Sooner or later, all presidential campaigns go negative, the good guys, as well as the bad guys. The “we’re better than that” conceit is a self-delusion shared by losing campaigns everywhere.
Of course there are two basic ways to go negative — with lies and sleaze, or with integrity and class. Dems should always chose the latter option, and usually do.
The key decision associated with going negative is timing. The McCain campaign has made their decision. As Michael Kranish observes in the lede of his article “McCain ads go negative early on Obama” in the Thursday edition of The Boston Globe:

By launching a series of TV ads that ridicule Senator Barack Obama and question his readiness to be president, Senator John McCain has made a strategic decision to go directly negative much earlier than usual in the presidential race.

Actually, it’s been going on a little longer, as Kranish notes,

The Wisconsin Advertising Project, which monitors campaign ad spending nationwide, reported yesterday that of the $48 million worth of ads the two campaigns have aired since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, 90 percent of Obama’s ads have been positive and mostly about himself, while about one-third of McCain’s commercials referred to Obama negatively.

Obama has to go negative and he will. The only question is will it be too late to help him win? Who Obama should not be on the morning after election day is the loser who sniffs before TV reporters “At least we kept on the high road. I’m proud of my campaign.”
The high road strategy makes sense for the candidate who is protecting a lead in the primary season, because party unity among contenders’ supporters is paramount. But it makes little sense in the general election campaign when surrounded by snarling jackals. If anyone in Obama’s campaign has doubts that McCain’s strategists will go as low as is neccessary to win, Daily Kos writer Dengre has a sobering reality check.
No, I don’t think Obama should personally get into it with McCain’s mud-slingers. But he would do well to heed Ed Kilgore’s advice, in his Friday post,

…Obama really does need to spend less time on broad-based indictments of “Washington” or “lobbyists” or “politics as usual,” and spend a lot more time talking about his actual opponent, the actual opposing party, and the actual incumbent that links them.

McCain and his strategists understand that, to work, a negative meme has to be launched early and hammered throughout the campaign. Then, in the closing days of the general election, McCain can affect a ‘high road’ persona, the dirty work having been done.
So far Obama’s attacks against McCain have been a little too tame. The Obama campaign needs to define the precise meme they want to hang on McCain and implement a strategy to make it stick. Easier said than done, but a challenge that has to be made — and soon — for Democrats to take the white house.

At FiveThirtyEight today, Nate Silver unveils the mysteries of the Gallup Tracking poll cross-tabs, and provides a fascinating comparison of Barack Obama’s recent standing in various demographic categories to John Kerry’s 2004 performance (as measured by exit polls).
Turns out Obama’s doing better than Kerry in every category other than one: self-identified Democrats, where he trails Kerry by nine percentage points. Obama, on the other hand, beats Kerry among self-identified Republicans by fourteen percentage points.
Aside from issues related to the changing partisan composition of the electorate since 2004 (a sizable drop in GOP identification, with modest gains for Democrats and a big increase in indies), this particular finding should be regarded as transitional, since the dynamics of a general election campaign will almost certainly boost Obama among Democrats and McCain among Republicans. But it’s still interesting.
The most impressive Kerry-to-Obama gains are among Hispanics (up 28%, though exit poll underestimation of Kerry’s Hispanic percentages is a factor there), and voters under 30 (up 21%).

Jon Chait’s L.A. Times column yesterday suggested that Barack Obama needs to spend some time away from uplifting, positive campaign events, and go after John McCain with hammer and tongs. Indeed, said Chait, McCain’s stubborn resilience in the polls is probably attributable to the entire focus of the campaign on Obama, which enables the vulnerable Republican to feed doubts, however clumsily, about his opponent with little to lose:

A recent poll found that half the voters are focused on what kind of president Obama would make, while only a quarter are focused on McCain. Obama has attracted more media attention — and more criticism: A Center for Media and Public Affairs study found that, over the last six weeks, the major news networks have expressed proportionately more negative assessments of Obama than McCain.
McCain may be committing lots of blunders, but the blunders aren’t hurting him because the spotlight is on Obama. McCain is getting attention for his attacks on Obama, especially his frequent insinuations that Obama lacks patriotism.

