Good post-election demographic and political analysis from Judis, Teixeira and Katz.
--Josh Marshall
Bill Clinton as Chairman of the DNC? So says this LA Times editorial. To me it sounds like a great idea. And I say that as someone who believes Hillary Clinton never should and probably (hopefully) never will run for president.
--Josh Marshall
Surveying the scene today, one thing that occurs to me is that President Bush is remaking the government into something that is looking more and more like a parliamentary democracy. I don't mean in every specific, of course; the key feature of the Bush presidency is an extremely powerful executive that to a great degree coopts and controls his own congressional majorities.
But the similarities are important and worth understanding. The key elements are extremely tight party discipline (something political scientists have lamented the absence of for years) and a sharp diminishment of rivalries between the branches of government which used to cut against unified party control.
Party discipline is simple enough. President Bush's first term was replete with examples. And an instructive comparison is how much President Bush was able to accomplish with thin majorities in 2001-02 compared to what President Clinton was able to do with much more substantial majorities in 1993-94.
Today I'm struck by this most recent example with Arlen Specter.
Fresh from his successful senate reelection campaign, Specter (heir apparent to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee) suggested he'd hold the line against anti-Roe v. Wade judges President Bush might appoint.
Then no more than a day later he beat a hasty and shamefaced retreat.
“Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges.“As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush’s nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas.
“I have already sponsored a protocol calling for a Judiciary Committee hearing within thirty days of a nomination, a vote out of Committee thirty days later, and floor action thirty days after that. I am committed to such prompt action by the Committee on all of President Bush’s nominees.
“In light of the repeated filibusters by the Democrats in the last Senate session, I am concerned about a potential repetition of such filibusters. I expect to work well with President Bush in the judicial confirmation process in the years ahead.”
I assume the word came down from the White House to Sen. Specter that he simply wouldn't be Chairman if that were his attitude.
Then we have the incident we noted yesterday in which Sen. Frist may, at the president's say-so, change the cloture rules which require 60 votes to push through legislation.
Past presidents have usually had to deal with Majority Leaders who were much more solicitous of their chamber's independence and institutional prerogatives. But then again, President Bush all but appointed Frist to his post. So this should not surprise us.
There's even an element of parliamentarism in President Bush's post-election comments about his mandate and his right to expect others to fall in line behind views because he won a majority, even if a small one, at the ballot box.
It's fine to bemoan this. And there's much to bemoan. But Democrats also need to learn how to live with it, at least for the next four years. And that means realizing that for at least the next two years, the President can get passed almost anything he wants to. His congressional majorities are now sufficiently padded that he can even afford a few Republican defections. He simply doesn't need Democrats for anything.
And that means approaching most legislative battles not with an eye toward preventing passage or significantly altering legislation, but placing alternatives on the table that the party will be able use as contrasts to frame the next two elections. In other words, their only remaining viable alternative is to be an actual party of opposition.
--Josh Marshall
The dollar ...
The dollar continued its decline in global currency <$NoAd$> markets yesterday, intensifying worries among some economists that mounting U.S. budget and trade deficits could send the U.S. currency into a tailspin.But John B. Taylor, the Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, defended the Bush administration view that the deficits pose no danger of a dollar collapse. He issued a detailed rebuttal of what he called "scare stories."
The dollar fell yesterday to within a fraction of a cent of its all-time low against the euro of $1.2930 , trading as low as $1.2898 before rallying slightly to close at $1.2867. It fell modestly against the Japanese yen, and continued a sharp slide against the Canadian dollar, which rose to 83 U.S. cents yesterday for the first time in 12 years.
It was the second straight day that the dollar has fallen despite a surge in the stock market, continuing a trend that began in early October when it started slipping against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners. The decline rekindled the fears of some analysts that the dollar could be headed for a severe sell-off unless the White House and Congress make a major effort to shrink the budget gap.
The rest from the Post ...
--Josh Marshall
This is reprinted from a post from last February ...
It all reminds me of a line from a famous, or rather infamous, memo Pat Buchanan, then a White House staffer, wrote for Richard Nixon in, I believe, 1972 when their idea of the moment was what they called 'positive polarization'.At the end of this confidential strategy memo laying out various ideas about how to create social unrest over racial issues and confrontations with the judiciary, Buchanan wrote (and you can find this passage on p. 185 of Jonathan Schell's wonderful Time of Illusion): "In conclusion, this is a potential throw of the dice that could bring the media on our heads, and cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."
And there you have it. Tear the country apart. And once it's broken, our chunk will be bigger.
Apropos of the <$NoAd$>moment.
--Josh Marshall
In an article at Foxnews.com on possible Supreme Court nominations, C. Boyden Gray, former counsel to the first President Bush said the following about the filibuster rules in the Senate ...
As it stands today [Democrats] can block [a nominee] ... But I also believe that the president and majority leader may well decide to change the rules given the elections ... The president has a very strong political support, potential support, for asking for and getting this change.
What does this mean exactly?
Certainly, a reelected president with an expanded senate majority has a lot more <$NoAd$> leverage to get his judicial nominees confirmed. There's no getting around that. And it will be very difficult for Democrats to hold their whole caucus together to stymie a judicial appointment with a filibuster. Moreover, the 60 vote rule, on the merits, is subject to a lot of very valid criticism.
But what is it about the president's victory on Tuesday that provides a moral authority or logic to changing the rules under which nominations are now approved?
