2008 Election

 "There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again..."

Discuss.

I was very disappointed to see that the New York Times (whose editorial board have been relentless Clinton campaigners, while the editorial columnists are generally pro-Obama) was the only news outlet I regularly read to comment on this.  Page A27, 5-8-08  (There was also a picture of Clinton at a fundraiser, holding a little girl on her hip and speaking into a mike.  The child was not crying, but she certainly was not smiling, either.)

"...Mrs. Clinton put on her battle face Weds. and confronted what was at times a hostile crowd at a hastily arranged speech here at Shepherd University.

...Mrs. Clinton endured boos when she mentioned her proposal for a gas tax holiday, catcalls when she spoke of ending the Iraq war, and most difficult of all, the heckling of her daughter, Chelsea, who introduced her.

"End the dynasty!", a young man holding an Obama poster shouted when Chelsea Clinton stepped up to the microphone.

All the while, a smile was fixed on Mrs. Clinton's perfectly made-up face -- not a hair was out of place -- and she betrayed only an occasional glimmer of recognition of the exceedingly narrow straits she must now navigate.

...Mrs. Clinton promised that the U.S. would have universal healthcare "if I'm president", a deviation from her customary "when I'm president."   She said she was proud of her 2 point victory in Indiana on Tues., but made no mention of her 14 point loss in N.C.

Her remarks ... were an abridged cut-and-paste job of her standard stump speech.  It was not her most fluid effort.  ...But the modestly sized audience applauded at the appropriate times and, except for an unusually large and at times vocal contingent of Obama supporters in the crowd, the appearance went off without incident.

Mrs. Clinton added the stop at 3a.m. Weds. in an effort to show she remained committed to campaigning in the six remaining contests on the Dem. primary calendar.

...At a brief news conference after her remarks at the college...her upbeat tone never waver(ed)." 

--------

Chelsea Clinton is now in her late 20s.  Why can't she be heckled the same as another politico?

Please, God, can you make it stop soon?  Will you please dry up the money spigot so that she drops out?

Please, I promise I'll be really good and not call my little brothers names for the rest of the week...

It would be kinda fun to see Hillary take this thing after all, wouldn't it?

The Township Board (City Council) has granted Supervisor Linda Abernathy's request to put another tax increase for City of Champaign Township on the ballot.

Township Supervisor Linda Abernathy said the increased tax income would allow her to increase benefits to 50 disabled people receiving general assistance/transitional assistance from the current $150 per month to the state-recommended $223 per month. The additional funding would also allow her to create a $42,000 emergency assistance fund whereby extremely poor residents could receive a $225 grant once a year to deal with an economic crisis, effective July 1, 2009.

Abernathy asked voters in November 2006 to approve a 5-cent increase in the district's overall tax rate. But voters rejected that proposal by a 2-1 margin.

She said she proposed a smaller increase this time around because she recognizes that residents are feeling the economic pinch.

"People are feeling the burn, the pinch," she said. "I wanted to do something minimal enough to survive the shortfall, but not so extensive to turn the voters off."

At least she reduced the amount of increase she was requesting this time.

Unsurprising:

The Urbana school board passed a resolution Tuesday night calling for a 1 percent countywide sales tax to be put on the November ballot.

With its vote, 11 school districts in the county have now passed such a resolution. Those districts represent almost half of the county's school enrollment, said Jane Quinlan, superintendent of the regional office of education. State law provides that districts representing at least 51 percent of the county's school enrollment can place a tax question on the ballot by approving a resolution such as Urbana did.

A county policy committee will discuss the proposed sales tax at a meeting tonight.

The Urbana school board also passed a resolution Tuesday pledging to use a portion of the money it would receive if such a tax passes to abate property taxes. The resolution states that the district would use $1 million annually to pay off building bonds.

"It's the first step in moving away from a total reliance on property taxes," said Urbana school board President Mark Netter.

Two more primaries, and two more relatively static results in the Democratic race for President.  The media meme about yesterday's results is that Obama beat expectations, so Hillary should drop out, but the racial breakdowns in IN and NC remained almost unchanged from earlier Primaries.

Obama won black voters overwhelmingly, getting 91 percent in NC and 90 percent in Indiana.  Clinton won white voters convincingly, getting 60 percent in NC and 61 percent in IN.

