For the second time in a week, we had a candidate debate where most of the professional handicappers saw it one way, but voters seem to have seen it another way. And in both cases, that’s good news for the Obama-Biden ticket.
The consensus pundi-reaction to last Friday’s Obama-McCain debate was that the GOPer “won on points,” but the polls judged it an Obama win. And the exceptionally low expectations for Sarah Palin made her fluid performance last night a win or a draw, according to most accounts. But as this morning’s staff post indicated, both undecided voters and the general public thought Joe Biden did better.
What seems to be happening is that voters are beginning to interpret events like debates through the filter of increasingly settled preferences. A lot of them shake their heads just like I do the thirtieth time John McCain or Sarah Palin uses the word “maverick.” The Republican candidates did most definitely avoid any sort of disastrous mistakes in this round of debates, but that’s about all you can say for them.
There is, of course, a full month left in this very long campaign, and it’s clear the McCain campaign is about to launch the Mother of All Negative Campaigns as soon as the immediate financial crisis abates, if it ever does. But with early voting already under way in a number of key states, opinions are beginning to settle, with Obama in the lead.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

In the Couric interview, Palin mangled her talking points so badly that all anybody noticed noticed was the mangling itself; the points themselves receded into the background. Her much-improved performance last night, though, had the paradoxical effect of throwing the weakness of the GOP message in this election cycle into sharper relief.

The bottom line in both our takes is that voters are beginning to react to what the candidates are saying, in a critical way, instead of focusing, as the handicappers always do, on how they say it. The steak really does ultimately matter more than the sizzle.

A CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll taken immediately following the debate shows uncommitted voters who watched the veep debate believed Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden did the best job by a margin of more than 2 to 1. The poll (PDF here) also found,

Forty-six percent of these uncommitted viewers said Biden won the debate Thursday night, while 21 percent said Palin won. Thirty-three percent thought it was a tie…Palin’s debate performance improved uncommitted voters’ perceptions of her overall, and on a number of specific measures. But uncommitted voters still have doubts about her ability to assume the presidency if necessary and she lags behind Biden on her knowledge and preparedness for the job….Although Palin made some gains on perceptions that she could serve as president if needed, she rose just nine points on that measure after the debate, to 44 percent. In contrast, almost all uncommitted voters think Biden would be an effective president.

While 71 percent of the CBS respondents remained uncommitted after the debate, 18 percent said they would now vote for Obama, while 10 percent said they would vote for McCain.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll of ‘people who watched the vice presidential debate’ indicates that 51 percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job, while 36 percent thought Palin did better. The poll also found,

On the question of the candidates’ qualifications to assume the presidency, 87 percent of those polled said Biden is qualified and 42 percent said Palin is qualified…The candidates sparred over which team would be the better agent of change, and Biden came out on top of that debate, with 53 percent of those polled giving the nod to the Delaware senator while 42 percent said Palin was more likely to bring change.

The CNN poll also indicates Palin made some gains:

…Respondents said the folksy Palin was more likable, scoring 54 percent to Biden’s 36 percent…84 percent of the people polled said Palin did a better job than they expected, while 64 percent said Biden also exceeded expectations.

Both polls show it was a very good night for the Democratic ticket. While both candidates increased their stature with voters and there were no major blunders or gaffes, most respondents clearly saw Biden as the best prepared.

Last night I turned on the Tube, and was about to switch channels away from one of those ubiquitous Entertainment Celebrity “News” shows, when I saw a teaser about the vice presidential debate. Curious, I left it on, and after several features about actors and people Famous For Being Famous whose names I but dimly recognized, there was a lengthy segment about Sarah Palin’s debate prep, including clips from the Couric interviews, and the usual maddening sexist crap from “experts” about how she should dress and style her hair. There may have been one reference to Joe Biden as her debate opponent, but Joe certainly didn’t get any sartorial or grooming tips.
The experience brought home to me the simple fact that Sarah Palin is not a politician, or a potential Vice President of the United States, but a Pop Culture Celebrity (ironic, to be sure, given the McCain campaign’s mockery of Barack Obama as a celebrity). And this creates problems for both tickets. John McCain is now something of a prisoner of his running-mate, with considerable evidence suggesting that Palin’s high visibility is affecting the whole ticket far more than Veep candidates typically do. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who has been heavily advised to make the focus of the debate McCain rather than Palin, is struggling against the reality that a lot of people tuning in want to see him take on St. Joan of the Tundra.
And there will apparently be a whole lot of viewers, as predicted by (to reinforce my earlier point) the Hollywood Reporter:

