Americans Away From Home

Dear Democrats Around the World,

Election Day is Six Days Away!!

 

To comment go to www.wednesdaywire.com or me personally at johncmcqueen@gmail.com. 

"Wednesday Wire 156 is sponsored by Joanne Yaron, Chair of Democrats Abroad-Israel. Joanne was a member of the DPCA 2008 platform committee and took on the thorny section "American Foreign and Defense Policy", which included," the US and the Middle East". Joanne is also very proud of the joint DA Israel-DA France initiative in the passage, at the March 2007 Heidelberg DPCA international meeting, of the landmark resolution "Proactive Policy for Renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process"."  

  

WW Election Night Coverage: As previously announced, WW will go to a two hour reporting cycle on Election Night, beginning at 8 pm, Eastern Standard Time. Two years ago there were many around the world, who, either because of work commitments or couldn’t access network or internet reports, relied upon WW to keep them minimally up to date.

On Election Night many will be at all-night election parties perhaps away from their computers and I don’t know whether the listserve moderators will be sitting at their Blackberries to pass on the reports. So….if you wish to receive the bi-hourly reports directly, perhaps to announce results at your election party, please give me an email address to send them to you. I will create a special list for those who wish to directly receive the reports that night and not wait for the listserve. I will need your email address by Sunday, 2 November at the latest. Send me an email to johncmcqueen@gmail.com with the word “Election Night Email” in the subject line. It would help if you would repeat your name and email address in the body of the email, thanks.

 

Today’s Big Event. Two tonight: Barack’s 30 minute Infomercial on CNN, NBC, Fox and CBS, a $6 million dollar effort to sew it up. 8 pm. And Barack appears on John Stewart’s Daily Show too.

 

Today’s campaign schedule (dailykos): Obama – Raleigh, NC, Sunrise and Kissimmee, FL; Biden – Jupiter, FL; Michele Obama – Rocky Mount and Fayetteville NC

            McCain – Miami FL; Palin – Bowling Green and Chillicothe OH and Jeffersonville, IN

 

1. Getting nervous?

2. The Coming Breakup of the Republican Party

3. Winning Won’t be easy on us.

4. A Giving Learning Opportunity. 

5. A ‘typical’ situation? I hope so.

6. State by State

7. Reading Recommendations

And finally…

 

1. Getting nervous? 

With less than a week to go, Obama continues to hold the same lead in the national polls that he has held for nearly a month; despite some rather frantic efforts by the McCain campaign to paint Obama as a terrorist, a ‘tax and spend’ liberal, and now a socialist. In state polling, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and even Arizona are in various states of play in the past week. Here are two charts that should make you relax a bit:

 

First the national tracking polling chart from dailykos:

 

Yesterday 28 Oct
Gallup:                          50 (52)    43 (42)    2         RV  See also the LV I and LV II numbers
IBD/TIPP:       48 (47)    44 (44)    3.3       LV  alternate link
ABC/WaPo:                 52 (52)    45 (45)    3         LV

Ipsos/McClatchy:         50 (50)    45 (42)    3.4       LV
Pew:                             53 (53)    39 (38)    3.5       LV  

There is a lot of bouncing around of 1 and 2 points, but they are going in both directions. The battleground state polling chart from pollster.com gives a similar picture, and, as Open Left’s Chris Bowers points out, Obama’s leads in the individual states is much greater and that is where the election is won or lost:

 

Some closing of the margins is typical just prior to an election, but in individual states, Obama’s leads are growing and in those states, like Arizona, Indiana, Georgia and Montana, McCain’s leads are shrinking. Keep calling, keep urging voters to send in the FWAB if they haven’t got their ballots, but nervousness is not necessary.

