Despite the tenth of a percent uptick in the overall unemployment rate, the consensus among economic commentators is that Democrats should be encouraged by the full range of better-than-expected economic statistics that were released today.
For a longer-range historical perspective, however, check out Morgan House’s “The Best Presidents for the Economy” at The Motley Fool, which compares economic statistics reported for 19 presidents from Teddy Roosevelt thru Barack Obama. Among the findings, President Obama ranks:

4th of the 19 presidents in terms of “the inflation-adjusted, dividend-adjusted, performance of the S&P 500.”
1st in “average annual real corporate profit growth.”
11th in “average annual real GDP growth per capita.”
12th in “average annual change in the consumer price index.” (higher inflation under 11 of the 19 presidents)
9th in “change in unemployment rate during the presidency.”

Yes, there are unique historical circumstances that affect these rankings. But it’s clear that it’s quite a stretch to argue that the Obama administration has been bad for business in any comparative sense.

Via Daily Kos, at Working America’s ‘Main Street’ blog, Doug Foote’s post “There are undecided voters in Virginia. Lots of Them” calls attention to a problem the Obama campaign must address over the next few days, and he offers a credible solution.
Foote acknowledges the data evidence that there are very few undecided voters left, as well as all of the ads directed at them to influence their votes. But after accompanying a door to door canvasser in an effort to identify undecided voters in Leesburg, Virginia, he concludes that (a.) there are in fact plenty of undecided voters left, (b.) Many of them will not be swayed by ads, and (c.) the best way to reach them is to engage them in respectful conversation, sharing real experiences.
Foote’s post is mostly anecdotal. But the conversations he relates ring true. These are real people talking, not strereotypes culled from data-driven analysis. As Foote explains:

I went out canvassing with Giordano “Gio” Hardy-Gerena, a Field Manager with Working America. Our task was to identify Obama and Kaine supporters on the winding roads of the Leesburg suburbs. A tribute to Working America’s data operation, we still talked to undecided and leaners on both sides, even on streets where Obama and Romney signs covered their neighbors’ lawns.
“Whenever one of those political ads comes on, I just change the channel,” one man told us on his front porch. Still, when we talked to him, he was interested in talking about the issues, and in comparing the candidates.
Between work, children, and other commitments, many folks in Leesburg just hadn’t had time to consider the election. It’s a fact that Beltway media and politicos scoff at — but ignoring it, or mocking it, or even worse, minimizing the numbers, doesn’t win elections. Not everyone has the time or firehose-exposure to media and politics. One woman with four kids running around her front hall apologized as Gio began his rap: “I’m sorry, it’s homework time.”
Even among voters who had been following the race, support for either candidate was far from solidified. “I’m just tired of the partisanship,” a fifty-something life-long Republican sighed. His job is tied to defense contracting, and like many in the area he’s not too pleased with talk of sequestration. We pointed out George Allen’s record in the Senate, where he racked up the debt that put us in our current fiscal position.
“My wife is probably voting for Kaine,” he said. “Reaching across the aisle right here at home!” I joked, “showing those politicians a good example.” We then were able to talk about Kaine’s bipartisan work as governor, versus Allen’s “my way or the highway” approach in the Bush years.
He was far from the only split-ticket home, which broke all stereotypes: women for Allen and Romney, men for Obama and Kaine, people of color voting straight ticket for the GOP, and pro-lifers strongly considering third-party candidates. This state – and let’s face it this country – doesn’t abide simple political stereotypes.

