This is the eighth installment of my weekly series on the 2008 Presidential campaign. The purpose of this column is to recap the prior week’s events and provide some observations and suggestions for the Obama campaign to ensure victory in November.
I. The Powell Doctrine v2 - overwhelming political force? You betcha!
Last week (10/19-10/26) was considered to be McCain’s best opportunity to pick up some ground in the Presidential race. He had a base now urgently motivated by fear and disgust that they might lose an election to a black liberal who (in their view) fit the stereotype of the image they had used to win Presidential elections in past years. He had discovered Joe the Plumber. He discovered that Obama was a 'socialist'. He had Mason-Dixon, Fox-Rasmussen, AP, and Strategic Vision polls to skew samples to show that he had a fighting chance, if not an outright lead, in key battlegrounds like Ohio and Florida. So what happened? Obama’s adaptation of the Powell doctrine to politics is what happened (given Powell’s poor track record on Somalia and Iraq, it is probably better suited to politics than war).
The resounding endorsement of Obama by Colin Powell on Meet the Press (10-19), which was as much a condemnation of the Republican Party as it was a laudatory statement of Obama’s qualities, seemed to further ignite momentum in the race towards Obama. Obama also seemed to experience a late post-debate bounce, which had initially been delayed because of Joe the Plumber.
Although a few polls showed a tightening race in Florida and Ohio, that impression was soon eviscerated by a series of Ohio polls (6) showing Obama with clear leads, including 3 with double digit margins. In Florida, the margins were narrower, but still showed leads of +5 (Quinnipiac) and +7 (St. Pete/Miami Herald) and Obama at around 49%, just 2-3 points off his national average. Indiana also shifted in Obama’s favor with 3 polls showing him with a lead of 2, 4, and 9 respectively. Obama’s average in the national polling went up about 2.5 points from around 6 points to 8.7 (pollster.com). State polls further showed massive double digit leads for Obama across other Midwestern states and Colorado. Obama’s fundraising advantage also continued to pay dividends as he continued to overwhelm McCain on ad spending in every key state to such an extent that people began to wonder if there was any available ad time for McCain to purchase even if he had the money to do so. In addition, Democrats appeared to be taking full advantage of early voting to lock in votes and commentators have suggested that Obama is drawing votes in GOP counties as well as Democratic strongholds. The early vote totals in Ohio and Florida alone point to a formidable position in the vote tally in favor of Obama.
In addition to these factors, Obama continued to campaign aggressively, alerting voters to the importance of voting early, not taking anything for granted and imbuing people with energy and optimism. Obama held a series of rallies in battleground states with early voting. To start the week, he spent Monday in Florida with large rallies in Tampa and a joint rally in Orlando with Hillary Clinton that drew around 50,000 people. On Tuesday, he remained in Florida, holding a fascinating economic round table with the CEO of Google and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and several Democratic governors and a large rally in Miami. The Lakeland, FL meeting was noteworthy for being unconventional this late in the campaign, but also showed that Obama is on top of the issues and seems to have an excellent relationship with Volcker. That meeting served to focus the country even more on the notion that Obama will hit the ground running when it comes to addressing the key public policy issues of the day.
On Wednesday, Obama traveled to Virginia, and again showed tremendous confidence by going to areas of the state where the GOP is generally strong – the Richmond Area and Loudon County. His stump speech had been slightly revised to include a firm rebuttal of McCain’s demagogic claim that Obama is somehow a ‘socialist’ and also appealed for national unity, including the ‘not red, not blue, but usa’ line that best defines his meteoric rise as a national political figure.
Obama’s standard stump speech template, which he first unveiled in New Hampshire following 9/11 has continued to serve him well. He has been able to maintain the essential narrative of the speech while adding and subtracting paragraphs to address the changes in the news cycles. It has been a very effective platform for Obama to rebut the often irresolute McCain campaign, which vaults from charge to charge with ever growing incongruence.
During the week, it was revealed that Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham had broken her hip and was gravely ill. The campaign announced that Obama would take a full day and a half off the trail to travel to Hawaii to be with her. Though some thought the time off the trail would hurt Obama, polls show no indication of that happening. Moreover, discussion of the issue seemed to humanize Obama more as his sincere reaction served in sharp contrast to frame painted by the McCain campaign.
