Homo economicus’ Weblog

Sarah Palin may be disappointed that they have left the state of Michigan. Yet with Obama having a 7% lead in a state that voted for Kerry and Gore, it makes much more sense for the Republicans to focus on the key battle states and take the resources from this state to those where it may make the difference. Namely:

Obama in Virginia

State                     Electoral Count         Obama lead (%)

North Carolina      15                             0.5

Nevada                  5                               1.8

Ohio                      20                             2.0

Virgina                   13                            2.4

Florida                    27                            3.0       [source]

If the Republicans concede any of these states then McCain has lost the White House. Taking states like those above where candidates have a 3% lead or less gives Obama 264 and McCain 163 – to win all it takes is 270. Despite Obama having on average a 6% lead in the polls (ranging from 3% – 9%) it will be those marginal states above that decide it. If McCain can get a 1.5% swing to him from Obama he will win the White House.

As I think that the polls are over stating Obama’s lead and under representing McCain, it is still very possible for McCain to win the White House. It is tight, and giving up on States that Obama has a clear lead in may be the smart move.

What McCain cannot afford however is to loose any states he currently holds. The good news for him (unlike Obama) is that most states are solidly supporting him, with only two states being vulnerable:

McCain in Colorado - a swing state

State                     Electoral Count         McCain lead (%)

Missouri                11                             1.7

Indiana                  11                             2.2       [source]

So when people tell you it will be a landslide for Obama or a close run race the answer is that there is an element of truth. If all the toss up seats go as they indicate above then Obama wins triumphantly 353 to 185. But a closer race is well within the margin for error. Obama wins Flordia or Ohio and keeps the other states that strongly support him then it is game over for McCain.

If the polls are under representing support for McCain he has a good chance of a narrow win. All the states above that are for Obama voted for George Bush in both 2000 and 20004. That may yet be reflected as we get nearer to polling day.

So expect more things like Palin pointing out that Obama was on a charity board with a founder member of the Weather Underground (a terroirst organisation against US involvement in the Vietnam war) while campaigning in Colorado (leaning to Obama 4.4% lead but voted for Bush the previous two times). What the McCain camp hope is that if the election becomes about character McCain will win. With Obama in Virgina attacking McCain’s health plan we may yet see an ideological battle occur to against an economic meltdown backdrop.

The key thing will be getting out the vote in these states. If Obama supporters feel that it is a done deal they may be inclined to stay at home. That would be a nightmare on polling day when results show the contest closer then the media were calling it. Obama has shown that he can create the momentum. The thing is to keep it going and on election day deliver his supporters to the polling booth.

One thing which McCain and Palin may use in the campaign:

The positive component is pretty straightforward: McCain and Palin are common sense conservatives and proven reformers. The record of reform can be emphasized and contrasted with Obama’s and Biden’s record of conventional, go-along, get-along liberalism. And implicitly: If McCain and Palin are reformers and outsiders, it’s not Bush’s third term. More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. This has an ideological component and a character component. [Weekly Standard]

Democrats keep the champagne in the fridge – instead keep drinking the coffee because you are going to have to bust a gut to make sure that Obama wins the key states above and not fall for the hype that is being generated. The time to relax is when the polls close, because it ain’t over till it’s over.

OTHER BLOGS:

Congress backs $700bn bail out – McCain ain’t dead yet

There is reality then there is the perception of that reality. Maybe all is bubble and foam, and that includes analysis of Presidential debates – there is no such thing as it being value free.

The debate can be watched in full here.

Body language says it all

On that note, the fact that some call it for McCain, some call it for Obama, and the majority call it a dead heat is not as important as how the electorate perceived the debate they saw. On that note the polls suggest that Obama came out on top.

CBS Insta Poll shows Barack Obama won 39% to John McCain‘s 25% with 36% saying the debate was a draw.

Insider Advantage reports of those polled Obama won 42% to McCain’s 41% with Undecided 17%

CNN reports voter opinions that Obama “did better” 51%, McCain “did better” 38%

The CNN poll showed men were evenly split, but women gave Obama higher marks 59% to 41% for McCain.

