In his new perch at ThinkProgress, Matt Yglesias is back to his prodigious blogging, and today offers a good reminder (in the contest of a new AFL-CIO direct mail piece) that Social Security could be a big problem for John McCain in the stretch-drive of the campaign.
I can’t recall a competitive major-party presidential candidate who was as dependent on the votes of older voters as John McCain is today. His past and prospective support for Social Security privatization (in the context of an overall fiscal plan that guarantees perpetual raids on Social Security revenues), and his recent attacks on the basic pay-go structure of the program as “disgraceful,” expose him to some very real problems with seniors.
But the time bombs ticking away in the substructure of McCain’s campaign go far beyond Social Security, and extend to issues that currently may be working in his favor. Sure, the present Russia-Georgia conflict may be giving him a good opportunity to talk tough. But it also will increasingly draw attention to his overall foreign policy posture of wanting to fight in Iraq until “victory,” while increasing troop levels in Afghanistan and rattling sabers against Iran, and now Russia. The unsettling reality about John McCain is that his foreign policy thinking combines the pre-9/11 conservative obsession with a new cold war against superpower rivals (then China, now Russia and China) with the post-9/11 neocon obsession to fight a new world war against “Islamofascism.” How many wars, cold or hot, regional or global, are Americans really ready to undertake?
Similarly, McCain is getting some traction from his flip-flop favoring offshore oil drilling. But that’s about all he has to say about the economy, other than the same cut-taxes-and-deregulate-and-promote-free-trade message Republicans have offered for eons. At some point, the fact that his health care plan is even worse than the status quo will get noticed, along with regressive and pro-corporation tax policies that blow up his credibility as a fiscal hawk, and an unconditional pro-trade-liberalization commitment that should represent a deep political problem for him in battleground states like Ohio and Michigan.
And for those of you who may believe policy really doesn’t matter to voters because it’s all about “character” and “trust” and “likeability” and so forth, McCain’s vulnerabilities go beyond wonky subjects like the fate of the country domestically and internationally. His much-vaunted “maverick” persona continues to be threatened by a vast track record of solidarity with George W. Bush and the GOP, and his reputation for a positive, transpartisan approach to politics may not survive his campaign’s steady descent into negative attacks on Barack Obama. And if his past behavior is any indication, there’s also a good chance that McCain will do or say something on the campaign trail, or in the debates, that makes him a lot less “likable.”
It’s always possible that McCain will successfully navigate all these potentially lethal problems, or that Obama and Democrats will fail to fully exploit his many vulnerabilities. But he’s got a tougher path to victory than a lot of nervous Democrats seem to realize.

With the publication (and quick rise to the top of the bestseller lists) of The Obama Nation, a nasty anti-Obama screed penned by Jerome R. Corsi, the same bird who co-authored the 2004 anti-Kerry book, Unfit to Command, Democrats are quite naturally worried that the “swift-boating” of John Kerry is about to be replicated. Kerry himself seems to share this concern; his PAC has just launched an anti-smear website devoted to defending Obama and other Democrats from “swift-boating,” citing his own experience as a cautionary tale.
This is all perfectly understandable, and obviously, no one should have any illusions about the willingness and ability of GOP-allied operatives to pull off Big Smears. Corsi’s 2004 book was indeed the immediate precursor to the Swift Boat ads, and featured some of the same Kerry-hating personalities. And both phenomena fed directly into the frenzy of attacks on Kerry’s credibility and defense views at the Republican National Convention.
But there are reasons to think that the past won’t be repeated.
As Byron York of National Review pointed out today, Corsi’s 2004 book got attention in no small part because his co-author, John O’Neill, and most of the people “speaking” in the book via interviews, had actually served on Swift Boats in Vietnam. Corsi’s anti-Obama book has none of that ostensible credibility or news value; it’s just a collection of attacks on Obama by a thuggish right-wing hack, no different from what you’d hear on a right-wing talk show.
Secondly, and more importantly, the Swift Boat smears were perfectly aimed at the soft strategic underbelly of the Kerry campaign. They occurred immediately after a Democratic Convention that placed enormous emphasis on Kerry’s Vietnam War record as his preeminent credential for the presidency, without, unfortunately, presenting his record of Vietnam War protest (a big part of the Swift Boat attacks) in the right context as the other side of the same patriotic coin that led him to volunteer to fight in the war in the first place. The “revelations” in the Swift Boat assault were effective not just because Kerry didn’t challenge them aggressively enough, but because his campaign didn’t prepare for them in advance in how the candidate was presented to the public.
For all the talk about Obama’s “charisma” and “story,” he actually may be less vulnerable than Kerry was to attacks on his “personal narrative.” As a new Pew survey today illustrates, Obama’s credibility as a candidate is heavily based on the popularity of his policy positions. McCain is the candidate who is dangerously dependent on “character” and “biography” as a credential.
Finally, of course, there is zero chance that anti-Obama smears will go unchallenged. The Obama campaign decided a long time ago to abandon the once-prevelant belief that responding to smears gives them too much attention. And the fact that most attacks on Obama’s “story” inevitably go over the line into thinly disguised racism is a problem for the smear artists as well, as is evidenced by all the disengenuous whining from the McCain camp about Obama’s willingness to play “the race card.” Racist appeals are far more effective when they are subtle and implicit, not over-the-top. The fact that the whole political world is aware that race is a factor in this election means it won’t be as easy to deploy racial weapons under the radar screen.
So: I just don’t think this sort of crap is going to work for Republicans this time around. It doesn’t mean they won’t try it, but Democrats should skillfully fight back instead of panicking.