Chait goes on to suggest that Obama may be making the same mistake as John Kerry made in 2004, eschewing negative campaigning on the theory that voters had already reached judgment on the Republican Party and its candidate.
I generally agree with Jon’s prescription, but have a somewhat different take on the Kerry precedent, and on the factors that may be leading Obama to resist a more sharply partisan campaign.
The relentlessly positive 2004 Democratic convention that Jon cites was less the product of a flawed grand strategy than of an overreaction to some focus groups that showed undecided voters harshly rejecting partisan appeals. (As Jon notes, and as Drew Westen emphasized in The Political Brain, such reports represent what voters would like to think about themselves, not how they actual react). The instructions to convention message staff to ruthlessly stamp out references to the GOP, or even to Bush, in everyone’s speeches, came down quite late. (As one of the unhappy enforcers of that edict in a rehearsal room, I subversively let a few partisan notes make it onto the teleprompter, but not enough to annoy, much less swat, a gnat.)
A somewhat different misjudgment–though it’s hard to say it really had an effect on the outcome–was made by Team Kerry in the homestretch of the campaign, reflecting the virtually universal belief of political scientists that late undecided voters (whose “wrong track” sentiments were extremely high) would break against the incumbent. That’s why last-minute polls showing a dead heat cheered the Kerry campaign, and also why they bought the early exit polls showing a victory in all the key states.
Having absorbed the lesson, I don’t think the Obama campaign is making the same mistake, but they have their own reasons for downplaying partisan attacks that connect the dots between McCain, Bush and the GOP. For one thing, Obama has always disparaged excessive partisanship and other examples of “politics as usual.” For another, he’s still hoping to win a small but significant slice of self-identified Republicans, not to mention winning genuine independents, who are often lukewarm towards partisan Kabuki Theater. And let’s don’t forget there are elements of Team Obama, with significant support in the netroots, who think it’s important that the candidate repudiate Democratic as well as Republican malefactors in Washington, and the Clinton as well as the Bush legacy.
This last consideration is reminiscent of the decision made by Al Gore in 2000 to detach himself from his own Democratic administration, and campaign against “the powerful,” as defined by a list of unpopular corporate actors. I’m sure it made sense at the time, particularly given Gore’s conviction that he had to separate himself from Bill Clinton. But it also tended to make voters think they were choosing between Al Gore and the pharmaceutical companies rather than Al Gore and George W. Bush. Eventually a lot of voters listened to the Bush’s campaign’s disingenuous claims that they, too, wanted a Patient’s Bill of Rights and a Rx drug benefit, and by failing to connect the dots between his shadowy enemies and his actual opponent, the reborn neo-populist Gore ironically succeeded in blurring the lines between the parties more than Bill Clinton ever had. (Yes, yes, I know he actually won, but I’m one of those who thought he could have won by a margin that would not have enabled Katherine Harris and the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the popular judgment). With Gore spending much of his time shadow-boxing unpopular corporate villains, Bush, the chosen vehicle of an unholy alliance of theocons and K Street greedheads, got away far more than he should have with projecting himself as a “reformer with results” who simply offered a different “change agenda.”
Barack Obama may be in danger of repeating Gore’s even more than Kerry’s mistakes. As Jon Chait suggests, John McCain’s entire candidacy is based on a dubious effort to maintain his brief 2000 “maverick” image after having shamelessly pandered to the conservative ascendency of his party, while actually championing one of its worst legacies, the Iraq War. He presents a big fat target for a negative but entirely fair and fact-filled campaign. Everything I know about the Obama campaign suggests that it’s not at all averse to the occasional, strategic, cut-and-parry attack on McCain. But Obama really does need to spend less time on broad-based indictments of “Washington” or “lobbyists” or “politics as usual,” and spend a lot more time talking about his actual opponent, the actual opposing party, and the actual incumbent that links them.

Patrick Healy’s article, “Obama Camp Sees Potential in G.O.P. Discontent” in today’s New York Times has one of the more eloquent plugs for the Democratic Presumptive yet uttered. And it comes from a pedigreed Republican, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of one of the better GOP presidents.

Obama seems like a leader who can deal with challenges that are highly complex, nuanced and interconnected,” Ms. Eisenhower said, “and he has the language and communication skills and temperament to engage a set of world leaders who are his generation

In brutally-stark contrast to his opponent, I would add. Healy notes also that GOP campaign consultant Mike Murphy expects Obama to get more Republican votes than did Kerry.
Healy goes on to discuss pro-Obama stirrings among “whispering Republicans.” He cites the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll in which Obama got about 9 percent of self-identified Republicans (Kerry got 6 percent at mid-summer, ’04).
Democrats hoping to take a significant bite out of the GOP demographic, however, will not get much encouragement from the historical record. As Emory University political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz pointed out in a recent post at Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball,

…In contrast to the fluidity and unpredictability that has characterized the nomination contests in both parties, the voting patterns in November will be highly predictable and consistent with those seen in other recent general elections — close to 90 percent of all votes will be cast by party identifiers for their own party’s presidential candidate. Whichever party turns out more of its own supporters on Election Day is likely to emerge as the winner.