As race seems to have the most consistent correlation with vote preference in this primary, the actual results from state to state aren't varying that much from what can be predicted by the demographics and turnout projections.  FiveThirtyEight.com had some long predictions yesterday, using polling and some complicated statistical analysis, but they came very close to being right simply by using racial breakdowns and turnout predictions.

I'll also note the strange meme wondering whether Obama can collect enough votes from whites motivated by race, even while nobody is mentioning that black voters are consistently and overwhelmingly supporting the candidate who shares their skin color.

As I've said since Super Tuesday, the Dem race seems pretty static to me, despite the roller coaster of coverage.  The 2008 general election will likely hinge on whether the eventual Democratic nominee (still almost certainly Obama) can win over enough of Clinton's supporters, given the unprecedented length and vigor of the Democratic race.  Yesterday's exit polls indicated yet again that Democratic voters are becoming more attached to their candiate and more averse to the other candidate:

Nearly six in ten Obama supporters in Indiana say they would be dissatisfied if Clinton were the nominee -- that's (I believe) the high percentage of Obama supporters who have ever said that.

In both IN and NC, two thirds of Clinton supporters say they'd be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee -- I believe that's the highest number recorded for that question, too.

The percentage of Clinton voters who say they'd choose McCain over Obama in a general election is approaching 40% in Indiana. Put it another way: in North Carolina, less than HALF of folks who voted today for Hillary Clinton are ready to say today that they'd definitely vote for Obama in a general election.

The general election will be decided based on this.  Obama supporters are convinced that Democrats will come home, because they're motivated by issues and Obama is right on their issues.  I understand the importance of issues, as you've seen from criticisms of the GOP over the years, yet I still think many voters are motivated by personalities and biographies, and while I don't doubt that many Clinton supporters will eventually support Obama, I think a significant percentage (10 percent?  20 percent) will not, due to the animosities and attachments created during this Primary.

And those are the key questions for November:  How many Clinton supporters will not support Obama, and how well can Obama do with white voters, given his inability to win them in the recent Democratic Primaries?

cnn.com; politico.com

Tim Russert reports Hillary Clinton has cancelled all morning show appearances.  MSNBC reports Clinton has cancelled all events scheduled for tomorrow.  The folks on Ben Smith's blog at Politico are cheering for a Clinton concession and pull out of the race.  Allegedly, 7% of her votes in Indiana were from folks planning on voting for McCain in November.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Russert_Clinton_cancels_morning_show_appearances.html#comments

according to CNN, Obama picked up 4 more delegates than Clinton tonight. 

Terry McAuliffe refuses to answer any questions about another loan by HRC to her campaign.  Bill Clinton's face is said to be redder than a tomato. 

A shame I don't have cable; sounds like I'm missing a lot of fun.

(And is Monroe Co., Indiana where IU is?  It went 66% Obama-33% Clinton.  Lake County was a disappointing 55% Obama-45% Clinton.)

Obama may have only won 9 counties in Indiana, but I'm almost tempted to say they were the right ones.  Same he couldn't have gotten one or two more big ones, or several of the smaller ones. 

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

"Mr. Wright seems to me to be part of the great "barbaric yawp," as Walt Whitman called the American people fighting, discussing, making things and living. I like the barbaric yawp. I don't enjoy it when it makes me wince, but at least when I am wincing, I know the yawp is working."

Check out this GOP television spot for an upcoming special congressional election in Mississippi. 

When did Obama become the GOP's new boogie man?  This didn't work in Louisiana during the weekend. The GOP lost a blood-red district playing a similar TV spot.

After the breakdown of another thread, I asked myself, what's the best way for political parties, of all stripes, to encourage more young people to vote, get involved, to get interested in the overall political process?  I have a few ideas, but I know that the wider IP community would have more, and probably better, ideas.  First, a couple of set-up questions...

1.  What's the best definition of a "young voter"?  Is it a certain age range (18-25 or maybe 18-27)?  Is it educational status (high school vs community college vs university, or some combination)?  Is it employment status (full-time vs part-time vs part-time while in school)?  Is it some combination of everything I've listed above, or maybe something completely different, something outside the little box I just described?

2.  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect with a party, a candidate, a political philosophy, whatever?  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect, and then get them to act on their connection, by voting, by organizing for a party or candidate, by maybe even running for office themselves?

3.  What's the best way to keep a young voter connected, to keep them involved, so that they continue that connection into "non-young voter" status?  Not necessarily keep them chained to a specific party or candidate per se, but more how do we maintain their interest in the process and continue to keep it relevant for the voter?

