10. Sarah Palin has named her kids Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow, and Trig.
9. She has taken on corrupt Alaskan bureaucrats. She has angered Senator Ted Stevens and strongly supported her Lieutenant Governor’s bid to unseat 18-term congressman Don Young in the Republican Primary.
8. In light of McCain’s health problems: Sarah Palin runs marathons.
7. She is a moose hunter. Not a Bull-Moose hunter, but actual Moose. (Mooses? Meese? Moosen?)
6. Palin’s husband works as a commerical fisherman and is in a labor union…can’t much more blue-collar than that.
5. Palin’s husband is a champion snowmobile racer, winning the Tesoro Iron Dog, billed as the world’s longest snowmobile race, four times.
4. Her eldest son, Track, will be going to Iraq with the US Army next month, not unlike the other VP candidate
3. In 1984, Palin was named Miss Wasilla and runner-up as Miss Alaska.
2. Her youngest son, Trig, was born in April with Down’s Syndrome. Palin has made a point to talk about her son and her decision to not have an abortion despite knowing about Trig’s condition during pregnancy.
And….the best thing about Sarah Palin is:
Her parents were called this morning by their son-in-law to listen to the radio for a special announcement. They almost missed hearing about their daughter’s VP nomination because they were *drumroll* CARIBOU HUNTING.
Lest there be no doubt: the GOP has returned to the party of small government, increased transparency, and support the working-class!
I recently lamented the fact that Rachel Maddow got her own show. I was pretty upset that the channel which once bisected CNN and Fox News moved to the left of CNN in the past year through Olbermann’s transformation into leftist wacko and bringing on his sidekick, Maddow. Worse, supposedly non-partisanThe channel has gotten great ratings from Olbermann and Olympics coverage, so it’s not a bad business move. I won’t suggest that the media has a “higher calling” because I have sufficient faith in the viewers and the free market to promote effective, popular media.
MSNBC’s lone conservative, Joe Scarborough, was talking earlier about John McCain’s recent accomplishments in polling. Objectively speaking, Scarborough makes two valid points: a few months ago, the McCain campaign was dead in the water facing a double-digit deficit nationally AND the Obama campaign thought it was impossible to lose this race. Keith Olbermann has an open mic and blasts Scarborough:
The next morning, Scarborough was clearly angry. He had David Shuster, who is liberal, on his show. When Shuster hits Scarborough for not being critical enough of McCain, Scarborough loses it:
I don’t think the tirade was necessary or appropriate, but I can understand it. Scarborough has criticized Republicans and is wildly mocked among “conservative” circles. Also, Scarborough must be upset that Tim Russert passed away (Russert was known as a peacemaker and stabilizing force among network anchors), Andrea Mitchell has become an Obama surrogate without telling anyone, Olbermann has turned himself into a hitman, and Rachel Maddow now gets David Abrams’ timeslot in primetime. For Shuster to claim to be Indpendent was the final straw. Scarborough never wanted to be the token right-winger on the network. He wants to be a small-government former congressman who calls them as he sees them. The network he signed onto no longer exists.
I don’t think this is the end of MSNBC. I don’t think this will hurt ratings. Actually, it should improve ratings as people wait to see what train wreck will happen next. As sad as it is to see Joe completely lose it, hopefully this dispute will get people talking about MSNBC’s shift to the left. More likely, MSNBC’s leftists will further the unfair characterization of Scarborough as a bitter Republican who is watching mainstream America shift to the left.
Alaska, one of the reddest of red states, is now going to turn blue in 2 key races this November. Why? Because Alaskan Republicans are so close-minded and loyalist that they nominated two sitting ducks.
In the Senate race, Republican Ted Stevens is facing jail time over corruption charges. This after he has been widely ridiculed for being too old and too out of touch. Suggesting that the internet is a “series of tubes” certainly didn’t help. Naturally, Stevens won his primary last night with over 63% of the vote. Most Alaskan Republicans think that a potential criminal is the best representative of their party.
