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SUNDAY,  SEPTEMBER 14,  2008

NOTE AT 6:45 P.M. ET:  Just a word about overconfidence.  Senator McCain and Governor Palin are making progress.  That progress may last, or not.  But a look at the Real Clear Politics electoral map, , which includes leaners, shows how difficult McCain's task is.   The map shows Obama winning with 273 electoral votes, McCain with 265, with 270 needed to win.  McCain would have to hold onto every single state awarded to him on this map, and then pick up at least one other state to defeat Obama. 

Now look at the Obama states, in blue.  Every one of them is a mountain for McCain, some, like California and New York, unclimbable.  Once solid-GOP N ew England is now solid for the Dems.  There may be a shot in Colorado, and another in Minnesota, although I'd doubt the latter.  Even Michigan may come into play, but it would take a huge effort.  New Hampshire is a very-much outside shot, as is Pennsylvania.

So, no overconfidence.  This is a fight to the finish, and must be waged every day, without mistakes.  It can be done, but we're not there yet. 

UPDATE AT 6:18 P.M. ET:  Hmm, do we have some message coordination here?  Please note this quote from major California Democratic power Willie Brown, in The San Francisco Chronicle, and compare it with our last update, at 5:56 p.m.:

The Democrats have got to get to the core of this new campaign. It's not a pretty thought, but somehow Democrats must plant in voters' minds that, given McCain's age and his health history, he might not make it through the term if he's elected.

Even if McCain does make it through a term, it's not likely he'll seek re-election and she will be the natural successor.

In other words, Sarah Palin may indeed be president someday.

This is the new politics of Barack Obama?  Sounds like the old politics of the Chicago machine.

UPDATE AT 5:56 P.M. ET:  Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, went after John McCain on ABC's "This Week" today over age and cancer:

When Stephanopoulos asked her it was fair to raise McCain's age, McCaskill doubled-down and mentioned his past skin cancer, saying, "I think what we're talking about is a reality. Other people talk about his melanoma. We're talking about a reality here that we have to face. This is someone who's going to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. All of us know it. I just think that it's the facts, George, and that's something that we need to start focusing on, are the facts, instead of distortions and lies."

Real class.  I want a written guarantee from the Obama campaign that Obama will survive the next four years.  I want that certified.  I want that notarized.  Then we'll discuss McCain's health.

Yuch.

TRUTH

Posted at 2:42 p.m. ET

Dems are having a field day today quoting Karl Rove as saying the McCain campaign is stretching the truth.  Trouble is, in saying it, they're stretching the truth.  From The Politico::

It’s not every day that Democrats embrace the wisdom of Karl Rove, but the Barack Obama campaign is e-mailing around a comment he made to Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

With the commercials of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) under attack for falsehoods, Rove said that both sides in the presidential race have “gone one step too far” — in McCain’s case, by “attributing to Obama things that are … beyond the 100 percent truth test.”

"When Karl Rove is questioning the legitimacy of your dishonest tactics, you really need to take a moment of self-reflection," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said when the campaign e-mailed the quote to reporters for the second time in 80 minutes.

So expect to hear surrogates for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) out on the airwaves saying, “EVEN Karl Rove. …”

But he said it about both campaigns.

The exact transcript of Rove's remarks, spoken on Fox:

WALLACE: Do you have any problem with what McCain is doing by, for instance, saying — which a lot of people thought was kind of made up — that Obama was smearing Palin?

ROVE: Well, first of all, I do think that the lipstick remark was an inappropriate — and maybe it was unconscious, but it was a deliberate slap at Gov. Palin.

The only time this word has intruded in recent months in the campaign was in her self-deprecating remark at the convention. So for him to use the lipstick remark less than two weeks after she used it struck me as too much of a coincidence not to have been a deliberate attack.

But, look, both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far. We saw this this week, for example, in the Obama ad where he makes the point, a legitimate point, that John McCain came to the United States Congress in 1982 and that he has been a longtime Washington insider.

But they then say he doesn't even know how to use a — you know, doesn't send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can't type. You know, it's like saying he can't do jumping jacks.

Well, there's a reason why he can't raise his arms above his head. There's a reason why he doesn't have the nimbleness in his fingers.