Talk about must-see TV. Maybe the first McCain-Obama go-round wasn’t as widely watched as expected, but Thursday night’s vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden looks to be everything that their running mates’ was not.
After a series of interviews with “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric that raised eyebrows and blood pressures from all sides of the political spectrum as well as Tina Fey’s caricature on “Saturday Night Live,” there is growing evidence that Palin will be a big draw when she and Biden meet for the only time beginning at 9 p.m. ET at Washington University in St. Louis. The fact that it’s being held on a Thursday, one of the most popular nights for TV, almost certainly will help in the way that a low-rated Friday night didn’t for John McCain vs. Barack Obama.
“A lot of people are anticipating this to be almost a ‘Saturday Night Live’ live,” said Tammy Vigil, an assistant professor of communications at Boston University and a co-author of the upcoming book, “The Third Agenda in U.S. Presidential Debates.” “The entertainment value on this debate is going to be huge.”

Great. Just what this country needs right now.

A new WaPo-ABC poll of 1,070 adults conducted 9/ 27-29 indicates that six in 10 voters believe Governor Sarah Palin “lacks the experience to be an effective president, and a third are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her…Fewer than half of voters think she understands “complex issues.” The poll also found,

About half of all voters said they were uncomfortable with the idea of McCain taking office at age 72, and 85 percent of those voters said Palin does not have the requisite experience to be president….A third of independent voters now indicate they are less likely to support McCain because of Palin, compared with 20 percent who said so in an ABC poll a month ago. Palin now repels more independents than she attracts to McCain.

Yet, 51 percent of voters overall view Palin favorably; compared to 57 for Senator Biden. And, “about three-quarters of those surveyed said he understands complex issues, compared with 46 percent who said so of her.”
A new poll from the Pew Research Center, conducted 9/27-29 found that 51% now say Governor Palin is not qualified to become president, with 37 percent saying she is qualified — a reversal of opinion since early September. The poll indicated that 63 percent believe Senator Biden is qualified to serve as president.
A CBS News Poll. conducted Sept. 27-30, 2008 found 32 percent had a favorable opinion of Palin, with 33 percent unfavorable and 25 percent undecided. Last week, Palin had a net positive rating of 8 percent. The poll also indicated that Democratic veep nominee Joe Biden’s had a 34 percent favorable rating, with 19 percent unfavorable.

Last night I did a post expressing astonishment at Sarah Palin’s handling of questions about constitutional law as it relates to abortion in a just-released segment of the Katie Couric interviews. I figured her answers, which among other things, accepted a constitutional right to privacy (the foundation of Roe v. Wade), wouldn’t go over well among her culturally conservative base.
At National Review’s The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative whose intelligence and integrity I respect, offered this reaction, which not only defended Palin but went after Joe Biden (who was also interviewed by Couric on the same issues):

Those excerpts from Couric’s interviews give me more concerns about Biden than Palin. He seems to be under the impression that there’s a “liberty clause” in the Fourteenth Amendment (he has talked about it in Supreme Court confirmation hearings too). He misdescribes what Roe held. He seems to believe that Roe has been good for social peace and that this alleged fact justifies it as constitutional law.
Palin, meanwhile, is asked a somewhat oddly phrased question by Couric, and says, reasonably enough, that the Constitution protects a right to privacy. Now it is certainly and obviously true that the Constitution protects privacy: What else do the Third and Fourth Amendments protect, for example? There is nothing incompatible with either a pro-life point of view or originalism with saying that the Constitution protects privacy.

