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As everyone who's ever followed presidential politics knows, this is about the time of each autumnal general election campaign when the media, bored with the running horserace story, starts looking for obscure nooks and crannies to explore.
One of the all-time favorites is the "swing voters," those unidentified people who are presumably uncommitted but can allegedly swing the election one way or the other by their late decisionmaking. The beauty for media people of talking about these faceless swing voters is that once everyone who's going to vote actually votes, there are by definition no more swing voters.
So who can contradict a stupid media report read four weeks before the election and already long-forgotten? It's the perfect waste of time, leaving no evidence to trace back.
So "The Daily Show" has examined this presently powerful political group.
--Andrew Malcolm
Here's the report: With an appreciative hat tip to our pal James Oliphant over at the Swamp.
Sarah Palin may be the darling of the United Nations, but back home in Alaska, the bloom on the state rose is fading a bit.
New poll numbers show the Alaska governor's approval rating has taken its biggest hit since her election in 2006. "The Honeymoon Is Coming to an End," Ivan Moore Research of Anchorage said in its report.
True, Palin's approval rating of 68% surely must cause envy among President Bush (check out his numbers here) and members of Congress (go here).
But the new figure for Palin is down from a high of 82% in January, which she replicated in the days following her surprise selection Aug. 29 as John McCain's running mate.
Also, her disapproval rating in the survey of 500 likely voters conducted Saturday through Monday was at 27% -- double what it was at the beginning of the month. The survey's margin of error was plus or minus 4.4%.
Predictably, the biggest erosion in good feelings about Palin occurred among Alaskan Democrats. But there also was a measurable slip in her standing among independent/third-party voters.
Chalk it up to the bruising effects of a national campaign and all the harsh scrutiny that brings? Probably. And, Moore notes, lots of governors would be pretty happy with Palin's 68% approval mark.
That's "still pretty positive," he says. "But I suspect we've only caught the slump kind of halfway through here."
In other words, there may be more bad news awaiting Palin when she gets back home -- whenever that happens.
-- Kim Murphy
When political scientists hash over the 2008 presidential election in the years to come, they will return -- time and again -- to race. Regardless of who wins, the results will be sifted, analyzed and sized up from every possible angle for evidence of the role racial attitudes did (or did not) play in the outcome.
 A poll released over the weekend, which The Ticket mentioned briefly Sunday, gained much attention because it took a preemptive crack at probing this question. And here's the opening clause in the Associated Press story by Ron Fournier and Trevor Tompson: "Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close... ."
The article elaborated that according to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll, "More than a third of all white Democrats and independents -- voters Obama can't win the White House without -- agreed with at least....
Read more Barack Obama faces daunting hurdle, poll on race finds »
Our colleague Denise Gellene has an interesting story today on the minds of undecided voters, and a project by scientific researchers that suggests most undecideds really have made up their minds.
Researchers from Canada and Italy focused on a local political issue in Italy about the possible expansion of a U.S. military base, and discovered that 30 of the 33 self-described undecideds had already decided unconsciously one way or the other. The research (details are in Gellene's story) focused in the subjects' response time to questions that linked the proposal to a series of negative and positive words. They say they were able to predict the ultimate choice by the undecided with 70% accuracy.
And you think political polling calls are already annoying -- wait till they start playing the word association games over the phone at dinner.
-- Scott Martelle
Barack Obama likes to talk about Obamacans –- disaffected Republicans who have pledged their support for his presidential candidacy.
On Tuesday he snagged an especially prominent one -- former GOP Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa.
Leach, who served 15 terms in the House, made his endorsement announcement during a conference call with former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who was a Republican while in the Senate but is now an independent. Chafee has supported Obama since the Democratic primaries.
Leach told reporters that he was concerned about the Bush administration's "philosophy of government” and worried that Republican John McCain would be “more of the same.” “I'm convinced that the national interest demands a new approach to our interaction with the world," Leach said.
During the call Leach twice suggested that Obama choose Sen. Chuck Hagel as a running mate. If Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and longtime friend of McCain’s, were to join an Obama ticket, he’d be the biggest-name Obamacan in the country. (A Hagel spokesman, however, told USA Today on Tuesday that the senator won’t be making any endorsements in this election.)
Leach wasn't the only "Republican for Obama" who emerged today. In a development that could help Obama make inroads in Alaska, Obama’s campaign announced that he was also being backed by the Republican mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough, Jim Whitaker.
Whitaker, who told the Daily News-Miner that he likes Obama's energy policy and believes the Democrat has the stronger "intellectual capacity" of the two candidates, said: "My goal is to let Republicans have a clear understanding that their right to vote should not be restricted by any party affiliation."
Whitaker supported McCain in the 2000 Republican primary.
The Obama campaign, hoping to recruit more Obamacans, says it will soon launch a new website to get Republicans to vote for Obama.