This is a critical difference.
Democrats have to deal with the fact that President Bush is now no longer a minority president, however slim his majority may have been. They also need to contend with his expanded senate majorities.
But this is what I fear will be a growing pattern in this second term: an effort to use a narrowly secured majority not only to govern, even govern aggressively, but to make institutional changes that strip away the existing powers and rights of large minorities. These formal and informal checks and balances constitute the governmental soft-tissue that allows our political system to function.
An earlier example of this was the DeLay double-dip redistricting from last year. I believe we'll see much more. And it's a pattern that everyone should be watching closely.
--Josh Marshall
Take a look at Ed Kilgore's take on the post-election intra-Democratic party issues at his NewDonkey website. For those of you who don't know, Ed is the Policy Director of the DLC.
--Josh Marshall
"I think a large part of the public likes the conservatives' theme music. Now they will be tested on whether they like the lyrics."
--Josh Marshall
After the Massachusetts court decision in favor of gay marriage, I remember writing that though this was good for civil rights, we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it's anything but bad for the Democratic party. I thought I'd written that in TPM. But when I used the TPM search engine yesterday I couldn't find it using the obvious keywords. So it's possible that I wrote it somewhere else or even in a private letter. Who knows ...
In any case, over the last 7 or 8 months I think I managed to convince myself that this wasn't the case, which was obviously wrong.
Let me start by making an important distinction. Recognizing that a certain position cost a lot at the polls is not the same as saying the position should be discarded for political reasons. I know that on the surface it may seem that way. But they're not the same thing. And it's foolish to ignore these realities if you're going to make any headway at coping with them.
As many other have already noted, Rove and Co. cleverly managed to get anti-gay marriage initiatives and referenda on the ballot in a number of key swing states. And that seems to have played an key role in mobilizing 'peripheral' evangelical and culturally conservative voters.
Once they were at the polls, of course, they voted for George W. Bush.
Looking back over the week before the campaign I realize that I should have been more attentive to the reports I was picking up from readers about a wave of push-polls or robo-calls on the gay marriage issue -- some hitting the issue itself while others dug deeper and insisted that the issue was really whether homosexuality would be 'taught in schools' and so forth.
This issue clearly had potency without a phone-call campaign. But that added to it. The decision to get the initiatives on the ballot, followed by a carefully orchestrated campaign of push-polls and the like amounted to a effective campaign pincer movement. And it was one that, to be honest, I think fairly few on the Democratic side even saw coming. Gay marriage -- and the whole cluster of issues that surround it -- became the sub rosa issue of the campaign.
It may have provided Bush with the crucial turnout boost on the right that allowed him to remain in office.
--Josh Marshall
Memory hole watch: the LA Times has the first interviews with soldiers who watched as looted dragged away those high-grade explosives from the al Qaqaa munitions complex.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush says Social Security privatization starts now.
See this earlier post for more on the linguistic funny-business over the term 'privatization'.
--Josh Marshall
As an oft-times critic of her, let me highly recommend Maureen Dowd's column in this morning's Times. And we'll be saying more about 'reaching out' to Red State voters.
--Josh Marshall
In his commentary today, Marshall Wittman says: "Organization is fine - ideas and message are far superior."
Lest there be any doubt, I entirely agree. It is simply that I think the two work in tandem and each galvanizes and augments the other.
There's a lot of talking to done about this, haggling, gnashing of teeth, some shouting too. The point of my earlier discussion wasn't stand-pat-ism. Improvement is always possible and necessary. And Democrats are still recovering from various social and political developments stretching from the 1960s straight through to the 1990s. It is, simply, also important to distinguish between the present moment and 1984 or 1972, though many would like to portray this in those terms.
Needless to say, we'll talk much more about this.
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday, in an overnight post, Andrew Sullivan wrote, President Bush "deserves a fresh start, a chance to prove himself again, and the constructive criticism of those of us who decided to back his opponent. He needs our prayers and our support for the enormous tasks still ahead of him."
I thought about this when I read it. And, to put it simply, I didn't agree. What I considered writing was that given the track record he's compiled and the way he ran this campaign, he's really owed no fresh start. That would be graciousness at war with reality.
It would be up to the president, I thought of writing, to show concrete signs of a willingness not to govern in the divisive and factional spirit from which he's governed in the last four years.
And then there's this from his comments today: "We've worked hard and gained many new friends, and the result is now clear -- a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory."
This is the touchstone and the sign. A 'broad, nationwide victory'? He must be kidding. Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But he's claiming a mandate.
"A broad, nationwide victory"?
It would almost be comical if it weren't for the seriousness of what it portends. This election cut the nation in two. A single percentage point over 50% is not broad. A victory that carried no states in the Northeast, close to none in the Industrial midwest is not nationwide, and none on the west coast is not nationwide.
And yet he plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart.
--Josh Marshall
Well, what to say? Two years ago, after some surprisingly disappointing election results I quipped something like, "Well, that could have gone better."
But somehow, that sort of irreverent, grim humor doesn't seem appropriate. This isn't just a disappointing election result. The consequences of what happened last night are too great.
Setting aside my general political leanings, my personal views and feelings of partisanship, I think the result portends very bad things for America's role in the world and the well-being on all levels of this country. Changes in domestic politics, in theory at least, can be shifted back at a following election. The world, though, is different. There we are just a ship -- though the largest one -- on waters we can never truly control. And I fear that this result will set in motion dangerous dynamics that even the relatively young among us will be wrestling with and contending with for the rest of our lives.
