Monday’s campaign round-up

July 14, 2008

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* Voter-registration numbers in Florida look very good for Democrats: “The numbers are ominous for Republicans: Through May, Democratic voter registration in Broward County was up 6.7 percent. Republican registrations grew just 3 percent while independents rose 2.8 percent. Democrats have posted even greater gains statewide, up 106,508 voters from January through May, compared with 16,686 for the Republicans. ‘It’s a huge swing,’ says Marian Johnson, political director for the Florida Chamber of Commerce. ‘I looked at that and said, ‘Wow.'”

* How discouraging is the landscape for Senate Republicans? A spokesperson for the NRSC said late last week, “We have no safe seats right now. In a normal election year, we would not be concerned at all. But those are the cards we’re dealt. We’re not taking any states for granted.”

* More intra-party unity news: “Karen Dunn, a former aide to Hillary Clinton, is becoming the deputy to Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, a source familiar with the plan said.”

* California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) told ABC News yesterday that he’s willing to serve in an Obama administration, possibly as an energy and environment czar. “I’d take his call now, and I’d take his call when he’s president — any time,” Schwarzenegger said of Obama.

* Obama had an important message on McCain’s education record while speaking to the American Federation of Teachers over the weekend: “For someone who’s been in Washington nearly 30 years, he’s got a pretty slim record on education, and when he has taken a stand, it’s been the wrong one.”

* Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll has Obama’s lead down to just one point, 47% to 46%.

* Obama has 15 field offices in Iowa. McCain has one.

* Americans seem to believe race relations can improve under a President Obama: “Barack Obama’s groundbreaking candidacy has raised high expectations among blacks and whites that his election would make race relations in the United States better. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of nearly 2,000 Americans also finds about a third of both groups say the defeat of the first black to win a major party’s presidential nomination would worsen race relations.”

* There were several polls in Missouri last week that showed McCain with a modest lead, but a new Research 2000 poll shows Obama leading in Missouri by five, 48% to 43%.

* I refuse to believe Obama is leading McCain in Arizona. Not a chance.

* Rasmussen has Obama up by eight in Washington state, 48% to 39%.

* There’s been some evidence that Mike Huckabee wants to be McCain’s running mate, but he’s now expressing less interest. “I’m not sitting around waiting on the phone to ring and right now — it would really mess up a lot of things I have going,” he told an Iowa radio station.

* In response to the controversy surrounding Phil Gramm’s “nation of whiners” remarks, the McCain campaign is pretending that Gramm isn’t close to McCain anymore.

* Comedian Bernie Mac made a surprise appearance at an Obama fundraiser on Friday night, and told a few inappropriate jokes. Obama teased Mac later, saying he’d need to “clean up [his] act.” The media found this fascinating.

Huckabee: “it would really mess up a lot of things I have going”

He sounds like the guy who runs into the girl that dumped in a couple months ago.

  • “[being McCain’s running mate] would really mess up a lot of things I have going,” [Huckabee] told an Iowa radio station.

    Ouch. Sounds like Huckabee just threw McCain under the bus, maybe because being tied to lead balloon loser like McJerk “would really mess up a lot of things”, especially one’s plans to be the new conservative leader of the GOP.

  • “I’m not sitting around waiting on the phone to ring and right now — it would really mess up a lot of things I have going,” he told an Iowa radio station.

    Like what? Getting his dog-torturing and -murdering son into therapy? Hawking his line of Wayne Dumond tea towels? Cataloging the furnishings he stole from the governor’s mansion?

    It defies credibility that Huckabee has anything to do besides the above–and taking speaking engagements in church halls across the South and Midwest in a likely-to-fail attempt to be the next GOP Christian candidate with more than a smidgen of real power within the party.

  • * I refuse to believe Obama is leading McCain in Arizona. Not a chance.

    Ah, but you forget—we have Dr. Dean’s 50 State Strategy. The bad guys have Dr. McMengele and his evil pet naked mole rat, jeffie….

  • I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that Obama was launching a nationwide voter registration drive. Part of politics is reaching people who are open to your message, but after a certain point, your efforts become futile. The next logical step is to find people who were never involved or only lightly involved in the first place, not merely because they are going to help you just as much as a swing voter but because they can become part of your base. I was particularly happy to see that Obama was going to be focusing on states like North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. If we put these states in play to the point where they become like the Midwest, it could make it increasingly unlikely that the Republicans could win.

    But I have to wonder, when will we see the results of these efforts? Browsing dailykos.com earlier today, I saw a diary about voter registration numbers in various states from last week. To use Georgia as an example, it said there were about 16,000 black registered to vote from May until the beginning of July. That’s certainly nothing to sneeze at out of about 39,000 overall, but assuming the numbers are true, do we have a chance of making up any ground here to register a sizable portion of the 500-600,000 unregistered black voters in the state? As someone commented in the diary, there’s possibly a back log of forms that won’t show up for some time. Even so, unless there’s going to be a time when the numbers will surge, it seems like it might be an insurmountable task. The key word, however, is “might.” It’s easy to imagine a situation where 10 volunteers each average 100 voter registrants a day over a five-day period, assuming that there are lots of unregistered voters in high-density areas.