Foote then relates a story of one voter, they call Jonathan, who they just couldn’t convince, and who said he will probably flip a coin. The point being that there are some voters truly don’t know who they will vote for until they cast their ballot. But there are many others who are persuadable, if it’s done the right way, as Foote describes:

So what’s the takeaway? TV ads and mailers aren’t going to win the commonwealth of Virginia for Obama and Kaine – nor their opponents for that matter. And while our one-on-one conversations turned many undecided voters into leaners, we need a special ingredient for folks like Jonathan: personal stories.
Involving personal stories into the rap at the door is something Virginia Field Director Dan O’Malley stressed to our organizers in the afternoon briefing. “Instead of just saying that George Allen will end Medicare as we know it, talk about a parent, relative, or someone in your life who relies on those benefits,” he said. And many of them do have those experiences to share–it propels the work they do. “I started talking about how hard it was for me to get healthcare and it really changed the conversation,” said Sarah, a canvasser fresh out of college.
Maybe that tactic didn’t get Jonathan to budge away from his “coin-flip” stance. But in those areas where ads, debates, and 24-hour coverage haven’t made a difference, making the election personal in old school, one-on-one interactions is the only tool in our toolbox that can succeed where Karl Rove’s millions have failed.

At TDS we like data-driven analysis to help formulate political strategy, and we applaud the deployment of modern scientific techniques that are being used to help win elections. But after all of the political scientists and wonks have had their say, persuasion of individual voters at the case by case level is more of an art than a science. It’s important to have good candidates, who project real humanity to connect with persuadable voters. But it’s not always enough. We have to both listen to voters and share our experiences in marshalling our case if we want to win new hearts and minds to support the Democratic cause.

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Earlier this week — as he was barnstorming the country for Barack Obama — former President Bill Clinton subbed in for the president as Obama flew back to Washington to oversee the country’s response to a major hurricane.
That would seem an appropriate context to ask the question, why hasn’t the most recent Republican President, George Bush, been barnstorming the country for Mitt Romney?
It says a lot that for most Americans this sounds like an absurd question.
Clinton was a major featured speaker at the Democratic Convention. Bush wasn’t even invited to Tampa.
Bush is not campaigning for Romney because he and the policies he implemented are politically radioactive to most American voters.
George Bush is off in political Siberia because the Romney campaign is doing everything humanly possible to prevent voters from realizing that Romney intends to return precisely those same failed Bush policies to the White House if he is elected president next week.
Let’s start with the matter that is uppermost in the country’s attention — the hurricane.
It’s fair to say that his response to Hurricane Katrina was not Bush’s finest hour. But Bush’s failure to respond quickly and effectively to Katrina was not simply a reflection of his administration’s incompetence. It was a reflection of the fact that his administration didn’t believe in government.
Natural disasters make people remember why it is so important that we have a society where we have each other’s back. They make us remember that government is the name we give to the things we choose to do together.
Natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy make us remember why the law of the jungle — why a self-centered, irresponsible, unbridled focus on you and you alone — isn’t what we learned in Sunday School.
Even far right New Jersey Governor Chris Christie reprimanded New Jersey citizens who refused to evacuate low-lying areas because they would put the lives of first responders at risk — because they had a responsibility to each other.
Bush — and his response to Katrina — exemplified the right wing’s failure to understand that most Americans believe in a society where we are all in this together, not all in this alone.
And Mitt Romney completely shares Bush’s view. Romney actually proposed eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and hand over responsibility for response to disasters to the states. Romney ignores that when disaster strikes, we are Americans first. We have each other’s back whether we are from Mississippi or New Jersey. We do that because it’s right. We also do it because while disaster may strike our neighbors in New Jersey today, it could strike those of us who live in Illinois tomorrow.
But of course there are many other reasons why the Republicans have failed to ask George Bush to campaign for their presidential ticket. Two stand out.
We have had two great economic experiments in America over the last 30 years. One succeeded. The other failed — in fact, it was a man-made disaster.
The first was led by President Bill Clinton. Clinton believed that you grow the economy from the middle out — not the top down. He understood that businesses don’t invest and hire unless there are customers out there with money in their pockets — that they are the “job creators” — not a bunch of hedge fund managers on Wall Street.

Read more…

In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot,’ TDS Founding Editor Ruy Teixeira shares the most recent public opinion data regarding tax increases for the wealthy and repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Teixeira reviews new evidence from the Public Religion Research Institute’s just-released 2012 American Values Survey, noting:

In that survey, the public was asked whether they supported increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year. By an overwhelming 61 percent to 36 percent margin, respondents said they did.