4.  What am I forgetting, or missing?

I'm not writing this to mock anyone, or to throw gasoline on the floor and wait for the trolls to come by with matches, but I want to ask this seriously, as a "non-young voter":  How do we get young people to get connected and stay connected?  I'm not as interested in hearing about how a specific political party or candidate can connect with young voters, so much as I'm interested in hearing how we can get young voters connected and interested in the first place.

HG

What is it going to take for the GOP to capture the youth vote or campus vote? The stereotype of younger voters is that they are either liberal activists or too apathetic! However locally, 2008 promises to bring youth into the races. In the 103rd district, we have a U of I junior Frank Calabrese who is running against Naomi Jacobbson for state representative! In the County Board District 7 race, one of the candidates is finishing up her undergrad and is entering grad school in the fall. However, how does a Republican capture the Youth Vote? How would Stephanie Dold and Tony Pomonis convey to the campus area how county issues affect students? Frank seems to have an easier time though.

Any thoughts without obnoxious comments about the Calabrese family or insults hurled at innocent sorority girls who might not know what IlliniPundit is!

The Unit 7 School Board has fallen in line behind a countywide sales tax for education capital projects.

Unit 7 school board President Fred Koss reported that he and Superintendent Michael Shonk had attended a meeting at the Regional Office of Education with representatives from districts throughout Champaign County.

"There was virtually unanimous support for the sales tax," Koss said.

Shonk said he has been asked what Unit 7 would do with the revenue.

"My intent would be to pay down our bonded indebtedness," Shonk said.

Shonk added that could be combined with a new construction project such as renovating, expanding or replacing the 50-year-old Unity High School.

"I thought we were 12 years down the road with this (high school project), but it could be as little as eight, depending on what happens with this," Shonk said.

Shonk plans to send information about the proposed sales tax to both county board members and members of the Champaign County Farm Bureau.

"The key to the whole thing is property tax relief," Shonk said.

Actually, the key is promising a tiny amount of tax relief in the hopes that voters will support a much larger increase in sales taxes.

This is quite a fix for a polling junkie like me:  pollster rankings:

The essential lesson here is not to give deference to 'name-brand' pollsters, or those that are associated with large news organizations. Of our six strongest pollsters, the first two are Internet-friendly operations that use the IVR ('robocall') method, while the next four are boutique or academic shops that limit their polling to a given region. The strongest pollster associated with a large news organization is Mason-Dixon, which conducts polls for The McClatchy Company and MSNBC. However, other major media polling shops, such as FOX / Opinion Dynamics and CBS/New York Times, have considerably underperformed over time. Likewise, some 'brand name' pollsters, like Zogby and Gallup, have had quite poor results.

Good stuff.

As expected:

Illinois Rep. Bill Black officially hits the campaign trail today after Champaign and Vermilion county Republicans slated him Wednesday night as their candidate for representative of the 104th District.

"Let me assure you, the campaign starts at 6 a.m." today, Black told precinct committeemen of both counties' Republicans parties Wednesday night just after they unanimously approved him as the person to replace the former candidate, Danville Mayor Scott Eisenhauer.

Discuss.

For several weeks, though the Rev. Wright and "bitter" stories, that I doubted they would have much impact among Democratic Primary voters (who I think mostly have made their decisions weeks or months ago), and that I wanted to see exit polling from Pennsylvania to see if those stories had any impact among Democratic Primary voters:

They didn't, as most of these figures are close echoes of the exit polling for other recent Democratic Primaries in midwestern states, and are eerily similar to Ohio's exit polling:

Clinton has now won white men in 12 states and Obama has done the same in 10 states.

Obama did win more than nine in 10 black voters, continuing his unbroken support of African-Americans. And Clinton continued her trend of winning white women in all but a couple of contests.

There are other breakdowns, among education level and income, which were also roughly as expected and as we've seen before.

To me, the great determining (and unanswered) question of the 2008 general election is who wins white voters, especially white male voters.  If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee (which I still think is a near certainty), can he convince white voters who haven't supported him in Democratic primaries in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania to support him in a general election?  Or, to put it another way, which factor will have a stronger correlation to candidate support in November - demographic factors like race, gender, income, etc. or partisan/issue factors?

UPDATE:  Here's another more explicit and detailed comparision between OH and PA exit polls.

And both Clinton and Obama can now make the case to superdelegates that they lead in the much-ballyhooed popular vote.