Before leaving for Hawaii, Obama had one of his best rallies, in Indianapolis, before 35,000 mid-day in the middle of the work week. The size of the crowd and the enthusiasm seemed to stun observers and give more validation to the notion that Obama is in fact ahead in the race for Indiana’s 11 electoral votes.
After spending a day in Hawaii, Obama hit the campaign trail in the west without missing a beat. He held enthusiastic, large rallies in Reno, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, with the crowds growing each time (11,000 in Reno; 18,000 in Las Vegas; 45,000 in Albuquerque; and a whopping 100,000 in Denver). In contrast, McCain drew 1,200 in Denver and another 1,200 in Albuquerque. Though crowd size is not an indicator of actual support, it does signify energy and enthusiasm. By that measure, the Obama campaign has energy and the McCain campaign does not.
The only somewhat discordant note from a campaigning perspective was Joe Biden’s rather ill-advised improvisation at a fundraiser (why do candidates make their stupidest comments at closed-door fundraisers?!!) sketching out a scenario whereby America’s enemies would test the new President but Obama would be ready. The wording was awkward, overly alarmist and allowed the McCain campaign to try to shift the debate onto abstract national security issues. Obama cleaned up Biden’s mess at a press conference in Virginia and Biden was banned from speaking to reporters for a few days. Biden redeemed himself by handling a right wing hack job interview by a reporter on an Orlando TV station with aplomb, surprise and some indignation.
Obama continued to lead in endorsements among media publications and with notable party flippers like former Gov. Arnie Carlson of Minnesota, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, and even the current general counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign. Each new endorsement added one more barrier to McCain getting his message out, and served to run out the clock on the week.
II. The McCain-Palin campaign
John McCain’s schedule included a mixture of small rallies with seemingly dwindling crowds in blue battleground states and red battleground states. He spent time in Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico and Iowa. McCain continued to puzzle people with his itinerary. Polls have showed McCain behind by wide margins in Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, yet he insisted on campaigning in those states.
Fatigue also seemed to weigh heavily on McCain as he was frequently incoherent and failed to deliver attack lines crisply. He completely flubbed a line intended to criticize comments made by John Murtha about ‘racists in western Pennsylvania’, and it made the highlight reel of a lot of political shows. McCain continued to talk about Joe the Plumber and extended the analogy to more people and professions at each campaign stop. He consistently attacked Obama for his ‘spread the wealth’ comment and claimed that Obama wants to redistribute wealth (harkening back to the Cold War era days of anti-socialist demagoguery). Although providing McCain with a consistent theme, it did not seem to match the reality of economic anxiety facing the nation, and that could explain why the crowds aren’t turning up. In general, McCain was overwhelmed by Obama’s advertising, crowds and endorsements. With 9 days to go, McCain is running out of money, targets and time.
Sarah Palin added more spice to the week’s news. She got into some trouble for the revelation that the RNC paid over $150,000 for her wardrobe and that McCain’s highest paid campaign staffer in October was her stylist. The media jumped on the issue, highlighting the fact that she sounded a bit hypocritical for her seemingly elitist tastes while denouncing elitist culture. It was also revealed that she had used out of state trips as junkets for her family, charging the state for travel and other expenses for her dependents. In addition, an AP review of her ‘oil pipeline’ project indicated more of the cronyism that has become commonplace in the Bush Administration. Palin was also forced to testify under oath in a deposition in a second troopergate inquiry that she started as a parallel investigation to avoid scrutiny by the Alaskan legislature. She thought her appointed prosecutor would do her bidding and stonewall and delay then inquiry until after the election. It backfired.
In spite of the controversies, Palin was undaunted, and as inflammatory as ever. She accused Obama of imposing a socialist and even communist agenda upon the country. She still did not seem to understand the job description of the Vice President and quite frighteningly continued to claim that the VP could impose its will on the Senate if necessary. Reports from CNN and other sources indicated dissension between McCain and Palin, with Palin refusing to be controlled by McCain aide and is essentially going solo, preparing herself for a 2012 campaign for the presidency (does she not think that other, more credible conservative candidates won’t be ready to deal with her?).
There was also the strange incident reported out of western Pennsylvania where a McCain campaign worker was allegedly beaten by an African American Obama supporter who then wrote the letter "B" on her face (to stand for Barack). After police investigated the matter, the woman recanted. The McCain campaign, the Drudge Report and Fox News all pushed this hoax story to reporters, with the aim of injecting race into the campaign by playing on the inflammatory theme of black men committing crimes against white women. The McCain campaign’s role in the event made it to the national news, and the McCain campaign had to back away from the story, though Fox News continued to ‘report’ on it on Sunday.