Stevens is trailing Democratic opponent, MarkBegich, by 13 points. Race over. Give the seat to the Dems right now, electoral projectors.
In the house race (note: Alaska only has one House seat due to its low population), reformer Sean Parnell trails old party hack, Don Young by a 1,000 votes with only 9 precincts remaining. This may need a recount, but this race should not have been close. Parnell is the Lieutenant Governor under the EXTREMELY popular Sarah Palin. He has fought to clean up Alaskan government and has served on multiple committees in the Alaska Legislature. Don Young is an 18-term congressman (yes, 18 terms. He has been in congress almost as long as William Ayers has been a terrorist!). He has engaged in a few shady, but not illegal, dealings. He is a typical do-nothing bureaucrat. While Parnell received endorsments from the National Review, Club for Growth, and Governor Palin, Don Young’s sole endorsement was from Mike Huckabee’s PAC. When two legitimate, conservative organizations and a highly popular governor support taking an incumbent out in a primary, that should have been a signal to Alaskan Republicans. Instead, they were sheep-like in their biannual support of Young.
If Alaskan Republicans are a microcosm, the GOP is in serious trouble. The party has lost the spirit and enthusiasm of 1994. Party loyalists and hacks are being prepared for the slaughter at the hands of power-hungry Democrats, moderates, and disaffected conservatives.
We need to look at candidates and then make decisions. Candidates define parties, not the other way around! If this means voting for a small-government, libertarian Democrat, so be it. This is not about getting 537 (435 in house, 100 in senate, and 2 in White House) people with an “R” affixed to their name on C-SPAN broadcasts. This is about getting 537 people who support freedom, liberty, and the American way. Democrats have never understood that concept. I’m starting to fear we don’t anymore.
Edit: This post has been edited for better accuracy. However, I will not mention the name of the insignificant Democratic House candidate. He is of no consequence since a competent Republican could easy trounce any Democrat and any competent Democrat will trounce Don Young.
If John McCain sends out a telegram (we know he doesn’t do text messaging), I really want it to say, “McCain-Lieberman. Tell that Obama boy to take his partisanship and shove it…” Alas, it won’t.
Before I crash the bi-partisan party, humor me as I look at all the positives:
1. Lieberman still caucuses with the Democrats, but could be powerful in slamming them. He was kicked out by the Democrats after losing his primary to Ned LaMont. After no Democrat asked for his support in 2008 and McCain did, Lieberman officially supported Johnny Mac because he wants to cut through partisan hackery. As a punishment, the Democrats stripped Lieberman of his superdelegate status, making him the same as an *bad pun coming in 3,2,1* average Joe.
Lieberman could be effective in talking about how the Democrats have failed him, and America. His public disputes with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could be very effective. If Obama wants to pretend that he has great bi-partisan support, he will have a hard time selling the American people if Lieberman is on the other side. Also, McCain’s negative ads may not seem so harsh since they are coming from both sides of the aisle.
2. He is a moderate liberal on domestic issues. libertarianism (small “l” is intentional) is growing as a political movement. The public is seeing the value in enhancing personal liberty. Whether that means low taxes through the elimination of superfluous issues or protecting a “woman’s right to choose”, libertarianism is an appealing philosophy. With McCain running policy, he can hold the conservative base together while Lieberman dances on the sidelines and convinces confused liberals to jump ship. Unless voters are willing to bet on McCain’s death AND a Supreme Court vacancy, Lieberman will be helpless to promote a progressive social agenda on the courts. In any event, some voters are on the fence and a pro-choice VP on the GOP ticket could be just enticing enough.
3. If McCain doubles-down on experience, they could absolutely tear apart Obama-Biden. Obama took Biden because he knew he was lacking in experience. Four years in the Senate simply doesn’t cut it to be a successful President. Biden brings 35 years in the Senate and is the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. These solid credentials will be thrown out if McCain takes Lieberman.
