Why McCain Will Lose Today

After the American Century

On election day, Barack Obama appears to have an insurmountable lead, and appears headed for victory regardless of what happens in the few remaining swing states. A dramatic upset is possible, but in that case a large number of polls will prove inaccurate. An electoral map based on New York Times data shows only a handful of undecided states: Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri. Even if McCain manages to win all of these, itself improbable, he would still lose the election. That is why his campaign has made a hard push in Pennsylvania, because only if it wins its 21 electoral votes can he come within striking distance. Supposing he does win all the swing states and Pennsylvania, however, the result would be Obama 270, McCain 268.

Why has McCain lost? In good part, he lost because Obama waged such a strong, well-financed, and disciplined campaign. Even so, McCain made four fundamental mistakes.

1. McCain failed to distance himself decisively from President Bush. He should have done this early in the process. Instead, he sought Bush's approval, and he even used Bush's speech writer to craft Sarah Palin's convention speech. This fundamental mistake undermined his claims to represent change.

2. By August, McCain had abandoned his open campaign style, which for years made him the darling of the press. Instead, he adopted Karl Rove-style secrecy and negative attacks on his opponent. McCain himself was a victim of such nasty campaign tactics in 2000, when Bush falsely spread the rumor that he had fathered an illegitimate black child - when he and his wife in fact had adopted one from India. The public expected him to rise above negativism, which boomeranged to hurt him more than his opponent.

3. McCain chose the inexperienced Sarah Palin instead of a more credible and more centrist candidate, such as Senator Joe Lieberman, who previously was the Democratic Party VP candidate. Not only is Palin too inexperienced, but with her on the ticket it became ludicrous to attack Obama for being inexperienced. Worse, her appeal to the fundamentalist right-wing of the GOP drove moderates into the arms of the Democrats. Roughly 60% of the electorate has declared that she is not satisfactory. a result that also threw into question McCain's judgement.

4. McCain failed to see the usefulness of Internet campaigning and fund-raising, both of which Obama mastered from the start. Indeed, McCain has no computer skills himself, and does not use email. By 2012 the Republicans will have to learn how to do this. The WEB factor alone accounts for several percentage points of the difference between the two candidates on this election day.

When McCain has time to reflect on the loss, he may well think that he was unlucky. The timing of the economic meltdown could not have been worse for him or better for Obama. Nor was it easy to escape the shadows of Bush's enormous unpopularity. Yet the more successful campaign by Gerald Ford in 1976, in the aftermath of Nixon's Watergate disgrace, suggests that McCain could have done better. If he did not beat himself, these four mistakes made Obama's job far easier.

Obama seems certain winner.

After the American Century

After spending a week in the United States, I am convinced that Obama will win the election unless there is fraud on an unheard of scale. Unhappily, this is a possibility, as the many new voting machines may not prove reliable, though I am reasonably hopeful on that score.

The sense I got while visiting for a week was that the American media are doing all they can to make the result look close, but in fact few now really think McCain has a chance. The Republicans are making a big effort to win Pennsylvania, although Obama is ahead there by c. 7%. Supposing McCain is able to win there, however, he has been losing ground in many other places, so that even Georgia is now considered a swing state. Obama has been focusing efforts on securing the West, notably Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada, with so much success that even McCain's home state of Arizona has slipped into the category of a swing state.

Overall, the displeasure with Palin has intensified, while the sense of comfort with Obama has increased. While the final result may hold some surprises, it seems likely that Obama will win a comfortable victory, large enough to be called a mandate for change.

To my Danish readers, I would warn that the quality of the coverage in the Danish media is mediocre or worse, and it is best to watch the BBC or CNN on election night. All sorts of people now claim to be experts on the US who have never lived there or published a single scholarly article. They are dragged out by the networks as experts, and they repeat what they have read somewhere.

It is a circus of incompetence that is painful to watch. In just one day since returning I have seen botched attempts to explain the electoral college, claims that Obama and McCain have the same foreign policy, and errors of fact or emphasis in every program I have seen.

Why Is Obama Falling Slightly in Polls?

After the American Century

Just a month ago, on September 19, McCain and Obama were tied in the polls. Then as the economic crisis rolled over America, Obama rose in the polls. He also won all three debates. Nevertheless, after rising to more than a 7 point advantage in an average of the polls, in the last few days he has begun to fall again, and now has an overall advantage of 4.9%, which is is 3.3% lower than it was on October 14. In other words, the average of all the polls shows a clear downward line for the last five days, for reasons that are not readily apparent.

Looking back over the campaign, one can see a yo-yo pattern. McCain led Obama in late March, then lost ground, briefly pulled ahead of Obama in the middle of April, then lost ground again, was tied with him on May 2, then lost ground, pulled within 0.7% of Obama on June 1, and then lost ground. McCain also drew within 1.2% of Obama on August 20 fell behind due to the "convention bounce" for the Democrats, but then had an even bigger favorable bounce himself. Then for ten days, from September 7 to 17, McCain was ahead.

This see-saw ride does not seem to be over. For months, the electorate has leaned toward Obama and then pulled back, over and over again. Just a few days ago it seemed obvious that McCain had all but lost the election, and indeed he took his staff out of both Wisconsin and Maine recently, pulling back to defend his slumping popularity in North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri.

The puzzling pattern of Obama's waxing and waning national popularity may be unimportant, of course. But many volatile voters apparently keep changing their minds. This is especially interesting because of the so-called "Bradley effect," named after a Los Angeles mayor. An African-American, he ran far ahead in the polls, but narrowly lost It seemed that many whites were reluctant to say they would vote against a Black man, but in fact this is what they did in the privacy of the polling booth. That was in 1982. Will Obama also be hurt by the Bradley effect? Or is the US signigicantly less racist now? It does seem that at least in the Democratic primaries last spring the Bradley effect was not much in evidence.

A second possibility is that many Americans are beginning to worry about giving the Democrats too much power. It seems certain they will increase their control of both the House and the Senate. Add a landslide White House victory, and the Democrats could do whatever they wanted. US voters are inveterate ticket-splitters. They seem to like it when the power of the executive from one party is checked by a Congress controlled by the other party. Some swing voters may be swayed by that argument to vote for McCain.

Yet another possibility is that uncertain voters are swinging back and forth between Obama and third party candidates. The more certain Obama's victory (and McCain's defeat) seems, the easier it might be for independent-minded voters to pull the lever for Nader or Barr. Curiously, this is good news for the Democrats. The polls strongly suggest that Nader and Barr are taking more votes away from McCain than from Obama. When all four candidates are included in polls, McCain's total falls 3.4%, while Obama loses only 1%. In short, voter volatility may not express dissatisfaction with Obama, but unstable support for McCain.