WALLACE: All right, and for fair game, what is McCain doing that goes a step too far?

ROVE: Well, McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test.

They don't need to attack each other in this way. They have legitimate points to make about each other.

Now, Team McCain, get in front of this story.  Correct any misstatements, explain others that were misunderstood, then demand - giving a list of particulars - that the Obama side do the same.  The McCain campaign has, as I've written, gotten sloppy with facts.  The Obama campaign simply ignores them.  McCain can turn this negative into a positive.

September 14, 2008.      Permalink          

TRACKERS

Posted at 1:37 p.m. ET

Both our standard trackers are now out, and both show exactly the same result as yesterday.  Rasmussen - McCain up three.  Gallup - McCain up two.  The Hotline tracker has not yet been published.

We're now 10 days out from the GOP convention, and McCain's lead, although small, still holds.  The press attempts to destroy Palin, lead by The New York Times, haven't worked, but the McCain campaign must be on guard against foolish mistakes, exaggerations or misstatements that feed the Palin-hating beast.  (Palin said that Alaska provides 20 percent of the nation's energy.  That turns out to be way off, but she may have meant it in a different context.  Once challenged, she's got to explain.  Don't leave questions out there.)

While the momentum was with McCain coming out of his convention, that momentum has now stopped, and we're settling into the familiar pattern of a close race, although now it's McCain holding the edge.  This can still go either way, and an unpredictable event can throw out all current figures.

September 14, 2008.       Permalink          

BULLETIN AT 11:04 A.M. ET:   We're alerted by John Hindreraker at Power Line to a potentially major political development:  The presidential race in Minnesota, normally a Democratic state, is tied.  The Star-Tribune poll shows McCain and Obama at 45 percent each, in a poll of likely voters.  A May poll showed Obama 13 points ahead. 

COMMENT:   If Minnesota is in serious play, Obama is in serious trouble.  It means he'll have to devote resources in the state that should have gone elsewhere.  But let's be cautious and see what Minnesota polls say in coming weeks.

UPDATE AT 9:42 A.M. ET:  First tracker of the day is out.  Rasmussen reports that, for the third day running, McCain is up three.  The race stands at 50-47.  Two thirds of the polling for today was conducted after Charlie Gibson's first interview with Sarah Palin aired.  There apparently was no damage, at least not in this poll.

THE WHY

Posted at 8:25 a.m. ET

The general consensus among political writers is that McCain is slightly ahead.  The Politico has looked at the situation and provided five reasons why.  I think this is a reasonable, if tentative analysis.  A week is a lifetime in politics, and things can change:

John McCain’s surge in the polls comes even as Barack Obama has inherited the most favorable Democratic environment since the Watergate era—an unpopular Republican president, an unpopular war and a flagging economy.

Suddenly, though, Democrats have found themselves in a world turned upside down, where Republicans have the momentum from running on change—and the latest wunderkind of presidential politics.

Below are five trends showing up in polling that help explain the change.

McCain as change agent.

Eight in ten Americans say they believe the country is on the wrong track. Obama has built his campaign on the perception that he is both the personification of change and the man to enact it.

Despite a member of his party in the White House and his decades in D.C., recent polling shows that McCain has managed to successfully portray himself as a change agent, and erode Obama’s brand in the process.

The center shifts.  Independents move to McCain.

Independent voters, and particularly white independent men, have leaned Republican in presidential races since 1980. But before the Republican convention, Galllup polling showed just 40 percent of independents favoring McCain.

Post convention, that rose to 52 percent—and the increase in support was slightly greater among men than among women, which appears to undercut the idea that Palin has benefited the ticket by drawing women to it.

The economic gap narrows.

James Carville, who coined the catchphrase “the economy, stupid” in 1992 while working as a strategist for Bill Clinton, frets that Obama is losing his ownership of the issue that has become voters’ foremost concern in recent months.

“I noticed the tightening on the economy,” Carville said. “And if it stays that way, I would be damn worried.”

Palin narrows the enthusiasm gap.

The Republican base, once disenchanted, has returned with a vengeance since McCain’s surprise pick of the first-term Alaska governor as his running mate.