In addition, says Teixeira, the survey provides “even more of a shocker for conservative sensibilities”:

… The public does not embrace conservatives’ other sacred cause of repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. According to the survey, the public opposes repeal by a 49 percent to 41 percent margin.

It appears that the Republicans two leading legislative priorities are non-starters. As Teixeira concludes, “Conservatives should look for some other sacred causes to embrace. If they’re interested in public support, that is.”

Is there a more important question at this political moment anywhere than “Just how good is the Obama campaign’s voter research operation?” Slate.com’s Sasha Issenberg has a go at it, and his conclusion – and impressive research – should provide a little relief for Democratic nail-biters. After dispatching the Republicans voter research as antiquated, Issenberg says:

…The electioneering right is suffering from what amounts to a lost generation; they have simply failed to keep up with advances in voter targeting and communications since Bush’s re-election. The left, meanwhile, has arrived at crucial insights that have upended the conventional wisdom about how you convert citizens to your cause. Right now, only one team is on the field with the tools to most effectively find potential supporters and win their votes.

In stark contrast, Democratic research is light years ahead in analysing voter behavior, says Issenberg:

…The most important methodological and conceptual breakthroughs in recent years have originated in the academy, specifically through insights from behavioral psychology and the use of field experiments. Since 2004, myriad advocacy groups and consulting firms on the left have joined forces and launched a series of nominally for-profit private research institutions devoted to campaign tactics. The most impressive among them, the Analyst Institute, was created to link the growing supply of academics interested in running randomized-control trials to measure the efficacy of political communication with the demand of left-wing institutions eager for empirical methods to test their programs. These partnerships have birthed a generation of political professionals–many baptized in the unprecedented pools of data collected by Obama’s 2008 effort–at ease with both campaign fieldwork and the techniques of the social-science academy.
This summer, a top Republican analyst stumbled upon a job notice posted by the left-wing League of Conservation Voters. The position was Targeting and Data Director. The analyst looked admiringly at the description of the job, especially its duties to “explore and devise opportunities to test and measure the impact of all of our programs, including working closely with entities such as the Analyst Institute.” He marveled at what that language revealed about the sophistication of his rivals’ intellectual enterprise. “One thing the left–Catalist, Analyst Institute, New Organizing Institute–has done very well is training and seeding of this sort of stuff, this sort of philosophy,” said the analyst, who asked not to be identified because of election-season attachments but has worked closely with the Republican National Committee and presidential campaigns.
Dozens of such postings exist in what some call the “progressive data community.” I asked the Republican analyst what analogous jobs existed among the institutions of the right. How many of the League of Conservation Voters’ ideological foes–like the Chamber of Commerce, or their frequent allies at the National Rifle Association or the Faith and Freedom Coalition–have data managers and targeting directors with similar mandates to test and measure?
“I honestly don’t know,” the analyst replied. “If I had to guess? Zero.”

Issenberg goes on to explain how Dems have become much more adept at “persuasion microtargeting” and message testing in the field. It adds up to a qualitative advantage that Republicans are not going to match this year, or anytime soon. He concludes that Democrats can now “confidently extend their hunt for persuadable voters outside the unexpectedly perilous middle terrain and to calculate who among them will be responsive to particular messages (like on Medicare) or specific modes of contact (a call from a volunteer).”
Apparently Republicans will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century in terms of their ground game research, as well as their ideological rigidity.