In fifteen days we will know whether Obama has achieved the landslide some are now beginning to predict, or whether his decline in the polls the last five days is just a blip on the screen or part of a tightening of the race down to the wire.

Obama and the Bush Economic Legacy

After the American Century

The final debate is over, and again the American public has said in polls that Obama won. He has defeated McCain now three times, by a wider margin each time. Joe Biden also defeated Sarah Palin. If this were the World Series, then at 4 - 0 it would be all over. But there are 18 days or so left, when conceivably the Republicans can pull some improbable rabbit out of their economy-battered hat. I doubt it, however.

One thing that has become quite clear in these encounters is that Obama is not easily ruffled. Throughout the campaign, whenever McCain let off a nasty remark or a made an attack, Obama remained cool, even-tempered, often smiling. Voters clearly prefer a man who remains dignified to one who is irate, one who has specific proposals to one who mostly repeats the same generalizations over and over. (See, for example, McCain's utterly vague remarks on Social Security in the second debate.)

It also seems likely that McCain's endless claim that Obama was going to raise taxes simply did not convince anyone, even "Joe the Plumber" in Ohio, who, it now turns out, is not a plumber after all. What I do not really understand is why the Democrats have not said more often that all they want to do is go back to the tax system that worked so well in the Clinton years. No need for fancy explanations, just say the truth, that Bush lowered taxes on the rich, creating a deficit for all Americans to pay off.

While Obama seems likely to win the election on the economy, however, the financial mess he inherits is daunting. I checked the statistics today, and it is absolutely true that the average American, white or Black or Hispanic, lost real income during the Bush years, even before the current financial collapse. According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, from 2000 until 2005, the average white family lost $1,300 in annual income, in constant dollars. It was worse for African-American families, who averaged a $2,700 loss, and they were starting from a lower income to begin with. For Hispanic Americans the loss was "only" $1000. They did a bit better, on paper, but bear in mind that the undocumented immigrants, of which there are an estimated 10 million now, are largely Hispanic, and they get the lowest wages.

These losses continued in 2006, 2007, and the present year, so that the average American quite literally has been worse off because of George W. Bush's tax policies combined with no real support for unions or for a higher minimum wage. Indeed, as many commentators have pointed out, the Bush Administration oversaw the redistribution of wealth to those who least needed it. The poorest 40% of the American population, who are largely working poor and lower middle class, collectively got more than 13% of all income in 2001 when Bush took office. By 2005, however, this hard-working group, whose health care expenses shot up far faster than inflation, were collectively much worse off, with only 12% of the total income. While they were falling, the next 40% was holding even, i.e. keeping the same share as before. The only group that was getting higher incomes after Bush were the top 20% of wage-earning Americans. This is nothing short of a disgrace, when the economy as a whole was doing well (until two months ago). But it may be hard to redress this economic injustice when the economy is in recession.

Should John McCain somehow win, of course, the unfairness will worsen, and class discrimination continue. It was quite ridiculous to hear McCain call Obama's tax plans a form of class warfare. The unfairness began in 2001, and the Republicans knew exactly what they were doing. If they were honest, they would admit that their fantasies of a deregulated economy lifting all boats led to a tsunami of bad debt.

McCain Offense Offensive

After the American Century

In the last two weeks the McCain campaign has become ever more offensive, in both meanings of the term. They are verbally on the offensive because they are losing in the polls, and instead of talking about the issues, they are demeaning themselves by stooping to the lowest form of gutter politics. Hardly a day goes by without McCain or one of his surrogates insinuating or even directly stating that Barack Obama is consorting with terrorists or is a covert terrorist or has a suspicious sounding name, and so forth.

The only shred of evidence they have is that, what a surprise, Obama in the course of serving on many committees and organizations, has just once been on a board with someone that was a student radical in the 1960s. Lest we forget, Obama himself was a child in the 1960s, and had nothing to do with the movements of those years. It is true for any politician that he meets thousands of people, and can always been accused of sharing the views of those whom he has been seen with or shaking hands with.

But to call Obama a terrorist because he was in the same room with a college professor with a radical past is no more credible than claiming that McCain is a communist because he spent time in a communist prison camp and was brain-washed there. You do not see the Obama camp making that sort of claim. Nor have the Democrats raked through the thousands of contacts McCain has had over the years to find "proof" that because he was in the same room with someone he therefore shares their political views.

This sort of guilt-by-association can only remind Americans of the excesses of Joe McCarthy. It is intended to distract attention from the faltering McCain campaign, but it undermines the "straight-talk express." The worst excesses are now at the Palin rallies where she has been whipping crowds into a frenzy of anger and hate. Meanwhile, she refuses to testify in the investigation into her apparent abuse of power as governor. Both in her rhetoric and in her behavior, she demeans the GOP, which may need eight years to recover from such tactics.

The Republicans seem almost certain to lose this election, but they could do so with dignity and honor in tact, ready to fight another day. However, it appears that McCain has decided he would rather befoul his formerly good name in a desperate attempt to smear his opponent, rather than appeal to the electorate on the basis of policies and principles.His stump speeches reportedly are now perfunctory and brief on the issues, before turning to a villification of his opponent. The campaign might have been a dignified discussion of the issues. Instead, the Republicans are taking the low road.

Obama would win if the election were tomorrow. But it isn't.

After the American Century

With less than 30 days remaining in the presidential race, McCain seems to be falling behind. A series of recent polls has revealed that states once considered toss-ups like Michigan and Pennsylvania, now are clearly in the Obama column. Indeed, the McCain campaign has pulled its operation out of Michigan, probably because the money and the personnel are needed in Florida, where Obama has a slight lead (4%), or perhaps in North Carolina, where McCain also has fallen slightly behind according to some polls. The trend all across the country seems much the same, with swing states leaning toward Obama, including Nevada, Colorado (just barely), and Virginia. These states went to Bush in 2000 and 2004. McCain retains the lead in two swing states, Missouri and Indiana, in each case just 2% - within the margin of polling error.

The New York Times now estimates that Obama has 260 electoral votes secured, compared to only 200 for McCain, with 78 votes still up for grabs. That means Obama would only need to nail down 10 more votes to become president. However, the Times takes a smaller number of polls into consideration and is a bit cautious. In contrast, Real Clear Politics estimates that if the election were tomorrow, Obama would win easily, with 353 electoral votes, compared to only 185 for McCain. The national polls now uniformly put Obama ahead, Rasmussen Reports has a daily tracking poll, which for the last ten days has shown McCain trailing by 6 or 7% every day.

