McCain's Collapsing Campaign

One of the best aces in the hole for the Republican party has been their Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) operation. In 2004, I was working on a congressional race and the final weekend, an independent poll had the race tied but we lost by 8 points because the GOP deployed their famed 72-hour plan. Karl Rove had devised the 72-hour GOTV operation to make sure GOP voters got to the polls in critical swing districts. They made our GOTV efforts look like very amateurish as literally hundreds of GOP volunteers descended upon our district with state-of-the-art voter lists.

This morning’s Washington Post reports that the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee are putting less money into their GOTV efforts and using that money for a wave of final television ads aimed at late deciding voters. This decision may make sense for the McCain campaign: The only way they can win this is if virtually all the undecided voters break his way so raising doubts about Obama in the last weekend of the campaign is his only option. But, why would the RNC give up one of its strongest cards when it has House and Senate races on the ballot also?

I have always doubted the efficacy of television ads at the presidential level. There are so many ways to get independent information about the candidates, there is so much press coverage, the debates garnered a great deal of attention, people discuss the issues at the barber shop and in the grocery line. TiVo has even further diminished the reach of broadcast advertising. And, most ads run during local news programs, and those are the people who are most likely to be larger consumers of news and therefore have plenty of information about the candidates already.

Ads can accomplish some things. They can be used to fill in biographical details, which is one of the principal ways Obama has used them. They can be used to raise doubts about an opponent, which is the principal way the McCain camp has used them. Both tasks are better done earlier in the campaign.

The final weekend of the campaign is about building up enthusiasm among your supporters to make sure they get to the polls. That is why these huge Obama rallies bode so ill for McCain. The Obama campaign appears fired up. They have the most extensive GOTV organization in memory. And, in states with early voting, the people who attend the rallies go en masse to the local polls and cast their ballots.

One of the good things about our unnaturally long campaign process is that voters can tell how the candidate manages a large organization, what kind of strategic decisions they make, and how they implement those decisions. The McCain campaign has made a hash of some of its most important decisions from the vice-presidential selection to this latest decision to take resources away from the GOTV effort that they know has worked in the past. And the constant in-fighting within the McCain campaign continues to attract the press which loves to report on intramural warfare and prevents the campaign from getting its message out.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, has been a model of strategic planning and execution. When was the last time you heard a story about in-fighting within the Obama camp? The emails and text messages from the campaign come regularly, advising people about how to register to vote, deadlines, upcoming events, etc. And the message of the campaign has been consistent across the long 18 months of Obama’s quest.

If the way you run a campaign tells us anything about how you will run the White House, Obama is looking better all the time.

Michael Sean Winters

Abortion and the 527s

In 2004, a grassroots organization in Ohio called “Catholics for Kerry” asked the campaign to send a surrogate to one of their events. They were told, “We don’t do white churches.” Turns out, if you “don’t do white churches” you also don’t get to do the White House.

This year, you don’t have to ask twice if you are a religiously motivated voter and you want some attention from the Democrats. Several groups have sprung up to articulate and amplify those parts of Catholic social teaching that correspond with more progressive policies and they are taking to the airwaves to promote their message.

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has been busy all election season, hosting conference calls with reporters, preparing voter guides and now running a campaign that includes billboards, print ads and most importantly an extensive radio campaign. For samples, click here. http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/ad-campaign. As you can guess from the group’s name, the ads focus on the need to replace the social Darwinism that has reigned in America lo these many years since Reaganomics first began its idolatry of the free market with social policies that bring people together. Solidarity, not competition, is the theme and it could scarcely be more resonant as the nation comes to grips with the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. The ad campaign is running in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Missouri.

The group Faith in Public Life is mounting a ten-state ad campaign on Christian radio stations. The ad states: “We need to ask ourselves what it really means to be pro-life and help move the conversation beyond bumper sticker slogans…It's time for Democrats and Republicans to come together around solutions based on results, not rhetoric. Please learn more by visiting http://www.realabortionsolutions.org/.” The website includes statements from a host of religious leaders about the need to find some common ground on abortion.

Matthew25.org has been busy on the airwaves also. This group is the brainchild of Mara Vanderslice, who won the hearts of many religiously motivated Democrats in 2004 when she cheerfully served in the often thankless job of religious outreach director for the Kerry campaign. They are more explicitly partisan – they have endorsed Obama - and they have been running ads for a couple of months on Christian radio, highlighting Obama’s faith as much as his policy positions, making him familiar to a largely evangelical audience.

