Another Campaign Enters the Gutter

A few weeks ago John McCain and Barack Obama were promising to engage on the issues and avoid nasty personal attacks. What's more, for the most part that's just what they were doing, too. But now we find the discourse following the downward spiral of so many modern campaigns. Why is it back to the gutter?

Well, it's because McCain really has nothing else to talk about. He needed to change the subject because, as the Gallup Poll showed, none of the issues were breaking to his advantage. For McCain to win, the campaign had to be about something besides the issues. Thus the decision to go negative and get personal.

Back in June, Gallup asked Americans, "If you had to choose, who do you think would do a better job on (a list of eight issues, asked one at a time), Barack Obama or John McCain?" The names of the candidates were rotated for each question. People were also asked to tell how important each issue would be in determining their vote.

The top issue was "Energy, including gas prices." People trusted Obama 47%-28%. Number two was "The Economy." Obama was preferred 48-32. Number three was "Iraq." The people's choice was split on Iraq, 43-43. Number four was "Healthcare," where Obama led 51-26. Number five was "Terrorism," McCain's only significant lead at 52-33. Sixth came "Taxes," and Obama was more trusted by 44-35. Seventh was "Moral values." Obama led 40-39. Eighth was "Illegal immigration," on which McCain had the edge by 36-34.

As you can see, terrorism was the only issue on which Americans trusted McCain enough more than Obama to give him any real advantage. And there has really been very little newsworthy mention of terrorism lately, explaining why it was ranked only fifth in importance to people. McCain tried to make some headway on Iraq, but then Obama went abroad. McCain argued he had been right about the surge. Obama said he had been right about not invading in the first place. The backward-facing nature of the argument failed to address what the American people needed to know, namely, what we should do from this point forward. Then Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq and President Bush took the wind out of McCain's sails by talking about "timelines" and "time horizons" for ending the U.S. involvement, in effect endorsing Obama's position and rendering McCain's moot. That was what the American people wanted to hear anyway. A majority agree the surge has improved the situation but a much bigger majority feels it is time to withdraw.

The only other issues that were close were Immigration and Moral Values, and on these McCain's record is not a particularly pleasing one to the Republican base. To emphasize them might cause him as much harm as good.

That left as McCain's last card his vast advantage in experience over Obama. But of course to emphasize that is also to contrast the youthful and vibrant Obama with the aging McCain. That approach formed the basis of Hillary Clinton's "Ready On Day One" campaign against Obama and didn't work out too well for her. So the question became how to take advantage of McCain's experience without drawing attention to his age. The only remaining way was by creating fear about Obama in comparison.

The Republican "brand" has been seriously discredited in the voter's minds, the voters prefer Obama's positions, and McCain is constrained from taking advantage of the experience gap because he happens to be nearing 72 years of age. The only remaining likely path is to rip Obama and try to bring him down to size. McCain had a decision to make, and he made the logical choice that gives him the best chance at victory. In the process he had to overcome any qualms he may have had about abandoning his earlier promise on how he would conduct the campaign. It was simply more important to him to have a chance to be President than to keep his word. And that's why we're back in the gutter.

Democrats Likely to Gain 5-7 in Senate

Fresh off their gain of 6 Senate seats in the 2006 election to give them a majority of 51, Democrats appear poised to add another 5 to 7 this year. There is even an outside chance of their picking up the 9 seats they need to get to 60. 60 votes in the Senate would enable them to overcome Republican filibusters, a tactic the GOP has used a record number of times this session.

The overall anti-Republican mood of the country is causing problems for several Republicans. Making things harder for the GOP, 6 Republican incumbents are not running for re-election. Here's a rundown of the situation.

There are 12 Democratic-held Senate seats in play this year, and the incumbents are running in all of them. 11 of these seem to be very safe bets for re-election. The only close race is in Louisiana, where Mary Landrieu is facing a stiff challenge from John Kennedy (no relation to the Democratic Kennedys.) The loss of nearly 200,000 Democratic voters who left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and never returned makes things tough for Landrieu. Even so, recent surveys show her leading Kennedy by about 48-42. The Democrats themselves were giving this seat up as lost earlier this year, but the continued bad economy is dragging down the Republican emblem. Expect Landrieu to prevail.

Thanks to a very successful 2002 election, the Republicans have 21 seats to defend this time around. 10 seats look quite safe, but 5 seem lost for sure, 2 are tossups and 4 others might also be vulnerable. The five that seem ripe for Democratic plucking are Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia.

In Alaska, longtime Republican Ted Stevens was indicted yesterday on corruption charges. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, his Democratic challenger, was already up by as many as 9 points in recent pollling, and Barack Obama is making a strong effort in the state that should boost turnout for Begich.

Colorado is a state that has been trending Democratic of late. Democrat Mark Udall leads Republican Bob Schaffer by 9 in a race where the Republican incumbent decided not to run. Colorado is another major Obama target, which should increase Udall's chances even more.

In New Hampshire, former Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen has a 51-41 lead over incumbent Republican Senator John Sununu. Sununu's consistent support for the war in a state that doesn't like it is the principal cause of his problems.

Tom Udall, Mark's brother, has a 25-point polling lead over Republican Steve Pearce in New Mexico, a state where the Republican incumbent is retiring. New Mexico is trending Democratic with a large Hispanic vote, and is also a prime target for the Obama campaign. This one should be a real blowout.

Virginia is another state whose Republican incumbent is retiring. In a duel of former governors, Mark Warner has a huge lead over Jim Gilmore, whose campaign has been a train wreck. Virginia is also seen as a crucial Presidential swing state, and the Obama campaign is going all out to win it. Democratic Governor Tim Kane is said to be on Obama's short list for Vice President. Warner should swamp Gilmore.

Oregon and Mississippi have races too close to call. In Oregon Jeff Merkley is challenging Republican incumbent Gordon Brown. Merkley looks to be gathering momentum in a strong antiwar state. Polls in June showed Brown with a 9-point lead, but recent late-July samplings have Merkley pulling ahead. I'd be surprised if Brown can reverse this tide in a fairly liberal state.

Roger Wicker is running neck and neck with Democrat Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi, of all places. Wicker was appointed to the seat when the former Republican incumbent retired in mid term. The average of July surveys have Wicker ahead only 46-45. A Democratic win here would be rather a surprise, though the large African-American vote in Mississippi could mean the difference. If it turns out in unusually high numbers, as it well might with Obama heading the ticket, it could be enough to carry Musgrove over the top.

Four other Republican seats show the GOP ahead but by less than comfortable margins. Idaho's Jim Risch leads Democrat Larry LaRocco 42-32 in a somewhat dated poll. That's a big undecided total of 26%. Risch is trying to hold onto the seat being vacated by the scandal-plagued Larry Craig.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is locked in a tough battle with Democratic opponent Bruce Lunsford, leading him only 49-43. McConnell's unwavering support for the entire Bush agenda is wearing thin in this economically distressed state. The need to commit resources to McConnell may leave other Republicans in tough straits versus a Democratic Senate effort that has a 3-2 money advantage this year.

In Maine, incumbent Republican Susan Collins leads Tom Allen 49-42 and in Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman is ahead of Democrat Al Franken 48-41. These are both states that are expected to go heavily for Obama in November, so 7-point leads cannot be viewed complacently by the incumbents.

It is still too early to know for sure, but the handicapping at this stage would give the Democrats a net pickup of 7 seats and a resulting Senate split of 58-42 in their favor. That's my best estimate for now; I'll be sure to revisit this for you in weeks ahead.

McCain Goes Negative

"I intend to run a clean campaign. That's what the country wants and deserves." John McCain

That was then. This is now. Last week McCain began repeating the refrain, "Senator Obama would rather lose a war if it helps him win a political campaign." Today he released commercials saying, "Obama went to the gym instead of visiting the troops," and offering the explanation, "Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras."

With 100 days to go until the election, McCain has already abandoned his clean campaign pledge and resorted to smear and innuendo. Why is he taking his tactics from the Nixon and Rove playbooks all of a sudden? Well, as reported here on July 5, at the beginning of this month the McCain campaign underwent a major shakeup that placed a number of former Rove operatives in charge of his effort. It took them three weeks to craft a plan and now it is unfolding.

Events have not been kind to McCain of late and there is also some sense of desperation in this lashing out. Obama's successful foreign trip contrasts sharply with McCain's lackluster one to Latin America. McCain's characterization of the downturn as "psychological" and his advisor Phil Gramm's dismissal of its victims as "whiners" did not score well on the empathy scale. Even the Bush administration contributed by negotiating with Korea and Iran and accepting the idea of a time "horizon" for getting out of Iraq, whose Prime Minister endorsed Obama's withdrawal schedule.

McCain has not been able to stay on message or take the initiative, so it was considered "time" to go negative. But you can tell this was foreseen by the decision to hire Rove's hatchet squad in the first place. It's simply how they run things. The charges themselves are outrageous. The first is an allegation of treason, actually trying to lose a war. This goes well beyond saying he disagrees with Obama's plan, and actually posits active disloyalty. It is a despicable slur.