The focus of attention has narrowed to seven states, which between them have 89 electoral votes. These are Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia. Put another way, for McCain, four states that looked possible for him two weeks ago are now off the table: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan. Together they have 52 electoral votes.

Is it suddenly all over? The Vice-Presidential debate was so recent that it has not yet registered in polls, but it should only reinforce these trends. Initial polls suggested that Biden won it by a wide margin, especially among independent voters. If the trend is clear, however, the battle continues. Recall that McCain pulled ahead twice, briefly in August and then again in early September. Then the shocking collapse of the Wall Street investment banks clearly favored Obama.

In a campaign year of so many twists and turns, it seems unlikely that the Democrats will have clear sailing now. Look for an October surprise, perhaps from the Karl Rove trainees who manage the McCain attack advertisements.

The Language of McCain's "Foreign Policy"

After the American Century

The recent debate between Senators McCain and Obama has been discussed widely in the media, and the consensus seems to be that while there was no clear winner, Obama strengthened his position. A Rasmussen Poll found that on all the main issues Obama improved against McCain.

The debate was supposedly about foreign policy, yet most of the world was entirely ignored. McCain did not say anything about the two most populous nations on earth, China and India, both of which have economies that have been growing far more rapidly than the US. Japan was also completely left out of the debate, as were all the nations of Latin America and Africa. Europe received cursory mention twice, but no nation there was actually discussed.

Instead, McCain focused on a few countries. McCain mentioned Iraq the most (18 times), but also was worried about Russia (17), Iran and Afghanistan (12 each), Georgia (9), Pakistan (7), Israel (6), and North Korea (5). The debate thus was not really about foreign policy at all, but about military policy. This is to a considerable degree the fault of those who made up the questions, but it shows how American political debate has been militarized. To hear it, one would think there are no problems between the US and most of the world, and that only 7 nations in the greater Middle East posed difficulties.

Since the debate was so narrowly focused, I learned nothing new about either candidate's views. But I did begin to notice that McCain's language was extremely bellicose. If one ignores the sentences and looks only at the words employed, he appears to be a man obsessed with combat. He frequently was thinking about strategy (mentioned no less than 17 times), and was deeply concerned about failure (12 times) and defeat (11). When giving particulars in his answers he often spoke of troops (11) and the military (6). He appears to think about the world in terms of confrontations, as he frequently spoke of fighting (10) and security (6). He seems deeply concerned about honor (6) and he wishes to appear proud (4) and tough (4). His world is dominated by a sense of danger (4) and crisis (5), as exemplified by 9/11 (5), which makes defense (8) his central concern. He is ready to kill (4) if necessary.

McCain thinks only occasionally and in the short term about success (4) and peace (5), because he lives in a world of threats (8), aggression (4), violence (2), and genocide (2), where war (8) is often unavoidable and which it is essential to win (7). In this mental universe love (1) scarcely matters, and it is seldom useful to negotiate (1). It is a world without hope (0), with no reference to the future (0) and no interest in global warming (0) or ecology (0).

McCain's choice of words reflects a martial outlook and indicates his lack of interest in the arts of peace or the friendly relations that might be created through trade (0), cultural exchange (0), or international educational agreements like the Fulbright Program (0). McCain's choice of words strongly suggests a mind ill-equipped to deal with subtlety or shades of gray. Couple that mind with an impatient temper and the result might be a man better suited to taking military orders than to wrestling with hard policy choices. Unfortunately, this world view is yoked to a personality that is impatient with authority and that delights in being unpredictable.

All this is highly speculative, based on the words he chose to use during one debate. Yet are not these words a key to understanding his mental makeup?

McCain's Hypocritical Attacks on Wall Street

After the American Century

The Republicans have shown themselves to be reckless and irresponsible stewards of the economy, not just this time but in the 1980s as well. In each case, they overspent and undertaxed, weakening the economy and driving up the national debt. In each case, major banking scandals arose at the end of their eight years in office. Back in the first Bush presidency, it was the Savings and Loan Scandal, as more than 700 savings and loan banks went bankrupt. They had been deregulated - does this sound familiar? - by the Republican Administration. Capitalism freed of interference from Washington would flourish. Instead, a wave of mismanagement and corruption followed, and none was more flagrant that a certain Charles Keating. A Californian investor, he cultivated relations with five members of the US Senate. One of them was John McCain.

That deregulation debacle required a Federal bailout for the banks that cost the American taxpayer more than $120 billion. Senator McCain was involved, though he escaped indictment. For some reason, he does not talk much about this episode in his career. McCain was one of "The Keating Five," who were accused of improperly using their office to advance the interests of Keating's bank. In 1991 he was investigated by his colleagues in the US Senate. Though he was not found guilty of specific crimes, the Senate Ethics Commitee determined that McCain had shown "poor judgement" by being involved. Keating was found guilty of illegal activities and went to prison for five years.

A quarter century ago McCain had an up-close-and-personal look at the damange that deregulation can cause in the banking industry. But he apparently learned nothing from it, and today he advocates the same policies he did in 1990, the year before he was investigated. Keeping this episode in mind, what does he mean when he says, as he repeated in the midst of the current crisis, that the American economy is fundamentally sound? Is he naive? An apologist for the many bankers who have contributed to his campaign? Or possibly a fool when it comes to economics? You don't need to know economics to graduate from a military academy. And he was unable to manage the economics of his bid for presidency the first time around.

On the positive side, McCain has not flip-flopped on this issue, as he has on so many others. On banking regulation, he has held the wrong position consistently. And he has been quite willing to put the taxpayers' money to work bailing out the "free market" banks when they mismanaged themselves into insolvency. McCain is hypocritical when he attacks Wall Street. He has been in bed with the bankers during his whole Senate career. He takes their contributions and when they get in trouble, he bails them out. He is a hypocritical populist as well, because the Republicans ultimately bail out the banks, not the little guy facing foreclosure.

This should not surprise anyone. Bush II gave the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. McCain criticized that policy in 2001, but then flip-flopped. Today he endorses the Bush tax code and wants to perpetuate it. If only it had been the other way around. If only he had flip-flopped on bank deregulation and maintained his 2001 position on taxes. Then McCain would have the same ideas about the economy as Obama.

The Republican Economy Needs a Federal Referee

After the American Century

Some months ago I criticized the Bush Administration's decision to give money to taxpayers across the board, rather than focus it where the real need was, in the mortgage market. It was clear to me, but apparently not clear to Republicans, that home forecloseurs threatened the whole economy. In the last week this truth has been demonstrated with frightening clarity. Two of the oldest and largest and once most respected investment houses in the United States have disappeared. Lehman Brothers has gone bankrupt and Merrill Lynch has been purchased by Bank of America. Both got into trouble because the Republicans refused to regulate investment bankers, which meant that a large part of the economy escaped scrutiny from the Federal Government. This created an uneven playing field, where regular banks played by different rules than investment houses that went into banking. A great many irresponsible mortgages were approved. A housing bubble emerged and expanded - and then popped during Bush II's second term.

