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FRIDAY,  OCTOBER 31,  2008

IMPLIED THREATS

Posted at 8:09 p.m. ET

Threats in politics usually happen at the local level. Political machines, and local politics generally, can be very tough, very personal, very demanding.  But this year, to a degree greater than anything I've ever seen, we have intimidation at the national level.  I cannot claim that Barack Obama himself is sponsoring it or even condoning it, but I have yet to hear him speak out against the often-subtle, and not-so-subtle implied threats that surround his campaign.

Just in the last few months we've seen WGN in Chicago inundated with hostile calls because a program host dared interview a reporter digging into Obama's relationship with used-up terrorist Bill Ayers.  The calls were organized by pro-Obama forces.

We've seen a Florida anchorwoman trashed and humiliated because she dared ask some tough questions of Joe Biden.

Just today, reporters for papers that endorsed John McCain were thrown off the Obama aircraft.  At least the plane was on the ground at the time.

We're told that questions surrounding ACORN, that great "community" organization, are inherently racist.

Those aren't the worst things.  There's been an undercurrent of talk suggesting that there could be "trouble" if Obama loses.  We reported earlier today how borderline nutbag Erica Jong predicted a new civil war if The One doesn't make it to the White House.  Some have suggested that if McCain pulls it out, the African-American population will believe it had been cheated, and that violence could erupt.  Some commentators openly say that only racism could explain an Obama loss.

Some may shrug at these tactics, but I think they're far more serious than we'd prefer to think.  I've heard several voters say that they'll vote for Obama "to keep the peace," or some such phraseology.  There could be real fear in the voting booth, especially among those who believe their ballot isn't really secret.  Some voters may be apprehensive over foreign reaction, especially in African and Middle Eastern countries, if McCain wins.  After all, we don't want to show that we're a racist country, do we?

We've been told by the Obama side that John McCain and Sarah Palin practice "the politics of fear."  I haven't seen that.  I don't think discussing the threat of terrorism, or reviewing the choices of allies that Barack Obama has made over the years, are inappropriate in the least.  But the politics of fear is being practiced by forces loyal to Barack Obama.  The proof is this simple question:  Do you have any fear of "trouble" if John McCain loses the White House? 

Only one man can remove fear from this election, and that's Barack Obama.  So far, he's remained silent.  That may tell us more about his true political character than anything else he's done in his quest for the presidency.

October 31, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 4:02 P.M. ET:  Preliminary Dow close, up 167.

UPDATE AT 3:53 P.M. ET:  The IBD/TIPP tracker, which was the most accurate poll in 2004, has Obama up a bit over four points, 48.2-43.8.  There is absolutely no evidence, thus far, of any last-minute surge for McCain.  But note that Obama, in this poll, is still under 50 percent.

UPDATE AT 3:34 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 109.

UPDATE AT 2:52 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 196.

BULLETIN AT 1:32 P.M. ET:  The Gallup tracker, just released, has bad news for our side, I'm sorry to report.  Using its traditional model, Gallup has Obama up eight, a gain of three since yesterday.  Using Gallup's "expanded" model, Obama is up nine, a gain of two since yesterday.

COMMENT:  Caution.  This is indeed grim news, but the Gallup tracker tends to swing more wildly than some of the others.  However, the truth cannot be denied:  The polls thus far today do not show the needed shift toward McCain.  They may in fact be hinting at a swing in the other direction.  We still, though, have a weekend ahead of us.  And we don't know exactly who'll vote.     

UPDATE AT 12:59 P.M. ET:  The Dow is up 91.

UPDATE AT 12:48 P.M. ET:  Two new trackers are out.  Hotline has Obama up seven, 48-41, a gain of one since yesterday.  Battleground has him up four, 49-45, also a gain of one.  At least for now, the race is stable, with only four days until the election.

COMMENT:  Please note that Hotline and Battleground both have Obama at below 50 percent, Rasmussen has him at 51 and Zogby at 50.  If there is a last-minute, weekend surge for McCain, he could still squeeze this out.  And remember that Obama traditionally polls better than he delivers.

UPDATE AT 9:39 A.M. ET:  Rasmussen has Obama up four, 51-47, a loss of one.

MA JONG

Posted at 7:57 a.m. ET

I once sat next to this lady at a cultural event. I never want the pleasure again. 

Erica Jong, noted feminist writer, speaks once more.  And once more she's thoughtful, reasoned, moderate, and a pile of good fun:

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

I understand they were massing at Gettysburg this morning. 

"My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves."

Forget the starving children of Africa.  Help these wounded souls!  We're setting up a fund. 

"My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium."

Well, dearie, I assume you have your Medicare card...

"If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it's not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets."

"Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act."