III. Analysis
We are now in the final full week of the campaign. McCain was clearly outclassed in the previous week and that has caused many in the GOP, officially and unofficially, to write-off his chances to win. He is nearly out of money, has few targets and there is little time left. However, Obama is not taking any chances and is pressing the advantage in red states and on the air waves. Obama intends to further dominate the news cycles and airwaves with large rallies, a campaign appearance in Florida with Bill Clinton, and a half hour prime time segment. He will be traveling to Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida to start the week. It is not clear where Obama will finish the final week, but I would guess that Missouri and Indiana are probably on the list as well as trips to the aforementioned states.
Obama seems to have succeeded in avoiding a feeling of complacency among supporters. The large, enthusiastic crowds and the spirited speeches are allowing everyone to feel like they have a stake in the outcome. Democrats and other Obama supporters want to be a part of this extraordinary and likely, historic, election. Voting isn’t a chore to people unlike previous elections. Early voting numbers reflect this energy and there is every reason to believe that Democrats and other supporters will come out in full force through election day, forcing McCain to focus on getting his voters to the polls rather than figuring out how to stymie Democrats from casting their votes.
Obama’s objective is to stay consistent, on message, upbeat, and confident. He has to continue to energize people to vote (though after seeing 100,000 + in Denver that challenge doesn’t look as daunting). Equally important, the campaign has to avoid mistakes and distractions (that goes for you too Joe B!) and keep chewing up the news cycles until we get to the final weekend, at which point the focus will be less on stump speeches and news cycles but rather on getting out the vote. Obama appears to be fine tuning a closing argument to state that McCain has not showed he is substantively different from Bush and he is the one candidate that offers real change. It is a message that is simple, clear and gives assurances to the fence sitters.
Tracking polling this week might show a slight narrowing of the margin as pollsters try to allocate the undecided according to the traditional 2:1 model against the front runner. That might cause an overall narrowing of Obama’s lead by about 2 points to a 6 point range, instead of the current lead of 8 points. It may cause some people to panic, but the tightening won’t likely make any difference in the end result. The truth is with Obama banking early vote numbers, national polling is less relevant. More importantly, the state polls all show Obama with strong leads in the battlegrounds and blue states. Zogby is currently playing this ‘tightening’ narrative.
There are relatively few undecided when compared against Obama’s consistent polling in the 50% range. The average undecided in these polls is around 5%. Of that 5%, the third party candidates are likely to take 1% leaving the other 4% to the candidates. Though conventional wisdom would say that the underdog would get 2/3rds of the vote and the front runner 1/3rd, that would only reduce Obama’s margin by about 2 points and result in a 6-7 point victory. However, I do not believe that Obama is likely to lose the undecided vote by such a margin. He has made a good pitch to those voters while McCain is simply trying to make Republicans a higher proportion of the electorate by turning them out. Obama, for his part, is trying to get as many first time and infrequent voters to the polls, which would overwhelm the undecided. In short, I think Obama’s popular vote margin will not be much different than it is now, about 8 points.
On the state level, things are looking very solid for Obama. His pollster.com average in every state became more favorable last week, and the trend does not appear to be slowing. He leads everywhere and the only states that appear to be truly close are Indiana, North Carolina, Missouri and Florida, yet Obama leads in each. Each week shows a new group of states coming into play, and this past week Indiana, North Dakota and Montana all had polls showing Obama with a lead (Indiana being the strongest of the 3 for Obama). With R2K showing polls with Obama leading in double digits among early voters in GOP congressional districts in Florida and Nevada, and polling competitively overall, the evidence that Obama’s support is broad as well as deep is starting to accumulate. Commentators are starting to note the importance of African American turnout as possibly tipping the scales dramatically in Obama’s favor in several states (e.g., OH, NC, FL, GA). As Chuck Todd reports, African American turnout in some states is on the order of 95%-100% ad that is blowing apart the conventional wisdom as to how the results will look in each of these states.
The other thing that bodes well for Obama is that new economic data will be coming out showing that the GDP for the last quarter has been dismal. That will enable Obama to keep the focus on the economy and drown McCain’s message out.
In short, Obama won a critical week and is now in a position to close the deal by simply holding big, enthusiastic rallies, staying on message and avoiding mistakes or distractions. The people simply have to heed his message and vote.