 

2. The Coming Breakup of the Republican Party. 

Given that the polls are accurate, the coming defeat of McCain-Palin is going to touch off a civil war in the/Republican Party. McCain staffers describing Palin as “Diva’ ‘rogue’ or ‘whack job’ are just the beginning. The waring factions are more than just the fiscal and social conservatives. A good portion of the fiscal conservatives may very well decide to play ball with a Democratic administration; accepting that there is no chance that the tax cuts will be permanent or that there won’t be serious regulation of markets under the $750 billion bailout package when managed by Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury. Better to battle from the inside that in opposition. The rest of the party will split along personality lines: Bush holdovers, McCain cadre, Palin’s fundamentalist adherents and Romney’s balancing act between the social conservatives who like his stances on old issues like abortion and gay marriage and the financial conservatives who can’t quite go with Obama. No one will want the Neocons, who will likely be blamed for starting the fiasco in the first place. At least until 2010, any disciplined Republican minority, particularly in the Senate, will be hard to manage; Senators like Collins, Snowe, Specter and Smith/Coleman (if they survive 2008) will not want to be a part of holding up measures they have been for in the past and couldn’t persuade their party to support.  

            One key item to watch for in next Tuesday’s results is the margin in some very Red States like Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. Any of these where the Democrats are within 10 points becomes an instant target of the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and the Obama 3.1 million name database managers for 2010 and 2012. If social conservatives a la Palin take total charge of the Republican Party, driving it into small pockets of power in ‘remote’ states like Alabama, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, the Democratic Party could be in control of government for many years to come.

 

3. Winning Won’t be easy on us. 

But, as always, one should be careful what one wishes for. Overwhelming victory can be as hazardous as complete defeat. Obama’s team will be the new kids on the block in control of the party and they will not have an easy time bringing the ‘big tent’ into a smoothly working alignment of cooperative factions. There will a number of different elements that will take credit for the win and will have their demands to be met.

            a. Expectations on all sides will be high and Obama will first have to deal with the economic crisis, which may get much worse prior to Inauguration Day. He will also have to do something quick about Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan/Pakistan. There are reports that he will name his cabinet on Friday, Nov. 7th^, if elected; his policy teams have been at work since the summer began and the transition planning is well-advanced to the point that it may take our breath away by its boldness and speed. That’s good. 

            b. ‘Framing’ why we won could get nasty. Beyond those who will claim that we won because McCain was weak/chose Palin, or those who claim that the economy’s decline was a gift; there will be claims that Obama's staying in the center reassured Independents; that his hopeful liberalism excited the youth vote; that 95% African American support won some key Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida (Georgia?); that his support from the Clintons carried the day and thus he needs to follow their centrist approach, etc. etc. etc. The closer the margin over McCain, the more the arguments will affect Obama’s ability to forge a coalition. A blowout win and Obama can claim his mandate and can define what it means himself. A landslide keeps the congressional Dems and the Obama Dems working off the same program – at least for the next 18 months. Anything less than 55% or 400 EVs brings on a serious framing debate

            c. Beyond the economic crisis, Obama will take power from an Administration that has bungled/destroyed/neglected every major area of national policy and a recovery program is required in them all. The recent example of the ACLU proposals to restore rights lost under Bush is but a glimpse of what is to come. The Obama Administration will be in charge of a bureaucracy that has either been browbeaten into submission (EPA?) or politicized into a potential rear guard (DOJ?) and the new Administration will need all the help it can muster from policy-oriented think tanks, institutes and universities. The biggest problem will be where to begin.

            d. The internal workings of the Democratic Party will not be immune from post-victory stress. A lot of us would scream with joy to see Howard Dean stay on at the DNC, but don’t hold your breath. Obama’s organization has overwhelmed the ability of the national and state party to compete with him; the task is to re-organize without rancor.

            So you thought that with the election over, life, political life, would return to its normal pace. Think again.  

