The latest polls paint the race as a dead heat and August's FEC reports (released this weekend) show Barack Obama and John McCain heading into the month of debates and GOTV on "virtually equal financial footing" (Kuhnhenn , AP 9/21).
Yet some people have decided to get the party started early. Nov. 4 "will be something of an afterthought" to "about a third of the electorate" that's "expected too vote early this year." Early voting "has been on the increase" since '00, when 16% of voters voted before Election Day. "Expanded early voting provisions" and "fewer restrictions on absentee voting" mean that voters in "more than 30 states" can cast their ballots early, either by mail or in person.
"It's a trend that is fundamentally changing the home stretch of American politics," writes the AP. "October surprises? They better come in September if campaigns want to influence every vote. Get out the vote operations? They're already underway in some states."
"Even" the debates "will come after many have voted" in this extended homestretch, but still both camps "are pressing their supporters" to get to the polls ahead of election day to "gain an advantage." Obama's camp is "targeting potential early voters state by state," and the GOP has made revisions to the "formidable '72-hour' program" for GOTV it's used in the past. RNC political director/McCain GOTV coord. Rich Beeson: "What we have now is a 720-hour program. It's a two-week program and, in some cases, it's a month."
Dems "are practically salivating" at the new GOTV reality in places like OH, where the 9/30 to 10/6 "window" for voters to register and vote all at once leads them to "the thought thousands of college students registering and voting for Obama - all in the same day."
Early voting expert/Reed College prof. Paul Gronke on how laws like OH's could change the landscape: "Voting is a two step process in this country. The difficulty with young voters has always been getting them to do both steps" (Ohlemacher/Pace, 9/21).
And with the addition of independent advocacy groups, particularly on the Dem side, "the ground war" in swing states "has already begun." Unions "and other advocacy groups supporting" Obama "are determined to overcome the longstanding advantage" the GOP has when it comes to GOTV. "Sophisticated new tactics" and "even more money" than past elections is the name of the game for Dem advocates, "nearly 50" of which have joined together under a "relatively new" 527 that will "act as a traffic cop" over the many ground forces the groups will put on the ground in 14 "crucial states." Obama "has appeared to drop" his "opposition" to "outside efforts," leading to "an increase in donations" to the 527, known as "America Votes" (Wayne, New York Times, 9/21).
Ruining The Nov. 5 Surprise, Too
"Though they hate to discuss it," McCain and Obama "are quietly planning what to do in the frenetic 77-day period from the presidential election to Inauguration Day, so they will be ready to take up the reins of government." Ex-WH CoS John Podesta is "leading the transition preparations" for Obama. At the McCain camp, "transition work is being coordinated" by longtime lobbyist William Timmons. If Mr. McCain wins, "his transition team will probably be led" by Timmons and John Lehman. OMB deputy dir. Clay Johnson III said "the White House staff has met with transition representatives" for McCain and Obama. McCain's transition planners are working at his campaign headquarters in Arlington, VA. Obama's are in DC.
Lehman: "In every transition, there's a total vacuum for anywhere from three months to a year. It's appalling. On 9/11, President Bush had only 30 percent of his national security appointees in place, and that was eight months after the inauguration."
There are "more than 1,100 presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed positions in the executive branch." Johnson "said that a new president had never had more than 25 of his cabinet and subcabinet nominees confirmed by the Senate" before 4/1. Johnson said that in the "post-9/11 world, the goal should be to have at least 100 in place by April, with a total of 400 confirmed" by Aug.
Ex-Carter official/Dem. transition planner Harrison Wellford: "Democrats typically have not excelled at transitions. The standard for transition success, as judged by historians, was set by Ronald Reagan. The standard for transition disappointment was set by Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter" (Pear, New York Times, 9/21).
Finally! A Legit Reason To Use 'Palin Comparison'
At the end of Aug, Obama and McCain ended up "with about an equal amount of money in the bank" - Obama and the DNC had $95M CoH at the start of the month and McCain and the RNC had $94M. "But McCain gets an additional" $84M "because he agreed" to accept public financing "and the spending limitations that go with it" (Retter, New York Post, 9/22).
The totals were the same for each camp, but the funding picture was different at the end of Aug. The DNC had $17.7M CoH and the Obama camp has $77.4M. For McCain, the numbers were flipped - his camp had $18M in "surplus" it gave to the RNC before taking the public money. Prior to the infusion, the RNC had $76M CoH (AP, 9/22).
44 days out, a money tie "is not a position that many predicted for Obama," who has raised "more than" $450M so far, "more than double" the $210M McCain has raised so far. McCain's choice to take public financing "frees him from the daily rigors of raising of money" from here on out, while Obama's decision to go it alone financially means "he will have to spend time rasing money just to keep pace" (Saltonstall, New York Daily News, 9/21).
