If it's All About Pennsylvania....

A McCain Campaign Memo

From: Rick Davis, McCain-Palin Campaign
Subject: The State of the Campaign
 

To:	Interested Parties
From:	Rick Davis, Campaign Manager
Date:	October 31, 2008
RE:	The Final Push

The State of the Campaign

If your television is tuned to cable news as frequently as ours are here at campaign headquarters, you have seen the pundits say John McCain and his campaign are done. And, if you've followed this race since the beginning, this is clearly a song you've heard before. I wanted to take some time today to give you some insight on the state of the race as we see it.

An AP poll released this morning revealed a very telling fact: ONE out of every SEVEN voters is undecided. That means, if 130 million voters turn out on Tuesday, 18.5 million of them have yet to make up their mind. With that many votes on the table and the tremendous movement we've seen in this race, I believe we are in a very competitive campaign. That means, if 130 million voters turn out on Tuesday, 18.5 million of them have yet to make up their mind. With that many votes on the table and the tremendous movement we've seen in this race, I believe we are in a very competitive campaign.

Here's why:

All the major polls have shown a tightening in the race and a significant narrowing of the numbers. In John McCain's typical pattern, he is closing strong and surprising the pundits. We believe this race is winnable, and if the trajectory continues, we will surpass the 270 Electoral votes needed on Election Night.

• National Polls: Major polls last week showed John McCain trailing by double-digit margins - but by the middle of this week, we were within the margin of error on four national tracking surveys. In fact, the Gallup national tracking survey showed the race in a virtual tie 2 days this week.
• State Polls:
  
  Iowa - Our numbers in Iowa have seen a tremendous surge in the past 10 days. We took Obama's lead from the double digits to a very close race. That is why you see Barack Obama visiting the state in the final days, trying to stem his losses. It is too little, too late. Like many other Midwestern states, Iowa is moving swiftly into McCain's column.
  
  The Southwest - It is no secret that Republican candidates in the Southwest have to focus on winning over enough Latino and Hispanic voters in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado to carry them to victory. John McCain has overcome challenges Republicans face, and has made up tremendous ground in these states with these voters. For these voters, the choice has become clear, and you have seen a big change in the numbers. John McCain is now winning enough voters to perform within the margin of error - putting these states within reach.
  
  Colorado - Barack Obama tried to outspend our campaign in Colorado during the early weeks of October and finish off our candidate in Colorado. However, after our visit early this week, we saw a tremendous rebound in our poll position, and Colorado is back on the map.
  
  Ohio and Pennsylvania - Everyone knows that vote rich Ohio and Pennsylvania will be key battlegrounds for this election. Between the two: 41 electoral votes and no candidate has gotten to the White House without Ohio. Senator McCain and Governor Palin have been campaigning non-stop in these key battleground states and tonight Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pumped up our campaign at a rally in Columbus. Our position in these states is strong and undecided voters continue to have a very favorable impression of our candidate.

Obama campaign faces tremendous structural challenges in the final days of this campaign

• Obama has a challenge hitting 50%: Barack Obama has not reached the 50% threshold in almost any the battleground state. He consistently is performing in the 45-48% range. When we look closely at the primary votes, we see a history of a candidate whose Election Day performance is often at or behind his final polling numbers. If this is true, our surge will leave Obama with even or under 50% of the vote on Election Day.
• Early Vote: The Obama campaign has promised that their early vote and absentee efforts will change the composition of the electorate. They have sold the press on a story that first time voters will turn out in droves this election cycle. Again, the facts undermine their argument. In our analysis of early voting and absentee votes to date: The composition of the electorate has not changed significantly and most folks who have voted early are high propensity voters who would have voted regardless of the high interest in this campaign.
• Expanding the Field: Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

The Final Barnstorm

• On Monday, we will have a 14 state rally with our candidates crisscrossing the country trying to turn out our voters and sway the final undecided voters. Governor Palin will hit Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and Alaska in the final day of campaigning, while Senator McCain will travel from Tampa, Florida, to Virginia, then Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and finish the night in Prescott, Arizona. The enthusiasm and excitement we generate on Monday will be the electricity that powers our "Get Out the Vote" efforts on Tuesday.

On the Ground

• Our field organization has tremendous energy and is out-performing the Bush campaign at the same time in 2004. This week our field organization crossed a huge threshold and began reaching more than one million voters per day, and by week's end will have contacted more than 5 million voters. Our phone centers are full and our rate of voter contact is significantly out-pacing the Bush campaign in 2004. We have the resources to do the voter contact necessary to support the surge we are seeing in our polling with old fashioned grassroots outreach.

On the Airwaves

• In the final days of the campaign, our television presence will be bigger and broader than the Obama campaign's presence. The full Republican effort - the RNC's Independent Expenditure and the McCain campaign will out-buy Barack Obama and the Democrats by just about 10 million dollars.

In short: the McCain campaign is surging in the final 72 hours. Our grassroots campaign is vibrant and communicating to voters in a very powerful way. Our television presence is strong. And, we have a secret ingredient - A candidate who will never quit and who will never stop fighting for you and for your families.

In these final hours, Senator McCain and Governor Palin are counting on you - they are counting on you to knock on doors, to make turnout calls, to contact your friends and neighbors. Get our voters to the polls and help John McCain fight for your and for our country. This is our last mission on behalf of John McCain and I have no doubt I can count on your effort and energy to carry us across the line to victory

This Is Getting Ridiculous

An exclusive new WWL-TV statewide poll shows the contest for president may be closer than many had predicted among Louisiana voters. In the telephone survey of 500 registered voters, conducted by pollster Ed Renwick, Republican Senator John McCain earns 43 percent of the vote, while Democrat Senator Barack Obama receives 40 percent.  Renwick said that amounts to a statistical tie, since the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 points.

"It's closer than I thought it would be," said Renwick, adding that the higher the turnout, the worse it might be for McCain.

Virginia's Schoolchildern Vote -- The Churchill Road Example

The Coming Republican Minority

• While a sizeable majority of voters say Republicans have lost in 2006 and 2008 because they have been "too conservative," a sizeable plurality of Republicans say, it is because they have "not been conservative enough."

• Over three-quarters of Republicans say Palin was good choice, while a majority of the electorate says the opposite.

• Two-thirds of Republicans say McCain has not been aggressive enough, but a majority of voters think they have been too aggressive.

• Looking to the future, a large majority of Republicans say the party needs to "move more to the right and back to conservative principles," while an even larger majority of all voters say, it should move to the "center to win over moderate and independent voters."

• Finally, almost 60 percent of Republicans say "if Barack Obama is elected, he will lead the country down the wrong path and Republicans should oppose his plans," while 70 percent of all voters say they "should give him the benefit of the doubt and help him achieve his plans.

