Teflon General, Still

Spencer Ackerman at least realizes he was bamboozled or, in contemporary terms, "punked."  He notes what should be obvious, that the affair conducted by General David Petraeus with the latter's adoring biographer, Paula Broadwell, "had nothing to do with his military leadership or achievements."

Perception of those achievements, Ackerman courageously admits, was enhanced as "Like many in the press, nearly every national politician, and lots of members of Petraeus' brain trust over the years, I played a role in the creation of the legend around David Petraeus."   Nevertheless, now that Petraeus has been brought down, one would expect soul-searching, or at least an objective evaluation of the General's leadership.  One would be wrong.

Broadwell wrote All In with with Vernon Loeb, Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, who composed, as he puts it, "a real-time narrative from the torrent of e-mails, documents, and interview transcripts Broadwell sent my way" about Petraeus' year commanding the Afghanistan war.    Apparently a sheepish over his failure to recognize the relationship between Petraeus and Broadwell, Loeb nonetheless now writes, with no hint of self-reflection

The only contact I had with Petraeus during my work on the book came in 2011 during one of his trips back to Washington while he was still in command of the war. He invited me to go running with him along the Potomac in a gesture that was vintage Petraeus.

No one cultivated e-mail relationships with journalists better than he did; no one could be more personable on a kind of superficial level that nonetheless made people feel good about their interaction with him....

We drove six miles out along the Potomac, were dropped off, and ran back along the dirt tow path. The commander of the war in Afghanistan and I ran side by side, talking about great world events. I could scarcely believe I suddenly had this kind of access.

That tingling feeling may have ensued because "As Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, I had briefly embedded with the 101st Airborne Division under Petraeus' command in northern Iraq in the fall of 2003, and found the general - and what he'd accomplished - impressive and inspiring. Mosul, and much of his sector in the north, were largely pacified."

Similarly, Loeb's newspaper yesterday editorialized 

The resignation of David Petraeus as CIA director is a serious blow to the nation’s national security leadership, and it comes at an unfortunate moment. With the expected departure of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a possible reshuffling of senior officials at the National Security Council, President Obama could have benefited particularly from Mr. Petraeus’s knowledge and seasoning as he begins to grapple with second-term challenges in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere. Mr. Petraeus understands those issues as well as any American, and his record of service as a military commander is without equal in his generation...

The editors conclude "the loss of Mr. Petraeus' service" is "a harm brought about by his own actions, for which he has taken responsibility. But it will hurt the country no less."

The usually sober editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer claim

After only 14 months at the CIA, Petraeus can be replaced, which is not the same as saying his leadership won't be missed. He is an exceptional commander, as demonstrated by his successful counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq and results-oriented tour of duty in Afghanistan. In time, he was expected to produce similar results in directing the CIA.

Fortunately, with his nearly inevitable resignation, Mr. Petraeus no longer will be "expected to produce similar results in directing the CIA."  Journalist Juan Cole, who (unlike this blogger) opposed the escalation of American troops in Afghanistan, explains

What I had been concerned about, despite my admiration for Petraeus, is that he wasn't the right person to head the CIA when among its major tasks was to evaluate the counter=insurgency effort in Afghanistan. Since Petraeus authored that strategy and oversaw a stage of that war as commander, it actually was not fair to have him head the evaluative effort, and he shouldn't have been put in that position.

Counter-insurgency as Petraeus defined it involves a four-stage process. The army has to taketerritory away from a guerrilla movement. It has to clear that territory of the enemy. It has to hold that territory for long enough to reassure the local population that the guerrillas are not coming back and won't punish them as collaborators if they have something to do with the US. It has to build, i.e. build up local institutions such as police, so as to provide security and prosperity in the long run. Counter-insurgency is long and slow and requires winning over local hearts and minds.

Petraeus and other officers boxed Obama in in late 2009 and more or less imposed a counter-insurgency policy in Afghanistan on him. They only gave him this one plan, when he asked for 3 to choose from.