I've referred to this in the past, and hopefully will have a chance to return to it, but here's the essence of the matter, as I see it. Before today, the course that America had charted in the world over the last three years could be seen as the result of a traumatic event (9/11) and the choice of a president who was actually put in office by a minority of the electorate. This was a referendum on what's happened in the last three years. And it's been validated.
Let me run through a few other points rapidly.
The situation in Ohio. I gave myself the benefit of sleeping in a bit this morning. So I have not gotten my head around all the details of the provisional ballots and how many votes, in theory, remain. I can see that President Bush is trying to force the process and wring some de facto concession out of Sen. Kerry -- a typical Bush/Rove maneuver on many levels.
I don't want to see Kerry supporters (or the country as a whole for that matter) remain in an emotional limbo any longer than necessary. But for my part, I see no reason that Kerry should concede anything so long as uncounted votes remain outstanding that could conceivably decide the contest in his favor.
That's not something that means a lot to this president; I know that. But this whole contest has been too dirty, too marred with voter suppression, dirty tricks and other unspeakable antics not to press every last possibility. So, not that my views matter in this, but I would say do nothing premature. Make sure every last vote is counted. The fact that the president is "convinced" that he won, is not only meaningless but offensive. We have a system of rules for counting votes. That's how we decide.
(As I was writing this, word just went over the wires that Sen. Kerry called President Bush to concede the election. I don't second-guess the decision. They have a better handle on the numbers than anyone. And I'm sure they can see that they are simply not there.)
Finally, to Democrats and Kerry supporters.
Yesterday evening I heard various commentators say that Kerry's defeat would usher in a civil war among Democrats. Tucker Carlson said it would or should lead to a 'Goldwater moment' for the Democrats.
As I've noted above, I don't want to diminish the scope of what's happened. But a civil war over what exactly? Yes, some consultants will get a hard shake. And I'm certain there will be backbiting against Kerry (which I for one will very much disagree with.) But a civil war over what? The right and the left of the party were remarkably united in this cycle and managed to find points of compromise on key issues.
In some ways this would all be conceptually easier for Democrats to deal with if President Bush had managed a realignment of our politics in the post-9/11 world. But when I look at the results from last night what I see is that they are virtually identical to four years ago. Pretty much the same states going each way and a very close to even race -- though of course the president's 51% makes all the difference in the world.
As I said, if the Dems had been crushed, that would be one thing. If the American people were coalescing away from them, etc. But that's not what has happened here. In 2000 the country was divided into two (increasingly hostile) camps. And it's still exactly the same way. If anything it seems only more entrenched -- perhaps symbolically and geographically captured by the flip between New Hampshire and New Mexico from 2000.
The country is bitterly divided. And as much as anyone President Bush has divided it. But president Bush got 51% and if there's anything I've learned from watching him for the last four years-plus, it is that his team will take this as a popular mandate for an aggressive push for their agenda -- notwithstanding the profound division in the country or what has happened over the previous four years.
For the Democrats, what I fear most (and what I've privately worried about for months) is this: Energy cools after an election. That's inevitable. But organization and institutions can survive. And it is within institutions and organizational infrastructure that energy and power exist and persist.
Certainly it would have been more pleasant (and perhaps better) to nurture all the organization and infrastructure that has been built up over the last two years under a President Kerry. But my concern over the last few months has been that if Bush won, all of these groups and organizations and incipient infrastructure would simply be allowed to wither, as though it had been tried and found not to have worked.
That, as a factual judgment, I think is just plain wrong. And if that were allowed to happen it would truly be tragic. The truth is that what Democrats have begun to build over the last two years is tremendously important. It just wasn't enough, not yet.
I remember talking to Simon Rosenberg, the head of the New Dem Network, at the Democratic convention last summer. You'll remember, he and his group were profiled in the Times magazine around that time. The article, in brief, was about plans to create a Democratic-leaning counter-establishment along the lines of what Republicans did two generations ago -- with an alternative media, activist groups, organized political giving, in short a political infrastructure.
He told me he thought it would take ten years to accomplish. And I told him my one worry was that it could all be strangled in its crib if Kerry didn't win.
Well, here we are. And this is the test for people who care about this kind of politics and these sorts of values -- making sure that what has been started is not allowed to falter. This isn't 1964 or 1972 or 1980. This wans't a blow-out or a repudiation. It was close to a tie -- unfortunately, on the other guy's side. Let's not put our heads in the sand but let's also not get knocked of our game. Democrats need to think critically and seriously about why this didn't turn out 51% for Kerry or 55% for Kerry (and we'll get to those points in the future). But it would be a terrible mistake to stop thinking in terms of those ten years Simon described.
Take time to feel the desolation and disappointment. But I remain confident that time is not on the side of the kind of values and politics that President Bush represents. It took conservatives two decades to build up the institutional muscle they have today. Though I was always nervous about the result, I thought we could win this election. But it was always naive to believe that that sort of institutional heft could be put together in 24 or 36 months.
President Bush and the Republicans now control the entire national government, even more surely now than they have over the last four years. They do so on the basis of garnering the votes of 51% or 52% of the population. But they will use that power as though there were no opposition at all. That needs to be countered.