Bear Stearns was the first big investment bank to collapse, and the Feds brokered a deal to sell it off for a fraction of what had been its value. Quite properly, the regulators did not bail it out. But the underlying problem of unregulated investment banks making risky loans did not go away. In fact, so many people had been encouraged to buy property that they could not afford,that the Feds soon had to rescue Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, as the two giant mortgage companies were known. These had functioned without serious problems for generations before the Republican true believers in unfettered capitalism let the investment banks run wild. Like athletes on steroids, they bloated up rapidly and looked powerful, but a mere slowdown in the economy, not even a major recession, put them in trouble. The home owners who went into foreclosure ended up dragging down to ruin some of the (once) most respected banking houses in the world. The end is not yet in sight.

Last night the Federal regulators reluctantly came to the rescue of the American International Group, the largest insurance company in the US. A "loan" of$85 billion dollars. I call that welfare for the capitalists. If the Bush Administration followed the logic of deregulation, then it ought to let any such mismanaged company go into bankruptcy, as Lehman Brothers did. But no one dared. The economic truth is that the markets for insurance and investments and real estate are now tied together in so many intricate ways that a gigantic failure like that would start an avalanche that no later intervention could stop. It would be 1929 once again.

For the mismanaged Bush economy is by no means out of the mess that the Republicans have created, both as lawmakers against investment bank regulation and as the the party of Wall Street. If McCain were elected, one can expect more of the same mismanagement. He has never been a supporter of regulation, but rather when things go wrong he has intoned against "greed on Wall Street." Such moralism appeals to non-investors on small incomes, but it is hypocritical for McCain to pretend that the whole problem is due to a few greedy people. McCain and the Republicans generally, do not want to recognize the need for government. On the highway we need police to regulate traffic, so that reckless drivers do not cause major accidents. In the same way, Wall Street banks need some limits (try collateral) and safety controls (such as larger minimum cash reserves) so that foolish loans do not wreck the financial system. Instead, they are rushing in after the fact with an $85 billion bailout, guaranteed by the taxpayers.

McCain naively believes in "market discipline." That is like saying he expects football players not to be rough if there are no referees. Actually, McCain seems to believe in a system in which potential referees can accept payments from players. The New York Times reports that the McCain campaign has received large contributions from investment bankers, including more than $300,000 from individuals working for Merrill Lynch. His contributors are the very people he now condemns for being greedy capitalists.

Senator Obama, in contrast, back in March was calling for investment bank regulation. He has consistently done so. In the current economic meltdown, it is well to remember how well the economy was doing from 1992-200o, when the Democrats were in charge. More than one million new jobs were created each year during the Clinton Administration, and the budget was in surplus, with the national debt rapidly disappearing. In the Clinton economy almost everyone was better off. Obama is calling for a return to that tax system, which did ask wealthy people to pay more, but they ultimately also benefited from growth and a strong economy.

George W. Bush dismantled that system, which was working so well. Americans now have an economy where everyone is losing. Homes are losing value, stocks are falling, and jobs are disappearing. Bush will be remembered as a president who failed both domestically and in foreign affairs. McCain, who voted with Bush II 90% of the time, offers more of the same.

Was McCain the Bomber Pilot a Hero? Republicans and Vietnam

After the American Century

The Republican Party has never come to terms with the Vietnam War, as the McCain candidacy underscores. For as Ronald Reagan once put it, Vietnam was a "noble cause," to considerable right-wing applause. Standing at the then new Vietnam Veterans War Memorial, he declared, "who can doubt that the cause for which our men fought was just?" I can. What Reagan said was pseudo-patriotic nonsense. Which part of the Vietnam War was noble? Was it noble to pretend that the Vietnamese War was about communism, when it began as a nationalist uprising against the French colonial power? Was it noble to concoct a "domino theory" to justify the war, when area specialists at the time knew that it was not true? (Indeed, once the US lost the war, other nations did not "fall" into communism.) Was it noble to overthrow Diem and then support an unpopular South Vietnamese military regime? Was it noble to spray chemical defoliants, notably Agent Orange over large parts of the nation, poisoning both the habitat and US soldiers on the ground? Was dropping napalm on civilians noble? Was support for a wealthy landowning class against landless peasants a noble democratic aim? Was it noble to round up South Vietnamese into compounds and force them to live there rather than in their ancestral villages? Was it noble to be allied with a regime that at times shot prisoners, that was known to mistreat its prisoners, and even to throw them alive out of airplanes? Was it noble to bomb North Vietnam, attacking not only military targets but cities as well, killing thousands of civilians?

Let us focus on that last question, because the future Republican candidate John McCain was flying over North Vietnam in 1967. What was he doing there when he was shot down? People focus on McCain in a prisoner of war camp, but forget to ask why he was there, or whether the US war in Vietnam made any sense. Yes, he was shot down. Yes, he was mistreated. Yes, he suffered. But the Democrats have been reluctant to ask the real question: What was McCain's role in that unjust war, which was condemned by most European nations? Did he drop agent orange on agricultural lands? Did he drop napalm on villages? Did he bomb women and children? And just as importantly, what does McCain think of the Vietnam War today? Does he agree with Reagan's absurd idea that the war was a noble cause? Does he think that massive strategic bombing was a successful tactic? A morally defensible tactic? A good tactic in future wars? If so, then why did the US lose that war? Why did the US lose the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people? Has McCain, have the Republicans, any new ideas, or will they keep trying the same failed military "solutions"?

What does McCain think of the "shock and awe" bombing of Iraq? Does the United States want a president who jokes about bombing Iran, by intoning a Beach Boys tune as he warbles, "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran?" This might sound like a joke, but the threat of strategic bombing is the essense of McCain's foreign policy. There is nothing heroic or noble about dominating the air space over a nation, whether Vietnam or Iraq or Iran, and carpeting it with deadly bombs. That is why McCain is a dangerous choice for president, just as the Republicans are a dangerous party to entrust with foreign policy.

After eight years of George Bush, where in the world is the US in a sronger foreign policy position than it was in 2000? Not in Europe. Not in the Middle East. Not in China. Not in Latin America. Where is it more popular than in 2000? It is hard to make a case for many places. John McCain has a millitaristic conception of foreign affairs, and he is accompanied by a vice-presidential nominee who thinks the Iraq War is a holy mission.

