Inside Washington for August 8th
Forever “too close to call?”
With just 88 days to go until Election Day, political analysts continue to scratch their collective head over why Sen. Barack Obama remains neck-and-neck with Sen. John McCain in the national polls. While the Democrat is occasionally ahead of McCain by more than the margin of error (at one point last week he held a nine-point lead), he remains below the magic 50% mark. Their bewilderment is tied directly to the mood of the national political battlefield which tilts decisively in favor of the Democrats this year.
By now you know the mantra of the national mood – an unpopular President, an unpopular war, high gas and food prices, rising unemployment, the housing crisis, skyrocketing health care costs, etc., ad nauseam. Stir them all together in one big pot and there’s no wonder why a record-shattering 80%+ of the country as a whole believes that the U.S. is “on the wrong track.”
Why then isn’t Barack Obama running away with this contest? An analysis of Pew Research data by Politico.com finds that the same dynamic that beset Sen. John Kerry in 2004 is also holding back Obama’s numbers – while ahead among blacks, young Americans and Hispanics, he continues to trail among white men. According to Gallup Poll data (which runs a nightly tracking poll that surveys at least 1,000 voters every day), Obama is taking only an average of about 35% of the votes of white males. And it’s been that way for months.
All this suggests to some analysts that the race may not move much between now and November and that, as usual, whichever party runs the better get-out-the-vote operation will win the day. And, perhaps more significantly, that the country is in for its third nail-biter in a row.
Democratic registration on the rise
An analysis by the New York Times of voter registration records in the 29 states that register voters by party affiliation found that there has been an overall drop in GOP registrants and an increase in Democratic and Independent registrations since 2005. Two states that had majority Republican registration in 2004 – Nevada and Iowa – are now majority Democratic registration states.
Democratic registration grew by more than three percentage points in six states: Connecticut (3.1%), Iowa (4.1), Nevada (3.1%), New Hampshire (3.9), New Jersey (10.7%), Oregon (4.5%) and Pennsylvania (3.1%).
GOP registration grew in only three states – Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma. However, the increase was less than one percentage point in Kentucky and Oklahoma and just over a percentage point in Louisiana.
Beyond any impact on this fall’s presidential race, analysts believe that these shifts could produce long-lasting effects on local, county and statewide elections.
VEEP watch
Despite all the conjecture on timing, it’s now all but certain that both candidates will wait until their respective party conventions to make their choices for running mates known.
On the Democratic side, the names most mentioned continue to be Sens. Joe Biden and Evan Bayh and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
For the GOP it’s still Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, former Rep. Rob Portman of Ohio and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, although this week Romney denied that he had been contacted by the McCain camp for “vetting” and asserted that he would be campaigning for McCain as a private citizen.
Despite rumors to the contrary over the last several weeks, McCain’s camp has made it clear to the press that to jump the gun and release news of the decision now would only earn the campaign a brief bump in press attention and that they were better off waiting until after Obama made his decision public.
Now both campaigns to advertise during Olympics
The McCain camp this week announced plans to spend $6 million in television advertising during the Olympic Games. That follows the Obama camp’s previous announcement that it intended to spend at least $5 million on advertising during that period.
The debates have moderators
The first Presidential Debate, scheduled for Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, will be moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS’ The Newshour.
The second, on October 7th, at Belmont University in Nashville, will be moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw.
The third, set for October 15th at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, will be moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS’ Face the Nation.
The Vice Presidential debate, set for October 2nd at Washington University in St. Louis, will be moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS.
Political Observations of the Week:
“The most important thing we learned is this: Hillary Clinton won 8 of the last 13 primaries. He is beatable.”
Steve Schmidt, senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, on what the Democratic primaries taught the McCain camp about Sen. Barack Obama.
“One thing people forget is how red the map is. We have a chance….we will pick up a good number of seats.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D, New York), chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, noting that the party still faces an uphill battle to attain a filibuster-busting 60-seat advantage in the Senate.
“I don’t think there is any evidence at all that the vice-presidential candidate affects any votes outside their own state, and not much evidence they affect many votes inside their own state.”
Michael Nelson, political scientist, Rhodes College in Memphis.
“The pool of votes available to Democrats during tough times gets bigger in the South.”
John Anzalone, veteran political consultant.
“What’s remarkable this summer is the stability of this race. In a broad sense, it is similar to previous elections.”
Frank Newport, Director of the Gallup Poll.
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John J. Kohut is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C. He has been writing about national politics for more than a decade, including stints as an editor at the Cook Political Report and as senior editor at the Rothenberg Political Report.