Obama came across with authority,  prepared to  commit strikes in Pakistan. McCain was the one sounding like you need to build allies and not distance them from their own people. Obama retorting that lacked credibility from some one that sang bomb Iran.

McCain however came across as someone assured that he knew what he was doing on the world stage, while Obama came across as knowing how to say his message fro change. McCain though made the play of his experience in the Senate. The difference however was that Obama looked like the change canidate while McCain had the record for partisanship and with Palin a challenge to the usual Washington politic.

Here is just a sample of scorecards on the two candidates. The scores assigned to the candidates represent the BBC’s interpretation of the writers’ comments. One star indicates a poor performance, five stars an excellent one. :

Obama certainly gave crisp clear answers, rather than ones that seemed to try to bear in all the complexities of the issues that you kind of forgot what the question was. Polls indicate that when McCain went for the attack on Obama, support went down across the board. The CNN focus group this comes from suggests that McCain’s body language (looking away from Obama) did not play well, compared to Obama who looked directly at his opponent.

The big problem was that Obama seemed ready for office, he looked like a Presidential contender. I tried listening to the debate without visual. McCain came across better, but strangely the age difference between the candidates seemed more marked in their voice then in their appearance. Obama, youthful but assured. McCain experienced, but old and the clink of thoughts retrieved.

In short I would call the debate all things to all partisans – but in reality both men did well. Neither gave a knock out blow. But McCain needs to talk up why he should be commander in chief and lead the world’s biggest economy in global financial meltdown. Attacking his opponent does not seem to be working.

The bigger concern was that neither man seemed up to the task of grappling with the problems in the global economy. That, rather than foreign affairs, seems to be at the heart of American concerns. The only thing saving them is no one has a solid plan, and events rather then clear heads are leading the animal spirits let loose in the global community.

So who do I call it for? Well McCain did well in coming across as a man of experience. He could so easily have killed himself. His problem though is that Obama has grown, and in some ways Hillary Clinton may have to be thanked for that. Because without that tight race Obama may not have developed. He sounds like he has made it, he is not faking it. He is ready to be President.

If that holds up, then the McCain bounce that I think will come later in the campaign may have trouble overcoming an Obama lead. But there is still much left to go. Both sides can claim their man won, but in reality Obama was ahead by a whisker in a close to call debate. That however means that McCain is still going to stay where he is in the polls. His campaign needs him to start narrowing the lead, for a late surge to make victory possible.

OTHER BLOGS:

The Second Presidential Debate – no second coming for McCain

The song refers to how Sarah Palin tried to explain the Bush Doctrine, as shown below in a clip from that interview:

Will the honeymoon partnership end with these kind of slip ups for McCain?

Well we had the letter from Wasilla. Now we have the chain e mail from “two creative and eloquent young women”.

Two very elegant and creative women here

Not quite in the same league as the former and I only hope they are not speaking in the third person at the beginning:

Two creative and eloquent young women have created a blog of protest against  McCain’s cynical selection of Sarah Palin as his runningmate. Their impassioned plea certainly resonated with me as I hope it will with  you.  Please read below.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin’s political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we’ve so demonstrably benefited from.

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce in the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she attempted to ban books and fired the librarian who refused), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of experience.

Therefore, we invite you to reply here mailto:womensaynopalin@gmail.com>; with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and20place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called ‘Women Against Sarah Palin,’ which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.

Yours sincerely

Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston

New York, NY

womensaynopalin@gmail.com

**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in the next hour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns seriously. Stranger things have happened

—–
Distributed by the list server for the First Unitarian Society in Newton.
If you received this message in error, or feel that it was sent to you
inappropriately, please contact Jud Leonard at (617) 969-2623.

I guess the Unitarians are coming out against Sarah Palin. One only hopes that creative and elegant writers will be used on the blog. The chain mail reference hardly inspires confidence. Not only that but people underestimate McCain at their peril. If he can distance himself enough from George W. Bush he will win. Also attacking Palin for lack of experience cannot work on Palin when the comparison is made between Obama and McCain. Other wise it will be the pot calling the kettle black.

My earlier prediction is that Obama needs to be ahead because in the closing weeks he will loose ground. If that analysis holds, short of a health scare or a big slip up, McCain will win if he is leading in late October. Democrats are going to have to do more then hope – they really are going to have to act to win back the White House.