Leave today for disappointment. Tomorrow, think over which of these various groups and organizations you think has made the best start toward what I've described above, go to their website, and give money or volunteer. After that, okay sure, take a few more days for disappointment, maybe a few more weeks. But this takes time. And you shouldn't lose heart. The same division in the country remains, the same stalemate. The other side just got the the ball a yard or two into our side of the field rather than the reverse. And we have to deal with the serious consequences of that. Tomorrow's the day to start.
--Josh Marshall
Before getting to comments on last night's election, I want to make a correction about last evening's comments about the youth vote, comments which were incomplete and partly misleading. Young voters showed up at a far higher level than they did four years ago. But everyone else did too. And so the proportion of the electorate made up by the youth vote did not increase. At least not dramatically -- look at the specific numbers for details. For the Democrats, this was clearly not a good thing. But that doesn't mean that young voters didn't turn out in record proportions.
--Josh Marshall
One thing that does seem very clear tonight -- at least if what I'm hearing from the exits is true -- is that the much-ballyhooed youth vote simply did not show up. Simple as that.
That is a remarkable turnabout from the expectations that had been growing over the last week. And Democrats weren't the only ones who bought into the idea. Public pollsters and even Republicans in the final days of the campaign were coming to believe it too. And that shaped expectations greatly.
Whatever happens tonight a lot of thought and study will go into just what happened. Was it a mirage? Was it a problem with the GOTV operation? It can't simply be the later. Even the best ground operation can only amplify a demographic trend or spike that has some deeper socio-political basis.
--Josh Marshall
Now hearing very conflicting word about the legal situation on the ground in Ohio. Will report when we know more.
--Josh Marshall
Why no more network coverage of the flurry of lawsuits across Ohio? This is what the election is coming down to. And it's not being reported. Interviews with party chairs, no coverage of where the election is being decided.
--Josh Marshall
Across the board the story is the same in Ohio, a lawsuit strategy from Republicans is causing delays and shutdowns in precincts that remained open to allow people who were already in line to vote. Lawsuits create delays; folks leave.
--Josh Marshall
What we're hearing is that Florida is too close to call. In Ohio, the GOP is pulling out all the stops, frankly, to steal it in the courts, trying to get courts to stop voting for people who were already in line when the polls closed, ruling against provisional ballots, the whole nine yards. It's wall to wall ugly.
--Josh Marshall
Republicans make a lot about letting the people decide elections and not lawyers. But that's not how it's turning out tonight. Across the east and into the midwest, they're hitting the courts at every opportunity, trying to cut off as many opportunities to vote as possible.
--Josh Marshall
In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, polling stations ran out of provisional ballots and voters were turned away through the day. Voting officials worked the overtime getting more ballots prepared. And now a judge has ordered that voters can come to the City-County building until 9:30 PM -- 90 minutes after the close of voting -- to vote by provisional ballot.
This is contrary to some published reports (CNN) that all the polls are open in the county.
--Josh Marshall
7:30 exits show Kerry finally starting to open up more than a 1% lead in Ohio.
--Josh Marshall
The Drudge headline says it all: "ENOUGH OF THE MEDIA EXITS; LETS COUNT THE PEOPLE'S VOTES!"
--Josh Marshall
Needless to say, the gonzos on Fox -- acting on orders from you-know-who, no doubt -- are still parroting the phony story about vote fraud in Philly, which was debunked hours ago. This is just the beginning.
--Josh Marshall
As you might expect, we've been getting pretty consistent exit poll data all day. But until only a little bit ago we were dealing with our site problems. So I'm going to take a few minutes to pull all the poll data information together and evaluate it. Many of the numbers are available on other sites of course. But not all of them are reliable. At least some are at variance with the numbers I have, which I believe to be accurate. The short version is that Kerry is doing well in the second-tier states and leads, but only by very thin margins, in Ohio and Florida.
--Josh Marshall
Well, if our servers had to go down, I’m at least glad it could happen today, right? Jeez, what friggin’ nightmare. As you may have noticed TPM was offline from about 1:45 PM until just before 5 PM. Right about exactly the time I got hold of the first good exit poll numbers everything started to go haywire. It’s still not completely clear what happened. But we seem to have it under control.
--Josh Marshall
Just off the AP wire, the real story on Drudge's bogus <$NoAd$>Philly voter fraud story ...
An army of zealous, partisan political operatives descended on polling locations around the state Tuesday, looking for any signs of voting irregularities, and election officials planned to spend the day investigating fraud allegations.Republican observers in Philadelphia lodged some of the earliest complaints, claiming that voting machines in the city already had thousands of votes recorded on them when the polls opened at 7 a.m.
City election officials and the district attorney rushed to some of the precincts in question, and quickly said the GOP poll watchers had gotten it wrong.
Deputy City Commissioner Ed Schulgen and Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Lynne Abraham, said the observers had pulled the numbers from an odometer that records every vote ever cast on the machine in every election - and not the counter that records how many votes will be counted for this election.
"It's absolutely ridiculous," Schulgen said.
Ridiculous or not, rumors of widespread fraud quickly made their way on to the Internet and circulated nationally.
Of course, it didn't 'make its way' onto the Internet. It was planted there as part of the Republicans' battle plan today. And how surprising that these good souls just happened to misread the machines in the heavily African-American neighborhoods in Philly. Imagine that.