The Back End Of The Obama Transition In Six Bullet Points

McCain's Closing Ad: "Freedom"

A Cabinet Level Science Adviser

The Daily Transition RUMINT, 10/31

Note: from now on, no more speculating about staff-level jobs... there are too many sensitivities. (If I get hard info, I'll pass it along.)  Cabinet-level appointment, chiefs of staffs and senior national security jobs are still fair game.

Attorney General -- McCain: A.B. Culvahouse, George Terwilliger III,  Larry Thompson (ABA Journal)

White House Counsel --  McCain: Ted Olson,  Trevor Potter (ABA Journal)

Defense -- McCain:   Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman, John Lehman

Treasury -- McCain: Robert Portman, Mitt Romney, Jack Kemp,

Homeland Security -- McCain -- McCain: Rudy Giuliani

Continue reading "The Daily Transition RUMINT, 10/31" »

Election Day Weather Update: Sunny And Mild

Google's Election

McCain Manager "Jazzed Up;" "Comeback" Coming

"We think we've shaken off the effects of the financial collapse that have suppressed  our numbers prior to the last debate.  Our own data has us dead even in the state of Iowa."

"We see intensity increasing with some of the core parts of the Republican identification.  Party identification on the exit polls is going to be in the historic norm of minus three to minus five," he said. And "John McCain, in our stuff, has always run ahead of party ID. It's helping create a very very close result." 

McInturff projected a turnout of between 130 and 135 million people.

McCain political director Mike DuHaime said that the campaign had knocked on 5.3 million doors ove the past seven days and made 1.3 million telephone calls. DuHaime said that McCain and the Republicans are outperforming Democrats in terms of the numbers of absentee ballots requested and returns.

Plouffe: "The Die Is Being Cast As We Speak" [In Early Voting States]

** In NV,  43% of Democrats who have voted early are new or sporadic voting Democrats

** In NC, 19% of Democrats who've voted early are Democrats who've never voted in a presidential election before

** "In Florida, a quarter of sporadic voting Democrats are turning out out that the same rate as very likely Democrats."

Obama To Advertise In Arizona

McCain To Appear On Saturday Night Live

More Evidence Of A Surge Among Low-Propensity Voters In Colorado

Fred Baron Dies

Undecided Wars: Bill McInturff Responds To Stan Greenberg

I went on Real Clear Politics tonight to find these two headlines back-to-back.

CBS/NYT:  Obama up comfortably
FOX:   Race tightens significantly

No wonder people can be confused about the status of this campaign.  

I am weighting African Americans to census +1%.  I am weighting young voters to be at least 16% of the turn-out.   With those weights, I have seen the race tighten since last week.

If we were betting on the spread of a football game, I will let Stan take the CBS/NYT's poll's margins.

I believe we live in a world much closer to the Fox results.

While Stan knows the outcome of Tuesday's election, my point is simple:  I believe it is not yet determined.  In fact, unlike Stan, I believe the race could still change -- either by moving back in Senator Obama's direction or continuing to tighten between now and election day.

It won't take long now to find out which one is the closer representation of this election --- Stan and the CBS/NYT's or a much tighter campaign like the one we are watching develop in the Fox data released today.

Stan and I are good friends and cohorts and our friendship will certainly withstand this disagreement, but, finally, having had the great good fortune of working for John McCain on three Senate campaigns and now two presidential campaigns, here are two things I ALSO know for sure:  1) John McCain is a hard man to kill and I am the least surprised guy in the country that with even the smallest window of opportunity--as the focus on the financial crisis faded a bit--that he could make up ground and 2) the difference between these two candidates in terms of their preparation and capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief is  profound, to McCain's considerable advantage, and that matters to the remaining voters here in the last few days of this election.

Bill

Rahm For Chief Of Staff? Not Just Yet...

Barack Obama's campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday, looking ahead as the marathon presidential race entered its final, frenzied stretch with a Democratic tilt.

The Democrats who described the contact with Emanuel spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to be quoted by name.

Stan Greenberg's Undecideds

• The memo reports that Obama is already getting virtually 100 percent of the African American vote in McCain's polls. That is not true in our combined database of the presidential battleground states where Obama is polling 89 to 6 percent. On that basis alone, one would expect Obama's overall vote to rise a point.
• Note that the same is true of Latino voters. In special surveys of Hispanics, using special lists, Obama is polling close to 70 percent, but in the combined battleground polls where Hispanic respondents are more acculturated and English-speaking, we have Obama's vote at 56 percent to 36 percent for McCain. That too can produce another point of Obama support.
• The memo says that the "undecided" and "refused" voters "will break decisively in our direction, adding a "net three plus points to our margin." That is pretty amazing. Using the combined database, we looked at the "undecided," "refused" and the undecided "leaning" to a candidate - 7 percent of the electorate. Using their stated leanings to the candidates and feelings toward the parties, this undecided vote broke near evenly between Obama and McCain. In our latest presidential battleground poll, they broke near evenly as well. To get a 3-point net gain, the undecided would have to break 5 to 2 for McCain. There is no evidence to indicate such an impending break against Obama. Instead, the undecided could push Obama's vote up at least another point.

Continue reading "Stan Greenberg's Undecideds" »

California' Gay Marriage Prop 8: A Tie

Obama Recruiting Volunteers For Arizona; "Real Chance"

XXXXX --

I had to write you to share some news you may not have heard.

The Arizona Republic is now reporting that a series of new polls show us "neck and neck" with John McCain in Arizona. According to the Republic, Senator McCain is "struggling in his own backyard."

Arizona is his home state. He should have a comfortable lead with voters who've known him for nearly three decades. That says all you need to know about the strength of Barack's message and the grassroots movement we've built.

With Election Day just 5 days away, this surge of support for Barack couldn't come at a better time. But we have to act immediately to take advantage.

Sign up right now to join our grassroots effort. Help turn out voters any time between now and Election Day, November 4th.

In response to the news, John McCain is now blanketing Arizona -- his own home state -- with negative and misleading "robocalls" to voters.

It's a desperate move, but we need to respond and keep our momentum going. If enough of you take the time to get involved and do your part, we could pull a real upset.

The way to do that is to talk to Arizonans face to face, and let them know the importance of their vote in this election. But we've only got 5 days left to do it.

Supporters like you have put us within striking distance. Now it's time to pull off what no one expected.

Sign up and join in the final push to make history in this election:

http://az.barackobama.com/AZvol

We've got a real chance now, but we can't do this without you.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Carson
National Field Director
Obama for America

Counterevidence Watch: Obama + 3 In The Fox Poll

Fox News changed its sampling. Last week - D43, R 37 This week - D41, R39 http://courses.ttu.edu/hdfs3390-reifman/weighting.htm There is no good reason to change the weighting, they just did it and not surprisingly came out with a more favorable result for McCain.

"Everbody?"

Progressive Accountability Holds Me Accountable

CLAIM - Marc Ambinder Claims He Has Written a Haiku

FACT - A Haiku is 5-7-5, Ambinder dangerously misleads the American people by writing a "Haiku" that is 6-7-5.