But in Aug itself, Obama "outraised" and "outspent" (see below) McCain. Obama's camp reported $66M in donations last month, "virtually all of it" raised online - including $22M "in contributions of $200 or less." In addition to raising the camp cash, Obama "worked with" the DNC to rase $23M for The Obama Victory Fund. The record-setting Aug. for Obama "took off" during the Dem convo - the camp raised "nearly" $17M from Aug. 25 through 9/1.
McCain raised $47M in Aug, but "one of the most striking differences" on the camps' respective FEC forms was "donor reaction" to the VP selections. Obama's camp took in $1.7 the day of the Joe Biden announcement, and $694K the day after. McCain, on the other hand, took in $8.8M in the two days after he stood on a stage with Sarah Palin for the first time.
CA and NY "remained" Obama's "largest source of money" through Aug, while McCain's continued to be CA and TX (Morain, Los Angeles Times, 9/22).
Those Goood-For-Nothing Kids And Their Gmail Accounts
As he was outraising McCain in Aug, Obama's camp was outspending McCain's, too. "As the two ramped up their general election fight" through Aug, Obama's camp spent $53M. Of that, $32M "went to avertising. The McCain camp spent $41M, of which $23M was spent on ads (Luo, New York Times, 9/22).
Breaking down the numbers, Obama's camp "significantly outspent" McCain's when it came to broadcast ads in Aug and Obama's spending more on "Internet-related" ads as well. But McCain outspent Obama on direct mail by $2M in Aug. "Experts say" that's because GOPers "tend to be older" than Dems "and prefer direct mail over e-mail" (Los Angeles Times, 9/22).
Tactically Speaking
With the money in the bank and the early votes underway, what are will the next two months look like on the trail? In linking McCain to Pres. Bush, Obama "targets the pre-eminent symbol of voters' unhappiness. The staunch free-market philosophy shared by leading" GOPers "has lost its luster, leaving Americans jittery about their savings and both parties racing to bail out Wall Street." In "characteristic" Dem fashion, Obama "would temper free-market zeal" with more gov't regulation, "a redistribution of the tax burden to benefit middle- and working-class families at the expense of the affluent, and increased federal spending on health care, education, energy and infrastructure. He offers a change in ideology."
By contrast, McCain "seeks to tap voters' anger at the way DC "works or doesn't work, with its partisan rancor, nonstop money chase and failure to tackle national problems. The anger is apparent in dismal approval ratings for the Democratic Congress and Bush." McCain "has displayed a rare talent and inclination for bucking partisan orthodoxy in search of solutions, most conspicuously in his successful push for campaign finance reform and his unsuccessful push for comprehensive new immigration legislation. The reform he offers points largely toward the process of governing and the possibility of bipartisan breakthroughs on" intractable issues (Harwood, "The Caucus," New York Times, 9/21).
Faced with polls that say 80% of voters think the nation is on the wrong track, Obama "only slightly leads" McCain. Newsweek's Darman writes that Dems should be wary of the belief found among "anxious" members of the party that "the only way to beat" the GOP is by adopting a Karl Rove-style camp moving forward. "History has shown" that the GOP wins by being "the conservative party in an essentially conservative nation" and Dems "win...only when they have presented themselves as centrist stewards of the center-right consensus." With the Wall Street bailout standing "in essence" as "the surrender of the notion that unbridled captialism could provide for the common good," Dems have "a real chance to sway the center's notion of the proper role of the state." Dems "will find more luck imagining this new consensus" in the middle than they will "imganining the evils of Karl Rove" in the home stretch (9/29).
In an election "dominated by economics, war, and a surprise" VP pick, education issues "resemble a kid in the back of the class, frantically waving for attention." Still, "a growing chorus of business and education-reform advocates are on that kid's side."
McCain and Obama "share a hesitancy to offer much detail about how they would handle the key education item" come 1/09: the reauthorization of NCLB. Thomas B. Fordham Institute VP Michael Petrilli: "They're doing this dance of talking about education without talking about No Child Left Behind. A lot of the country hates No Child Left Behind ... and yet the principles within the law around accountability and transparency both candidates want to embrace, because they want to show they are reformers."
Both camps "have praised the goals of NCLB and suggested they would make changes to it, such as testing the individual gains of students rather than relying on group averages." But Drew Univ. prof Patrick McGuinn says "the guts of it, test-based accountability, that's likely to stay" (Khadaroo, Christian Science Monitor, 9/21).