Democracy starts at home.
--Josh Marshall
Catching up with the liars ...
This statement just released by Marge Tartaglione, Philadelphia City Commissioner, the official responsible for overseeing elections in the city.
"Recent press reports have stated that machines in at least one precinct were not properly calibrated to ensure an accurate accounting of the number of votes cast.""These allegations are completely unsubstantiated and have no factual
basis whatsoever."
Like I said, don't fall for the head games.
--Josh Marshall
Before we get started today, a quick election day survival guide.
First, the final polls are trending to Kerry. I'm not just speaking about the public polls, but the private ones -- specifically the Republican ones. Does that mean Kerry will win? No, not necessarily. It's too close for that. But the Bush campaign has a lot of incentives to try to get this one into overtime. And we'll see various bogus stories and funny-business throughout the course of the day.
To start with, for instance, don't rely on right-wing agit-prop sites for your news about alleged instances of 'voter fraud'. Wait till you hear real information from real news outlets.
The GOP is going to be pulling this stuff through the course of the day trying either to use it to ramp up their suppression activities or lay the groundwork for challenges to what some are starting to fear won't be good results. (For more on how that works, see Josh Green's always invaluable expose of the Rove election shenanigans playbook.
Second, exit polls.
Exits come out in a several batches over the course of the day. Democrats, on average, tend to vote later in the day than Republicans. Not always, but that's the pattern, for fairly straightforward demographic reasons. And for that reason their exit poll numbers tend to get better over the course of the day. That was strikingly so in 2000. So if you see less than perfect numbers plastered around in the early afternoon, don't let that rattle you.
As we've been saying, this is all about the ground game. So get out there and vote and do the GOTV work for whomever it is you're supporting, and don't get flustered by any through-the-course-of-the-day mind games.
--Josh Marshall
Federal judge rules South Dakota Republicans and Thune campaign workers must stop trying to intimidate voters on Indian reservations in the state. Specifically, folks from the Thune camp may not write down license plate numbers of Indian voters or follow them home from the polling places.
Speaks for itself.
--Josh Marshall
The excuses begin ...
In tomorrow's Washington Times, Cliff May says that if Bush loses it will be because of "UN manipulation" behind the al Qaqaa story.
That, and of course liberal media bias.
--Josh Marshall
In Michigan, phony phone calls using homophobia to suppress the black vote and others telling people to go to the wrong polling places. And the polling place shenanigans are happening in Ohio too. All according to the Detroit Free Press.
Down, dirty and desperate till the last moment.
Democracy starts at home.
--Josh Marshall
I guess I'm a bit late with this recommendation since tomorrow the polls don't matter anymore, or at least not by early evening. But here's another excellent blog for polling analysis -- especially because it's by a guy who -- unlike most of us who chatter about polls -- actually knows what he's talking about.
--Josh Marshall
Sad wagon.
From tomorrow's Post ...
Bush's aides predicted victory when talking on the record, pointing to polls showing that the race remained a tossup, both nationally and in key states. But despite the insistence that all was well, the erosion in the moods of Bush's inner circle over the past two weeks was unmistakable. Several of his close advisers said they were concerned because the president had achieved no last-minute momentum, and Democratic turnout was looking as if it might swamp the Bush-Cheney campaign's projections.A GOP official who is privy to Bush-Cheney strategy and polling said that as the incumbent, Bush should be further ahead of Kerry in polls. "Some of them have been moving in the right direction, but it isn't enough," the official said. "Karl [Rove] is a big believer in the bandwagon effect, but there has been nothing over the past week for the president to use it to turn it around."
The reports I get from sources inside that operation paint a similar picture. <$NoAd$>In particular, the numbers aren't panning out.
--Josh Marshall
House-keeping: Of late, many of you have written in to note (i.e., complain) that cutting and pasting on TPM has become weirdly difficult. The reasons for this are too complicated to go into (i.e., I don't even understand it myself). But the short version is that it was a trade-off with changes that were made to make the site download more quickly. We're working on a fix. But for now, if you want to copy some text for whatever reason, click on the 'print' link up at the top right hand side of the post. That will take you to a version where cutting and pasting is as easy as, well ... cutting and pasting.
--Josh Marshall
A blog specially devoted to the voter suppression effort in Ohio. And here's another devoted to the same topic. Also keep up with Ed Kilgore's NewDonkey blog for coverage of this issue across the country.
--Josh Marshall
I must say, when they're cruising through elections, it's all inclusion and compassion and 'reaching out' (as that idiotic phrase has it). But when things are going south the GOP is truly the party of Jim Crow. There's no other way to put it -- out on the Indian reservations in South Dakota, in the inner city neighborhoods across the upper Midwest and in various other ways.
I like to think of myself as fairly hardened to this stuff. But it's bracing to actually see it happening, even though it's all from the Rove playbook. You can see on the commentary this evening that Bush is hemorrhaging. But these guys aren't prepared to lose. And they are going to amazing lengths that even I have a hard time believing.
It's ugly. And it's all starting to come down tonight.
In any case, as nearly as I can tell, the Democrats are on top of the situation and mobilizing rapidly. The key is that folks should just go to polls and vote. They won't have any problem.
The aim here is to create rumors and a perception that people will have problems and in so doing get a lot of them not to show up at the polls at all. The truth is that people will be available to make sure things go smoothly and that folks won't have any undue difficulties.