This week’s CBS News poll found that 53 percent of Obama voters said they were “enthusiastic” about Obama, up five points since before his party’s convention, and still better than the 42 percent of McCain supports who feel the same way. McCain’s support though is up 18 points since selecting Palin.

The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 12 percent of McCain’s supporters were “excited to be voting” for him in early August. This week 34 percent said they were excited—nearly a three-fold increase.

Democrat voter ID edge dulls.

The week before the Republican convention, just 39 percent of voters said they leaned toward or identified themselves as Republicans. Following the convention, that number rose dramatically to 47 percent, Meanwhile the percentage of voters leaning toward or identifying themselves as Democrats dropped from 53 to 47 percent. Gallup notes that party ID shifts are not unusual after a convention.

Gallup also now reports that the double-digit Democratic lead among voters asked which party they’d generically prefer to control Congress has disappeared, and the two parties are now effectively tied.

What is significant, I think, is that all this is happening during the most relentless press assault on a candidate I've seen since the assault on Barry Goldwater in 1964.  The continuing attack on Sarah Palin either isn't working, or is creating a backlash.

McCain's gains can, of course, be reversed.  But there's an old political saying that you can't beat somebody with nobody, and Barack Obama is quickly turning into a nobody.  The novelty has worn off, his attacks on McCain have taken on a desperate quality, and many of his allies among the bloggers, journalists and ladies of "The View" aren't doing him any good with their wild statements.

One question is whether Sarah Palin's novelty will wear off as well.  It might if she does more of these overly familiar sit-downs. 

And the McCain campaign must be careful.  Its aggressiveness and daring have worked.  But a certain sloppiness about facts and claims is creeping into its rhetoric.  Eventually, the public may react if there are too many exaggerations or botched statistics.  The press will not investigate Obama's claims and will not examine his background the way they've examined Palin's.  There's no help available there.  The McCain campaign has to be almost bulletproof to continue upward.

September 14, 2008.      Permalink          

SATURDAY,  SEPTEMBER 13,  2008

UPDATE AT 11:43 P.M. ET:  You just can't make this up:

STAMFORD, Conn.—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the nation's highest-ranking female politician, said Saturday that GOP presidential candidate John McCain exercised "poor judgment" by selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Pelosi told reporters she missed Palin's television interview Thursday because she was attending a bocce tournament in Hartford.

However, she said, she heard that the Alaska governor's responses to ABC News reporter Charlie Gibson demonstrated "poor judgment," The Advocate of Stamford reported Saturday.

A bocce tournament?  So you missed the most important political interview of the season?  Nance, you can record these things.  They have machines, with buttons.

Geez.

NOTE AT 11:27 P.M. ET:  The AP's campaign against Sarah Palin has reached the point where stories have begun to contradict themselves.  An AP story out tonight contains this line: 

The governor has limited her public appearances and chances to mingle with voters or reporters since leaving McCain's side earlier in the week.

Two paragraphs later the story says this:

Palin spent much of her time in Alaska preparing for and conducting a series of televised interviews with ABC News.

Which is it, guys?

The story also points out that Palin used a teleprompter at a speech today.  Boy, is that news.  I don't know if I could have voted intelligently without knowing that.

I think the public is smart enough to catch on.  I hope so.

September 13, 2008.

UPDATE AT 10:37 P.M. ET:  Reader Andy B notes that a transcript is available here, showing the full Charlie Gibson interview with Sarah Palin, and noting what was edited out.  Fascinating.  Very juicy.

UPDATE AT 10:18 P.M. ET:  We try to stress that the popular vote, reflected in the polls we report, has no legal standing in a presidential election.  It's the electoral vote that counts.  So, we report that the Real Clear Politics electoral vote map has turned very interesting, and very competitive.  It now shows McCain/Palin with 227 EVs (electoral votes) and Obama/Biden with 217.  Toss-ups stand at 94.  It takes 270 EVs to win.

If toss-ups are thrown out, and turned into leaners, Obama/Biden wins with 273 EVs, to McCain/Palin's 265.

As a general rule, Obama polls better than he delivers, and has tended to be a weak closer.  However, we give the standard investment-industry caution that past experience is not a guarantee of future results.

