White House 2008

GENERAL ELECTION

1. Donkey Kong

"For at least" 16M voters, WH'08 is "already over."

Across the 30+ states that "allow no-excuse absentee or early voting, votes have been pouring in at a record pace, and the data show Barack Obama as the clear beneficiary. In the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll," 59% "of those who said they had already voted backed Obama," and 40% "indicated that they supported John McCain. So far, the numbers are a near-mirror image of the past two elections" (Cohen/Dropp, Washington Post, 10/30).

Dems "are dominating early voting in six key states" Pres. Bush won in '04 (IA, NC, FL, CO, NM, and NV), "forcing" McCain "to play catch-up even before Election Day arrives." In FL, "voting lines have been so long" that Gov. Charlie Crist (R) "signed an executive order" 10/28 "extending early voting hours."

GA, "another red state, doesn't track early voters by party, but it does by race." About 1.4M Georgians "have already cast ballots, and blacks are voting in disproportionate numbers. Black voters overwhelmingly support" Obama.

"About a third of voters are expected to vote early this year, up from" 22% in '04. "But is Obama, who is using his fundraising superiority on a massive early voting campaign, merely eating into the number of votes he would otherwise receive on Election Day? Or is McCain, who trails in most polls, falling perilously behind as Election Day approaches?"

A closer look at early voting in key states:

• FL: About 2.6M people "have already voted in a state where absentee ballots overwhelmingly favored" Bush "in the razor-thin" WH'00. "Among those voting so far this year," 45% are Dems and 39% GOPers.

• NC: About 1.6M people have already voted -- 54% Dem and 29% GOP. About 100K "newly registered voters have signed up and voted" at NC's "one-stop voting centers." Among them, Dems outnumbered GOPers "by about 2-1."

• IA: About 370K early voters -- 49% Dem and 29% GOP.

• CO: About 815K early voters -- 39% Dem and 37% GOP.

• NC: About 342K people have already voted in Clark Co. and Washoe Co., which contain nearly 90% of the state's population. Among those voters, 53% are Dem and 30% are GOP.

• NM: About 111K people have voted in Bernalillo Co., the state's largest. Among them, 55% are Dem and 33% are GOP (Ohlemacher, AP, 10/29).

Also Good For The Little D

Washington Post editorializes, "A lot is going wrong in this election, from malfunctioning electronic voting machines to voters being purged mistakenly from the rolls. But one thing is going very right: early voting."

"Early voting has many advantages. The main one is that it makes it likely that more eligible voters will participate in democracy."

"But the truth is that early voting actually makes it harder for the forces of disenfranchisement to stop eligible voters from casting ballots. If election officials try to require voters to present ID when it is not required by law, early voting gives voters a chance to simply return the next day. Dirty tricks are also harder to pull off. ... Early voting also reduces the burden on election systems that are often stretched near to the breaking point (10/30).

A Halloween Sugar-Rush To The Polls?

"But other factors are still outstanding and unknown, highlighting the dangers in drawing too many conclusions about the ultimate characteristics of the electorate less than a week away from Election Day."

George Mason Univ. prof. Michael McDonald "cited one big question; how significant" will the GOP's "72-hour mobilization effort to get out the vote just before Election Day be? Predicting that factor, especially in battleground states, as he noted, may be one of the biggest unknowables -- evidenced by" WH'04 ("think" IA and Sen. John Kerry's "pre-election voting mount vs. Bush eking out a win in the state on Election Day.)"

"Even with high numbers of African-Americans voting and so many" pro-Dem votes "already in the bank, McDonald said that a strong 72-hour" GOP campaign "could make Election Day 'look really different than the early vote.'" In WH'04, "for example, the GOP's "72-hour campaign 'swamped'" OH and FL (Phillips, "The Caucus," New York Times, 10/29)

... Not Likely

Obama "has pulled ahead in enough states to win the 270 electoral votes he needs" to win -- "and with states to spare. ... Even if McCain sweeps the six states that are too close to call, he still seemingly won't have enough votes to prevail. ... McCain does have a path to victory but it's a steep climb: He needs a sudden shift in voter sentiment that gives him all six toss-up states plus one or two others that now lean toward Obama" (Sidoti, AP, 10/30).

"The pool of undecided voters remains as large as one in 10," but McCain "can hardly rely on them to overtake" Obama. "According to past election results, those voters who decided in the last week of a campaign are unlikely to break decisively for either candidate and dramatically alter" the election results.

"In the past eight presidential contests, voters who made up their minds during the last week of the campaign never went for either ticket by large margins of 3-2 or 2-1, which potentially could tip the scales." Pew's Andy Kohut: "There is likely no hidden life raft in the undecided vote for John McCain" (Kuhn, Politico, 10/30).

