#65 It's Ohio

Pennsylvania may be known as "The Keystone State," but this year, as in 2004, Ohio is the key state. Almost on a daily basis, certainly on a poll-to-poll basis, the lead switches back and forth between Obama and McCain in Ohio, with its twenty electoral votes.

Right now the polls have McCain ahead but barely. A few days ago, Obama was ahead by four points. It's likely to continue to alternate until November 4. If Ted Strickland (the governor) or Sherrod Brown (the senator, though I don't know if he was seriously considered by the Obama camp) had been willing to run for the VP position, Ohio might be more likely to go Democratic this year. Right now, however, it's a tossup.

But it's appearing increasingly likely that, as Ohio goes, so goes the presidency. Once again. That's a scary thought, given Ohioans' documented difficulty to vote as they actually intend, the questionable accuracy of the machines used for the electronic balloting, and 2004's early surprising difference between exit polls and actual votes. The CEO of Diebold, which made the machines used four years ago in Ohio, proudly exclaimed when the company delivered the machines that Bush was going to win the state.

It is possible--but very difficult--for either candidate to win the election without Ohio. It's also very unlikely. I hope that Strickland and Brown will be campaigning for and with Obama in the state.

I'm not saying the other states are unimportant. For Ohio to be the deciding state, the other states have to line up as they are generally expected to do: the south solidly for McCain (and I'll include VA, WV, MO, TX, OK in this group); New England (except possibly for the battleground NH), NY, NJ, PA, MI, MN, and WI solidly for Obama (and some of these are currently questionable); the agricultural midwest solidly for McCain, except possibly for IA; MT, ID, UT, WY insane for McCain; AZ and one or both of NV and CO for McCain; and the western seaboard (WA, OR, CA) plus NM for Obama. Alaska and Hawaii will likely to continue to cancel each other out. There may be a shift or two of some of the smaller states without major effect, but if several states vote differently from currently expected, they could offset Ohio's large number of electoral votes. I don't think that will happen. Ohio seems to be the key.

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# 64 McCain Chickens Out of Debate?

CNN has reported that John McCain has taken the initiative to postpone this Friday's debate in order to allow government officials to concentrate on the disaster developing (already developed) in our economy.

Why weren't these officials concentrating on enforcing the rules (and laws!) already in force in the first place?

CNN has not yet reported (the unconfirmed claim) that this was Obama's Idea, suggested privately to McCain. If indeed it was Obama's idea, that information should be publicized, to show that Obama was the leader in this suggestion, wanted to "collaborate across the aisle," and was rebuffed by a knife in the back from the McCain campaign (how's that for a mixed metaphor?).

If it wasn't Obama's idea, and if it actually came from the McCain campaign, then the Democrats should legitimately question how McCain can CLAIM to work and play well with both parties in order to put country first, and then sneak behind the Democrats with this b.s idea. Besides, it smells of the Evil Karl Rove. And anything that the Evil Karl Rove touches is (a) filet mignon for the Republicans, and (b) poison for the rest of the country.

In either case, the Democrats can claim, probably legitimately, that McCain isn't ready for the debate--whose topic is FOREIGN POLICY, not the economy--and hence chickened out. He just can't keep the information straight in his own mind or coming out of his mouth. Call McCain's bluff on this one, show him for the excessively-elder non-statesman that he is, and force him to appear on Friday.

If McCain refuses to debate, Obama should show up and, using the old Monty Python bit, debate against a puddle of brown gravy.

Damn, but I'm sick of the Evil Karl Rove.

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# 63 "Numbers" -- Not Just a TV Show Any More

The report I cited in my post last night is still sticking in me, in part because today Yahoo has that report as one of its featured articles, so I'm constantly reminded of it. I've been fearful of latent racism since the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, when some voters indicated they weren't ready to have "an African-American as president."

We shouldn't be surprised, of course, that racial prejudice exists in our society. But the stakes in this election are so high and the Republicans have been running such a dirty, rotten scoundrel campaign that, frankly, I don't see how any one who is not a dyed-in-the-wool, can't-tell-his-ass-from-his-elbow Republican can even consider voting for McCain. On the other hand, I know some smart, good people who are supporting John McCain, so I can't apply my criteria to other folk. They have their own agendas and benchmarks, for good or for ill, and they'll vote the way they think is best.