 

4. A Giving Learning Opportunity. 

Joanne Yaron, WW sponsor this week, supports several causes, including the Center for Victims of Sexual Assault in Israel, which has now grown to a network of 10 Centers country-wide, but her main interest today is enhancing the chance for peace in the Middle East, and for this she strongly recommends the Palestine-Israel Journal (PIJ), established in 1994. PIJ is the only independent, non-profit quarterly publication co-published and produced by Israelis and Palestinians to promote joint dialogue in the search for peaceful relations. It serves as a unique effort that testifies to the possibility of working together in a spirit of mutual respect, cooperation and recognition, even on the most conflicting issues. The current Co-Editors of the Journal are Ziad Abu Zayyad and Hillel Schenker, who also serves as DA-Israel Vice Chair. Visit www.pij.org to see sample issues and information on how to subscribe and/or donate. Joanne assures us "PIJ will be an enlightening experience."

 

5. A ‘typical’ situation? I hope so. 

From ‘Down Under’ I received the following report (edited for length) and I am sure that there are many other countries with the same or similar enthusiasm, but I thought I would share this one with you:

 

“Americans in Australia are backing Senator Obama in great and glorious numbers! 

”Campaign volunteers have been working continuously since August in Sydney,
Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide to get out the vote, with various reports from regional areas of individuals taking it upon themselves to put voter registration information in public places. I have not counted up the number of volunteers but I estimate it to be well over 500.

”The Australia For Obama Facebook group is closing in on 1,000 members.

”Phonebanking:  We started in late August because we wanted to get information out about events happening across Australia for DN Convention week. 

Round 1 finished in mid Sept with every member with a working number being called.  Round 2 started on 1 Oct and featured phone calls to each swing state voter, with calls continuing until the voter advised they had posted a ballot/FWAB. 

Round 3 included a special group of calls to Florida voters as well as calls to voters in states where voters can STILL register and vote.  In all, the program resulted in over 4,000 calls. 

 

“Many of our volunteers have been active in the Neighbour to Neighbour program on the Obama website and have had a great experience doing it.  It really fires people up.

”By election day over 70 campaign events would have taken place in Australia
since 15 July.  I've heard some fascinating stories from Obama supporters in Australia who have been here for decades and are voting from abroad for the first time, so
moved have they been by Senator Obama's message!  I've spoken to Obama
supporters who are Viet Nam War veterans and who are Viet Nam War
conscientious objectors - and their reasons for supporting Obama were eerily
similar (the urgent need to restore our reputation as a good global
citizen.)

”Worrisome ballot stories have been collected (and sent up the line) as well.
"Problem child" states, from my personal experience addressing voter
queries, have included FL, OH, WI and CO.

”On Election Day Democrats Abroad will host events in Sydney, Melbourne and
Brisbane, with Obama supporter-affiliated parties happening in Canberra and
Perth.  I can't believe at this time NEXT WEEK we'll know the result of this
election.  Clearly we take no genuine comfort from the polling
reports - and are all pushing and calling and donating and FWABing straight
through this week.   

”If we feel this much trepidation and concern I wonder what the other guys
are feeling!! “

 

These same stories are appearing all over the country and around the world. It is an exciting time to be a Democrat, isn’t it?!!


 

 

COLORADO. Republican Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman has been sued by a consortium of voting groups to reverse his decision to strike 30,000 voters from the rolls and to prevent local officials from continuing to follow Coffman’s instruction to eliminate any more names prior to the election. The case is being lead by Common Cause and will be heard in court today. 

 

GEORGIA. 50,000 names have been removed from voter rolls in Georgia, including 4,500 who were removed because the state thought they were not citizens. Another Republican Secretary of State – another voter suppression drive. A lawsuit has been filed; no word on when the case will come before the judge.

 

OHIO. John McCain and the leadership of the Ohio GOP are at war with each other – over support for gambling. The state GOP prepared a mailer that urged voters to vote ‘no’ to change the Ohio state constitution to allow a gambling casino in Clinton county. The McCain campaign deleted the recommendation without informing the party and threatened not to fund the mailer if the recommendation stayed in. The state Republicans responded by doing a separate set of ads with former Senator Voinivich against the casino. McCain has long had ties to the gambling industry, which is not well known or well publicized to fundamentalist Christian groups supporting him. John, wanna bet who’s going to win Ohio?

