open up a lead in a country fed up with Republicans, if race will be an insurmountable factor.

The Clintons, opportunistic?  Isn't it treason to say that?

Wednesday will be all Bill. The networks will rerun his churlish comments from Africa about Obama’s readiness to lead and his South Carolina meltdowns. TV will have more interest in a volcanic ex-president than a genteel veep choice.

Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that “demeaning portrayals of women ... dampen the dreams of our daughters.” This, even though postmortems, including the new raft of campaign memos leaked by Clintonistas to The Atlantic — another move that undercuts Obama — finger Hillary’s horrendous management skills.

Finally, the plunging knife, included in the price of admission:

It would have been better to put this language in the platform: “A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation, and then blames sexism in society, will dampen the dreams of our daughters.”

My political prediction:  Maureen Dowd will not be invited to lunch with the Clintons.  I like to go out on a limb.

August 13, 2008.      Permalink