A letter from Wasilla about Sarah Palin

Hindus please support Natalie Portman

McCain: look at them piggies

Politics has silly moments when serious debate ends up as handbags at dawn. Oh dear, figure of speech not a reference to one of the Vice Presidents being of the female gender – it is an old expression. Whoops, no reference intended to the 70 plus year olds in the campaign.

Basically Barack Obama at a meeting was talking about McCain’s economic plan, and how it was no different to the Bush one, using the analogy “You can put lipstick on a pig; it is still a pig”. The audience got a bit excited at the comment, and it is being inferred by the Republican camp that this was a slur on Sarah Palin. In her speech (which you can watch here) at the RNC she made the comment that the difference between a hockey mum and a pitball was lipstick.

Now it is an expression – one that McCain himself made use of when attacking Hillary Clinton’s reform ideas for health care as First Lady. Yet the news is out there and what will matter is the spin, and whether anyone can be bothered to look at the evidence.

McCain is leading in the polls at the moment – 46% to 41, overcoming a 7 point deficit in the same poll a month ago. From a civic participation POV it would be great if that was based on a knowledge of the candidates economic policies. Or at least their position on pork barrel politics. With reform of Washington being the central, piggy-in-the-middle position of the two candidates.

Ok, I am squealing the pig reference to death. I am sure that American politics will be serious from here on in. When that happens look up; it will be a sight. But one thing which we can try and prevent is the unnecessary testing of cosmetics on animals.

PETA's latest campaign

Well the Giants came back to win the Super Bowl in a way Rudy Giuliani could only have envied. On that note the USA enters Super Tuesday which may tell us more about who is the Republican candidate then it does about the Democratic candidate. I should point out it is not Tuesday in the USA when I write this, but I am still on Super Bowl time from having watched it. Those final two passes by Manning will stay in my mind for a long time.

In term  of the party nominees, it seems McCain is getting the sort of momentum that the Giants used to win. The idea that he is the Conservative in the Republican race but has the most appeal to non conservative parts of the electorate seems to be getting him support in the polls. I think his statesmanship is also an edge over Romney. As to Huckabee’s claim that Romney get out of the race for him to beat McCain – in your dreams, and if both of you defeat each other the only thing is whether Huckabee could be a running mate to the other two – that is possible.

With regards the Democrats it would be a brave person to stake who will win between Obama and Clinton. The only way I can answer that is to say that it would seem perplexing for a Republic to have George Bush Senior eight years in office, Mr Clinton eight years, George Bush Junior eight years and then followed by Mrs Clinton. In a nation of 300 million people this kind of politics is against the idea of opportunity, freedom and hard work. For this, let alone the issues, would I hope that Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

Which then means for me the perfect showdown is McCain and Obama (McCain I predict; Obama is what I hope but too close to call at this stage). Who would be the best President of the USA for the world?

To this end Obama has the oratory and the vision. He does however have youth on his side and a wealth of political experience yet to accumulate. McCain has that in spades, and a personal history that typifies the American spirit in a way that would make an American proud rather than shameful. His commitment to getting rid of pork barrel politics of long standing and ability to work across the floor marks him as the person I would most like to see as President.

Which if my experience at the AAI conference in Washington DC may put me at odds with secularist activists in America that seemed to be largely Democratic in nature. I can only say that I am impressed with McCain as a statesman, as a politician working beyond partisan lines, as a man of personal courage, and one that can get people working together rather than dividing it. One that does not show personal hostility but calm reflection of the facts.

When in a debate he said that he accepted evolution but saw the hand of god in the Grand Canyon I could live with that. Because I do not think McCain would be against science, or allow religious interest groups to impede it – his conservatism would seem against that type of orthodoxy. I think he has the character that Obama with more years could develop.

I accept that if Obama won the nomination he could still convince me he should get the job. But on this side of the pond I have heard of McCain for far longer. He struck me as the sort of Republican I would have hoped George W Bush would have been. That he can work across party lines, to make a better decision making process. Be a leader that understands what needs to be done rather than thinks he knows best.