Karl Rove reviews the 2008 U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections

Karl Rove reviews the data and makes interesting observations about the 2008 Presidential elections.  The complete article can be seen in The Wall Street Journal, and here is an abstract —

“Political races are about candidates and issues. But election results, in the end, are about numbers. Wa So now that the dust is settling on the 2008 presidential race, what do the numbers tell us?

First, the predicted huge turnout surge didn’t happen. The final tally is likely to show that fewer than 128.5 million people voted. That’s up marginally from 122 million in 2004. But 17 million more people voted in 2004 than in 2000 (three times the change from 2004 to 2008).

Second, a substantial victory was won by modest improvement in the Democratic share of the vote. Barack Obama received 2.1 points more in the popular vote than President Bush received in 2004, 3.1 points more than Vice President Al Gore in 2000, and 4.6 points more than John Kerry in 2004. In raw numbers, the latest tally shows that Mr. Obama received 66.1 million votes, about 7.1 million more than Mr. Kerry.

One of the most important shifts was Hispanic support for Democrats. John McCain got the votes of 32% of Hispanic voters. That’s down from the 44% Mr. Bush won four years ago. If this trend continues, the GOP will find it difficult to regain the majority.

In a sign Mr. Obama’s victory may have been more personal than partisan or philosophical, Democrats picked up just 10 state senate seats (out of 1,971) and 94 state house seats (out of 5,411). By comparison, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in 1980, Republicans picked up 112 state senate seats (out of 1,981) and 190 state house seats (out of 5,501).”

Marc Ambincer’s reflections on why Obama won and McCain lost

Marc Ambinder’s (The Atlantic) thoughtful analyses on the why Barack Obama won and John McCain lost the U.S. presidential elections can be found in his blog, http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/

Here is part of that analysis —

“– Obama is a once-in-a-generation candidate, a brilliant communicator in an age of communication. Cool and consistent under pressure. He grew over the course of two years into a candidate voters believed was ready to be president. The right candidate at the right moment. The most un-Bush of any of the Democratic candidates.

— The financial crisis, and the candidates’ response to it.  Probably the crucial moment for both campaigns. The voters saw the two men react to an unexpected crisis. Voters seemed to prefer Obama’s steadiness to McCain’s suspended campaign. McCain’s sudden decision was 180 degrees from what he had been saying a week before (“fundamentals of our economy are strong”).

— Sarah Palin. Polling shows that she drove some voters away from Sen. McCain and to Barack Obama. Voters judged her to be too inexperienced to be president. Also, instead of appealing to independents, she became a polarizing figure.  ALSO — her persona highlighted McCain’s age and health since she could have taken over. ALSO — her selection killed the “inexperience” argument against Obama.

— Message, message, message. Obama branded himself as “Change” two years ago, McCain tried Maverick, Reformer, Country First, Steady Hand At The Wheel, Tax Cutter, and even flirted with “Real American” by the end, and none of them were consistent.”

Christopher Buckley endorses Barack Obama

Christopher Buckley, the son of William Buckley — the founder and leader of conservative movement in the United States — has endorsed Barack Obama.  Here is a part of Christopher Buckley’s opinion and rationale as it appeared in The Daily Beast —

“I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.”

Larry Sabato’s (of University of Virginia) assessment of the electoral map in the presidential race (McCain/Palin v. Obama/Biden)

Reported below is part of the analysis by Larry Sabato of University of Virginia on the electoral map of the presidential race.  This opinion appeared in Rasmussen Reports.

“The totally safe and likely Obama states have 200 Electoral Votes (EVs). For McCain, the similar total is 174 EVs. Add in Iowa, New Mexico, and Wisconsin for Obama and he has 222 EVs. Let’s give McCain FL, MO, and NC, and he’s up to 227 EVs. If Obama carries MI and PA, he’s at 260 (ten votes short), and would need either Ohio or Virginia to win. If he carried Colorado and either NH or NV, Obama could win without OH or VA. And interestingly, Obama could lose CO, OH, and VA, while carrying just NH and NV, and achieve a 269 to 269 tie-that would very likely be resolved in the new U.S. House of Representatives in his favor (given probable Democratic gains coming in the House).