-- Kate Linthicum
As if the Russian-Georgian conflict wasn't adding enough tension to the world stage, it looks like the long-running conflict over the Kashmir province on the India-Pakistan border is heating up.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz, an influential separatist leader, was shot and killed by police as he led a march by roughly 100,000 Muslims attempting to breach the border, the Times of London reports. The march was part of an escalation of tensions that began ratcheting up in June, and the killing is likely to add fuel to the fire.
We'll let other blogs dissect the underlying issues and implications of that complicated situation in Kashmir. Its relevance here: With war underway in Georgia, if Kashmir erupts into broader violence, then Americans' political attention could well shift from the economy to increased concerns about foreign policy and U.S. national security.
With the economy as the top issue, Barack Obama has been topping John McCain in polls. But if war and national security move back to the forefront, that could shift the balance among the undecideds and independents and give McCain a chance to reestablish himself among an electorate that already says it is tiring of Obama. And it's the kind of calculation that the McCain insiders apparently have already been contemplating.
No one knows, obviously, what will happen. But the shifting conditions in both places are a reminder that it will likely be future -- and unknowable -- events and actions that will weigh heaviest on how the election turns out. On both sides, the easy votes have been won. The hard votes are, in many cases, those who aren't even paying attention yet. And who knows what fears or ambitions will push them which way?
-- Scott Martelle
Photo credit: Mukhtar Khan / Associated Press
The folks at the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a poll Thursday tracking the "passion gap" between Barack Obama and John McCain, which we already told you about.
But there's an interesting tidbit buried deep within the poll results that should have some bells going off inside McCain headquarters. Or maybe they were already going off, and that's part of the reason Rick Davis ceded some campaign turf to Steve Schmidt.
The finding has to do with measuring how the candidates are making the sale. Obama -- doing all right. McCain -- well, let's let the Pew folks tell it: A solid majority (56%) give the Obama campaign letter grades of A or B for the job he is doing to convince the American public to vote for him, while only 32% say the same of the McCain campaign. More than a third (35%) offer a grade of C to McCain's campaign so far, and nearly as many (30%) say the campaign has earned a D or F.
The grades voters give to the Obama campaign for the job it is doing convincing them to vote for him are the highest measured for any candidate over the past four election cycles. In June 2004, for example, just 39% gave Bush's efforts an A or B; even fewer gave high grades to Kerry's campaign (31%). In contrast, McCain's middling grades are slightly lower than those awarded to Bush in both 2000 and 2004. McCain's campaign does garner higher grades than the 1996 Dole campaign, which only 22% graded highly.
In this regard, the 2008 campaign has the largest disparity in high grades for the Democratic and Republican candidates over the past four election cycles (24 points). The gap between the grades for Obama and McCain is even larger than for Bill Clinton and Bob Dole in July 1996; at that time, 37% gave Clinton an A or B, while just 22% gave top grades to Dole.
The differences in the ratings of the two presidential campaigns are reflected in the opinions of their partisans. Nearly eight-in-ten Democratic voters (79%) give the Obama campaign letter grades of A or B for the job he is doing to convince the American public to vote for him, and a smaller majority of Republican voters (54%) give high marks to the McCain campaign. More independents give A or B grades to the Obama campaign than to the McCain campaign (49% v. 31%). In addition, while more than a third of Republicans (35%) give high grades to Obama, just 16% of Democrats give high grades to McCain.
McCain was asked about the poll Thursday -- specifically the bit about voters being more excited about Obama at this stage than they are about him. His response goes a long way toward  explaining another finding from that poll: "Relatively few voters" think the candidates have been too negative. But at the same time, McCain's comment indicates that his focus is on the war in Iraq and national security when polls show most of the country is more concerned with the economy -- whining or not.
Said McCain: "I admire and respect the campaign that Sen. Obama has run. He has done
a fine job in motivating many, many people. I am confident that as we
go through this campaign that I will convince the majority of voters in
this country that I am the person to lead this nation through very
difficult times. ... Sen. Obama didn’t support the surge, wanted
us to pull out, said that it would fail. I supported it when it was the
toughest thing to do. I believe that my record on national security and
keeping this country safe is there, and the American people will
examine our records, and I believe that I will win."
-- Scott Martelle
Top photo: Democrat Barack Obama. Credit: Jae C. Hong / Associated Press
Bottom photo: Republican John McCain. Credit: Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press
Part of every presidential campaign is the post-primary shuffle. That's when the Republican nominee tries to show centrist voters that he isn't really as conservative as he made himself out to be to win his party's base, and the presumptive Democratic nominee similarly tries to pull him self in from the left.
The Swamp notes this morning that the perception among some progressives that Barack Obama is leaving the left for the center has given rise to an unusual way of tethering the candidate to their issues. They're putting their money on the table, hoping to raise $1 million in an "escrow" fund that Obama can't tap until he displays "progressive leadership" on issues.