In police states, Ms. Jong, they don't have elections.  Did you notice?

There are still people who take this woman seriously.

October 31, 2008.      Permalink          

CROWD SENSE

Posted at 7:20 a.m. ET

Fouad Ajami, writing in The Wall Street Journal, cautions against Barack Obama's capacity to appeal to crowds.  Ajami, who is Middle Eastern, knows about crowd appeal from his youth, and he applies his knowledge here:

There is something odd -- and dare I say novel -- in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.

Ajami quotes a theory of crowd appeal:

As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, "Crowds and Power" (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when "distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd."

I feel chilled already, and that's only the start.  But how does Obama appeal to these crowds?  What is his secret? 

The political genius of the man is that he is a blank slate. The devotees can project onto him what they wish. The coalition that has propelled his quest -- African-Americans and affluent white liberals -- has no economic coherence. But for the moment, there is the illusion of a common undertaking -- Canetti's feeling of equality within the crowd.

Somehow I think I've seen this movie before.  But the characters were always speaking foreign languages.

Ambiguity has been a powerful weapon of this gifted candidate: He has been different things to different people, and he was under no obligation to tell this coalition of a thousand discontents, and a thousand visions, the details of his political programs: redistribution for the poor, postracial absolution and "modernity" for the upper end of the scale.

And the working people?

It was no accident that the white working class was the last segment of the population to sign up for the Obama journey. Their hesitancy was not about race. They were men and women of practicality; they distrusted oratory, they could see through the falseness of the solidarity offered by this campaign. They did not have much, but believed in the legitimacy of what little they had acquired. They valued work and its rewards.

What strange concepts.  Are they still allowed?

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late Democratic senator from New York, once set the difference between American capitalism and the older European version by observing that America was the party of liberty, whereas Europe was the party of equality. Just in the nick of time for the Obama candidacy, the American faith in liberty began to crack. The preachers of America's decline in the global pecking order had added to the panic. Our best days were behind us, the declinists prophesied. The sun was setting on our imperium, and rising in other lands.

A younger man, "cool" and collected, carrying within his own biography the strands of the world beyond America's shores, was put forth as a herald of the change upon us. The crowd would risk the experiment. There was grudge and a desire for retribution in the crowd to begin with.

Why am I not looking forward to the age of Obama?  Can you guess?

Save in times of national peril, Americans have been sober, really minimalist, in what they expected out of national elections, out of politics itself. The outcomes that mattered were decided in the push and pull of daily life, by the inventors and the entrepreneurs, and the captains of industry and finance...

...that American sobriety and skepticism about politics -- and leaders -- set this republic apart from political cultures that saw redemption lurking around every corner.

In other words, we never exactly dug the cult of personality...until now.

My boyhood, and the Arab political culture I have been chronicling for well over three decades, are anchored in the Arab world. And the tragedy of Arab political culture has been the unending expectation of the crowd -- the street, we call it -- in the redeemer who will put an end to the decline, who will restore faded splendor and greatness.

And America?

America is a different land, for me exceptional in all the ways that matter. In recent days, those vast Obama crowds, though, have recalled for me the politics of charisma that wrecked Arab and Muslim societies. A leader does not have to say much, or be much. The crowd is left to its most powerful possession -- its imagination...

...The morning after the election, the disappointment will begin to settle upon the Obama crowd. Defeat -- by now unthinkable to the devotees -- will bring heartbreak. Victory will steadily deliver the sobering verdict that our troubles won't be solved by a leader's magic.

How much wiser Ajami is than the "pundits" and news analysts who've never thought carefully about the negative side of Obama's crowd appeal.  The TV pictures were too pretty, the young crowds too alluring. 

A week from today, the president-elect will be settling into his new routine.  Then the shock will set in - the realization that he must govern.  Will he govern wisely, or simply play, again, to the roar of the crowd?  On that may depend the fate of this nation.

October 31, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 6:30 A.M. ET:  Zogby, always the first tracker to be published, has Obama up seven, 50-43.  The seven-point spread is the same as yesterday's.  Please note, though, that Obama barely reaches the 50-percent mark. 

THURSDAY,  OCTOBER 30,  2008

A FAREWELL TO BAMS

Posted at 8:26 p.m. ET

From reader Ken Braithwaite:  Another feminist Democrat defects to McCain.  This time it's Wendy Button, former speechwriter for John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  She explains why she's doing it:

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”

Pretty strong stuff.  This doesn't sound like a one-time thing.

This drift started on a personal level with the fall of former Senator John Edwards. It got stronger during the Democratic National Convention when I counted the substantive mentions of poverty on one hand and a whole bunch of bad canned partisan lines against Senator John McCain. Some faith was lifted after Senator Hillary Clinton’s grace during a difficult hour. But that faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

And...