Now, on McCain’s side, let’s add VA to his 227, and he’s at 240, 30 votes short of victory. If McCain falters in any of his Leaning states, he is likely out of the picture. But if he holds them all, his most likely path to victory at that point would be to win OH, CO, and either NH or NV. If he wins only OH and CO, the pro-Obama 269 to 269 tie is back. Should he lose OH but somehow carry PA, he would need only CO to get to 270; both NH and NV could go to Obama without effect.”

Assessment of the presidential electoral votes for McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden by Mark Penn and Marc Ambinder

Here are the electoral map assessments by Mark Penn and Marc Ambinder.  Mark Penn has opined in politico.com, and an abstract of the opinion has been reported here.  Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic has opined in his own blog, http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/

Mark Penn’s opinion: “By my count, the electoral map now puts the race almost dead even but leaning slightly toward Barack Obama, with 273 electoral votes in his column. Obama has several alternative roads to the White House — both through the Midwest and the Southwest. Ohio would give Obama a solid margin of victory, but he can win without Ohio by putting together Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado to secure 21 electoral votes. He is now ahead in those states, in double digits in Iowa.

But if Obama loses Ohio and wins the others, New Hampshire becomes a critical state. A loss there (where John McCain has considerable popularity) would create a deadlock — 269 to 269, not at all an unlikely end to an unlikely political season.

McCain must win Ohio, hold onto Nevada, and take back New Hampshire and one other blue state to get past 269 and have a clear win. His target last week was the values-oriented voters in Minnesota and Wisconsin; this week and for the foreseeable future, economic events are likely to be front and center.”

Marc Ambinder’s report:

Likely Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA (190 electoral votes)

Lean Obama: IA, MN, NM, NH (26 electoral votes)

Marginal toss-ups:  FL, MI,  WI, PA, OH (95 electoral votes)

True toss-ups: NV, CO, VA (27 electoral votes)

Lean McCain:  GA, IN, MO, MT, NC, SD (58 electoral votes)

Likely McCain: AK, AL, AZ, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, OK, SC, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY, ND (142 electoral votes)

Obama: likely + leaners: 216 electoral votes

McCain: likely + leaners = 200 electoral votes

Tossups: 122 electoral votes.

New Mexico moves to lean-Obama based on the Obama campaign’s confidence there and the relative lack of attention McCain is paying to the state.

Colorado, Nevada and Virginia are more competitive than they ought to be at this point.

New Hampshire moves to lean-Obama for meta-environmental reasons and because of the strength of his recent polling.

Florida remains a toss-up; the Obama campaign has a larger organization there, and McCain is underperforming along the I-4 corridor.

No reason just yet to move Montana into the tossup category.

America’s banking instability, and the political impact on the U.S. Presidential campaigns

Here is an interesting report on the impact and rescue of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America and AIG.  The report was filed by Mike Allen of Politico.com

“America’s banking instability could upend the final 50 days of the presidential campaign, with both candidates forced to confront a calamity that has gotten only glancing attention during the first 20 months of the race for the White House.

Here are four huge effects for the campaigns:

1. The candidates had hoped to put off their detailed prescriptions until they were in office, unrolling an economic agenda in conjunction with an address to the new Congress. Now, there’s no way to duck it.

But at a time when the economy is the top issue on voters’ minds, one of the candidates could wind up winning the neck-and-neck election by talking clearly and convincingly about the fallout and what should be done.

2. The new crisis crowds the candidates’ agendas in the stretch run, keeping them from talking about the issues that they had planned to focus on. But the candidates are creatively trying to meld the disaster into their existing messages.

3. Just like the markets, however, each candidate faces an enormous downside risk: Troubled times could make voters less likely to take a chance on Obama, with his shorter time in Washington. McCain could pay the price for the economic disruption on a Republican’s watch, or if he looks like he doesn’t have the energy and creativity to reassure a worried nation.

4. They will also be more constrained when they get to Washington, with analysts estimating that the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is likely to cost the Treasury $100 billion to $300 billion.”

