To Vote or Not To Vote: What If You Are Not Allowed?

On October 8th the New York Times ran an article that was the result of an investigation it had done regarding voter registration rolls (The article can be found by clicking on the title of this post). The article states that "tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times." The states in question are Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina and are all states in which Obama's performance is due in large part to the large advantage his campaign has had in registration new voters for this election. 

Before people start crying that partisan politics, cheating state election officials, and political operatives are to blame, it is important to note that the New York Times found that "the actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, indented to overhaul the way elections are run." The 2002 federal law in question is the ironically named Help America Vote Act of 2002, which was designed to provide federal money to help states modernize their voting systems. However, buried in the bill was a relatively innocuous and highly vague subsection that required that if states received Federal money under this program they would also have to ensure that their registered voter rolls were accurate and modern and that states create statewide voter rolls. Previously, these voter lists were kept on a local level. It is the combining these local rolls up to the state level that is probably causing all the problems since it is a huge process and removes the local factor of knowing who lives in the area, who has similar names, etc.

In the past, state voter resignation rolls are notoriously out of date. In fact the organizations that have the most up to date valid voter registration lists are of course the two major parties. They use these lists to contact likely voters of their party to make sure they have ways to get to the polls, know who the party would like them to vote for, etc. and since they use these lists on a regular basis to figure out their parties position in a state, they regularly update them when they find people have moved out of the state, died, or been convicted of a felony. While only the state election rolls are valid in determining who can and cannot vote on election day, state election officials have none of the incentives that parties do to make sure that their voter registration rolls are up to date. As a result, in the past, registered voter rolls would regularly have voters listed who had moved out of the state or died. 

In 2002, the republicans were on a mission to end what they conceived as nation wide voting fraud. As a result, between 2002-2005 we saw lots of new voter identification laws crop up in many republican controlled states and as we have already said at the Federal level we had the Help America Vote Act of 2002. The key aspect of all of this is that with a few exceptions states are free to conduct elections and register voters how ever they want. So, when the conditions of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 are put into play, they have a slightly different effect in each state, based on how that states existing election law is set up. In some states it may require updating of lists in others that have electronic record keeping it may require no action. The net result is that since the Help America Vote Act of 2002 is so vague as to what exactly states have to do to their voter registration rolls to qualify for Federal aid, that many states have taken actions that are not required and in fact my actual violate existing federal election law by incorrectly disenfranchising  qualified voters. 

I will refer you to the New York Times article for details about what states are exactly doing that is illegal, but the key result is that the New York Times found that for every voter that has been added in some of these swing states, two have been removed from the rolls. Now, it is important to point out that such a ratio could reflect how out of date the rolls are and that there really are a large number of people who have left or have died and thus shouldn't be on the rolls. However, considering the advantage Obama has had in registering new voters, even if the purging was random of qualified voters, its effect is likely not to be since there are now so many newly registered democrats. The actions taken by these states has to be of concern and warrants an investigation by the FEC and state officials to ensure that all qualified voters are able to vote on Nov 4th. 

Beyond this election, even though I am a strong supporter of federalism as an important check on Federal power, we must consider nationalizing our election systems so that we have a common set of rules and procedures for how we vote in this nation. As long as we have 50 different systems with little oversight and transparency the risk for disenfranchising legal voters is too high. 

Debate Part II: Rumble in Tennessee

Last night featured the second debate between Obama and McCain and although there has been a recent sharpening of attacks in the last few days between these candidates, last night was quite civil. Overall, we saw a repeating of a lot of the same positions and attacks that we saw in the first debate. However, there were several things that I think are important to note as we evaluate this debate. 

First, McCain clearly was doing well early on. The first two questions he hit out of the park. Even though his idea of having the government buy and renegotiate mortgages is already in the current bailout plan that passed last week, his presentation of it was well timed and delivered well. Also, it is interesting that if you had asked an alien to pick which party McCain was from based on those comments, I don't think you would have heard republican in response. This is important because it implies to win, McCain has to, in essence, have anti-republican proposals. 

However, that is where the good performance stopped for McCain. For the rest of the debate Obama consistently provided better answers to questions and rebuttals to attacks. The basic problem McCain faces is that even though he is not your typical republican, he is still tied to that party which, rightly or wrongly, is at the moment being held responsible for causing the current recession. 

Beyond what they said, McCain did three things during last night's debate that struck me as odd, and will probably be what most people will remember from this debate. First, when McCain was speaking Obama sat on his chair and appeared to be listening intently to what McCain had to say. He showed him respect and courtesy. But when Obama was speaking, McCain was walking around and was almost never facing Obama when he was speaking. His moving around was constantly picked up by the cameras. While I do not think McCain intended to be seen, his moving around appeared disrespectful. The tacit feeling that came across was that Obama was someone who listened to ideas, even ones he doesn't agree with, while McCain is only interested in giving his opinion and not what others have to say. I don't think this is actually true, but their nonspeaking actions seemed to communicate this last night.