Justin Levitt, an associate professor of law at Loyola Law School (L.A.) has a disturbing post, “The Danger of Voter Fraud Vigilantes” up at The New York Times. Leavitt provides examples of overzealous voter vigilantes, most notably in Montana, where six thousand citizens had their voting rights compromised by self-appointed “amateur detectives” and then explains:

…In the final days before the election on Nov. 6, “voter integrity” groups have begun to object to the participation of voters they find suspicious. Civic participation in our electoral process is not only welcome, but necessary. But excess zeal and an absence of accuracy turns volunteers into vigilantes.
The past weeks have seen challenges based on ostensible felony status in Florida, ostensible deaths in North Carolina and ostensible address problems in Ohio, among others. Some of these challenges appear to be the work of isolated individuals, others are coordinated by local groups “empowered by” national entities like True the Vote. The common thread is that the challenges are based not on personal information about particular voters, but computerized scans of data records.
Thus far, most local election officials have met the challenges with firm resistance. These officials understand that they must safeguard the voting rights of their legitimate constituents, and, backed by federal law, they are admirably standing their ground against the tide. By and large, they have assessed mass challenge efforts with a skeptical eye.
Their skepticism is appropriate. One need not impugn the partisan, racial or tactical motives of those sponsoring mass challenges to fear their impact. I suspect that most citizens who have signed up for such efforts honestly (and commendably) believe that they are valiantly protecting the franchise against the elusive scourge of voter fraud. But enthusiasm without precision causes real problems.

Levitt may be over-trusting with that last observation. But he is right on target in defining the responsibility election officials have toward such voter vigilante exercises:

Maintaining the voter rolls is a delicate science. Officials need to keep records clean, but they also need to ensure that voters are actually ineligible before jeopardizing their constitutional rights. Taking lapsed records and ineligible people off of the rolls helps prevent potential problems; taking eligible individuals off the rolls immediately creates real ones. The proper balance calls for the care of a skilled surgeon, excising cysts from the rolls in an atmosphere of quiet calm. Take out the bad, but be careful not to cut out the good. Mass computerized challenges in the closing days of an election cycle are like operating with a chainsaw. The results are unhealthy, no matter how good the operator’s intentions.

Levitt cites an extensive litany of common mistakes and things that can go wrong in the voter certification process. He warns that “At the polls, an eligible voter’s ballot cannot turn on the outcome of a shouting match built on the flawed product of a flawed computer algorithm. Citizens walking around with long lists of ostensibly illegal voters are most likely walking around with long lists of mistakes.” Sadly, in 2012, it appears that too many of these overzealous voter vigilantes are targeting Democrats.

The following comes from a new Democracy Corps memo.
We will poll this week – awaiting the unfolding storm on the East Coast – but we want to share why we think the national tracking averages likely underrepresent Obama’s vote. The main issue is cell phones and the changing America that most are under-representing. Our likely voter sample includes 30 percent reached on cell-phones from a cell-phone sample conducted in parallel with our random-digit phone sample. Some other surveys have moved to that level and methodology, but most have not. They are missing the new America, and we’re not sure we are keeping up either.
In the real America, most Americans are now cell-phone only or cell-phone mostly users. With no one really sure what is the right proportion for the likely electorate, everyone has been cautious but that may be the riskier option.
Pay attention to this. In the last half of 2011, 32 percent of adults were cell-phone only according the Center for Disease Control that is the official source on these issues; 16 percent were cell phone mostly. But the proportion cell-phone only has jumped about 2.5 points every six months since 2008 – and is probably near 37 percent now. And pay attention to these numbers for the 2011 adult population:
More than 40 percent of Hispanic adults are cell phone only (43 percent).
A disproportionate 37 percent of African Americans are cell only.
Not surprisingly, almost half of those 18 to 24 years are cell only (49 percent), but an astonishing 60 percent of those 25 to 29 years old only use cell phones.
But it does not stop there: of those 30 to 34 years, 51 percent are cell only.
You have to ask, what America are the current polls sampling if they are overwhelmingly dependent on conventional samples or automated calling with no cell phones? Democracy Corps reached 30 percent by cell; 35 percent were cell only or cell mostly, but only 15 percent are cell only, well short of where we should be.
Read the full memo at Democracy Corps.

