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.

Is the Tide Turning?

Quick post tonight, as with Hurricane Ike going full force there is not much election coverage.  Over the last few days an interesting set of events has been set in motion that may set the stage for a poll reversal this week. 

The first is that, unlike the relatively unsubstantiated attacks that were leveled at Palin, the media has actually started to find cracks in the Palin armor that cannot be whisked away. Neither crack is that large, but both highlight an odd trend on the McCain/Palin ticket: to lie about information that can easily be fact checked. 

One, claimed earlier in the week, is that Palin had visited Alaska troops in Iraq. This has been disproved quite easily by the media, who got access to her travel record. Another is her claim that she brought in both republican and democrats to work in the executive branch in Alaska when she was elected Governor. The New York Times is reporting that this claim is false and that the appointment and civil service records show otherwise.

The other event is that the Obama campaign has learned that it needs to stop going after Palin, as it makes her an issue. Instead they have returned to attacking McCain. In my opinion this is the correct course of action. Palin appears vastly more popular than McCain. Obama's best bet is remind voters that they aren't voting for Palin, but McCain. In addition, McCain has a much longer record to defend, which clearly shows it is hard for him to be a candidate for change. Remember, before Palin came on the ticket, people were not excited about McCain. This is probably still true and Obama needs to remind them who is running for president on the republican side.

Lastly, as a poll update, the numbers still look terrible for Obama in both national polls and key swing states. We still have a long time to go, but if we don't start to see some halting to the McCain gains in swing states by the end of the week it may be time to start getting concerned. 

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. 

Emerging Trends

Today will be a brief post because I have a mound of reading ahead of me. Today, two trends have emerged in the wake of the conventions that will be very important to watch. The first is that at campaign events at which both McCain and Palin appeared, the campaign drew thousands of people; on the other hand, where McCain previously appeared alone, he only brought people out in the hundreds. There is no question that the addition of Palin has caused a lot of excitement in the republican party. What will be really interesting to see is if McCain can continue to pull in such large crowds once he and Palin separate to campaign on their own. If not, I think this will be a telling sign regarding the actual level of support for McCain.   

The second trend is that Palin’s name is being mentioned with Obama’s in the media almost as often as McCain’s name is being so mentioned. This is certainly a result of the media attention Palin received prior to and during the convention. The key for Palin is whether she can convert all of this excitement and momentum surrounding her nomination into voter turnout. Two months is a long time to ride this initial burst of support, but barring some huge gaff, it is hard to see how she doesn’t turn at least some of her current support into higher republican turnout in November.   

The bright side for the democrats regarding Palin’s success is that it is being driven in large part by her attacks on and derisiveness towards Obama. The result has been an energizing of support on the left for Obama. While this is true, it is clear that this is a glass-half-full reading of the current situation. The Obama campaign has to find a way to respond to Palin’s attacks that simultaneously rebut what she is saying and defuse her media impact. Clearly this is a tall order, but if they are able to strike that balance, the Palin star will fade quite quickly. 

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. 

Polls Post the Republican National Convention

Today marked the first full day after the republican national convention, which means today's polling numbers are the first time we get a chance to see what kind of impact Palin's speech has had. We will need another day to see the effect of McCain's speech and will probably need to wait until next Tuesday to see what kind of bounce McCain/Palin get from the convention. 

So, for everyone who was either frantically excited or upset regarding Palin's speech you all appeared to have canceled each other out more or less. Of the four major polls (I don't use polls that are done by the DNC or RNC as they are partisan polls and notoriously unreliable) that were put into the field (CBS/Rasmussen/the Economist/and Gallup) we have a 1-6 point lead for Obama. While this clearly shows a reduction of the 6-10 point lead that Obama had coming out of the Democratic convection, this reduction is more of a statistical correction than a big bounce McCain/Palin. 

Without giving a long and complicated explanation of how modern polling is done, the basic gist is that polls are constantly in flux. Taking a look at the sample size on the polls done right after the Democratic convention and the standard errors, there was a good chance that these polls had a little inflation in them. So, if there had been no republican convention at all, Obama's numbers should have come down to about a 6 points lead. Thus, the fact that 36 million people saw Palin's speech (Obama had 37 million) and they only got what amounts to a two point bounce, most likely means that Palin's speech energized both bases at once. She may have won a lot of social conservative hearts, but she also made a lot of liberals mad and energized to work for Obama.

Anecdotally, such a reading of the poling numbers is supported by the fact that after Palin's speech McCain claims to have raised 10 million, while Obama claims they had an influx of donations amounting 9 million, without a huge effort on their part to solicit. 

In addition, it is important to note that the CBS poll is the only poll that has Obama and McCain tied in a national poll, while the other polls have the race a little more separated (remember that national polling is not the best measure of who will win the election since we have electoral votes). Also, when the stats on the CBS poll are examined in detail it is important to note that it has a party ID distribution that is not the same as the other three, which may have lead it to overstate McCain's strength. We will have to watch this poll over the next week, but I am willing to bet as the sample size is increased, we will see the race separate between Obama and McCain again.