Second, during Obama's follow up to McCain's attack of him on Afghanistan, McCain interrupted him to say "thanks" in response to a nice comment Obama was making about McCain, but this backfired in two ways. First, Obama was making a serious comment while McCain's interruption looked like he was looking for a laugh. His interruption made Obama look presidential since Obama ignored the interruption and continued in the same tone. Second, Obama was doing a very normal debate technique where you turn a complement into an attack. The result here was that McCain actually said "thanks" right as Obama was delivering the attack. So beyond the fact that McCain appeared rude for interrupting Obama, the timing of the events made it appear as if McCain was saying thanks and agreeing with Obama's attack. 

Third, during one of McCain's attacks on Obama he said that voters should just compare their records in deciding who to vote for. McCain said you have me or (and, then pointing at Obama) "that one". I am not sure what he was going for here, but that was about as close to a gaff as we we had last night. It was a very derisive attack that did not play well with voters in the room and probably not at home either. If you watch the playback of the debate when McCain makes that comment you seen some very uncomfortable shifting and body language by many of the voters in the town hall room. 

Overall, last night was a pretty clear victory for Obama in terms of both the information he spoke as well as how he carried himself throughout the debate. As a final example of how McCain misfired last night was after the debate. Typically at town hall debate candidates go around and talk to the uncommitted votes there, pose for pictures, etc. McCain did this for about 5 min and then left the room. Obama continued to chat with voters and pose for pictures. All of this was captured on TV before the commentators started their analysis. McCain yield a room of uncommitted voters to Obama and the public got to watch how they all responded to Obama, while McCain was no where to be found. This was the icing on the cake and spoke volumes regarding how the campaign is going.  

VPs: Bring it On

Tonight's VP debate was very interesting in many ways. I will admit to screaming a few times at the tv screen when ridiculous things were said and for those interested in the score: ridiculous things said by Biden two, ridiculous things said by Palin six. But taking the debate as a whole, there were three aspects that stand out to me and will probably be what most people and media remember from this debate. 

First, Palin was relatively good and much better than she has been in the media interviews. This was hands down the best she has done since her speech at the republican national convention. She, for the most part, was able to answer questions without going into long stories that led to nowhere and she spoke in simple terms. More importantly, she showed herself to be a Washington outsider, which is clearly how the McCain campaign wants her seen. 

Second, don't like the question? Its cool, just answer the question you made up in your head. At two points in the debate Palin either did not understand the question or misheard it because she provided speech that never approached an answer to the question posed. The first time was when the moderator asked her whether she believed there should ever be an instance in which the United States should use nuclear weapons. Rather than answer this question, Palin instead talked about how we should stop nuclear proliferation. I agree with her. Nuclear proliferation is an important issue and we should stop it, but the question was asking about when she thought the United States should use nuclear weapons. The goal of these types of questions is to try to establish how risk adverse a candidate is in foreign affairs. If you say never, then you are very risk adverse, if you say only if attacked by nuclear weapons, you are considered rational, and if you say always, you are nuts. Clearly, this is an oversimplification, but the basic idea is that your answer to this question is supposed to be a kind of bellwether to how you approach crises. Do you panic? Do you over-react? Do you under-react? Are you decisive? Do you Plan? etc. Palin completely avoided this softball question and missed another opportunity to show that she might actually be competent in some foreign affairs issues. 

The second question that Palin completely disregarded is the standard job interview question: What is your greatest weakness? Instead of saying that she might have a weakness, she instead talked about all her strengths. From someone who used to do a lot of job interviewing, when I have a job candidate not answer a direct question like that it immediately tells me one or both of the following about the person. One, this person has a real weakness that he doesn't want me to know or two this person is unable to analyze himself, which means that he will be very difficult to work with because he will believe he is always right. Either way, whenever I had a candidate not answer that question it usually ended the chance that person had of getting the job. Unlike Palin, Biden made sure he answered this question and I think it will payoff because beyond my own feelings about this question, most people get annoyed when people pretend they have no weaknesses. 

The third memorable aspect of the debate were two responses delivered by Biden. The first was his comparison of McCain's health care tax credit as the ultimate bridge to nowhere. It was such a well timed response that even the audience and the moderator could not help but laugh. I think it spoke volumes to what people think about that particular policy proposal by the McCain-Palin ticket. The second aspect was Biden's response on the kitchen table issues. His response here was incredible and possibly one of the best moments in recent debate history. After being accused of being out of touch by Palin in a very gimmicky and winking manner, Biden told a story about his family that was deep, sincere, emotional, intense and real. I don't think he actually cried, but he came across as really understanding what people are going through. This, I think more than anything else this is what will be remembered from this debate. He took her attack and made her look small and childish, while he displayed deep empathy for being in tough positions. 