Go to the polls, vote, and let President Bush know that democracy starts at home.
We'll try to have more updates on this stuff this evening.
--Josh Marshall
We've all heard these stories about folks getting ejected from Bush-Cheney events for wearing Kerry-Edwards T-shirts or not signing Bush loyalty oaths. This story at ABCNews.com has some elements of false parity between Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards in the way the piece is structured (especially the lede). But on balance it's a clever and very revealing piece.
ABC got a group of its producers to go to Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards events wearing the other campaign's T-shirts. The rules were to get the tickets completely legitimately and maintain entirely courteous behavior at the events.
In other words, the only issue was the T-shirts.
At one Kerry-Edwards event, the BC04-clad producers were surrounded by sign waving Kerry supporters, in attempt to make the purported Bush supporters invisible to the press. In this case, one of the volunteers later said, "My job tonight was to run interference so that we didn't have any negative situation on our hands ... Our job was to stand in front of them and make sure that, number one, that press had access to Kerry stuff and not necessarily Bush."
At another event, a Kerry campaign worker approached the producers and told them that they had the right to eject them if they made any disturbance. The guy in this case told them, "We hold the right to remove you, but other than that, enjoy and hopefully at the end of the event you'll want to wear a Kerry T-shirt."
You could say it didn't go quite so well in Bush-Cheney land. When the producers tried to get into a BC04 event, they simply weren't allowed in at all.
A campaign volunteer told them: "I'm sorry, but they're Kerry shirts ... We were told not to let people with Kerry shirts into the rally."
And then this happened ...
And as they approached the gates of the stadium, Lance "Chip" Borman, a Bush campaign worker and attorney who worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, directed them toward the Brevard County sheriff's deputies waiting at the exit."Hey folks, it's a private event," he said. "Can you find your way to the nearest exit? Maybe some law enforcement can help?"
Maybe some law enforcement can help. That's adorable.
When some others slipped into their Kerry-Edwards-wear when they were already inside, this happened ...
A second team of ABC News producers waited until entering Space Coast stadium before showing its Kerry-Edwards T-shirts, but was still quickly spotted and ordered out by Borman, who identified himself as working for the Republican National Committee.He said the rally of some 18,000 people was a "private event," and it made no difference that producers Christine Romo and Jessica Wang had tickets and remained silent and respectful.
"But you wore the shirts; you wore the shirts," Borman said. "And honestly, if you would have come without the shirts and sat quietly, you would have had a fun time and enjoyed it, but I mean it's not that kind of event." He then instructed the sheriff's deputies to escort the ABC News team out to the parking lot.
A bit different, no? But I guess that's the leadership principle for ya ...
--Josh Marshall
Earlier today in the Philadelphia suburbs, the Bush-Cheney campaign was running robo-calls to voters with the following script.
Hello. John Kerry's trial lawyer allies have a scheme to keep you away from the polls tomorrow as part of their hardball strategy. Democrats are trying to intimidate Republican election workers. They're hoping to win through fraud, harassment and law suits what they know that can't win at the ballot box. Don't let them get away with it. Remember that tomorrow is election day and only you can make sure Kerry's hardball tactics don't work. Only you can make sure that the American People—not trial lawyers, not foreign leaders—decide our next president.
Just one of those warm and fuzzy <$NoAd$>Orwell moments ...
--Josh Marshall
More evidence of the small, but discernible Kerry trend in the final 72 hours.
As we reported in the earlier post, the Sunday CBS/NYT poll, which gave a three point margin to the president, was one of the oldest of those released yesterday. It had calls from Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Today, though, CBS/NYT came out with another poll. And this one has Bush over Kerry by only one point.
But that's not the most important detail. If I'm reading the polling analysis correctly, CBS/NYT took those first three days of calls (totalling 920 people) and added one more day of calls on Sunday. The total at the end was 1,345 people.
Since that one additional day moved the numbers two points in Kerry's favor, that suggests that Kerry's numbers on Sunday were very good.
Late Update: In the interests of completeness, the tracking polls today show a more muddled and slightly more Bush-friendly picture. Zogby and WaPo both went from a tie yesterday at 48% to one up for Bush today. Rasmussen went from Bush up 48.1% to 47.1% to Bush up 48.8% to 47.4%. (When he includes 'leaners', he gets Bush 49.4% to Kerry 48.8%.) And Tipp, which had been trending against Kerry, went from Bush up by 5% yesterday to Bush up 2% today.
--Josh Marshall
It's nice to see the ridiculous Neil Cavuto, Fox News anchor, catching some heat for quipping that bin Laden was wearing a Kerry for President button in his recent tape.
It's embarrassment after embarrassment for Fox. Of course, the prerequisite, I guess, would be being capable of embarrassment. So, I guess not.
--Josh Marshall
Feeling jittery? Don't be.
The main danger for Dems at this point is that they'll get knocked off their stride in their ground operation by sundry Rovely shenanigans and razzmatazz. In particular, I'm thinking of various hijinks meant to sap Dem morale.
Here's my brief for very cautious optimism for Kerry supporters.
In the last 24 hours 6 independent national polls have been released. (For the moment, I'm excluding tracking polls; but as of today they're basically a wash.)
Here they are, with readings for likely voters, not registered voters or final projections. (I've included a seventh poll, ARG, because their poll covers the same time period even though it was released more quickly) ...