In his column at WaPo‘s ‘The Fix,’ Chris Cillizza discusses Senator McCain’s latest veepstake trial ballon. Cillizza quotes McCain:

I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party…And I also feel that — and I’m not trying to equivocate here — that Americans want us to work together. You know, [former Pennsylvania Governor] Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out…I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a — albeit strong — but just it’s a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that.

Cillizza sees it as a genuine veepstakers trial baloon. My guess is that what McCain is really up to here is trying to cool out pro-choice GOP women and PA Republicans, since he still harbors hope that he can be competitive in that state. Ridge will almost certainly get a big cabinet job if McCain wins. But putting a pro-choice veep on the ticket could open up a big can of ugly at the GOP convention, with angry ‘pro-lifers’ giving bitter interviews to anyone who will listen.
Also, Seema Mehta and Maeve Reston caught a revealing comment by McCain in their L.A. Times post, “Sounds like Tom Ridge is out of the VP picture” :

…Conservatives scoffed at the notion that McCain, already viewed with suspicion in some conservative circles, would choose a running mate who supports abortion rights. And McCain hinted Monday, perhaps unintentionally, that Ridge might not be on his short list.
During a visit to a General Electric plant in Erie, Pa., with Ridge in earshot, McCain was asked what he would do in his first 90 days in office. He replied, “Call Tom Ridge to Washington from whatever vacation he’s taking and get him to work.”

McCain is clearly worried about losing the votes of pro-choice women in the general election, even though he has cast his lot with a strong anti-choice position. He doesn’t want to discuss his position regarding criminalizing abortion in any detail because it could be a huge loser, with the rapidly-growing single women demographic and what polls show about their views on abortion-related issues.
Dems have much to gain by making sure the public, especially women swing voters, understand that he favors a constitutional amendment banning abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade and more Supreme Court justices who support criminalizing abortion. At some point during the campaign, he should be asked straight out “Do you favor criminal penalties for women who have abortions?” Letting him get to November 4 without answering this question on camera would be the real crime.

Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner have just released the results of their fourth “Youth for the Win” survey of young voters, and the conclusion is good news for Senator Obama and Democrats — with a couple of caveats. Among the findings in the analysis:

The last six weeks saw the inauguration of a serious, McCain-sponsored offensive against Barack Obama, as well as an effort in the Obama campaign to “moderate” their candidate. And, at least among youth, the impact of these events has been notably modest. While we see some movement in Obama’s support among young people of color growing even stronger and softening a bit among white youth, overall this has been a period of remarkable political stability. Obama consolidated some of the gains we saw in the June survey and still posts a convincing 27-point margin (60 – 33 percent) over McCain…Historically, this lead exceeds Kerry’s margin among youth (54 – 45 percent) and reflects the Democratic Congressional margin in 2006.