Overall, I think the debate went slightly to Biden, but in the end nothing happened tonight that should shift voters. While this last note may be lost on most voters Palin's closing statement was probably the sign that the McCain-Palin ticket is in trouble. She attempted to present voters with a clear division of which ticket to choose in Novemeber. The key aspect of this type of tacit is that you never say which ticket you are discribing. The key is to have the voter associate everything postive you are saying with your ticket and everything negative with the opponents. The problem that she had though is all of the McCain-Palin ticket's ideas that resonate with voters are issues they borrowed from Obama. Thus, when she listed the choices, it sounded like she was saying you can vote for the change ticket (Obama-Biden) or more failed policies and half baked ideas (McCain-Palin). It could just be me, but her closing statment seemed to confirm to me, who is winning control of the messages of this campaign.

The Debate

So I apologize for not having a post up for a few days. Life has been a little hectic, but hopefully things will slow down just a tad in the near future.    

Last night featured the first of three presidential debates that are going to take place over the next several weeks (there will also be one vice presidential debate this coming Thursday). After some drama created by McCain stating that he may not attend the debate because of the need for him to be on the hill to get a compromise on the bail out bill, the debate itself went rather well for both candidates. The reason for this is that both candidates had different objectives coming into this debate and that made the result, in some ways, a non-zero sum game (i.e. that it was possible for both candidates to win and no one to lose).    

For Obama, success in the first debate was in accomplishing mainly four things: 1) being gaff free; 2) relaying that he is the candidate for change; 3) showing himself to be rational, level headed, and even keeled, while not coming across as aloof; and 4) portraying readiness to president. Obama clearly accomplished all four of these tasks by not getting frustrated when McCain made attacks and coolly refuting the claims made against him with well constructed, but simple, explanations. At no time last night did Obama become flustered and, in fact, many of his prepared responses and exchanges with McCain showed that he is deeply knowledgeable about key economic and foreign affairs issues. 

Obama's theme of the night seemed to be that we have had 8 years of impulsive executive leadership based on feelings and emotion. This leadership style lead us to the current crises we now face, and McCain embodies more of this style of leadership, while I (Obama) am collected, rational, and deliberate.    

As for McCain, success for him last night was also based on mainly accomplishing four things: 1) being gaff-free; 2) distancing himself from Bush on the economy and spending; 3) showing himself to be the candidate who could actually bring change to Washington; and 4) maintaining vigor and energy to assuage fears that his age is an issue. I think McCain pretty much accomplished all of his tasks as well. McCain drove home repeatedly that he is against spending and that he has a record to prove that he can reform Washington. His remarks were well animated  with a great deal of enthusiasm. 

In examining McCain's message of the night, it seemed to be that the voters should trust him on foreign affairs because he has been on the ground and he has surveyed the terrain on which we are going to fight, while Obama “doesn't get it” because he hasn't been there. This was an interesting attack strategy by McCain. I think it would have been very effective if Obama hadn't demonstrated each time that even though his feet may not have been on the ground, he had a very accurate picture of what needed to be done. However, I do think that this type of attack by McCain should play well with the Republican base, so I am sure we will see it used again and again.    

Thus, since both candidates accomplished what they set out to do, in some ways this debate was a win-win for both candidates. One thing to note is that unlike in recent past debates, such as Bush vs. Gore or Bush vs. Kerry, the candidates had to do a lot less to differentiate themselves on the economy and foreign affairs issues. Polls show that not only do voters recognize that Obama and McCain have different views on these issues, but approximately 65% can correctly place the candidates and their views together and provide at least one major difference between them. Thus, I think we saw a lot less time being spent on trying to say “here is how I am different from my opponent” and more time spent saying “this is why I am right.”    

The key aspect to remember of any debate, however, is that unless someone makes a gaff, very few people actually remember what was said. Rather, what people take away from presidential debates are feelings about the candidates and what the candidates represent. It is in this category that I think the edge went to Obama. It was clear from the debate last night that both candidates are for change. But, as we saw at the conventions, McCain is for change by fighting and defeating those who are resistant to change; he said he would be the sheriff of spending, veto every spending bill he deems no good, and make Washington change by bringing the fight to them. By contrast, Obama is for change by bring people together to work out differences and make compromises; he repeatedly stated that he understands that there are deep divisions, but that the president's job is to bridge these gaps, not to increase them. History has clearly shown that both strategies can be effective in the right situation.   

However, in today's political climate, the idea that voters want more division and fighting in politics seems silly. We have had 8 years of very derisive politics, and the situation created by the Bush era is unlikely to be fixed by the next president simply wielding a big stick. Rather, it is going to take carrots and compromise to really bring change to Washington. This notion of how to bring change is in many ways really the heart of the election. It could just be me, but my gut tells me at this decision node, voters don't want change through force, but through reconciliation that brings people together.    

