Barack Obama

Showing continued momentum for the GOP, the Sunday am Rasmussen track has the race now tied.  This post from yesterday has a more detailed look at how the race is changing - among the most interesting findings is the GOP surge with women post-Palin. 

The SF Chronicle has an interesting piece today on the resurgent GOP.  It includes this passage: 

"Sarah Palin is driving the presidential election right now," said Simon Rosenberg, who heads NDN, a Washington-based moderate Democratic advocacy group. "The McCain campaign is no longer in charge of their own campaign. They've hitched their ticket to a media superstar, and she could be the key to their victory - or the thing that takes them down. She could be a rocket ship or a train wreck."

Earlier this week I offered up this initial take on the arrival of Sarah Palin on the national stage, and these thoughts on what her inadequate vetting says about John McCain.

There can be no doubt now that the GOP had a very good week and emerge from Minnesota a very different Party than they went in.  How Palin fares will be critical to the fall election, and given how litttle we know about her expect the media to spend the month before the VP debate trying to help fill in the blanks.  It is something the Democrats will need to do as well. 

Data is beginning to come in from this interesting week.  Here is Rasmussen's summary of their daily track, and it is worth reading in its entirety: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while McCain earns 45%. When "leaners" are included, it's Obama 49%, McCain 46% (see recent daily results). Tracking Poll results are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day and a FREE daily e-mail update is available.

Each Saturday morning, Rasmussen Reports reviews the key polls of the past week to learn What They Told Us.

Tracking Poll results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, roughly two-thirds of the interviews were completed before McCain's speech on Wednesday night. One third were completed before Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday. Tomorrow (Sunday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after Palin's speech and Monday will be the first based entirely upon interviews conducted after McCain's speech. By Tuesday or Wednesday, the overall impact of both political conventions should be fairly clear.

As McCain has begun to chip away as Obama's convention bounce, most of his gains have come among women voters. Obama still leads 51% to 44% among women, but that seven-point edge is just half the fourteen point lead he enjoyed last Tuesday. McCain leads by three among men, little changed in recent days.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Obama voters now say they are voting with enthusiasm for their candidate while 17% are primarily voting against the other candidate. For McCain, those numbers are 65% and 28% respectively. Before the Republican convention, just 54% of McCain voters were voting enthusiastically for him rather than simply voting against Obama.

McCain is now viewed favorably by 58% of the nation's voters while Obama earns positive reviews from 57% (see trends). McCain earns favorable reviews from 91% of Republicans while Obama is viewed favorably by 87% of Democrats. Among unaffiliated voters, McCain's favorable ratings are at 64%, Obama's at 54%. Premium Members can review demographic crosstabs and all the data we collect--not just the portion we make public. Premium Members can also get an advance look at tracking poll results via the Daily Snapshot each morning.

Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of voters including 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of her.

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator currently shows Obama leading in states with 193 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 183 votes . When leaners are included, it's Obama 264, McCain 247.

This is a description of a very close race.

Update 130pm - Gallup now has the race 47-45 Obama, similar to what Rasmussen has found.  A very close race now indeed. 

As I wrote earlier this week, the central drama of the Republican Convention was not the emergence of Governor Sarah Palin, but could Senator John McCain adequately distance himself from this terribly disapointing era of GOP governance to give himself a shot at winning this thing?

As of this morning while I think McCain and his team tried very hard and had a strong last 2 days of the Convention I'm not sure they pulled it off. Hurricane Gustav did its part, knocking Bush and Cheney off the stage without disrupting the rest of the Convention. And Sarah Palin did her part, and has now arrived on the national stage as a powerful new part of the GOP's future. We also saw all sorts of GOP moderates, not normally associated with hard right conservative politics. We were bombarded with iconic American images, mostly from a time gone by. We heard about the virtues of small town life and the dangers of cosmopolitianism. We saw large and attractive families, strong and articulate women, and a never ending stream of American flags. What we almost never heard about was George Bush.

