Indiana Race: Part II

I’m not going back on Thursday’s statement that the Indiana race doesn’t matter and that all the talk of its mattering “for the first time since 1968″ is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of why it doesn’t matter. Looking in the traditional place of Indiana’s race not mattering (the race is effectively over by the time it gets here) commentators are missing the fact that the race doesn’t matter for a completely different reason (Indiana will split the delegate vote and leave the race essentially unchanged–as have all previous races).

Of course this second “fact” is based on the assumption that Obama and Clinton will split the vote here. Luckily for me and my big mouth, a poll released on Friday had the two Dems in a statistical deadheat. That’s right, accounting for possible errors in the polling, Clinton and Obama are tied. Hell, even if we ignore the so-called “margin of error,” they’re tied. I mean a split of 47% to 48% (Clinton) is still going to split the delegates in half.

Barring the discovery that Obama has been in charge of a sex trade ring or an illegal Chinese immigrant import operation, I think we can all safely assume that we’ll be looking at the same landscape after Indiana as we were looking at before it. In geospatial terms, think of having run a mile through the Sahara. You know in your heart you’re a mile closer to getting out, but it looks identical. There you have it: 2008 Democratic Primary Season = Sahara Desert EcoChallenge.

However, the perception that this race matters has made the news a lot more interesting. Finally some politicians I know are being interviewed. Names of nearby folk are appearing on CNN and NPR. Local affiliates are getting in the game and you can tell they’ve been aching to ask some serious questions to some of the state’s movers and shakers. And because it now seems “worth it” to them to get on the radio and talk, they are.

And here are some of the things I learned or had re-enforced over the weekend:

Apparently the target marketing of the two campaigns is why I haven’t seen or heard any Clinton ads yet. Rural-based friends of friends haven’t seen any Obama ads.

Fundamentals really do matter. I had a friend who does not follow politics at all say to me over the weekend: I don’t know, with gas prices what they are and with the war, how can you vote Republican this time? It’s nice to have the theory supported by The People–even if it was only one of them.

Evan Bayh and Dan Parker (Indiana’s very popular Democratic ([unior] senator and the head of the state Democratic Party respectively) are both throwing their lot in with Clinton and despite having fished around for a good argument why, I haven’t heard one. Bayh, presumably, is angling for a possible VP slot, having been shortlisted by several of the commentariat. Parker is just out of touch with the modern Democratic party both in his state and nationally. I assume that any superdelegate voting for Clinton is in exactly the same situation: they are either professionally invested in a Clinton candidacy or they’re just simply in love with the old school, triangulating, not-quite-Democratic Clinton wing of the party. Or, to Parker’s potential credit, he is hoping to keep Indiana’s limping Democratic Party lined up behind Bayh. A decision I wouldn’t support but at least would understand.

I read recently an op-ed where some blowhard know-it-all wrongly asserted that we should stop using the “derogatory” and “biased” term superdelegate on the basis that it was not only slanted but newly coined in this suddenly divisive political environment. Not only was he wrong that the term was newly coined, but if it is derogatory and biased then someone should tell Dan Parker to stop calling himself a “superdelegage” as he did last night on WIBC.

Obama’s recent interview appearances are starting to show a little wear and tear. He seems less “above the fray,” less polished, and just generally reduced a little bit. Part of the problem may be that his campaign seems to have some of its direction. He desperately wants to stop the Democratic in-fighting and turn his attention to McCain, who, literally everyday is making it known what a frightening prospect his presidency is but skips by unscathed for his transgresses. But Obama’s decision comes at the same time that Clinton has ramped up her attacks leaving Obama’s team working at cross purposes.

Every policy wonk, Hell–for that matter–any person following this race, wants and needs for these Lincoln-Douglas style debates to happen. Honestly both Obama and Clinton need these moderator-less free-for-alls in order to emphasize their policy differences if either of them is to take a decisive lead in the final primary contests. Unfortunately Obama needs them less and he has decided to run with this relative gains model in his rejection of Clinton’s offer. At this stage Obama seems to have rejected completely his uplifting, hope-oriented, new politics in favor of grinding out the final days. He is fully aware at this point that Clinton can’t win the popular or superdelegate lead and as long as he lays low he goes into the National Convention with both in his favor. Unless Clinton or Bush or McCain does something egregious I’m not expecting much more from him between now and the first week of June when the final primaries are held. At this stage he can reduce damage and save money by letting the 50/50 momentum that has marked this campaign do its thing. Mostly.