The second is full of a number of lies which must have been well known to the McCain campaign. McCain knows that the "gym" Obama went to was in Kuwait and was full of adoring troops who watched Obama shoot some hoops, address them and stay to talk with many one-on-one. The ad itself used a military photograph of Obama with the basketball but blurred the background so the television audience could not tell the gym was full of uniformed American service members who appeared jubilant to see Obama. Obama went to three hospitals recently without "cameras" to visit wounded soldiers. The military objecting to one planned meeting at the Landestuhl Hospital in Germany caused the campaign to cancel that one visit. The McCain ad then seized on that to spread the innuendo that Obama refuses as a general policy to respect and honor U.S. military service members. It is another invented smear of the kind Nixon in the more distant past and Rove in the nearer past have favored.

Negative campaigning is often effective. That is why it is being used. Part of Obama's appeal is to stand for a different kind of politics. The Obama campaign's initial response to the onset of the 2008 version of "swiftboating" was to remark it was unfortunate that McCain was abandoning his pledge to conduct a civil campaign. We should expect to see effective rebuttals from the Obama camp. They have been expecting this, had to deal with a fair amount of it in the primaries against the Clinton forces, and showed a strong ability to turn much of it against its users.

Still I do not think we have seen the last of this by a long shot. This kind of politics is the kind McCain's current team specializes in. It would be most welcome if, for the first time in quite a while, the American electorate were to turn its back on the tactics of slander and character assassination. The Democratic Primaries this year were a hopeful start. Let's hear what the candidates propose as solutions to the many problems the nation faces. I'd appreciate seeing the major networks, papers and news magazines make it clear when politicians engage in deceit to make scurrilous points. If that is how they act in order to gain power, how can we expect them to act once they have it?

Protecting America

Richard A. Clarke has written an important book about the state of America's national security. In Your Government Failed You, Clarke speaks from a world of experience about American strengths and weaknesses and offers a convincing set of essential reforms that must urgently be undertaken if we are to avoid more failures like 9/11 and Iraq. I have just finished the book and heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in security-related issues.

The 30-year veteran of Defense, State, Intelligence, the National Security Council and Counterterrorism covers a lot of ground in his volume. Among his recommendations are professionalization, accountability and clear lines of authority, human intelligence, cyberwarfare, options analysis, nuclear security, energy security and values. Clarke sees the "war on terrorism" as much more a law enforcement and diplomatic problem than a military one. Most of what we need to do militarily against terrorists can be done by special forces.

Professionalization: When the post 9/11 funding surge came through a number of abuses took place. Over 50% of the analysts in many defense and intelligence offices are employees of private contractors. They need to be phased out of the domestic and military services. Too many mid level managers are political appointees chosen for party loyalty or ideological purity rather than experience or even competence. A heavy price has been paid for the politicization of important posts like FEMA and the Embassy in Baghdad, for instance.

These people do not help; in fact they are in many cases an impediment. There needs to be a national security academy that recruits and trains according to need. It is beyond amazing that agencies like the FBI and NSA still, seven years later, have less than a dozen people fluent in Arabic, for example. We need a President who will inspire young people to public service, as Kennedy did, rather than denigrating and attempting to privatize it.

Accountability: Someone needs to be "in charge" of each important component. Who is the person responsible for getting Bin Laden? Who is the one official in charge of customs security or cyber security? There are no such individuals, and there need to be. If it is "everyone's" responsibility it is no one's. These "czars" must have authority to make different agencies work together, not battle over institutional turf.

Human Intelligence: This issue has received much publicity, and deservedly so. Pictures of buildings or trucks, as were shown at the U.N. to drum up support for invading Iraq, cannot tell you what is in them. That takes spies on the inside. Time and again he found the clandestine services reluctant to take on this type of job. That is what they are for, and has to change.

Cyberwarfare: Clarke reports on how vulnerable our industrial secrets, personal identities and defense system is to this. It needs to be a priority with, again, someone in charge. The work computer of Defense Secretary Gates, for instance, was penetrated. And wait until you read what shenanigans the Chinese are already pulling on this front.

Options Analysis: In previous years, policy makers were presented with a range of potential choices, each one of which came with assessments of the upsides and downsides of adopting them. This has been largely abandoned of late, and must be reinstated. The reason it has been abandoned, of course, is that the present Administration has generally known what it wants to do and has not wanted to hear or see anything other than its predetermined course of action. The results speak for themselves.

Nuclear Security: Terrorists do not pose an "existential threat" to America or the West-unless they get their hands on a stockpile of nuclear weapons. The remaining less-than-secure materials in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere have to be accounted for and locked down. There cannot be any further delay on this.

Energy Security: National security would be greatly enhanced by getting control of our own energy supply. The world is running out of oil, and the climate repercussions of its continued use create new security threats in themselves.

Values: America is most secure when it has reliable allies, and our allies are most reliable and numerous when we live up to the principles we espouse. There is no advantage to be gained from violating international law and the precepts of our own Constitution. They are the structure we ourselves have established domestically and have fostered globally. They are the principles we are defending and what set us apart from our adversaries.

I've only scratched the surface of this fascinating and timely book. Check it out for yourself. Oh, and one more thing. Barack Obama is said to have asked Mr. Clarke to advise him on national security matters.

California Budget Solution

Once again the state of California is without a budget, this time 25 days past its constitutionally mandated June 30 deadline. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to power vowing to "clean up the mess in Sacramento" and "fix the crazy budget" is once again resorting to gimmicks and stunts rather than addressing the chronic root of the problem. And it could all be fixed so easily.

The first thing Arnold did after assuming office in November, 2003 was to roll back the auto registration fee, depriving the state of $6 billion in annual revenue. Even though severe cuts were made and university and community college fees were increased, since then the state budget has faced deficits nearly every year. This year the Department of Finance projects a $15.2 billion shortfall on a $101 billion budget.

The state constitution requires a balanced budget without borrowing, which has been "achieved" every year by the sale of bonds, a loophole that does not technically have to be called borrowing, though it effectively is, and winds up costing more in the long run. Arnold's gimmick this year was to propose "securitizing," or borrowing against, future projected revenues from the state lottery, and/or privatizing the lottery, the sale of which would provide some immediate money up front. Such a plan passes the debt off over a period of years but does not address the structural problem that revenues and expenditures never balance anymore except in very good economic years.

The Democratic majority in the Legislature feel that there is very little fat left in the budget after years of cuts. They want to raise taxes. Assembly and Senate Republicans refuse to consent to any tax increases and will not propose sufficient spending cuts to close the gap themselves. The celebrity governor has resorted to a new stunt. He says he will order the 200,000 state employees to all be paid the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until there is a budget. The state treasurer says he will refuse the governor's order, since to reduce the workers' pay would entail breaking contracts and the state could be sued for back pay plus triple damages.

That is the current situation. You may be wondering why the Legislature doesn't just pass a budget and see if the governor will veto it. If so, then they could negotiate some compromises. The reason is because of problems in the state constitution and with redistricting. Constitutionally, California is one of the few states to require a 2/3 vote to pass a budget. There are 48 Democrats and 32 Republicans in the Assembly, and 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans in the Senate. It takes 54 votes to pass a budget in the Assembly and 27 in the Senate, so the Democrats need 6 Republicans to cross over in the Assembly and 2 in the Senate. Thus far none will. 60% support in both houses is not enough. One-third plus one can thwart the will of the heavy majority.

And of course, the reason no one on either side will budge is because all the districts in the Senate and all except one in the Assembly have been intentionally designed as safe seats for one party or the other. With only strong Democratic or Republican majorities to please in their constituencies no one is being pressured to compromise. Instead, all are rewarded politically for digging in their heels and being as stubbornly partisan as possible.

Two reforms are needed to break this impasse. The first is to allow the passage of a budget by simple majority, as practically every other state already does without calamity. There needs to be a new Proposition submitted to the voters to do this. The second is for the voters to pass Proposition 11 on this November's ballot, which would put redistricting into the hands of an independent commission rather than leaving it up to the legislators themselves. With these two reforms, the majority elected by the people could get its way and pass a budget. That is how a democracy is supposed to work. And with the districts more fairly and evenly drawn, that majority would be accountable. If the budget turned out to be a mess there would be a genuine opportunity for the people to give the other party the majority in the next election.

The annual budget charade and circus in California becomes increasingly tiresome, not to mention costly. These institutional changes would resolve the underlying dynamics that make the logjam all but inevitable every year. Perhaps this November will finally mark the beginning of solving the mess.

Supreme Court Gun Ruling

I've been asked to comment on the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. For the first time, the high court definitively clarified its Constitutional understanding of the Amendment, albeit in a narrow 5-4 decision split right down the middle of its customary conservative-liberal ideological divide. The short synopsis of the ruling is that individuals have an inalienable right to possess firearms, though reasonable regulations can be imposed on that right. Washington D.C.'s ban on gun ownership was ruled unconstitutional.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The crux of interpreting these 27 words has always hinged on the militia reference. Gun control proponents have stressed "a well regulated militia" in their arguments, holding that the right is a collective one pertaining to a state militia. Gun ownership proponents have minimized the militia reference and concentrated on "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" as definitive in itself in establishing an individual right.

The majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia last month comes down on the side of the latter, that individuals can own guns whether or not as part of a militia. Scalia wrote, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with a militia..." He qualified this some by continuing, "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapons whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." There can still be bans on automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns, and on carrying firearms into schools or government buildings. But his opinion did also overturn the D.C. requirements that guns at home must be disassembled and/or equipped with a trigger lock. (Some guns in the District were still legal, having been grandparented in when the ban was originally passed.)

Justice Stephen Breyer, in his dissent, said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas." The two views are characteristic of the long-running debate. By 5-4, Scalia's view is now the law of the land.

Some research into the intentions of the founders reveals a difference of opinion about the motives for the Amendment between Eighteenth Century Republicans and Federalists. Those of a Republican bent agreed with Thomas Jefferson's "Democratic-Republicans" that national government power should be kept weak so as not to become a threat to the people's liberties. To this end, James Madison, Noah Webster and Patrick Henry wrote and spoke in favor of the Second Amendment as a means to keep state militias well-armed against the possible encroachments of a national army and potential federal government tyranny.

On the other hand, Federalists, who favored a powerful national government and feared that democracy might degenerate into "mob rule," wanted a strong, well-armed militia handy to put down possible insurrections. Prominent Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams wrote and spoke for the Amendment for these reasons. What we therefore see is a convergence of interests between two viewpoints that happened to favor the same remedy for essentially opposite purposes, both connected to the "militia" concept. In popular usage and understanding, however, the Second Amendment has generally meant the right to personal gun ownership for personal reasons to the majority of Americans, and it is this view the Court has ratified.

Obama Trip A Disaster for McCain

Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. The old adage has seldom proved truer than for the McCain campaign over the past few days. After goading Barack Obama for weeks to visit Iraq, Obama did just that-a trip that has touched off a series of events that is changing the terms of the debate to Obama's advantage. At the same time, McCain has had a bad run of gaffes that have dealt a blow either to perceptions of his foreign policy mastery or perhaps his advancing years. McCain is fighting back with increasingly direct slams at his rival's credibility and even patriotism in an effort to regain traction.

McCain was first undercut by the Prime Minister of Iraq. As Obama was on his way to Afghanistan, his first stop, Iraqi President Nouri al-Mailki conducted an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel in which he spoke in favor of a withdrawal of US troops from his country by the end of 2010. His description sounded like it could have come straight out of an Obama speech.

"Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally leave Iraq?" Der Spiegel asked. "As soon as possible, as far as we're concerned. US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

"Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?" the magazine followed up. Maliki answered, "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it is the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: the tenure of the coalition troops should be limited."

This was followed by Maliki's Sunni Vice President Tarik al-Hashimi echoing the same sentiments, the Shiite Sadrist spokesman speaking even more vehemently about ending the "foreign occupation," and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown signalling a complete withdrawal of his nation's troops by July, 2009. Even the Bush administration, encountering resistance in its talks with Maliki to extend the US mandate, began speaking of its willingness to accept a "general time horizon." General Petraeus added, "For a long time we used to say, 'when is this sovereign government going to make some sovereign decisions?' "Well they have done that."

Overnight the whole tenor of the debate shifted. The question is no longer whether America will wind down its involvement, but when. This seems to have been lost on McCain, who struck back more forcefully than ever with the need to stay in Iraq until the job is done and we have achieved "victory." The news focus is mainly on Obama now, thanks to the international trip McCain challenged him to make, and McCain is lashing out harshly, saying, "I have shown the courage to say I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war, but Sen. Obama has shown that he would rather lose a war if it helps him win a campaign." That is one short step removed from literally calling Obama a traitor.

Scenes of Obama getting a tumultuous, cheering welcome from a gymnasium full of smiling American troops in Iraq as he drained a couple of three-pointers are also a monkey wrench in the gears of the conventional wisdom that holds it is the Republicans who have the loyalty of Armed Forces members. And McCain seemed to be merely trying to one-up Obama's plan to add two brigades to Afghanistan by following that with his own suggestion to add three. George W. Bush himself has contributed to McCain's discomfiture by sending an American emissary to discussions with Iran after he and McCain had earlier characterized Obama's willingness to do so as naive and appeasement. Obama's trip so far could not have come off better for him or worse for McCain.

The post script to the story is the increasing number of errors, misstatements of fact, and gaffes McCain is making about foreign affairs topics of late. It was opined before Obama's trip that he was the one likely to be damaged by slips of the tongue on international matters and look bad compared to the more experienced McCain. Instead it is McCain who seems to be in a hurry to hand more of his foreign policy lead over to his Democratic opponent.

On Monday McCain spoke of problems on the "Iraq-Pakistan border." The two nations share no border; it is assumed he meant the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He said we have returned to pre-surge force levels in Iraq when there are actually still 20,000 more there than before the surge, and he also said the Sunni "awakening" of tribes that turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq extremist groups was a result of the surge when in fact it was already underway before the surge had even been proposed. On June 30, talking about the Darfur region of Sudan, he asked, "How can we bring pressure on the government of Somalia?" He has also referred to the former Russian President as "President Putin of Germany," has at least three times mentioned Czechoslovakia, which was broken into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, and this spring kept confusing the rival branches of Islam, the Sunnis and Shiites. These errors are increasingly making McCain the butt of late-night television show jokes poking fun at his age, a subject that cannot be helping him in the least.

Breaking Our Oil Addiction

Developments in four countries are pointing the way toward energy independence using basic technologies already on the shelf. All the United States needs to achieve freedom from its addiction and vulnerability to foreign oil is the will to act. Dr. Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, points the way in an article titled "We Can Do It." You can go to this
reference for more on the source.

When the USA wants to act, it can. After the first oil embargoes of the 1970s President Jimmy Carter led the country to break its dependence on oil for electricity generation. Today only 2% of American eletricity comes from burning oil. We can do the same for our transportation sector by following any of four examples other countries are using. If they can do it, so can we.

The first example is Iran, which has lots of oil but no refineries. Ironically, it therefore has to import virtually all its gasoline. That would make Iran completely vulnerable to international sanctions if they included gas. The Islamic Republic has consequently embarked on a crash program to require all cars to become "dual-fuel" capable for gasoline and natural gas, which Iran has plenty of. More than 100 gas stations have already been converted to supply both, with the rest on the way. All a motorist has to do is drive in to a service center, pay a subsidized fee equivalent to $50 U.S. and return a few hours later to pick up the car. Within five years Iran will not need to rely on gasoline. At all.

Brazil is well along the way to completing the transiton to ethanol from sugar cane, a far more efficient source than corn. Its "flexible-fuel" cars cost only an extra $100 to make. All that's needed is a fuel sensor and a corrosion-resistant fuel line, and the process even works on new cars made by G.M. and Ford. Luft writes, "Gasoline prices have almost doubled elsewhere since 2005, but in Brazil they have been almost frozen."

China is doing the same thing, but with methanol, a form of alcohol, rather than ethanol. It can be "distilled" from natural gas, coal and most any vegetable waste, and "is cheaper and far easier to produce in bulk" than ethanol. It can even be made from "the carbon dioxide captured from power stations' smokestacks" as part of a program to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions." China has nearly 100 plants under construction.

Israel began replacing its gas-powered autos with battery-powered ones in 2007. "Hundreds of thousands" of recharging stations will be created all over the country. Israel plans to have an oil-free economy within a few years.

Special intererst politics are a major impediment to adopting any of these sensible ideas in the United States. Congressmen from corn states have passed a 54-cent a gallon tariff on imported sugar-cane ethanol, and have mandated that flex-fuel cars can only run on ethanol rather than methanol or other biofuels. And General Motors bought up and destroyed the EV-1 electric cars it once pioneered.

American leaders in both parties are doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing about oil and gasoline prices these days, but have offered little in the way of solutions that address the heart of the problem. The experience of these four countries shows that answers do exist if there is a will to act for the national rather than the special interest. The security and propserity of the American people depend on it.

Iraq, Iran and the Campaign

With John McCain largely staking his presidential bid on foreign concerns and Barack Obama overseas, international issues are taking front and center in the campaign this week. Here's a look at some of the current and prospective developments.

Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stirred things up this week by saying there should be a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from his country. He and President Bush are in the midst of directing negotiations on a successor agreement to the United Nations mandate that sanctions the American presence in Iraq. The U.N. mandate expires on December 31. Al-Maliki's statement matches Obama's campaign pledge to withdraw from Iraq and directly contradicts the preferences of Bush and Senator McCain, who want no restrictions on continuing the American military presence. What is behind this?

Bush wants the U.S. to have the right to stay indefinitely. So does McCain. Maliki needs to raise the issue of getting the foreigners out for domestic political reasons. He needs to look tough, but he doesn't really want American forces to go anytime soon. They are propping him up in power. When they do go there will probably be a three-sided civil war between the Sunnis, Maliki's Shiites and Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiites. Bush and Maliki will dance around this issue for awhile and reach an agreement before the deadline runs out.