Vietnam was not a noble cause, but an enormous mistake. McCain and the Republicans have never understood it, and remain prisoners of a distorted sense of history. That is why they are unfit to hold power.

Sarah Palin, Not Qualified

After the American Century

John McCain has selected as his running mate a person who clearly is not qualified to be president. Palin has a BA degree in journalism and mass media from the University of Idaho in Moscow. Danish readers may think a degree in journalism suggests a high quality person who managed to get into a very competitive program. But all state colleges and universities have such departments in the US, and they are not hard to get into. Palin attended not a top school, nor a second rank school, but a mediocre school located in Moscow, Idaho. Anyone spending a few minutes looking at their current faculty will see that there appears to be not a single scholar of distinction among them. Look at the curriculum, and it is evident that history, law, critical thinking, and other vital subjects one might expect of a president are all lacking.

So armed with this light-weight degree from a third-rate institution, Palin returned to Alaska, lived in a small town, had five children, and got involved in politics. All very admirable, but note that Alaskan politics are nothing like politics in the other 49 American Studies. Alaska continually elects Republicans, and is close to being a one-party state. Alaska has no state income tax, because its oil revenues are so large. Indeed, all residents of Alaska get a check each year from the State government, from the oil surplus. The financial problems faced by all other US states are entirely different. Being governor of a state with such a surplus does not prepare one to deal with ordinary economies. Furthermore, Palin has a bit less than two years of experience as governor, being elected as a reformer as part of a protest against extensive corruption in the Republican Party in Alaska. All that oil money washing around gets tempting.

It appears that Ms. Palin is not corrupt, which is something of course, though she is under investigation for abuse of power. She fired a state employee, apparently because he would not dismiss her ex brother-in-law, who seems a nasty piece of work who beat up her sister. One assumes that this heart-warming story of family values in action will be explored mercilessly in the coming weeks.

How did McCain come up with this mistaken nomination? We know that he cannot use computers, but perhaps his staff can. Imagine that they put into a data base the names of all Republicans holding state and national offices. Then they selected a running mate based on ideal criterea. The running mate should be under 50 to counter McCain's age, married with children, anti-abortion since his record is a bit weak on that, pro-gun ownership, a Bible-thumper to satisfy the Huckabee fanatics, and a completely unknown woman, to show that McCain really is a maverick. Once all the candidates were sorted with these criterea in mind, there was only one left: Sarah Palin!

I thought George Bush Sr. would always keep the prize for choosing the least qualified person to be president, in Dan Quayle. He was a pretty face behind which yawned a vast empty space where the mind can usually be located. He was the man who made himself immortal by apologizing to a group of Latin American leaders, by saying, "I'm sorry I do not speak Latin." But Sarah Palin looks like such a strong entry in the incompetent-nominee Veepstakes that Bush, Sr. has good reason to be worried. I'll bet, for starters, that Palin doesn't speak Latin either.

John McCain has failed the first important test of his leadership. He has selected a person too provincial. too poorly educated, and too inexperienced to be a plausible replacement for himself. She has no knowledge of the law, no experience operating in a state with normal economic problems, and no foreign policy experience. Compared to Joe Biden, there is no contest at all.

By himself, John McCain is a disquieting, backward-looking candidate, who is out of touch with computer technologies and the problems of ordinary people. I thought that was bad enough. But add Ms. Palin, and the Republicans have a grossly unacceptable team. It is inconceivable that any major European political party would run a person with so few qualifications as their number two candidate. Actually, until Dan Quayle it was inconceivable that the Amercans would.

I want to thank John McCain for this wonderful blunder, which should make the next two months much more entertaining - not least because many Republicans and some of media apparently do not yet see that she is not qualified.

Can Joe Biden Help Obama Regain the Lead?

After the American Century

Obama has chosen Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware since 1972 as his running mate. Biden has long chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (when the Democrats had a majority in that chamber) and his extensive experience there shores up one of Obama's weak points. The choice underscores the historical fact that vice-presidents often are not selected based on their ability to deliver a particular state. Delaware is one of the smallest states in the nation, and with only three electoral votes is not an important prize in itself. More important is Biden's mix of experience, feisty energy, and extensive Washington connections that will make him an engaging contrast to Obama.

Biden can emphasize that he is a Catholic, born in the working-class town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The over-riding question is whether he can inspire working-class voters who have been reluctant to support Obama. During the past month he has fallen in the polls against McCain, who might win a close election were it held today. The many polls tracked by RealClearPolitics collectively show that a month of negative campaigning led by Karl Rove trainees, has taken its toll on the Illinois senator. To some extent McCain has also risen in the polls, but a considerable number of voters, at least 15%, remain undecided. Negative campaigning has created some of that indecision.

In the last week Obama has begun to hit back, with his own negative advertisements. And so the downward spiral accelerates, propelling this campagin, like all others in recent memory, down the low road of attacking character rather than debating policies. McCain has accused Obama of being unpatriotic, inexperienced, and elitist, to make a short list. Obama is now replying that McCain is too wealthy and out of touch to understand the economy or the problems of ordinary Americans. The Arizona Senator provided grist for this mill when he could not tell a reporter how many houses he has. A man who is not certain how many houses he owns (seven) the argument goes, does not deserve to sit in the White House. Certainly, he is in a far different position than 99% of the public.

Obama has tried to keep to the high road in his national campaign advertisements, reserving the negative advertisements for particular state races. There is no need to parade negativity in places where he is comfortably ahead, like California or New York. If his strategy works, it will present him as an idealist who would rather not get down in the mud, but will fight there if that is the ground staked out by McCain's Rove-inspired campaign.

The danger with negative campaigning remains that in the end both candidates will only look bad to the voters. Perhaps the addition of Joe Biden will move Obama in another direction, quite familiar from previous races, where the vice-presidential nominee goes on the attack while the presidential candidate tries to stand above the fray.

Meanwhile, the press seems to agree that McCain has not yet decided on a running-mate, but that he is seriously considering three governors: Tom Pawlenty of Minnesota, Charlie Crist of Florida, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Many other names have been discussed, however, perhaps the most interesting being Condolezza Rice - who could suddenly give him traction with both Black and women voters.

With the race a statistical dead-heat, the coming two weeks of conventions may prove crucial to the public's perception of both candidates, and to the result on election day.

Age Should Not be an Issue in this Election

After the American Century

Most presidents upon election have been between the ages of 50 and 60, but some of the most effective assumed office before then. One lingering misconception from the primary elections is that Barack Obama might be a bit too young or inexperienced to be president. This image was fostered by Hillary Clinton, but in fact, her own husband, Bill Clinton, was younger than Obama when he was elected president. Born in 1946, Clinton was 46 in 1992. He had no Washington experience at all, and his only preparation was to serve as governor of one of the smaller southern states.