Statement - "With only five days until the election this misuse of Japanese poetry could unravel the very fabric of American democracy.  We immediately demand that the first line be amended to "Joe's with us today" to comply with the use of syllables that the American people deserve and expect from The Atlantic."

Informercial Lobbyists v. Tucker Bounds

Last night, the Barack Obama campaign took an unprecedented step in the history of the infomercial, by running concurrently on several networks in the prime time half-hour beginning at 8 p.m. to make an appeal to voters in the form of an infomercial.  The John McCain camp, led by spokesperson Tucker Bounds responded, "As anyone who has bought anything from an infomercial knows, the sales-job is always better than the product.  Buyer beware."

Rick Petry, Acting President and CEO of the Electronic Retailing Association, a trade association that represents direct marketers that use electronic means including infomercials, had this response.  "To use a political agenda to indict an entire genre of advertising by portraying it in such a negative light is patently unfair.  It would be like charging an entire industry and everyone associated with it, say politics for example, as being scurrilous.  We at ERA will be the first to tell you that there are some who use this method of advertising inappropriately, which is why we have an independent self-regulation program, ERSP ( http://www.narcpartners.org/ersp/index.aspx ), administered by the National Advertising Review Council in partnership with the Council of Better Business Bureau.  With this watchdog mechanism in place, claims have to be proven; a standard that politicians are not required to live up to.  The fact is infomercials have been used by not only start-ups with unique products, but successful brands such as Kodak and Mercedes Benz, even the U.S. Navy."

No Show Joe: A Haiku

Dem Int'l: Obama Down Five In South Dakota

A Democrat sends along an internal poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner  for Sen. Tim Johnson in South Dakota.  

Johnson's cruising to re-election.

But the poll, which surveyed 613 voters on Monday and Tuesday, gives Sen. John McCain a five point lead, 45% to 40% with ten percent undecided.  This, in a state won by President George W. Bush by 21 percentage points  (80,000 votes) in 2004.

The poll oversampled Republicans by two points and found that 45% of its sample considered themselves conservative.

Allstate/NJ Poll: All B'Ground State Leads For Obama

The Economist Endorses Obama, Trashes McCain

"....the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as "agents of intolerance" now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.

Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut reaction over Georgia--to warn Russia off immediately--was the right one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama, he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers (Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).

The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her just twice.

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.

The Daily Transition Rumint, 10/30

McCain's Many Messages

McCain/RNC Radio Ads

Your Morning Dose Of Counter-Counterevidence

Typically, pollsters can say little about the undecided voters on their final surveys because the single-digit percentages yield (at best) only a few dozen respondents for analysis. However, the massive rolling-average national tracking surveys offer a unique opportunity to put larger-than-average samples of undecided voters under an analytical microscope.

The pollsters at Financial Dynamics were kind enough to share with Charles Franklin and me the raw, respondent-level data from more than 3,449 interviews conducted from Oct. 1 to Oct. 22 for the Diageo/Hotline poll.

We can learn two things from this data. First, roughly 6 percent of the respondents were initially undecided, but split almost evenly (47 percent for Obama, 53 percent for McCain, n=193) when pushed for how they "lean."

Second, Franklin constructed a statistical model to predict the vote choice among those who expressed a preference, then ran the model among the 267 respondents who were completely undecided. This process allows us to draw on every variable that seems predictive of vote preference -- including party identification, age, race, gender, education, frequency of church attendance and geographic region -- and use it to predict how the currently undecided voters will ultimately "break."

Franklin's finding? The model predicts that the totally undecided voters in this sample will split 54 percent for Obama and 46 percent for McCain (more details on Franklin's model here).

Your Morning Dose Of Counterevidence

Down A Third

"Today's announcement that third quarter GDP fell at a 0.3 percent rate confirms what Americans already knew: the economy is shrinking. Barack Obama would accelerate this dangerous course. According to the independent Center for Data Analysis, Barack Obama's new policies will destroy nearly 6 million jobs over the next decade.

"Barack Obama's ideologically-driven plans to redistribute income will impose higher taxes on families, small businesses, and investors; expensive, rigid, job-killing health mandates on employers; energy policies that fail to promote domestic oil, natural gas, and coal, and will impose a massive Washington-driven regulation of everything from home furnaces to factories; isolationist trade policies that endanger one out of every five jobs; and massive new spending plans that that will burden the economy and saddle our children with debt. Barack Obama is change Americans cannot afford.

"John McCain's comprehensive reforms will clean up Wall Street, clean up Washington, and create nearly 2 million more jobs over the same period. John McCain offers a new direction and a real choice: lower taxes and under control spending; lower health care costs and portable insurance; an energy policy that declares independence from dangerous and unstable sources, values the environment, and supports growth; serious reforms to taxes, education, and trade to promote global competitiveness, and short-run plans to help the seniors, savers, homeowners, and workers hurt by the financial crisis."

Now, Barack Obama's.

"This morning, we learned that GDP has fallen for the first time this year, which means America is producing less and selling less and our economy is shrinking. American consumers were especially hard hit, experiencing their largest decline in spending in 28 years as wages failed to keep up with the rising cost of living. The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident - it is a direct result of the Bush Administration's trickle down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four.  These policies didn't work then, they won't work now, and I'm running for President to end them.  We need to grow our economy by creating jobs, providing tax relief for middle class families, and helping people stay in their homes, and that is exactly what I will do as President."

Obama Banks: Clues From The Early Vote

Continue reading "Obama Banks: Clues From The Early Vote " »

Don't Believe Anything You Read

Poll gives McCain lead in Fla. early voting   (not really.)

The RNC IE's Latest: "Surgeon"

Obama's Commercial

Fukuyama Endorses Obama

The Field: Texans Getting Out Out Of Texas To GOTV

Team Buckeye: Austin to Ohio -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart Austin, TX on Friday 10/31 at 12 pm

Depart Dallas, TX on Friday 10/31 at 4 pm

Arrive Cincinnati, OH on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Dallas, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Afternoon

Return Austin, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evening

Team Simpson: Austin/Waco/Dallas to Missouri -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart Austin, TX on Friday 10/31 at 7 pm

Depart Waco, TX on Friday 10/31 at 8 pm

Depart Dallas, TX on Friday 10/31 at 10 pm

Arrive Springfield, MO on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Dallas, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Afternoon

Return Waco, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Afternoon

Return Austin, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evening

Team Riverwalk: San Antonio/Austin to New Mexico -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart San Antonio, TX on Friday 10/31 at 6 pm

Depart Austin, TX on Friday 10/31 at 8 pm

Arrive Albuquerque, NM on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Austin, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evening

Return San Antonio, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evening

Team Longhorn: Austin to New Mexico -- 10/31 to 11/03

Depart Austin, TX on Friday 10/31 at 7 pm

Arrive Albuquerque, NM on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Austin, TX on Monday 11/03 at 7 am

Team Bronco: Fort Worth to New Mexico -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart Fort Worth, TX on Friday 10/31 at 2 pm

Arrive Albuquerque, NM on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Fort Worth, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evening

Team Gator: Houston to Florida -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart Houston, TX on Thursday 10/30 at 7 pm

Arrive Gainesville, FL on Friday 10/31 Morning

Return Houston, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evenin

Team Cowboy: Houston to Ohio -- 10/31 to 11/05

Depart Houston, TX on Friday 10/31 at 5 pm

Arrive Dayton, OH on Saturday 11/01 Morning

Return Houston, TX on Wednesday 11/05 Evenin

Join us!