Voices from the right have been busy as well. “Catholic Answers” is distributing voter guides again this year. Randall Terry, the pro-life activist, has issued a document called “Faithful Catholic Citizenship” that reflects what he calls “the authentic magisterium,” a not so subtle jab at the U.S. Bishops’ document “Faithful Citizenship.” He also has issued “An appeal to Catholic priests” – but viewer discretion is advised. In the video Terry stands before an altar and displays an aborted fetus, which struck this viewer as tasteless, turning a tragedy into a prop.

I am no believer in averting our gaze from the horror of abortion, but the issue between Catholics in Alliance and Randall Terry is not whether abortion is good or bad but how we can best approach the issue. Some were moved when they watched “Silent Scream” and others were repulsed, but in a democracy the key is to convince and to do so in a way that respects the views of those with whom we disagree. My friends on the Left and my friends on the Right disagree about how to advance the pro-life cause but both groups should enjoy the presumption of good faith in their earnestness to prevent abortion.

Michael Sean Winters

We Need a New Type of War on Poverty

City Journal has a story arguing that the country does not need another war on poverty. Because LBJ’s War on Poverty treated the poor as victims rather than citizens, it fostered dependency rather than empowerment. Over at First Things’ blog, Amanda Shaw endorses author Stephen Malanga’s thesis:

The problem, of course, is that many things have been tried, and the unsuccessful ones are being dusted off and re-gifted to the American public; if we don’t know precisely what does work, we certainly do know what doesn’t.

One problem with Malanga’s and Shaw’s argument is its premise that “the federal government lost its War on Poverty.” This is highly misleading. Poverty rates actually fell in the 1960s. In 1960, more than a fifth of Americans were poor; in 1969, one in eight were. See the accompanying chart below.

Another problem with their argument is the claim that the Republican-led policies of the 1990s succeeded. Welfare reform took millions off the dole; new police tactics and strategies cut the crime rate. For all of the good that these policies achieved, they did not reduce the poverty rate significantly.

Yet if Malanga and Shaw are to be believed, the policies that reduced poverty failed, while those that have not succeeded. This is the logic of Orwell's Ministry of Truth.

It is largely true that Barack Obama’s anti-poverty proposals (and John McCain’s for that matter) would not help the poor much. Community Development block grants rarely bring jobs to a neighborhood; at best, they shore up the local housing stock. Extra spending on urban education, such as to build gold-plated schools, won’t raise student achievement much. Such programs are aimed more at middle-class political constituencies than the marginalized.

It is true that some of the War on Poverty’s policies failed. As Nicholas Lemann in The Promised Land pointed out, its maximum feasible participation clause posited a link between political and economic empowerment that does not exist. It might have given state and local officials the impression that they should make it easier to get and stay on welfare.

And it is true that some of Malanga’s proposals could reduce the poverty rate. More federal funds should go for prisoner re-entry programs and charter schools; tighter standards should be applied to federal public housing.

Yet Malanga is silent on why those policies work: acculturation. Their aim is to instill middle-class mores and habits into the down and out. For all of the talk about the poor’s economic needs, their cultural and spiritual needs are neglected. As this is an era of family breakdown, as Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam have noted, such policies are doubly necessary. (These policies are also surely consistent with one of the goals of subsidiarity, the Catholic principle in which a “community of a higher order” (i.e. the federal government) supports but does not supplant a community of a lower order” (i.e. local government or agencies.)

Although the 1960s War on Poverty failed politically, one of its guiding principles did not. Unlike its 1990s counterpart, it conceived of the poor in their totality (or near totality). The elderly poor, the white rural poor, the black urban poor – all were included in its purview.

What the country surely needs now is a program with the best of the old and new: the scope of LBJ’s policies with an acculturation strategy aimed at bolstering the poor’s families and institutions.

Mark Stricherz

Is The Race Over?

Is it over? Of course not. A single, dreadful news cycle could still turn the race quickly back towards McCain. But, the numbers are daunting to say the least.

The first problem for McCain is that virtually every competitive swing state is a state that George W. Bush carried last election. Put differently, all the states that John Kerry won in 2004 are solidly in the Obama camp. McCain continues to contest Pennsylvania, but Obama leads there by a margin of 52.1% to 41.6% according to the average of statewide polls published by RealClearPolitics.com (and from which all figures in this post are taken.) What is striking about the Pennsylvania spread is not only the fact that it is in double digits, but that Obama has cleared the 50% threshold. That means in the remaining days, McCain would have to convince voters who have already decided to back Obama to reconsider their choice and change their minds. That is tough to do this close to the election.