However, the analysis also notes,

John McCain recovers somewhat from his post-primary nadir among youth, arguably highlighting a political price for the progressive failure so far to really define this candidate, but in their enthusiasm for Obama and their commitment to vote, young people have not changed. Most indicators still suggest both a record turn out and margin in November.

But it’s critical that Dems understand the economic struggles young people are facing:

As a more economically vulnerable demographic group—often competing for entry-level jobs with limited benefits, most surviving on a single income—young people then represented a “canary in a coal mine” of sorts for the rest of the electorate, previewing a broader concern over the economy….Nearly half are a missed pay-check away from having to borrow money. Three-quarters owe some manner of debt, including a third who owe student loans. And one in five has had a utility cut off for failure to pay a bill.

And, one of the key challenges for Dems:

Gas prices are, of course, a major concern among young people. In a recent survey of youth that GQR conducted for Qvisory, young people identified gas prices as their leading financial concern. This is also an issue where McCain and Republicans have, at least, an argument. Young people in this survey divide evenly on whether drilling for coastal oil is a good idea (44 percent say this drilling will hurt the environment and not help with gas prices; 44 percent say it is a good idea and will decrease gas prices). Even among liberal Democrats, only 51 percent support the environmental position here. Among young people facing a heavy financial burden—an overwhelmingly Democratic group (58 percent Democratic, just 16 percent Republican)—nearly 48 percent believe drilling in coastal regions is a good idea.

Tha analysis concludes:

Maintaining or even expanding the youth vote means speaking to their biggest issue—their real financial challenges. Arguably, neither Obama nor McCain has directly addressed their economic concerns in a fashion that meets young people where they are in their lives. It is about holding McCain accountable for the current economy (see last Youth For The Win report) and providing an alternative that can have a direct impact on their lives and economic standing….

DCorps’ next youth survey will address “what young people believe is at stake in this election and what they hope to change in this country.” No doubt it will find attentive readers among candidates and campaigns who are in it to win on November 4.

In what could be good news for Barack Obama’s campaign, Ohio election officials have announced plans to establish a one-week window from September 30 until October 6 when eligible voters can simultaneously register to vote and then cast early ballots. The window seems tailor-made to facilitate a strong turnout among first-time voters, particularly college students, of whom there are an estimated 470,000 in the Buckeye State. In national polls, Obama has been beating McCain by better than a two-to-one margin among younger voters (66-30 among voters 18-29 years old in the latest Washington Post/ABC poll).
There’s another small but potentially significant Ohio opportunity for Obama that I’ve been meaning to write about. One of the odd data points contributing to George W. Bush narrow win in 2004 in Ohio was his relatively strong performance among African-Americans: 16%, as compared to 11% nationally. (A gay marriage ballot initiative is generally thought to have been a factor in skewing the black vote in a conservative direction). Black turnout wasn’t particularly impressive, either (African-Americans accounted for 10% of the statewide vote, as compared to 12% in the Ohio Senate race two years later). There’s every reason to think that Barack Obama will improve on Kerry’s 84% support-level among African-Americans, perhaps by a significant margin, with much higher turnout. For all his appeal to certain categories of Democratic and independent voters, John McCain probably has less of a natural connection with black voters than Bush, if only because of the latter’s famous religiosity. If McCain’s campaign and/or supporters are perceived as engaging in race-baiting (a pretty good bet, as Peter Beinart argues today in the Washington Post), , then Obama’s advantage among African-Americans could become a real factor in a close statewide contest.
All in all, this supports Tom Schaller’s contention that a major investment in minority voter registration and turnout in Ohio by Democrats would be a very good idea.