    I wish there was a way to find more concrete information on this. Does anyone know of something I don’t?

    As for Florida, what’s happening seems fairly remarkable. As Marc Ambinder notes, independent groups are stepping up to the plate here, but imagine what the numbers might look like if the campaigns went into Florida.

  • “I refuse to believe Obama is leading McCain in Arizona. Not a chance.”

    Beg to differ. An outside chance is still a chance. McCain is not universally beloved in the state of Arizona – led by the newspapers with whom he has had ‘frosty-to-icy’ relationships with.

    It is still a long shot for Obama to win Arizona, but when McBush has to battle for his home state (and spend resources there) it is a very good thing.

    Napolitano, the dem governor, polls more favorably in the state than McCrap! Polling in the state last year showed that she would beat McCain decisively if she has run for his senate seat against him. I still would like to see her given serious consideration for the v.p. slot.

  • A spokesperson for the NRSC said late last week, “We have no safe seats right now. In a normal election year, we would not be concerned at all. But those are the cards we’re dealt. We’re not taking any states for granted.”

    Nice to see the ReThugs are still dumber than a box of low I.Q. rocks. They really have no damn idea why everyone hates them. “Those are the cards we’re dealt”? You don’t recall lying, whining and cheating to get those cards?

    Nope. No clue at all. I guess they think the magical fairy of fate came by, waved her wand and pow! Turned the handsome GOP into a toad.

  • Burn BernieMac. He’s not funny. He’s sexist.He’s like an old Sinbaid. I don’t want him telling his old tired whore-jokes at state functions. He’s the old tired whore.

  • In re the point about field offices, I wonder if all the gnashing of teeth concerning Hon. Sen. McCain’s outspending Hon. Sen. Obama isn’t missing the voter registration and on the ground organization that is being done?

  • California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) told ABC News yesterday that he’s willing to serve in an Obama administration, possibly as an energy and environment czar. “I’d take his call now, and I’d take his call when he’s president — any time,” Schwarzenegger said of Obama.

    This should end any speculation that McCain has a ghost of chance to win California. If the Govenator has shown one thing after his disaterous first few months in office its how to read his where is state sits politically works to get ahead of the curve.

    And given the supposedly ‘close’ relationship between him and McCain it will be interesting how the McCain camp tries to spin this comment.

  • Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll has Obama’s lead down to just one point, 47% to 46%.
    WTF? That any Republican presidential candidate would be within one percentage point of any Democrat In this year’s election is just mind blowing – particularly when the Republican is running to continue the abysmal policies of G.W. Bush. The closeness of this race can only be a reflection of how much most voters are in denial.

  • Comedian Bernie Mac made a surprise appearance at an Obama fundraiser on Friday night, and told a few inappropriate jokes. Obama teased Mac later, saying he’d need to “clean up [his] act.” The media found this fascinating.

    I don’t care for Bernie Mac (and this link’s bad), but this item is sure to bring Mary out of the hole where she’s skulking after her spectacular multi-thread meltdown on Saturday morning. Apparently, getting busted using a GOP smear site as her sole source for allegations of a sexist pay scale in Obama’s Senate office was too much for her equilibrium.

    When she returns, I know we’re all still eager to get the cite for her claim that the Obamas have copped to infidelity within their marriage.

  • Here’s the one that gets me:

    70-75 percent of the country thinks Bush is doing a bad job.

    About the same number think the country is heading in the wrong direction.

    And yet 45 percent of the country says they will vote for McCain.

    So about 15-20 percent of the public agrees the country is going in the wrong direction and that Bush (and the Republicans) is to blame and yet they are willing to vote for McCain despite the fact he’s promised to continue virtually all of Bush’s policies.

    So what we have to do is figure out how to get that 10-15 percent of public to see reality. They are almost there (they’ve identified the problem, Bush/Republican run government) but for whatever reason they can’t seem to take the extra step to correct that problem (voting different people into office).

  • I think McCain’s close poll results (along with the “if not Hillary, then McCain” mindset) are best explained as the current version of the Bradley effect. “Don’t like what Bush & the Republicans have done, don’t like the current direction, but unfortunately Obama is black, so put me down for McCain.” In many cases, I doubt it’s even conscious – there’s “just something about him” that 10-20% of the population doesn’t trust.

    I think Obama will win anyway.

  • Many of the national polling groups have formulas to fill when they do their polls. They have to have so many Republicans, so many Democrats, so many independents, etc. Because fewer people are self-identifying as Republicans, the polling groups are having to use more of those to achieve a balance of Dem-GOP, and fewer of the other self-identifiers. And presumably nearly all of the self-identified Republicans (although there are fewer of them) say they are voting for McCain, so those votes are more heavily weighted in the polls.