Traditionally, debates do not have a huge effect on how people will vote unless one of the candidates makes a huge mistake. However, debates are important because they give voters a chance to not only hear the candidates’ issue positions side by side, but also their tone and message. While I don't think last nights debate will have any real impact on who votes for whom, it did reinforce what type of leadership style voters have to choose from in the next election. 

The Six States To Election Victory

Recent polling that has come out in the last two days has capped off quite an impressive shift in both the national and state polls for the presidential election. In essence all the gains that McCain made after the republican convention have been wiped out and even more impressive, Obama is leading by larger margins in most swing states than he was before either convention. 

While this may cause many democrats to celebrate and republicans to be concerned, this interpretation of the polls is not quite accurate. If one inspects the polls carefully, it is easy to understand why we are seeing such movement in polls trying to project electoral vote counts. 

The first aspect to remember is that the president is not elected by a national popular vote. Thus, national polls that do not control for likely voter location are not incredibly useful in determining likely electoral vote outcomes beyond overarching trends. Since most states are winner take all systems, as soon as a candidate gets 50%+1, all of the extra votes a candidate gets in that state are wasted. So for example, in New York, even though Obama will likely win the state with about 70% of the vote, 19% of this vote is wasted. Thus, when national polling is done, it is hard to weed out this wasted vote effect. In my opinion, national polling is pretty worthless unless you have a candidate up by more than 15 percentage points. 

So, since the president is elected via the electoral collage, when trying to project the outcome of the race, the key statistic to look at is how candidates are doing in individual states. Luckily for us, most polling outfits agree with me and this election marks an unprecedented amount of state polling. 

Before we go to the analysis of the seesawing projections of who is going to win the election, it is important to remember there are 538 electoral votes and that to win the presidency, a candidate needs 270.

So with our electoral math hat on, let's take a look at state polling numbers.  The most striking result is that of the 538 electoral votes, about 459 (or 85%) electoral votes are immovable. These are electoral votes from states that are strong supporters of the respective candidates, and have showed no signs of moving since June, with very high poll numbers in favor of a respective candidate by at least 12 to 15 percentage points. States in this category include NY, CA, TX, AL, GA, etc. When we break down these 459 electoral votes by candidate, we find that Obama has 259 electoral votes, while McCain only has 200. 

This is where things get interesting. The remaining 79 electoral votes are split between only six states: CO-9, FL-27, NM-5, NV-5, OH-20, and VA-13. Every time one of these states moves back and forth between the candidates, it drastically affects who is projected to win the presidency. Hence, the seesawing that we are getting in the polls and projections is not because the nation as a whole is really changing its level of support for the different candidates, but rather, is the result of small movements in these six states where split between support for both candidates is very close. 

The net result of this is to interpret polls that keep showing drastic shifts in the outcome not as drastic shifts in levels of supports for the candidates, but rather as an artifact of how we elect a president in this country.  Very small amounts of support shifting in very few states can have a drastic impact on the outcome, which is what the polls are picking up. Thus, if Obama falls behind by a large margin in a outcome projection, it is not because he has lost vast amounts of support, but rather that a very small number of people in one of the six states has sifted their support. 

This volatility is likely to continue until actual election day because the numbers needed to switch one of these six states to either candidate is around 1-3%. 

Now, an astute mathematician who has been following the math may have noted that based on the safe electoral vote count, Obama is in a much stronger position since he has to win far fewer of the six swing states than McCain does (Obama only needs 11 more electoral votes to get to 270, compared to McCain's 70). I think that this line of reasoning is spot on and is why you have see Obama and Biden shifting away somewhat from their 50 state strategy to focusing on these six key states in this critical period of the election. For those that want to know the current break down in these six states, Obama leads in NM and CO, while McCain leads in VA, OH, FL, and NV. Under that scenario, Obama would win with 271 electoral votes. 

When The Music Stops Will There Be 60 Democrats Sitting?

Today we will take a break from the presidential race and take a look at the Senate races that are occurring this fall. While they have garnered far less attention in the national media, the break down of Senate members is a critical factor in the ability of a president to get anything done.   

The magical number that is required to get anything real done in the senate is 60 votes. This is because it takes 60 votes in the Senate to invoke cloture and end debate. As the Senate is designed to be a more deliberative body than the House, the rules for debate in the Senate are much less structured than in the House. Consequently, a single senator can prevent all senate business from occurring by refusing to yield the floor. If 60 of his/her colleges disagree with the filibuster, they can vote to end debate by invoking cloture.   

The net result is, in order to get any major or controversial piece of legislation to a vote in the Senate, the majority party needs to have 60 reliable votes so that it knows it can end debate and get a vote on a bill. Based on the current breakdown in the Senate, if the democrats can take nine seats currently held by republicans in the fall, they will reach the magical number of 60.   

