Kerry leads Bush, 50-45, among RVs in a 2-way matchup in Gallup’s new Ohio poll. (Oddly, their 3-way RV matchup gives Kerry a slightly larger lead, 50-44.) Their LV matchup, which should be viewed with skepticism, is better for Bush, but even there Kerry leads by a point.
Gallup has also released three other state polls recently (all figures 2-way RV matchups): Oregon (52-45 Kerry); Colorado (49-48 Bush); and Wisconsin (51-45 Bush).
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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March 28: RIP Joe Lieberman, a Democrat Who Lost His Way
I was sorry to learn of the sudden death of 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman. But his long and stormy career did offer some important lessons about party loyalty, which I wrote about at New York:
Joe Lieberman was active in politics right up to the end. The former senator was the founding co-chair of the nonpartisan group No Labels, which is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign on behalf of a yet-to-be-identified bipartisan “unity ticket.” Lieberman did not live to see whether No Labels will run a candidate. He died on Wednesday at 82 due to complications from a fall. But this last political venture was entirely in keeping with his long career as a self-styled politician of the pragmatic center, which often took him across party boundaries.
Lieberman’s first years in Connecticut Democratic politics as a state legislator and then state attorney general were reasonably conventional. He was known for a particular interest in civil rights and environmental protection, and his identity as an observant Orthodox Jew also drew attention. But in 1988, the Democrat used unconventional tactics in his challenge to Republican U.S. senator Lowell Weicker. Lieberman positioned himself to the incumbent’s right on selected issues, like Ronald Reagan’s military operations against Libya and Grenada. He also capitalized on longtime conservative resentment of his moderate opponent, winning prized endorsements from William F. and James Buckley, icons of the right. Lieberman won the race narrowly in an upset.
Almost immediately, Senator Lieberman became closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The group of mostly moderate elected officials focused on restoring the national political viability of a party that had lost five of the six previous presidential elections; it soon produced a president in Bill Clinton. Lieberman became probably the most systematically pro-Clinton (or in the parlance of the time, “New Democrat”) member of Congress. This gave his 1998 Senate speech condemning the then-president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as “immoral” and “harmful” a special bite. He probably did Clinton a favor by setting the table for a reprimand that fell short of impeachment and removal, but without question, the narrative was born of Lieberman being disloyal to his party.
Perhaps it was his public scolding of Clinton that convinced Al Gore, who was struggling to separate himself from his boss’s misconduct, to lift Lieberman to the summit of his career. Gore tapped the senator to be his running mate in the 2000 election, making him the first Jewish vice-presidential candidate of a major party. He was by all accounts a disciplined and loyal running mate, at least until that moment during the Florida recount saga when he publicly disclaimed interest in challenging late-arriving overseas military ballots against the advice of the Gore campaign. You could argue plausibly that the ticket would have never been in a position to potentially win the state without Lieberman’s appeal in South Florida to Jewish voters thrilled by his nomination to become vice-president. But many Democrats bitter about the loss blamed Lieberman.
As one of the leaders of the “Clintonian” wing of his party, Lieberman was an early front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination. A longtime supporter of efforts to topple Saddam Hussein, Lieberman had voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his campaign rivals John Kerry and John Edwards and other notable senators including Hillary Clinton. Unlike most other Democrats, though, Lieberman did not back off this position when the Iraq War became a deadly quagmire. Ill-aligned with his party to an extent he did not seem to perceive, his presidential campaign quickly flamed out, but not before he gained enduring mockery for claiming “Joe-mentum” from a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire.
Returning to the Senate, Lieberman continued his increasingly lonely support for the Iraq War (alongside other heresies to liberalism, such as his support for private-school education vouchers in the District of Columbia). In 2006, Lieberman drew a wealthy primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who soon had a large antiwar following in Connecticut and nationally. As the campaign grew heated, President George W. Bush gave his Democratic war ally a deadly gift by embracing him and kissing his cheek after the State of the Union Address. This moment, memorialized as “The Kiss,” became central to the Lamont campaign’s claim that Lieberman had left his party behind, and the challenger narrowly won the primary. However, Lieberman ran against him in the general election as an independent, with significant back-channel encouragement from the Bush White House (which helped prevent any strong Republican candidacy). Lieberman won a fourth and final term in the Senate with mostly GOP and independent votes. He was publicly endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, among others from what had been the enemy camp.