Fill out this form: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/TXBattleBus

An organizer will contact you to confirm your place on the bus.

If you want to elect Barack Obama, get on the Battleground Bus!


Sincerely,
Texas for Obama

RNC/McCain: Obama Will "Rob" You Of Health Care

You're interesting post on the "just as you suspected" line in a radio ad is pretty indicative of the tone of McCain/RNC ads that're running on talk radio. The verbiage in one ad suggests Obama will "rob 50 million Americans of their health care."  Yes, the word is "rob" - not "will take: or "you will lose" your health care, but Obama will "rob" you of it.  This rob line is in two ads, one of which starts with a reference to Obama "scaring seniors."

Listening to a talk station, one gets the impression these McCain/RNC :60 ads run at least once an hour -- in morning drive, throughout midday (including top-of-the-hour Rush breaks) and into afternoon drive, so the saturation is pretty heavy given the considerable traffic on talk radio from local candidates in the days running up to an election.  I've been able to hear the rotation of spots by tuning into my local talk station and listening to the McCain/RNC ads play just before the top of the hour.

Khalidi, Ayers, Meetings, The Los Angeles Times, Liberal Media, Cover-up, Genocide, Israel, Obama

Counterevidence Watch: The Turnout Proportions In Nevada

While turnout statewide was nearly 25 percent through Sunday, it was just 20 percent among Hispanic voters, 14 percent among voters under 30 and 15 percent among those who didn't vote in the last three elections, according to an analysis of state early voting records through Sunday prepared by America Votes, an organization that works to mobilize voters.

The data provide a glimpse into the composition of the more than 300,000 Nevadans who had taken advantage of early voting over the first nine days of the 14-day period. The information comes from proprietary databases that political action groups purchase from commercial vendors, cross-referenced with the public data the state releases showing who has voted.

Traditionally, older people, whites and people who vote consistently tend to turn out at the highest rates overall, said David Damore, a political scientist at UNLV. But this year, much has been made of the idea that the youth vote, the Hispanic vote and first-time voters would turn out at unprecedented rates, galvanized by a heightened political climate and the candidacy of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

"I would have expected those numbers to be a little higher," Damore said. "At the same time, the people who come out for early voting may tend to be the tried and true."

The idea that the electorate will be radically reshaped this year remains an open question, he said, and it's possible the Obama campaign faces a challenge turning out the untested voters it's relying on to win. 

Pizza And Politics: Dems Like Variety, Republicans Like Size

Why Spending Matters

Election Weather!

"Just As You Suspected" A Radio Ad On Obama

"Barack Obama says he wants to spread the wealth. His plan, raise your taxes and give it to big government.
[Woman's voice]: "More for big government, less for you. Just as you suspected, Barack Obama's wrong for you."
[Man's voice]: "Your savings, your job and your financial security are under siege. Congressional liberals will make it worse. Congressional liberals plan nearly a trillion dollars in new government spending. To pay for it, congressional liberals promise higher taxes on American families making over $42,000 a year. Congressional liberals call it spreading the wealth. We call it higher taxes for you."

Behind The Numbers: The Latest Polls

Continue reading "Behind The Numbers: The Latest Polls" »

AFL-CIO's Internal Polling

Among veterans, retirees and gun owners -- the three groups we microtargeted communication to in the final weeks of persuasion -- we've seen the numbers improve dramatically.

 

Among union gun owners, it's now 58-30 Obama, up from 48-41 in early September, a 21 point jump.

 

Among veterans we're at 58-32, up from 49-41 in early September. (+18)

 

And among retirees, we're now at  59-31, up from 52-37, a 14 point improvement, nearly double the margin

Are You Better Off? Rev. 2.

"Are you better off than you were four years ago?  Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?  Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?  If you don't think that this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have."

The Daily Ralston: GOP Faces "Almost Impossible" Task In Nevada

In the urban counties, which represents about 85 percent of the vote, the Democrats could well have close to a 100,000-voter lead over the GOP by the close of early voting Friday. Unless the independents (16 percent in turnout so far) are overwhelmingly going for John McCain, which seems unlikely, Barack Obama has a chance to win Clark and Washoe by enough votes to win the state, unless the GOP Election Day turnout so overwhelms the Ds as to make up the difference -- an almost impossible task.

About The Heartbeat....

Saw your post about the "heartbeat" in the new Obama ad -- actually, the song that's used is by the band The Weepies, and it's the first track of their new album called "Hideaway."  The song itself is called "Can't go back Now" and has been used as the music in a few other Obama ads -- the backbeat is included in the song as it appears on the album, I don't think they were intentionally doing anything sneaky (though personally, I've always liked the song, and wouldn't mind the beat being one more reason for people not to vote for McCain).

The Daily Transition RUMINT, 10/29

A reader:

Charlie Stenholm is a senior policy advisor at Olsson Frank Weeda, a food/ag law and lobby firm.  Since he's a registered lobbyist, Obama might be reticent to appoint him.

......

A reader:

One name I keep hearing from the DC transportation world for Sec. of Transportation is Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer. He was an early Obama endorser and has done a lot of work on metropolitan transportation issues and infrastructure financing. His name was also discussed for this post in 2004, as I remember.

......

Jane Harman (Homeland Security or CIA), PepsiCo chair Indra Nooyi (Treasury, Commerce), Gen. John Abizaid (DNI), James Steinberg (UN Amb., NSA., CIA, DNI),

Ron Klain as Deputy AG or WH Counsel.

......

Dean's Fifty State Strategy

While I'm sure Howard Dean deserves some credit, the assertion that Montana doesn't have a large Obama for America operation might bear some more looking into. There are 19 Obama offices in the state (which has about a million residents and only 3 electoral votes.) I'm sure the gubernatorial race, in which the wildly popular Democrat Brian Schweitzer will almost certainly be re-elected, is also having some effect on the top of the ticket. Republicans also don't have a serious challenger to Senator Max Baucus, having nominated Bob Kelleher who is running on the single issue of transforming the United States government into a parliamentary system. The cherry on top would be the presence of Ron Paul on the presidential ballot, who was nominated by the state's Constitution Party. Montana went for Romney in the primary, and Paul came in a close second with around 25 percent of the vote, one of his best showings anywhere. Montana is many things, but McCain country it ain't.

The fact that Obama has a chance in Montana (if, in fact, he does) is a combination of commitment and effort on the part of his campaign, a strong Democratic ticket up and down the ballot, and a severe lack of reasons for Montana Republicans to get excited about this election.