The issue that sparked the mini-revolt was Obama's support for giving wiretapping immunity to the phone companies under the recent FISA vote, something he had earlier said he would oppose. In a memo to fellow progressives, Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, said he still backs Obama but thinks the candidate could use a little wake-up call from the folks who played a significant role in securing him the nomination. We're asking you to put some of the money you plan to give Obama "in escrow" until he demonstrates progressive leadership on the issues we care about, like warrantless wiretapping.
We are absolutely not trying to hurt Obama -- we'll give him our money at some point. We're just asking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T like Aretha Franklin sang about.
We can get Obama's respect because needs our money -- he turned down $85 million in taxpayer dollars because he believes small donors like us will contribute $300 million. And now is the best time to use our modest leverage, before the campaign goes all-out after the convention.
-- Scott Martelle
Photo: Francine Orr /Los Angeles Times
The Republican National Committee has spun off its own independent expenditure committee and plans an initial $3 million ad buy targeting Barack Obama in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Politico reports.
Why the separate group?
Brad Todd, who will run the effort, blamed Obama in a statement to Politico: "Following Barack Obama's decision to become the only major party presidential candidate in history to not adhere to campaign spending caps, the Republican National Committee has begun an independent expenditure campaign in accordance with FEC regulations."
Under federal law there are no limits on how much the group can spend, though it cannot coordinate efforts with John McCain's campaign or the RNC. Still, both have helped to raise some of the funds that will launch the new effort.
So now we know where the RNC will be funneling some of its cash advantage over the Democratic National Committee to try to compensate for the record-breaking fundraising Obama has enjoyed. And the decision to target those Rust-Belt states underscores the GOP view that Obama is vulnerable in that part of the nation. Three of the four -- Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- went Democratic in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
Lot of white working-class men and women in those states, which account for 68 electoral votes.
-- Scott Martelle
A recent Newsweek poll, showing Barack Obama with a 15-percentage-point lead over John McCain, left many of the folks closely watching the presidential race scratching their heads.
With other polls showing a closer race, did the Newsweek survey accurately detect a somewhat delayed Obama "bounce" following the official end of Hillary Clinton's campaign? Or did the magazine get it wrong?
A just-completed L.A. Times/Bloomberg national poll may help clarify the confusion. We cannot reveal the precise figures quite yet; for the results, check LATimes.com about 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT) today.
The survey not only asked registered voters their preferences in the head-to-head race between McCain and Obama but, in a second question, specifically included Ralph Nader and Bob Barr as choices to try to determine how their presidential candidacies might affect November's main event.
The poll also gauged voter attitudes toward Obama and McCain on a raft of issues and characteristics, including which has the right experience to be president and which has more honesty and integrity. And one of the poll's most dramatic findings concerned differing enthusiasm levels among their backers.
-- Don Frederick
This is Part II of The Ticket's first video chat series, an eight-part conversation with author Matt Welch on his new book, "John McCain: The Myth of a Maverick."
The book is not a biography but an exploration of the McCain persona, an intriguing combination of independence, military discipline and rebellion, with a strong whiff of bad boy. In this video episode Welch, a former L.A. Times writer, describes how he came to discover much about McCain through the serial confessions the senator makes about himself throughout his own books. And what that revealed about the Republican nominee's personal way of thinking.
Part I of this conversation with Welch can be seen by clicking here. Other parts will be published on The Ticket in coming days.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Ron Paul backers, do not despair. You have a new suitor: Ralph Nader.
In the wake of the decision by the 72-year-old Paul to, vi a his website, officially declare an end to his presidential quest, the 74-year-old Nader showed a political agility that has not always marked his many, many runs for the White House. Today, he released the following statement: "Ron Paul was a lightning rod for millions of Americans against the war in Iraq and for the protection of personal liberties that the two major parties have turned their back on -- by continuing to support the illegal criminal war and the PATRIOT Act.
"Now that Dr. Paul has formally withdrawn his candidacy for the G.O.P. nomination and is no longer seeking the Presidency, there is a clear choice for those who want to support a candidate who will stand up against the war and stand up for personal liberties and privacy that have been trampled by the notorious, misnamed, PATRIOT Act.
"The people want the next President to immediately withdraw our soldiers and corporate mercenaries from Iraq in the safest manner possible.
"I would veto any attempt to extend the so-called PATRIOT Act or anything else that came across my desk that was designed to circumvent the civil liberties of the American People.
The PATRIOT Act grants excessive power to the government to abuse civil liberties through wiretaps, monitoring internet usage, authorized 'sneak and peek' of our homes, and forces libraries to turn over records of the books read by their patrons -- and those abuses of power have been used repeatedly by Bush and his Justice Department.