Personally I think Obama should go balls out against McCain. Spend a few weeks highlighting every policy gaffe that McCain is making, unleash the type of attacks he would use in the fall. I think this, more than anything else will help move a lot of Democrats behind him. 1) It makes him look more like the prospective nominee he is; 2) not wanting John McCain to be president is something that all Democrats can agree on and 3) there a lot of undecided and swing voters out there who might not vote in a Democratic primary (either because they are undecided or because they’re thinking they’re voting for McCain). Obama should help them decide to vote for him. While Obama still looks good going into the convention he would look better with a few late wins under his belt.

Oh! And there are 150,000 new Democratic voters in Indiana for this primary. This Get Out the Vote fervor is happening all over the country and it should produce even higher numbers as we approach November. I haven’t looked at the numbers to know if 150,000 new voters would be enough to give this, or any state, to a Democrat (based on 2000 or 2004 returns). I doubt it, but it could mean that if McCain were elected he might become so with even less of the popular vote than Bush got in 2000–a Pyhrric victory to be sure but a victory nevertheless.

Obama the Elitist! Seriously?

I’m about as pro-Obama as I’ve been pro- any candidate since as far back as I can remember following politics–and I’m counting the several years when I was really too young be at all sensible about such things. Like, when I was 5, Ronald Reagan was pictured on a horse pretty regularly and that may be one of the reasons I can’t quite shake the warm feelings I have of the Gipper. As a steady reader of Cracked magazine from 1984 to 1988 the various comic iterations of Reagan were always more favorable than their satirical swipes at Mondale too. I even have a solid memory of a Cracked magazine cover that showed Bush (41) debating Dukakis who was so short he had to stand on a box!!! (WHOO!) Hee-larious. I throw those in there only to add contrast to the way I like Obama. Even compared to my youthful, completely uncynical-about-government five-to-thireen year-old self, I’m pretty pro-Obama.

And I offer that paragraph as my way of “full disclosure” for what is about to come.

Are people really upset by the things Obama said in San Francisco?–because—if they are– they need to find a way to relax. That probably isn’t the way I’d say it if I were a Democratic worker or an Obama campaign staffer, but …I don’t know…seriously?

One comment I read on the topic quoted Obama at length with a link to the full transcript at Time’s website with the additional commentary that “reading them in context doesn’t make them better.” Well, I had read the quoted paragraph and thought: What’s the big deal? So I went to Time’s website to see if reading them in context made the comments worse.

It turns out that on that one point the commenter was right, reading them in context changed nothing whatsoever about the quoted passage. Obama was right when I read him out of context and he was right when read in context.

Except for a brief stay in northern Virginia I’ve only ever lived in economically depressed areas–often in economically depressed areas of economically depressed areas. I myself have been economically depressed for most of my life. Sometimes due circumstances growing up and sometimes do to poor decision-making on my own part.

I currently live in a state, Indiana, that self-identifies as a “blue collar” or a “manufacturing” state, despite the fact that the factories, plants, and farms here started closing down decades ago never to return. DECADES AGO. And despite the fact that, like most states, our largest growth sectors are service and health. Among Indiana’s most recent major success stories is its catering to the bio-engineering folks.

And you know what? The people are bitter. They do distrust the government. They do think that free trade agreements and immigrants have colluded to deprive them and theirs of their well-being. They do believe, at best, that their government has stood by and allowed this to happen and, at worst, have been an integral part of this demolition of their quality of life. Part of that bitterness is evident in the mere self-identification as an industrial state when in fact Indiana is hardly any such thing anymore. Like Ohio and Pennsylvania, Indiana would be more accurate to call itself “a McDonald’s state” or “a strip mall state” or “a Wal-Mart” state since that’s the employment that defines not just the character of the state but also it’s shifting landscape. But it doesn’t–for a couple of reasons. One, of course, is America honors its working class heroes and has for a long time…at least in its rhetoric. There is honor in being a “manufacturing state” that one cannot find near the grease trap of a Wendy’s. But the more important reason that Indiana (and Ohio and Pennsylvania) identify as “blue collar states” is because, they are upset that those jobs left and they want them back. Each successive presidential election comes with a slew of promises that those jobs are coming back and they never do. Living lives of constant disappointment and deprivation makes one bitter.