Think of it this way: if McCain takes a foreign policy lightweight, like Romney or Pawlenty, then McCain can crush Obama, but Biden will hit Romney/Pawlenty in debates. Though the Presidential debates are more visible and more important, not taking Lieberman mitigates McCain’s great policy advantage.
With Lieberman, McCain gets to maintain a strong edge on foreign policy AND accuse Obama of being a hypocrite by taking a Washington Insider as a running mate. It’s win-win.
4. Lieberman is old and will not seek a second term. In this race, the only way McCain can win is to be far as possible from party identification. In a generic election, voters prefer Republicans to Democrats by double-digits. Therefore, it is crucial to make this election as non-generic as possible. McCain can win on the platform of being a maverick outsider. Bringing in Lieberman fits that mold. Given their ages, it is a sure bet that neither will run in 2012. The White House will have two men who have proudly served their country and are immune to the rigors of campaigning for re-election or kowtowing to party bosses. If America wants to give it a try, it can get four years of good, honest politicians working for the people, not themselves. That is a powerful message, but is incumbent upon McCain and Lieberman promising not to seek re-election.
5. Lieberman is Jewish. I know that being Jewish and in politics is not rare enough to be “special”, it would dispel a few myths and problems for the GOP. First, if Obama wants to be the first bi-racial person in the White House, then McCain can ask Americans to put the first non-Christian in the White House. The DNC spent all night last night focusing in on minorities (Pelosi: female Italian-American, Jesse Jackson Jr: black, Ted Kennedy: catholic, Obama’s half-sister: Asian, Michelle Obama: black). It is hard to call the GOP the WASP party when it’s VP nominee is Jewish.
Also, being Jewish offers electoral advantages. Prior to Obama’s run, Jews were the most partisan demographic, including African-Americans and Hispanics. Lieberman will certainly appeal to Jewish voters and can go hog wild on Obama’s anti-Israel stance (call me anti-anti-Semitic, but I’m pretty sure Lieberman could have a field day talking to Jewish retirees in Boca Raton about Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan). While most Jews are in solid blue states, Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Nevada are battlegrounds and could use any boost possible.
The negatives:
1. McCain is already too far to the left. The conservative base is pretty unhappy with McCain. Campaign finance reform, a path to citizenship for illegals, opposing torture, and waffling on the Bush tax cuts are all very damaging. McCain got beat by Bush in 2000, because the Rove machine turned out the Evangelicals. McCain certainly will have trouble doing that if he has a pro-choice running mate who is mildly sympathetic to gay rights. If McCain can’t hold together the conservative base, there is no amount of moderates that can save him.
2. Lieberman is hawkish, hurting chances of building a bi-partisan coalition. If the Democrats want to win this election on the drumbeat of failure in Iraq, then Lieberman doesn’t help McCain. Democrats can turn the tables and say that it didn’t leave Lieberman, Lieberman left the party. Joe’s hawkish stances on Iraq, Iran, and Israel are all directly at-odds with the Democratic Party’s platforms. The Democrats will only need to make a slight alteration from “The Republicans caused this war and the war needs to stop” to “the War Hawks caused this war and the war needs to stop”. It’s a pretty simple sidestep and mitigates the appearance of bi-partisanship.
3. Lieberman is too old. If you thought the charges of senility on McCain were bad, wait until he gets Lieberman. The campaign will be branded Grumpy Old Men. I think of Walter Matthau as more McCain and Jack Lemmon more Lieberman, but the Obama people can sort it out. As Obama is trying to show, it is very easy to cast old people as “out of touch”. And that is exactly how the Dems will play it.
The easiest way to win an election is to get 50.1% of the population as close as possible to the edge of not voting for you. The GOP needs a big coalition to take down Obama. To cater to multiple groups, it must be willing to risk losing them. But it cannot afford to. The question is whether or not McCain-Lieberman pushes to the Evangelicals into staying home. If not, this pick will all but seal a Republican victory. It is this question that is tearing up the McCain War Room.
