With the news that John McCain has now hit 50% in the Gallup poll, opening up a 4 point lead over Barack Obama, I thought it might be worth mentioning a few cautions about interpreting both American polls and the race as a whole - because there are significant differences from Australian elections folks don’t always take into account.
(1) Polling is much less reliable in the US than in Australia because of the voluntary voting factor. Polls tend to try to sample either registered voters or use various metrics to sample those whom they predict will vote, but all this is quite difficult and it’s worth remembering that in most states, registration is open until October. In some states you can register on voting day itself. So one result of this is often significant disagreement between various polls, which you can see in spades at the moment. But one conclusion you can draw is that there’s a lot of volatility around at the moment. Many voters won’t make up their minds til after the various debates, and some won’t until Election Day itself, and the same for whether to vote at all. The Gallup tracking poll I mentioned actually gives us two numbers - 50/46 to McCain among registered voters and a much bigger gap of 54/44 among likely voters.
(2) The Presidential election is not a national election. It’s the aggregate of 50 state elections which are more or less important depending on the number of electoral college votes each state has and whether they’re hotly contested or not. So national polls might be misleading, although they can show where the momentum is. For instance, at the moment, while the Gallup poll shows McCain with either a slim or a huge lead, Republican strategists have the McCain/Palin ticket behind or at par in most of the swing states.
(3) There isn’t as homogenous a “swinging vote” as there is in Australia. Continue reading ‘Three things to remember about polls and the US election’
John McCain made his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and others watched it so you didn’t have to. Some of them even liveblogged it.
Continue reading ‘RNC and McCain’s speech: responses roundup’
…could John McCain have selected for his running-mate a mid-40s former small-town mayor and State Governor for 20 months, loudly insist such a person is the best available Republican VP - and avoid gales of laughter and general ridicule?
Why then are so many people falling over themselves to make po-faced remarks that, oh, well, yes, *cough, cough*, of course Steve Sarah is the perfect candidate - that ol’ maverick magic - and anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously being sexist…
I was going to write a post last night about the demos in Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention and the extraordinary levels of repression and police violence, but tiredness got the better of me. But never mind, tigtog’s been thinking on the same lines and has put up a great post at Hoyden. She quotes Glenn Greenwald:
Yet how is our own Government’s behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation’s establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?
What I found interesting about the reporting of these incidents is that there’s a great use of citizen photojournalism from Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise. Beyerstein was there, and she’s posted this photo - of the Poor People’s March - on her blog, with the telling caption:
Do these people look like a ravening mob to you? A few minutes later, the police tear gassed the whole block after pushed the crowd back about a block or two.
You can see all Beyerstein’s photos of the march at her Flickr page.
Names in the quote below have been updated to reflect the personalities engaged in the current election:
Rabbi Smuley Boteach, World Net Daily, May 25, 2004:
Now, having a wife who provides you with a private jet and eight multimillion-dollar vacation homes provides for a comfortable life. But is this the right preparation for becoming president? . . .
[…]
Before they married, Teresa Heinz [Cindy Lou Hensley] made John Kerry [McCain] sign a prenuptial agreement. Which begs the question: If his own wife doesn’t trust him with her money, why should we trust him with ours?
Glenn Greenwald has a long list of partisan Republicans back in 2004 who harped on this theme, referring to John Kerry as “Gigolo John” and “Senator Gigolo”. By contrast, although McCain’s reliance on the wealth of his second wife Cindy is occasionally mentioned, no-one is using those terms regularly to discuss how very very elite and out of touch McCain must be with the normal struggles of Americans when his entire political career since he first ran for Congress in 1982 has relied upon Cindy’s family wealth being McCain’s 24K gold safety net.
Obviously, such remarks are very cheap shots. That’s why not many Democrats are returning fire against McCain by recycling that gigolo slur 4 years later. There’s been some arguments made in Kim’s Sarah Palin thread that refusing to cast as much mud as possible at the McCain campaign with respect to Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy is a a losing strategy given that the Republicans’ skill at raking the muck seems to have helped them win the last two presidential elections.