It is important to note that the democrats actually have only 49 members in the Senate currently, but the two Senate independents caucus with the democrats, which give them 51 votes on procedural matters. On top of this, one of the independents is Joe Lieberman, who has angered many democrats for his support of Bush and McCain. Thus, in reality while the math may say nine seats, there is the chance that the democrats will really need ten seats to switch party lines, without losing any of their seats that are up for grabs.   

So the $64,000 question is can they do it?   

There are several factors to consider. First, only a third of the Senate is up for election at a time. So only 34 seats are actually up for grabs (the extra seat is a special election in WA). Second, of these seats, 22 are currently held by republicans, and 12 by democrats. Thus, more republicans are up for reelection this time around than democrats. With such a high number of republicans up for reelection it is unlikely that all 22 seats will remain republican.   

A third factor to consider is the number of incumbents that are rerunning in these 22 republicans seats. The incumbent advantage is well documented in the Senate. According to latest data, about 85% of incumbents win reelection. So, while it is not impossible to knock off an incumbent in a reelection, the odds of the democrats winning a previously held republican seat drastically improve for elections in which a republican incumbent is not running. In examining the 22 republican seats up for election, seven do not have incumbents (CO, ID, MS, NM, NE, VA, WY). Of these seven, only CO, NM, and VA are states that are not solidly republican.   

The last aspect to consider is in what states the 22 republican seats are from. Clearly, it should be easier for a democrat to be elected to the senate from a “blue state” than a “red state,” where blue and red are defined in how they voted in the 2004 Election. Taking a look at the 2004 Election map, of the 22 republican seats, only two (MN and ME) are from blue states in 2004.   

Taking all of this together, while it seems that the democrats will pick up seats in the Senate, it is unlikely to be the nine (or ten) needed to reach 60. It is much more likely to be 3-5 seats. The reason for this is simply that while there are vastly more republicans up for election and a lot of republican retirements, these seats are predominantly safe republican seats from states that reliably vote republican. Of the 22 republican seats, 14 are very safe for republicans, with polling numbers all above 90% that a republican will be elected.   

This is not to imply that it is impossible, just highly unlikely. The current polling, while not as frequent as for the presidential race, backs up this analysis. If the race was held today, based on current polls, the democrats would hold on to all of their existing seats and gain seats from CO, AK, NH, NM, and VA. Thus, they will shift their majority from 51 to 56. Between these five pick-ups and the 14 safe seats, this only leaves 4 other races (NC, MN, OR, MS) out there. While republicans in these races are not up by the 90% mark, they are all leading by about 70%. Since the democrats would have to win them all to get to 60, it seems unlikely to happen.  

Thus, while the democratic majority in the Senate will increase, it will still be short of that magical number 60.  

Let's Play a Word Association Game

The continued bad news from the financial markets has clearly shoved the economy into the limelight as one of, if not the key issue in this election. Many pundits believe that this has the potential to shift the race in Obama’s favor. I happen to agree with this sentiment, but it is important to understand why; the reasoning is not as simple as it may seem.   

The traditional logic of the economy and presidents is that since the president is the only nationally elected official, he is held (rightly or wrongly) accountable for the overall wellbeing of the national economy. In many ways, the president is kind of like a quarterback in football: when things go right he gets too much credit, and when things go wrong he gets too much blame. The key fact to remember is that while a president is a critical player in the health of the economy, he is still only a single person among many other players in the game. Thus, he can make all the right choices and still get stuck with the blame for other players’ poor performance.   

Rather then trying to actually assess how much blame we should attribute to the Bush administration for the current economic crisis versus mistakes made by key finical institutions, it is more important to examine how the current set of events is likely to be interpreted by likely voters in November. Intuition may suggest that if people are personally feeling the pinch of a bad economy (i.e. they suddenly have less in their purses or wallets than they did previously), they should hold the party in power of the presidency responsible and vote for the opposing party’s candidate.    

However, most reputable research disputes this theory. Rather than voting based on ones own economic situation, the vast majority of voters tend to vote based on what they perceive as the general condition of the economy as a whole. This raises several important questions regarding the current election.   

The first is that for the first time in the history of the United States, most adults have some stake in the stock market. Either as a result of personal stocks or retirement funds, peoples’ well-being is much more closely tied to the welfare of the stock market than ever before. The result is that even if the overall fundamentals of the economy are strong, if people perceive that the overall stock market is in crisis, then the nation is in a national economic crisis. Thus, using the same logic as before, if people perceive a national crisis in the stock market, which I think most currently do, they will likely vote democrat in November.   

The second aspect that is unique to this financial market crisis situation is that in some ways the republicans are guilty of their own image success. In terms of associations, if you asked most people which party they associate with big business or Wall Street, they will say republicans. Thus, even though the Republican Party is not probably directly responsible for the current finical situation, republicans are guilty via association.   

If this association theory is correct, then all Obama should have to do to win on this key issue is to hammer on this association and pose the question “who you would rather have clean up this mess: the people who are in bed with big business or an outsider who knows what is right?”  