I’m currently sitting between two of my liberal buddies and figured I should document my thoughts.
(note: one of them comes up with, “I consider myself progressive, thank you very much”. The other comes up with, “I’m a socialist, if anything”.)
Nancy Pelosi: I only caught the tail end of it, but I heard a lot about Barack Obama being right and John McCain being wrong. It was kinda funny, actually. The crowd was very quiet…I’ll cut the Dems some slack and say that they are too busy eating their organic, tri-color food in organic packaging. (Reminder: I’m not kidding. The DNC has strict rules on food being 70% local and/or organic and at least 3 colors must be represented…but Obama is BI-racial, not TRI-racial. Perhaps he isn’t as progressive as we were told)
highlight: Pelosi says that Obama has brought bi-partisanship back to Washington. WHEN? The ethics bill and …um….well….
Oh, yea. I forgot. History doesn’t matter in Obamaland!
Tribute to Jimmy Carter. Democrats haven’t realized they should pretend he never existed? Democrat is elected in a very weak economy, facing a global scourge by an enemy of the US, and facing an energy shortage and then absolutely makes it worse? THIS is the image? Go for it, guys!
Jesse Jackson Jr.: His attempts to channel his father and Barack Obama fall a bit short. He tried hard. And if we know anything about liberal ideology, if you try, that’s good enough. We can always add a government subsidy to hook him up. Somehow his father’s goal of physically emasculating Obama goes unmentioned.
Highlight: Jesse Jackson Jr. talks about great moments in American history; Lexington & Concord, Appomattox (apparently not the courthouse), Selma, and Denver. Really? Revolutionary War. Civil War. Civil Rights movement. Obama’s nomination.
it’s official, they’ve gone off the deep end.
Caroline Kennedy comes out to introduce Ted Kennedy. She is a train wreck of a speaker. She seems awkward and uncomfortable. She also makes the obligatory comparison of Obama to JFK.
Random list of “Democratic” accomplishments that she is attributing to Ted Kennedy.
“If your taxes are about $5,000 too much because of unnecessary government, Teddy is your senator, too!”
Highlight: There are about 16 camera cut-aways to Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy Clan. No Schwarzenegger, thankfully. Is this a reminder that there are other living Kennedys? Or is it to suggest that Arnie doesn’t support Obama.
The tribute to Ted Kennedy is odd. It’s more documentary than tribute. There is an odd infatuation with the ocean…I guess too much of a hardened conservative to get this. Ted fought for better equipment for troops. DIDN’T OBAMA OPPOSE FUTURE SPENDING IN IRAQ? Wow. The Democrats are now officially supporting stances on key issues that their own Presidential nominee proudly opposes?
Let the cannibalism continue!
Ted is alright. The speech is pretty good and is a thinly veiled attempt to recreate Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme. It’s rosy. It’s optimistic.
lull in the action as commentators talk about Ted Kennedy’s legacy and the attempts to humanize Barack Obama. Does it bother anyone else that Obama needs to be humanized? Shouldn’t all presidential candidates be human, anyway? Unless, of course, he is *drumroll* MANCHURIAN!
Highlight: “The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years towards regulating values”. Wait, wait, wait. The Democratic Party is the one that DOESN’T regulate values? Was that before or after Democrats waged a war on trans fats, SUVs, and the minimum wage while supporting hate crime legislation and Affirmative-Action. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?
enter: some random former Republican congressman from Iowa. This guy is a vanilla speaker and clearly there to prop up the notion of Barack’s bipartisanship. Is this the best they have? They think this guy, who was never famous and will never be famous, is the answer? Damn, even the Republicans didn’t pretend to be bipartisan in 2004 and they had this guy:
Claire McCaskill: Senator from Missouri
She starts off way too cheery. It’s a little creepy. Is this how Obama wants Clinton? A Stepford Senator?