Still, we can hope that November ’08 breaks the tradition, at least enough to make a difference in one or two swing states. It’s been a long time since a Republican president blundered America into an elective war, and I’m sure there are growing numbers of conservatives out there who are tired of seeing their taxes squandered on the open-ended occupation of Iraq.

With two Roman Catholic governors, Kathleen Sebelius and Tim Kaine, reportedly on Barack Obama’s short-list for the vice presidential nomination, it was inevitable that comparisons would be made about their relationship with their church. Catholic historian Michael Sean Winters has an article up on the New Republic site that argues Sebelius would have a harder time appealing to her co-religionists than Kaine.
Winters offers two reasons for that judgment: (1) Sebelius has been publicly rebuked and asked to refrain from taking communion by her bishop after she vetoed a bill restricting abortion providers in Kansas, making her an obvious target for a revival of the “wafer war” quasi-excommunications by conservative bishops that dogged John Kerry in 2004; and (2) aside from getting along with his bishop, Kaine, unlike Sebelius, has made his Catholicism a central feature of his political persona.
I’m not an expert on Catholicism, but do know something about John Kerry’s experience and about Catholic opinion. And based on that, I’d say Winters’ second point is more compelling than his first. Kerry’s “religion problem” mainly flowed from his admitted reluctance to talk about his faith and its relevance to his public life. In combination with his conflicts with conservative bishops, his reticence made him seem a nominal Catholic or even a bad Catholic, even though he was actually a lot more religiously observant than George W. Bush. And that in turn probably reduced his appeal to Catholics qua Catholics.
As Winters says, Sebelius could have the same problem. But if, on the other hand, she did find a way to articulate her faith in a convincing way, her conflict with the local hierarchy might actually help make her a champion to the significant majority of Catholics who don’t agree with the church’s position on abortion, and who may soon be itching to rebel against conservative threats to massively expand the “wafer wars” by witholding communion from regular church-goers who think or vote “wrong.”
Conversely, while Kaine’s proud Catholicism (not to mention his missionary service and his Spanish-languge fluency) is undoubtedly a political asset, his lack of friction with the church is partly attributable to views on abortion and LGBT rights that are offensive to some Catholics and many non-Catholics, and moreover, aren’t very consistent with those of Barack Obama.
I’m not “endorsing” either candidate or anyone else (though it should be noted that another apparent short-lister, Joe Biden, is a Catholic with long experience of navigating ecclesiastical shoals). But if Obama’s interested in appealing to Catholics by his choice of running-mate, it’s not just a simple matter of picking the candidate least objectionable to the more conservative ranks of the hierarchy. A clear majority of American Catholics are “objectionable” to these bishops, and that’s important to keep in mind.

A post from Ed yesterday noted that the recent complaining about Barack Obama’s “presumptuous” transition planning would be better directed to the signs of disorganization and infighting being exhibited by John McCain’s staff and advisors. In the Politico today, Kenneth P. Vogel runs down the list of policy issues on which McCain and his advisors have been at odds, though the story gets a little confusing thanks to McCain’s various flip-flops. Here’s the nut graph:

McCain has staked out an eclectic and occasionally politically inconvenient hodgepodge of policy positions that has bucked the Republican line on some issues, backed it on others and — on still others — gone from bucking it to backing it. Keeping him on message would be a challenge for the most unified chorus of advisers — and Team McCain is hardly that.

Vogel tries to do the “on the other hand” thing by searching for similar divisions in the Obama ranks, without a whole lot of success.
The most intriguing set of conflicts within Team McCain involves “senior advisor” Carly Fiorina, the very former HP exec who has occasionally made lists of potential running-mates for the GOP candidate:

Fiorina also has found herself at ideological odds with McCain on key issues.
McCain stumbled when asked about her suggestion this month that insurance companies should cover birth control prescriptions. In recent years, McCain has voted against requiring such coverage. The campaign subsequently clarified that McCain opposes all insurance mandates and contended that Fiorina’s comments were consistent with that stance.
And Fiorina this month suggested that McCain might be open to new taxes on the wealthy, which conflicts with McCain’s own pledges not to consider any new taxes.
This week, though, McCain signaled he might be willing to consider raising payroll taxes for Social Security. Then on Tuesday, he sternly said, “No,” when asked at a Nevada event if he would raise taxes as president.