I'm voting for Obama because (a) his ideas more closely align with my own in foreign and domestic policies; (b) he'll represent us well in international relationships, as dubya has clearly not; (c) he seems not to act impulsively and with anger, as McCain apparently does (at least according to sources from his own campaign); and (d) he chose a running mate based on qualifications, not political considerations. Joe Biden was not my first choice (or my fourth or fifth, for that matter) to be the VP candidate, but he does seem to be connecting with middle- and lower-economic classes in a way that Obama, despite his economically deprived childhood, is apparently not connecting.

Even some Republican elected officials can't support John McCain. Last week Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said that Governor Palin “doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials” and added that it’s a “stretch” to say that Palin is qualified to be president. This may be the Democrats’ answer to Lady de Rothschild, a former donor to the Democratic party, who 0n September 17 announced her support for McCain and opposition to Obama. Senator Obama is “an elitist,” said the millionaire who married into a billionaire family.

Here are some recent poll numbers, as of late last week:

NYTimes/CBS: Obama 48-43
Gallup: Obama 48-44
CNN Poll of Polls: Obama 47-44
Virginia: McCain 49 to 41
New Mexico: Obama 49-42
Ohio: tied at 48% each, in a two-person race; when the three other candidates were listed, Obama remained at 48%, McCain dropped to 44%, and Nader got 4%.

I also saw that Indiana, which had been moving toward Obama (perhaps when he was considering Evan Bayh as his running mate?) was moving back to McCain.

But the countrywide polls notwithstanding, I'm still upset with the race issue, and have made some changes in how the electoral college stands, from my point of view, right now. John McCain is now favored in five additional traditionally Red states (even though some of them have Democratic governors and/or senators) which previously I had listed as Tossups; Barack Obama will likely carry New Mexico; but I have removed four states from Obama's column, and have moved them to Tossups. Three of the four are vital midwest states: Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If Obama had been able to convince Governor Strickland to be his running mate, Ohio might be strongly in the Obama camp.

KEY:
# moved from Tossup to McCain
+ moved from Tossup to Obama
* moved from Obama to Tossup


McCAIN
Alabama 9
Alaska 3
Arizona 10
Florida 27
Georgia 15
Idaho 4
Indiana 11
Kansas 6
Kentucky 8
Louisiana 9
Mississippi 6
#Missouri 11
#Montana 3
Nebraska 5
#Nevada 5
North Carolina 15
North Dakota 3
Oklahoma 7
South Carolina 8
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 11
Texas 34
Utah 5
#Virginia 13
#West Virginia 5
Wyoming 3

Currently 26 states with 239 electoral votes for McCain

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OBAMA
California 55
Delaware 3
DC 3
Hawaii 4
Illinois 21
Maine 4
Maryland 10
Massachusetts 12
Minnesota 10
New Jersey 15
+New Mexico 5
New York 31
Oregon 7
Pennsylvania 21
Rhode Island 4
Vermont 3
Washington 11

Currently 16 states + DC with 219 electoral votes for Obama

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TOSSUP
Arkansas 6 (Republican?)
Colorado 9
Connecticut 7 (because of Lieberman)
Iowa 7
*Michigan 17 (despite auto factory closures and McCain’s ineptitude talking to Michiganders)
*New Hampshire 4 (a bad feeling I'm having right now about Jed Bartlett's state)
*Ohio 20 (despite auto factory closures)
*Wisconsin 10 (McCain spending time and $$ there)

Currently, 8 states with 80 electoral votes are Tossups.

But remember: the election is very fluid and, in addition to the states I've classified as Tossups, several of the states under either candidate can shift (as clearly happened since my last electoral list). Right now, based on the above lists, Obama needs 51 electoral votes: barring any further defections from the Obama column, Connecticut's 7 electoral votes, Michigan's 17, Ohio's 20, and Wisconsin's 10 would give Obama 273 votes and the presidency.

In fact, right now that's the only way I see Obama winning the election: by carrying all three of those midwest states. That's a tough task, especially in Ohio with its strong conservative Republican tradition. A lot will depend on what Governor Strickland and Senator Brown do by way of campaigning.

Two more points: (1) my having even to list Michigan as a tossup is of concern, given the condition of that state's economy; (2) that I had to add Wisconsin is a real shock, and may be a function of McCain's spending time and money there, without yet badly screwing up his appearances.

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#62 Latent, "Deep-Seated," Racism Among Democrats

I've been gone for awhile, watching the ocean and the S&P. What the Dow Jones Utilities average predicted a few months ago actually happened: DJU broke below its 474 support level (and is now about 40 points lower still), allegedly a signal that the Industrials would fall significantly within a couple of months. Last week that happened. Technically, a lot of damage has been done to DJI and S&P, and the lows of last Wednesday will be tested. Perhaps they'll hold. Otherwise, we're in for further declines, new lows established, with more testing of those lows to follow. So don't feel too good yet about the apparent upward momentum of the last two trading days.