 

TEXAS. More early voting numbers from key counties in Texas (as reported by Tom McQueen, Arlington, TX):

 

Dallas County - 2004 Bush won by about 3k votes, with 55% turnout (out of 1.2M)

Early Voting 2004: 323K total

EV through Monday: 272K – Tom’s minimum of 430K, up to 540K

 

Harris County (Houston) - 2004 total: 405K - Bush 55 to 45 (overall).

Early Voting through Tuesday - 443K Early Votes, 75K mail-in for 518K. 

Tom's Minimum: 720K, that’s 315K more than in 2004.

 

El Paso County: 2004 total: 96K

EV through Monday: 66K, ahead of 2004 56K, but tapering off slightly. 

Tom's Minimum: 98K - 2K higher.

 

Travis County (Austin): 2004 total: 222K.

Early Voters through ?: Could not locate the information at all. However, they seem incredibly dedicated to getting the vote out, with early voting, early voting "Mega" locations (designed for high volume), and "Mobile Voting" locations, going to grocery stores, UT, etc. I'd give it 50K minimum for effort and the general enthusiasm.

 

Bexar County (San Antonio): 2004 total: 256K

Early Voters through Tuesday - 260K. Tom's Minimum: 365K - 109K higher.

 

“Kerry lost Texas by 1.7M votes. Anticipated additional early votes from these 6 counties (not necessarily for Obama): 707K.” 

 

A loss by less than 500K statewide would pleasantly surprise Tom.

 

 

7. Reading Recommendations. 

Sorry to disappoint, but only nine this week.

 

            a. “Sorting Out the Truth on McCain’s “Socialism” Allegations” by Alexander Lane, at http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/print_template.html . Another ‘pants on fire’ untruth from Sarah Palin, but let’s give her a break, when she was studying political science in Idaho, they didn’t teach socialism.

 

            b.   “Republican Nosedive in Pennsylvania” by Robert Eshelman at,

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174995 . A personal story with political implications.

 

            c. “Ground Wars” by Eric Zimmermann at

http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=9776dc1f-768f-4726-af67-828a882562ac . You are in trouble when you can’t even get the folks yard signs

 

            d. “One Last Bush Doctrine” by Dan Froomkin at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/10/28/BL2008102801542_pf.html . The attack on Syria is more serious than is admitted.

 

            e. “Election Complaints Are Pouring In” at http://solarbus.org/nletters/ejn-081028.html . A useful compendium of Republican election practices thus far.

 

            f.   “Late Upsets Are Rare, but Have Happened: Late front-runners lost the popular vote in 1980 and 2000” by Lydia Saad at

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111451/Late-Upsets-Rare-Happened.aspx . A look at two cases.

 

            g. “The Odds of A Late Swing” by: Paul Rosenberg at

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=7FFFE6B697DFA1F9A426289CA218E14D?diaryId=9373 . Rosenberg debunks a theory with some solid numbers.

 

            h. “AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids” by Justin Pritchard and Garance Burke at

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PALIN_PIPELINE?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT . More revelations of the real Sarah Palin.

 

            i. “Questions Linger About Palin Taxes” by Leslie Wayne at

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/questions-linger-about-palin-taxes/ .

 

 

And finally…

Below are my opening remarks from the last debate here in Heidelberg. Our instruction was to present the candidate and the campaign strategy rather than the specifics of the program or policies that would be followed after the election: 

 

“Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

“Our assignment in the five minute opening statement is a bit unusual, but one that I welcome. Instead of laying out my candidate’s plan to reclaim our national honor overseas and return our society to one of democracy, honesty and fairness, I must introduce my party’s candidate and provide an overview of the general campaign strategy.