Incredibly close race. 

GUYS FOR SARAH

Posted at 8:01 p.m. ET

The assumption is that Sarah Palin is attracting throngs of women to the GOP ticket.  It turns out, though, that it may be men who are more attracted.  The New York Daily News reports on some fascinating numbers:

Republican John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was intended to lure women voters, but it's the guys who are actually getting hooked, new polls show.

One CNN survey this week found that 62% of men have a favorable opinion of Palin - nine points higher than women.

Similarly, 57% of men believe Palin is qualified to be vice president, compared with only 43% among women.

It may be logical:

"I think in some ways Palin does help go after the Hillary voter, but a lot of people confuse that to think it is just women," said John McIntyre, co-founder of RealClear Politics, a Web site that tracks presidential polling.

"It's not just women - it is white, working-class voters in general," said McIntyre. "And I am sure that when the McCain team was looking at the pros and cons, those male Hillary voters were every bit on their mind as women."

Whatever the logic, it's working:

Other polls seem to confirm that Palin's real allure is in her ability to unite the GOP's conservative base, male and female.

One Rasmussen Survey found that 79% of conservatives have a favorable impression of Palin, a figure that drops to 43% among moderates. Likewise, conservatives are twice as likely as moderates to think she is qualified to be President, and five times more likely than liberals.

Finally...

"She's just an amazing woman for the Republican Party," enthused Ted DiBenedetto, 41, of Centreville, Va., at a rally in nearby Fairfax. "She's a hunter, she's a fisherman, she's a reformer, she's got executive experience, and she's run her state national guard.

"I was actually a non-McCain supporter," DiBenedetto said. "When he picked Sarah, that unified the Republican Party."

There is good news here, but there are also warning signs.  Palin's newfound support can be peeled away, especially support in the middle, where elections are won and lost.  The Obama side is now engaged in an all-out attack, and the press will help out.  But Obama has been off his game recently, and his advisers seem baffled by Palin and her appeal.  May their attack turn into surrender.

September 13, 2008.      Permalink          

NOTE AT 5:55 P.M. ET:  Quote of the day, from the AP:  "Palin has been sheltered by McCain staff who have huddled with her over the last few days. She moves on to Nevada for a rally and is expected as early as next week to rejoin McCain on the campaign trail."

COMMENT:  Please note the use of the word "sheltered."  The patronizing tone here is beyond obvious.  Bias?  What bias?

BIAS?  WHAT BIAS?

Posted at 2:57 p.m. ET

Reader Bill Palmer alerts us to the comparison between Charlie Gibson's interview with Barack Obama, and his interview with Sarah Palin.  The comparison is stark.  Ironically, the Hillary Clinton Forum published this list of the Obama questions:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to "win"?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

And the Palin questions:

Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]

The transcript of the Gibson/Obama interview is here:

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5000184

The transcript of the Gibson/Palin interview is here:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/11/raw-data-palins-interview-with-abc-news/

Bias?  There's bias?  Are you seeing things?

September 13, 2008.      Permalink          

TRACKERS

Posted at 1:54 p.m. ET

Both our two standard trackers - Rasmussen and Gallup - are in for the day, as is the Hotline trackers.

As reported below, Rasmussen reports a three point McCain lead, same as yesterday.

Gallup reports a two-point McCain lead, a statistical tie.  McCain was up five points only three days ago. 

Hotline reports a one-point McCain lead.  Yesterday it had Obama up by one. 

So, averaging them, McCain is up by two.  But this may be deceptive.  Both Gallup and Hotline measure registered voters, Rasmussen measures likely voters.  McCain tends to do somewhat better among likely voters.  Traditionally, Republican voters are more likely to vote. 

So far the McCain convention bounce seems to be holding.  We'll watch that this week.  Also, these trackers are measuring only one night of surveys following Charlie Gibson's first interview with Sarah Palin.  And they are not measuring Obama's new aggressiveness.

Still, a very tight race.

September 13, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  The first tracker is out for today.  Rasmussen reports McCain up three over Obama, unchanged from yesterday.  The McCain convention bounce holds steady.