While I’m on the side of those arguing that the Palin offspring should be off-limits, I wouldn’t say that those hoping to prevent McCain reaching the White House should never engage in some mud-slinging. Just that if you do feel the need to sling the mud, why not sling most of it at Senator Gigolo? Perhaps really get down with the Malkinite dregs, and sling that mud in limerick form?
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As a bit of a follow up to the discussion on this post of the familial scandals confected or exploited about GOP Vice-Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, here’s two excellent and thought provoking pieces. First, Feminist Philosophers asks why folks might be more interested in all this stuff than, well, actual issues:
Why is the front page of the NY Times full of Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy and New Orleans near miss, when the second major political convention is about to start and there are extremely important issues facing the United States about health care, clean energy, poverty and others?
She points to the importance of citizens - and by implication bloggers - trying to refocus debate on the issues, and on the necessity of a critical education in cultivating habits of mind which place the emphasis where it should be.
Secondly, the uniformly fantabulous Rebecca Traister at Salon writes:
How we got from the dispiriting political and ideological record of Sarah Palin — that she is adamantly pro-life and anti-gay marriage, that she is a lifetime member of the NRA, that she has no foreign policy experience and supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in schools — to the uterine activity of her family, makes perfect, human sense: Who wants to talk about boring policy when we can talk about teens and sex and pregnancy?
Continue reading ‘The Life of Palin or health care and justice and climate change and stuff’
There’s no doubt that electoral systems structure party competition - something that will become very obvious to us when we start to focus on the New Zealand election. The American system is one of the great contributors to the anti-democratic lack of choice between the two major parties, and to the inflated emphasis on personalities among the candidates. Continental PR systems consistently develop coalitions and reflect a social fabric which emphasises a degree of consensus you don’t find in adversarial single member systems, and the resulting politics is decried by neoliberals for eschewing “economic reforms”.
Writing in the Centre for Policy Development’s Insight, Bill Bowtell takes a look at our electoral system:
Continue reading ‘Focusing on the electoral system’
I thought this comment from Guy Rundle in Crikey yesterday was incredibly astute:
Part of his appeal is that he put together a new sort of political career from the standard chaos of a postmodern life — tens of millions of younger people recognise in him the same bewildering wander through college, a couple of different dead-ends, a bit of going-back-to-the-roots, etc. All they’ve lacked is his adamantine, albeit well-concealed, will.
An interesting point of identification in a world where you have to work to construct an identity? I think there’s a lot more insight in there about the appeal of Obama’s persona than all the “cosmopolitan background” stuff or for that matter the official script from the Democratic Convention - “lived in a log cabin in Hawaii with his single mother” etc.
Bene mentioned last night a desire for some commentary on the cynically timed announcement of McCain’s running partner as Sarah Palin, so here goes: here’s a short bit from the LA Times, who sums her up as a risky choice due to her inexperience, the very charge that the McCain campaign has been harping on with respect to Obama (others don’t buy that line).
How will she fare in the TV debates against the veteran politicker Biden? Will Palin’s history of running for Miss Alaska back when Obama was applying to Harvard Law School help balance the whole “celebrity” schtick? We’ll have to wait and see over the next two months (which could be a very long two months of infuriating sexism levelled against a different female candidate this time (the concept of vpilf.com is especially obstreperating)). But if the McCain campaign has chosen a woman at least partly to appeal to Hillary supporters, well: anti-abortion advocate Palin is not the woman those disaffected Dems are looking for, that’s for sure. How insulting to left-leaning women generally for the GOP to think that she could be: as if all that matters to Hillary supporters is that Hillary was a woman, so Palin is interchangeable just because she’s a woman too.
Continue reading ‘Obligatory Obama acclamation & McCain Veep selection thread’
Obama has accepted the Democratic nomination. The full text (as prepared) should include a hat tip to Kevin Rudd - yep, the working families have made an appearance.