We need more politicians, like Dr. Paul, who are not afraid to stand up for our civil liberties."
Nader isn't quite as assertive on another of Paul's prime issues, the Federal Reserve Board.
Paul, much to the delight of many of his supporters, has pushed for wiping the board off the face of the earth; Nader's focus has been on prodding it to do its job with greater vigilance and more openly.
-- Don Frederick
Photo: Nick Wass / Associated Press
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Hillary Clinton was the clear front-runner; Barack Obama was just as clearly ...
Read more Top of the Ticket, the start of Year Two »
John McCain has carefully avoided mentioning the military service of his son Jimmy, a Marine who returned from his first tour in Iraq earlier this year, on the campaign trail -- to prevent anyone from suggesting he would use his son’s service for political advantage.
But this morning, McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman invoked that service to defend McCain, who was under fire from Democrats for saying during an interview that it’s "not too important" when U.S. troops leave post-surge Iraq.
When McCain was asked in the NBC’s "Today Show" interview about whether he could estimate when U.S. troops could leave Iraq, he said "No, but that's not too important." On an ensuing conference call organized by McCain’s campaign, Lieberman charged McCain’s Democratic foes and Barack Obama's campaign with distorting McCain’s words "to distract the American people from the fact that John McCain has been both courageous and right about the surge in Iraq and Barack Obama has unfortunately been consistently wrong."
He noted that McCain was answering a question about his estimate of when troops would return from Iraq based on the success of the troop surge in Iraq.
Lieberman said it was outrageous for McCain's critics to suggest that he’s out of touch with the needs of our troops.
"More than most any American, Sen. McCain knows the sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make and the burden that their families bear, and it really is wrong to suggest otherwise," Lieberman said. "Obviously he knows that from his own—from his father’s service and the impact it had on his family; from his own service and incarceration; from his eight visits to Iraq -- on which I’ve been with him on a lot of them -- and interacting with our troops there; and of course from the fact that his son was deployed to Iraq."
Lieberman dropped off the conference call in the middle of questions from reporters. McCain's foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, declined to comment when asked whether Jimmy McCain's service would now be part of the campaign.
-- Maeve Reston
The surge in the ranks of affiliated Democrats seen of late in several other states is not evident in California, at least when the current numbers of party members is compared to four years ago. Still, the party posted an increase over that period -- unlike the state's GOP.
Indeed, updated voter registration figures released today by Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office underscore the challenge faced by presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain in trying to wage a competitive fight for California's 55 electoral votes -- his party's base is shrinking.
The registration report shows that in February, 2004, Republicans accounted for 35.55% of the voters on the state's roll. Now -- 32.53% (i.e., less than a third).
The tally for Democrats rose from 43.20% four years ago to 43.75% now. Party officials can be expected to revel in having acheived a double-digit percentage point edge over the Republicans.
In raw numbers, Democrats total ...
Read more New California registration numbers show GOP shrinkage »
Fox News Channel gave Rush Limbaugh a nod as it reported early (and subject to further adjustment) exit poll numbers showing that Republicans who cast ballots in the Indiana Democratic presidential primary broke for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, 52% to 46%.
The folks at Fox wondered if that advantage for Clinton might reflect Limbaugh's crusade for GOP-inclined voters to do their part to prolong the Democratic race (which then could cripple the party, come November).
Limbaugh's effect will be impossible to prove ... but no doubt he'll claim it was immense.
Other exit poll figures, via Fox (reiterating that they are subject to change): Indiana Democrats favored Clinton, 53% to 47%, while Obama had an edge among independents, 51% to 49%.
-- Don Frederick
As Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to lambaste one another, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain continues to fly above it all, enjoying the luxury of embarking upon unorthodox campaign forays that he hopes will pay dividends in the general election.
A couple of weeks back, he traipsed across the country on a "bio tour," visiting places that provided a  backdrop for him -- on his own terms -- to flesh out his life story. Some questioned its political usefulness, but at the local level he received lots of positive press.
Today, he began a swing through what his campaign termed "forgotten places" -- locales that, as a McCain news release put it, have been "left behind by our nation's elected leaders." And his first stop certainly was unusual for a member of his party -- Selma, Ala., site of infamous beatings of civil rights marchers during a 1965 demonstration and part of a congressional district that Democrat John Kerry carried by almost 30 percentage points over President Bush in 2004.
The Times' Maeve Reston is on the trip, and she reports that, at least on the surface, the juxtaposition between the community's demographics and the makeup of the crowd that gathered to hear McCain speak on the banks of the Alabama River (pictured above) may not have been what his staff was hoping for. Selma and its environs are predominantly black; McCain's audience was nearly all-white.
That apparently bothered the candidate not one whit.