Other swing states tell a similar tale. In Colorado, Obama only leads by 6 points but he has 51.5% of the RCP average. In the critical state of Ohio, Obama’s numbers float just above, or just below, the majority line: in today’s average, Obama has 49.8% to McCain’s 43.4% but he would probably rather still have yesterday’s average which had him at 50.3% to McCain’s 44.3%. It is difficult to see how McCain will win either state unless Obama commits a game-changing self-inflicted wound.

In Florida, Obama leads McCain 48.4% to 45.1%. It is conceivable that all those who have not yet made up their minds could break to McCain, but it is doubtful. In Indiana, Obama’s lead is even narrower – 47.4% to 46.0%. In both states, McCain would only need to convince presently undecided voters to come his way, which is why his campaign is trying still to cast doubts about Obama’s readiness to lead.

The nationwide polls vary all the time but most of that is just white noise. They go up a little or down a little, but tracking polls have a relatively small daily sample size so such fluctuations are inherent in the exercise. As Nate Silver pointed out, on any given day, the tracking polls reflect the views of 3,539 respondents but the statewide polls that came out yesterday reflected more than 22,000 interviews. So, the statewide polls are likely to be more accurate. More importantly, the popular vote does not elect the president, the Electoral College does, so the statewide surveys are the only ones that matter.

The Obama campaign is relying upon heavy turnout from first-time voters, especially from those who have been under-represented in the past, especially poor blacks and young people. And, voting is not always an easy thing to do, as a story out of North Carolina shows.

So, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings as the saying goes. But, the fat lady is in her dressing room and she has just finished her make-up.

Michael Sean Winters

Palling Around With Neo-Nazis

Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman were charged yesterday with threatening to assassinate Barack Obama. The two men are neo-Nazis and the craziness of their plot, from its fixation with numerology to its campy costuming (the two intended to wear white tuxedos and top hats while slaughtering Obama and 102 other black Americans) should not encourage us to ignore its hatefulness, and the sources of that hatefulness.

To be clear: No one technically “palled around” with these neo-Nazis. Sarah Palin did not go moose hunting with Cowart and Schlesselman, nor did her allies in the press nor her allies in the press, from Sean Hannity to Mark Stricherz, go bar hopping with the duo. There was no “palling around” because there was no casual relationship. There was something actually far worse: a causal relationship. For, surely, one of the mitigating factors Cowart’s and Sclesselman’s attorneys will point to is the fact that for several weeks a Governor of one of the fifty states, who had secured her party’s nomination for the vice-presidency of the nation, and a variety of serious media outlets had broadcast as newsworthy and significant the “fact” that Barack Obama “palled around” with terrorists.

We all know that terrorists are enemies of the United States so someone who “pals around” with them must at the very least be aiding and abetting the terrorists. Isn’t that what Palin meant to suggest? Young men and women wearing the uniform of the United States are engaged currently in two wars fighting terrorists who threaten our nation. Why should we stand idly by while one of the terrorists’ allies stealthily wins political support when our brothers and sisters are fighting against the same terrorists abroad?

You can hear the objection: We never told anyone to kill! We never told anyone to purchase a short-barreled shotgun, or two handguns, or a rifle and ammunition (all of which were found in Cowart’s and Schlesselman’s possession)! True enough. But, it requires a willful ignorance not to know that questioning the patriotism of the first black candidate for president might capture the attention of racist haters, that suggesting a casual connection between Obama and terrorism was a variety of hate-mongering, and that, long after it had been demonstrated that there was no meaningful relationship between Obama and Ayers, continuing to raise the issue amounted to shouting “fire” in a crowded arena. You can drive one hour from our nation’s capital (to the north or south, I might add) and find KKK and other racist memorabilia. The arena of racism is a crowded one and shouting “fire” is literally incendiary.

I do not believe that any of those who rehearsed the Ayers story wanted Obama dead. I also believe that their language was designed to raise doubts in some, even at the risk of raising hate in others. Such language is most certainly not exculpatory for these neo-Nazis, but is certainly a mitigating factor. I recognized all along, what Mr. Cowart and Mr. Schlesselman did not recognize, that the Ayers story was merely an attempt at character assassination, not real assassination. It was merely a revival of McCarthyite smear tactics, but no one told the neo-Nazis it was just a smear campaign. The confusion should not let Cowart and Schlesselman off the hook for their criminal acts and intents, but neither should it excuse the shameful acts and intents of those who stoked their hate.

Michael Sean Winters

The "Real" America?

The last several weeks have seen an increasingly more vicious ratcheting up of the rhetoric between the campaigns and their surrogates. In particular, comments made by three Republican women over the last 10 or so days has created a controversy . On Thursday of last week, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin said the following at a campaign rally: "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation". That same day, Representative Michele Bachman, a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, said that there were "anti-American" members of Congress, implying that there was a connection between "liberal" and "anti-American". Later that weekend, Nancy Pfotenhauer, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, referred to the parts of Virginia outside of Northern Virginia as "real Virginia".