The counter-insurgency idea derived from the view of some in the officer corps that they had had a victory of sort because of the troop escalation or "surge" in Iraq late in the Bush period. As far as I can tell, however, violence in Iraq fell through 2007 not mainly because of US GI's but because a Shiite ethnic cleansing campaign chased most Sunnis from mixed neighborhoods.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had convinced Petraeus to begin with the Sunni armed groups, and to disarm them. Once they were helpless, the Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army went in and ethnically cleansed the remaining ones.

Through 2007 forward, as mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods became more solidly Shiite, the death toll began declining. Angry Shiites who wanted to kill a Sunni would have had to get in their cars and drive for a while to find one.

Petraeus knew about the ethnic cleansing campaign. He was aware that it was creating a new wave of Sunni refugees. But he saw the troop escalation or ‘surge' as the primary reason for the fall in violence.

Based on this misunderstanding of what had happened in Iraq, Petraeus hoped to do in Afghanistan what he thought he did with Baghdad. Hence the mantra, take clear hold build.

But this kind of counter-insurgency would have required hundreds of thousands of fresh troops. Petraeus didn't have them. It was a huge endeavor.

It has largely failed, though US politicians and journalists seem reluctant to say so.

That failure of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is dangerous and poses special dangers for our troops. It is dangerous for the future, since it cries out for clearsightedness lest we plunge into more such mistakes.

As coverage of the issue plays out, the emphasis on l'affaire Petraeus will demonstrate greater interest of the corporate media in matters sexual than in the conduct of foreign policy and national intelligence.     Little attention will be given to the massive human suffering which American policy, though in Afghanistan well-meaning, has helped bring about in the two Asian nations.   Still, the apparent disinterest in deaths of soldiers and civilians alike pale in comparison to the obliviousness, not so well-intentioned, of the American media to the causes and implications of both wars, and to the role played by the sainted General David Petraeus.






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Compromising, At Best



First, the "fiscal cliff" is not a cliff at all, literal or otherwise.

Try driving your car to the edge of a cliff.   Get out.  Then put the car into drive, release the emergency brake (if it is on), and watch your car plunge to its destruction.   Matt Yglesias argues "a salient fact about non-metaphorical cliffs is that falling over them is generally irreversible.  If the cliff is high enough that falling off of it would kill you, then if you falloff you're going to die and that's the end of it.  The 'fiscal cliff' by contrast isn't like that at all." Krugman explains that, despite the hand-wringing from the media and Washington Wise Men (and women)

It's worth pointing out that the fiscal cliff isn't really a cliff.  It's not like the debt-ceiling confrontation, where terrible things might well have happened right away if the deadline had been missed.  This time, nothing very bad will happen to the economy if agreement isn't reached until a few weeks or even a few months into 201.  So there's time to bargain.

In a similar vein, Dan Gross notes

Most significantly, the cliff will change the negotiating dynamic. After January 1, 2013, for the first time in several years, Republicans will desperately need and want something from the President. As CEOs, investors, and lobbyists wail, Republicans will only be able to deliver if they can coax President Obama into a deal. They can jump up and down and demand that Washington cut taxes on the very wealthy at a time of high budget deficits. And if Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwartzman—who once compared the Obama administration to the Nazis, wants his low tax rate back—he can call the White House. Good luck with that.

Gross and Krugman recognize that a newly re-elected President Obama can negotiate from a strong bargaining position, the latter noting he is "in a far stronger position than in previous negotiations."   He can let the Bush-era tax cuts expire and then present Congress with the option of bringing back the lower rates for individuals earning below $200,000 and couples earning under $250,000.    House Democrats tried that in the summer but House Republicans, figuring the GOP might retake the White House and the Senate, predictably rejected it because the higher, 39% rate, would return for the wealthy.

That was then, this is now, and President Obama holds the cards- if he wishes to play them.    Early indications are mixed, at best.   On Friday, President Obama declared "But as I’ve said before, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity. If we’re serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue. And that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes."

Unfortunately, a moment later he followed that with"I want to be clear, I’m not wedded to every detail of my plan. I’m open to compromise. I’m open to new ideas. I’m committed to solving our fiscal challenges."