 

“Who is Barack Obama? He has told his own story in two bestselling books, but only since his Keynote speech at the July 2004 Democratic convention in Boston, an event I was privileged to attend, has he become a household name in America. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, was raised by his white mother and grandparents; only saw his African father for one brief period when ten years old; went to school for four years in Indonesia; was a high school basketball star, and attended university at Columbia in New York and the Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American to be the chief editor of the Harvard Law Review, the most prestigious law review in the United States.

 

“After finishing Columbia and before going to Harvard, he spent three years in Chicago as a community organizer in the most economically depressed area of the city and upon his return to Chicago after Harvard, he continued with community organizations as a civil rights attorney and was very successful at registering thousands of voters.. He became a lecturer and then senior lecturer on constitutional law at the very prestigious University of Chicago Law School; ran for and was elected to the Illinois State Senate; lost a race for Congress in 2000 and was elected to the US Senate in 2004 by the largest majority in the state’s history. It is a life story that depicts one of the most meteoric rises in American political history.

 

“A key part of his biography is his rhetorical ability – a reflection of deep knowledge, an overwhelming empathetic feeling for and from his audience and the speaking cadences of great American orators like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Franklin Roosevelt. Many of you here may have had the opportunity of seeing him in action in Berlin last July and can attest to a once-in-a-generation talent.

 

“In describing his campaign strategy – a strategy that defeated the most formidable opponent in the primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and one that will defeat the most formidable Republican name, John McCain – we can very well go back to the four factors that describe Barack Obama’s life –

            his multi-cultural background,

            his community organizing skills,

            his knowledge of civil rights and constitutional law and

            his ability to communicate.

 

“Let’s take each in turn.

 

“Obama’s prime motivation for running for president, and not to ‘wait his turn,’ is based on his belief that stemmed from his own multi-cultural background: That the divisions within American society – liberal v. conservative, old v. young, white v. black, rich v. poor – Red v. Blue no longer describes the real fabric of American society and that a transformation figure – an agent of change – was needed to bring the country back together. Such a figure would not come from the ranks of the already powerful; but required a new leader, perhaps with less experience, but one who recognized that change was needed – and wanted – by most Americans.

 

“His community organizational background in one of the toughest areas of Chicago taught him that legions of ordinary folks could take on the establishment and win – not just through confrontation, but coordination, cooperation and persistence. When one studies the Obama campaign structure, use of the most modern technological tools, and daily operation – which will be studied and copied for years to come – one is struck by how closely it hews to all the principles of community organization – empowerment of volunteers, solid training, in depth analysis of ‘on the ground’ facts, and most importantly, accountability at every level and in every aspect of campaigning.

 

“As an aide in accomplishing the community organizer’s dream is a thorough knowledge and use of the legal and procedural rules that apply to American political party operations and elections, that Obama knows from his years studying law. The Obama campaign is completely expert in every aspect of each state’s electoral laws and rules and each state’s party practices. The result was winning 16 or 18 caucuses, which gave him the nomination over the more ‘experienced’ Hillary Clinton and is now giving him the tremendous advantage over John McCain in voter registration, early voting and will mean an Election Day ground operation that the Republicans used to use successfully every year.

 

“Finally, the rhetorical ability to communicate his ideas, link those ideas to the needs of ordinary people and prescribe the specific actions needed to fix a broken nation has resulted in unprecedented participation by many thousands of young people, by Latinos and African-Americans and persuaded 3.1 million people to give more than $600 million (as of 30 September) to his campaign. 

 

“Many in the audience tonight will shake their heads over how we Americans run our elections, and I doubt any American in this room will seriously defend our system’s methods, costs and time needed to choose our president, but there is little doubt that these four factors that I have outlined, describe the most amazing presidential campaign since John Kennedy and maybe even since Franklin Roosevelt. 

 

“I’ll stop there, because I want to get to your questions…”

 

Best regards,