Nice try, Ramesh, but I don’t think either prong of your argument holds much water.
With respect to the Couric-Palin interplay, Palin was not asked if the Constitution protects any privacy rights. She was asked, in the context of her position that Roe should be overturned, if there was an “inherent right to privacy” in the Constitution, which is about as clear a reference to the Griswold holding as any network interviewer could be expected to make. And Couric made that even clearer by referring to the “right to privacy” as the foundation of Roe. While it is theoretically possible to believe that Griswold was a correct decision while Roe was not, I’ve never heard anyone embracing “the pro-life point of view or originalism” take that position, and I’m quite sure Ponnuru doesn’t, either. And he doesn’t address Palin’s weird and immediate descent into Federalist arguments about how to apply that “inherent right to privacy,” which suggests an unfamiliarity with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that prohibits state abrogation of constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Speaking of the Due Process Clause, which prohibits “any state [from depriving] any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” this is the “liberty clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment that Joe Biden’s talking about. The Court in Roe (following the concurring opinions of Justices Harlan and White in Griswold) made the protection of “liberty” by the Due Process Clause the basis for its decision, launching a debate over “substantive due process” that continues today. While Biden’s use of the term “liberty clause” may be a bit imprecise, there’s nothing remarkable about what he’s actually saying.
As for Biden’s remarks on the reasonableness of Roe, he does not, in fact, claim it has brought the country “social peace” on the abortion issue; he says “it’s as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours.” And I think that’s right, for the simple reason that Roe reflected the popular view (though not the views of activists on both sides of the issue) that the timing of abortions is critically important. And though they all hate to admit it (for perfectly logical reasons), that’s why anti-abortion activists focus so much on late-term abortions, while pro-choice activists focus on early-term abortions, and even the “morning-after pill,” although their underlying positions deny there’s much of a difference in terminating a pregnancy early or late. This is what my former boss Sen. Sam Nunn meant when he used to say that Roe v. Wade “may have been bad constitutional law, but it’s good policy.”
To sum it all up, contra Ramesh Ponnuru, it’s clear to me that Biden made a concise and reasonable argument for a pro-choice position that recognizes possible exceptions, while Palin tried to square circles, presumably in order to appeal to pro-choice voters who wouldn’t like her position if they understood it. That’s made much clearer by the other segment of the Couric interview in which Palin consistently describes her pro-life perspective as all about “making choices,” even though she has in the past supported, and is running on a Republican platform that insists upon, a national prohibition of all abortions, at any stage after conception, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

As you undoubtedly know, the financial bailout bill passed the Senate last night by a big margin–74-25, to be exact. And few of the dynamics evident in the House vote appeared there.
For one thing, the partisan splits were a lot closer, with Democrats favoring the bill 39-10, and Republicans by 34-15 (as a matter of principle, Joe Lieberman is not being counted as a Democrat here). For another, election-year pressures weren’t a big factor: Senators up for re-election split 24-9 in favor of the legislation, perhaps in part reflecting the fact that public opinion has shifted noticeably, if not definitively, since the House vote.
The House is due to vote on the revised bill Friday, with the current odds favoring passage thanks to the tax sweeteners added by the Senate, not to mention the buyer’s remorse among Members who voted against the original bill assuming it would pass anyway.

Beliefnet has just done an update of its “Twelve Tribes” survey, a methodology (done through polling by the University of Akron) that slices and dices the electorate along religious (or irreligious) lines. The first Twelves Tribes survey was done at about this same time four years ago, so it provides some pretty interesting comparative data.
There’s a lot of stuff to look at and think about, but the thing that jumps off the page is a big shift in the direction of Democrats among what has long been the Great Brown Hope of the GOP: Latino Protestants.
Here’s a quick summary of this finding by Beliefnet editor Steve Waldman:

In 2004, Bush won 45% of Latinos. According to the new Twelve Tribes analysis, Obama is beating McCain by more than two-to-one — and Latino voters are becoming more numerous.
Significantly, the big shift came not from Latino Catholics but Latino Protestants many of whom are evangelical or Pentecostal and had liked Bush’s faith emphasis. But right now 33% of Latino Protestants are for McCain, 48% for Obama and 18% are undecided. By comparison, at this point in 2004 Bush had 50%, Kerry had 26% and 24% were undecided. And on election day it was 63% Bush, 37% Kerry, according to the Twelve Tribes analysis, which is based on new polling done by the University of Akron’s John Green.

Waldman goes on to say that the main factor in the shift of Latinos generally (he apparently doesn’t have issue breakouts for Protestant and Catholic Latinos) isn’t so much about immigration policy, where John McCain was obviously the best available Republican candidate, but instead because:

[T]hey’ve shifted sharply to the left on economics and foreign policy. Only 37% now say the war was justified (the national average now is 45%). Though the survey doesn’t probe this deeply, it’s notable that many Hispanics have been among the ranks of the American soldiers who have died in Iraq.
On the environment, in 2004, only 46% said they wanted stricter environmental regulation; 65% do now. They’re less likely to want religious involvement in politics (64% say religious institutions should stay out compared to 40% in 2004). In all, 62% identify as Democrats; 54% did in 2004.

In terms of the broader survey, the finding that will probably get the most attention is that the percentage of voters citing “moral issues” as their top concern is half what it was four years ago.