The 2006 repudiation by his party appeared to break something in Lieberman. This once-happiest of happy political warriors, incapable of holding a grudge, seemed bitter, or at the very least gravely offended, even as he remained in the Senate Democratic Caucus (albeit as formally independent). When his old friend and Iraq War ally John McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, Lieberman committed a partisan sin by endorsing him. His positioning between the two parties, however, still cost him dearly: McCain wanted to choose him as his running mate, before the Arizonan’s staff convinced him that Lieberman’s longtime pro-choice views and support for LGBTQ rights would lead to a convention revolt. The GOP nominee instead went with a different “high-risk, high-reward” choice: Sarah Palin.
After Barack Obama’s victory over Lieberman’s candidate, the new Democratic president needed every Democratic senator to enact the centerpiece of his agenda, the Affordable Care Act. He got Lieberman’s vote — but only after the senator, who represented many of the country’s major private-insurance companies, forced the elimination of the “public option” in the new system. It was a bitter pill for many progressives, who favored a more robust government role in health insurance than Obama had proposed.
By the time Lieberman chose to retire from the Senate in 2012, he was very near to being a man without a party, and he reflected that status by refusing to endorse either Obama or Mitt Romney that year. By then, he was already involved in the last great project of his political career, No Labels. He did, with some hesitation, endorse Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. But his long odyssey away from the yoke of the Democratic Party had largely landed him in a nonpartisan limbo. Right up until his death, he was often the public face of No Labels, particularly after the group’s decision to sponsor a presidential ticket alienated many early supporters of its more quotidian efforts to encourage bipartisan “problem-solving” in Congress.
Some will view Lieberman as a victim of partisan polarization, and others as an anachronistic member of a pro-corporate, pro-war bipartisan elite who made polarization necessary. Personally, I will remember him as a politician who followed — sometimes courageously, sometimes foolishly — a path that made him blind to the singular extremism that one party has exhibited throughout the 21st century, a development he tried to ignore to his eventual marginalization. But for all his flaws, I have no doubt Joe Lieberman remained until his last breath committed to the task he often cited via the Hebrew term tikkun olam: repairing a broken world.
Kerry deserves this and will win if it is God’s will! Please just go on with the next few weeks praying our new president will be President John Kerry!!
Roy: The Gallop credibility refers to their likely voter model. That is what’s being questioned as far as credibility. This poll was a registered voter poll which as far as I know is not in question.
Kerry is up 5 in that poll.
Note in the Likely voter poll, he’s only up 1.
Gallps LV model simply understates Democratic likely voters and is designed for a time when Democrats were pretty much lazy voters and had no ground game. that’s all changed.
So if you see a poll that usually leans toward the right too much like a Gallop LV showing a Kerry lead, YOU SHOULD LIKE KERRY’S CHANCES.
The same would hold true of a Strategic Vision poll that showed Kerry with a lead. You should like Kerry’s chances.
I like Kerry’s chances in Ohio. But we shouldn’t get too confident. IT’s all about GOTV. If we can turn that extra 4% of Registered Voters in that gallop poll for Kerry into Voters, we win.
I wonder why Gallup would poll in Ohio with Nader included. Nader isn’t on the ballot in Ohio.
And for those of you who are sure that Kerry will pull out Ohio, let me warn you that the Columbus dispatch reports people have been calling elderly voters to tell them that their polling places have changed. Combine that with J. Kenneth Blackwell’s resistence to provisional voting, and one might conclude that the GOP “fix” is in in the Buckeye State.
I would bet that Kerry would win Ohio in a fair vote. I’m not sure he’ll be able to win by a large enough margin to overcome the GOP plans to wrest the state away from the voters.