Also, what is even more interesting in today's polling than the national polls are some polls of likely voters in swing states. First, while some had believed prior to Palin that Alaska might be in play this year with the republican senate scandals of good old Ted, polling now shows the McCain/Palin ticket to have a 19 point lead. However, there wasn't much movement in key swing states, such as Indiana (McCain still leads by about 3 points), Penn (Obama by 2 points), Ohio (Tie), Florida (McCain by 5 points), and Colorado (Obama by 2 points). The key take away point here is that Palin's speech didn't really do much to move anything where it mattered. 

As we get a little farther away from the Republican Convention we should be able to see exactly what the bounce will be, but if these numbers are any indications, it appears that all Palin has done is to increase support in already red states that McCain was going to win anyway. 

John McCain

So I just finished watching John McCain's speech and I have to say that I think overall he did a good job. While he is clearly not as strong a speaker as Obama, I felt that his speech struck the correct balance between civility, attacks, personal story, and base energizing. And to his credit he even handled a protester acting up inside the convention hall about five minutes into the speech well. In addition, so far, no matter how many times I hear McCain's war stories they never cease to amaze me. That doesn't mean he should be president, but you can't deny that his personal story isn't powerful. 

As for the actual content of the speech, I was not very impressed from a substance point of view. McCain pulled out the regular republican tricks of democrats will raise taxes, enlarge government, and take away all your choices. Just to note, the size of the federal government has increased since WWII at essentially the same rate under both democrat and republican administrations. Republicans may claim to like smaller government in the abstract, but the data shows they have increased the size of the Federal government just as much as the democrats when they are in power. 

There were two aspects in McCain's speech tonight that I think were fairly telling of McCain's fall campaign strategy for winning the middle. The first is to run against a "do nothing Washington" that must be changed. Obama is running on essentially the same idea, but the difference is Obama hasn't been in Washington for over 20 years. I am not sure how McCain is going to pull off running against the Washington establishment, when he a fixture of it. I can almost already seem the Obama campaign's response to this approach by McCain: The ad fades to a somewhat odd picture of McCain in black and white and the announcer says "he says he wants to change Washington, but what has he been doing the last 20 years". I know his overarching theme is he is a maverick, but I am not sure he can pull off running against a system he has been a part of for more than two decades. 

The second aspect was that there was very little mention about the economy. McCain did talk about some tax cuts and that he feels our pain, but there were no new ideas. In fact, almost all of his remarks tonight about the economy sounded like democratic platforms from 1992 (job retraining for the new economy and better unemployment insurance). I don't know if McCain just took a pass tonight, but eventually he is going to have to put some real ideas about turning around the economy out their if he wants to win the middle. 

Overall though, McCain made a solid speech tonight. I think he is showing that he can be a very strong candidate and any democrats that expected this election to be a cakewalk should take note.

Palin's Speech

Today will hopefully mark the last time I have a post about Palin for awhile. Personally I am kind of tired reading about her as I don't think all the attacks on her have been fair, nor in the end do I think she will actually matter when people go into the voting booth. When push comes to shove, the vast majority of people will vote for the name on the top of the ticket when they pull the lever (punch the chad, push the electronic check mark box, or how ever you vote in your state). 

I have just finished watching Palin's speech and my initial reaction is mixed. Overall, I think she delivered her speech well, there were no real speaking mistakes, and it only seemed one time that she went off script with telling a joke about the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull (the punchline is that hockey moms wear lipstick). I am not sure how those types of jokes play in small towns in America, but I am willing to guess that the McCain campaign advisers will make sure we don't see that again from her. 

The positives of speech were that she attempted to clearly define who she is, how she got to where she is today, and how her story is a lot like Obama's in that she started small and is now in the big time. I think it is hard to question that she hit that part out of the park. She also clearly showed herself to be the champion of family values and not just talking the talk, but walking the walk on social conservative issues by trolling her family in front of the crowd. 

Where I think mistakes were made was in making her the attack dog. Her speech was incredibly negative and loaded with personal attacks on Obama, as opposed to attacks on his ideas/polices. I was keeping rough track during her speech and I counted 14 interruptions when the audience gave supportive boos to her remarks versus 11 cheering interruptions. While the speech was strong in many ways, it was extremely negative and I think incorrectly frames her in negative terms. If the goal of having her on the ticket was that she is like your next door neighbor and can pick off independents, why would you have her give a speech that was very hostile, negative, and derisive? Was a speech like that needed? Absoultely. But I am surprised they had Palin give it at the same time that she is introducing and defining herself to the public. 

I am not saying that Obama and Biden didn't take their shots at McCain. However, their speeches in almost all cases said, I respect McCain, just not his ideas. This type of civility was completely lacking in Palin's speech and for me and was the most disappointing part. Her speech demonstrated that republicans want to win the election by dividing the country, where as the democrats want to win by uniting. I know that this is a vast and unfounded generalization, but the tones of the speeches so far between the two conventions seem to fall that way. 

