Nov 1, 2008 Posted by Bob Keefe on Nov 1, 2008 in Politics | 0 comments

November 1, 2008

Washington, D.C.

Political Update

 

            There are just three days left in this marathon of an election.  The Presidential candidates are still in full flight… each hitting their target states in person and with loads of advertising and strong organization efforts.  The national polls give everybody a little something to talk about. 

 

            Barack Obama is working the fringes… Nevada, Missouri and Colorado today; Ohio tomorrow and Virginia on Monday with other stops “probableâ€.  John McCain worked Virginia today and will appear on Saturday Night Live from New York tonight; cover Pennsylvania and Ohio tomorrow, then have a travelogue on Monday, starting in Tampa, Florida then stopping in Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada, before setting down in his home state of Arizona.

 

            And then the campaign will be over, and the voters will take over. 

 

            Interest in this election surpasses any that I have ever seen.  New registrations have expanded the electorate to record numbers in almost every state.  Early voting has been furious.  To date, an estimated 30 million voters have cast their ballots.  Of 23,298,564 total in-person and mail-in ballots in the 25 states who are publicly reporting, at least 6,057,527 — or 26 percent — were cast by Democrats or Republicans, according to election officials; 57.8 percent were Democrats; 42.2 percent were Republicans.

 

            It looks like a Democratic year.  Barack Obama is poised for victory on Tuesday.  He has significant leads in states totaling over three hundred electoral votes; 270 being the number required to win.  He appears to be leading a Democratic sweep that will install a strongly Democratic Congress and carrying along many local and state officials down the ballot.  Here is the summary with the polls opening in less than 72 hours.

 

The Presidential Race

                                    Obama             McCain           Spread 

National Average        50.2%              43.7 %             Obama +6.5%

Favorable Ratings       +19.6               +8.0                 Obama +11.6

Electoral College         311                  132                  Obama +179

EC (No toss-ups)        353                  185                  Obama  +168

Battleground States

            Ohio                49.2                 43.6                 Obama  +5.6

            Virginia           51.0                 45.0                 Obama  +6.0

            Colorado         51.5                 45.3                 Obama  +6.2

            Florida             50.0                 45.3                 Obama  +4.7

Missouri          47.9                 48.3                 McCain +0.6

North Carolina48.3                 47.0                 Obama  +1.3

Nevada            50.5                 44.0                 Obama  +6.5

 

The Congress

            The big question in the Congressional and Senate Races is “how many?â€Â  The Democratic tide is coming in and will likely boost the House Democratic Caucus up to the 250 level, or more – enough that a few more or a few less will not make much difference in the control of the body.  It will be solidly Democratic and somewhat left of what it was this year.  House Democrats maintain a solid lead in the generic question of who poll respondents will vote for… It is almost a ten percent lead today.

 

            There will be more Democrats in the Senate next year, and how many is really important.  In the Senate, the numbers mean a great deal.  The key number is 60, the number of Senate votes required to shut off debate and prevent the opposition from keeping legislation coming to a vote.  There are eleven Republican seats under heavy fire… The Democrats would need to win nine of them to reach the magic number.

 

            That goal is still possible, but certainly no sure thing.  The Democrats now seem sure to win seats in Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia.  The guilty verdict in the Washington trial of Senator Ted Stevens on Tuesday moved that race quickly.  He is now down ten points after being tied last week.   So we can add Alaska to the sure thing column.

 

            In North Carolina, Libby Dole seems to be sinking… partly on the basis of an ad she ran that was deemed by all parties ad over the top… accusing her Sunday School Teacher opponent, Kay Hagan, of being “Godless.â€Â  Oregon’s Gordon Smith has not improved and is a likely loser.  A couple of Republicans have shown signs of recovery…  Mitch McConnell in  Kentucky has opened a five point lead and Saxbe Chamblis has crept up a point or two.  Minnesota is really a horserace.  I have seen four polls taken in the last two days and both Coleman and Franken lead in two of them. 

 

            Almost all of these races could be influenced by a massive turn out for Obama.  His organization is really super and it is working hard to attract new and reticent voters.  If it meets its potential, it could add two or three senate seats to the Democratic total. 

 

            If I had to pick a number for the Democrats, I would say seven new seats.   That is, strangely enough, a conservative speculation.  It could go higher.

 

A Game Changing Campaign

                         

            Politics will never be the same.  The 2008 campaign changed the way the game is played… it used new technologies in innovative ways to communicate, to organize and to raise money.  And the results have been amazingly successful. 