I suppose that it does require a little bit of care to fully parse the following sentence:

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

But parsing or not, it does not say that people are ignorant or mean or stupid or unsophisticated. It does not say that religion is “economically based” or anything else. What it says is that people are looking to the wrong things in order to create their politics. It says that when the real concern should be how to put food on the table, people are voting for the president that won’t take away their guns. It says people should be voting on how we are going to retrain an outmoded workforce but instead they’re focus on religious differences. It says that when people need to be concerned with how their government can and should be guiding them to better futures they are more concerned with how many immigrants walked through the desert last year.

Once again the people prove themselves incapable of perceiving the irony of real life. To react the way they did to this sentence actually proves how right Obama’s statement is. Now people are screaming: “Did you hear that, Obama thinks that I’m an ignorant redneck because I own a gun!” “He thinks I’m stupid because I love the Lord!”

So they have found a way to ignore their problems by concentrating on the second part of a statement that tried to remind people what their real problem is. Unbelievable.

But let’s take it one step forward. Obama was a community activists before he was a state senator. In that capacity he worked with some of the poorest people of one the country’s largest manufacturing centers (and third largest city). If Obama is an “elitist” who doesn’t understand working class America then what chance does corporate lawyer Hillary Clinton have? Or the son (and grandson) of a Navy admiral? Their positions are practically the definition of “elite” in America’s “military-industrial complex.”

Perhaps the only person in the country who can out elite these two is George Bush. As the son of a senator George Bush meets the minimum standard of “fortunate son” set by Creedence Cleawater Revival. But Bush’s dad went on to serve as head of the CIA, vice president, and president. Bush (43) himself was the CEO of an oil company and owner of a baseball team. AND he’s president. His brother was governor of Florida. His family is still regular visitors to the Royal House of Saud and…last I heard…Bush’s niece Lauren repeatedly has to defend herself against rumors that she is dating this or that prince. She is currently dating Ralph Lauren’s son.

I guess what I’m saying here boils down to this:

1. The statement would not be that bad, even if it was wrong.
2. It wasn’t wrong.
3. You can bitch about Obama’s “elitism” all you want but your choices are between his elitism, Clinton’s elitism, or McCain’s elitism and the latter two are head and shoulders more distinguished than Obama’s is and you’d have to be willfully ignorant to think otherwise.

John McCain: Yesterday’s President of Tomorrow!

OK! One more, real real quick. This John McCain ad is great. Yglesias likes it because it has a headless rockstar and lauds snitchery. I like it for two other reasons:

1. McCain in his Navy button up slightly unbuttoned paints a dashing figure. And
2. those pictures of John McCain in his Pop Warner football duds casts a positively historical light on the candidate. Seriously, was John McCain playing football before they outlawed the Flying V?–because he was clearly playing before they invented things like helmets that protected your head, pads, machine-embroidery.

America: Will your next president be black, white, or sepia-toned?

Greenwald v Drezner

I was going to write about this story from yesterday’s NY Times which describes the sad fate of the Sabal Palm Audubon Center which, thanks to a completely backward, short-sighted, and ultimately futile public policy will find its way to the other side of the new fence being erected along the US’s southern border. Mostly what I want to point out is that this such a pure case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face that I almost can’t put it into words. What is the fence supposed to do? Stop illegal immigrants. Why? Because illegal immigrants are a drain on our resources and dilute the labor pool thereby lowering wages–the combined effect of which lowers our quality of life. So, to defend against this lowering of living standards it seems reasonable, somehow, to wall Americans away from a gorgeous nature preserve that exists, at least in part, to raise the quality of life of those that live near enough to enjoy it.

Furthermore, America’s inability to halt illegal immigration is falsely believed to be an infringement on its sovereignty. Well, what better way to get a handle on your sovereignty that to essentially cede your country to another country? I mean, after all, if there’s no America to immigrate to, we win! Right?

