Uncategorized
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Two lessons of 2008
The conventional wisdom tends to enshrine certain “lessons” from each election cycle. Here are two that I hope get remembered: 1. Pick a qualified running mate. It’s difficult to tell if the choice of Sarah Palin actually hurt John McCain — despite her bad poll numbers, he did about as well as political science models
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The fundamentals work: Obama 53%
For months I’ve been emphasizing the role of the political fundamentals in determining presidential election outcomes. Last night that approach was again vindicated. The median forecast from leading election models was that Barack Obama would receive 52% of the two-party vote. According to the current numbers on CNN’s website, he’s at 53.1%. And despite the
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George W. Bush’s political legacy
Like Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, Bush overestimated his ability to change public opinion to support his policy goals. But 9/11 made it possible for him to overreach much further than Clinton or Gingrich ever did. As a result, the scope of the backlash is even more significant. He may truly be the Jimmy Carter
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2006 + 2008 = blowout
James Carville just made a really important point on CNN that was also emphasized to me by one of my advisers — while Democratic gains in the House and Senate tonight are significant, the combination of 2006 and 2008 adds up to a shift of historic proportions: Republicans are on target to lose somewhere between
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Hillary Clinton: Not prescient
Famous last words from the primary: Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Wednesday to continue her quest for the Democratic nomination, arguing she would be the stronger nominee because she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests. “I have a much broader base to build
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The end to a strange process
In the final minutes before election results come in, it’s worth reiterating the bizarre nature of the general election campaign and the way it is covered in the press. The final outcome is highly predictable from the political fundamentals and yet the media invests vast effort in making up stories about campaign events and their
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My post-election reform agenda
Since it’s Election Day, I want to reiterate my quadrennial objections to the Electoral College: It’s an undemocratic constitutional legacy that causes voters in 30-40 states to be ignored in favor of a handful of battleground states. People claim small states would be neglected without the Electoral College, but most of them are not getting
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Early voting by county: NC and OH
My friend and co-author Jacob Montgomery ran some numbers over the weekend on early voting by county in all 100 NC counties and the 11 Ohio counties that have public data. He plotted the percentage of the 2004 major-party vote that has already been cast against the proportion of African Americans in the county and
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Jerrold Nadler on Obama’s congruity problem
As I’ve pointed out before (here and here), Barack Obama has been plagued by a series of controversies with a common cause — the lack of congruity between his state senate district and the presidential election landscape. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) committed a Kinsley-esque gaffe by suggesting as much during a visit to a synagogue
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Obama’s lead — still solid
How solid is Barack Obama’s lead? NBC’s First Read notes that he’s led in 111 consecutive national polls whose methodology they trust: Obama has now led in 111 straight national polls with methodologies we trust (looking back through the Pollster.com national trend), including the trackers back to Sept. 22-24 when a Gallup Tracking poll showed