The community organizer, who won, and retained, the presidency by amassing the best campaign organization in American political history, is at it again, acting as if the opposition holds the power while he strives to secure half the pie, or even one-quarter.   We know he's "not wedded to every detail" of his plan and is "open to compromise," as he has been for four years.  Though Speaker John Boehner has indicated he is willing to raise revenues by limiting tax deductions, Digby realizes

So we have the general outlines of what revenues Boehner and the Republicans are willing to accept. Good to know. Does anyone have any idea what cuts the president and the Democrats are willing to accept in return? It seems as though it might be time to have a little chat about that because it appears that they've all agreed to accept some temporary chump change as a Big Victory and the Republicans may very well have wised up enough to recognize that now's the time to take the deal. 

So, what do you think the Republicans will demand for the tremendous sacrifice of closing a couple of loopholes? What will be the price for this huge sacrifice? 

I don't know, but I do know that the president once before agreed to 2 dollars in cuts for every dollar in revenue. He's said just recently that as Commander in Chief he can't go along with big defense cuts, so don't look for much money there. So, where are the cuts going to be?

We may have learned yesterday, when on Meet The Press yesterday Bob Woodward revealed that he had obtained

a confidential document, last offer the president -- the White House made last year to Speaker Boehner to try to reach this $4 trillion grand bargain.  And it's long and it's tedious and it's got budget jargon in it.  But what it shows is a willingness to cut all kinds of things, like TRICARE, which is the sacred health insurance program for the military, for military retirees; to cut Social Security; to cut Medicare. And there are some lines in there about, "We want to get tax rates down, not only for individuals but for businesses."  So Obama and the White House were willing to go quite far.

If Obama and Boehner had reached this agreement months ago, it would now be President-elect Romney with a Repub-controlled House and Senate.   And if this now forms the outline of a deal, the social safety net would be disemboweled, with even benefits for veterans cut, confirming the worst (inaccurate) stereotypes held of Democrats.  There will be no President (H) Clinton, (S) Brown, Biden, O'Malley, or (the fairly loathsome) Andrew Cuomo.  But at least, Barack Obama will go down in history as the transformative President always has yearned to be.



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The GOP's Real Hispanic Problem


In 2004, George W. Bush won 44% of Hispanics voted to re-elect President George W. Bush.  Four years later, John McCain, a promoter of comprehensive immigration reform, garnered only 31% of the Hispanic vote.    Last Tuesday, only 27% of Hispanics voted for the GOP presidential nominee, Willard "Mitt" Romney.  He and Senator McCain were perceived as indifferent or even antagonistic toward Latinos.

No unanimity has emerged among Republicans as to how to win a greater share of the Hispanic vote.   Some want the party to re-examine its positions while others believe messaging and candidates with Latin faces will do the trick.

Many, however, recognize there is at least a problem.   The Washington Examiner's Byron York cited "Romney's failure to appeal to Latino voters."  Prominent CNN contributor and proprietor of redstate.com Erick Erickson maintained "At the same time, Romney made a conscious decision to blow off Hispanic voters. Yes conservatives, we must account for this. The Romney campaign to the Hispanic community was atrocious and, frankly, the fastest growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people."

And the editors of the libertarian-leaning right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page argued  

Perhaps most damaging, Mr. Romney failed to appeal more creatively to minority voters, especially Hispanics. His single worst decision may have been to challenge Texas Governor Rick Perry in the primaries by running to his right on immigration. Mr. Romney didn't need to do this given that Mr. Perry was clearly unprepared for a national campaign, and given the weakness of the other GOP candidates. (Tim Pawlenty had dropped out.)

Mr. Romney missed later chances to move to the middle on immigration reform, especially Senator Marco Rubio's compromise on the Dream Act for young immigrants brought here by their parents. This created the opening for Mr. Obama to implement the core of the Dream Act by executive order, however illegally, and boost his image with Hispanic voters.

The exit polls show that Mr. Romney did even worse among Hispanics than John McCain in 2008, and we may learn in coming days that this was the margin in some swing states. The GOP needs to leave its anti-immigration absolutists behind.

(Note to the editors:  Obama's action was not that of an Executive Order but an administrative action, undertaken by order of the President and executed by the Secretary of Homeland Security.   But you're wrong about almost everything else, anyway.)