While Palin was a glimpse of the GOP's future, most of what we saw was an evocation of the GOP's and America's past. After all John McCain was born a long time ago. He is the oldest man to be the nominee of either Party. He is very much a man of the 20th century, of its battles, struggles and culture. The problem for him is that past includes the GOP's recent Washington ascendency a period which has without doubt been among the worst periods of goverance America has ever seen.

In his speech last night John McCain acknowledges his disapointment with his Party in recent years, and while he does his best to spread the blame the thrust of his remarks are clear:

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.

And in watching him last night, this aging warrior, I got the sense that he knew that it was unlikely that he was going to win this election and lead this fight in restoring his Party. That he could craft a roap map, and promote the leaders - like Palin and Ridge and Whitman - whom he hoped would carry on this important fight. But that the damage done by the recent conservative rise was too great, too fresh and that too many of its leaders were still in positions of power; that he, by adopting so many of the core arguments of this era to win the nomination was no longer the man of virtue he once was; and that he at the end of the day simply does not have a big enough vision, enough energy, enough understanding of the moment to be the one who can lead this post Bush-DeLay-Abramoff Party forward.

Which is perhaps why this Convention spent so much time talking about him and his past - it was in essence a validictory event rather than the beginning of a winning campaign. And that it did achieve something very important to McCain - the beginning of the liberation of the Party he loves from the grips of corrupt, weak and ineffective leaders. That my friends is no small accomplishment, and one that McCain seems to be in the process of pulling off. Whether however he can do the next thing - make a more compelling argument about the future than his opponents - remains to be seen. The task of doing so became almost impossible when McCain sacrified his own beliefs and principles to win the GOP primary, and in my gut I think he knows this.

More than anyone else John McCain knows that the mythical character he has become is not the successful aging warrior, but the fallen hero, overwhelmed by events much greater than him. And that his year he will do his part and fight the good fight all the while knowing that it will be others who end up carrying on and winning the battle that he began waging in St. Paul.

The U.S. Department of Labor released this morning new numbers on employment and wages for the month of August. The take-away?  The U.S. economy lost 84,000 jobs, the eighth straight month of job losses. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent, the highest since September 2003. Industries hardest hit are manufacturing (housing-related manufacturers and automakers) and services. Healthcare and mining sectors added new jobs. Losses in the construction sector slowed. Average hourly wages crept up a meager 7 cents. 

Let’s hope that this new data sounds the alarm for U.S. Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin. It’s been a long week of vapid, sarcastic, anecdotal talk about our nation’s economic health.  Nary a word about just what Team McSame would do to create jobs, increase wages, grow the economy, or raise the median income. Maybe we can just drill, baby, drill our way out of recession. (See Rob's take earlier today.) U.S. Sen. Obama, on the other hand, has been responsive to news on the economy. In the middle of the DNC in Denver last week, he released a statement on Census’s new report on income, poverty, and health insurance:

"Today’s news confirms what America’s struggling families already know – that over the past seven years our economy has moved backwards. We have now lived through first so-called economic ‘expansion’ on record where typical families saw their incomes fall, and working-age households lost more than $2,000 from their paychecks. Another 816,000 Americans fell into poverty in 2007 – including nearly 500,000 children – bringing the total increase in Americans in poverty under President Bush to 5.7 million. And on Bush’s watch, an additional 7.2 million Americans have fallen into the ranks of the uninsured. This is the failed record of George Bush’s economic policies that Senator McCain has called ‘great progress.’ While Senator McCain is promising four more years of the failed Bush economic policies, my economic plan will restore bottom up economic growth that benefits all Americans by cutting taxes for working Americans, providing affordable, accessible health care for all, and investing in new energy, education and infrastructure so we can create millions of good jobs here in America," said Senator Barack Obama. 