Because he needed to give Maliki something to take to his parliament, Bush floated some vague compromise language about making eventual reductions as the situation warrants. An Obama spokesman immediately pounced, saying, "It is welcome if the President is moving toward Senator Obama's position." Speaker Pelosi chimed in, pointing to the vague nature of Bush's statement and saying we need to pull out faster. Bush and McCain then decried the idea of a rapid drawdown as likely to lead to deterioration in the security situation in Iraq.

You will see both sides sticking to their guns from here on as this unfolds. Maliki gave Obama some ammunition on this one and hurt Bush and McCain a bit. Obama continuing to push for a drawdown is a winning position for him. Two-thirds of the American people still favor ending the war. Disengaging there is a signature issue for him and he will be seen as the king of flip-floppers if he says anything else.

Bush wants to help McCain win, since McCain is the one who will carry on the President's policy legacy in Iraq if he is elected. The two of them cannot afford to vaccilate now without risking losing the confidence of their strongest supporters. At most, Bush might withdraw a few troops right before the election as a way of saying the situation is improving thanks to his strategy-which McCain supports.

Iran: Concern with Iraq's uranium-enrichment program continues. Obama early on called for direct negotiations. Bush said that was appeasement, a view that McCain quickly seconded. Now Bush himself has sent an emissary to a meeting which the Iranians agreed to attend. Condi Rice said they would not "negotiate" until the Iranians stop enriching uranium but there would still be a "meeting." The parsing of diplomatic subtelties aside, once again Obama comes across as the voice of reason and his opponents as the purveyors of campaign fearmongering. If it was such a horrifying idea why is Bush doing it himself? Preliminary reports say the meeting went like this: U.S.: You need to give up your enrichment program. Iran: No, we need guarantees you will not attack us. U.S.: No, you have to stop your program. End of meeting.

There is a great deal of talk about the United States or Israel launching a pre-emptive strike on Iran's facilities. Most Americans would view a U.S. strike as reckless and irresponsible. The army is stretched to the breaking point after 5 1/2 years in Iraq. Whether America or Israel were to strike, Iran's likely riposte would be to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the passage through which Persian Gulf oil flows to the world.

If Bush attacks it works to Obama's advantage. His best bet is to keep some form of talks going. That silences Obama on the matter. If Obama says anything he's viewed as meddling with the discussions for political reasons before he is president. Then Bush strings the talks along. If it looks like McCain is going to win he lets McCain deal with things after he takes office. If it looks like Obama is going to win then Bush just might decide to bomb as many of Iran's nuclear facilities as he can before his term ends. (Some are pretty deeply buried, it is believed.) Given Bush's previous record and Dick Cheney's stated threats on the matter, such an attack might well be mounted. Whether it would be before or after the election would depend on whether Bush thinks it would help or hurt McCain's chances and if he believes Iran is very close to developing a nuclear device.

In general: All this concentration on defense-related foreign policy issues works to McCain's advantage. Obama needs to complete his foreign tour as Bush did in 2000, make his policy positions clear, then get everyone back to talking about the economy. If the election is about domestic affairs Obama wins. If it is about foreign affairs McCain has a chance.

"Phil Gramm Is Right?"

Last week former Texas Senator Phil Gramm got himself cashiered as John McCain's top economic adviser. "In serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus," is how the candidate jokingly described Gramm's employment prospects in a McCain Administration. Gramm's transgression? He referred to Americans as "a nation of whiners," telling the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline." Conservative columnists are now rushing to defend Gramm for telling "the truth."

According to their narrative, everything is hunky-dory in la la land. The only problem is that Americans are lazy and too prone to complain about everything. Ruben Navarrette of the San Diego Union Tribune opined, "It's true. Americans do complain a lot, and many of them have lost their appetite for competition - with immigrants, foreign countries, each other. Even in tough times, when you would think that Americans would be willing to work harder and compete for what they want, the entitlement mentality is alive and well."

Amity Shlaes agrees, believing Gramm to be a victim of what she calls "Campaign Econ." Writing in the Washington Post, she explains, "Campaign Econ says the American economy is a certain way because Americans think it is. Campaign Econ competes with real economics and often wins." Shlaes does admit, "Clearly Campaign Econ is understandable. Gas prices are ruining vacation plans and killing businesses. Many Americans have lost or are about to lose their homes to foreclosure or in distress sales. The federal government may not be talking about it much yet, but inflation plagues the country. The weak dollar is altering our everyday calculations." But people have no right to complain because, "Still, to liken the current moment to the Great Depression, or even the early 1980s, as Campaign Economists have, is to whine."

It is not good enough for Navarette that Americans work the most days and hours in the advanced world, more even than the notoriously workaholic Japanese. He is unimpressed that women have tripled their participation in the workforce in a generation. It makes no impression on him that a higher percentage of Americans have second and third jobs than any other people. He does not mention that productivity per worker has gone up 18% since 2001 while average income has gone down. No. They have no right to complain, and if they see anything wrong here they are lazy. As he puts it, "Most of all, he was right that we've become 'a nation of whiners' who find it easier to complain about our problems that to turn off the television set, get off the couch and do something about them."

For her part, Shlaes does see a problem or two here, but says that people are not allowed to complain until conditions deteriorate to the level of the Great Depression. Until then they are only whining. Hurricane Katrina was not a problem, she would tell us, because Hurricane Camille back in the sixties was worse. So what if we've lost 3 million manufacturing jobs? The Depression was worse. Stop whining.

Despite what these two pundits and their like are putting out, average people are doing what they can. They are working more, driving less, spending less and many are suffering the loss of insurance, homes or their primary job. One worker cannot much affect a corporation's strategy or the forces of macroeconomics. Those are the jobs of corporate management and the federal government.

And these have miserably failed them. It has been 35 years since the first oil crisis, and until a few months ago U.S. auto management was still hyping trucks and SUVs. Despite the example of the S & L crisis, the government in Washington followed Phil Gramm's advice to deregulate subprime lending. It gave corporate incentives to ship jobs overseas. It turned a budget surplus into the greatest deficit of all time, with concomitant effects on the purchasing power of the dollar.

There are a couple of profoundly disturbing things about the attitudes of commentators like Navarrette and Shlaes. The first is their blind elitism, a "let them eat cake" dismissal of common American's right to speak up when their lives are headed down the chute and an easy denigration of the strenuous efforts they have been making to try to reverse their fortunes. The second is a chilling misunderstanding of what democracy is. No, Ruben and Amity, it is the corporate management team who is responsible to the shareholders, not the other way around. No, Ruben and Amity, it is the government who is responsible to the American people, not the other way around. They are screwing up when the people say they are. The people know when they are hurting. They have been hard working and patient through many years of steadily worsening conditions. It is time for responsive government to actually address their legitimate grievances, not time for wealthy Washington power brokers and comfortable commentators to impugn their motives and ridicule their plight.

Battle for the Republican Soul

Though it may not seem like it of late, the Republican Party is in some ways an uneasy coalition no less than the Democrats are. Richard Nixon's decision to commit the party to a "Southern Strategy" in 1968, an approach cemented by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, has wedded the GOP to a social conservative agenda that has been dominated by concern over issues like abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. Those views make it almost impossible for a candidate who can gain the party's nomination to win in the Northeast and California.

I was talking to a moderate Republican the other day, a strong McCain supporter. He was pessimistic about McCain's chances of winning the election this year. We went over the electoral map, trying to figure which states the venerable Arizonan would need to win and could win, and it seemed a very difficult task. "When you can't win California it makes it awfully hard," my friend remarked. His basic thesis was that by putting their eggs in the social conservative basket, the Republicans can't win hardly any of the Northeast, Pacific Coast and Great Lakes states, and have to take almost everything in the South, Plains, and Mountain West. Slip anywhere and they're through.

That is true, but the strategy has resulted in Republican victories in 7 of the last 10 presidential contests. Their victories are sometimes narrow, but they have been winning most of the time.


Not all Republicans agree with those social conservative views. The Republican coalition is made up of social conservatives, defense conservatives, and economic/constitutional conservatives. The latter group has a very different perspective on things than the first two. My friend is one of these economic/constitutional types. His consistent view is that government power, especially federal power, should be limited. Economic and personal liberties should be infringed as little as possible by the government. This was actually the view advocated by the modern father of the conservative movement, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, in his 1964 presidential race.

You can see how the other two groups are at odds with this. Defense conservatives favor aggrandizing the military power of the country almost without limit. But small-government boosters view this as an extremely dangerous threat to the future of liberty in the country. Social conservatives too, favor the heavy use of government power, in their case to discourage personal behaviors of which they disapprove or to promote others, such as evangelical religion, which they favor. Constitutional conservatives such as my friend see these stances as unwarranted infringements by the state into personal liberties and matters of individual choice.

