Presidential Prospects: Monday Afternoon Update

Bad news for McCain-Palin out of Pennsylvania. Four new polls put the Republicans between 6 and 14 points down. Even discounting the Zogby poll as tilting too far to the Democrats, the news that the gap in Rasmussen has widened from 4 to 6 counters GOP cheerleading that they're on the way back.

Little change elsewhere. The one new poll in Florida has Obama up by 1.3 percent and the latest in Ohio has him up 2. And there's no solace for McCain in Virginia: the Democrats are up 6.

On to other important business: the contests for the Senate appear to be solidifying, with the Republicans holding onto three seats (Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky) that had come under pressure in the last few weeks. On the other side of the fence, however, the Republican incumbent Felon Ted Stevens (Alaska) now appearing to be heading to jail rather than back to Congress, and Elizabeth Dole (Republican, North Carolina) is looking in desperate straits in North Carolina. Add in certain Democrat gains in New Hampshire and Colorado and a strong advantage in Oregon, and that puts the Democrats in a clear majority in the Senate for the first time in decades.

The one toss-up race is in Minnesota, where Al Franken, formerly of Saturday Night Live and best-selling book fame, is still holding his edge over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. To say more on this would tip off our clear bias in this contest....

More on the Senate and House of Representatives in tomorrow's last-minute update.

The Final 24 Hours: High Anxiety for the Democrats?

The early morning snapshot of the Presidential race:



Perhaps the worst media attempt to big up the electoral drama came from the BBC's John Pienaar, who declared yesterday, "This campaign is...sweaty." Across the board --- print and broadcast, in the US and here in Britain --- the thump-thump today will be of a mad dash to the finish line, with Big John charging from behind. As CNN framed it this morning, "Republicans have moxie."

Well, apart from looking up "moxie", I've been looking at the far-from-sweaty trends. Yes, as Enduring America projected last week, McCain has a slight overall bounce in the final days. Yes, the Republicans have stemmed the Democratic rush towards a landslide --- in part because the campaign rather than the economy is front-page news, in part because of a (belated) attempt to counter the Democrats' 50-state strategy.

But it's a ripple, rather than a wave. Weekend polls in Pennsylvania with relatively small samples have Obama 4-7 points ahead, with the trend-adjusted average still showing a Democratic advantage of +7. The Republican logic is becoming clear --- because Pennsylvania does not have early voting and because it's considered a more "static" state in terms of population (i.e., not as many pro-Democratic white-collar folks coming into the state in recent years, as in Virginia), fire your last big shot here for Joe the Plumber and all other good ol' Americans. It's still a desperation shot.

Elsewhere, the good news for the GOP is that Florida is now a (trend-adjusted) 50-50 race. Apart from the Sunshine State, though, it's very bleak for McCain. Even taking trend-adjusted numbers, which reflect the recent "bounce" for the Republicans, Virginia is still Democratic by 4-5 points, and the Republicans are still down 3 points in Ohio, which has had heavy early voting favouring Obama. In the Western hat-trick of swing states, Democrats are up 4-5 points in Colorado and Nevada and more than 9 in New Mexico.

So, the floor for the Democrats --- barring divine intervention by a pro-Republican God or mass conversion by voters --- is handing over Florida to the GOP and still winning comfortably 311-227.

The Inside Story on the Palin Nomination?

If the election goes the way that I'm suspecting next Tuesday, one of the Republican post-mortems will be on how the McCain campaign settled on Sarah Palin as Vice-Presidential material likely to win over undecided voters.

Through a stroke of fortune, I just picked up an inside lead on that story. At an academic dinner, I was seated next to two political operators close to the Republican Party. Both were resigned to an Obama victory, and both were somewhat gloomily considering what the Republicans might do to repair the damage after 4 November. Both also were clearly unimpressed with Palin.

So I ventured the obvious question, "Why did they think that the Republican Party made such a damaging mistake in the choice of their Number Two?"