Reports of Barack Obama-Joe Biden Democratic Party Convention Bounce

Here are part of reports from Politico.com and FiveThirtyEight.com on the Democratic party convention bounce for Barack Obama-Joe Biden.

Politico.com

“Barack Obama met the 50 percent threshold for the first time Tuesday in the Gallup daily tracking poll, a symbolic hurdle that until now had eluded the Democratic nominee.

The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the Democratic convention, Obama has risen 5 percentage points in the polls and now leads John McCain 50 percent to 42 percent. That represents a positive turn for Obama, after a couple of days in which he appeared to have peaked at the 49 percent mark while McCain was showing slight improvements.

The survey indicates that Obama’s overall post-Democratic National Convention bounce now appears to be roughly at par with the norm of past conventions. Though smaller than several of the sizable bounces of recent decades, the new polling suggests that perhaps the Democratic convention bounce has yet to subside.

While an improvement from 49 percent to 50 percent is statistically insignificant, the 50 percent mark holds significance for a party seeking to win its first majority since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won with 50.1 percent.”

FiveThirtyEight.com

“A large number of national polls have come out within the past 24-48 hours, most of which had conducted a survey close enough to the beginning of the Democratic convention to provide for a direct comparison. These polls show Obama having gained between 2 and 8 points since before the convention began, or an average of 4.4 points. Although this is slightly below the average convention bounce of 6 points, it is a pretty reasonable result considering that the Republicans had named their VP candidate immediately following the Democratic convention, a circumstance which had never occurred before. Moreover, the internals of these polls show Obama gaining ground among Clinton supporters, a group of votes that John McCain is likely to have a difficult time getting back.

It looks like Barack Obama may have gotten his convention bounce after all:”

Marc Ambinder on Sarah Palin’s choice as the vice-presidential nominee

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic offers one of thoughtful analysis of  Governor Sarah Palin’s choice as the vice-presidential nominee by John McCain.  Here is part of the analysis —

“Did Palin change the dynamic of the race? Well, that enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans may begin to narrow. Let’s talk after the Republican convention. The McCain campaign has proven adept at getting inside the Obama campaign’s OODA loop, and the Obama campaign does expect her coming out week to be good for Obama’s opponents.  Once the campaigning begins, then we’ll see.  Don’t believe the polls this week.

Will women flock to the McCain campaign? Probably not.

Will a statistically significant number of women decide to support McCain? Anyone who claim to know is lying.  Check back on September 15.

How big are the risks for McCain? Enormous. The fighter pilot whose hero is TR is trying to land with zero visibility. It is going to be hard to wrest away from Obama the banner of change, and McCain risks being seen as unserious about national security.  Palin is smart and quick on the draw, but she is completely untested and prone to bursts of the mouth.  She seems to know very little about Iraq and the world and even about the national economy.  She is an identity pick, first and foremost, and a process-pick, second.   Women could be offended or inspired.

“Is the pick good for the Republican Party?  Absolutely. Even if McCain loses in November, the GOP’s new standard bearer will be a younger working mother from outside Washington and not a rich businessman with perfect hair from Massachusetts.  McCain may have saved the GOP at the expense of the campaign.”

An assessment of Sarah Plain by The Economist

How does The Economist assess the choice of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential by John McCain.  Here is part of the report —

“Ms Palin is the first woman on a Republican ticket; by selecting her the McCain campaign will hope to expand its reach to female voters, though she may be a tough sell to disaffected supporters of Hillary Clinton. Born in small-town Idaho, Ms Palin moved to small-town Alaska when she was a child. She is a former beauty queen and a keen sportswoman—her aggressive style of playing basketball earning her the nickname “Sarah barracuda”. As a mother of five she will be able to empathise with other hard-pressed female professionals balancing home and career.

Opting for Ms Palin may also go some way towards soothing the nerves of social conservatives, who were aghast at Mr McCain’s recent suggestion that he would not necessarily rule out picking a vice-president who supports abortion rights. Mr McCain may have heeded the warning that such a selection would cause “the base” to stay at home on election day; one poll found that 20% of McCain supporters would be less likely to vote for him if his veep was pro-choice. But Ms Palin is a staunch Christian, a member of the National Rifle Association, and enjoys fishing and hunting.