When times were good for the conservative movement these differences have often been subsumed. In tough political environments for the Republican Party such as now, the coalition can become frayed. It is a truism that alliances suffer their greatest stresses and tend to unravel as they near defeat. My friend's greatest lament was that if McCain loses it will discredit the electoral chances of his brand of conservative, even though the environment created by the social/defense conservative George W. Bush is actually to blame. Ironically, it could pave the way for a new succession of Republican social and defense conservative candidates in the years ahead who would either continue to lose, or who, if they won, would continue increasing the power of the state.

Of course, McCain is also an avid defense conservative, so he doesn't fully fit into the small-government mold. Yet if he loses, expect the social conservatives to loudly proclaim the reason to be his inadequate ardor for their moral issues. The 2008 election is not just a battle between McCain and Barack Obama; it is also a battle for the soul of the Republican Party. If McCain does go down to defeat, economic/constitutional conservatives will once again have to hold their noses and vote for the next George W. Bush or find somewhere else to hang their political hats.

Market Myth Meets Reality

Unregulated markets are the optimal engine of economic growth. So said conservative ideology in the 1920s. Then came wildly speculative margin-buying schemes, the crash of 1929, bank runs and the Great Depression. The Securities and Exchange Commission, FDIC and other agencies were instituted to enforce some reasonable parameters. Unprecedented growth ensued for 40 years.

OPEC took control of energy prices in the 1970s. Inflation and economic stagnation resulted. Improved car mileage and the funding of alternative energy sources were begun. In the 1980s conservatives took office. The Fed used strong monetary policy to get inflation under control. But deregulation of business and finance, tax cuts for the wealthy and ignoring antitrust were the real solutions, said their ideology. Some dregegulation, as in air travel and telecommunications, seemed to work well. Growth returned, but almost all of its benefits went to the wealthiest Americans. The deficit ballooned to record levels. Junk bond operators cost investors hundreds of billions. Corporate raiders destroyed millions of jobs. Merger mania eliminated much competitition. The Savings and Loan meltdown, caused largely by risky speculation in junk bonds, resulted in the failure of 2,000 financial institutions and necessitated FDIC bailouts in excess of $80 billion.

After a period of propserity in the 1990s characterized by tremendous job creation, low inflation, widespread growth in income and even a budget surplus, conservatism returned in the 2000s. The business and financial communities rejoiced as once again, deregulation and tax cuts weighted toward the wealthy became the order of the day. And once again, deficits mushroomed, the standard of living for the rich went up while everyone else's went down, and major financial institutions headed over the cliff due to arcane and unregulated financial instruments, this time connected to subprime loans and the new and largely unregulated mortgage resale market.

Bear Stearns and Indymac bank have crashed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin behemoth mortgage guarantors for over $5 trillion in home loans, totter. They are too big and too important to the economy to be allowed to fail. The Treasury Department and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear that mega billions would be made available to keep them afloat if necessary. Hundreds more institutions are similarly imperiled. It cost the Fed $30 billion to hot-potato Bear Stearns off to J.P. Morgan. The FDIC will make good the depositors' losses at Indymac, but it has only $53 billion on hand if more banks fall. Another $168 billion was printed out of thin air in tax rebates to stave off the deepening recession which the President again today denied exists.

The Labor Department reports the real inflation rate for the past twelve months including energy and food is 9.2% The real unemployment rate calculated the old, more realistic way is 9%. The S&P 500 New York Stock Exchange index is actually down 10.2% from where it stood on January 20, 2001, or down nearly 30% in constant dollars. These performances are good for neither consumers, workers nor investors.

Thus we see that time and again the blanket "deregulate everything" ideology has led to the adoption of reckless schemes that before long result in the necessity for government intervention and regulation after calamity has ocurred. What could have been prevented by an ounce of prevention then takes many pounds of cure. It would be a good thing if the voting public, and indeed, even the business and financial communities, would learn from prior mistakes. Too much indiscriminate regulation is undeniably bad. But so is too little, as the record so clearly illustrates. Would that we had a consensus for a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological one on the issue. Once the pain gets bad enough and a new administration takes office one can expect the receptivity of congress, the administration and the public to return to a more common-sense reality-based perspective.

Time To Leave Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's recent statement about setting a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from his country is welcome news indeed. It is time to honor the will of the supposedly sovereign government of Iraq and that of the American people and do just that.

The litany of lies, misperceptions, false assumptions and mistakes that have characterized the misadventure in Iraq are well known by now. 4,116 brave Americans are dead. Over 30,000 have been wounded. Nearly a trillion dollars has been spent. Something like 100,000 Iraqis are dead. Some 2,000,000 Iraqis are refugees outside their country and probably as many more have been displaced within it.

All this was justified in the name of a military threat that was not there and a connection to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 that did not exist. The true threat remains, however, and has reorganized in Afghanistan and Pakistan while our armed forces have foolishly been tied down in Iraq. This very occupation continues to inspire an ongoing flood of recruits for the standard bearers of Islamic extremism, for it confirms to them the propaganda they hear about America's intentions.

Nearly seven years after the 9/11 attacks the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. It controls thousands of square miles of Afghan territory. Al-Qaeda's leadership is safe in Northwest Pakistan, and intelligence confirms its training camps are once again in operation.

It is time to take this opportunity to begin drawing down the force in Iraq. Al-Maliki's statement is good news. It indicates he feels the security situation in his country is such that he no longer needs the presence of US troops. Very well. Let's use them where they should have been all along.

Barack Obama today contibuted an article to the New York Times, reiterating his plan to remove one American brigade per month for the next 16 months until they are all out. A small residual force would remain to protect the American embassy and provide rapid reaction when necessary. He correctly states, "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been." He proposes committing two additional brigades to Afghanistan, the place where our real enemies actually are, and setting aside $2 billion to help Iraqi refugees.

For years, President Bush has said, "When the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down." They are standing up now. It is not, as Sen. McCain keeps saying, "waving the white flag of surrender" to return control of its territory to a sovereign nation that asks us to leave so it can take care of its own security. It is, instead, simply sanity.

Presidential Race: The Northeast and Summary

I wrap up my election analysis by region today with a look at the Northeast. The 11 states from the Potomac River northward plus the District of Columbia are the Democratic base area in the same sense the South is for Republicans. John Kerry won the entire region and its 117 electoral votes in 2004. Can Obama repeat the sweep in 2008? The answer is probably yes.

According to poll averages and knowledgeable commentators, the only state McCain has a good chance in is New Hampshire with its 4 electoral votes. McCain led two surveys in April by 3 and 6 points respectively, but Obama led in a June poll by 11. Those are the only polling numbers we have. McCain has kept both his presidential runs going with wins in the New Hampshire Primary. He is well-known and popular in the state. His favorable polls are old, though. Obama's recent 11-point lead is probably more accurate. But until we get some new data we'll have to consider New Hampshire a tossup. A win here would help McCain offset the probable loss of New Mexico (5 EV) and make Obama's task a little harder.

The rest of the region appears solid for Obama. The closest poll averages are Pennsylvania, (21 EV) where Obama leads by 7.7%, New Jersey (15) where he is up by 8.3 and Delaware (3) where he leads by 9. Obama is ahead by double digits in all the rest, including New York (31) +21%, Massachusetts (12) +18.7%, Maryland (10) +11%, Connecticut (7) +20%, Maine (4) +15%, Rhode Island (4) +18.7%, Vermont (3) +21% and the District of Columbia (3) where no poll has been taken but which is predominantly black and went for Kerry last time by 80%.

McCain has been devoting resources to Pennsylvania, which has been close but consistently gone Democratic in recent elections. It makes sense early in the campaign to see if he can get some movement his way. If he can't he may need to concede it and concentrate on holding Republican states in the West or Midwest like Ohio and Iowa and go after a Kerry state like Michigan that looks more winnable.

After this four-part investigation here is how things stand. With the election still 16 weeks out and 270 electoral votes needed, Barack Obama has solid leads in 16 states and the District of Columbia for a total of 224 electoral votes. 9 other states worth 93 electoral votes are leaning his way. That is to say, he leads in them by less than 7 percent. If the election were held today he would probably accumulate 317 electoral votes, 47 more than enough to be elected the 44th president.

John McCain has solid leads in 17 states worth 139 electoral votes. 8 other states worth 82 electoral votes are leaning toward McCain. If the election were held today McCain would likely score 221 electoral votes, 49 fewer than he needs. To take the election McCain would need to hold onto all the states he currently leads in and take 49 away in states now leaning to Obama. Of course, Obama could win in one or more of the states now leaning McCain, and that would necessitate McCain flipping additional Obama territory. Obama has the advantage. Victory for McCain is a tall order but with this much time left it is far from impossible.

It is in 17 states, the 9 "leaning" Obama and the 8 "leaning" McCain, where the 2008 election will be decided. Neither candidate will make many appearances, spend much money or send many organizers to the other 33 states of the union. That is how the Electoral College system operates. To follow the race this year, pay attention to events and issues in the following states (electoral votes in parentheses). Remember, McCain needs to win some combination of the states leaning to Obama that totals 49 or more electoral votes, without losing in any of the states where he leads.