“I am aware of the fact that there will be many people who will not vote for me," he said. "But I’m going to be the president of all the people and I will work ...
Read more John McCain visits 'forgotten places' (hoping swing voters recall) »
Apparently Hillary Clinton hasn't always been enamored with the rambunctious nature of the historic fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. Speaking to financial backers after Super Tuesday, she blamed the party's activists and MoveOn.org for her early primary and caucus defeats, according to an item over at The Huffington Post.
"MoveOn.org endorsed [Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," the item quotes Clinton as saying (there's audio on the site).
Her campaign, she continues, had been less successful in caucuses because those gatherings bring out "the activist base of the Democratic Party... [T]hey are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
Eli Pariser, MoveOn's executive director, defended the base: "Senator Clinton's attack on our members is divisive at a time when Democrats will soon need to unify to beat Senator [John] McCain. MoveOn is 3.2 million reliable voters and volunteers who are an important part of any winning Democratic coalition in November. They deserve better than to be dismissed using Republican talking points."
So much for party unity in the dash for the White House.
It was exactly ago a week ago ...
Read more Hillary Clinton dissed party activists and MoveOn.org »
Fridays have many good qualities. Normal people with normal jobs get to look forward to two days off. Payday for a lot of folks. Happy hour. Remember, the phrase is NOT "Thank God It's Tuesday." But it's also the day that Joshua Levy over at techPresident posts his favorite YouTube videos of the week.
Which means you get to save a lot of surfing time during the week looking at political videos and let Levy do the heavy lifting for you. Our fave from today's list: Leave Ralph Nader Alone, (see below) which is fascinating in a "the metal-punk band just moved in next door" kind of way. And it also reminds us of this classic ad.
-- Scott Martelle
John McCain took a look at the price on the neighborhood gas pump (OK, somebody probably looked for him) and decided a little relief is in order -- so he's introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate that would suspend the federal gas tax for the summer. This is no small thing -- 18.4 cents per gallon for the unleaded most people use, and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel, on which the nation's trucking industry runs (think strawberry prices). The potential consumer savings are huge -- assuming they'd get passed along.
Of course, in the Democratic-controlled Senate the chances of the bill getting through in an election year are slight -- about the same, we'd guess, as the chances of gas falling below $3 a gallon. But this is where it gets fun. Come fall, McCain will be able to say that he tried to do something and the Democrats wouldn't cooperate. He even sent a letter to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- his colleagues in the Senate before they were his rivals for the White House -- asking them to join him.
Shrewd move, that. Lovely placing of the piece on the chess board while Obama and Clinton are still squabbling over who gets to play their side of the board. And the counter-move, if there is one, will likely be pressing McCain on the financing. McCain says he'll replace the lost revenue to the Highway Trust Fund from the general fund -- which is already facing a massive budget gap.
A footnote of interest: One of the cosponsors of McCain's bill is Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee and former Democrat. Technically, he's an independent senator from Connecticut now but is usually included in the vote count that determines the Democrats control the Senate. He endorsed McCain in December, so that bridge is already burned. But it has to be galling to some in the halls of Congress to have their former veep nominee -- Al Gore's running mate -- stumping for the other guy.
-- Scott Martelle
Perhaps being shot down over enemy territory, fished out of a lake with two broken arms and a broken knee, and incarcerated for nearly six years as a prisoner of war makes Sen. John McCain less intimida ted than other politicians at the thought of speaking to unfriendly audiences.
After all, what's a little heckling after you've endured years of North Vietnamese imprisonment and torture?
That thought came to mind last week as McCain spoke in Memphis to an African-American crowd gathered outside the Lorraine Motel, the site of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr'.s 1968 assassination.
The venue was certainly well beyond the typical suburban comfort zone of many presidential candidates especially Republicans. And especially for Republicans named McCain who voted against the....
Read more McCain launches his general campaign with risky style he likes »
Bipartisanship has staged a comeback!
No, there hasn't been a surprise outbreak of good manners and comity in Washington. Nor have flowery appeals to our better natures had anything to do with it. Instead, it's economic worries that have brought citizens of different political stripes closer to the same page.
During a belated check of a poll released in late March by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, this caught our eye: Sour views about the economy no longer respect ideological bounds.
A release accompanying the poll noted, "Throughout most of President Bush's time in office, a large partisan gap has been evident in judgments about the state of the U.S. economy, with most Democrats and independents offering negative assessments and most Republicans offering positive assessments."
For example, last June the Pew pollsters reported that 56% of Republicans rated the economy in excellent or good shape, while just 20% of Democrats and 30% of independents shared that view. As recently as January, with the imploding housing market increasingly making headlines, 46% of GOPers still replied with positive marks when asked about the economy.
In the latest poll, however, only 23% of Republicans expressed such optimism.