In the morning, the fact that is going to be most remembered of Palin's speech is that she aggressively attacked Obama personally. Perhaps she felt that she had to show she had a tough side based on the media backlash she has received. Maybe she was right and that this will get the critics off her back. But, I don't think the McCain/Palin ticket can win by running on a platform of "we are not Obama" or "Obama is not good". To win a presidential election you need to define yourself independently of your opponent, not merely attack your opponent and I feel Palin did little of that tonight. 

In the end, I think Palin did fine tonight, but if this marks the tone of how she will campaign, I think she will find little support from independents or disappointed Hillary supporters because she is doing little to reach out to them. Instead of trying to reach across the aisle, tonight was a speech that widened the divide. Palin proved she can be tough, but she did it at the expense of showing she could be a uniter, which I think the republicans are going to need if they are going to win in November. 

Hillary

Last night was perhaps one of the most important speeches of this presidential election and it wasn't given by any of the people who will actually be elected to an office this fall. Hillary Clinton took the stage at a little past 10:30PM EST and although many believed she would play the good soldier, her actual mission was much more difficult than giving a simple speech supporting Obama. Her job was to convince all of her die heart supporters who, for some irrational reason, have come to the conclusion that since Hillary didn't get the nomination, John McCain would be a better choice than Obama. At first, such a claim seems so far fetched that it must be made up drama by the media networks, but alas it was not. Many Hillary supporters have openly said that they may or even would not support Obama and may even cross party lines to vote for McCain. During the brief respite between the end of the Democratic Primary in June till the Democratic Convention last night, Hillary has given several speeches in support of Obama, but none were heartfelt and always felt fake. All of that ended last night. 

Hillary took the stage and delivered what was probably the best speech of her political career. It not only made it clear that she strongly supported Obama, but that if any of her supporters did not do the same they were not only disappointing her, but themselves and squandering what they had all worked so hard for in the last year. She knows that on the vast majority of issues she and Obama are essentially the same candidate. Her main task was getting her supporters to finally see through their anger over the loss to this simple truth. 

Hillary's speech was easily divided into three parts. Part 1 was--here I am and I support Obama. Part 2 was--thank you as my supporters and all the hard work you have done. Part 3 was--deal with the fact that we lost and get in gear behind our candidate. I have to admit that in parts of the speech it felt like a school teacher reprimanding her star students for acting arrogant and reckless, but it was also clear that the message got across. Hillary clearly took the high road and may have just saved the Democratic party from the implosion that it was heading towards. After last night's speech no Hillary supporter can stand up and say "For Hillary I am not going to support Obama". Perhaps the strongest part of her speech was when she used simple logic. She point blank told her supporters, we may not like that we loss, but when it comes to living the next four years can we allow McCain to be president? Will that help you? Will that make things better? So much of the bad feelings between Hillary supporters and Obama has been over the loss of the primary elections and not the future. Last night Hillary turned that around and essentially put the past behind her. She cut down any leg her supporters could stand on when claiming they didn't support Obama and showed them that their current behavior was unacceptable and had to change. I think that her speech last night not only saved the Democratic party, but also have won her a lot of respect and support.

Good Old Democrats

So, last night I watched the first night of the Democratic National Convention and was actually quite impressed with Michelle Obama's speech last night. I thought she hit all of the key points she needed to as well as softened her image slightly which will hopefully help her with the media.

One of the big stories from last night was whether Clinton supporters will in the end vote for Obama. I think CNN spent more time showing Clinton supporters debating whether they would vote for Obama in November than actually asking why they refuse to support Obama now or what it is about Obama they can't support. I feel that if pushed in this direction, a lot of Clinton supporters would realize that Obama and Clinton are not really that different. Being a person who played sports, I understand the difficulty in accepting a loss, but part of being an adult is learning to accept what has occurred and moving forward. This Democrat really hopes that post the convention, the Clinton supporters will realize that in the end Obama offers them the best hope for getting the ideals that Clinton stood for past. 

VP Location for the Democrats

Today's post will examine, from an election math perspective, what region Obama's running mate should be selected from (will examine the Republicans tomorrow). In the recent election past, the democrats have selected running mates from areas in which either they have no chance of winning or from very safe states. For example, in 2004, John Kerry selected John Edwards from North Carolina (which Edwards was unable to deliver to the democrats) and in 2000 Al Gore selected Joe Liberman from CT (which was very safe for Kerry). My question is why the democrats insist on picking VP candidates from the Northeast or traditional south. In examining the current polling data it seems that the logical choice for Obama is a running mate from either a key swing state (FL, PA, OH) or the Midwest/Southwest. While clearly there are many other factors that go into selecting a running mate, in terms of ticket balance and my opinion, selecting a candidate from the Northeast or the South would be a large mistake.