The third aspect to take note of is that in terms of the abilities of the candidates, McCain will be hard pressed to win an election that is based on the economy. McCain’s best chance of winning this election is to keep the agenda on national security, experience, and social conservative issues. He has almost no experience with economic issues and his age, race, income (via his wife), and own statements on the economy all make him ill suited to play the understanding white knight to the rescue.   

This is not to imply that Obama would actually do a better job at attempting to resolve the situation. That question will largely be the result of what kind of economic teams are put in place by the respective candidates. But actual chance of success is much less important in the economic arena of politics than association with ability. On this count, Obama is clearly far out ahead of McCain. 

Back To The Future

The Iowa caucuses not only marked the beginning of this election season, but also ushered in what was to become the theme of the election: Change. In Iowa, all the candidates from both parties saw that the two candidates that campaigned on a message of change did incredibly well (Obama and Huckabee).

Since then, the theme of change has remained a constant in the campaign. Obama has stayed with his message of "Change We Can Believe In," while McCain has attempted several different change themes prior to the republican convention (remember "The Change You Deserve" back in May).

After the convention, an interesting development occurred. Somehow Obama lost control of the theme of Change. All of a sudden McCain was all about Change. He had taken what Obama had been saying, and started campaigning as the Maverick team that could bring change to Washington. Instead of trying to come up with an original theme he simply used the media spot light of the republican convention and flatly stated, as if no one had ever thought of this idea before, that he was the candidate for change.

What happend next was quite surprising, it caught on. All of a sudden McCain, who remember is from the party who has controlled the presidency for the last eight years, as well as the House and Senate for the first six of those eight years, was the Change man. It appears to me that he was able to pull off this transformation because the base of the republican party has never embraced him (and in fact still haven't--remember they really only got on board once Palin was on the ticket), so he was able to sell himself to moderate republicans (and perhaps independent leaning republicans) that he is different than the last eight years. He can bring Change. Not the Change the democrats want, but he can bring a different kind of republican control to Washington.

With such a high level of success on the overarching theme of Change, McCain started very slowly to adopt a lot of the exact same language that Obama has been using over the last year. If you examine McCain's speeches post convention with Obama's remarks, there is no mistaking that McCain has become somewhat of a mimic or echo of Obama.

McCain has been able to pull of his copy cat nature of Obama's messages, in essence by using the same language and ideas, but in slightly different patterns and cadences. The result has been quite remarkable in the short term. McCain's national and swing state polls have shot way up. This development however has clearly made many Obama supporters quite angry. The claim is that McCain has usurped Obama's issues and is a charlatan or a wolf in sheep's clothing.

What is interesting is that this is not the first time the strategy of co-opting your opponent's popular ideas and messages as your own has occurred in a presidential race and it is not even the first time it has been done by a republican presidential candidate.

Issue and message co-option was the bread and butter of the republican party in presidential elections of most of the 1930s and 1940s. The most famous example is probably the election of 1948, in which the republican party took Truman's entire campaign platform and passed it through congress during the election in an effort to take the issues away from Truman.

The good news for Obama, is that in each historical case when the republican party attempted to take a democratic platform as their own they have lost the election in November. The historical argument for why this is the case is that in the end, issue co-opting by a rival candidate signals to the voting public that there are really only one set of options for moving forward. So when forced with a choice, why would you choose the imitator over the real Mccoy?

What has generally happened is that while issue co-optation can cause short term excitement by the partisans of the candidate that co-opted the issue, because there is no previous record of the candidate having such a position the candidate cannot make a credible commitment to actually carrying through on the co-opted issues once elected. Thus, faced with a choice between candidates that are saying the same thing, voters choice the candidate who is more likely to actually carry out those issues as promised.

As a result, issue co-option helps with popularity in the short term, because the issues themselves garner attention, but in the long term, results in the original candidate being elected. Of course there is no way to know for sure if the same will happen in this election. It is up to Obama to ensure that he remains the authentic choice by showing that McCain is merely echoing his ideas. But it cannot be denied that Obama has history on his side in this development.

Why Tell a Lie?

Today may mark the first and only time in history that Karl Rove and I agree on something. In a recent interview with Fox News, Rove stated that "McCain has gone in some of his ads one step too far...and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test."    

I find several aspects of this development quite interesting. First, let me put it in writing that I do agree with Rove. Several recent ads that have been put out by McCain have been quite nasty and border on actual slander.    

A recent example is an ad, released in areas with high latino populations, that stated that Obama voted against immigration reform and was instrumental in stalling the creation of any guest worker program or a path to citizenship. The problem with this ad, of course, is that Obama and McCain actually worked together on this bill, each voting to end the filibuster in the senate; in fact, they voted identically on the procedural and final passage votes.    