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

I wish she were our speechwriter.

That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties...

...But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?

Why haven't those who are "handling" Governor Palin made this case? 

Here we are discussing Governor Palin’s clothes—oh wait, now we’re on to the make-up—not what either man is going to do to save our economy. This isn’t an accident. It is part of a manufactured narrative that she is stupid.

And the sickest part of it is that the media - including women in the media - have joyously joined in. 

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

That is the kind of from-the-gut writing the McCain campaign has needed.  Can you imagine a speech like that?  Republicans must remember that the last Republican president who genuinely connected with the American people was called "the great communicator."  It wasn't for nothing.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that.

And you are saying it, Ms. Button.  I wish an army of people like you had been mobilized a bit earlier.

When people say how excited they are about this election, I can now say, “Maybe for you. But I lost my home.”

Many of us who started as Democrats began feeling that way years ago.

October 30, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 7:25 P.M. ET:  My sharp-eyed friend, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, alerts us to this, from Ken Timmerman at NewsMax:  A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.  Some of these “red flag” donors work for foreign governments; others have made public statements declaring that they are citizens of Cameroun, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, and other countries.

COMMENT:  The mainstream media isn't interested.  And sadly, the American people don't seem to care, probably because of the attitude of the media.  This is the way a system of law breaks down.

UPDATE AT 7:02 P.M. ET:  The Dow closed up 190.  Theoretically, good market closings should help McCain, as they, again theoretically, take attention away from bad economic news.  But we haven't seen that effect.

UPDATE AT 6:47 P.M. ET:  The IBD/TIPP poll, just out, has Obama up four, an increase of one since yesterday.  The Real Clear Politics average of polls, however, has Obama up 5.9 percent.  Obama's margin ranges from a low of three in the Fox and Battleground polls, and a high of 11 in the CBS News/NY Times poll. 

COMMENT:  Again, the polls diverge.  Some have Obama gaining slightly.  Others have McCain gaining a bit.  But there is, in general, a stability.  Of the ten polls currently posted at Real Clear Politics, six have him at 50 percent or over, which generally means election.  If, by election day, those numbers decline into the 40s, Obama will be in trouble.  But we don't see that happening yet. 

NOTE AT 1:26 P.M. ET:  Reader Bob Engler sends this, showing the importance of optimism: 

Rove writes: Only one time in the past 14 presidential elections has a candidate won the popular vote and the Electoral College after trailing in the Gallup Poll the week before the election: Ronald Reagan in 1980.
 
And you comment: Well, there was the Reagan exception. We can hope, can't we?
 
To which I add: The first time the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series was in 1980. The only time since then that they’ve won the WS was last night, so (and I say this with as much certainty as any of the public-opinion pollsters) Senator McCain is positioned right where he needs to be to save the country from a rapid descent into socialism.

I go along with Mr. Engler.
 

BULLETIN AT 1:19 P.M. ET:  Well, here's something to produce a cautious smile.  Fox News reports Obama up only three, 47-44.  They had him up nine last week.  As we said earlier, mcCain's chances depend on which poll you believe.  We hope this one has it right. 

UPDATE AT 1:14 P.M. ET:  Gallup has just reported its daily tracker.  Using its traditional model, Gallup has Obama up five, 50-45, a gain of two since yesterday.  Using its "expanded" model, Gallup has Obama up seven, 51-44, unchanged for three days.

COMMENT:  This isn't encouraging.  Both Obama numbers in the Gallup survey reach 50 percent, the magic figure.  Also, of four polls reporting today, three show gains for Obama of two points.  Only one, Hotline, shows a loss, and it's only a point.  Is the race closing?  It doesn't appear so.  But there are five more days of campaigning left.  Do not give up!  There could be a last-minute shift of undecideds toward McCain, and please remember that Obama has regularly failed to deliver on election day what he polls.

UPDATE AT 1:05 P.M. ET:  Dow is up 34.

UPDATE AT 12:56 P.M. ET:  New trackers just out:  Hotline has Obama up six, 48-42, a loss of one.  Battleground has him up three, 49-46, same as yesterday. The Real Clear Politics average of polls is at 6.3.

COMMENT:  McCain's chances depend on which poll you believe.  Both Zogby and Rasmussen, reported earlier, have Obama at more than 50 percent, which is clear winning territory.  But note that Battleground and Hotline have him at under 50, meaning half the country is rejecting him.  Chance for a McCain upset there, if undecideds flood McCain's way.

UPDATE AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  The Dow is up 220 at the opening.

UPDATE AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  Rusmussen has Obama with a five-point lead, 51-46, a gain of two from yesterday.  Both Zogby and Rasmussen have now reported gains for Obama. 