Palin On Energy

Continue reading "Palin On Energy" »

Listen To Obama's New Ad Very Carefully...

The Obama Campaign Plays The Palin Card...

When "Yet" Means More Than Yet

"'....reminds us of conversations we had a few months ago with various McCain partisans, who believed if they could convince voters that Obama would be president someday if he loses this year, then McCain could win. That word "yet" is aimed at those voters who want change, are tired of Bush, aren't thrilled with McCain these last few weeks, but aren't convinced Obama's ready. It may be too late to make the "McCain as transitional president" argument, but this is a fickle electorate."

RNC IE Up in West Virginia Too

The Polls -- They Are... Tightening. And Not Tightening.

We have merged all of our interviews over the last three plus weeks to identify undecided and respondents who "refuse to respond" on the ballot question.  This can be as high as one out of ten voters, but is generally about eight percent (8%) of the electorate in battleground states.

These voters might generally be non-voters in most cycles.   But, in this cycle, 61% describe their interest in the election as a 10.   This is higher than the last track among ALL voters in 1996 and 2000.

These voters are older, downscale, more rural, and are certainly economically stressed.  They are quite negative about the direction of country and seek change.  They voted for Bush over Kerry by a margin of 47% to 24% and this partisan advantage is a critical element to understanding our capacity to "get" these voters.

They have significant hesitations about Senator Obama's experience and judgment.

Given an Obama TV media barrage we have not witnessed since the last candidate to run without public financing, Richard Nixon in 1972, and the daily drumbeat about Obama's chances, given their demographics,  it is my sense these voters WILL vote in this election and WILL break decisively in our direction.

These undecided/refuse to respond voters breaking decisively against Senator Obama mirrors the pattern of the last two months of the Democrat primary season.

When they do break, I believe they will add a net three plus points to our margins.

Continue reading "The Polls -- They Are... Tightening. And Not Tightening." »

Sign Of The Times: No Dole With McCain In North Carolina

Fred Barnes Apologizes; Says Wallace Wasn't Clothes Culprit

BARNES: I was rough on Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign who was identified as the one responsible for getting the expensive clothes for Sarah Palin and being cowardly and not admitting she was the one. well, it turns out i was wrong, i discovered. i apologize for my
mistake and apologize particularly to Nicole Wallace.

Whatever Happened To Victoria Jackson?

The bubbly actress comedienne who was a Saturday Night Live cast member during its salad days?

She's one of the few conservatives in Hollywood.

And it seems she's convinced that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim. And a communist.

And a liar.  

Out of fairness, if conservatives want to send me a tape of Hollywood liberals going over the top about McCain (and Bill Maher clips don't qualify), I'll run it too.

The Atlantic Electoral Map: 10/28

Iowa, New Mexico -- tier one.
Colorado, Virginia, Florida , Nevada -- tier two.
Ohio, North Carolina -- tier three.
Missouri, Indiana, Montana, Georgia -- tier four.

Counterevidence Watch: "Narrows Slightly"

This column is looking for counterevidence to suggest that, pace John McCain, the press and pundits are being fooled by all this talk of an Obama lead....

Presidential Race Narrows Slightly

(That's the traditional Gallup LV model.)

This is all I've got.

Anyone else?

Just Asking....

So the republicans (state parties, rnc, house and senate committees) have finite resources. what's their optimal strategy right now?

Seems that decisions made in this next week are pretty high stakes and will reverberate over the next 6 years at least.

BTW: hearing that RNC chairman Mike Duncan is calling state parties and national committee members and asking them what resources they need for the final sprint. Problem is... most of these committees have already made their plans.

Precrimination Watch: Madden On Palin (Updated)

Former Romney press secretary Kevin Madden is enough of his own man so as to make me discinclined to add this item to the file of Romneyites who are publicly and privately criticizing Sarah Palin.

Still... the notion that Palin was not subject to the same intense vetting as Romney was has become an article of faith in Romney World.  From CNN:

BROWN: And, Kevin, let me go back to you quickly on this, because doesn't this all go back to the vetting process, this relatively hasty -- more than relatively, frankly -- selection process, and the fact that these people don't really know each other, she and John McCain, very well at all?

MADDEN: Right.

Well, that's why I was laughing before when I saw the quote, Campbell, about when they found out that she didn't know a lot about national issues. Well, talk about closing the barn door after the cattle already got out.

(LAUGHTER)

MADDEN: Look, that is why people who have done this before, people who have run national campaigns, always tend to look at prospective V.P. candidates, and they're the ones that are nationally vetted, the ones that have been governors on the scene for a long time, the ones that have been -- gone through the scrutiny of the national press corps in Washington.

And that's exactly what has happened here, is that, when you put out an unknown and you give them 70 days with which to go through a vetting process, both by voters and the national press corps, ugly things can tend to happen.

Update: Eric Ferhnstrom, Romney's spokesman, e-mails:

As you point out, Madden's his own man. He's a good guy, but his opinions are his own. Mitt Romney and his entire team at the PAC have been supportive of the McCain-Palin ticket - we've raised tons of money, done 20 surrogate events around the country, and countless media interviews both local and national as requested. To imply that Governor Romney has been anything but supportive is untrue and unfair.

CSM Dies, Is Reborn

Une Dénégation du Français

Provocation Of The Day: Is Europe Worried About Obama?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel's government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."

White House On Transition Plans

The White House's Transition Coordinating Council meets today... here's a White House fact sheet for those of you (like me) who obsess about this stuff.

Continue reading "White House On Transition Plans" »

Conspicuously Absent

Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones inspires this post...

So... what's the biggest difference between the homepages of the DNC and RNC websites right now?

(Hint: someone very important doesn't appear in the screengrabs below...)

Rush's Not Sure About "Socialism"

Language matters.

Said Rush Limbaugh on his radio program today:

"I am wondering how many people under 50 actually know what socialism is, and if they do, do they know its bad? It may be taught as something fair and great and something that we should aspire to. I learned its dangers from my parents, my dad started telling me about this when I was nine, I'm trying to remember if I actually learned this in school though. This is not to put down the public school system when I was there, but I don't recall socialism being brought up; communism yes, not socialism."

DNC Spends $10M On Senate, House Races

Stunning! Obama Changes Tax Plan Seven Days Out*

With an appreciable lead in national polls just a week before the election, Barack Obama has radically overhauled his middle class tax cut plan, dropping to $150,000 the cut off for those who'll see a tax cut. What's more, he did so on television in working-class Scranton using a native son, his vice president, Joe Biden.

Can you believe it? What chutzpah. What confidence! Said Biden:

"Spreading the wealth was not--he was talking about is all of the tax breaks have gone to the very, very wealthy. For example you have right now, this year, under the old tax policy that was just - that was put in by George Bush, people making an average 1.4 million a year, good people, decent people, patriotic - they're going to get an $87 billion tax break. What we're saying is that $87 billion tax break doesn't need to go to people making an average of 1.4 million, it should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people -- people making under $150,000 a year."