But instead I want to jump in on a little cross-blogging warfare that cropped up yesterday between two bloggers I respect immensely, Glenn Greenwald at Salon (dot com) and Tufts University professor, Daniel Drezner at his personal blog. I want to jump in not because either Greenwald or Drezner need me to defend them but because I tried to comment on Drezner’s blog yesterday and I got a weird 404 Error and if I don’t tell it to someone I might just combust.

Basically yesterday Greenwald published this where he lists various NEXIS search results that, to him, indicate that the mainstream press is more interested in covering Obama’s bowling record than the fact that John Yoo’s legal “opinion” that the president is king of America and that torture is fine and dandy became effectively US law.

In response, Daniel Drezner wrote this where he critiques Greenwald’s methodology on a variety of points and concludes that

“Greenwald might be a good blogger/columnist, but he’s not that great at social science.”

Ouch.

Apparently Megan McArdle at The Atlantic (dot com) also chimed in but I don’t care because I didn’t read her article and Greenwald (among others) is pretty good at successfully ripping her arguments to tiny little pieces. Those two spawned this response from Greenwald today.

Basically Drezner and Greenwald are talking past one another here. Drezner (rightfully) critiques Greenwald’s methodology while not addressing the more salient point of whether or not the press is overly concerned with Lewinksy rumors and under concerned with vital policy considerations at the national level. Meanwhile Greenwald chalks up Drezner’s critique of methodology as defense for an indefensible press corps.

I’m not a social scientist but I can generally see bad social science when it occurs. And Greenwald’s is clearly flawed, not just for the reasons that Drezner, which are three:

1. the news cycle hasn’t played out for all the stories yet,
2. the press runs more stories when the participants make comments on them and
3. the press (and the country) are more concerned with America’s future not it’s past.

To flush out point 1, Greenwald begins his post with the fact that “in the past two weeks” several very important stories have broken and among them are Mukasey’s slip up that the Bush team failed to listen to a phone call that might have prevented 9/11¹ and the John Yoo memo. He then does a NEXIS search going back thirty days and because “Clinton and Lewinsky” gets 1,079 hits and “Yoo and torture” only gets 102 he determines that the MSM is horrible.

Let’s just start here, the MSM is horrible, but why (why oh why) if these exciting and important stories only date back 14 days, would you search back 30? Should the press have been reporting on the Mukasey/ 9-11 slip up before he made it? So “Obama and Wright” gets thirty days of hits while “Yoo and Fourth Amendment” only gets 14? Of course the numbers aren’t going match up, but they also aren’t going to give you an accurate picture of what’s going on.

And “Clinton and Lewinsky,” is a particularly misleading search² because there are at least three different stories there

1. The famous one starring the ex-president and his intern
2. the new rumors about the ex-president’s wife and the intern and
3. the shenanigans starring the ex-president’s daughter being asked about the intern.

I think that Greenwald does a pretty good job reducing Drezner’s other arguments: 2) That the press reports more on stories that those involved comment on: e.g., Obama did not give a bowling press conference and it still got 1,043 hits³while John Yoo has talked about his role in the White House and the two Yoo searches combined only yielded 118 hits; and 3) that the press is more concerned with the nation’s future and not its past.⁴

A better comparison would chart the daily hits for each story as it played out across their news cycles. The Wright story for example played out over several weeks with peaks when the story broke and again when Obama gave his widely covered speech in response. “Obama and Wright” is turning up at least two stories over the entire 30 days. Furthermore, “Obama and patriotism” (1,607 hits) is likely turning up many of the same stories since the crucial moment of Wright’s sermon was his “God damn, America” line. So the question is, when the press is covering a story to at their fullest, how much did they cover it–not how much did they cover it since some arbitrary date in the past.

In any case, even with better methodology I think Greenwald would still be able to prove his point. The numbers are so far apart that it is fairly clear that if one were to measure them in the way I suggest the petty stories are still going to come out the clear coverage winners. And there is no reason that “Obama and bowling” should be getting over 1,000 hits. It simply doesn’t matter at all. Or, if “Obama and bowling” is going to get over 1000 hits then “Yoo and torture” should be as well. It’s a more important story. And so, while Drezner may be accurate in his charge that Greenwald could have done a better analysis, it does not follow necessarily follow that Greenwald’s conclusion is false.