WHATS WITH IOWA AND WISCONSIN
Over the summer, I thought we would be in good shape in both of these states, primarily because they have traditionally been “anti war.” I wonder if there is some demographic change that is going on there that is turning them from a “blue-purple” to a “red-purple.” Forexample, here in West Virginia, the Democratic Party is getting killed by the long term loss of union jobs. I wonder if a similar dynamic is going on in the upper midwest. On the other hand, I dont think either state is seeing the type of demographic change that is helping the party that is described in Ruy’s EDM.
Another possibility is just that Kerry does not “play well” and has not campaigned well in rural areas. Some paper, I think it was the NYT, suggesting this is the case. However, this would not really explain why he is out performing Gore in Ohio.
Any thoughts?
Mark,
The GOP will try anything & everything to steal FL, so don’t count on those 27 EV.
Nonetheless, in keeping with what Cautiously Optimistic said above, if Kerry wins OH he could lose either WI or IA (not both) and still have 270 EV. The way things stand now, I think it is highly likely that Kerry will take OH + (WI or IA). He may well take all three.
Scott
Well, despite the hype posted here, I’m concerned. Bush is up by two nationally on Reuters and 2.5 on Rasmussen, and is winning in Slate’s electoral college forecast. These are all trending Bush in the last few days. I know that the swing states are what matters, but here and elsewhere it seems that Kerry has plateaued. I know that incumbents typically get their approval rating in final votes, but since we’re at war, I think that a good chunk of undecideds will hold their noses and pull for Bush anyway.
One thing I don’t get is the apparent disjunction between the polls in the battleground states and the national horserace polls.
I’m generalizing, and doing some averaging in my head, but it seems that when viewed in state-by-state polls or the polls of “battleground state voters” Kerry does better than he does in the national horserace.
This suggests that Bush’s advantage in the Red states is larger than Kerry’s in the Blue states. It would also suggest that Bush had more “wasted” votes (votes in excess of the margin necessary to win) in large states like Texas.
Is this really true? Kerry seems to be comfortably ahead in more large states than Bush. I’m thinking of Kerry’s lead in New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts compared to Bush’s lead in Texas.
Any comments?
This morning on Air America (Oct 22) , they had Zogby on the air. In his analysis, he said that one thing seemed sure, and that was that Bush’s support was firmly set. He saw little possibility for Bush to gain much in the polls. He thought that all the undecideds would break for Kerry and possibly before the election.
Remember, Zogby is considered to be the most accurate of pollers, and an incumbant who can’t top 50% is in big trouble. Of course, there’s the Electoral College.
Bush will not win WI (but if he does I’ll have to mover)
Consider:
1) In 2000 Gore won be a mere 5000 some votes but,
2) Nader got 90,000 votes (3.5%). He’d be lucky to get 1/10 that this time around. I live on Madison’s east side in one of the most liberal wards in the state (in 2000 Bush pulled in a whopping 80 votes (5%) while Nader got 337 (23%)) and I don’t know of a single person planning on voting for Nader. I flat out do not believe he will pull the 1-2% of the vote the polls suggest.
3) Turnout is clearly key, but the Kerry base of Milwaukee and Madison is more densely popluated than the rural Bush base so it should be easier to drag the lazy-but-probably-Kerry voter to the polls than their Bush counterparts
4) Polls are all over the place in WI just as they
were in 2000. See this article from Oct 24, 2000 in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct00/poll24102300a.asp
Sounds a lot like this year
5) Its our turn dammit!
This is not a suggestion that KE should back off on Florida…but we absolutely must have an electroal edge that allows us to win without FL. The Leninists on the GOPpie side can and will pull out all the stops there, and have the established infrastructure to get away with it.
A small data point in support of that argument. My 80-something y.o. in-laws live in Piniellas County. M-in-law is registered Dem, F-in-Law a Repug.