There's still a political gap on the issue -- a measly 5% of Democrats said the economy was in excellent or good shape (down from 15% in January), and just 9% of independents expressed that opinion (down from 24% two months earlier). But, according to the Pew release, the "gap in Republican and Democratic evaluations of the economy is smaller today than it has been in five years."
-- Don Frederick
Democrats are heading into November’s election with stronger "party identification" among voters than during either of the last two presidential election cycles, a new Pew poll shows.
More than one-third of those surveyed –- 36% -– identified themselves as Democrats, and just 27% identified themselves as Republicans in Pew Research Center surveys taken during the fir st two months of this year.
But the numbers show more of an erosion from the Republican column than a gain by the Democrats. The Republican Party’s share of self-identified partisans shrank by six points since 2004 and represents the lowest level in 16 years of polling by Pew. The level of support for the Democratic Party remained relatively stable: 36% in the latest surveys compared with 35% in 2004 and in 2000.
At the same time, the percentages calling themselves independents increased from 32% in 2004 to 37% now.
In the so-called "blue states," where John Kerry won by at least five percentage points in 2004, the Democratic Party's advantage over Republican voters has nearly doubled from 10 points to 18 points. The balance in "red states," those where President Bush won by more than five points in 2004 -- has remained more stable.
Throughout the last three election cycles, there have been roughly as many Democrats as Republicans in these 24 states collectively. Now, 33% call themselves Republicans, 33% call themselves Democrats and 34% are independent or belong to fringe parties.
-- Mark Silva
Mark Silva writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the famous Dr. Death who's on parole from prison for helping a Michigan man with Lou Gehrig's disease die in the 1990s, has decided to run for a seat in the U.S. House  of Representatives as an independent.
According to the Oakland Press, Kevorkian, who was released from prison in June after serving a prison term for second-degree murder, plans a formal announcement next week that he will seek election from Michigan's 9th District (Oakland County), challenging Republican incumbent Jack Knollenberg.
Kevorkian was convicted in 1998 of assisting in the suicide death of Thomas Youk and has been in prison since. Getting out of prison and running for election to Congress is a reversal of the normal order of events for many federal legislators.
"We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington," Kevorkian told the paper.
Kevorkian has said he assisted in the deaths of more than 100 people during the 1990s.
The ex-pathologist is required to gather 3,000 signatures on a petition in order to get on the ballot as an independent. No word on what Kevorkian will do to you if you don't sign.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: CARLOS OSORIO / EPA
In perhaps the least surprising announcement of the 2008 campaign season, Ralph Nader told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning that he’s launching a campaign for president -- his fifth quest for the White House in as many presidential elections.
His statement came as a shock to no one: He hinted in early January, and implied in late January, that he would run.
(UPDATE: An update on reactions from around the political spectrum appears below.)
In 2004, campaigning as an independent, the longtime consumer activist got 465,650 votes (out of a total of more than 122 million). Four years before that, as the candidate of the Green Party, he was more successful, capturing 2.8 million of the 105 million votes cast. (He also ran a limited campaign as the Greens' candidate in 1996 and as a write-in candidate in 1992.)
His 2000 campaign earned him the ire of many Democrats, who...
Read more One more time for Ralph Nader... »
Not so long ago -- like, earlier this month -- one of the dismissive talking points that the Hillary Clinton camp pressed against Barack Obama was that he was winning nominating contests in states the Democratic presidential ticket won't have a prayer of carrying in November: North Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Nebraska.
Those triumphs, the case went, offered no clue as to whether he would be a candidate capable of putting together a winning electoral college majority later this year.
As Obama's winning streak has stretched to 10, that argument has subsided. And Obama's sweeping victory in Wisconsin should bury it once and for all.
As a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story astutely notes, the win "came in a 50/50 battleground ... that is a virtual must-win for Democrats in November."
How tight have the recent presidential elections been in the Badger State?
Al Gore carried it over ...
Read more Why Obama's Wisconsin win is especially telling »
During his political career, Lincoln Chafee was perhaps the plainest example of what some GOPers contemptuously refer to as a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. Since losing his Senate seat in heavily Democratic Rhode Island in 2006, he's more than confirmed that moniker.
Last summer he left the GOP, re-registering as an unaffiliated voter in his home state. Now, he may be on the verge of burning whatever rickety bridge connects him to his former party.
Chafee, the Providence Journal recently reported, is on the cusp of casting a ballot for Barack Obama in Rhode Island's March 4 Democratic presidential primary.
Chafee was the sole Republican senator to vote against the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war, which would naturally tilt him toward Obama (who, in case your haven't heard, opposed that measure from his then-perch as a state senator in Illinois).
As the Journal article makes clear, Chafee views ...