For what it’s worth, there are some strange tropes in American politics, even if the broad sentiments are things most of us would endorse. For instance, Obama explicitly mentions the idea of “in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East”; it’s nonsense, and Obama is smart enough to know it. China’s economic growth is to be feared; here, of course, China is the magic pudding that keeps on paying more for our dirt, no matter how much of it we send over. And climate change seems to be right at the bottom of the list of priorities.
Reaction from the American lefty blogosphere has generally been enthusiastic, but then again Obama’s ability to give a good speech has never been in doubt. Here’s hoping it puts him on track for a successful campaign. Aside for what it means for Americans themselves, McCain’s foreign policy is just scary.
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It’s been 45 years since Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. Via The Global Sociology Blog, I’ve just read this op/ed by historian Stephanie Coontz - author of Marriage, A History - writing in the Guardian to mark the anniversary. Coontz deftly turns many of the usual anti-feminist narratives on their head. Continue reading ‘Feminism good for families’
Looks like Senator Joe Biden of Delaware will be Obama’s pick for Vice-President.
The selection of the long serving Senator - who’s been a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the past himself - will be seen as bringing foreign policy gravitas to the ticket. Biden is Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At 65, it’s unlikely that he would be seen as a future President, which may have been an issue had Hillary Clinton been picked.
The Obama campaign hasn’t gone for geographical balance - which was the basis for the speculation about possible Veeps such as Governor Kathleen Sibelius of Kansas, Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana. There’s not much recent evidence that helps much anyway.
Two questions will be asked about this selection - does it represent an acknowledgement of weakness from Obama in terms of experience and foreign policy and defence cred, and what will Hillary do, or more importantly the more undisciplined Bill Clinton do, at the Convention?
Elsewhere: This post probably indicates some of the reasons why there’s a downside to this selection! Melissa McEwen in the Graudian is not excited about Biden. Ann at Feministing thinks “it could have been worse” and links to other reaction while Publius at Obsidian Wings likes the choice, and so does Michael Tomasky.
Running for Office: It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner
Sean Tevis’ innovative method of raising internet funds in his venture to oust and replace his current State Representative (basically equivalent to one of our State MPs?) in Kansas is an online comic strip.
When Sean Tevis decided to run for a seat in the Kansas Legislature, he faced a serious problem: money. Local political advisors warned the campaign novice that he would need a war chest of at least $26,000 to compete against his entrenched Republican rival.
Having calculated that if he could get 3000 people to donate $8.34 each, he would reach that target, he created the comic strip to garner attention from potential online donors. He’s sort of a one-man Get Up! campaign.
Apparently, no other candidate for State Representative in Kansas has ever had more than 644 donors, so there was a built-in news narrative if he could make it work. So did it? Well, there’s a bunch of news coverage online, as well as many bloggings.
How many similar efforts are we going to see in election contests in the immediate future, do you think?
H/T to one of my Best Mates on a mailing list (and crossposted on Hoyden About Town)
Joan Walsh at Salon asks whether America is “now officially a Christian nation”. She’s thinking of this - Obama’s appearance along with John McCain at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church:
One of the candidates for president strolled onto the stage at a massive megachurch in suburban Orange County Saturday night and started joking easily with the Rev. Rick Warren, maybe the most popular evangelical leader in America — but just plain “Pastor Rick” to the candidate. He talked about his certainty that “Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I am redeemed through him,” said Americans should be soldiers in the fight against evil and defined marriage as between a man and a woman — “and God is in the mix.” This particular Christian candidate was so on his game that after a segment on domestic policy ended, Warren told him — his mic still live as the TV feed cut to commercial — “Home run.”
Oh, and John McCain was there, too.
Rick Warren’s been one of the most prominent megachurch Pastors arguing that Evangelicals can vote for Democrats.
Partly Obama’s appearance is electoral calculation - the Democrats have been talking about how to walk the faith talk since some (misleading) exit polls in November 2004. But I have no doubt he’s sincere. So much for separation of Church and State. Continue reading ‘Obama ♥ Jesus’
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