All political ads lie to some extent, and to pretend that Obama hasn't produced negative ads either would be a mischaracterization. However, Obama has not been foolish enough to create an ad that states a lie that can easily be verified and shown to be untrue. What is more startling, however, is when one examines where the nastiest attack ads are being run, it is pretty clear that the demographic groups that are being targeted are those containing individuals who are statistically on the lower end of the income and education scales.    

This tactic is about as low as it gets as it amounts to directly lying to confuse people who will not be able to gather complete information about the candidates due to limitations regarding time, resources, and language ability. Candidates launch such attacks because they can be very effective since these voters are not constantly tuning in to see what is occurring in the campaign, and reserach has shown that first impressions of a candidate are very important in deciding who to vote for among voters with lesser educations.    

The decision to go negative is not a surprise, but the manner in which is has occurred is highly questionable. It raises questions about McCain's ethics that I myself would not have thought possible. It is clear though that the straight-talking express has broken down.    

I think it is silly to argue that campaigns should always be positive; that’s not how the world works, and it isn't how campaigns are won. We may all hate negative ads, but they are really effective. I don't deplore McCain's choice to go negative, but the degree to which he has done so has the potential to backfire in a big way. 

Together Forever?

Parting ways can be difficult, which would be one explanation for why McCain and Palin are still campaigning together now that the convention is behind us. That explanation would be wrong, but it makes for a nice lead in for today’s post.   

Traditionally, after the conventions, the newly foraged party candidates for President and Vice President head off and do about 3-4 days of heavy campaigning together. After that, they bid each other ado and separate. The logic in separating is that two people can cover far more ground than a single person, and since a party ticket is usually designed to appeal to different types of voters, the splitting of the two candidates allows each to go and campaign separately to court these voters. It is not unusual for the ticket-mates to meet back together for large events, big fundraises, or meet for rallies in swing states, but generally each will spend the month of September campaigning alone.   

Obama and Biden have followed this traditional form to the letter. After the convention, the two drew huge crowds at several joint events and have since separated to court voters individually.  Since separating, Obama and Biden have done several big events together, but by and large they have been keeping separate travel schedules, events, and hotels.   

Over on the republican side, the original plan coming out of the convention was for something very similar for McCain and Palin. They would do a few events together and then separate to hit their respective bases of support. However, this has not occurred. Rather, they have repeatedly added joint events and have not really separated yet (take today’s joint campaign stop in northern VA).   

The pundits have noticed this occurrence, but have attributed it to the fact that when McCain was campaigning alone before the convention, he was pulling crowds in the 100s, whereas after the convention, he and Palin together have been attracting thousands. Thus, the two have not split yet because they want to ride the wave.   

While there is clearly merit in this explanation, I have trouble with it because logically it doesn’t make sense. It is not the fact that they are campaigning together that is drawing larger crowds, but that the republican convention really energized republicans. So whereas the support for McCain was luke-warm before the convention, that indifferent sentiment has been completely replaced by an air of excitement and enthusiasm.   

Now some will claim that if Palin wasn’t with him, he wouldn’t get the crowds. So what? If Palin is the reason they are getting crowds, then her campaigning on her own would still pull the large crowds and McCain could be working a different, if smaller, group of people at the same time. To me, the republicans’ strategy here makes no sense if the explanation is to ride the Palin wave to bigger crowds for McCain.

However, there are two alternative hypotheses that do explain why the republicans have not yet shifted to the split campaigning. The first is that the McCain staff is very afraid that if they separate, Palin will pull more people to her events than McCain will to his. Such an event would clearly be covered in the media and make McCain look weak. Obviously, the VP candidate should not pull more than the boss.   

The second alternative hypothesis is that the McCain camp is afraid to have Palin campaign by herself on the national stage at this point. It is clear that she can be very powerful when she is protected and in a controlled environment, but if she is on her own at her own events, the McCain campaign will have little control over what she says or how she answers questions.   

In both cases, these alternative hypotheses are good news for Obama. The longer McCain and Palin campaign together, the more ground they will lose as Obama and Biden each individually reach out to voters. Plus, McCain and Palin will have to separate at some point, and in terms of having something embarrassing happen, the farther it is from November 4th, the better off it will be for the campaign that makes the mistake.     

The Power of Lipstick

Well who would have thought that lipstick on a pig would cause such a ruckus? For those who are not following the constant news feed of the campaign, here is the back-story before we get into some analysis.   

In a recent speech (I believe it was yesterday), Obama said that McCain’s economic plan is like putting lipstick on a pig. The phrase was supposed to imply that one cannot make a bad plan better by simply dressing it up. Thus, Obama saying McCain’s economic plan was like putting lipstick on a pig was the equivalent of saying that McCain’s economic plan is worthless and tries to fix the economy by making only cosmetic changes.   

Obama’s comments immediately caused outrange in the McCain/Palin camp, but not exactly as one might expect. Rather than being upset that his economic plan was called into question, McCain responded that Obama’s remarks were an unjustified sexist attack on Palin.  