She tells her story and her husband’s story and calls Barack’s and Michelle’s American stories. She skips out on when Michelle became a racist in college and Barack was supported by William Ayers and married by Jeremiah Wright.
On second thought, her creepy smile isn’t so bad. She is doing a nice job providing a “pragmatic” and “friendly” view of Obama. I could see middle-aged mothers seeing themselves in McCaskill and playfully agreeing. This might be the best speech of the night. The only hitch for Democrats is that McCaskill will only make the contrast between her and Michelle that much more obvious.
Here we go: Michelle Obama!
Here is her bio pic. It’s about her love for South Side. This attempt to humanize her is really laying it on thick. Michelle loves her kids (I’d hope). She has reached out to others (unless they are proud Americans. Then they’re ignorant). She makes people feel better (unless they are greedy capitalists. Then they should become teachers)
She is introduced by her brother, who happens to be the basketball coach of Oregon State (Go beavers?). There is a series of odd basketball analogies. I’m a sports fan, and even I think this is bs. He tries to deliver this line on Michelle and Barack helping the American people and it comes across flat. He doesn’t even believe his own crap!
Here’s Michelle! She is wearing a kelly green dress-like thing. There is some sort of broach (brooch? breach? I’m not sure what its called) at the neckline.
How many times she has said “change: 1
9:39 CST - she plays the humanizing card with jokes and sentimentality about her family
9:43 CST - give dignity to strangers (the same bitter American strangers or the friendly, self-righteous Princeton undergrads who hate black people?)
9:44 CST - America should be a place where you can make it if you try (unless you support an expansion of unemployment programs and government entitlement programs, then you don’t have to try)
9:45 CST - “We settle for the world as it is, not as it should be” (life lessons from Ray Nagin!)
9:46 CST - Obama channels woman’s suffrage and MLK…in case we couldn’t tell she was a black woman (my “progressive” friend smirks as he reminds me that Switzerland did not have woman’s suffrage until 1979).
9:47 CST - Michelle Obama supports Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The Clinton reference gets a huge ovation (the contrast between Michelle and Hillary is too clear to be overcome, sorry speech writers)
9:49 CST - “I love this country” - THIS BRINGS A STANDING OVATION FROM THE CROWD. In case you haven’t figured it out yet: the Democrats are definitely in trouble when there is surprise and excitement to hear that a potential first lady loves her country.
9:51 CST - “Give each child a world-class education”…by throwing money at the problem? by supporting the federal government’s incursion into education? The same federal incursion that Democrats condemn in their staunch opposition to NCLB? Hypocrisy: it’s in the air.
9:54 CST - She’s almost crying talking about how Barack wanted to give his daughter a father’s love. (soooo we ARE allowed to talk about how Barack had an absentee Kenyan father who had scores of children through multiple women. Including one child who currently starves to death Kenya, only meeting his famous half-brother twice in 30 years?)
9:55 CST - “A girl from teh South Side can..” do whatever she wants. (Was that the WHITE values of success and high-paying jobs in law firms? I can’t keep her racist tendencies straight)
9:57 CST - Barack shows up via live feed from Kansas City. He shows some comedic chops with the reference to his courting of Michelle and his “persistence’.
My thoughts: I think Michelle gave a good speech and played up the Trophy Wife that Americans expect from a First Lady. She gave a nice look at Barack Obama as a person, but Barack still has serious (and legitimate) obstacles to be seen as anything other than elitist socialist. David Brooks had great analysis saying that Michelle missed the opportunity to make Barack a person, not just a savior.
I hope to be live blogging each night of the DNC and provide a post each morning on a DNC-related topic. So log on here each night this week for all sorts of shenanigans.
The rhetoric will get more ridiculous, but I’ll be sure to stay Pragmatically Political
Nicky Cheese shed some light on the topic of instant runoff voting in his post yesterday. The video at the bottom of his post is pretty sweet and explains IRV quite well.