All three of these statements, and the defenses made on behalf of them in the subsequent days indicate a dangerous trend in political name-calling. Democrats have gotten used to certain names thrown at them by Republicans (East Coast/West Coast/ Massachusetts Liberal, Big City Boss), but to call the very spaces that they are from "un-American" or not "real" America is to go beyond the pale. It is a new breed of geographic McCarthyism that exacerbates the already tenuous divide between red states and blue states.

What exactly is meant by "real" or "pro-" America? One of my favorite sites for political information, fivethirtyeight.com, provided an interesting demographic definition. Using information from the US Census, statistician Nate Silver looked at the ethnic make-up of the cities visited by Palin and Obama since the time that Palin was announced as the VP nominee. Interestingly enough, most were whiter than the US population as a whole, and most were smaller communities instead of big cities.

Palin, whether she intended to or not, was framing urban America as something not quite "American". Pfotenhauer did likewise by suggesting that Northern Virginia, including the urbanized areas of Arlington and Alexandria, were somehow less Virginian than the rest of the Commonwealth.

The bias against the urban space is not new. From the days of Jefferson, there has been an idealized version of America that focuses on rural and small town life. The Republican party has used anti-urban rhetoric with varying degrees of success over the last 150 years. For example, fear of "urban" Democrat Al Smith was effective in contributing to his loss in the 1928 election. Sometimes the strategy backfires, however. In 1884, The Republican criticism of the Democratic Party as the party of "rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" enraged New York City Catholics to the point that they handed the Republicans their first loss in the presidential race since the Civil War.

Coming from a suburb of a Midwestern city to the BosWash Megalopolis, I have found that the Eastern Seaboard is in no way less "American" than the part of the country I come from. In fact, its heterogeneity and multiplicity of ideas (including some that may occasionally be unpopular) makes it American. The diversity that makes up a place like Northern Virginia speaks to the way that people with different cultural histories can come together and provide individuality within community. Catholics, with our historic American roots in the urban space, know this fact better than others, and should be the first to defend the diversity of the city not as "un-American", but simply a part of the American experience.

As McCain and the Republicans get more desperate, I would anticipate more tactics of this nature. Playing on anti-urban bias, particularly against a candidate who made his political name on the South Side of Chicago, will become a more desirable action as the election draws closer. In an attempt to rally the base, the Republicans will try to play to the apprehension rural and suburban voters have for urban lifestyles. The best we can hope for is that all voters can see beyond the "un-American" label to cast their ballots on the issues.

Alex Pazuchanics

Should Archbishop Chaput Criticize McCain?

Last Friday, I argued that Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput’s criticisms of Barack Obama have been misunderstood as partisan. In response, reader Joseph J. Cleary II wrote:

When the church leadership takes the jump from enunciating clear moral policy to “implying” political votes for a party or candidate, they inevitably miss the mark.

I take Cleary’s point: church leaders should not imply votes for or against any candidate. To do so would be to violate the spirit of church consensus. As Michael Sean Winters noted accurately, The bishops’ document "Faithful Citizenship" says, "In fulfilling these responsibilities, the Church’s leaders are to avoid endorsing or opposing candidates or telling people how to vote.”

Yet contra Michael, Chaput has not urged Catholics to vote against Obama. Instead, the archbishop has criticized the Democratic candidate’s position on abortion, as well as his supporters. Opposing a candidate and criticizing his policies one are not the same. Criticism means disapproval; it doesn’t mean opposition. Most of us criticize candidates regularly; this doesn’t mean we won’t vote for them.

Naturally, this raises the question: Why hasn’t Archbishop Chaput criticized John McCain for his support of another evil -- federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Last month, Fran Maier, the chancellor of the Denver archdiocese, explained the archbishop’s decision this way:

In fact, the archbishop has voiced his criticism of embryonic stem cell research directly to Sen. McCain. He’s had no similar invitation or opportunity to meet with Sen. Obama. Moreover, the Republican Party platform rejects embryonic stem cell research. In fact, anyone interested in the contrasts between the two party platforms on this and related life issues simply needs to compare them.

Fran’s words invite questions. Would Chaput not have criticized Obama publicly if he had agreed to meet with the archbishop? Did Obama reject Chaput’s offer to meet with the archbishop?

In my reading of the evidence, Chaput is not a partisan. But surely he could explain his position about public criticism of candidates and their positions on various evils more fully.

Mark Stricherz