Today he released another statement on the August unemployment numbers:

“Today’s jobs report is a reminder of what’s at stake in this election – John McCain showed last night that he is intent on continuing the economic policies that just this year have caused the American economy to lose 605,000 jobs.  John McCain may believe that the fundamentals of our economy are ‘strong,’ but the working men and women I meet every day are working harder for less, the typical working age family’s income is down $2,000 since George Bush took office, and their purchasing power is as low as it’s been in a decade.  John McCain’s answer is more of the same:  $200 billion in tax cuts to big corporations and oil companies, and not one dime of tax relief to more than 100 million middle-class families.  If I am President, I will cut taxes for 95% of all working families and provide an immediate $50 billion to struggling states so that they don’t have to cut back on health care and education and can rebuild roads and schools. That’s the change working families need right now,” said Senator Barack Obama.      

Sen. Obama is doing the right thing in staying on message on the economy. After all the hubbub about lipstick-wearing pitbulls dies down, Americans will return to the core issues, the main one being the economy. We can’t predict at this point if either candidate’s plan will turn the ship around, but Obama does indeed have a plan and he’s talking about it. He’s offering specifics and inviting debate. And that’s a good start.

On the issue of the economy, check out Alan Blinder’s piece in the New York Times, Is History Siding with Obama’s Economic Plan?  Blinder says the facts show that the U.S. economy has grown faster under Democratic presidents than under Republicans. Blinder references a new book by Princeton professor Larry Bartels, who makes the case that: 

when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income. 

The article doesn’t provide many explanations for these trends, but Blinder suggests that tax and income transfer policies have played a large role starting with Reagan:

We know, for example, that Republicans have typically favored large tax cuts for upper-income groups while Democrats have opposed them. In addition, Democrats have been more willing to raise the minimum wage, and Republicans have been more hostile toward unions.

And the coup de grace:

The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

Always fact-check - I appreciate the AP's efforts in correcting the "errors" in several RNC speeches:

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 Presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

Following on Simon's post, it's clear that the RNC not only has a flare for drama, but will straight up lie if necessary. Throughout the RNC Convention we have heard eloquent stories, partisan attacks, but no real solutions. The RNC is doing exactly what they criticized Barack Obama for doing: giving nice speeches with no substance.  While during the DNC Convention, not a single speaker focused on the RNC - they might have made differences known on issues, but at no time were speakers condescending or snide about Senator McCain, instead, they focused on presenting their candidate and Barack Obama's specific proposals in the areas of Energy Reform, Immigration, the Economy, and Health Care. Stories can be entertaining for awhile, but in the end, voters will ask for substance. As Gov. Sebelius stated in the Huffington Post, hockey moms may be moved by speeches, but in the end they want to know exactly how the new President will make health care affordable, increase their wages, or improve schools.  As Barack Obama pointed out at Mile-High Stadium, "it's not about me" - this election should be about the American people, but the GOP strategy is precisely to make it about stories and characters.  Rep. Wasserman-Shultz put it best: "Where is the beef? Where is the evidence? Sarah Palin is not a reformer...If her best example of being a reformer was trying to sell a plane on E-Bay, that is not my definition of reform." Reform is not found in the usual stretching of the truth in politics.  To be successful tonight, John McCain will have to shift from this strategy of making it about Barack Obama and instead focus on how he proposes to pay for the pipelines, nuclear power, solar, and expensive alternative energy sources that Gov. Palin spoke about. He will have to explain the incentives to businesses to conserve energy, to have acessible health care for employees, and how he will make the U.S. competitive in a global, 21st century, marketplace.

(via Hope Reborn at Daily Kos)

Staying true, never wavering. Rising above politics as usual. Taking on his own Party. He is his own man. Willing to do the hard stuff, like tackling climate change and immigration reform. A courageous maverick. The drumbeat from St. Paul is relentless.

But is it true?