Leaning Obama: Oregon (7), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Iowa (7), Michigan (17), Indiana (11), Ohio (20), Virginia (13), New Hampshire (4).

Leaning McCain: Alaska (3), Nevada (5), Montana (3), North Dakota (3), Missouri (11), Florida (27), Georgia (15), North Carolina (15).

Presidential Race: The South

The dynamics of the South in this year's voting are simple. George W. Bush won every state in the region in the last two elections and John McCain needs to do the same in 2008. Remember that McCain must keep Barack Obama from improving John Kerry's 2004 results by 18 electoral votes in order to win. Since we have seen that Obama appears poised to tip more than that number away from him in the West and Midwest, McCain can ill afford any defections from the Republican base region. Unfortunately for him, he is running behind in one state and stands in electoral jeopardy in three others.

The list of Southern states McCain can count on, with their electoral votes in parentheses, includes: Texas (34), Tennessee (11), Alabama and Louisiana (9 each), South Carolina and Kentucky (8 each), Arkansas and Mississippi (6 apiece) and West Virginia (5). Some might disagree with calling West Virginia a Southern state, (especially the people who live there!) but it certainly has been voting like one for the past eight years and this year should be no different.

Four other states in the region could go to Obama. These are Virginia (13), Florida (27), North Carolina and Georgia (both with 15). An Obama win in Florida alone would likely ensure his election, and a victory for him in any of the other three would make it extremely difficult for McCain to stop him. Let's look at the specifics in these four states.

Obama is actually running ahead in Virginia. The average of three June surveys has him leading by 1.7%. The state has been getting more competitive of late, including the election of Democrats Tim Kaine as governor in 2005 and Jim Webb as U.S. Senator in 2006. Former Democratic Governor Mark Warner is also considered to be ahead in the race to replace retiring GOP Senator John Warner (no relation) this year.

In Virginia Obama starts with a likely vote of 95% or more among African-Americans, who make up about a third of the voters. That means he needs about one-third of the white vote to carry the state. That is difficult for a Democrat in a lot of Southern states, but Virginia's demographics are changing. The rapidly growing suburbs in Northern Virginia around Washington, D.C. are seeing a heavy influx of people from Northern states. Many are federal government workers who tend to vote Democratic.

Obama is heavily targeting Virginia, and with another $30 million raised last month he gives every indication of being able to press the issue in the Old Dominion. All the polls show the race there is close, but all show him ahead. McCain will have to make a major effort to win, expending scarce resources that he might rather devote to the closely contested states of the Midwest. And even then it could go for Obama anyway.

Perennial battleground Florida looks close again this year. The average of four polls in June show McCain ahead by 2.2%. Florida has a very unusual electorate. In the Western panhandle it is a typical southern state, reliably Republican. The Southeast has a huge, historically Republican Cuban population in and around Miami but also a large number of Northern retirees, particularly Jews who have been a Democratic voting bloc. From Tampa to Orlando teem standard American suburban populations concerned about pocketbook issues, which should tend to help Obama this year. But the military population is high, too, and they usually trend Republican.

This hodgepodge is what makes Florida hard to predict and usually close. The bottom line is that Obama would love to win the Sunshine State but that McCain absolutely has to. Without its 27 electoral votes he has almost no path to victory. If it stays close McCain will have to devote whatever time and resources it takes to try to secure Florida. In that case, the McCain campaign in places like Colorado, New Mexico and Michigan will just have to do without.

North Carolina presents Obama with another real opportunity. The average of the three statewide polls taken in June shows McCain leading by just 3.3%. It's close because of a large African-American vote and also because the Charlotte-Raleigh-Durham metropolis in the center of the state, anchored with numerous major universities and a burgeoning high-tech sector, is growing increasingly liberal. Obama also has a strong organization still in place from his big primary win here.

McCain doesn't have the resources to match Obama dollar for dollar everywhere. He will probably not be able to spend as much time or allocate as much money or personnel in North Carolina as he would like. He will have to hope the state's traditional patterns reassert themselves and that he can eke out a win. Losing these 15 electoral votes would be a very heavy blow for him.

The final Southern state that looks competitive is Georgia. McCain leads in the Peach State by an average of 6.7%. That's a decent margin but certainly not one that can be taken for granted with 3 1/2 months to go in the race. McCain is being hurt a bit by the Libertarian candidacy of former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Barr is polling as high as 4% in some surveys. I'm expecting Barr's support will wane as the election approaches, to about 2%. McCain should not seriously have to worry about Georgia's 15 electoral votes unless the whole election race starts to turn into a runaway.

But his position is precarious enough right now. John McCain is vulnerable in a number of states George W. Bush won in 2004, and he cannot afford to lose very many of them and still win in November. That particularly applies to the usually safe Republican states in the South. He could really use a Southern Sweep, and at the moment that's not looking anything like a sure bet.

Presidential Race: The Midwest

To get elected president, Barack Obama needs to win 18 more electoral votes than John Kerry did in 2004. For John McCain to win he needs to keep that from happening. In yesterday's blog we saw that Obama currently stands to pick up at least 14 electoral votes in the Far West and perhaps as many as 25. Today we'll see that he is currently outperforming the 2004 Democratic performance by another 46 electoral votes in the 13 states of the Midwest.

In 2004 Republican George W. Bush enjoyed the upper hand in the Midwest. He carried 9 Midwestern states with 73 electoral votes (EVs). Democrat John Kerry took 4 states with 58 EVs. An average of recent polls this year shows McCain solidly ahead in just 5 states with 24 EVs. One other state with 11 EVs is leaning his way. Obama has strong leads in 3 states with 49 EVs, and four other midwest states with 55 EVs are leaning his way. If the election were held today Obama would apparently outperform Kerry's Midwestern showing by 46 EVs. Unless McCain can turn that around he is sure to lose.

McCain holds safe leads only in the 5 states of the Great Plains. These were all states Bush won last time. The states and their electoral votes are North Dakota (3), South Dakota (3), Nebraska (5), Kansas (6) and Oklahoma (7). The only other state in the region where McCain is ahead is Missouri (11). The averages of 4 polls taken in May and June had McCain ahead there by 3.8%.

Obama has strong leads in three states that went for Kerry. These are Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10) and his home state of Illinois (21). He is ahead narrowly in another, Michigan (17). Most importantly, Obama is currently leading in three states in the region that Kerry lost, Iowa (7), Indiana (11) and Ohio (20). If McCain is unable to turn those states, especially Ohio, around, his chances of victory in November are very poor. Since he already seems likely to under perform Bush by 14 in the West, he really can't even afford to lose even Iowa in the Midwest. He could offset this by taking Michigan and will have to make a huge effort there. Let's look at the close states in a little more detail.

In Michigan Obama's average lead in 5 recent Michigan polls is only 2%, but he seems to be gaining the momentum. Two surveys taken in May each gave McCain 4% leads, but three taken in June have Obama up by an average of 6%. The economy is the overriding concern here, especially auto manufacturing. Exploding gas prices are a prime factor too, since they are depressing auto sales, particularly the SUV and truck sales that have been bringing in the highest profits and providing the most jobs in the American companies in recent years. McCain will try forlornly to convince people that more Bush-style tax cuts are the answer. He may have better luck advocating taking all restrictions off oil drilling. Picking Mitt Romney, who beat McCain here in the primary and whose father was governor 40 years ago, as his running mate might help in Michigan too. Obama has an intrinsic advantage here because things are not working as is and he is identified with change. He proposes government assistance to promote alternative energy and fuel economy and talks of renegotiating the NAFTA treaty that many blame for exporting jobs.

Ohio resembles Michigan in its pain over the loss of manufacturing jobs. The average of recent polls has Obama ahead by 4.5%, a figure that has been growing. No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio, and if McCain cannot close this gap he will have to take Michigan and its 17 EVs to mostly compensate for Ohio's loss. Failure to win either would almost certainly doom his candidacy.

If that weren't bad enough for McCain, Obama is currently leading in the longtime Republican bastion of Indiana. This is a serious problem for him. Indiana hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, but Obama is running 0.5% ahead according to the current averages. Indianapolis in central Indiana and Gary in the northwest have large African-American populations. The northwest manufacturing corridor is experiencing the same problems Ohio and Michigan are encountering. In addition, northwest Indiana is within the Obama-adoring Chicago media market and even includes many commuters who work in Chicago. These demographics and conditions are balancing Indian's big downstate rural vote and have put the Hoosier State in play for the first time in over 40 years. It is a drain on McCain's campaign to have to commit scarce resources to a state that Republicans usually have no worries about. Consider that just by taking Indiana (11) and Iowa (7) and holding the other Kerry states, Obama would secure the 18 EVs he needs to win the election--even without turning any of the Western states where he also leads.

Obama also leads by an average of 5.5% in Iowa. He built a strong organization here for the caucuses that launched his campaign. Iowa has been closely divided in recent elections, going for Gore narrowly in 2000 and Bush narrowly in 2004. It is mainly a farm state but its large 19th century German-immigrant descended population has traditionally been strongly peace-minded. Obama has an excellent chance to capture Iowa's 7 EVs this year.