Theodore Roosevelt was only 43 when he became president in 1901, the same age as John F. Kennedy when he was elected in 1960. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was 50 when elected in 1932. In short, Obama is well within the range of normal presidential ages.

The Constitution is quite clear on this issue. It states no one is eligible to run for President until they have reached the age of 35. Life expectancy has increased since it was adopted, however, and candidates may be a little older as a result. But longer lifespans ought to have the effect of widening the field of possible candidates, not eliminating those who are in their 40s.

If there is no historical reason to think that Obama is too young, one might make a case for McCain as being too old, though I am loath to make it. Senator McCain, who will be 72 on August 29, gives every indication of being in full vigor. Ronald Reagan was elected in his 70th year, and remained in office until he was 78. If elected, however, McCain would begin to serve later in life than anyone before him. Given the strains of the modern presidency, which often turns into a 24-hour a day job, I personally would feel better in 2011 if the president were 50 rather than 75, but on the whole, this probably should not be an issue, anymore than Obama's supposed youth should be.

Generational Divide? Obama and McCain

After the American Century

McCain is almost exactly 25 years older than Obama, and just as importantly, he looks much older as well. Partly for this reason alone, they therefore appeal to quite different generations, though it is hard to decide how much a candidate's age influences particular groups of voters. In general, however, McCain would win easily if only people over 60 could vote, and Obama would win easily if only those under 50 could, and it would be landslide if only those under 40 could. The so-called "millennial generation" is more for him than Generation Xers, in other words. Each candidate is aware of these demographics, and anyone looking for an advertiser's view of this matter should look at "What Obama can teach you about Millennial Marking". Obama hopes to mobilize the youth vote, which is notoriously lazy about getting to the polls. McCain is banking on the geriatric electorate, which grows larger each year.

Rather than focus on the two ends of the spectrum, however, it might be more useful to think of the election in terms of who wins the votes of those between 50 and 62. This is the baby boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1958. They graduated from college starting in 1968. They grew up with the Cold War and lived with the possibility of a nuclear apocalypse. For them, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate were formative experiences. Most of them can tell you exactly where they were in 1963 when they heard that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Most of them also remember the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. This is a generation born into a wealthy nation that in its youth never imagined the dollar could be so weak or that the US could become a debtor nation on such a massive scale. But just as they were coming of age, they experienced the bleak 1970s economy, with its stagflation and energy crisis, which at time time appeared to be a permanent scarcity of resources.

This generation has already produced two presidents. Both Bush and Clinton were born in 1946, and they epitomize the complexity of the boomers, who were by no means all hippies and revolutionaries. The boomers divide geographically into those from the South, who tend toward cultural conservatism and the Republicans, those from the Northeast and West coast, who tend toward liberal and to a lesser extent to radical positions, and the key group that is up for grabs, from the Midwest and the West. In other words, Obama and McCain should be focusing on this demographic group in the heartland, and it would be highly likely for either or both to select a vice-president from a state like Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, or Ohio, who is part of that generation.

Yet more than the right demographic face is needed. Each candidate will need to develop a story that appeals to the boomer voters, extrapolating from their historical experience to the present. Obama will likely do this by calling upon the imagery and the language of the Kennedy era, including an echo of Martin Luther King as well. Note that his convention acceptance speech is scheduled on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" address. McCain stands for the supposed "lost cause" of Vietnam, and he has already begun to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan. In other words, he is gently distancing himself from the younger Bush, in part by being seen with his father. Somewhat paradoxically, the older candidate will likely present himself as the heir of the 1980s, while the younger candidate will seek to represent the spirit of the early 1960s.

Will the Boomers prefer a return to Jackie and Jack's Camelot, with its idealism, hope, and promise? Or will they choose a warrior's narrative of struggle and survival against external threats? Obama and McCain will each project a different vision of the past as the basis that voters should use to see into the future. To the Midwestern Boomer generation, either of these scenarios might appear plausible.

Can Obama be Ordinary Enough to be President?

After the American Century

As the Olympics are about to begin, the presidential campaign has reached a point of quite temporary unimportance for the media. It is an appropriate moment to recall the amazing journey the American political system has made since early January. Back before the Iowa caucuses, few thought McCain had a chance for the Republican nomination, and Obama was an interesting outsider for the Democrats. Who could have predicted that Hillary would so mismange her finances and her campaign? Who thought Giuliani would fall so flat on his face? Who imagined that the Democrats would not reach a decision until June?

In these nearly eight months, Obama has gone from being an outsider to the favorite to win, and McCain has resurrected himself to a convincing foe. On the op-ed pages some columnists have been asking why Obama has so small a lead in the polls, given the abysmal ratings that Bush has in his last year as President. Surely, many are saying, Obama ought to have more than just a few points advantage. Such comments betray the mentality of the educated experts who live inside the Washington Beltway or in New York. The idea that a young, Black politician "ought" to have a sizeable lead over a more experienced white one suggests some commentators have lost track of the American people.

Furthermore, although McCain may be taking on the Bush policies and negative Bush campaign tactics, he has managed to preserve something of the image of a straight-talking maverick. He is presenting himself as the Republican non-Bush. To the extent that he can keep foreign policy and terror at the center of the campaign, he becomes stronger. Strangely, he would likely benefit were a major terror attack to occur before election day. McCain also will pass the "beer" test with white, male voters, who probably imagine themselves as being more comfortable having a brew with him down at the local saloon. Bush won the "beer" test against both Gore and Kerry.

With this in mind, probably the best thing that Obama can do to win over skeptical voters is appear to be more approachable, more average, more "just folks." Back in 1992 Bill Clinton went on a TV show and played the sax, which proved popular. To Europeans, such actions seem strange, because they do not expect politicians to reveal so much of their private lives. But Americans like politicians who have nicknames. It was not James, but Jimmy Carter, not John but Jack Kennedy, not Abraham but Abe Lincoln, and so on, at least back to the election of 1824. That was when "Old Hickory" - Andy Jackson - beat that Bostonian stuffed-shirt abolitionist aristocrat John Quincy Adams.

In other words, the average American needs to feel comfortable, on an imaginary first-name basis with the candidate, to vote for him. For Obama to win big, he will need to supplement his inspirational rhetoric with some down-to-earth qualities. He already has this rapport with the more literate minority who have read his two best-selling books. In contrast, McCain has more of this "average Joe" feeling, and his problem is the opposite - to find a loftier rhetorical register in at least a few of his speeches.