Obama Transition RUMINT Daily Report, 10/28

Former House ranking member on ag Charlie Stenholm of Texas. This guy
knows policy up and down, though he's a blue dog. He got jerked out of
office by Tom DeLay's gerrymandering tactics. Rs and Ds alike are still
angry over this out here in the country.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. He worked for Hillary, but this could be
a good choice since, well, it's Iowa.

I interned with the campaign this summer.  Every Friday we would have intern lunches and they would pull in someone big (or semi big to talk to us and take questions), Favreau, Desio, and Pete Rouse etc.  I heard Rouse say when asked a question about Obama's Chief of Staff that "I could see Senator Daschle in that role". 

Two Views On Pro-Obama Bias In The Media

Jonah Goldberg writes:

"...As a general proposition I think there's an additional explanation why the press has been burrowing deeper into the Obama camp: post-election access. This is certainly not news to you, but most of the reporters covering these campaigns want to be rewarded with White House correspondent jobs. Others just want access to the next administration. Many figure that ripping into the Obama campaign now would be like wounding the king without killing him.

And VandeHarris write -- and you gotta love the Drudge headline: "Don't blame us for the bias; McCain campaign sucks...)

There have been moments in the general election when the one-sidedness of our site--when nearly every story was some variation on how poorly McCain was doing or how well Barack Obama was faring--has made us cringe.

As it happens, McCain's campaign is going quite poorly and Obama's is going well. Imposing artificial balance on this reality would be a bias of its own.

....

McCain's decision to limit media access and align himself with the GOP conservative base was an entirely routine strategic move for a presidential candidate. But much of the coverage has portrayed this as though it were an unconscionable sell-out.

Since then the media oftens presume bad faith on McCain's part. The best evidence of this has been the intense focus on the negative nature of his ads, when it is clear Obama has been similarly negative in spots he airs on radio and in swing states.

It is not our impression that many reporters are rooting for Obama personally. To the contrary, most colleagues on the trail we've spoken with seem to find him a distant and undefined figure. But he has benefited from the idea that negative attacks that in a normal campaign would be commonplace in this year would carry an out-of-bounds racial subtext. That's why Obama's long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was basically a non-issue in the general election.

Journalists' hair-trigger racial sensitivity may have been misplaced, but it was not driven by an ideological tilt.

In addition, Obama has benefited from his ability to minimize internal drama and maximize secrecy--and thus to starve feed the press's bias for palace intrigue. In this sense, his campaign bears resemblance to the two run by George W. Bush.

Who's right?

Pew: Obama By 16...By 19 Among Those Who Have Already Voted

Undecided voters are less educated, less affluent, and somewhat more likely to be female than the average voter. Nearly half of undecided voters (48%) say they attend religious services at least weekly, which is same as the proportion of McCain supporters. Fewer Obama supporters (31%) say theyattend religious services at least once a week.

$47.5b For The National Intelligence Program

Curious

GOPWars: Katon Dawson At The Norquist Meeting, Tina Benkiser?

RNC Goes Up In Montana

Florida Early Voting Update: Democrats Pull Ahead

Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University is compiling early and absentee voting data from all the states, and I notice that the numbers in Florida, which had been favoring the Republicans, now favor the Democrats. (This isn't a surprise; Republicans placed a heavy emphasis on mail-in absentees and Democrats are placing a heavy emphasis on in person early voting.)  (Note: no one can be certain who these folks have voted for...just what party they belong to.)   50.1% of ballots returned are absentee; 49.9% were cast in person.

Democrats: 44.7%

Republicans: 40.0%

No Party/Other: 15.2%

The Obama Transition: Don't Forget Danzig

Serious RUMINT:  Richard Danzig, possibly as deputy secretary of defense through the Gates transition; then Secretary of Defense. But who knows if Gates will stay on?

A senior-level Democrat says that John Kerry should not be taken lightly as a potential secretary of state.

Lynn Sweet says Chris Lu, Obama's Senate chief of staff and currently a top adviser to the transition committee, will be its executive director.

Sen. Richard Lugar says he won't be a cabinet appointee in the Obama administration.  Neither will Sen. Jack Reed.

Low-level chatter:

There Goes A Senate Seat

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been convicted on seven charges.

Empty Space At A McCain Rally In Ohio Today

In Kettering, Ohio....

Notice how the empty seats are behind the camera riser.

Maybe they were all early voting?

Sent in by a reader...

The Old Ideological Wars Renewed

Whether or not the Frums of the punditosphere are correct, it might be dangerous for the Republican Party to elevate the stakes for this election to a death match between competing ideologies.  If Barack Obama's victory is as decisive as it is shaping up to be, the Democrats can justifiably claim that conservatism itself has been rejected as a political and governing philosophy.  In the closing weeks of the campaign, as the Republican ticket continues to run against the very idea of progressive politics, they are sowing the seeds of the post-election realignment narrative.

 "Socialist" ... "redistributive" ... These are 20th century words with 20th century connotations; indeed, the point of Obama's relfection was that the most progressive -- most liberal -- court of the era could not bring itself to violate a core American principle and could not extend the sphere of justice to the economy.  Obama wasn't simply making a technical point about jurisprudence and history; he was expressing a liberal positivist's lament about the court's reluctance in one specific case -- San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez -- which dealt with education funding.

And here's the redistributionist part:

"One of the, I think, the tragedies of the civil rights movement, was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change, and in some ways we still stuffer from that."

"..so court focused..." is the tragedy, not the court's refusal to redistribute wealth.

Conservatives find it absurd that Americans are about to elect the most liberal president of the modern era and aren't terribly upset by it; but in capitalizing on this particular argument of Obama's, the Republicans are rearguing whether some form of economic redistributions from white people to black people was necessary -- even though Obama never really made the point.

Obama has been talking about the larger GOP governing philosophy for a while now, but until recently, the race hasn't seemed like as much of a referendum on Republicanism; it's been more of a referendum on the Bush years.

What changed?

The GOP went all in on an ideological war.

Sexiest Illegal Robocall Of The Year Award: Zane Starkewolf

Zane Starkewolf is a Green Republican running against Democrat Mike Thompson in California's first congressional district.

Robocalls aren't legal in California, but here's one he's acknowledged sending to voters.

It's... a bit sexual.

Listen: http://zane2008.com/uploads/soundclip.wav

The Transition: The Temporary Workspace, More Names, And Rahm For CoS?

So where will Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama set up shop in Washington?

The GSA's transition space is in the old SEC building at 5th & D in Northwest, near Judiciary Square.

....

Add to the list of Democrats formally assisting Barack Obama with transition planning: Todd Stern, deputy to John Podesta on the transition. He's a partner at Wilmer Hale, and was staff secretary in the Clinton adminstration, and then counsel to Larry Summers at Treasury.

...