Clearly, since immigration (or illegal immigration; we'll say "immigration" for ease and use Hispanic/Latin/Spanish-speaking interchangeably) became a national issue, Republicans have been routed among voters of a Spanish-speaking background.    The party has been perceived, accurately, as generally less sympathetic to their interests.

Consider, though, that Mitt Romney stated definitively that he is opposed to "rounding up" Hispanics, a practice common in the Obama Administration as ICE has had the temerity to raid the workplaces of bosses employing illegal immigrants.   He took heat for recommending, during the primary campaign, "self-deportation," an unfortunate phrase which was politically damaging, though  he explained "people mak(ing) their own choices as to whether they want to go home & that's what I mean by self-deportation."   While opposed to what the Wall Street Journal termed the President's "Executive Order," Romney stated that he would not return to the nation of origin those young people authorized by the current president to remain in the U.S.A.  As on most matters, the views of the G.O.P.'s nominee were ambiguous and confusing.

Inarguably, the Republican Party has lost serious ground nationally among Hispanics while failing to accrue support from other voters over its approach to immigration and related issues.   However, immigration is a national issue to Hispanics, but to other voters in only a few states.

Primary among the latter is Arizona.   There (interactive map, here), Senator Obama captured 45.1% of the overall vote to his Senator McCain's 53.7% in 2008, a deficit of 12.6% for the Democrat.  But the GOP candidate was from Arizona, and speculation ensued that President Obama could capture the state's electoral votes in 2012, especially given its growing Latin population.

In 2012, however, facing a candidate from Massachusetts (and Michigan and Utah), Obama managed to garner only 44.1% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 54.3%.  This deficit of 10.2% was only a slight improvement for Obama in a state in which the share of the Latino vote was projected to increase 23.2% since 2008.

The Hispanic vote in Arizona is not huge but at roughly 12.0% of the electorate, represents a greater share than in the nation at large.  Still, the Democratic nominee was defeated, although he undoubtedly won a majority of the Hispanic vote in the state. That appears to run counter to the prevailing narrative, especially because immigration is a bigger issue in Arizona than anywhere else in the nation.

Although counter-intuitive, Obama's failure in Arizona is not "incredible" or "unbelievable" but may be due precisely to the salience of the immigration debate there.   Elsewhere, immigration is of relatively little importance as an issue, leaving primarily Hispanics as the only voters to whom it is central.   By contrast, in Arizona, immigration is a primary issue, sometimes dominating the debate. Voters of all ethnic groups and political persuasions are engaged.  And there, not coincidentally, the candidate of the party less congenial toward immigration won in the presidential race- and in the U.S. Senate race as well.

Republicans have not been pummeled primarily because they have taken a hard-line on immigation.  They have been pummeled because they have tacked right, alienating Latinos, while simultaneously failing to engage the larger American community, much of which is severely displeased by high immigration levels.  They have missed out on the opportunity to mobilize support among anti-immigration voters as Hispanics, who have a heightened interest in the issue, have turned away from the party.

It may be hard to understand why a major political party would allow an issue to gain currency with one group, which thereupon flocks to the other party, and neglects to raise the issue to such a level of concern that other Americans would be energized to vote for it.   Hard, but not impossible.

There are two major factions in the GOP- the electoral base and the donor base.   Most voters registered as Republican are not enamored of high levels of immigration (or what they perceive as high levels).   But money flows into the GOP coffers from corporations or individuals or interests associated with corporations.  Those players are far less hostile to immigrants who, as luck would have it, double as hard-working employees.   Native-born American citizens, certainly, are available to work.  But the presence of large numbers of immigrants exerts a downward pressure on wages and benefits and, besides, employing other individuals might entail hiring blacks, which some businesses no doubt would find unpleasant.

This may be an oversimplification.  However, it is less so than conventional wisdom:  1) there are more Hispanics voting than ever before; 2) most Hispanics are voting Democratic; 3) Republicans have lost the last two presidential elections.  Therefore,  Republicans must favorably address the needs of Hispanics in order to win another national election.