Read more Chafee, having dumped GOP, flirts with Obama »
DETROIT -- Unity '08, which began last year as an attempt to bridge the left-right political divide and draft consensus candidates for an independent presidential campaign, has all but pulled the plug on itself. The reason: Key players have left, support flagged, Federal Election Commission regulations hobbled fundraising, access to state ballots proved difficult, and everybody, it seems, wants to heal the same divide.
Obviously, this unity stuff ain't easy.
The whole explainer is here, but some details bear highlighting: "Barack Obama, for example, has made the theme of unity and the necessity of bridging the partisan divide an absolutely central theme of his campaign. And just last week, a group of former and present national office holders -- independe nts, Republicans and Democrats -- met in Oklahoma for the sole purpose of stating their belief that at the present perilous moment, a unity government is the only hope of solving the nation's mounting problems. When you find agreement between the likes of former RNC chairman Bill Brock and Gary Hart, you're onto something....
"Waiting in the wings, should the divide persist, is the potential of a serious non-partisan candidacy by Mike Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York (two of our founders, Doug Bailey and Gerald Rafshoon, have stepped down from the board and may have more to say about their plans in the near future)."
Bailey is a longtime Republican strategist and Rafshoon was President Jimmy Carter's White House comunications director, and it will be interesting to see whether they pop up as advisors to Bloomberg.
-- Scott Martelle
After his campaign and fundraising imploded last spring, he's been saying all along time and again that simply continuing to campaign and flying economy class in the back of the plane without aides and getting his message out and sticking to his points, even though, say, supporting the military surge in Iraq, among other stands, was unpopular, he's been saying things would come around. Because the American people like straight talk and he'd rather lose an election than a war.
And, guess what, it seems that nearly six years in a POW cell does give you some perspective. He is coming on strong now.
Ariz. Sen. John McCain, who pulled off a stunning 19-point upset whacking of George W. Bush and Karl Rove in New Hampshire in the 2000 Republican primary, is surging once again in the Granite state -- which spells good news for him and trouble for the state’s longtime front-runner Mitt Romney.
A new Boston Globe poll today taken Dec. 16-20 shows McCain trailing the former Massachusetts governor by only three percentage points –- well within the margin of error. Among 410 likely Republican voters, Romney leads McCain 28% to 25%. That's a very steep climb for McCain. A Globe poll last month gave Romney a whopping 33% with McCain trailing way back at 17% and Rudy Giuliani ahead of him at 20%. Now, Giuliani has slipped to third with 14%.
The Democratic race in the Granite State is also a virtual dead heat, according to the Globe poll of 422 likely voters. It shows Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leading with the support of 30% of likely Democratic voters while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has 28%, down from her 14 point advantage last month. John Edwards holds steady in third at 14%. The margin of error of both samples is +/- 4.9%.
In the Republican race, this is just the latest good news in New Hampshire for ....
Read more Pretty amazing, here he comes again »
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who was the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000, has decided to endorse Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona for president tomorrow morning.
The news was broken this afternoon on the website of William Kristol, publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard and longtime McCain supporter.
The McCain campaign would not confirm the report but did say it would hold a "newsworthy" town hall meeting involving an endorsement in New Hampshire Monday morning at 8, weather permitting. Wintry conditions there, which forced McCain to cancel a Sunday night event, may force the pair to appear together in Washington instead.
This would make it a very good weekend indeed for the once-faltering McCain campaign, now running second to Mitt Romney in New Hampshire GOP polls where he won in 2000. McCain received the endorsements Sunday of the Boston Globe and Des Moines Register and had already captured the endorsement of New Hampshire's only statewide newspaper and staunch conservative voice, the Manchester Union-Leader.
The endorsement of a Republican by Democrat Al Gore's 2000 running mate is bound to rattle...
Read more Breaking News: Lieberman will endorse John McCain »
A new Public Policy Institute of California poll finds that we're a rather dour lot these days. Our optimism about the economy has been dampened by the housing and credit crunch, which has splashed over onto our faith in political leaders. The full report is available at the PPIC's web site, and also here: Download ppic_poll_report.pdf
Among the key findings: In June, 49% of Californians expected bad economic times in the coming year, which was up from 39% in January. But here at the end of summer, after the meltdown in the sub-prime mortgage market, 59% of respondents expect bad financial days ahead.
"There has been a significant shift in attitude this year -- and it is very likely being driven by bad news about the stock and housing markets," PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare said in a prepared statement. "For so many people, the feeling of overall financial well-being is tied to the value of their homes -- something that seems increasingly threatened as they see sales slow, prices dip, and foreclosures rise."
And naturally, uncertainty in the personal financial lives of people affects their political perspective. Half of those polled said the state was headed in the wrong direction, compared to 37% in January. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval ratings are down to 50%, off 8 percentage points from January. And the state Legislature had even lower approval marks -- no surprise there - with 34% saying they like the way the Legislature has done it's job, and even fewer ...