    Another thing the MSM aren’t reporting is the state electoral college poll averages. If you look at http://www.electoral-vote.com, you can see that, as of today, Obama is blowing McCain out of the water. That’s why all of this voter registration and ground work by Obama staffers and volunteers matters so much.

    And (once again) polls taken during the weekend, when more younger Obama voters are more likely not to be home to be polled, are always going to push McCain up a bit.

    Of course, it’s to the media’s benefit to keep this race as close as it can be so people will keep paying attention to them.

  • From what I read, cellphone users were not polled in some or most of these polls (a huge gap of potential O voters) and the Newsweek poll this month, showing a tighter race than the month before, polled significantly if slightly different subsets, leading to a different picture by definition. Could it be — I am shocked, shocked — that this part of an effort to keep the story tantalizing enough to make us keep tuning in to every burp and hallucination of the 24/7 pundits blathering cycle?

    And Maria: Yes, Mary does seem to have run for cover since her vicious but oh so easy to challenge attacks Saturday. Which is heartening: I thought nothing would stop her.

  • I think alot of people are waiting to see who Obama picks as his running mate and that is why polls are so close right now. Alot of Hillary’s supporters are counting on him picking her for VP and witholding their support until that happens. If he doesn’t pick her, look for those poll numbers to be pretty accurate.

  • Actually, Ahhhnuld as energy/enviromental “czar” would be a pretty good thing. He is definitely on the right side of most of these issues, and “educable” where he isn’t, and he has demonstrated a willingness to push on these issues here in CA as governator, to the point of opposing the Right both in-state and nationally. The bigger reason I think he would be good is he would likely be able to peel away the Repubican environmentalists (they’re out there, believe me) and give a “bipartisan” look to what is arguably the most important set of issues facing us.

  • Hey, Mary 2: you’re next. 🙂

    Actually, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, our own delusional dingbat, ran a thread here at CBR much longer than most people ever thought she would. But give an idiot enough rope and they will always hang themselves.

  • Mary did not leave. CB has banned her.

    Unity through purge.

    The judges have conferred, and you receive one point for unmitigated gall in trying to recast a towering ass as a wronged victim. However, you lose 100 points for an overall worthless performance, leaving you at -99. Also, we don’t validate parking–sorry.

  • And Maria: Yes, Mary does seem to have run for cover since her vicious but oh so easy to challenge attacks Saturday. Which is heartening: I thought nothing would stop her.

    I know, but I was so looking forward to hearing her admit that she mixed up the Pattersons with the Obamas because all biracial guys look alike to her, then try to argue that this is a natural mistake any average, non-elitist American would make.

  • thorin-1 said:
    So about 15-20 percent of the public agrees the country is going in the wrong direction and that Bush (and the Republicans) is to blame and yet they are willing to vote for McCain despite the fact he’s promised to continue virtually all of Bush’s policies.

    So what we have to do is figure out how to get that 10-15 percent of public to see reality.

    Why, they see reality in black-and-white, of course.

  • Through May, Democratic voter registration in Broward County was up 6.7 percent. — Sun-Sentinel, via CB

    Doubtless, the number of malfunctioning Diebold voting screens has just gone up accordingly.

    As for the polls, I’m with Molly Weasley, @18. I’d be more worried about them if US elected their presidents by popular vote but, as long as it’s all about electoral votes, and as long as those go by state (winner takes all, in each state)… The only semi-reliable numbers are state-by-state polls, and number of electoral votes attached to each. Add those up for each candidate and you might have something more closely representing reality. And, even then, there are some other factors, like people without landlines or those who resent having to talk to pollsters with their mouth full of supper.

    As Molly points out, the Electoral Vote website, which uses that electoral votes, not individual preferences) yardstick, has Obama way on top (even though he did lose some points in the past couple of weeks). Ditto for the Democratic Convention Watch.

    Besides, it’s still only mid-July 🙂

    Maria, @5,

    What Huckabee is so busy doing is setting up a fast food franchise chain. Kind of like KFC but with fried squirrel instead of chicken.

  • mary2 @ 20…you’re right. Unity through purge.

    in other words, we were all unified by how much Mary’s lying horseshtittery made us want to purge.

  • Concerning those tracking polls. I really wouldn’t pay any attention to them. I remember that at the end of May Obama had led McCain in every head to head poll (except for maybe one) for the entire month (I don’t believe Mcain has been ahead in one since).

    It was the first time where Obama was ahead of McCain in poll after poll, yet both tracking polls had him behind by a point or two. It seemed to make no sense. So I just stopped even paying attention to them. As soon as Obama gets up to around 6, you can be sure within a few days it will be down to one or worse.

    The last 4 national polls that I can remenber all have Obama up:

    Pew: 8
    CNN: 8
    Gallup: 5
    Newsweek: 3

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