  


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Next Time, Try Bribery



At first glance, it makes sense.  At second glance, it does not.    Zeke Miller, whose article in BuzzFeed formed the basis of my previous post, noted also

More common is the sense that the party’s problems can be fixed without a philosophical shift.

“We have to do a better job of appealing to women, minorities, and young people,” a state-based Republican operative said. “I think a lot of that starts with adopting an approach to social issues that is more of a ‘this is what I believe and here's why it's important, but it's not government or politicians' role to impose that upon others who may not feel that way.’ It will be a challenge to unite the various factions behind that philosophy, but if we're truly the party of limited government and individual freedom and initiative then we must be willing to be consistent with that view.”

Where to start?   Wisely, the "state-based Republican operative" evidently did not offer his or her name.    Barry Goldwater is dead, literally and figuratively.  Others have noted the Republican Party ceased long ago to be "the party of limited government and individual freedom and initiative."    It has ceased to exist for any reason other than to uphold corporate power, as reflected in its opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Act.  The legislation, vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan claimed, "wasn't an equal pay law, and of course, we support equal pay."    Of course they support it- as long as it's voluntary; we wouldn't want to inconvenience corporations of course, by giving women a fair opportunity to challenge discrimination.  It would be just swell if employers decided on their own on a wage scale uninfluenced by the sexual machinery an individual is born with.

In a second straight presidential race, the GOP was clobbered, as this operative understands, among young people.    But it is to some extent a function of a Democratic nominee who particularly appeals to young people and, to a lesser extent, alienates elderly people.

"Our packaging lost," claims the chairman of the College National Republican Committee, "and we have to improve the way we communicate our message to young and Hispanic voters.”

How soon we forget.  Soon after Ryan's selection by Mitt Romny, The Daily Beast's Kirsten Powers wrote

We’ve finally been vindicated: Members of Generation X have a representative who is anything but a slacker.

GOP Congressman Paul Ryan—the tireless, wonky, 42-year-old workout freak—has made history by becoming the first member of our generation to join a presidential ticket. It should come as a surprise to no one that his calling card is reforming entitlements.

We hear incessantly about how members of today’s screwed generation face the prospect of less prosperous lives than those lived by their parents. But the maiden generation to stare down that gloomy prognosis was Generation X, the tiny slice of America born between about 1965 and 1980. (Ryan was born in 1970.) We were the first generation to be told we would never get Social Security or Medicare even though we would be forced to pay into these programs.

Enter Ryan. While Democrats attack his Medicare plan as “radical” and portray him as pushing granny off the cliff, young people don’t seem to be buying this caricature. Or maybe “radical” is what they want.

A Zogby/JZ Analytics poll Tuesday showed increased support among voters 18-29 for the Romney ticket, which pollster John Zogby attributed to the Ryan pick.  President Obama received just 49 percent of the youth vote, versus Romney’s 41 percent. (Obama took home 66 percent of the youth vote  against McCain in 2008.)

For those who think those numbers are an anomaly, take a look at Pew’s 2011 polling that found that among 18-29 year olds, 46 percent supported Ryan’s proposed Medicare changes with only 28 percent opposing (the rest had no opinion). Among 30-49 year olds it was 38 percent approving and 36 percent opposed. The strongest opposition to Ryan’s plan comes from those over 65, who ironically won’t even be affected by his plan since it would only apply to those 55 and under . Pew found that age, not party identification was the biggest predictor of how a person would feel about his plan...

But Ryan is young and is poised to be the intellectual leader of the conservative movement for the next generation. He will be a force to be reckoned with. Name-calling and distortions of his plan by Democrats is not an effective long-term strategy, nor is it good for the country.

Powers, who doesn't understand Social Security and Medicare, nevertheless acknowledged what many Repub analysts will not do so in the wake of the election:   Ryan was selected in part for his appeal to youth. Young people are more accepting of efforts to undermine Social Security and Medicare.   For many years now, they have been led to believe by opportunistic and dishonest politicians that Social Security, without changes, is on the road to extinction; and that the increase in health care costs owes not to health insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals or public policies favoring the medical-industrial complex but to Medicare itself.   Additionally, young people have not themselves experienced either program, whose popularity among the elderly is astounding.