Politicians win the essential middle ground in the United States not through ideology, not through rhetoric, but through a direct appeal to the ordinary citizen. In short, as Lord Bryce realized long ago, Americans look not for extraordinary but ordinary people to lead them. Whatever his many failings, Bush was the ordinary man, the merely average student from nowhere important in Texas. Not a highbrow, he did not stress his Yale pedigree. For crucial swing voters, the often unvoiced question will be: Is Obama ordinary enough to be President?

If the Election Were Tomorrow...

After the American Century



It has been about eight weeks since Obama clinched his nomination and the American public could focus on just two candidates. Fears that his battle with Hillary Clinton would sap his appeal have so far not been justified. If the election were held tomorrow, Obama would win easily. Nationally, a combination of all recent polls tells us that Obama is leading by 4.8%. But candidates are not elected nationally, but state by state. If one looks at all the opinion polls for individual states and puts them together, however, the picture is even more positive. Obama would get far more than the 270 electoral votes necessary to enter the White House: 322 to be exact. Tomorrow, John McCain would get 216.

The key to this and every American election remains the swing states. Right now Obama is leading in most of these, including (from east to west) New Hampshire, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. McCain is leading in only North Carolina, Florida, and Missouri, and all of these are narrow leads - indeed, they fall within the margin of error for polls.

Another way to look at these polls is to divide the electoral votes into three categories: likely to go to Obama (255), likely to go to McCain (163), and close races (120). The close contests are, at the moment, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Obama only needs to win 15 votes in these undecided races. In contrast, McCain needs 107. If they split the 120, Obama wins with c. 315 electoral votes to 223.

Obama is probably doing even better than these figures suggest. Since these polls were conducted, he has been receiving overwhelming and positive media attention during his trip to the Middle East and Europe. That ought to translate into even better numbers for him, especially if the outdoor speech in Berlin this evening is a success.

Were the election held tomorrow, Obama would win in a walk. But being the front runner means the press has little mercy, and it means John McCain may resort to negative campaigning, to try to bring Obama down. He has hired new people (call them Rovians) who know how to do this. When the campaign really heats up in the fall, don't be surprised if McCain has found an attack dog as a Vice-Presidential candidate - a new Dick Cheney who is well suited to win more of those swing states.

The Summer Campaign

After the American Century

The political campaign is in low gear as far as the public is concerned, but the candidates are hardly relaxing. Not only do McCain and Obama need to select their vice presidents, but they have a huge agenda to deal with. I can see at least these five major items:

(1) Organize a National Convention. This is far more that just providing hotels and meeting spaces for thousands of delegates and thousands more reporters, though that would be task enough. The whole multi-day event ideally should present a coherent message. An exciting line-up of speakers and inspirational short films need to be orchestrated, and the whole event should build up to a climactic speech by the candidate. That speech also has to be written, of course, and it needs to be new, not the primary stump speech on steroids.

(2) Prepare political commercials that are in harmony with that major speech - requires a decision about what should be the major themes of the campaign. Obama surely will choose to focus on the faltering economy and Iraq, a one-two punch that will be hard for McCain to beat. But McCain presumably will seek to make Iraq and national security his first issue. To a considerable degree, however, candidates need to feel the public pulse, to catch the mood of the electorate, and move from there toward the policy positions. Candidates usually cannot dictate to the electorate what the central issues ought to be, and while it may be easy to see what the central issues are, particular groups have other main concerns. Each side is surely polling frantically and trying out various ideas on focus groups. How much, and to whom, should each talk about Guantanamo? Abortion? Faith-based initiatives? Off-shore oil drilling? Gun control? Terrorism and National Security? NAFTA? Affirmative Action? The Supreme Court? Crime? Drugs?

(3) Each candidate must decide on an overall strategy, notably by choosing which states to focus on and which ones will be given up in advance. McCain is running more than 15 points behind in California polls, for example, so he will probably spend little time or money there. Obama is not as far behind in Texas, but he might decide to cede it McCain and focus on Florida, where the two are only a few points apart. Arguably, the choice of where to put the campaign time and money is the most important decision each has to make. Obviously, both will focus on Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri, and Nevada. But in additional to such clear battleground states, should Obama make a major effort in North Carolina? Should McCain try to win New Jersey or Washington?

(4) Each campaign must also "brand" itself in a variety of ways, which include how the candidate dresses, what its buttons look like, how the home page is designed, what slogan is adopted, and even what the campaign song ought to be. FDR used "Happy Days Are Here Again" in the depths of the Depression. Bill Clinton selected the rock n roll song, "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." By themselves, each of these matters might seem trivial, but in a well-organized campaign all the parts cohere to provide a penumbra of images and associations with a candidate. As an advertising or public relations executive knows, defining and implementing such a campaign takes talent and more time than either candidate really has to spend on it. Based on how they have done so far, one suspects rather strongly that Obama's team will do better at this than McCain's newly reorganized group.

(5) In the midst of all these things, both candidates need to keep appearing in the public eye, and continue to raise money for the fall campaign. Either of these, alone, could be a full-time job.

With all these things to do in only a few months, McCain and Obama must be grateful that they will fall completely out of the public limelight during the Olympic Games. No doubt each will pretend to go on vacation, but real time off is unlikely with all these tasks to complete. How well they prepare this work now will become clear immediately after the conventions. With little more than two months for the fall campaign, there will be little time to correct any miscalculations.

Both McCain and Obama Move to the Right

After the American Century

Both Obama and McCain have been shifting their public stands on many issues, staking out the positions they will take during the fall campaign. They are doing so with quite different goals. McCain is moving to the right, Obama toward the center.

McCain's move toward the conservative Republican base is being orchestrated and supervised by a cadre of Karl Rove's apprentices. Their well-known philosophy is that elections are won by energizing core supporters, not by trying to appeal to the center. This strategy has not really been proven a success, in my view, as George Bush did not win a majority of the votes cast in 2000 and only barely was reelected in 2004. In each case, one could argue that he won as much due to the poor campaigns of his opponent as he did because galvanizing the base is a sure winner. Note, too, that the "Rove philosophy" is to attack one's opponent where they appear strongest. The "swift-boating" of John Kerry is the prime example.

Obama's move toward more mainstream positions means that he has embraced more traditional political philosophy, seeking to be the unifying candidate who can appeal to moderates and independents, and reach across party lines. The danger of this approach is that the core supporters become somewhat disillusioned, taking some of the energy out of the campaign, as they realize that Obama is (surprise?) a shrewd politician more than he is ideologically driven. As noted several blogs ago, his stands on Israel, gun control, and other issues have shifted, to appeal to moderates.