Don't feel good about the title of this post either. How's that for a smooth segue. Unfortunately, I feel disgusted by the results shown by the most recent AP/Yahoo poll conducted through Stanford University. I'm including the salient parts below, but the basic point is that "one-third of white Democrats have negative feelings toward blacks," and enough of them may vote for John McCain, or may just not vote at all, to tip the election to McCain.

We saw it surface earlier, in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, when something like fourteen percent of the exit interviewees indicated that they weren't ready for an African-American to be president.

And I go back even further, to Doug Wilder's campaign for governor of Virginia more than a decade ago. He was ahead in the polls by double figures right up to the election, and won by one-half of one percent. That result was attributed to latent racism. The AP/Yahoo/Stanford poll signals to me that Obama may need to be ahead in the polls by ten points or more really to have a chance to win on November 4.

I am not amused.

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Here's the article:

By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points....

Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views....

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey. The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.
The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president — white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling. Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice....

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible."...

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent." Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."...

Just 59 percent of [Hillary Clinton's] white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain. Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries — particularly whites with high school education or less — were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

#61 "Houston, we have a problem."

I know I wrote that I was going to take some time off to let the conventions settle in to our collective psyches, in order to get a clearer idea of where the election stands. But we're not just talking about a space shuttle in contact with Houston. Sarah Palin is on a God-mission that is dangerous to the constitutional separation of church and state. Nothing frosts my cake more than this kind of attempted violation of the Constitution. I and many of my friends, colleagues, and fellow and sister Americans are members of religious and ethnic minorities. She isn't just a VP candidate anymore. She is a clear and present danger to the sacred concept that our Founding Fathers created more than two hundred years ago. Here's the news article:

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By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 7:23 PM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

Palin asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there.

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."
A video of the speech was posted at the Wasilla Assembly of God's Web site before finding its way on to other sites on the Internet.

Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.

"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

"I can do my job there in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded," she added. "But really all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

Palin attended the evangelical church from the time she was a teenager until 2002, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site. She has continued to attend special conferences and meetings there. Religious conservatives have welcomed her selection as John McCain's running mate.

Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, lamented Palin's comments.

"I miss the days when pastors delivered sermons and politicians delivered political speeches," he said. "The United States is increasingly diverse religiously. The job of a president is to unify all those different people and bring them together around policy goals, not to act as a kind of national pastor and bring people to God."

The section of the church's Web site where videos of past sermons were posted was shut down Wednesday, and a message was posted saying that the site "was never intended to handle the traffic it has received in the last few days."

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#60 She is no Ronald Reagan. Give us a few weeks.

I didn't see all of Sarah Palin's "Reagan-esque" speech tonight, but I wasn't impressed by the clips and sound bites all the news stations replayed as her best moments. Of course, I was one of those few Americans who wasn't impressed by Ronald Reagan either. Give the man a script or even a few lines that he could memorize, and he became The Great Orator. Once he finished the script and was answering questions extemporaenously, he could barely garble two sentences together, much less a coherent thought. And people forget that the phrase "The Great Orator" was initially coined by the media ironically because of his INability to speak without a strong script in front of him or already memorized. The lesson is, beware of irony lest the American public AND subsequently even the media miss it and, instead, take it literally.

Actually, I suspect Sarah Palin, who is after all a University of Idaho graduate, can string sentences and thoughts together even without a script. And hence she is no Ronald Reagan. As an off-the-cuff speaker, she may be better, and that's something Joe Biden better be alert to when he enters their sole debate.

More importantly--to me, if not to the mass of American voters or to the media--what she said tonight can easily be turned against the Republican party: for just one example, the liberals ignoring the people in favor of their own agendas. [Q: Who in the past eight years of presidency and six of the past eight years in control of Congress passed tax breaks for the uber-wealthy and passed the cost on to the middle class?] [A: the Republicans]

Now it's time to give ourselves a few weeks to let the dust settle, to let the Republican ultra-right wing base enjoy its new hero, and let the polls reflect a bump for McCain as a result of Palin. It's actually, however, not a good thing for the presidential nominee to be overshadowed by his vice presidential running mate, to (pun intended) pale in comparison.

