History of the Democratic Party and the Birth Certificate

Over at Travel and History I've written a short "History of the Democratic Party", focusing mostly on presidents and briefly tracing the history of the democratic party from inception in the late 1700s to modern times with the election of our latest Democratic President, Barack Obama, who coincidentally just released a better copy of his birth certificate ... today.

Although the "birther"arguments have always been pretty dumb, it was also been odd that the Obama camp worked so hard to avoid releasing the "vault copy" or original certificate. My working hypothesis about that was that the original birth certificate probably was lost or defaced or contained something compromising which might have made greater trouble than simply stonewalling, but the release of this latest long form birth certificate official copy from Hawaii suggests that was wrong and there was nothing at all to hide. One would think the Obama election team would have waited until closer to the election to let the frothy nonsense continue, so perhaps they have decided this was eating into his popularity enough that waiting any longer was unwise.

In any case, it looks like the 2012 Presidential Election will now be pretty much in full swing, though as David Brooks suggested recently it's very hard to imagine anybody in the current field of candidates giving Obama much of a run. I think Romney is the most likely nominee and arguably has a shot, but a lot can happen in the coming months as Republicans work the dreary Iowa farms and fields to line up early support, effectively copying the brilliant strategy of the Obama 2008 early campaign juggernaut.

Obama v. Romney in 2012 ?

As the Republican presidential primary contenders start to shake out from the field of many to a few, two names seem to stand out conspicuously: Donald Trump and Mitt Romney. Readers of President Picker will note that we thought Romney would win last election's Republican Primary, and we'll stick with that prediction for this one. McCain's nomination and predictably weak candidacy was a surprise to us though the outcome was not. Romney is a far more formidable opponent to Obama, and we'll see a close 2012 race if he's the nominee, a race that will reflect the increasing level of political polarization in the USA.

The other conspicuous Republican is Donald Trump, the bombastic star of real estate and TV. It's remarkable to see how well Trump's doing right now in polling, though most likely this simply reflects the growing frustration with America's arguably obsolete two party focus - a system that largely requires a tribal approach to thinking and politics rather than the flexible and compromising strategies that would serve us better.

Obama to win in electoral landslide

It's now very clear that Barack Obama will win the US Presidency, probably in an electoral landslide of approximately 353 electoral votes for Obama & Biden to 185 electoral votes for McCain & Palin. Thankfully we won't have the close outcome that means vote counting problems, purging strategies, and lawsuits determine the outcome rather than the intention of voters.

Obama's election is very likely even in the event of a disaster of unprecedented proportions because most now feel that Obama's leadership and intelligence make him the right choice to guide the country forward, because many people have already voted, and because Obama has by far the better "get out the vote" effort. Early voting and better polling makes in increasingly unlikely that we will see any big surprises on Tuesday, as we already have a very good idea about how close to 20% of the electorate has voted and those votes are lining up with the broad polling. All these signs point to Obama as the next president.

President Picker Predicts:
353 electoral votes for Obama & Biden
185 electoral votes for McCain & Palin

The Crackpot Vote - how big?

A critical question in elections is not so much how confirmed party members with long voting histories will behave, rather it is how those who don't think much about issues or implications will vote after they have seen the barrage of advertisements, appearances, and media coverage of the candidates.

The coming election will see a lot of effort attempting to influence that "crackpot voters", those who have little care for real issues and instead are concerned with bizarre or stupid interpretations of the candidates views, histories, and other aspects of the campaign.

I'm going to remain optimistic that this won't play a large role, given that the crackpot vote probably balances out fairly well between the candidates. Also, if the latest silly claims of "swiftboating" are any indication of the worse the campaigns have to offer each other we can remain hopeful that the election really will focus on issues rather than personal quirks, and voters will make their decisions wisely. Hmmm - that sounds way too optimistic.

Obama leading McCain by about 15%

Two national polls - Gallup and Newsweek - nearly agree that Obama now leads John McCain in national polling by about 15%. This substantial lead seems consistent with what many see as Obama's huge popularity in the face of McCain challenges with image and with associations with the unpopular Bush presidency.

Adding to McCain's concerns is the fact that Obama appears to be on the verge of amassing the greatest war chest in presidential history, where even a modest level of contributions from existing supporters will give Obama over $200,000,000 to fight McCain who is unlikely to see much more than half that amount in my view. Soft money may prove to be more important in this election however, and in that department the Republicans can draw on the larger average incomes and give amounts far exceeding the 2300 maximum for personal contributions.

President Selector from SelectSmart

Not sure who to vote for? Select Smart has a candidate selector that will ask you several questions and help you find the right man..or woman... for the job:
http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html

It's mini-Super-Tuesday - have you won yet?