Although she is popular with conservatives, Ms Palin will not be able to cement the evangelical wing of the party to Mr McCain in the same way that the selection of Mr Pawlenty would have done through his strong ties to the National Association of Evangelicals.

But the risks of choosing such an unknown quantity are enormous. An important aspect in selecting a vice-president is to reassure the electorate that should anything happen to the man in the Oval Office there is a competent and trustworthy stand-in ready to take over. John McCain’s age (he is 72) is an underlying factor with voters. Although Ms Palin’s youthfulness, she is 44, is an eye-catching contrast to the top of the ticket, questions will be raised about her ability to run the country if Mr McCain should ever be incapacitated.

And the tenures of both Al Gore and Dick Cheney as vice-president have raised the profile of the office. Vice-presidents were once expected to be solid and reliable but mostly boring. Messrs Gore and Cheney took on policy portfolios, such as government reform or preparing for war with Iraq. Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden for the role now seems all the more wise.

By choosing the governor of Alaska as his running mate, Mr McCain also turns the spotlight on the state’s politics, which is currently entangled in corruption scandals. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator ever, faces corruption charges in relation to building work on his home. Other state officials are under investigation in separate cases. And Alaskans are going through a period of introspection about politics and energy interests, on which the state has thrived.”

David Brooks on Biden as Obama’s Vice-Presidential choice

David Brooks has a thoughtful and public-spirited opinion (in The New York Times) on Joseph Biden as Barack Obama’s vice-presidential choice.  Here is most of that opinion —

“Biden’s weaknesses are on the surface. He has said a number of idiotic things over the years and, in the days following his selection, those snippets would be aired again and again.

But that won’t hurt all that much because voters are smart enough to forgive the genuine flaws of genuine people. And over the long haul, Biden provides what Obama needs:

Working-Class Roots. Biden is a lunch-bucket Democrat. His father was rich when he was young — played polo, cavorted on yachts, drove luxury cars. But through a series of bad personal and business decisions, he was broke by the time Joe Jr. came along. They lived with their in-laws in Scranton, Pa., then moved to a dingy working-class area in Wilmington, Del. At one point, the elder Biden cleaned boilers during the week and sold pennants and knickknacks at a farmer’s market on the weekends.

Democrats in general, and Obama in particular, have trouble connecting with working-class voters, especially Catholic ones. Biden would be the bridge.

Honesty. Biden’s most notorious feature is his mouth……Today, Biden’s conversational style is tiresome to some, but it has one outstanding feature. He is direct. No matter who you are, he tells you exactly what he thinks, before he tells it to you a second, third and fourth time.

Presidents need someone who will be relentlessly direct. Obama, who attracts worshippers, not just staff members, needs that more than most.

Loyalty. Just after Biden was elected to the senate in 1972, his wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi were killed in a car crash. His career has also been marked by lesser crises. His first presidential run ended in a plagiarism scandal. He nearly died of a brain aneurism.

New administrations are dominated by the young and the arrogant, and benefit from the presence of those who have been through the worst and who have a tinge of perspective. Moreover, there are moments when a president has to go into the cabinet room and announce a decision that nearly everyone else on his team disagrees with. In those moments, he needs a vice president who will provide absolute support. That sort of loyalty comes easiest to people who have been down themselves, and who had to rely on others in their own moments of need.

Experience….When Biden was a young senator, he was mentored by Hubert Humphrey, Mike Mansfield and the like. He was schooled in senatorial procedure in the days when the Senate was less gridlocked. If Obama hopes to pass energy and health care legislation, he’s going to need someone with that kind of legislative knowledge who can bring the battered old senators together, as in days of yore.

There are other veep choices. Tim Kaine seems like a solid man, but selecting him would be disastrous. It would underline all the anxieties voters have about youth and inexperience. Evan Bayh has impeccably centrist credentials, but the country is not in the mood for dispassionate caution.

Biden’s the one. The only question is whether Obama was wise and self-aware enough to know that.”