Her absentee ballot comes without a pre-paid addressed envelope, his comes with. She ends up mailing in hand addressed that gets returned for insufficient postage. She resends. She checks around their home to see if others got or didn’t get a return envelope. 2 Repugs and 1 Dem did, 2 Dems did not, and 1 of those 2 Dems got theirs back for incorrect/no-such address.
Not even remotely a definitive study, but 3-of-5 Dems didn’t get a return envelope, and 2-of-5 geriatric Dems had the opportunity to just let it slide and skip resending. If an eighth of the 2-of-5 don’t bother to resend or screw up again, that’s 5% of the intended-Dem absentee vote.
Moreover, there’s the liklihood of other schemes to be put into play.
Again, not suggesting we blow it off…way too many popular and electoral votes. But we’d better nail it without needing it. How about AZ, AR (send Clinton, Clark & Edwards full-time) & IA. Or VA & NC.
Zogby today is reporting that Kerry and Bush are basically even among seniors. Zogby calls this another “ominous” sign for Kerry. I admit language like this gives me a chill. But is that something of an exaggeration given that Zogby is showing the two of them statistically tied (I think it’s 47-45 Bush). I would think there are more than a few “ominous” signs he could find for Bush, too, but doesn’t seem to want to discuss them.
Gotta love Gallup. There’s just no way Bush is doing better in Colorado (my home) than Wisconsin. No way. Also, I’ve been in WI recently. The independent groups and the Dem party is so wired and organized I felt like I was in Marine boot camp. They’re going to pull it out. Iowa is not looking good, but I’m pretty confident that will be our only Gore-state loss.
Quinnipac now has Kerry 5 points ahead in Pennsylvania. There can be no doubt now — the momentum is clearly in Kerry’s direction. Ahead in Ohio, ahead in Pa., tied or ahead in Florida, ahead in Iowa, closing in on Wisconsin and poised to “steal” New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada and perhaps other states from the Red column.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x11379.xml?ReleaseID=486
If Kerry is roughly even nationwide, but running ahead by 6-7 points in the battleground states, where are all Bush’s extra votes coming from?
RUTS, baby! (Running Up The Score, to borrow a college football term)
The numbers I’ve seen for the Solid Red and Blue states (2.004k.com, as of this morning) generally show Kerry up by 10-15, and breaking 20 in only a few strongholds like RI, NY, and over 30% only in DC, a 20%+ total of 38 EVs. In CA, Ill, he’s not over 20, and in MA he doesn’t clear 15!
Bush, on the other hand, is RUTSing like Kansas State. Against Army. At Home. On national TV. For Homecoming. He has leads of 20 or more in a baker’s dozen states totalling 106 EVs. In four states, UT, WY, OK, and NE, he’s at 30% or more. Bush has successfully mobilized his red state base – too bad it doesn’t count for much beyond national telephone surveys.
EVs by (Mar)gin, for (Bu)sh and (Ke)rry
Mar Bu Ke
30+ 20 3
20+ 86 35
10+ 41 105
6+ 48 84
Florida is the big one. If Kerry wins Ohio he can still lose. If he wins Florida, he wins.
Mark
With all the polls coming out now, here are my feelings.
I don’t see any way Bush wins Wisconsin. I know the polls there are showing a close race, but I think Kerry will pull out Wisconsin.
I’m feeling much better about Ohio. Everything seems to be trending Kerry’s way there.
–Scott
“Will vote early, wish I could vote often.”
brit hume (fox special report with britte hume- thursday)interviewd republican pollster john mccaughlin on LV v. RV.
mccaughlin stated that in determining who is a LV his firm simply asked polled party if they were a likely voter. he admitted this was a very loose “screen” and went on to criticze LV screens in general as being unrelaible.
Ruy, I’m no fan of Bush, but I have to ask why this Gallup poll showing Kerry leading 50-44 among RV’s in Ohio is credible, while practically every other Gallup poll has been discounted at this site?
It’s worth noting that if Bush wins FL, WI, and IA, then Kerry loses, even if Kerry wins OH & PA. So, we can’t focus all of our attention on OH. Nevertheless, I think Kerry will ultimately win both OH and WI (and perhaps IA too).