With Texas and Ohio on the line John McCain may lock up his nomination today, and certainly is well on the way to the Republican Nomination. A recent BBQ at his house had McCain sizing up some potential running mates, though it's not at all clear who he'll choose. Although Huckabee may be appealing to the right wing of the party it's not clear McCain would gain a lot of votes with Huckabee because conservatives are either going to vote McCain or sit out this election. A more likely strategy than to go for conservatives is probably to shift to the center and try to play the "liberal" card against the Democrats, painting Obama or Clinton as far left. This strategy worked very well for Richard Nixon vs George McGovern and to a lesser extent in Bush v Kerry in 2004, where the Democrats were painted as "unpatriotic" despite the fact both had served in active military where the opponent had not.

RealClearPolitics has a great summary of major polls over the past year that show the remarkable and recent Obama surge among Democratic voters:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/democratic_presidential_nomination-191.html

The graph results seem to suggest that at about the time of Obama's strong Super Tuesday showing, Democrats stopped simply assuming Hilary Clinton would be the nominee and gave careful consideration to Obama who they found more appealing. Given Clinton's consistent showing in polls of some 47% probably Clinton simply didn't gain any converts, while Obama has pulled in the undecideds and shifted a few making him the presumptive nominee.

One of the many great challenges of the American Democracy process is the fact that in one sense it is the undecided voters that ultimately make the decisions. Because voting can't assign extra points for being better informed or caring "more" than your neighbor, votes all count equally (Democrat superdelegates aside!). Thus those who have only marginal interest in the outcome and are easily swayed by campaign tactics are a key voting block, and may ultimately hold the key to success in this presidential election.

Polls?!

As Mark noted below Huckabee is showing as the Iowa leader in the Zogby tracking poll as well as the averaged ClearPolitics polling here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/iowa-primary.html

The MSNBC poll they discussed today showing Romney in the lead is listed at ClearPolitics as Mason Dixon, but as I've noted before poll averaging is probably the best measure assuming all the polls in the average are unbiased. Averaging can fail miserably if you include polling that is not objective - e.g. polls by groups with an agenda or axe to grind. I have no reason to believe any of these fall into that category.

Huckabee's press conference today was the talk of the media at MSNBC who suggested he was trying to be negative without running the negative ad he'd planned. It'll be interesting to see whether Romney or Huckabee can master the art of being very negative *without acting like you are being negative*. Both are working hard at that during these last few days.

Some polls are showing Obama over Clinton where MSNBC had almost a dead heat. It'll be fun to try to untangle some of this data over the next few days, though our predictions remain as Clinton and Romney with Iowa Victories.

Brownback is out

Republican candidate Sam Brownback has dropped out of the Republican primary. Poor polling numbers and relatively low fundraising has claimed him as a victim - there will be more primary casualties in both parties very soon.

Presidential Question Mashup - clever!

Yahoo's got an excellent way to compare answers from the Democratic presidential candidates (I think they'll have one for the Republicans also eventually). It's called the Presidential Mashup
and is working within the debate system. Check it out.

Fred Thompson declares he's in the race for President

Tonight on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno Fred Thompson is declaring his candidacy for the Presidency of these United States. Newsweek's "Lazy like a Fox" byline comes to mind as Thompson talks slowly and in very general terms about his late candidacy, the other men in the Republican Race, and the Presidency.

My take is that Romney will soon be a fairly clear favorite over Thompson though Thompson's more conservative record and talk may keep him very viable as the Republican "on the right" in this race.

Online Advertising in Presidential campaigns is trivial

Here's a great summary of online ad spending by the presidential candidates except for the fact that it does not note how trivial thee levels of exposure is even for McCain who ran the most impressions.

Clinton, with under a million impressions, is spending perhaps a ten thousand total.
This low spend indicates that the online marketing people are very challenged with this new media. A spend of million dollars online would saturate the online world with the message because you don't need much targeting for a prez campaign.

Maybe they are holding back for strategic reasons but I'm guessing that they just don't get it. Big firms continue to dominate the "thinking" about how to run online campaigns, and big firms consistently have their clients waste money on foolish and stylish high CPM image based advertising rather than dramtically cheaper and more strategic pay per click and cheap image campaigns. There is a huge amount of inventory available online for massive branding campaigns like a candidate needs.

Unlike other products where you need a lot of targeting, a candidate for national office generally wants to talk to *everybody*. Even kids can have an indirect impact on election politics.

Given the jaw dropping sums about to be spent, I think we'll see the smart candidates work a lot more with online though agency ignorance of online marketing strategy may prevail in this realm.