SARAH

Posted at 8:19 a.m. ET

Sarah Palin will continue to be the story in coming days.  She's doing another "exclusive" interview, this time with Sean Hannity of Fox.  That will be written off in advance because Hannity is clearly a Palin partisan. 

Palin is entering a period of extreme danger.  The press is determined to destroy her.  It must destroy her.  She's being asked questions that Barack Obama has never been asked, that no reporter seeking advancement in his profession would dare ask.  I winced when Charlie Gibson, professorial glasses down over his nose, asked Palin if she'd ever met a foreign leader.  Did Lincoln ever meet a foreign leader?  How many foreign leaders did Bill Clinton meet before he became president?  What a childish question.

It's frustrating because Barack Obama was made chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  The subcommittee dealt with Europe.  He never held one meeting.  Nor did he make a single trip to the area under his authority.  The only foreign leaders he could have met were the ones floating through Washington.  In reality, Obama is a minor-league U.S. senator with a weak record, never thought of as a leader, who presumes to be president.  No one in the mainstream media challenges his credentials.

And can you name a single mainstream journalist who has gone back over Joe Biden's record and challenged his judgments?  Joe Biden isn't even there.

The extreme danger for Sarah Palin is that the novelty will wear off and the press will bear in.  There is an investigation of her underway in Alaska that has suddenly been put on the fast track.  You may be sure it will be treated as a major story, even though it is minor.  She'll be portrayed as corrupt, there will be suggestions that she broke the law.  To cite a line used by Republicans when Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur, "Impeachment was discussed."  The word will come up.  Destroy, destroy.

What should she do?  Well, the first thing she should do is limit these sit-downs.  They can do her no good.  I'd rate her first performance, with Gibson, a B-.  Sarah should do a Reagan - limit press availability and speak over the heads of the media to the American people.  That works for her, it's her brilliance.  The press will whine, but no one will really care.

Noel Coward, the British wit, songwriter and playwright, once said that there must be an invisible barrier between performer and audience.  You may look, but you may not touch.  The same is true in politics.  Americans don't want their major figures to be household objects.  They want them to be familiar and distant at the same time.  The disgraceful Jimmy Carter carried his own bags when president.  Americans hated it.  Ronald Reagan wouldn't enter the Oval Office without wearing a jacket.  Americans loved it.  It is a balance.  Reagan understood.  FDR understood.  Kennedy understood.  The danger for Sarah is that the mystique can wear off if she becomes too familiar.

When I worked on The Tonight Show, some famous performers turned down invitations to appear, citing that same factor - the fear that they would become too familiar, too close, that the aura would be destroyed.  They were right.

Let Sarah be Sarah.  No, I don't want to see her on Oprah.  I want to see her on the campaign trail, next to John McCain, and giving us the same magic we saw at the convention.  And if journalists complain, I hope they complain as loudly as possible.  The public will drown them out.

September 13, 2008.        Permalink          

BLUNDER

Posted at 8:15 a.m. ET

The new Obama ad ridiculing John McCain because McCain doesn't use e-mail is turning out to be more of a blunder than we'd originally thought.  At first it seemed just a bit snotty.  Now it seems to be a personal, and ugly insult.  Jonah Goldberg at NRO explains:

Yep. The day after 9/11, as part of its "get tough" makeover, the Obama campaign is mocking John McCain for not using a computer, without caring why he doesn't use a computer. From the AP story about the computer illiterate ad:

"Our economy wouldn't survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats," [Obama spokesman Dan] Pfeiffer said. "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country. From the Boston Globe (March 4, 2000):

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Obama serves with John McCain in the U.S. Senate.  Didn't he ever know that?  What precisely does Obama do in the Senate?  Does he ever observe anything, except himself in a mirror? 

The McCain people should exploit this.  No shame in doing it.  Make Obama look like an insensitive dilettante.  Why not tell the truth?

Obama is now engaging in what he openly admits is a rougher campaign.  The idea is to throw him off, portray him as a blunderer, an ordinary politician, and not the messianic figure sold to us earlier.

September 13, 2008.      Permalink           

"What you see is news.  What you know is background.  What you feel is opinion."
    - Lester Markel, late Sunday editor
      of The New York Times.

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