Romney hoped Ryan's addition would appease the far right and take back in Wisconsin (how did that work out, Mitt?),   He obviously recognized that Ryan's leadership in the effort to decimate Medicare and eviscerate Social Security was a risk worth taking in the effort to woo young voters.   The nominee could have chosen Ohio's Senator Rob Portman and won in Ohio- and in Florida, whose voters are deeply vested in the importance of maintaining Social Security and Medicare benefits.    But youthful, hapless Paul Ryan, who was eaten up and spit out by Joe Biden in debate and spent the last couple of weeks of the campaign wandering the country, was expected to expand the GOP brand to young people.   Instead, he was the second straight Repub presidential nominee to contribute to his party's defeat at the polls.  Good luck with that "packaging" to the under 30 crowd.



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Not Yet, Not Now


For those of you too young to remember when Cadillac was a metaphor for class and success, think Lexus.   It used to be said that ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law driving off the cliff- in your new Cadillac.

Never having had a Cadillac, a Lexus, or a mother-in-law I would want to have drive over a cliff, I'll have to be satisfied with an election which turned out far better than I expected.

Barack Obama was re-elected with an Electoral Vote margin (assuming the inclusion of Florida) far greater than I expected, my prediction of 294-244 the product of splitting the difference between facts and logic- the estimation of Nate Silver and other brilliant experts- and my hunch, which was that this could (improbably) end in disaster.  I felt very good about the Senate overall, but saw a possible problem for any or all of the Democratic candidates in Montana, Wisconsin, and Virginia.     And I never, ever thought the Democratic nominee would win in North Dakota.  (What must the great Byron Dorgan be thinking?)

I neglected to project Democratic gains in, though failure to win control of, the House of Representatives.   Nor did I bother to predict that it will snow in Boston and Chicago this winter, nor that Florida will receive little or no snow (which I refuse to call "the white stuff.")

The post-mortems continue as Republicans continue to assess the reason(s) they lost the presidential race to, as they see it, to Lucifer, and had their tails handed to them in the United States Senate.    Many of them are somewhat valid- but not this one from many of the Party's young bucks.  BuzzFeed's Zeke Miller writes

But some of the younger generation — people in their twenties and thirties, digital natives, committed conservatives — reported another feeling: relief. The time had finally come to push aside the television-centric operatives who have run Republican campaigns for a generation, to reset the party’s values around race and sex, and to adapt its tactics to the era of Twitter. Politics has always been ruthlessly competitive, with one cycle’s guru the next cycle’s washed-up cable news commentator. Mentors have always had to keep an eye out for protégés wielding daggers. And now the daggers are out. 

Television is just so yesterday.   Some of these cool geniuses choose not to recall

Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney gained ground on Democratic President Barack Obama after a strong performance in their first debate heading into the Nov. 6 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after their prime-time face-off.

Romney is now viewed positively by 51 percent of voters, the first time he has enjoyed a net positive in the U.S. presidential race, the poll found. Obama's favorability rating remained unchanged at 56 percent, according to the poll.

Romney moved ahead of the president on several core issues after Wednesday's debate, which was widely seen as a victory for the Republican candidate.

Voters now see Romney as a better bet to boost the economy, spur job creation and manage the budget deficit, the poll found. He narrowed Obama's advantage on taxes, the Social Security retirement program and the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

That debate was not held on Twitter, Facebook, the IPad, the IPhone, or any other variant of social media or instrument of new technology.   It was held on television.

Ipsos pollster Cliff Young had said of Romney "If he has more debates like this, is able to push through his message and target undecideds, we might see movement in voting intention, but he needs a lot more of this."

He didn't need a lot more, only a little more, and failed to get it as Obama clearly got the better of his challenger in the second and third debates, as Joe Biden did of Paul Ryan in the vice-presidential debate.   Romney's problem was compounded when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie fawned over President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.   No one knows yet whether the federal government's response to to Sandy will be viewed as highly effective but has been lauded for his response.   Obama's appearance on television enabled him to project leadership, and praise by the GOP governor- viewed by tens of millions of Americans on television- enhanced Obama's claims to bipartisanship.