In the absence of anything new or interesting to say about tonight's Pennsylvania Primary, I wanted to share one of my new favorite polling/election analysis sites, fivethirtyeight.com.

About today/tonight:

Two things you should not pay attention to tomorrow without proper context:

(1) Leaked exit polls, which have been way off this cycle, and been slanted an average of 7 points in Obama's direction. A substantial Clinton lead in the exit polls might be taken modestly more seriously than, say, something that showed Obama three points ahead, but these things aren't designed for what you think they're designed for -- just ignore them.

(2) Very early returns, such as in the first hour after polls close. Because there are such profound regional differences in the way that Pennsylvania polls, the results will be almost entirely a function of where the numbers are coming in from. Odds are that rural areas will report their results before the cities, which means that the early numbers should favor Clinton (this may actually be a nontrivial advantage to her in terms of media narrative; the race could very easily be called for her when the ticker shows Clinton ahead by 14, but things could close to within 8 points once all votes were counted).

Good stuff.  If you're a junkie like me, you can just go there and keep reading.

UPDATE:  Question for discussion:  Why does Obama do better in exit polling than in actual results?  Or, to ask it another way, why does Obama do worse in actual voting than in exit polling?  And does that tell us anything about other polling for Obama?

Found this at opinionjournal.com (adjunct of the Wall St. Journal)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120873309012529689.html?mod=hpp_us_inside_today

http://weareillinois.org/connect/newsDetail.aspx?newsID=3482.

"But Mr. Obama has also said he's open to raising – indeed, nearly doubling to 28% – the current top capital gains tax rate of 15%, which would in fact be a tax hike on some 100 million Americans who own stock, including millions of people who fit Mr. Obama's definition of middle class."

Data suggests that when you lower the capital gains tax it raises revenue. It's a bit tricky to understand, but you can get some perspective by learning about the Laffer Curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve).

But when logical rational fails and you still want to raise capital gains on middle class americans, you can reference CEOs/hedge fund managers and the sprinkle on a little health care and schools.

"Mr. Obama answered by citing rich hedge fund managers. Raising the capital gains tax is necessary, he said, "to make sure . . . that our tax system is fair and that we are able to finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it and that we're able to invest in our infrastructure and invest in our schools. And you can't do that for free.""

Same story. Different candidate.

David Brooks, in the cratering NY Times, has an Op-Ed in which he discusses Barack Obama's transformation during the Democratic Presidential primaries:

Back in Iowa, Barack Obama promised to be something new — an unconventional leader who would confront unpleasant truths, embrace novel policies and unify the country. If he had knocked Hillary Clinton out in New Hampshire and entered general-election mode early, this enormously thoughtful man would have become that.

But he did not knock her out, and the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.

I know it's the New York Times, and it's heretically critical of The One, but read the whole thing.

(As a matter of fact, yes, I do seem to remember someone writing something similar some time ago...)

Interesting article from Politico.com:  McCain readies unorthodox campaign.  In essence, McCain is shying away from the traditional, top-down, centralized Presidential campaign; instead, McCain plans on designing his campaign to be much more decentralized, more regional-based style of campaign.  Some interesting quotes:

McCain strategists insist their paradigm can work. And the sour national climate for the GOP, McCain’s limited money supply and his preference for an impromptu campaign style that he can take to all parts of the country mean there is no other option but to break the mold, says one aide.

“To run a normal, typical race like a normal, typical Republican, we would win 45 percent of the popular vote and 189 electoral votes,” this aide says. “You can’t just go to Columbus.”

Also:

...perhaps most importantly — McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message in a fashion that aims to not only minimize his financial disadvantage but also drive a triangulated contrast among himself, the Democratic nominee and President Bush.

Obviously, there's a lot that could go wrong with this.  A regional manager could be ineffective and ruin the campaign for that region; the friction between the RNC, the McCain campaign, and other staffers could bog down the campaign; and so on.  Also, the campaign finance aspect is beyond my ken; I don't know what the stated "jointly funded" idea means in the real world, during the General election.  The sour grapes from unnamed Republican opratives is kinda interesting as well; my reading of that section of the article is that people don't like something new or different, or maybe they're upset about not having a job opening in a more traditional campaign.

Personally, I like this idea, initially at least.  Given how unusual and wacky this primary season has been, I have no idea what'll actually happen.  But this seems to be a good plan, designed to maximize McCain's strengths and minimize his weaknesses.

HG