McCain is holding an average lead of 3.8% in Missouri. Missouri is a state where the election is usually close but the Republican wins. Bush came out ahead in both 2000 and 2004. Obama is paying a lot of visits to Missouri and including it in his TV buys. As in Indiana, if this forces McCain to have to campaign, spend money and send personnel to Missouri it leaves him weaker elsewhere. Since Obama is expected to top McCain in fundraising and has more employees and volunteers, this works strongly to his advantage. Missouri has the two great cities of St. Louis and Kansas City on its east and west borders respectively (Obama-friendly), with a lot of rural, and downstate, Southern-descended whites in between (McCain-friendly). Obama could possibly win the Show Me State, though I expect it to go McCain unless the overall election turns into an Obama runaway.

To sum up then, if the election were held today Barack Obama would take all the Great Lakes States of the Midwest plus Iowa with a total of 104 electoral votes. This would better John Kerry's 2004 showing by 46 EVs and assure his election as president. McCain would take the five Great Plains states plus Missouri for 35 electoral votes. I'm expecting McCain to hold onto Missouri and probably turn Indiana back into his column. I do at this point feel Obama will win in Michigan, Ohio and Iowa. If so, he will still better the Democrats' 2004 record by 35 electoral votes in the Midwest region, more than enough to provide the 18 he needs nationally to assure his election.

In order to avoid this McCain will have to change the entire dynamic of the race. His party faces a sharply uphill struggle with war dragging on and a bad economy under its watch. McCain's best shot at this is to hope that by making Barack Obama himself the issue, raising questions about his capacity to lead, voters will decide to go with the experienced alternative.

Presidential Race: The West

Today I'll begin a series on the electoral vote prospects for the presidential election race. Since I'm a Westerner I'll start in the West and move East, region by region. The West currently looks like an area where Barack Obama will make some gains.

There are 538 total electoral votes at stake in the fifty states and District of Columbia. It takes 270 to get a majority and win the White House. Keep in mind the results of the 2004 election between Bush and Kerry. Bush won with 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252. That means Barack Obama must better Kerry's showing by 18 electoral votes in order to win. The overall popular vote across the country means nothing. What matters is winning states. If a candidate wins a state (or Washington, D.C.) by any margin he will get all of its electoral votes.

The electoral values of the 13 Western states, from west to east, are: Hawaii 4, Alaska 3, Washington 11, Oregon 7, California 55, Nevada 5, Idaho 4, Utah 5, Arizona 10, Montana 3, Wyoming 3, Colorado 9, and New Mexico 5. California is obviously the big prize in the region. In 2004 Kerry won Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and California for a total of 77 electoral votes. Bush won the other nine states and 47 electoral votes.

It looks as though Obama has an excellent chance to pick up most of or all of the 18 extra electoral votes he needs across the country just in the Western states alone. Of the 9 states Bush won, McCain is only solidly ahead in 4: Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and his home state of Arizona. He has narrow leads in 3 others. An average of recent polls has McCain ahead by 5.5% in Alaska, 2.5% in Nevada and 1.5% in Montana. And Obama actually leads in the other 2, Colorado by 3.5% and New Mexico by 5%. Of the states Kerry won, Obama has big average leads in 3, but only leads in Oregon by an average of 5.5%.

So if the election were held today it looks as though Obama would take 91 electoral votes to McCain's 33, with up to 11 additional electoral votes vulnerable to Obama. Of course, 7 of Obama's appear vulnerable to McCain too. But as things stand now, with a lot of time to go, it must be said, Obama would pick up 14 of the 18 new EV's he needs in this region.

Here is what's going on in some of the battleground states. In Alaska, longtime Republican incumbent Senator Ted Stevens is the target of a corruption investigation and faces a serious re-election challenge from the popular Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Obama is pouring TV money and organizational power into this usually-safe Republican state.

Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico have large Hispanic populations which are trending for Obama 2 to 1. During the Democratic primaries Hillary Clinton was winning Hispanics 2-1 over Obama and it was wondered whether they would switch their allegiance back to him. They apparently have. McCain is also hurt with this group by his party's tough position on immigration. He at first personally supported a "comprehensive" immigration solution but it was defeated in the Senate and McCain after that felt forced to stress enforcement over the path to legal residency in order to succeed in the Republican primary race. Bush won 44% of Hispanics in 2004 but it looks as though McCain will not do nearly as well. These three states are all close right now. Obama has the edge in Colorado and New Mexico while McCain leads narrowly in Nevada.

Montana has an independent libertarian streak and has been trending more Democratic of late. Both U.S. Senators and the Governor are now Democrats. Obama has visited Montana and bought TV time there too. His primary caucus organization is already in place and pushing his message of "change" in a state that seems frustrated with the status quo. A Mason-Dixon Poll back in May had McCain ahead by 8% but the Rasmussen survey conducted July 1 showed Obama up by 5%. Obama clearly feels he has a good shot here. It could go either way.

Oregon is the one Kerry state where Obama is not solidly ahead. The state has gone Democratic in the last five presidential elections, but often only narrowly so. Incumbent Republican Senator Gordon Smith is doing all he can to distance himself from President Bush and assume a moderate posture in order to get re-elected. He has even begun touting his agreements with Obama in his battle to defeat challenger Jeff Merkley. Oregon is divided between the liberal strongholds of Portland and the university towns of Eugene and Corvallis and the conservative rural regions of the rest of the state. It would be surprising if McCain were able to win here, but the polls say he has a chance.

Overall, Obama appears poised to gain some ground in the West. If he can make some inroads here and hold the former Democratic states elsewhere he will only need one or two other pickups somewhere in the country in order to be elected. John McCain is being hurt by the economy and President Bush's unpopularity in a region that is usually safe for the GOP except for the Pacific Coast. Just remember there are still almost four months to go until the election, enough time for a lot to happen.

It Takes Brains

One good thing about the shambles of these past eight years is that it just might make the American people are a little more open to voting for leaders with some intelligence. At least we can hope.

It takes some brains to run a successful business. Not just anybody opens a restaurant or hair salon and makes a go of it. To stay in business these days a farmer has to be acutely attuned to markets and highly scientific about production. No Fortune 500 company would dream of bringing a new CEO on board who wasn't smart as a whip.

So, what kind of brains would it take to run an operation with 1.8 million civilian employees, a budget of $2.7 trillion and some additional responsibilities like maintaining peaceful relations with 200 foreign countries and commanding a military of 1.4 million and a reserve force of 1.5 million while trying to foster an economy sufficient to provide for 300 million people?

That's right. It would take a genius, wouldn't it?

Average Americans know better than to leave their retirement planning to their half-wit brother-in-law, yet when it comes to managing the most complicated job in the history of the planet they not infrequently put their minds in netural and hand it off to a seeming "regular guy," the kind of fellow "you'd like to have a beer with" who talks in disconnected monosyllables, boasts that he "never reads a newspaper" and makes decisions based on "listening to my gut."

No wonder gas is $4, the economy has lost 462,000 jobs this year, the government is another $450 billion in debt, 2 million homeowners face forclosure, 47 million more are without health care, food prices are going through the roof, real estate, the stock market and the dollar are all tanking, we invaded the wrong country, and Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose.

There has always been an anti-intellectual bent in American society, no doubt a carry-over from the original revolutionary antipathy to aristocratic privilege combined with a populist perception of the well-educated not necessarily understanding the lives of everyday folks. That's why political parties that have no new ideas and see their old ones failing start throwing around the "elitist" label.

The reality is that you have to be brilliant to have even half a chance to govern this country well. Brains are a prerequisite. You need heart, too, and nobody should be considered who isn't endowed with a good deal of human empathy. But stupidity is neither cute nor a virtue in high office, as recent events make dreadfully clear. Let's hope the American people take permanent note.

Rove Team Takes Charge of McCain Campaign

The recent shakeup in John McCain's campaign leadership points to the road map he will follow in his presidential bid. The primacy of issues-oriented former lobbyists is over; the ascendancy of politics-oriented campaign professionals has begun. Given the realities of the 2008 election environment, the change is a smart move for McCain and will increase his chances for victory against Barack Obama in November. It also gives us a good idea about the kind of campaign McCain will wage, for the new team is heavy with the proteges of George W. Bush's election wizard Karl Rove.

Rick Davis retains the title of campaign manager but will yield the day to day control of the campaign. Davis headed McCain's 2000 presidential effort. A lobbyist, he founded Davis Manfort in 1998, which has earned $2.8 million lobbying Congress. His firm represented SBC and Comsat in 1999 while he was McCain's campaign chief and the two companies had merger proposals before the Senate Commerce Committee which McCain chaired. The committee gave them the approvals they sought. Davis Manfort also represented Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and other East European business interests.