If McCain's supporters "are hoping for a 'Bradley effect' bounce on Election Day, some pollsters and strategists say they may have another thing coming. Beware of the 'bandwagon effect,'", which "suggests that a small but significant number of persuadable voters will decide at the last minute to go with the winner. "

Univ. of CA prof. Samuel Popkin: "There will be somebody in the end who says, 'I don't want to vote for him because he's black, but McCain's going to lose so I'll vote for him to tell my grandkids I did."

"Popkin said Obama's rise in the polls is just the kind of movement that would cause a voter to reevaluate, creating a positive feedback loop where more support begets more support. The reverse is true on John McCain's side: The more he drops, the more people reassess him."

"On the other hand, if McCain surges in the polls in the last few days before the election, the bandwagon effect could have voters reconsidering and jumping off the Obama train" (Grim, Politico, 10/30).

However, Obama supporters "who might think their vote isn't needed because several polls show [him] with wide leads could be motivated to show up on Election Day" by McCain's "assertion this week that the race is closer than the polls suggest. McCain is clearly trying to motivate his supporters, who might have thought all is lost, but some of his efforts could awake a sleeping giant in new and young voters who support Obama but might have thought they weren't needed" (Youngman, The Hill, 10/29).

Keeping The Faith Of My Fathers Alive

McCain "still could win. It would take what one analyst calls a 'perfect storm' of events breaking his way in the campaign's final days, but he could come from behind, overtake" Obama "and pull off the greatest upset in 60 years" (Thomma, McClatchy, 10/29).

"Despite a mounting chorus" of GOPers "predicting their nominee's demise, McCain aides insist their internal surveys show victory is still within reach."

"Indeed, polls are mere snapshots of highly fluid campaigns, and this race has been unusually volatile. McCain was written off prematurely last year, and Obama seemed poised for victory" in NH's Dem primary just before Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) "thumped him."

"A couple of factors might cut McCain's way. First, there are still a good number of voters are open to changing their minds -- from as low as" 4% in NV to 14% in NH. "Second, the impact of race is a hard-to-measure factor as Obama seeks to become the nation's first black president." In three states -- NC, FL, and PA -- the number of white Dems "who said the word 'violent' described most blacks hit double digits in the polling. In those same states, Obama was having trouble winning over" white Dems -- 20% of them in NC "said they were voting for McCain;" 12% in FL and 8% in PA (Fournier, AP, 10/30).

After weeks of being out-advertised by Barack Obama, John McCain and the Republican Party are nearly matching the Democrat ad for ad in key battleground markets. Ad spending and ad placement data obtained from Democratic and Republican operatives show that in the closing days of the campaign the Republican voice has grown louder in states such as Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Those near-parity levels in crucial states come with a price. McCain has had to trim back his ads in Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, giving Obama even greater edges there" (Kuhnhenn, AP, 10/30).

Bush strategist Karl Rove writes, "Some polls are sponsored by reputable news organizations, others by publicity-eager universities or polling firms on the make. None have the scientific precision we imagine."

"The last national poll that showed McCain ahead came out" 9/25 "and the 232 polls since then have all shown Obama leading. ... In truth, however, no one knows for sure what kind of polling deficit is insurmountable or even which poll is correct. All of us should act with the proper understanding that nothing is yet decided" (Wall Street Journal, 10/30).

Tough Nut To Crack

ACORN, "the liberal 'community organizing' group that claims it will deploy" 15K "get-out-the-vote workers on Election Day, can't stay out the news" (Fund, Wall Street Journal, 10/30).

The PA GOP and ACORN "battled all day" 10/29 in court "over lists of new voters that ACORN canvassers signed up to cast ballots" on Election Day. Pittsburgh atty Heather Heidelbaugh, representing the PA GOP, "claimed there could be thousands of 'fraudulent' or duplicate names on the voter registration lists compiled by ACORN."

"She asked Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson to order" ACORN "to produce the lists of up" to 140K "new voters that its paid workers have registered this year" in PA in preparation for the general election. Heidelbaugh "charged that ACORN has stressed the voter registration system, especially in Philadelphia, by giving elections officials as many as" 58K "duplicate registrations of people already signed up to vote, forms with false names and addresses, or other fraudulent forms."

ACORN officials "retorted" that the GOPers "were creating a false 'right-wing conspiracy' aimed against lower-income people, especially those of African-American and Latino heritage, to prevent them from voting" 11/4. ACORN official Ali Kronley "charged that the GOP was engaging in voter suppression, trying to keep first-time voters from voting." Kronley "said that in Philadelphia," 350K "new voter registration forms were turned in, but only" 85K "were gathered by ACORN canvassers. She insisted that nowhere near the claimed" 58K "duplicate forms came from ACORN workers" (Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/30).