UPDATE AT 7:25 A.M. ET:  Dick Morris, in a New York Post piece today, goes out on a limb and claims the race has already tightened to a nailbiter level.

McCain has closed to a point where the race will likely be very, very close - and we'll have to stay up very, very late on Election Night.

All right, we'll hold Dick to that.  

ROVE ON POLLS

Posted at 7:14 a.m. ET

Karl Rove, with his vast knowledge of politics, cautions us on interpreting the polls, while conceding that McCain is in a tough place.

Some polls are sponsored by reputable news organizations, others by publicity-eager universities or polling firms on the make. None have the scientific precision we imagine.

But they sure affect our ability to have a nice day.

Polls can reveal underlying or emerging trends and help campaigns decide where to focus. The danger is that commentators use them to declare a race over before the votes are in. This can demoralize the underdog's supporters, depressing turnout. I know that from experience.

The experience:

On election night in 2000 Al Hunt -- then a columnist for this newspaper and a commentator on CNN -- was the first TV talking head to erroneously declare that Florida's polls had closed, when those in the Panhandle were open for another hour. Shortly before 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Judy Woodruff said: "A big call to make. CNN announces that we call Florida in the Al Gore column."

Mr. Hunt and Ms. Woodruff were not only wrong. What they did was harmful. We know, for example, that turnout in 2000 compared to 1996 improved more in states whose polls had closed by the time Ms. Woodruff all but declared the contest over. The data suggests that as many as 500,000 people in the Midwest and West didn't bother to vote after the networks indicated Florida cinched the race for Mr. Gore.

Woodruff, in particular, is a bitter liberal partisan, whose behavior on the air has sometimes been problematical.

Polls have proliferated this year in part because it is much easier for journalists to devote the limited space in their papers or on TV to the horse-race aspect of the election rather than its substance. And I admit, I've aided and abetted this process.

In the campaign's final week, though, the candidates can offer little new substance, so attention turns to the political landscape, and there's no question Mr. McCain is in a difficult place.

The last national poll that showed Mr. McCain ahead came out Sept. 25 and the 232 polls since then have all shown Mr. Obama leading. Only one time in the past 14 presidential elections has a candidate won the popular vote and the Electoral College after trailing in the Gallup Poll the week before the election: Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Well, there was the Reagan exception.  We can hope, can't we?  And remember the one before those 14 elections - Harry Truman in 1948.  He was all but written off by the "experts."

But the question that matters is the margin. If Mr. McCain is down by 3%, his task is doable, if difficult. If he's down by 9%, his task is essentially impossible. In truth, however, no one knows for sure what kind of polling deficit is insurmountable or even which poll is correct. All of us should act with the proper understanding that nothing is yet decided.

Yup.  Correct.

October 30, 2008.      Permalink          

DEFINE A REPUBLICAN

Posted at 7:03 a.m. ET

Mr. Obama announces his intentions regarding his cabinet:

SUNRISE, Florida (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would include Republicans in his Cabinet if he wins the election.

That's what I was afraid of.  It may sound "bipartisan" to say you want Republicans in your cabinet, but how do you define Republican?  It really depends on the issue.  My fear is that Obama, if elected, will name someone like Chuck Hagel to a key foreign-policy post.   In terms of his views, that's like naming George McGovern.

"I'm not going to get into details," Obama said, but he added that national security policy, in particular, should be nonpartisan.

Other people mentioned as possible defense secretary picks in an Obama administration include former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska.

Whoops.  There's the golden name.  Hagel.  Another name floated is Richard Lugar of Indiana.  Lugar, like Hagel is no Republican on foreign policy.  He's one of the Senate's great marshmallows, not someone you send into battle against foreign enemies.

Be careful of "bipartisanship."  Some of the bi's were never Republican partisans.

Some analysts have speculated that during the transition period between November 4 and January 20, when a successor to President George W. Bush will take office, the new president-elect would move quickly to fill key jobs such as Treasury Secretary, Defense Secretary and Secretary of State. 

That will be the first test of the media in covering an Obama presidency.  If Obama names RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), will the media call him on it, or praise his willingness to "cross the aisle" to get talent. 

Also, be wary of the pick for attorney general.  He or she will be a key figure in deciding whether to continue investigations already begun into ACORN, and whether to resist leftist demands to conduct endless probes into the Bush administration.

Let's hope there's an upset next Tuesday, and we don't have to worry about this.

October 30, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 6 :34 A.M. ET:   Some discouragement.  Zogby has Obama up seven this morning, a gain of three points in two days.  The trend, in Zogby's estimation, is going against McCain, not for him.

COMMENT:  It's Zogby.  His results have been all over the place.  We'll wait for the other trackers to publish later today.