The connection, for those who are lost and wondering why the McCain campaign would react the way it did, is that during Palin’s acceptance speech, she said that the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom is that one wears lipstick. Thus, the McCain/Palin ticket reacted believing that the swipe was at Palin and not the economic plan.   

It will never be known what Obama intended, but to be honest, whether it was planned or not, the move by Obama was absolutely brilliant. Since the end of the republican convention, all that has been talked about is Palin and how strong she is, what a good selection she was, etc. She has been caught in a very powerful and positive media cycle. Since there hasn’t been anything else for the media to really cover since her speech, she has stayed in the news. However, McCain’s response seems to have ended that by giving the media something new to cover.   

Now, you might ask, why is this comment by Obama good? Because McCain’s response is completely irrational based on what was said. Palin’s name was never mentioned and Obama was talking about economic plans. It shows that McCain can’t talk about real issues, but would rather talk about unrelated aspects of the campaign. It feeds into the image of the republicans that the democrats are trying to build: republicans are out of touch, they have no new ideas, and they can only win by relying on platitudes.   

Luckily for Obama, McCain took the bait, and the resulting news cycle has done two important things. First, the post-convention positive coverage of Plain has ended. This is possibly the most important change the democrats could hope to effectuate. They had to find a way to shift the focus without attacking Palin directly because doing so would just add to the media frenzy. Second, they were able to once again show that McCain/Palin would rather talk about lipstick than real issues. Obama attacks an economic plan and McCain responds by calling the attack sexist. I think I can see the campaign ad already.   

Clearly, this is not going to be remembered as a key turning point in the election, and for the vast majority of people, it will remain completely unknown. But in reality, this little comment has once again shifted media focus back to Obama and gotten Palin’s name out of the positive news cycle. For this to really be a turning point, Obama now needs to capitalize on McCain’s mistake and really drive home that McCain would rather talk about lipstick than issues that matter to Joe America.   

As one final note on this story, McCain’s response becomes even more bizarre when you take into account that he was actually the first person in this election to make the comment that someone’s ideas were like putting lipstick on a pig. He was referring to a plan by Hillary Clinton in the early primaries. Don’t think that that aspect won’t make it into the news cycle as this story passes. 

Today's Polls and Campaign Strategy

Not much has really happened campaign-wise today. I should note, however, that we are starting to see a lot more robust polling that is showing a nice convention bounce for McCain. Tuesday's numbers should be interesting, but as they currently stand in the national polls, Obama is holding on to a narrow lead of about an 1-3 points if we take an average of all major polls. 

What is more interesting and probably more important is the swing state polls, which have not really showed a convention bounce. So far, I have seen reliable polls for about half of the swing states. When we look at the swing state polls, we see that we are almost exactly where we were at the start of August. If this trend was to hold up, Obama would have approximately 305 electoral votes. As I have said before, Tuesday's numbers will be the most telling, but so far what I am seeing seems to indicate that the conventions essentially canceled each other out. 

The next big event will be the first presidential debate on September 26, 2008, which will be held at the University of Mississippi. This debate will be moderated by Jim Lehrer and will focus on foreign policy and national security. Between now and then I don't expect to many planned fireworks from either campaign. However, both campaigns will clearly be hard at work in swing states trying to win voters. 

What is interesting is that this election marks the first time that Democrats are stealing a page out of the Karl Rove playbook. We hear constantly on the news that independents will decide the election. In 2000 however, Karl Rove argued that republicans could win the election by getting conservatives, who don't normally follow politics, out to the polls (this was also a claim first made by Barry Goldwater in his unsuccessful 1964 presidential bid versus LBJ). Rove's argument was forget the middle and win without them by getting people who normally don't vote, but are on the right side of the political scale, to vote for republicans. While it can be argued whether or not this strategy works (remember Bush actually lost the popular vote in 2000), it was used again in 2004, which saw perhaps the most sophisticated voter mobilization program by republicans in the history of elections. 

While democrats are clearly not conceding the middle, Obama has already used Rove's strategy during the primary. Obama built his constituency based on two subgroups on the left that traditionally have low turnout: Young People (18-29) and African Americans. Had these two groups not come out in droves, exit polling shows that Hillary would have had the nomination by Super Tuesday. Obama's level of success in November will, in large part, be contingent upon his ability to expand, as he did in the primary, the size of the voting left. 

What is interesting to note is that both candidates are using the Rove strategy, but in slightly different ways. On the democratic side, Obama is the part of the ticket that is trying to enlarge the base, while Biden should appeal to the more moderate part of the party and independents. On the republican side it is just the opposite; McCain is working the moderate side of the party with Palin working the base. 

In my opinion,  this election is not going to be decided by independents. This is because I think they are by and large going to be split between McCain and Obama. In the end, whoever can get the most nontraditional voters to the polls will win this election. Given Obama's unbelievable ground campaign, and McCain's total lack of field offices in most key states, I think the edge has to go to Obama for now.