Miller observes

Indeed, the fact that new forms of communications remain a relatively small fraction of campaign spending rankles many.

“We still haven't learned the lesson of the Obama campaign of 2008: The Internet and technology, by lowering transaction costs and barriers to entry, can empower individuals to be more impactful to the political process in general,” said Soren Dayton, a Republican consultant who specializes in new media. “Obama turned activists to organizers. Republican campaigns still treat activists as ATMs and phone-calling automatons.”

I am no more certain of the impact of old technology on future elections than I was of Virginia and Colorado on this one.  Nonetheless, it appears those enamored of the new because it is the new (or because they understand, and can utilize, it better than their elders) are either unaware, or loath to acknowledge the obvious.  The 2012  race was almost won by a singularly unlikable candidate, who had marginalized himself in the primary campaign, because of his performance on television.  And then, having failed to repeat the highly effective television performance, he remained in contention until the ravages of Hurricane Sandy were brought to voters in Virginia, Florida, Ohio, and Colorado by silly old TV.





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Finally, The Not-Early Voting



Glenn Beck's outfit, The Blaze, reports 

New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor , based in Chicago, tells TheBlaze that the Obama campaign may be planning to preemptively announce victory in the presidential election based on early voting numbers in an attempt to “demoralize Mitt Romney supporters.”

Citing a “very solid source” in Chicago, Thor says the Obama campaign is looking to make it appear to voters that they have “this thing sewed up and are less than 24 hours to victory,” according to his source.

Meanwhile, team Obama will also urge voters to get out and vote so they can say they were part of the important 2012 election that resulted in a second term for Obama.

While Thor can’t reveal his source, he told TheBlaze multiple times that the source is very reliable.

The flip side of the coin, the author explained, is that the Obama campaign is counting on the mainstream media to drive home their narrative should they implement this strategy.

“They are so invested in Obama,” Thor said of the media. “I don’t see how any truth loving person could look to the mainstream media ever again. This election should be the final nail in the coffin with the mainstream media.”

It's truly shameful that according to Thor, the Obamites (Obamians?) are urging individuals to vote.  But then, Republicans for a long time have been periodically disdainful and often wary of people exercising the franchise.

The late Paul Weyrich, of whom Focus on the Family founder James Dobson once wrote "Had there been no Paul Weyrich, there would be no conservative movement as we know it," laid out the reasoning.   Weyrich, who co-founded organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority and founded the extremely influential American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), declared (video below, from People for the American Way via Right Wing Watch via YouTube) in August, 1980 "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."







Thor's source may in fact have told him that the Obama campaign will claim it has "this thing sewed up and are less than 24 hours to victory."   It would be odd indeed for a campaign on election day to send its surrogates out to admit its vote is underperforming expectations, which would discourage its supporters who had not yet voted to turn out.   That is particularly well understood by Romney advocates, who have been saturating the media the past few weeks with predictions of victory, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The Romney recognize the importance of the perception of success, presumably remembering

John Ellis is not unlike any other American journalist in wanting to be first with big news. At the helm of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Network's election night decision team, he achieved the now dubious distinction of being the first to call Florida - and the presidential election - for George W. Bush. The numbers he was working from were not official, but the viewers did not know that. Nor did they know that Ellis was very chummy with Bush - he's his first cousin.

No one might have given Ellis much notice if the election was not still hanging by a chad almost two weeks later - or if he had not bragged to the New Yorker magazine that throughout what's come to be known as 'Indecision 2000' he was constantly on the phone with his cousins George and Florida's Governor 'Jebbie', tipping them off with the latest internal projections on the voting.

The revelation has caused disquiet within the more high-minded of media circles, not least because his decision to call it for 'Dubya' on Fox at 2:16am forced the hand of competing networks. CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS followed the Ellis lead within four minutes, only to be forced into embarrassing retractions less than two hours later. But the fateful decision has proved convenient for Republicans in the ongoing PR war, say media watchers, creating a lasting impression that Bush 'won' the White House - and all the legal wrangling down in Florida is just a case of Democratic 'snippiness'.