IRV allows voters to rank their candidates 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. If no candidate has a majority of the vote, then those who voted for the 3rd most popular candidate have their 2nd-choice candidate receive their ballot.
This concept is hard to explain, but easy to show.
Under the current system, Obama would win Georgia and all of its 15 electoral votes.
Under an Instant Runoff system, voters would have already decided which candidate is their 2nd and 3rd choices. Since Barr’s Libertarian Party is ideologically closer to the Republicans, let’s assume that 5% of the voters voted Barr, but put McCain as their 2nd choice and 1% of voters voted Barr, but have Obama as the second option.
This recalculates the vote totals to be: McCain 51%, Obama 49%.
The benefit of Instant Runoff Voting is huge. It allows voters to actually reveal their preferences. Though I am deeply dismayed by many of McCain’s policies and thoughts, I feel that I must vote for him to knock off Obama. If I knew that the vote would go to a run off in the even that neither candidate garnered a majority I would be free to vote for my preferred candidate without the pragmatically political ramifications.
To this end, we can get an accurate and non-damaging look at the popularity of candidates (and their parties). Those Georgians who do vote for Bob Barr risk helping Obama. Those who don’t vote for Bob Barr are denying the Libertarian candidate his rightful support.
While Instant Runoff Voting may seem appealing, it will never get off the ground. The reason is intuitive: Democrats and Republicans lose the most from IRV. They also control every level of government and the bodies which enact the switch to IRV. In a great paradox, the only way to achieve IRV is to outright win elections, which is nearly impossible without IRV.
As I have argued many times, the best way to enact large-scale political change is to use pre-existing political machinery. libertarians (small “l”) need to hijack the GOP and dominate the primaries. If they all voted for Ron Paul in the primaries, Bob Barr wouldn’t be so damn attractive. The Democrats’ support of Obama over Hillary, though the race was close, helps to define their party.
I spent the weekend down at Americans for Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream conference down in Austin, TX. The weekend served as a high-quality sounding board for free-marketeers. Some of the highlights:
The Ron Paul people are intensely angry with the Republican Party. Apparently, delegates for Rep. Paul at the TX GOP Convention were shouted down, insulted, and treated like second-class Republicans. They insist that they did not leave the Republican Party. Instead, the GOP left them. This argument certainly carries a great deal of weight, given that spending has greatly increased and our foreign policy has become more interventionist. In any event, the divide between libertarian conservatives and the party-line was noticeable and tense.
Bob Novak spoke very well and intelligently described the political landscape. When I met him, he looked disheveled and had a sizable stain on the vest of his 3-piece suit. After telling him that I attend Northwestern University, he semi-seriously sneered and told that he is an Illini (University of Illinois alum). Good guy, though.
Barry Goldwater Jr. gave a solid speech. He keynoted and delivered surprisingly funny jokes. I got a chance to meet him and he didn’t disappoint. He was the only speaker I met who wanted to shake my hand for the photo. He also was having problems with his glasses during an interview. One of the staffers ran and grabbed him an extra pair. By fate (or intent), the new pair was identical to the classic black, thick glasses of Goldwater’s more famous father. Unfortunately, I lacked the onions to ask Mr. Goldwater Jr. to wear the black glasses in my photo-op.
Can you tell the difference?
I also had the opportunity to track down Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr as he checked into the hotel. After chasing him to the elevator, I was able to talk to him briefly. He was dressed in cowboy boots, stylish acid-washed jeans, and a white button-down shirt with black embroidery over the left-breast. Barr also felt it necessary to have roughly 4 of his buttons undone, to show off his plain white t underneath. AFter taking photos, he got very solemn and said, “Now I want to you boys something (I was with fellow Sam Adams Alliance interns at the time) that Charlton Heston told me…” At this point, I was really excited. Bob Barr was going to impart wisdom from Mr. NRA! “Never take photos with two cameras at the same time. Because the flash. The flash. The flash can alter the photos.” So that was Bob Barr. He gave us some b.s. advice about photo-taking. On the bright side, he shook all of our hands and thanked us for our support.