Now in as CEO of the McCain campaign is Steve Schmidt, a member of the Bush team's inner circle. Schmidt learned the ropes as a daily attendee at Karl Rove's morning political meetings. He ran the Bush-Cheney "war room" in the '04 campaign. After that he served as counsel to Cheney and shepherded the Rogers and Alito Supreme Court nominations through the Senate. Showing a lot of flexibility, he next headed Arnold Schwarzenegger's California re-election drive in 2006, managing the governor's successful effort to, ironically, distance himself from the Bush-Cheney White House. Schmidt is a pro and a practitioner of no-nonsense hardball. Also joining the McCain campaign from the Rove circle are strategist Terry Nelson, media specialist Mark McKinnon and communications expert Brian Jones.

The McCain operation, which Davis had decentralized into 11 semi-autonomous regional units, will now become highly unified under Schmidt's central control. As in the Bush campaigns we have witnessed under Rove, there will be a message of the day and the candidate and all his surrogates will be briefed on the common talking points to deliver. McCain being McCain, he will still engage in a lot of the question and answer which is one of his campaign strengths, but he will try to open and close his appearance remarks on the daily message. His surrogates will have to maintain much stricter message discipline.

Just as importantly, that message will have to change focus. McCain has taken little advantage of the past four months since he putatively clinched the Republican nomination while the Democrats continued to battle. The reasons for that are simply that the American people generically prefer the Democratic Party over the Republican and trust Barack Obama over John McCain on the issues this year.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken June 6-9 of 1,000 voters found the Democrats with a 10% identification advantage, 44 percent to 34 percent. The Republican Party was viewed favorably by only 28 percent, unfavorably by 47 percent and neutrally by 24 percent. The Democratic Party enjoyed a 15 percent advantage, as 43 percent had a positive view, 32 percent a negative and 24 percent a neutral one. Much of this no doubt was related to the unpopularity of President Bush, who had a 28 percent favorable rating to 66 percent negative.

A Gallup/USA Today survey on the candidates conducted June 15-19 gave Obama a 25-point advantage on "understands the problems Americans face," 22 points on "cares about the needs of people like you," 16 points on "is independent in thoughts and actions," 13 percent on "would work well with both parties to get things done in Washington," 10 points on "has a clear plan for solving the country's problems," 8 percent on "shares your values" and 4 percent on "is honest and trustworthy." They were tied on "can manage the government effectively." McCain's only edge was 6 points on "is a strong and decisive leader."

The same poll asked who would do a better job on eight issues. Obama led by 25 points on health care, 19 points on energy and gas prices, 16 points on the economy, 9 points on taxes, and a statistically insignificant 1 percent on moral values. The two were tied on "the situation in Iraq." McCain had his own statistically insignificant 2% lead on illegal immigration. The only issue where he clearly held the advantage was on terrorism, which he won by 19 points.

With these factors in mind and considering that a Karl Rove-trained campaign team will be running things, there are a few things we can expect in the months ahead.

First, we can expect McCain to distance himself from President Bush and the Republican label. He will do this by burnishing his "maverick" and "Straight Talk Express" reputations. This will be done in mostly general terms along the lines of his past statements about lobbyists and special interests in Washington. McCain has already retreated from the actual stances he took that were not in line with Bush, such as on taxation, campaign finance and the religious right because his former views tend to anger the Republican base.

Second, he will hammer away at the only truly winning issue he has, terrorism. He has begun doing this, taking questions on the economy, for instance, and finding ways to weave the threat of terrorism into his answers at every opportunity. To paraphrase what Joe Biden said about Rudy Giuliani, a lot of McCain's sentences will come to consist primarily of a noun, a verb and terrorism.

Third, an all-out effort will be made to destroy Barack Obama's credibility. This will not be undertaken primarily by McCain himself. It will be left up to surrogates and "unafffiliated" advocacy groups. If the issues are against you the only way to win is on personality factors, and no one has mastered the art of character assassination better than Mr. Rove. His political progeny, now in charge of McCain's national effort, have learned this at the feet of the master.

Expect any statement by Obama or his supporters that can be misconstrued or twisted into something untoward to be given that spin right away by McCain's surrogates. We are already seeing the beginning of that. If Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, why does he "hate America?" He has a Muslim middle name. Rove himself has taken to describing Obama as "that guy at the country club." Obama's appeal will be minimized as being "mainly to the inner city" (i.e. to blacks). His wife will be derided for being too outspoken. Count on this. These guys are very good at this kind of politics and they know it is their best, and perhaps only, avenue to victory.

Celebrating Independence

The United States of America turns 232 today, and birthday celebrations will be held across the country. There is much to celebrate. The great experiment in self-government and liberty launched in Phildelphia in 1776 has indeed kindled a fire that has spread to illuminate much of the world.

All around this vast nation, the patriotic displays of fireworks, music and speeches will meld with the merriment of picnics and ballgames, somber memorials to the fallen and hopeful paeans to the future in a panoply that is as distinctly American as hot dogs and apple pie.

Americans remain among the most nationalistic people on earth, united not by ethnicity or religious creed as are many other nations but by pride in a shared set of values that include liberty, equality, opportunity, generosity, justice, tolerance, community and democracy.

The twin contexts of our celebration continue to be the accomplishments of the past and our dreams for the future, and the tension between the two have often produced rancor among us. Yet it should not and must not be so.

The bold men who staked their lives on independence enunciated some of the highest ideals ever put forth, even though they did not fully live up to them. When many of the same men wrote the Constitution eleven years later they bore this in mind. Elections were to be held at regular intervals. The importation of new slaves would be ended after twenty years. An intricate system of checks and balances was designed to stem the dangerous aggregation of power in too few hands. A process for amending the Constitution itself was included. These provisions served to permit mistakes to be rectified and progress to be made toward the "more perfect union" they all envisioned.

On Independence Day, traditionalists emphasize the accomplishments of the past and the glories of the present. This is appropriate and good, and there is much to celebrate on both counts. Progressives often highlight the areas of American life where reality has not caught up with ideals, where there is still work to be done. This is good and necessary too. It is therefore as important that the celebratory mood of the traditionalist does not become a smug refusal to admit the nation's deficiencies as it is that the approach of the progressive avoids degenerating into a cynical view that the nation is irredeemable or the source of all the problems in the world.

Instead, to celebrate inpedendence, let us join hands to revel in the precious gift we have been bequeathed by our forebears while at the same time rededicating ourselves to those causes which have thus far been, as Lincoln put it, "so nobly advanced." Let the United States of America celebrate its freedoms and resolve to spread them, together with justice and propserity, to every corner of this most blessed land.

Where Do Our Rights Come From?

In America there is a good deal of preoccupation with rights. The American Revolution was primarily fought over a conception of rights. The Declaration of Independence mentions "inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Constitution's first ten Amendments were passed as a package and seek to spell out what the nation's fundamental rights are. They are usually called the "Bill of Rights." Both our major and nearly all our minor political parties compete in part by promising to adhere to what they consider to be the correct interpretation of the original meanings of these rights.

The most popular belief about the origin of these rights among the American people is that they come "from God." We hear mention of our "God-given rights." The Declaration says that the "inalienable rights" apply to "all men" and have been "endowed by their Creator." There is no question that Judeo-Christian thought is an important underpinning in the idea of individual rights. The belief that people stand equal before God and have value to Him long predates the United States, and has much to do with the ideals of individual rights appearing primarily in the Western World.

Yet these ideals did not translate into legal and political rights for a long time. Feudalism defined a rigid class system in Western society for centuries even though that society was strongly Christian. After that, the idea of monarchs ruling by "divine right" was the pre-eminent political understanding in Western Christian society after feudalism began to decline. It was only when Enlightenment rationalism was applied to moral and political discourse that a connection between Christian morality and political freedoms was established in most people's minds. Up to that time ideas like rights and liberties were mainly restricted to the realm of theology and relations between kings, nobles and the Church. It was only after philosophers like John Locke demonstrated the logic of applying these concepts to civil society that they caught on in the popular mind. He is, after all, the writer who came up with the "natural rights" formulation that included "life, liberty and property," and which formed the basis of Jefferson's similar formulation in the Declaration.

The important thing to keep in mind is that historically, nobody has ever been "granted" any of these rights. Freedom of speech and religion, equality under the law, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause, habeas corpus, the right to vote, in short, every limit on royal or representative governmental power over individuals has only come after persistent and often bloody resistance to that power. And once achieved, such limits have had to be maintained and supported by consensus or they have been lost. A citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government had been set up by the Constitutional Convention. "A republic, if you can keep it," was the great man's reply. The record shows that rights are won and maintained only if they are staked out and tenaciously defended.

For example, the 14th Amendment's mandate of "equal protection of the laws" was of little avail to African Americans for nearly a hundred years after its passage due to the hostility of much of the majority to the measure, or to Japanese Americans during the war hysteria after Pearl Harbor. The Bush administration's disregard for habeas corpus and constitutional requirements for jurisprudence and the prevention of torture show just how easily "inalienable rights" can be abridged by a government that whips up fear in order to increase its power and latitude for action.

No, rights are not granted by God. Peoples' idea of what is godly may underlie the rights they demand, but rights have to be fought for by humans here on earth to be won and often fought for again to be sustained. As John F. Kennedy said in his Inaugural Address, "Here on earth God's work must truly be our own."