Marist ... Kerry +1
Fox ... Kerry +2
NBC ... Bush +1
Gallup ... Bush +2
ARG ... Tied
CBS/NYT ... Bush +3
Pew ... Bush +3
The best thing these numbers show for President Bush is that 4 of 7 show him in the lead. And his leads are a tad more sizeable than Kerry's.
But look more closely and you see things more favorable to Kerry. The first is that not one of these polls has the president over 49%. And still more telling, if you look at how I've ordered the numbers, it looks like I've arranged them from most Kerry-friendly to most Bush-friendly. But I haven't. I've ordered them by how recently they were taken.
All the Marist poll calls were made Sunday. Half the Fox calls were made Sunday. On the other hand, Pew and CBS stopped calling on Saturday. NBC and Gallup both ran Friday through Sunday.
With the obligatory caveat that the margins are small and within the MoE, the pattern is hard to miss. The more recent the poll, the better margin for Kerry. And in the two most recent ones, he's ahead.
So, on balance there's a movement in Kerry's direction, albeit one which is quite small because so few voters are any longer up for grabs.
Then there's the other issue -- turnout and the ground operation.
That is really the whole issue, as far as I'm concerned.
It's a general rule of thumb that the higher the turnout in an election, the better it is for the Democrats. That's true for a number of reasons, but largely because Democrats do better among 'peripheral constituencies', demographic groups that don't vote consistently.
If you look at the polls above, most of the ones I was able to find 'registered voter' numbers for actually had Kerry beating Bush, by equally narrow margins. That cleavage between likely voter and registered voter tallies means that the president's tiny leads rest on the pollsters' likely voter 'screens'. And that's where turnout and the ground game come into play.
Most of these pollsters have models based on a conventional election, not one in which turnout patterns move in one marked direction. (Folks like Ruy Teixeira argue that they don't even reflect the turnout patterns of recent elections, let along one with a spike in turn-out.)
Democrats and Dem-leaning groups have a massive get-out-the-vote operation this season. The Republicans have a big one too. But Democrats believe that their operation is light-years ahead of what they had in 2000. And it was the ground operation that won the popular vote in 2000.
After talking to friends whose opinions I trust, I *think* it really is that good. And the sizeable Kerry margins among early voters in Iowa and Florida lend support to that judgment. (See this too from Ed Kilgore, re: early voting.) But who knows? I don't know. And they don't either. No one really does. But if the Dems' ground operation is really as good as their people say it is, I think Kerry will win tomorrow. If he doesn't, we'll know they seriously over-estimated it's strength.
Finally, I've spoken to maybe a half dozen Dems whose opinions I trust at a gut level. And each of them has what I'd call a feeling of cautious optimism. For them too, I'd say it comes down to whether that ground operation is really as good as we've heard.
So am I confident, sure Kerry's going to win? Not at all. This is way closer than I would have liked. And I've always tried to be honest with myself about Kerry's stubborn inability to open up any statistically significant lead against the president.
But what I see right now is a incumbent president who can't get past 49% and a dead-even race that seems to be trending ever-so-slightly in Kerry's favor. And on top of all that I think -- for the reasons I noted above -- that the Democrats will win this one on the ground with a mix of better organization and greater determination.
As I said a couple days ago, if you're part of the ground operation, this is in your hands.
--Josh Marshall
Wheels coming off the cart<$NoAd$> watch ...
Mr. Marshall:One thing I have noticed is that John Kerry and the Democrats are great friends of the United Nations. I have also noticed that the U.N. is NOT a friend of Israel. How often has the Security Council of the U.N. voted against Israel ? They are rather the friends of those who wish to destroy Israel. Did you know that Bill Clinton wants to be the next Secretary General after Kofi Annen ? So then the question, is are you a friend of Israel if you are, as a Democrat, a supporter of the U.N. which supports the sworn enemies of israel ? ? Are you an anti-semite ? ? The Eugenics movement was the parent of both the "Holocaust" and the American Pro-choice movement. If it walks like a duck, has webbed feet and quacks like a duck, quess what, it's a ducks!!
Jeff B.
And in case you're wondering, Jeff B(...). has a name about as Anglo-Saxon as they come.
--Josh Marshall
The second national poll released Monday, the Marist poll, has Kerry up by one among likely voters (Kerry 49%, Bush 48%) and tied among registered voters (48%). All calls were made on Sunday.
--Josh Marshall
The final Fox News poll -- with calls on Saturday and Sunday only -- has Kerry over Bush 48% to 46% among likely voters. Among registered voters it's Kerry 47%, Bush 45%. Among those who've already voted, it's Kerry 48%, Bush 43%.
Fox has been releasing not a tracking poll, but a new poll every day for the last four days: Friday, Bush +5; Saturday Bush +2; Sunday, tied; Monday, Kerry +2.
--Josh Marshall
Delightful. I'm looking at a flyer <$NoAd$>sent around Florida by an outfit called the Florida Leadership Council.
The headline reads: "First Day of School: Eighth Grade South Florida Middle School, 2007"
Under that is a class of school children wearing gas masks and beneath that is the following faux-AP story ...
(AP) Florida Red Zone -- August 14th, 2007 -- President Kerry warned parents and children in South Florida that mandatory radiation and chemical gear would be required to be worn "for the forseeable future" since the Suitcase Dirty Bomb terrorist attack on South Florida in the spring. The first day of school was chaotic, as teachers and school officials attempted to bring some ...