While it may have been at one time, it can no longer be considered true. McCain fought the Bush economic strategy. He now embraces it. McCain opposed the Bush approach to use of torture. Today he supports it. He was a leader on the effort to fix our broken immigration system. Today he no longer supports his own bill. While he has been a leader on tackling elements of the climate change fight, as Jake writes below, it is no longer clear that he supports the positions he had a few months ago. He runs ads with wind turbines and solar panels but has helped kill the main government program supporting their growth. He fought the lobbyists and now his campaign is run by, and littered with, them. He says he is the experienced one, but is now on his 3rd campaign manager and his team wildly bungled the vetting of his VP, the most important decision he has made to date. He argues each day he will balance the budget but independent analysis all show that he will do the very opposite.

In order to win the nomination this year, John McCain embraced the very politics he fought so hard against for so many years. His story is not one of courage, of fortitude, of virtue but one of an old politician, seeing his last chance for the Presidency slip away, give in to a Party's and a President he had fought so long, sacrificing his integrity and his beliefs along the way. The McCain story is much more craven than courageous, more aging pol than heroic leader, more a man who has bragged repeatedly that he supported President Bush more than 90% of the time than an independent maverick.

It is not an inspiring story no matter how much they attempt to dress it up this week in Minnesota. Like so many, I admired the old McCain, but that man is not the man running for President of the United States this year. He disappeared forever sometime in 2007.

Over the next few days while we learn more about Sarah Palin one thing is clear - the lack of seriousness of Palin's record means that the ideological focus will remain on McCain and his record: and that it reinforces the argument Democrats have been making that the Republicans have simply not been serious about governing these last few years. 

The Obama campaign just launched a new website, VoteforChange.com, aimed at simplifying the voter registration process. From the campaign press release:

Today, the Obama campaign launched a new website aimed at simplifying the election process for voters as we gear up for a historic general election. VoteforChange.com is a new voter registration tool where voters across the country can verify their registration status, register to vote for the first time, or get the relevant absentee voting information for their state - all online.

"The number one reason that people don't vote is because they don't understand how easy it is to register to vote", said Jason Green, Director of Voter Registration. "VoteforChange.com, simplifies the process. It allows voters to register, check registration status, or find a polling location - all at the click of a button. By simplifying and explaining the process we believe that new voters will register, become involved in our movement for change and elect Senator Obama president in November."

Maybe this will be one of the tools given to all who attend Obama's Thursday acceptance speech at Invesco Field, fulfilling the goal of Deputy Campaign Manager Steve Hildebrand to make sure everyone leaves a volunteer.

With a new Washington Post poll today the 3 major national news organization polls this week all have Senator Obama ahead and winning the race against John McCain as we head into the 2 Conventions.   

From the Post:

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are locked in a highly competitive race for the White House, with voters giving McCain a clear edge as a potential commander in chief but Obama a sizable advantage on economic issues, the subject of greatest concern to voters, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Heading into two critical weeks of the campaign -- the four-day Democratic National Convention is set to open here on Monday, followed by the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities next week -- Obama maintains a narrow, six-point edge over McCain among registered voters. Among those most likely to vote, 49 percent back Obama and 45 percent back McCain.

The poll was completed just before Obama announced the selection of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate.

The results show little movement from the last Post-ABC survey, conducted in mid-July, before Obama embarked on a highly publicized trip overseas and prior to a series of fierce exchanges between the campaigns. Other recent national polls also show only limited changes in the overall race heading into the conventions, although several of those surveys indicate an even-tighter race.

Relative stability in the race stems in part from both sides' legions of committed supporters. About three-quarters of supporters on both sides said they will "definitely" vote for their current choice. Still, about three in 10 registered voters, and nearly as many likely voters, are "movable" -- those who are less solidly behind their pick or who have yet to decide. The number of swing voters this year is substantially higher than it was at this time in 2004, highlighting the importance of the next two weeks as the candidates strive to define themselves and their opponents.

Read the rest here.