The result of these two contrasting campaign models is that both candidates are moving to the right - with Obama seeking the center, while the supposedly "straight-talking" McCain is making himself over to suit the evangelicals. The man who once opposed Guantanamo torture now seems to accept it. The man who once publically worried about global warming is saying little about it. The man who once wanted to give illegal immigrants a "path to citizenship" is now a hard-liner on securing the borders. The man who once called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance" now meets privately with his ilk, seeking support.

Will the selection of vice-presidential candidates reinforce these campaign strategies, or will they be drive by other imperatives, such as geographical appeal? One suspects that Obama will find a VP who is moderate, who holds his new positions, almost certainly a white person (but possibly Hispanic), and one with solid military experience to shore up his candidacy at its weakest point.

The Republican ticket is harder to anticipate. Will McCain choose a "born again" evangelical from the right-wing of the Republican Party, like Mike Huckabee? Might we expect a moderate non-military person under 60 who comes from the Middle West and who can appeal to the swing states? A church-going woman? A clone of Dick Cheney? Or most horrifying of all, the actual Dick Cheney? McCain's choice will signal how thoroughly he is willing to revamp his campaign to resemble Bush's 2004 campaign. Whatever the new Rove-inspired McCain team decides could be a surprise, because he continues to run behind Obama in the polls, and he needs to find a way to regain the initiative.

Obama Takes the Center, Perhaps Florida

After the American Century

In the last few weeks Senator Obama has performed the classic manouevre required of successful presidential candidates. He has moved toward the center. During the primaries the voters are all in the same party, but to win the general election, a candidate usually shifts policy positions a bit. In 2000 George Bush managed to convince some Democrats and many Indepndents that he was a "compassionate conservative." In 1992 Bill Clinton likewise danced a bit toward the middle.

When candidates do this, ideologues become upset, because the candidate no longer seems a person of principles, but an opportunist. However, I have become somewhat more tolerant of these policy position changes, which also suggest pragmatism and flexibility. Candidates thereby suggest to the public that they listen to the popular will. Obama has recently endorsed private gun ownership, for example. Personally, I wish he had not taken that position, but if he wants to win in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and many western states, this is a good idea. In any case, the president will not likely be able to change the liberal laws on gun ownership., which have just been supported by the Supreme Court. It overturned a Washington DC law to control carrying handguns. There was little point in Obama attacking the Court, and he will focus on the battles he can win.

Obama likewise made clear his support for Israel, which is important to carry certain key states, notably Florida. This support should be balanced, however, by his repeated declaration that he would seek an open dialogue with many groups and governments that the Bush Administration has refused to talk to, including many in the Arab world.

Less predictably, and far more interestingly, Obama has made a sharp break with the hard-liners on Cuba. For fifty years the US has enforced an economic embargo against Castro's regime. Support for that policy is weakening, however, due to several factors. First, Fidel Castro is now too ill to run that country, and his more pragmatic and reform-minded brother has made many small steps in the direction Americans would like to see, giving a modicum of democracy to the country. Second, the hard-liners themselves are dying off, and the second and third generation Cuban-Americans can see the potential economic and personal benefits in re-engaging with Cuba. Third, the EU does not have an embargo against Cuba, and the US is cutting itself out of a market. When Obama spoke to Cuban-Americans in Florida last week, they applauded his call for dialogue and economic engagement. Since the Bush White House apparently has little historical memory, it is worth emphasizing that the Cold War was "won" without a shot being fired, because of constructive engagement.

In short, while Obama is moving to the center, he is not simply repeating old policy positions. His approach to Cuba seems far more sensible than McCain's, who has embraced the old hard-line view. Obama is going after the younger Cuban voters, making himself the candidate of the future and of change. Coupled with his more moderate views on immigration, this should play well with the Hispanic voters generally, who are less prone to be hard-liners on Cuba in any case.

If Obama can successfully hold Jewish voters and pull some of the Cubans away from the Republicans, he will have a much better chance to win Florida, and with it, the White House. He is being adventuresome where it can pay off, but not on gun control, an issue where the Supreme Court has spoken, and one that will drive the white working class into the arms of McCain.

Will it work? During April and May every poll on Florida put McCain ahead, often by as much as 15%. But in the middle of June, even before Obama announced his new Cuban policy and support for Israel, two polls put him ahead of McCain. Even if Obama ultimately loses the state, if he can force McCain to use time and money to defend it, he will have fewer resources to put elsewhere.

Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dylan, and the 2008 Election

After the American Century

Thanks to Rolling Stone, we now know that Barack Obama's literary taste runs to Shakespeare and Hemingway. The big news, of course, is that he admits to reading books, perhaps a dangerous admission in these media-saturated days.

These are pretty safe choices. Shakespeare was the most popular author in the United States during the entire 19th century. People from all walks of life really knew the Bard's works, and could quote large portions from memory. As Lawrence Levine revealed in a classic article, small traveling troupes of actors never had a problem filling the small parts with local thespians. Shakespeare was so well-known that Mark Twain knew his readers of Huckleberry Finn would laugh at the garbled lines delivered by "the King" and "the Duke." Obama's choice is more than mainstream; he's traditional in naming Shakespeare. But compared to the public of Twain's day, the average American almost certainly has a less detailed knowledge of the plays. File away this literary connection for future reference. We may one day have to decide which play most closely resembles Obama's first term as president. Presumably not King Lear or Macbeth, both of which seem more suited to McCain. Perhaps All's Well that Ends Well?

Hemingway gives Obama a bit of a modernist edge, though it depends on which works (and passages) he finds speak most powerfully to him. Given his views on Iraq, one assumes that he likes A Farewell to Arms. In contrast, John McCain is on record as very much liking For Whom the Bell Tolls. Does McCain see Iraq in terms of the Spanish Civil War? Does either candidate like the most uncompromising Hemingway short stories, such as "A Clean Well-Lighted Place"? Or the more experimental work that only came out after he died? I suspect we have pretty mainstream Hemingway, in either case.

Rolling Stone further reports that Obama has an ipod, and that he has a lot of Stevie Wonder and also Bob Dylan songs on it, including most of "Blood on the Tracks." The "Oldies" for him are from the 1970s. In contrast, Senator McCain admitted to a Politco reporter that he loves the movie American Graffiti and that his musical tastes are rooted in the 1950s and 1960s, up to the moment when he was shot down in Vietnam. Despite the generational difference, there is some overlap. I doubt that Senator McCain can listen to Dylan with the same enthusiasm as Obama can, particularly the early songs like "World War III Blues," and "It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall." And how many Republicans can enjoy the searing irony of "With God on Our Side"?

If I could give the same oral examination to both candidates, we might know what they really think about Hemingway. This being unlikely, at least we know that they are representative of their musical generations.