Click here to see the actual flyer with your own lyin' eyes.
--Josh Marshall
A couple statistics stand out to me.
According to Gallup's mega-final-ultra poll out Sunday evening, 30% of registered voters in Florida have already voted, either through early voting or by absentee. Of those who have already voted, Kerry leads President Bush 51% to 43%.
According to the Des Moines Register poll out late Saturday evening, 27% of Iowa adults have already voted. And among those Kerry leads 52% to 41%.
Both numbers seem good for Kerry -- though they may mean a lot of different things.
But, as long as we're asking questions, if these are people who've already voted, shouldn't the number add up to 100% or close to it? Are the remainder folks who wouldn't answer? Or have they already voted but moved back into the undecided column? Or they've forgotten? Someone help me with this ...
--Josh Marshall
Same old, same old.
Some group is South Carolina is circulating a phony letter, purporting to be from the NAACP, alerting voters that they'll be arrested at the polls if they have unpaid parking tickets or are behind in child support.
Here's the report from the AP and more from the SC Democratic party.
This stunt aimed at minority voters crops up every cycle. Here's an example we chronicled from two years ago in Baltimore.
This is but one example. But across the country, the Republican ground game is simple: prevent as many newly registered voters from voting as possible. It's really as simple as that.
Yet another example here from Ed Kilgore.
--Josh Marshall
A couple days ago we noted Chris Suellentrop's mention of the 'Bush Pledge', the loyalty oath attendees at a Bush-Cheney event in Florida were called on to recite.
I've got a question: How often is this happening? At how many events? In how many different states?
If you can provide me with any details -- whether something you've seen yourself or from local press coverage -- please let me know.
Late Update: Later we'll also be discussing what they say about Kerry and Edwards at those Bush rallies before they let the travelling press in room. Today in Florida, Kerry the favorite of foreign terrorists. Or 'When the terrorists come to your house, who would you rather have on your front porch: John Kerry and his SNOWBOARD??? Or George W. Bush and his shotgun?' Or on a lighter note, jokes hinting that Kerry and Edwards are gay lovers. That, and so much more.
--Josh Marshall
Received yesterday from a reader down in the <$NoAd$>trenches ...
Still in Florida.This was one of the most moving, meaningful days of my life.
My job is to get people to the polls and, more importantly, to keep them there. Because they’re crazily jammed. Crazily. No one expected this turnout. For me, it’s been a deeply humbling, deeply gratifying experience. At today’s early vote in the College Hill district of East Tampa -- a heavily democratic, 90% African American community — we had 879 voters wait an average of five hours to cast their vote. People were there until four hours after they closed (as long as they’re in line by 5, they can vote).
Here’s what was so moving:
We hardly lost anyone. People stood outside for an hour, in the blazing sun, then inside for another four hours as the line snaked around the library, slowly inching forward. It made Disneyland look like speed-walking. Some waited 6 hours. To cast one vote. And EVERYBODY felt that it was crucial, that their vote was important, and that they were important.
And there were tons of first time voters. Tons.
Aside from some hassles from the Republican election commissioner ( … [ed.note: Here the letter writer describes various shenanigans intended to exacerbate the difficulties of waiting hours in line to vote. I’ve censored this detail to preserve the anonymity of the writer.], I actually had an amazing experience. No, actually, in a way because of that I had an amazing experience. Because these people know that the system that’s in place doesn’t want them voting. And yet they are determined to vote.
The best of all was an 80 year old African American man who said to me: “When I first started I wasn’t even allowed to vote. Then, when I did, they was trying to intimidate me. But now I see all these folks here to make sure that my vote counts. This is the first time in my life that I feel like when I cast my vote it’s actually gonna be heard.”
To see people coming out — elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc — and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours... Well, it’s humbling. And it’s awesome. And it’s kind of beautiful.
Sometimes you forget what America is.
I think there’s hope.
ES
Nothing to add ...
--Josh Marshall
Are some of our more gullible press colleagues already falling for Mr. Rove's 'bandwagon theory' antics?
I'm afraid it may be so.
If you look at The Note today, the lede is all about the growing realization that the polls are all moving for Bush. This can be seen in the national polls, it seems, and also in the mounting confidence from the Bush camp. Even Democrats are beginning to concede the point, it seems.
Only, if you look down into the text down in The Note itself none of this is born out. And that makes sense when you consider that the national polls show no Bush movement whatsoever. At best for Bush, the national polls seem static. And as I've noted below there are at least some signs of movement to Kerry.
(I will note that there's another public poll coming out later today with a 48%-45% likely voter margin for Bush. But we'll have to see how that stacks up against the various other public polls that will be coming out over the next 36 hours. Meanwhile, Ed Kilgore's got some more sage thoughts on the Rove band-wagon gambit.)
As for the Bush team's budding confidence, please. I've already referred back a few times this season to the second post I ever did on this site, almost exactly four years ago, on November 12th, 2000. That was when this site was just a tiny white strip of text against a vast blue background and not the media collosus it is now, with whippersnapper MBAs and quarterly reports and boards of directors and what not.
Back then I noted how in 2000 the Bush campaign spent the last week or so confidently predicting a popular vote margin of 6% or 7%. And to drive home the point they spent the last couple days making stops in California and New Jersey.
There was never