 

            The Internet has become a principal tool of politics.  All told, it is likely that more than one billion dollars will have been raised by presidential candidates this year through internet contributions.  The Obama team got off to a great start and never stopped.  They just kept getting better.  Hillary Clinton did not focus on internet contributions early on, but got started late and reaped great benefits.  This summer, after he had lined up the nomination, John McCain had great success on the net. 

 

            The internet made possible these huge sums of money available to the campaigns.  The Federal Funding program that was supposed to limit spending is no longer operable.  Few candidates opted for the funding program in the primaries and John McCain is paying the price for opting for it in the Fall… being outspent by Obama and the internet.

 

            But as powerful as the internet has been in fund raising, the innovative uses made by the campaigns to develop communities of supporters, to arrange meetings and schedule events, to locate potential voters and communicate with them, has been equally important.  It will be no accident when this year’s turn out sets records.  The campaigns have harnessed the power of technology to get people to the polls. 

 

Do Vice Presidential Candidates Matter?

 

            As the summer wore on, the discussion of vice presidential candidates became the number one gossip topic in the political world.  The short lists of potential candidates were discussed widely… even though the candidates never really allowed who might have really been on them.  The questions of what each candidate would want or need from his choice were widely reckoned. The issue took on monumental proportions and the fate of the election was seen to be on the choice.

 

            For Obama, did he need someone with foreign policy and national security experience?  Did he need to pick a woman to compensate for Hillary’s demise.  And John McCain, who would be the eldest new president in our history… would he need a young, vital person with experience that would exude readiness to perform as President – or would he have to accommodate parts of his party that were just lukewarm to him. 

 

            Obama took his foreign policy specialist.  McCain took a charismatic link to the conservatives in his party.  Now, eight weeks into their run, Joe Biden is off working small markets with heavy doses of industrial workers.  Sarah Palin has charmed the sox off the right wing of her party and turned off most of the rest of the electorate. 

 

            The economic melt down submerged the rationale for Biden’s choice.  Now, “It is the economy, stupid!†as the Clinton war room sign said.  And Joe’s performances have been less than stellar since his hot convention show.  Governor Palin warmed the hearts of the right wing of his party, but her inexperience and lack of skills with the big issues has made her a real drag on the ticket.  It reflected on McCain’s judgment and undercut his insistence that experience counts in a Chief Executive. 

 

            Fascinating, isn’t it.  For the campaign, the VP choice can have peculiar results.

           

Schedule

Tuesday, November 4 – Election Day

Monday, December 15 – Electors meet in their state capitals to select President

Quadrennial Election Contest

            It is time for you to play expert!  Name the next president of the United States and his correct Electoral Vote count and win Keefe’s Pick the Winner Contest!  Entries must be emailed, mailed, or faxed to Bob Keefe and must be received before 12:00 noon Greenwich time on November 4, 2008.  Use the form attached below or to hit the link to my blog site, www.bobkeefedc.com, and use the convenient entry form that is located in the right hand column of the home page.  The entry that correctly identifies the winner of the election and has the closest number of electoral votes he receives will be the winner and get the grand prize – a ticket to the Inaugural Ball on January 20, 2009.  - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

First Name______________________Last Name________________________

Address__­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­______________________Email__________________________

The winner of the 2008 Presidential Election will be______________.

He will receive ________________ Electoral Votes.

Tie Breaker!!  The number of Democrats elected to the House of Representatives for the 111th Congress will be __________.

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Meanwhile, In Iraq

 

            Lest we forget, Americans keep dying and keep being injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.   The official count as of October 15, 2008, of the dead in Iraq since our involvement began on March 23, 2003 is 4,189.  There have been 625 Americans killed in Afghanistan since that war was begun in 2001. The Department of Defense says that more than 35,000 American service personnel have been wounded in these two theaters. The casualty rate in Afghanistan last month surpassed that of Iraq for the first time.  There were thirteen Americans killed in Iraq – the lowest of any month in the war; nineteen in Afghanistan.

 

            This week, General David Petraeus took over as head of US Central Command – the headquarters of US operations in the Middle-East and large parts of the world.  He is now responsible for both Iraq and Afghanistan.  We must hope that he will be able to calm the Afghan situation in the manner that he was able to use his surge strategy to reduce the violence in Iraq. 

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Robert J. Keefe

Principal – Meridian Strategies, LLC

1920 L Street, NW, Suite 410 – Washington, D. C. 20036

Telephone: 202 223-8839 – Cell: 202 255-8161 – E mail: rkeefe@verizon.net

Past issues of Political Update available at www.bobkeefedc.com