Ah, the plot thickens. CBS has just released the segment of the Couric interview where Palin is asked about Supreme Court decisions. Check out this exchange:

Couric: Do you think there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?
Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.
Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.
Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

It sure looks like Palin has no idea what she’s talking about on this issue of greatest concern to her social conservative fans. She may be the first person I’ve ever heard who simultaneously endorses a federal constitutional right to privacy while arguing that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. And if, of course, as Palin said twice, there is a right to privacy embedded in the U.S. Constitution, it’s completely nonsensical to talk about “individual states” handling it as they see fit.
Eyebrows have already been raised over this quote over at The Corner, suggesting that the McCain campaign’s going to be hearing a lot tomorrow from conservative legal scholars.
UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

After writing my last post about Sarah Palin’s odd lack of knowledge about Supreme Court decisions that are considered critically important by anti-abortion activists, I ran across a fascinating analysis by Beliefnet editor Steve Waldman of the segments of the Katie Couric interview that are directly about abortion policy.
I won’t reduplicate the whole thing here, but basically, Couric keeps trying to get Palin to clarify whether her hard-core pro-life position means she actually wants to make nearly all abortions illegal, and Palin keeps retreating into vague language about the “culture of life” and abortion as a “choice.” She finally does say she wouldn’t want to jail women who have abortions, though that’s not really relevant, since the Right to Life movement’s strategy for eliminating abortions has always relied on making them unavailable by cracking down on providers. Palin also at one point suggests that overturning Roe would simply return the issue to the states, which is true, but doesn’t deal with (a) the question of whether, as a governor, she’d support a state prohibition, or (b) the language of the Republican platform, which endorses a federal constitutional amendment to ban abortions, or (c) the fact that Congress could, if Roe is overturned, preempt state laws with a federal statutory abortion ban, much as it’s already done on so-called “partial-birth abortions.”
There’s nothing new about tactical duplicity among anti-abortionist extremists, who’ve always tried to act as though they are motivated only by shock over late-term abortions, even though they support policies that would restrict or ban the vast majority of abortions that occur very early in pregnancy. But Palin’s language in this interview is so incredibly evasive (as pointed out repeatedly by Waldman) that you might be left with the impression that her pro-life self-identification is just some sort of personal preference that has no impact on what she thinks the law should say on this subject. Indeed, what she really sounds like is one of those “personally opposed to” pro-choice Catholic politicians that anti-abortionists have so thoroughly excoriated over the years.
Best I can tell, right-to-lifers are confident enough that Palin’s “one of us” that they’ll let her get away with this sort of talk, as a way to reassure swing voters and help get her into office. But for such a brave maverick, she sure doesn’t seem to have the courage of her convictions.

There’s been a lot of talk about the yet-to-be-released segment of the Katie Couric interview of Sarah Palin in which the Veep nominee apparently lapsed into silence when asked to name a single important Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade.
In general, I’m with Atrios in noting that most politicians don’t know a whole lot about Supreme Court decisions, whether they pretend to or not. And clearly, the best response for Palin to have offered was the perennial crowd-pleaser, “I’m not a lawyer.”
But what makes her non-answer startling to me is that Supreme Court decisions are actually the one area of public policy in which Palin’s core constituency, the Christian Right, is extremely well-versed.
Any anti-abortion activist worth his or her salt knows all about Griswold v. Connecticut, the famous “penumbra” decision that first established a constitutional right to privacy, and thus provided the key precedent for Roe. They’d also know about Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed Roe and demonstrated the eternal perfidy of Reagan appointees O’Conner and Kennedy. And more than likely, they’d be familiar with Gonzales v. Carhart, the 2007 decision that validated the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortions, with Kennedy performing remarkably gymnastic judicial contortions in squaring the decision with Casey. And social conservatives focused on gay rights would be able to remember Lawrence v. Texas, yet another Kennedy decision, which struck down state statutes illegalizing gay sex, and scandalously (to conservatives, at least) citing international law as a relevant factor.
Beyond these recent decisions, every Republican politician knows the importance of ritually denouncing Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the first validating the Fugitive Slave Act, and the second establishing “separate but equal” racial segregation as constitutionally acceptable. This is a time-honored dog-whistle to anti-abortion activists who want to identify their cause with that of civil rights, while reminding people that large Supreme Court precedents have been overturned in the past.
That Palin apparently locked up and didn’t name or even allude to any of these cases is indeed surprising, not because it reflects ignorance, but because it separates her from the base of knowledge characteristic of those most avid to see her elected vice president.