The first part of the answer had no surprises. John McCain had indeed favoured former Democrat Joe Lieberman as his Vice President and had been told, predictably, by his handlers that two old white guys weren't exactly a vote-grabbing combination. Then came the twist. I had always thought that McCain's staff had pushed Palin on him but the two operatives were forthright that it was Big John who reached out for Sarah's name. His staff, with less than a week before the VP had to be announced, scrambled to Alaska to interview a Governor about whom they knew little.

Why had McCain made so bold and unexpected a move?

The two Republicans offered some basics. It was known in GOP circles that Palin was a well-liked Governor, and she had a bit of the clean, maverick image in taking on and taking out some of the Alaskan political establishment. And there was that dangerous whiff of political opportunity: pick a woman and bring over the disaffected women who had supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Still, I ventured, there were other women with longer track records --- records of steadiness and political shrewdness --- like Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Even with the notion of McCain as an unconventional politician, why such a big gamble?

That's when my two dinner companions offered a chapter raising this political story to more than run-of-the-mill. They explained that certain right-wing, GOP-supporting political journals --- either for profile (Weekly Standard) or essential funds (National Review) --- put on cruises where readers could hobnob with middle-ranking politicos as well as writers and editors. One of the popular destination for those cruises is the Alaskan Fjords. So the scene was set for Governor Palin to meet and greet the cruise-goers, winning kudos for helping out the journals and more than admiring smiles from the (almost all male) editorial staff.

So the somewhat tangled networks of money, media, and politics put forth America's Hockey Mom for her run at a top office. It's not quite the "neo-conservative" conspiracy that one publication breathily described last month, but it does explains why certain scribblers like William Kristol, via the New York Times as well as the Weekly Standard, continued to push Palin even as her political stock turned from admiration to ridicule.

It's a nice little closer to the Bush years. In the right place at the right time, folks like Kristol can punch way above their column weight by making the right contacts and pushing the (very) right folks towards key political locations. That doesn't make them wise, however, just lucky in matching convenient place and time. And no amount of luck, in the end, can cover up a marked lack of wisdom, both in their own political judgement and in that of those who they choose to promote.

A Guide to Watching the Election in Britain

"Canuckistan" offers this helpful guide to combining election-watching and partying on Tuesday night. Remember, we'll be live blogging on Enduring America from 10 p.m. UK time:

"The first significant state to watch is the first one where the polls close: the state of Indiana---the results from here will be available just after 11 p.m. UK time. Indiana has not gone for a Democratic candidate since 1964. George Bush won the state easily in 2000 and 2004. If the state is quickly declared for John McCain then it is a signal of trouble for Obama. On the other hand, if the result takes a while to be declared, even if in the end it goes to McCain, that is a very good sign for Obama as it is an indication that his supporters are turning out. It was Indiana, by the way, that effectively finished the chances of Hillary Clinton against Obama for the Democratic nomination when she barely won the primary there.

The next key result comes in at 12:30 a.m. UK time when polls close in Ohio. No Republican candidate has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. If Obama wins here, and polls show him ahead, then that will be a strong indication he is going to have a very good night. Remember that if John Kerry had won Ohio in 2004 he would be president.

Then comes 1 a.m. UK time and the polls closing in Pennsylvania. McCain has staked his entire campaign on winning this state which has not gone for a Republican candidate since 1988. Pennsylvania is the only Democratic state from 2004 that McCain is targetting in a semi-realistic fashion. If Obama wins here, then it will only be a matter of time until he is declared the victor.

I predict that the election will be called for Obama between 4 and 4:30 a.m. when the 77 electoral college votes from California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii are added to his column."

Election Talk: The Latest "State of the United States"

We're pleased to be partnered with a new blog, "The State of the United States", run by a student at King Edward's Five Ways School in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The latest post has a provocative warning both about media coverage and about any complacency over voting on Tuesday:

"Two days ago on the New York Times a report was made stating some people worrying about the election....The pessimism of the report could generate depression in the hearts of Americans, causing them to not bother voting. 'What’s the point?'"