The New York Times and the Washington Post both floated Rep. Rahm Emanuel's name for chief of staff.  This isn't mere rumor; associates say that Emanual is seriously in the running for the post, assuming he wants it, assuming Obama can convince him to take it, if Obama decides that Rahm would do it.

Obama's Transition: the RUMINT

Counterevidence Watch: GOP Early Vote In California

California has begun early voting already as well as mail-in balloting. The number of people who have gone in to vote in person has been extensive. The results so far prove what we had always suspected. The polls are being proven as totally unreliable. Although the results of early balloting have not been disclosed,of course,how many Republicans and how many Democrats have voted has been revealed.

The results are simply shocking. The polls showed Barack Obama with an 18 point lead in California just a few days ago. The results thus far are the complete opposite. In the most liberal state in the entire country,the results are that 99,000 Republicans have voted and 96,000 Democrats voted. In the mail-in balloting the results so far are that 9,000 Democrats sent in their ballots and that 5,000 Republicans did so. So with nearly 210,000 people having voted,the Democrats have only a 1,000 vote advantage !

More importantly though, if Republicans believe that the party breakdown of who is voting early is indicative, then what do they think about what is going on in Nevada, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina?

Verdict: Nothingburger.

Have some counterevidence to submit to the jury? E-mail me.

Precrimination Watch: Blame The Candidate

Nothing the McCain campaign did could change the reality of McCain the candidate's poor management instincts and his tendency to fidget around and not stay on message. When the economic crisis hit, this reality flew in the face of the McCain campaign's message of steadiness versus inexperience. Whether by design or the candidate's nature, Obama's caution and deliberation was a living, breathing talking point against the experience card.

Likewise, I think it will be said that the McCain campaign has yet to really lay a glove on Obama character-wise because Obama himself simply does not project the cloying, insecure, effete tendencies of past nominees like Gore and Kerry, though the only two times he's come close (Wright and bitter/cling) have barely figured in the general election campaign. I do think "celeb" was the best chance we had to define Obama personally, but again, though there is something to be said for attacking a guy's strength, Obama's grassroots appeal was a legitimate strength, not a hidden weakness.

Obama's Closing Argument Speechifying

In one week, you can turn the page on policies that have put the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street. 

In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle-class, create new jobs, and grow this economy from the bottom-up so that everyone has a chance to succeed; from the CEO to the secretary and the janitor; from the factory owner to the men and women who work on its floor.

In one week, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election; that tries to pit region against region, city against town, Republican against Democrat; that asks us to fear at a time when we need hope. 

In one week, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.

The question in this election is not "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"  We know the answer to that.  The real question is, "Will this country be better off four years from now?"

Continue reading "Obama's Closing Argument Speechifying" »

The Transition: Podesta Nixes Speech Rumors

While I appreciate Senator McCain's plug for my book, the Power of Progress, his charge is a complete fabrication. He bases this claim on a New York Times story which distorted and confused a chapter I wrote last spring, for a book that was published this summer, with work I am doing this fall on behalf of Senator Obama. The inaugural address in the "Power of Progress" was a literary device I used to sum up the arguments in the book. It was completed well in advance of my work for Senator Obama and has nothing to do with the Obama campaign or pre-transiton. No one involved in pre-transition work has written one word of any address inaugural or otherwise.

Burning Questions, 10/27

Obama's "Forward-Looking" Week

John McCain's Closing Argument

At a time when America is facing historic crisis we can't put our fate in the hands of an untested, inexperienced candidate. John McCain has served his country all his life, and he is the most prepared to restore our economy, bring back fiscal discipline, manage the two wars, and keep Americans safe.

Obama's Closing Argument

"In his speech, Senator Obama will tell voters that after twenty-one months and three debates, Senator McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he'd do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy. Obama will ask Americans to help him change this country, and say that in just one week, they can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up, they can choose to invest in health care for our families and education for our kids and renewable energy for our future, and they can choose hope over fear, unity over division and the promise of change over the power of the status quo."

"Barack Obama is a weak closer precisely because his closing arguments ignore voters' underlying concerns about his inexperience. At a time when America faces historic crises, we should not elect somebody as untested and inexperienced as Obama. Make no mistake: Obama is asking voters to turn the keys to our economy over to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Obama's latest speech is more of the same empty rhetoric repackaged with the urgency of tightening polls and still-undecided voters."

All Robocalls

McCain, Palin To Flood PA With Appearances Next Week

McXplosion?

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.

"The campaign as a whole bought completely into what the Washington media said -- that she's completely inexperienced," said a close Palin ally outside the campaign who speaks regularly to the candidate. "Her strategy was to be trustworthy and a team player during the convention and thereafter, but she felt completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill advised," the person said. "Recently, she's gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts."

Obama's Transition: Orderly, Quiet, With A Few Early Decisions Made

The Table: The Trouble With Paris Hilton

A Note To The Younger Staffers On The Two Campaigns

We in the media, those of us who've followed this for a year, certainly engage emotionally with this story...the presidential race. But we can also be very flip and casual about something you take very seriously.

I take back nothing I've written.

But you've lived in 24/7 in the service of one of the candidates, and for many of you, it is the biggest thing you've ever done in your lives and your their devotion to the cause is intense.  I talk with many of you -- ssh, don't tell your bosses --  I know how long it's been since you've gotten a good night's sleep, visited your girlfriend or boyfriend, eaten a home cooked meal, etc.

It is an awesome thing to do... to try to help elect the next leader of the free world... regardless of which side you're on.   

If things play out the way they appear to be playing out, the next twelve days are going to be really tough for those in the McCain campaign, especially those of you who've stuck with him through thick, thin, thin, thin, think and thin, it's an incredible testament to your willingness to fight for a cause.  We need more of you -- and whatever happens in the next 11 days, we ought to try not to forget your dignity.

The NRSC Pulls Out Of Colorado.

GOPWars: A Ridge Or A Rudy

Let's play Counterfactural along with ex-PA Gov. Tom Ridge, who tells reporters that "the dynamics would be different in Pennsylvania" if Ridge were on the ticket.

Forget the ticket.

Had GOP had nominated a moderate like Giuliani (tough on defense and crime, but socially liberal) would they be in better shape now?

If parts of the South are trending blue -- if Obama wins at least one of Virginia, North Carolina and comes within 5 in all three, and within 7 in GA -- a Giuliani or Ridge can make a pretty strong case for a new map to 270

If obama wins, and the map is blue, we'll know it's a realignment if, in fact, the GOP is forced to discover a new path to 270 markedly different from the one they use now (a path predicated on a regional lock in the south).

Has the lock been picked?

GOPWars: Who Survives --> What The Party Looks Like

To the extent that geography correlates with ideology among congressional Republicans, a major sweep by the Democrats could really be in a position to completely break the gluons that bind the broader party together. The GOP will lose a disportionate number of seats in the Northeast, Midwest and West and keep a disrportionate number of seats in the South. So the remnant of the party, as it were, will be right-wing Southern conservatives.... even more so that it is now.