Thomas B. Edsall’s “Billionaires Going Rogue” at The New York Times warns of an unintended consequence of the Citizens United decision — the end of political parties as a moderating force and the empowerment of fewer and fewer wealthy individuals as king-makers. Edsall explains:

…The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and appeals court decisions such as Speech Now v. F.E.C., opened the door to unlimited contributions to technically independent political action committees (super PACs) from corporations, unions and individuals.
The result has been a stupefying array of PACs, 501(c)4s and 501(c)6s that even professionals can barely keep track of…While, the rapid growth of well-financed and autonomous competitors threatens all existing power structures, the bulk of the costs are likely to fall on the Republican Party. The right wing of the Republican Party has more disruptive potential than the left wing of the Democratic Party because it is more willing to go to extremes: see the billboards showing Obama bowing down before an Arab Sheik, or the ads and DVD claiming that Obama is the bastard son of the African American communist, Frank Marshall Davis.
There are, furthermore, structural and historical differences between the parties: the Republican Party and the conservative establishment is institutionally stronger than the Democratic Party, with an infrastructure that served as a bulwark through the 1960s and 70s – the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Olin Foundation, etc. – when Republicans appeared to be a permanent congressional minority. Its financial prowess enabled the party to enforce more discipline on its consultants and elected officials. The Republican establishment also exercises more authority over policy and candidate selection than does its Democratic counterpart.
In recent years, the Democratic Party organization has gained some strength and it plays a much more active role in campaigns at all levels than in the past, but as an institutional force capable of command and control, it remains light years behind the Republican Party.
Republicans, in contrast to Democrats, prefer hierarchical, well-ordered organizations, and are much more willing to cede authority to those in power. Democrats, despite the discipline of individual campaign efforts, tend more toward anarchy than hierarchy. Historically, one result of this partisan difference is that the Republican establishment has tightly managed candidate selection at the presidential level. With extraordinary consistency, the party has crushed insurgent candidates and selected the next in line. Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole, for example, both had to wait until it was their turn.

Edsall goes on to explain how, in the past, the Republican party establishment was able to stifle it’s more extreme candidates through various instruments of party discipline. But all that is fading away at an increasing rate, as Edsall observes:

The newly empowered billionaires are positioned to challenge the Republican Party at its point of greatest vulnerability, during the primaries. The three major party organizations – the Republican National, Congressional and Senatorial Committees – cannot, except in unusual circumstances, intervene in primaries. Those are to be decided by voters, not the party.
The new class of financial bosses, equipped to legitimate primary candidates at all levels, has no such restriction over participation in primaries. Instead, the incentives are substantial to engage full force in the nomination process where the marginal value of each dollar is higher and more likely to influence the outcome than in the general election.
These new players, along with their super PACs, undermine the influence of the parties in another crucial way. Before Citizens United, the three major Republican Party committees exerted power because their financial preeminence gave them the final word on the award of contracts to pollsters, direct mail, voter contact, and media consultants – very few of whom were willing to alienate a key source of cash.
The ascendance of super PACs creates a separate and totally independent source of contracts for the community of political professionals. Super PACs and other independent groups already raise more than any of the political party committees and almost as much as either the Republican or Democratic Party committees raise in toto.
…Nathan Persily, a professor at Columbia Law School and a political scientist, made the point to me with a question: “Who is the Republican Party in the Citizens United age? If you had to point to the ‘Republican Party’ would you be more likely to point to Reince Preibus (and implicitly the R.N.C.) or Karl Rove (and Crossroads G.P.S.)? I think candidates might consider Rove more important.”…So far in the 2011-12 election cycle, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have spent $174.28 million, a sum two million dollars greater than the $172.2 million spent by the Republican Congressional and Senatorial Committees combined.

As Edsall concludes,

…The diminishment of the parties means that the institutions with the single-minded goal of winning a majority will be weakened. When parties are influential, they can help keep some candidates and office holders from going off the ideological deep end. The emergence of independently financed super PACs give voice to those with the most extreme views…For all their flaws, strong political parties are important to a healthy political system. The displacement of the parties by super rich men determined to flex their financial muscles is another giant step away from democracy.

As we are seeing in this presidential election, the effect Edsall describes will likely apply more to the Republican Party than to the Democrats, which is scant comfort in a close election, not only for Democrat-leaning progressives, but also for voters of all parties who value political moderation.