The Race Thus Far

An article in today's NY Times summarizes the key issues of the upcoming election very well. It first touches on what the author deems "The Bush Effect," questioning whether Republican candidates are hurting themselves by not simply avoiding comparisons between themselves and President Bush but rather refraining from speaking of him at all. It points out that despite Bush's 30 percent approval rating, two-thirds of Republicans support him and asks whether a Republican candidate should be alienating these voters. The article also talks about campaign contributions, Iran, comedy as an asset, Congress, taxes, and the Internet. Check it out here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/us/politics/04vote-web.html?ex=1351918800&en=7c37f906ef99e54a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Nixon

• On Rummy
• The Smoking Gun Tape
• Farewell to the Staff

Obama won't accept VP

Barack Obama has announced that he will not accept nomination for the Vice Presidency:

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Obama_would_snub_VP_offer_from_1029.html

This is probably not much of a surprise, because candidates rarely announce any intentions for the Vice Presidency for fear of undermining their Presidential campaign. In many ways, Obama would be a poor choice for VP for any candidate, because he would overshadow the President, given the enormous hype surrounding him.

Since Professor Pitney (semi-jokingly) mentioned Sen. Tester as a potential running mate to Hillary Clinton, I thought I'd share some of Tester's campaign pictures. They are hilarious!!!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/testerforsenate/sets/72157594229425831/show/ How incredible would it be if Tester and Clinton did run together??!!!! That pair could not be anymore AWESOME.

Speaking of campaign stuff, please check out the RNC ad against Ford in the Tennesse senate race. While watching, keep in mind that Ford is black. (It's one of my favorite ads of the 2006 midterm elections. Basically, freakin' hilarious.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkiz1_d1GsA

And my last comment pertains to poor, old Rick Santorum. There is, I kid you not, a song about his daughter crying after Santorum lost the Pennslyvannia senate race... Talk about the interplay between media and politics. You can check the article out at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6384.html and even read some of the song verses.

Public Opinion, the Press, and Speeches

• George Washington, properly understood.
• You may find historical data on presidential approval in Pika, p. 90. Here is a graph of recent data.
• An example of a press conference memo.
• A clip of today's press briefing.
• A reading of the Gettysburg Address runs just two and a half minutes.
• Listen to FDR's "map speech" while looking at a 1942 map.

One of the WP politics blogs had this to say about Colbert's appeal:

"a Republican polling firm, recently completed a national poll of 1,000 likely 2008 voters that included Colbert's name in both the GOP and Democratic primaries. (He has announced his plans to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.) In the field from Oct. 18-21, the survey has a 5 percent margin of error.

In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).

He was less lucky in the Republican field, where he took less than 1 percent of the vote behind even longshot candidates like Reps. Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul."

Hillary Running Away with the Dem Nomination

Supporters of Obama and Edwards like to think that Hillary Clinton -- like Howard Dean, Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy before her -- will go on to lose the Democratic nomination despite her early lead in the polls.

This study by Gallup Polling, however, suggests that such a scenario is unlikely. Hillary Clinton consistently leads her nearest rival by more than twenty points in national polls -- a rare feat in Democratic primary history and something that has occurred only twice before. In three of four Gallup polls taken in 1979, Ted Kennedy led Jimmy Carter by more than twenty points; in twelve of fifteen polls in 1999, Al Gore was ahead of Bill Bradley.

Gallup's study argues that the analogue to Clinton's 2007 dominance in national polling is Gore's lead in 1999. It also distinguishes Clinton's frontrunner status from Kennedy and Hart's:

Kennedy and Hart ultimately lost their nomination bids, but their large leads came much earlier in the campaigns. Kennedy's candidacy lost its steam when Jimmy Carter's popularity surged in late 1979 following the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Hart's 20-point lead occurred in the last poll taken before he suspended his campaign after the press was able to confirm rumors he was having an extramarital affair.

Gallup concludes that Clinton should "play it safe" to avoid jeopardizing her lead in the polls and approves of her recent emphasis on issues "that Democratic primary voters may not necessarily endorse, but that may position her better for the general election campaign against the Republican."

But national polls don't tell the whole story. We don't nominate our Presidents by a national primary, after all. Instead we allow two random states, unrepresentative of the demography of the whole nation, to decide for us. That's why Hillary, for her own part, is refusing the "inevitable" label, at least in Iowa. Yesterday, she told supporters that she is campaigning as if she were running "ten or twenty points behind" her closest rivals.