For those who haven’t forgotten that I doubt I will vote for Barr in November, take solace in knowing that I didn’t lie. I said “Representative Barr! Rep. Barr. I’m a big fan and wish you the best of luck in November”. Both of those things are true. I like most of his policies and do hope he does well. I just hope that he doesn’t hijack the Libertarian/libertarian movement and/or deliver Obama the White House.
However, if McCain appears even more unelectable and continues to prove his economic ignorance, I might end up voting for the hippest 59 year-old guy I will ever meet. And then fly in the face of a past blog post.
With the presidential race in full gear, pollsters are dying to find out who voters will choose. The real question regards why people hit the polls and vote the way they do. If either party can truly understand the motivations for voting, it can frame its message in a way to virtually guarantee victory. By the same token, a candidate who misreads his voting base, opposition, and undecideds can completely undermine himself (or herself…lest we forget, Hillary is waiting for Obama to be assassinated).
Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas is one of the most influential works on the subject. Frank argues that working-class whites in America’s “Heartland” have shifted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party because they are voting on social issues, not economic ones. The drive to vote against abortion is overpowering the drive to vote against tax cuts for low-income social conservatives.
While Frank’s thesis makes sense, it isn’t wholly accurate. Princeton professor Larry Bartels rips into Frank’s contention. Bartels uses statistical data, in lieu of Frank’s “scholarly” decision to use anecdotal evidence in his pseudo autobiography. Bartels finds first that the switch from the Democratic to Republican Party has been an exclusively southern phenomenon. The trend can largely be attributed to the gulf of civil rights stemming from the 1964 Presidential Election between LBJ and Barry Goldwater.
1960 Presidential Electoral Map. What’s more surprising: the changing party bases or the fact that US Senator and former Klansman Robert Byrd was a viable candidate?
Further, Bartels finds that Frank’s argument isn’t geographically inaccurate, it is just not true. His studies note that college-educated white voters are more likely to vote on social issues than non-college-educated white voters. If anything, Democrats are winning the elite on social issues more than Republicans are winning the poor.
The final part of Bartels’ critique shows that non-college-educated whites tend to agree more with the Democrats than the Republicans on social issues, but let economic issues take primacy. So what are we left with? A group of low-income white voters with relatively little education who joined the Republican Party in the south, are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. If Bartels’ representation is accurate, it certainly fits into a political narrative. Libertarianism is one of the most socially convenient ideologies because it endorses freedom. Even the most hardcore on both sides of the political aisle endorse freedom, right?
After a game like this, what ISN’T the matter with Kansas?
So if we truly have unpacked what and how a large portion of the electorate votes, the rest should be easy. McCain needs to tout his pro-liberty values and Obama, who replaces freedom with bureaucracy and rhetoric, needs to suppress the vote.
TheSilentMajority crystallizes this point in his latest post. He finds that the Republican Party has switched the message of freedom from 1994 to the message of social conservatism. Not surprisingly, the Republican Party has floundered as it has both lost its congressional majority, is completely outnumbered in the upcoming Presidential Election, and has accomplished very little (if you consider our budget deficit and the War in Iraq to be “small”). If McCain is to pull this one out, he will need to switch the Republican Party back to what it once was.
5. Lieberman is Jewish. I know that being Jewish and in politics is not rare enough to be “special”, it would dispel a few myths and problems for the GOP. First, if Obama wants to be the first bi-racial person in the White House, then McCain can ask Americans to put the first non-Christian in the White House. The DNC spent all night last night focusing in on minorities (Pelosi: female Italian-American, Jesse Jackson Jr: black, Ted Kennedy: catholic, Obama’s half-sister: Asian, Michelle Obama: black). It is hard to call the GOP the WASP party when it’s VP nominee is Jewish.
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