Read more A cloud over the land of milk and honey »
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tonight threw down the gauntlet with his own party, lecturing some 1,200 people at the semiannual Republican state convention in Indian Wells that the party was "dying at the box office" because it has "lost the middle. And we will not regain true political power in California until we get it back," according to Schwarzenegger's prepared remarks.
Schwarzenegger has long been at odds with the conservative elements of the party that tend to dominate policy positions, though he has twice proven his popularity with the rank-and-file members and with independents. Tonight the governor homed in on his greenhouse-emission policies, which he said three-quarters of party members support: "They want this party to do something more about climate change than simply doubt it." And he made the same point about healthcare reform on his way to a plea to shift the party from the political right to closer to the center. "The majority of Republicans prefer progress with messy compromise over defeat with pristine principles. Compromise is part of politics. And it is especially part of politics if you are the minority party... The road to our comeback is clear. The California Republican Party should be a right-of-center party that occupies the broad middle of California. That is a lush, green, abandoned political space. It can be ours."
Click on the More line to read the complete prepared text.
--Scott Martelle
Read more Schwarzenegger: 'We are dying at the box office' »
Last winter, Chuck Hagel said he'd decide on his political future in the next couple of months. For the Nebraska senator, time must have stood still.
 On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Hagel was asked about his plans today. "Well," he told David Gregory, "I'll make that decision in the next couple of months." (For video, go here. For a transcript, go here.) "I've got to decide whether I want to ask the people of Nebraska to consider giving me a third term in the Senate. I also have said, and I said this when I first ran for the Senate, after I got elected in 1996, that 12 years, two terms, may be enough, and that's another option."
Hagel, an ardent critic of the Iraq war who's rumored to have discussed an independent White House run with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, added, "And then if there might be a place for me along the presidential road somewhere to try to have some influence and change the course of this country, then I'll look at that. But that decision needs to be made soon, and I'll make it soon."
Hagel seemed somewhat more certain about staying a Republican. "Well, I have no intention of changing parties, and that doesn't mean, by the way, that I don't think an independent does not have ...
Read more Another presidential waffler, plus Ron Paul »
Although he caucuses with Senate Democrats, Connecticut's Senator Joe Lieberman, who was re-elected last fall as an independent, continues to live up to his non-party label.
Speaking to George Stephanopoulos today on ABC-TV's "This Week," Lieberman, once a Democratic vice presidential candidate, said flat out, "I'm not going to make my selection of who to support for president in '08 based on party."
He criticized Washington's current "petty partisan fighting over national security," saying all the Democratic candidates were being drawn to their left-leaning base while admirably two Republican candidates--Rudy Giuliani and John McCain--were struggling with elements of their base.
Lieberman said he's approaching this presidential election as an independent, but then added, "I would say the Democratic candidates in the larger questions of American security have been disappointing."
Read more A lonely voice in the Democratic caucus »
Well, not quite yet. But in the spirit of the fevered speculation spurred by Michael Bloomberg's dance with a possible independent presidential candidacy, let's take the conjecture to the Nth degree, just for the fun of it.
 Let's pitch forward to Election Day, 2008, and suppose the multi-billionaire Bloomberg has waged a major bid against Democratic and Republican nominees who appealed to their party bases, but not much else. Let's also suppose that, aided by massive spending on ads and aggressive help from like-thinking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he wins the Golden State. Finally --- and we concede we're really stretching here --- let's suppose that thanks to another torrent of ad money and an excruciatingly close three-way fracture in the electorate, Bloomberg squeaks out victories in one of the closely contested big states in the past two election: Ohio or Florida.
That's it; he just carries two states. But here's what that could mean, if the Republican and Democrat roughly split up the rest of the 48: no candidate gets the 270 Electoral College votes needed to claim the White House.
Read more Constitutional chaos!!! »
That's the scenario envisioned for California's governor by none other than billionaire Warren Buffett in the kicker to a new, and long, Time magazine article on the political world's latest fun couple --- Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (The story's headline: "The New Action Heroes.")
Referring to the won't-die chatter about Bloomberg running for president as an independent, Buffett says that as he mused about that scenario, he consulted the Constitution. "I wanted to see if Schwarzenegger could be his Vice President," the businessman tells Time. "I think he could," given that the born-an-American-citizen requirement for the top of the ticket is not mentioned for the occupant of the No. 2 slot.
Says Buffett: "That would be one hell of a team, wouldn't it?"
The Time piece refers to the pair as "the Hollywood brute and the Wall Street mogul." And, in light of Bloomberg's diminutive stature, it makes the obvious reference to the film "Twins" (the mayor in the Danny DeVito role and Arnold in, well, the Arnold role).
The piece provides mini-bios of the two men. And it will be music to the ears of their PR staffs. "They're ... doing big things,&q | |