The ‘Obamacan’ Movement got a nice bump yesterday, when two Republicans, Rep. Jim Leach (IA) and Jim Whitaker, mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska, endorsed Obama, reports Kate Linthicum in today’s L.A.Times. Whitaker, also a former Alaska legislator (99-03), who supported McCain in the 2000 Republican primary, cited Obama’s stronger “intellectual capacity.”
In his NYT op-ed today, Thomas L. Friedman comments on McCain’s “perfect record” in opposing federal support for renewable energy and Greg Sargent amplifies the point in his TPM Election Central post, “McCain Supports Tax Breaks For Oil Industry — But Not For Wind Power.” McCain is not only a good candidate for the ‘Big Oil’s Errand Boy” meme, but his commitment to ethical campaign finance, especially when Big Oil’s interests are at stake, is being questioned, according to McClatchey reporter Greg Gordon.
CBS News media columnist Jon Friedman urges Senator Obama to bristle less and relax more when confronted by press intrusions, which are only going to get worse — often hard to do, but generally good advice for any candidate, just about any time.
“To help the party doofuses and pundits — and the candidate himself — spare all of us another suicide-inducing election night,” Michael Moore has an advisory up at Alternet, “How the Democrats Can Blow It … in Six Easy Steps.”
Bill Cotterell of the Fort Meyers News-Press reports that Dem registration in Florida is up more than a quarter of a million this year, while new GOP registrants are up less than 100K and independents just under 50K. See also Rachel Kapochunas’s CQPolitics.com piece on the play of issues and demographics in the Sunsihne State.
Writing in The Guardian UK, TNR Senior Editor Michael Crowley echoes the argument that Obama must resist the temptation “to cruise at high altitude” and Dems must get engaged in unraveling McCain’s “political mythology.”
Political Animal Kevin Drum makes the case that Obama’s “McCain is the real celebrity” ad is pretty limp for an ‘attack’ ad.
So that’s what McCain really means by “drilling for oil.”

There’s been some buzz over the last couple of days about a hint dropped by McCain operative Rick Davis that John McCain might revive the earlier-discarded idea of promosing to serve only one term. Steve Benin of the Carpetbagger Report provides a full analysis, and weighs the pros and cons (as does Tom Schaller at Salon’s War Room, where he concludes more emphatically that it makes no sense).
I dunno. McCain’s age isn’t the only issue here. Pledging to serve just one term–aside from creating some serious media attention thanks to the sheer novelty of the strategem–would reinforce McCain’s claim to be just a highly patriotic guy who’s answering a call to service rather than pursuing his own personal ambitions, or his party’s ideology. It might also appeal to voters who have doubts about both candidates, but who might be persuaded to prefer four years of one to a presumed eight years of the other.
But one thing is for sure: a one-term pledge would significantly raise the stakes on McCain’s Veep selection, who would immediately be viewed as a 2012-presidential-nominee-in-waiting. So it could really backfire on McCain if he chooses a running-mate who either (a) offends any of the various tribes of the conservative movement, or (b) has any potential 2008 general-election vulnerabilities. It would narrow his options significantly.

Yesterday I characterized the abortion plank in the draft Democratic Platform as “the most forthright pro-choice plank in party history,” and noted a few factors in the wording that led me to this conclusion.
But today a lot of people who want the Democratic Party to be more hospitable to anti-abortion points of view are hailing the platform plank as a step forward from that of 2004, mainly because it endorses some measures that “abortion reduction” advocates have promoted.
Now it could well be that each side in this argument will notice that the other side seems happy, and reconsider its own positive feelings. But as someone who has been tangentially involved in platform drafting in the past, I know how hard it is to write something coherent on a subject like abortion with everyone watching every turn of phrase. And for now at least, you have to give this year’s Democratic platform wordsmiths a big gold star for coming up with language on one of the most emotional topics in the world that seems to please all Democrats.

So: do you know anybody who is strongly pro-choice but is considering a vote in November for John McCain? If so, you should send him or her a link to today’s New Republic article by Sarah Bluestain, which demolishes the common belief that McCain is a “moderate” on abortion policy, or perhaps even covertly pro-choice. Looking at his voting record in Congress over a quarter of a century, and talking to people on both sides of the issue who know him well, Bluestain establishes pretty clearly that McCain’s brief expression of opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade during his first presidential run in 2000 was completely out of character:

To many voters, the McCain of 2000 is the true McCain, with his latest statements constituting an understandable, if undignified, pander to the GOP’s right-wing base. They simply cannot believe that the maverick who defied the party’s hard-core social conservatives on embryonic stem cell research and campaign finance reform would toe the conservative line on abortion. But, in truth, it was his 2000 position on abortion that was the outlier–a short-lived attempt to court the center after George W. Bush had locked up the religious right’s support. McCain is not, and never was, a moderate.