Greenwald, for his part, is here a victim of the same poor thinking he so often (rightfully) points out in others. He is forever defending his comments from attacks. I honestly couldn’t begin counting the number of times he has felt compelled to add an update or a new post that says something to the effect of “Just because I defended X in this instance doesn’t mean I support X for president or think that X’s party is handling this situation appropriately. I just meant what I said, that X is being reasonable and taking the right approach.”

Drezner is right, at least on point 1, that Greenwald’s methodology was poor. Drezner could have, as I did, point out more ways that Greenwald’s methodology was poor. Even if Drezner’s analysis itself was incorrect on points 2 and 3, a critique of Greewald’s social science does not amount to a defense of the press. It is simply what Drezner said it was, a critique of Greenwald’s approach. And Greenwald should know that.

1. They didn’t; Mukasey is just a liar and a fear-monger

2. And I know Greenwald knows it because he’s mentioned all three of them on his blog

3. “Obama and Wright” to prove Drezner’s point got over 3,000…although I repeat, the counting was unfair. The Wright story is getting two more weeks of NEXIS hits than the bowling story and is arguably more important.

4. Even though the president who wanted that Yoo memo is still in office and the country is poised to elect a guy who is unlikely to roll back the “president is king” part of the opinion even if he rebukes the “torture is good” part.

The Head-to-Head: Dems 1 and 2 vs. Citizen McCain

Survey USA has done the head-to-head match-ups for November: Obama vs. McCain and Clinton vs. McCain. As can be seen by their handy graphic to the left there, either Obama or Clinton will beat McCain and by roughly the same amount of electoral votes.

A few things should be pointed out however. First of all, the sample size is incredibly small. Just 600 people per state. Also, a lot can happen between now and November. Some things will happen that will be good for Republicans…like a war in Iran, or Democrats’ continued failure to pass anything meaningful in Congress (or, more likely, they might actually stand up to Bush from time-to-time but as a consequence get knocked down for making the country vulnerable to terrorists). Some things will be good for Democrats like…constantly reminding everyone that McCain thinks it’s a good idea to commit to being in Iraq for the next 100 years. I mean, I know what it is he (probably) means, but I don’t think it makes a good sound byte.

Also, I think in both instances above there are some pretty big Ifs. For example, Clinton wins Florida, presumably on her strengths with Hispanics; and, Obama wins Michigan, presumably on his tough anti-Nafta talk and appeal amongst African-Americans…or something; but both lose the other. However, unless something happens between now and then regarding the seating of delegates from those states, there’s a good chance that Democrats disenfranchised now will be uninspired to go to the polls. If Democratic numbers are tenuous enough in those regions that merely switching from one Dem to the other causes a loss or gain, then I don’t think that either candidate has a strong chance in either state.

There’s a similar weakness in fundamental sentiment in each of the other states that one, but not the other Dem wins: West Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, etc. By Survey USA’s accounting nearly 20% of states are swing states this time around. I am no stranger to the “Purple America” theory, but it seems that if we’re as purple as people say we are; and if there’s enough Republican backlash right now, then wherever Clinton wins, Obama wins and vice versa. I can see a handful of states where that wouldn’t be true. Clinton wins Arkansas, for example, and Obama loses. Obama wins Washington where Clinton loses–but that’s just based on Clinton’s homefield advantage in AR and Obama’s appeal to the Washington demographic.

The closeness of the primaries alone should lead one to suspect that the race won’t have as much discrepancy between the two options as presented here. But what do I know?

Oh Yeah!

And McCain locked it up Tuesday night. But you saw that coming.

Prolonged Campaign Helps Democrats?

Bouncing between historical analogs and modern day media realities Walter Shapiro answers the biggest question bounding around the blogosphere yesterday: Is the prolonged Democratic race bad for Democrats come November?