Additionally, if there's an enormous Democratic sweep, the odds of a reverse sweep two years from now are slim. 2010 won't be like 1994, where Republicans allegedly punished a Democratic Congress and president for the health care debacle and gays in the military. (Would the nation dump 70-80 Republicans over two years only to return them to power two years later?)

Katon's Confab: Renew, Reform, Restore

So here's the invitation to the conference that South Carolina Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson is putting together for the 20th of November.

Provocation of The Day: Immigration Reform Dead

On Clearance, Terrorists, Palling Around And Such

In response to this morning's post about an anti-Palin faction developing with the McCain campaign and among Republicans, Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, e-mails:

Just read your post.  This is on the record.  This is cleared by HQ.  It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists.  It was a fact before Governor Palin  said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today.   It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

 

Neilsen Does It Daily

Something new this election: real time presidential advertising tracking. For free. Colorado. Florida. Georgia. Missouri. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia.

Nielsen says that Obama is running 240% more ads in Florida than McCain.

For day to day tallies...

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/category/politics/

Update: Neilsen doesn't include RNC ads... which is kind of weird. The Obama-McCain disparity is reduced if the RNC is included...

The Atlantic's Boldest: Dept. Of Corrections

1. In an earlier post on whether John McCain's talking point on his standing in the 2008 election is true, I referred to a "poll of polls" taken in 2000, when, in fact, the poll of polls was taken in advance of the 2004 race. The post has been updated with additional information, although the conclusion still stands

2. Yesterday, I wrote what amounted, in retrospect, to a cheap shot at Peggy Noonan and David Brooks about how they would respond to a gussied up Sarah Palin as she learned more about the world and studied up on policy. I should have left these two writers alone; my implication was simply that the conservative intellectual elite might soften their views about Palin. Brooks and Noonan have demonstrated their independence from the herd, and I shouldn't have been so flip about it.

3. In various posts, I've meant to write: "If McCain loses" instead of "if McCain wins." This affliction, which I blame on trying to keep an open mind about the election, shows up whenever I try and write about the future of the Republican Party.

4. In an item about the McCain staffer who alleged she was beaten because of her campaign affiliation, I asked why it mattered without conveying any sympathy for the victim. My point still holds: if it had happened, it'd be a terrible crime, but its relevance to the election escapes me. It didn't happened -- she's recounted -- recanted, and it's still not relevant. 

5. Many readers have asked me to apologize for my seeming obsession with Palin Couture. I won't.

Top Yahoo Search Terms

For the morning, according to the internet search engine company:

1.      Sarah Palin wardrobe

2.      Presidential polls

3.      Early voting

4.      Michele Bachmann

Fred Thompson's Election Address

Continue reading "Fred Thompson's Election Address" »

Answering Your Questions: McCain = Gore? (Update)

And state-by-state, the margins are way different. Obama's doing much better in 2008 than Al Gore was in 2000 in the battleground states.

So there's no comparison.

Can McCain's PA Gamble Work?

The Real ACORN Scandal?

Krauthammer Makes The Case For McCain

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the last year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts, but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

Katon Dawson's On The Move

Our next Chairman must restore our Republican brand of being the party of smaller government, fiscal discipline and personal responsibility.   He or she must possess proven leadership skills, know how to win races, and of course be able to raise money.

Lycos's Top Political Search Item For The Election.

For the past six weeks, Gov. Palin has generated more search activity than all other candidates, and during the week of Sept. 4, the GOP VP candidate drove more search interest than Hurricane Gustav and the DNC combined. At one point, Gov. Palin's daughter Bristol Palin and Bristol's boyfriend and father of her unborn child, Levi Johnston, were scoring bigger search numbers than Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus.    

11 Days Out, And The Whispering Begins

Continue reading "11 Days Out, And The Whispering Begins" »

Georgia Senate Race Within Two Points

Virginia Miliary Absentee Ballot Problem Will Be Solved

From: Bob Carey (Empire-Capitol Strategies) [mailt]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 3:37 PM
To: 'Bob Carey (Empire-Capitol Strategies)'
Subject: Fairfax County, Virginia Rejecting FWABs

As many of you know, Sam Wright, Director of the Military Voting Project at the National Defense Committee, sent this excellent letter to the Department of Justice Voting Rights Section encouraging them to investigate the actions of Fairfax County, Virginia Board of Elections regarding witness requirements on Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots, the provisional ballots military and overseas voters use if they have not received their regular absentee ballots.

The problem is that the Fairfax County government had originally interpreted Virginia law to require all Federal Write-In Absentee ballots to have a witness' signature, printed name and address on the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot.  However, the underlying Virginia law only requires this witness signature, printed name and address if they are taking advantage of the special Virginia provision that allows the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot to ALSO serve as the absentee ballot application.  Because that's different from what the federal Voting Assistance Guide says, hundreds of Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots received to date were potentially going to be rejected.  In fact, as of today, while about 260 Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots had been received by Fairfax County, only five had the witness name and address. 

I've been in contact with the Fairfax County Registrar, Rokey Fulman, and he accepted my recommendation to contact the Virginia State Board of Elections to confirm this interpretation of the Virginia statute, as Sam's letter points out the Fairfax interpretation is likely incorrect.  I'm happy to report that he has received guidance from the State Board of Elections that the witness name and signature requirement do indeed only apply if the FWAB is also being used simultaneously as an absentee ballot application.  Therefore, so long as a Federal Post Card Application is received by election day, the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot will count, which is the normal process for military absentee ballots to be cast.

Hopefully this will allow for the ballots to be fully counted.  National Defense Committee, through its Military Ballot Protection Program, will continue to monitor this development, take appropriate and forceful action where needed, and advise you all as to what we are doing.

McCain Will Address Supporters Live

John McCain's election night watch party might be missing John McCain. Instead of appearing before a throng of supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4, the Republican presidential nominee plans to deliver postelection remarks to a small group of reporters and guests on the hotel's lawn.

Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was due to space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.

A McCain aide says:

"He'll speak outdoors on the lawn in front of backlit Camelback mountains -- it will be beautiful -- and 2000 plus people will be out there with him. The rest of the guests will be in ballrooms and overflow tents with widescreen TV's."

Military Ballots Tossed In Fairfax

Fairfax general registrar Rokey Suleman said Thursday that he has had to reject some of the ballots because of a Virginia law passed in 2002. That law -- then called Senate Bill 113, sponsored by then state Sen. Bill Bolling -- requires that when an overseas citizen wants to request an absentee ballot and cast a vote with the same paperwork, it requires not only a witness signature but also the current address of the witness.

The McCain campaign said there's not even a space for the witness to list an address. Suleman agreed; he said the federal document was changed in recent years and the space for the witness address was removed. But the Virginia law hasn't changed.

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845,252

A most significant number for the Obama campaign.

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Early Vote In Georgia

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