It’s very important that Democrats get across to persuadable voters that this characterization of McCain is accurate on a broad array of issues. His entire campaign depends on perpetuating the “maverick” image he cultivated during and immediately after his 2000 presidential bid, before returing emphatically to his conservative roots on domestic policy and epitomizing the neoconservative point of view on international relations.
Sure, some conservative activists don’t quite trust McCain thanks to his 2000 rhetoric, but he’s done everything within his power in recent years to convince them the “real John McCain” is a man who would continue and on some issues even intensify the conservative ideological commitments of the Bush administration. Given the political dynamics of the country right now, McCain offers the Right the only plausible strategy for hanging onto the executive branch of the federal government, and extending their control of the judicial branch, and with it, the Constitution. So conservatives will cooperate with McCain’s “maverick” deception, even as they rely on its ultimate emptiness.

Although the media is fixated on the implications of the Edwards mess in the context of the current election, it also helps bring into focus a problem of longer-term significance that has been overlooked.
In John Edwards, we had a candidate who offered what was arguably the best package of reforms benefitting working people in decades. I still believe his concern was sincere, that he had some genuine compassion for those who didn’t have basic economic or health security. Yet at the same time, he was willing to risk getting his Party — the one party than can rise to this challenge — crushed in the presidential election by revelations of his sloppy personal life.
I’m sure Edwards rationalized it with the argument that he could do a lot of good if he got elected. But it’s not merely appalling that he would risk having his Party trashed. For me it’s a disturbing revelation of the underlying fragility of the Democratic Party. When even our better candidates have so little regard for the Party as an institution, what have we got?
The examples of Bill Clinton and Gary Hart prove that Edwards was not such an exceptional case in this regard. Earlier Democratic (and Republican) candidates knew that the media would give them a free pass. I’m just hoping Senator Obama is the exceptional case — a candidate who not only has his personal life together, but who also has enough respect for his party (as well as his family) that he would never jeopardize it so casually.
Not to let Edwards, Clinton or Hart off the hook for their personal responsibility. But party loyalty is pretty shallow across all demographic groups. Yes, the percentage of self-identified Democrats has increased significantly recently and the percentage of those who have a “favorable” view of the Democratic Party has increased. But only about a third of voters i.d. themselves as Dems, and evidently party i.d. doesn’t resonate very deep.
You have to go back to the FDR era to find a time when party loyalty was a strong value among many Democrats. Back then, a healthy majority saw the Democratic Party as a reliable champion of their interests, and a lot of the credit goes to FDR’s leadership. Reagan usually gets the cred for the GOP’s inroads into the working class, but really it was Eisenhower who laid the foundation and blurred party lines.
FDR had the benefit of a growing union movement to support his party. In Europe, stronger union movements have delivered better wages, benefits and working conditions, and European unions have helped empower European progressive parties. Strengthening Democratic party loyalty will also require rebuilding America’s trade union movement. Until that happens, my guess is that efforts to invoke ‘party discipline’ will have limited success.
To make this happen, unions must do a better job of informing the public about organized labor’s vital contributions. For example, why the hell is there no AFL-CIO TV network offered in my cable package? There should also be more creative membership options for unorganized service and white collar workers for unions to grow and become strong again.
On another track, the Obama campaign, with its elements of a social movement offers hope that we can begin to deepen party loyalty among Democrats. But much depends on the depth of his personal commitment to strengthen unions if he gets elected. The Democratic Party also needs a more aggressive campaign on its own behalf. We are seeing lots of candidate ads. But you don’t see many ads stating the Party’s commitment to needed social reforms. People need to know that the ‘big tent’ doesn’t mean Dems have amorphous values.
In a couple of weeks, the Democratic Party will convene for our quadreniial pep rally, culminating in a powerful, historic moment when Senator Obama accepts the nomination as the nation’s first African American presidential nominee on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Obama and the Democratic Party will enjoy a surge of support, and hopefully, some of it will last through November 3. On day one after the election, that great energy driving the Obama campaign should be channeled into strengthening the Democratic Party.