'The notion you'd have the cousin of one presidential candidate in a position to call a state, and the election, is unthinkable,' says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. 'Fox's call - wrong, unnecessary, misguided, foolish - helped create a sense that the election went to Bush, was pulled back, and it's just a matter of time before his President-elect title is restored.

The Obama campaign understands the lengths to which the GOP voting fraud machine will go to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat after November 6 and, after much ado about a lot, its candidate eventually will be inaugurated as scheduled in late January.  

I expected a Romney-H. Clinton faceoff in 2008, and confidently predicted before this season that the New York Giants, who at least appear to be well on their way to winning their division of the National Football Conference, would not even make the playoffs.   Nevertheless, at 9:00 Eastern time- before having voted or listened to any news other than sports- I estimate that Mr. Obama will earn 294 electoral votes, which would leave his opponent with 244 electoral votes, which I figured out because my mathematical skill exceeds that of my prognostication (or that of Romney, with his deceptive job and tax plans).  

This looks suspiciously like the prediction (map, below) of David Atkins, probably because I "borrowed" it from him.    It seems to me a nice splitting of the difference between what the numbers indicate (300+ for Obama) and the truly awful outcome in which GOP vote rigging and suppression produce a Romney victory.  I believe, however, that Obama's popular vote margin will be very tiny, perhaps .1%, in part because of a Bradley Effect, which evidently did not take place in 2008.   There being a merciful God, the Democrats may win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote, which would produce a bit of second-guessing by a Republican Party dead-set on continuing the electoral college in its current form, and be a fine turnabout (we're not supposed to say 'revenge') for 2000.   But even with a merciful God, such an outcome is unlikely.

Main Street Liberal will be on hiatus until this (11/10-11/11) weekend.  Please return then.   And by all means, annoy a Republican-vote.





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Non-Prediction Prediction


In my previous post, I termed it "unlikely" that Democrats will improve upon their 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate in the next Congress.

Unlikely- but possible.    There are several (such as here, here, and here) colorful maps for the Senate races.    The New York Times site concluded that 40 Democratic seats are safe. Add to them Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Maine.

Upsets in any of those states are possible, of course.   Dark money has flooded Ohio to defeat Sherrod Brown, in part because because he is somewhat populist (a rarity among Democratic officeholders in the age of Obama) and a potential star in the national party.  Fortunately, Josh Mandel is a fairly weak candidate and the voters of Ohio are too sensible to turn Brown out.

In Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren is not so lucky as to have an inadequate opponent, given that Scott Brown is popular and an excellent politician.  She is, however, running in a strongly Democratic state in a presidential election year, one in which the head of the ticket will win more thoroughly than a typical Democratic nominee, perhaps because Massachusetts voters know his opponent very well.

Incumbent Bob Casey in Pennsylvania will hang on and win, though he took his opponent, Tea Party Tom Smith, too lightly until recently.   In Maine, Angus Beef King (not a real nickname) has assiduously avoided hinting at which party he will caucus with.  However, as an Independent, King probably will go with the majority (Democratic) party, which- unlike the GOP- has laid off fighting the popular ex-governor.

Three states- Wisconsin, Montana, and Virginia- probably are toss-ups.   And that assumes Nevada, which most experts believe could go either way, will be won by incumbent Republican Dean Heller.    Montana is extremely close, evidently.  Democrat Tim Kaine has led in the vast majority of polls in Virginia but there may be a hidden vote for former Senator George Allen because survey respondents may not want to be associated with a guy who, well, has demonstrated in the past racially biased sentiments.

Another hidden vote- a kind of sexual preference Bradley Effect- may turn up in Wisconsin.  Polls suggest that Tammy Baldwin, who would become the first openly gay U.S. Senator, is likely to defeat the popular former governor, Tommy Thompson.   But homosexuality may be the new black, wherein individuals are more inclined to vote against a minority than to admit it to a pollster.  Let's hope not.

If Wisconsin, Montana, and Virginia all go Democratic, that would be 54.   Possible, but don't bet the house, the car, or even Mitt Romney's $10,000 on it.


                           ANNOY A REPUBLICAN- VOTE!




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