Before the election, people enamored of Sarah will come to remember that John is at the head of the ticket. Besides, I believe that James Carville is as right today as he was sixteen years ago: It is the economy that will finally drive the vote in this election. Once the media or the Democrats seize upon the paucity of fresh ideas in the Republican platform, especially to improve the status of the millions of Americans who are worse off today than they were four years ago (echoes of Ronald Reagan anyone?), the economy will trump the voting power of the energized Republican far-right base.

And then we have only latent racism to worry about. I hate to keep coming back to that idea, but I have no way of knowing if it's still out there waiting to influence votes, or just a throwback to the Pennsylvania Democratic primary which voters have gotten over.

I plan to sit back over the next two or three weeks, take a few long drives in a fuel-efficient car, watch some news but not enough to get upset, and then wait for the mid/late September poll results. By then, the effects of the conventions will have moderated, and perhaps the Republicans will decrease their pit bull attacks and increase their policy pronouncements. Now that would be a refreshing change.

Oh, by the way, in my list of tossup states, move Minnesota off of that list and onto the Democratic list. Without Pawlenty on the Republican ticket, I don't see MN going Red this year. That move won't change my projected electoral vote totals in my July 5 post, since I had--for electoral total purposes only--assigned all the tossup states to one or the other candidate, and I had put MN's ten votes in Obama's column. I just don't see it as much of a tossup anymore. Still Obama 301, McCain 237.

Have a good three weeks.

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#59 Temper, Temper....

One more look at John McCain's unPresidential qualities: we've seen his impulsiveness in deciding--against the advice of his close aides--to put Sarah Palin on the ticket; today we see his irascibility. Make that his very strong anger.

Neither quality is what we need or should want in a president with his finger on the button that sends the bombs. On the other hand, the press is probably none too happy with a presidential candidate giving them the finger. McCain's handlers need to get him back on track, and not attacking the messengers.

I give you parts of the most recent Bloomberg News article. All of what follows is directly quoted:
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The longtime love affair between John McCain and what he once called his ``base'' -- the national news media -- is on the rocks.

McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, yesterday lashed out at what he deemed "offensive'' and "demeaning'' coverage and questions from reporters after McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, confirmed her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

"It used to be that a lot of those smears and the crap [sic] on the Internet stayed out of the newsrooms of serious journalists,'' Schmidt said at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Schmidt's criticism is the latest example in the unraveling of what was once a fond relationship between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and the media. Starting in the 2000 Republican primaries, the Arizona senator became a media sensation by chatting up the press in the back of his ``Straight Talk Express'' campaign bus. The national press corps freely mingled with McCain for hours on the bus, with no topic off limits.

More recently, though, McCain, 72, has accused news organizations such as the New York Times, Time magazine and the NBC network of being unfair to him. The campaign even considered pulling out of one of the three presidential debates because it would be moderated by Tom Brokaw, a former NBC News anchorman....

"You still need the press to get your message out and if you have an antagonistic relationship it can blow up in your face,'' [Darrell West, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has written several books on the mass media] said.

As the relationship has deteriorated, McCain has stopped hosting his once-famous "straight talk'' get-togethers on his campaign plane. He also has abandoned regular press conferences. Instead, he stops occasionally to read short written statements in front of cameras, like he did Aug. 31 in Jackson, Mississippi; then walks away from questions shouted by reporters. His campaign plane is custom configured with a lounge area designed for hosting question-and-answer sessions with the press. McCain inaugurated the lounge on one of the plane's first flights and hasn't used it since.

Invitations for the press to visit the Straight Talk Express also have grown scarce. Local reporters are allowed the occasional visit, though journalists traveling with McCain no longer are invited to drop in. He hasn't held a news conference since Aug. 13....

There have also been a series of public rifts between the campaign and the media. On July 31, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis sparred with MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell in an exchange about a McCain campaign ad portraying Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a celebrity.

"I'm happy to talk about more substantive issues the next time I come on your program,'' Davis said, capping the testy interview.

On July 22, the McCain camp assailed the media in an Internet advertisement and an e-mail to supporters. "It's pretty obvious the media has a bizarre fascination with Barack Obama, some may even say it's a love affair,'' McCain's campaign said in the e-mail. "The media is in love with Barack Obama. If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny....''

McCain also took a combative stance in an Aug. 27 interview with Time reporters James Carney and Michael Scherer, refusing to answer a question about his definition of honor.

"Read it in my books,'' McCain said. "I'm not going to define it.'' That exchange set the tone for the rest of the interview: McCain answered a question about his opinion on premarital sex by saying, "I don't have any response to that type of question.''

He added, ``Write what you want.''
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