Star Squirrel Takes The Stand

An ex-employee of Project Vote (an ACORN affiliate) and "star witness" of the PA GOP, Anita Moncrief, testified 10/29 that ACORN "knew that most new voter registration forms it had gathered were fraudulent." Moncrief: "Forty percent was OK" ("referring to the number of bona fide registrations" that ACORN officials "believed was acceptable").

"For nearly two hours," Moncrief "gave a scathing, though at times vague, assessment of ACORN and its efforts to go into battleground states and help mostly minorities and the poor register to vote for the first time. The group, she said, barely trained its workers in how to register voters properly, and would fire employees if they did not meet a quota of 20 new voter applicants daily. And, if they were caught committing fraud, the group 'threw them under the bus' as scapegoats to take all the legal blame, Moncrief said" (Cattabiani, Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/30).

Moncrief also testified that ACORN "was provided a 'donor list'" from the Obama camp in late '07 "for fundraising efforts." She "said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from" the Obama camp. Moncrief said she has a copy of a 'development plan' that outlines how Obama contributors who had 'maxed out' under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors."

Project Vote spokesperson Michael McDunnah "denied that the list came from" the Obama, according to the AP. "Donor lists for candidates are public information and can be downloaded" from the FEC's website. "The lists include how much individuals have given. ACORN officials have said Moncrief was fired from Project Vote and that she is not a credible witness."

The Obama camp "said it wasn't involved in ACORN registration drives." Spokesperson Sean Smith: "Our campaign has not coordinated with ACORN whatsoever on any voter registration activities" (Bumsted, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 10/29).

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

"Forget soccer moms. Forget hockey moms. When it comes to this year's down-ballot races," the Dems' "most loyal voting bloc could determine the outcome. Assuming that early trends hold," a Dem wave "bigger than the one that swept Congress out of GOP hands" in '06 "could be coming, and if it does, it will probably be powered by African-American voters."

"A fair number of vulnerable" GOP candidates "are in disproportionately black states and districts, and a substantial jump in black turnout -- especially in the South -- could mean" that the Dems "could pick up a significant number of seats in those areas. Data from early voting suggests that this surge could already be happening, and that even some" of the GOPers "who were considered relatively safe despite being in competitive battles are seriously threatened."

"By Salon's count, the black vote could swing as many as 17 House seats currently held" by GOPers "who are running in competitive elections. It could also play a role in three campaigns" for GOP Senate seats "and in one gubernatorial battle. With that in mind, the potential rise in African-American turnout could be devastating" to the GOP (Koppelman, Salon, 10/30).

A House Divided Before Its Built?

Dems inside Obama's "circle of advisers and on Capitol Hill are jockeying even before Election Day to shape an Obama administration's legislative agenda and define 'Obamanomics,' a concept he himself has left vague over the campaign."

Obama "has been able to win support by convincing voters he could simultaneously be a populist and a fiscal disciplinarian, that he could invest in education, energy and health care and adhere to rules that say additional spending must be more than offset by cuts or tax increases. He attacks greed and excess in Wall Street, yet reaches out to assure financial leaders he understands markets' needs."

"But if Obama wins" on 11/4 and Dems "expand" their cong. majority, "the party in power will quickly have to reconcile these seeming contradictions into a legislative strategy." Dem Reps. James Clyburn (SC) and Charles Rangel (NY) seem to represent the two different approaches Dems could take.

Clyburn "advises a pragmatic approach to governance that would begin with items that have proven bipartisan support before tackling ambitious elements such as universal health care." Clyburn: "It's better to let things evolve than to revolve. Revolutions are dangerous."

"Snapp[ing] back," Rangel: "He's a national leader, Clyburn. I'm thinking of his constituents, and he doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about." Rangle "embod[ies] the views of liberals who want to move fast on the most ambitious version of Obamanomics possible" (Weisman, Wall Street Journal, 10/30).

Editor-in-Chief: Amy Walter

Executive Editor: John Mercurio

Managing Editor: Quinn McCord

Senior Editors: Maura O'Brien, Tim Sahd, and Reid Wilson

TV Editor: Abby Livingston

Senior Writers: Holly Noe and Rachelle Douillard-Proulx

Staff Writers: Ian Faerstein, Sean J. Miller, Steven Shepard, and Felicia Sonmez

Online Producer: Carrie Dindino

Executive Assistant: Meredith Nettles

Associate Writers: Cyra Master, Michelle Price, Beth Sussman, and Kurtis Lee