Conventional wisdom and Rush Limbaugh (oddly enough) agree that it does. Clinton and Obama both vying for the lion’s share of the ever-diminishing pool of available delegates will resort to nastier and nastier attacks. Already critics of Clinton’s smear machine have spoken up against Clinton’s 3AM ad which implies, not only that Clinton will be ready on Day One, but that Obama will cause your children to be murdered in their sleep if he’s the guy in the Oval Office. The problem, of course, is that a charge like that doesn’t go away when the person delivering the message is John McCain. In fact, it gets worse. “Look,” Citizen McCain can say, “Even his fellow Democrat doesn’t trust this guy to keep your children safe.”

Shapiro takes issue with the conventional wisdom by focusing on two specific pieces of data. Democrats are famous for settling on a candidate fairly early, by March at least and it hasn’t helped them so far. Even Bill Clinton, he points out, was only nominally challenged until the California primary and despite his early clinching of the DNC nomination, he trailed behind both Bush 41 and Ross Perot.

And the other reality is the slathering maw of a press hungry for drama-laden stories. There is no more drama in the Republican race. According to Shapiro there were roughly four times as many stories following up on the Democratic primaries as on the Republican ones–and that despite the fact that McCain still had a “challenger” in Mike Huckabee.  In the months and weeks ahead, with McCain campaigning for November with the full arsenal of the GOP, he can only divide his attacks between both candidates or hurl them more broadly on Democrats  in general–and no one will care.

Meanwhile Clinton and Obama will dominate the press as they go for each other’s jugulars.

It bears pointing out that this is exactly what did in John Edwards  before Nevada and South Carolina. Despite running strongly in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the press completely ignored Edwards when Obama and Clinton began flaring up at one another, focusing instead on the tit-for-tat going on between the frontrunners.

Is the double-headed beast Clintama-Obamaton going to Edwardsify McCain? It could happen. I think Shapiro is ignoring the harms of a prolonged campaign in favor of underscoring the gains, which is probably for the best since most everybody else is doing the opposite.

Horn Tootin’!

Going all the way back to February 6 when I said that McCain would eventually unite the Republican Party…a new Pew Poll confirms that and more!

In April of 2006 McCain had about 61% of Republicans supporting him, about 56% of Democrats and 57% of Independents. Despite all the “Anybody but McCain!!!” rhetoric pouring from the Limbaugh’s and Coulter’s of the world, his support among Republican actually crept up slightly before a sudden and impressive skyrocketing.

Today his support among Republicans is about 80%. As he inches ever closer to being officially appointed the Republican nominee, the party faithful and all the rest are very quickly lining up behind him.

Meanwhile, amongst the other two voting blocks, McCain experienced a quick surge and then a drop in Independent voters, many of whom, I suppose, are starting to see the chinks in the “Straight Shooter’s” armor as the light of scrutiny is shone on him. After a brief flirtation in the low 60s, Independent support for McCain has dropped to about 51%.

Among Democrats, McCain-support slowly dropped from 56% to something in the mid 40s before tanking to 29% at just about the same time that Republicans began lining up.

So not only is the GOP lining up behind McCain as I said, but McCain is beginning to reveal himself as a polarizing figure…at least that’s what Brendan Nyhan and Ezra Klein seem to think and I am inclined to mostly agree. I suspect that the differences revealed here will become even starker after the nominations are officially announced. If it’s worth predicting, I expect that McCain’s support amongst Democrats will continue to drop, probably into the tens or single digits. His support among independents will stay roughly around 50% and his support among Republicans will linger in the low 90s.

And then there’s this…

Obama plagiarizes speeches.

Hillary Clinton plagiarizes (her husband’s) speeches.

And now if someone would just let us know for sure that McCain plagiarizes speeches, we could call this one a wash and move onto something substantial like who has the best poster (Obama), choice in golf sweaters (McCain), glisten in her eye (Clinton).

Free Pass

Also, Obama apparently plagiarizes speeches. Which might be more evidence that Obama’ honeymoon with the press is over. From here on out we can hopefully expect to see magnified every stumble, mumble, and burp. Hopefully this new trend will stomp the gusto out of any reporter still thinking that he (or she) should be covering what our next president will actually do.

It is interesting, btw, that because of the “McCain isn’t really a conservative” stuff, I have seen more MSM press coverage on McCain’s past votes and overall political philosophy than I’ve seen of any president or presidential nominee ever from both the left and the right. It’s been great.