It's Four-Forty in The A.M. And You're Watching "Perspectives"
"No matter how bluntly it is put, the race question is one of several fuzzy variables" in the last two months of the campaign. "Pollsters wonder" if some respondents "are lying" when list themselves as undecided or as Obama supporters. They're also "getting a higher than normal" refusal rate on surveys, leading them to wonder if all those hangups are coming "disproportionally from people who don't want to talk about their attitudes on race or gender."
"Daily tracking polls have put more horses into horse race coverage of an election that has gone on for almost two years." But some still "think the private thoughts of Americans are a variable that won't become clear until Election Day, even if then" (Raasch, Gannett, 9/21).
"Crime and welfare" - often listed as "important concerns" by poll respondents in the 80s and "early" 90s - "are hardly mentioned in surveys now" when respondents are asked "to name the country's most important problem." Those two issues "tend" to become "racially sensitive." But in a year when "economic issues" predominate and in an election of firsts like this one, "the evidence we do have so far seems clear: the Bradley effect could very well be a thing of the past" (Frankovic, CBSNews.com, 9/19).
To Show How Tolerant We've All Become, Let's Stereotype Large Social Groups
Both camps are working to excite their base within and avoid the potential pitfalls of campaigning for the votes of three major social groups: women, Hispanics and gays.
When it comes to women, "the battle should be intense" - both camps are "buying up airtime on "Oprah" and other shows with large female audiences" and "sending out targeted mailings." And both are "hoping Hillary Clinton's historic run...will brighten their own efforts" to reach out to women voters. McCain, of course, has Palin and Obama's got a "mantra" about equal pay and expanded health insurance for kids, "two issues that hit close to home for women" that McCain "has voted against."
Obama's camp is enlisting an "array" of "prominent" Dem women "who plan an all-hands-on-deck effort" to get Obama's message to women out. "McCain, too, has some help" from prominent GOP women elected officials that are part of his camp's Palin Truth Squad (Goldstein, McClatchy, 9/21).
In the race for the Hispanic vote, the battle seems to be over "who has been nastier?" Polls have shown a "huge" swing toward Obama among Hispanics, but both camps "have begun running ads on Spanish-language radio that aim to portray the other side as hostile to Hispanic immigrants." The flurry of competing ads "suggest" that both camps "see Hispanics as a pivotal vote" in FL, CO, NM and NV.
But neither candidate has said much about immigration a key issue for Hispanics. That may be "an indication of how volatile the issue remains among many white and African-American voters" (Kronholz, Wall Street Journal, 9/20).
Proposals that would ban same-sex marriage are on the ballot in the three "important states" of FL, AZ and CA this Nov., "yet neither" McCain or Obama "seems eager to push the issue high on their campaign agendas." Obama opposes the proposals and McCain supports them. But, though both candidates "say they oppose same-sex marriage," Obama "supports other gay rights priorities," a reason why there is "broad support" for him among gays "despite his hesitation" on marriage.
Loudly championing gay issues could be a challenge for Obama though - "the churchgoing African Americans" expected to "turn out in huge numbers for Obama" are also a key demographic for proponents of the marriage bans (Crary, AP, 9/19).
Taking A Pakistand
McCain and Obama both issued statements on the bominging in Islamabad 9/20.
Obama: "I strongly condemn the tragic terrorist attack in Pakistan, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. Today's attack demonstrates the grave and urgent threat that al Qaeda and its affiliates pose to the United States, to Pakistan, and to the security of all nations. As the attack earlier this week on our embassy in Yemen shows, over seven years after 9/11, the terrorist threat knows no borders, and the terrorists threaten innocent civilians of all religions and regions. Now is the time to refocus our efforts on defeating al Qaeda and securing the American people. Today's attack also reminds us once again that the Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists, and are endangered by the violent extremists operating within their borders. We must forge a deep and lasting partnership with Pakistan, and with nations around the world, to root out and destroy al Qaeda and its affiliates. The United States must lead a truly global effort to prevail against al Qaeda and their hate-filled ideology."
McCain: "Today's attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is an outrageous act of violence. Cindy and I express our deepest condolences for the loss of life, and our thoughts and prayers are with those hurt or killed in the attack. Today's bombing must serve to deepen the resolve of Americans and Pakistanis alike to aggressively confront those terrorist groups that seek our destruction. While no organization has yet taken responsibility for this act, it is well known that Pakistan faces an enduring threat from violent Islamic extremism. We must work with the elected government of Pakistan to find those responsible, hold them accountable, and diminish their ability to threaten us and our allies in the future. It also serves as one more demonstration of the need for the next President to work closely with our partners and allies in order to counter the dangers posed by radical Islamic extremism" (mult., 9/21).
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