All in all, it looks like McCain has definitively distinguished himself from George W. Bush in one respect: the famous discipline of W.’s retinue is nowhere to be found in Team McCain.

Michael Duffy’s generally solid Time piece on Barack Obama’s “dilemma” in choosing a running-mate used half a blackjack metaphor, suggesting that he had to decide between “doubling-down” and “compensating.” As an occasional blackjack player, I’d say the second option is to “buy insurance”–choose a running-mate who could help reduce a potential McCain “blackjack” hand based on Obama’s lack of experience, especially in foreign policy.
This stylistic quibble aside, Duffy’s got the basic question right:

Does Obama counterbalance his relative inexperience in general, and in foreign policy and defense matters in particular, and go with a trusted old-timer or pick a fresh face, someone who can pose as an agent of change, a relative newcomer just like himself?

Outside the Obama campaign itself, which has (maybe deliberately) dropped a lot of contradictory hints on this question, the choice between reinforcing or complementing Obama’s appeal often breaks down on ideological and generational lines. Netroots folk, in particular, who think of Obama’s candidacy as representing a “crashing of the gates” of both parties’ center-left-to-right “Washington Establishment” naturally think he should “double-down” by choosing another anti-Iraq-War outsider. Lots of Democratic veterans, mostly (but not exclusively) in the ideological “center,” worry endlessly about McCain’s ability to paint Obama as a recent state senator who has no business becoming commander-in-chief, and prefer a “reassuring” running-mate with more experience, particular on national security matters.
There are also arguments within arguments. Some progressive national security wonks agree that Obama has work to do to become credible as a commander-in-chief, but contend that he must do that by convincingly articulating his own foreign policy and national security vision. If he can do that, a “reassuring” running-mate is unnecessary; if he can’t, then putting Sam Nunn or Joe Biden or some general on the ticket won’t do much good, and could do harm on other fronts.
Many double-downers like Markos Moulitsas often cite the mold-breaking example of Bill Clinton’s choice of Al Gore in 1992 as the “reinforce the message” template Obama should follow. The analogy is accurate so far as Gore’s ideological, regional, and generational profile was concerned. But as Big Tent Democrat riposted to Markos, Gore, a congressional veteran with a strong defense background, also “compensated” for Clinton’s lack of Washington or foreign policy experience.
If Gore was actually a “two-fer,” or a compromise between the reinforcing and complenting functions, some see the same qualities, says Duffy, in Evan Bayh, a former two-term governor from a red state who’s also served for a while on the Senate intelligence and armed services committees.
But in case this doesn’t seem complicated enough, cutting across the “double-down” and “buy-insurance” debate are strong objections by Democratic factions to particular candidates with either profile. GLBT and feminist activists have major issues with “reinforcer” Tim Kaine and “complementer” Sam Nunn. Those who believe Obama’s running-mate must share his “right from the start” position on the Iraq War object to “reinforcer” Kaine, “complementer” Biden, and “two-fer” Bayh. And “reinforcer” Kathleen Sebelius would supposedly offend hard-core Hillary Clinton supporters who think it would be an insult to the former candidate if Obama chose a “less-qualified” woman.
In other words, there are no easy choices for Obama, as I argued some time ago in supporting the Unity Ticket concept, since an Obama-Clinton ticket would at least have the logic of healing primary wounds.
At this late date, insofar as Obama-Clinton is by most accounts not an option, there are really two questions that remain. Does Obama feel strongly about the choice between doubling-down and buying insurance? And is he willing to take some untimely intraparty flack for choosing someone who will cause serious heartburn among elements of his progressive base of support?
If the answer to the second question is “no,” then my final handicapping thought is that Sebelius is the “reinforcer,” and Biden the “complementer,” who are most likely to get the nod, with Bayh likely only if Obama insists on a “two-fer.” If Obama doesn’t mind making intraparty waves, then all bets are off, and Nunn, Kaine, and God knows who else, could be on the table.
Does that clear it all up for you, dear reader? No, I didn’t think so.

The latest McCain campaign attack line on Barack Obama, representing one of the few options for mocking the Democrat’s highly successful overseas trip, and building on the older idea that Obama’s some sort of egomaniacal Messiah figure (“The One,” as McCain’s staff calls him), has been that he’s pretending to have already won the presidency. This meme got a boost today from WaPo’s Dana Milbank, who had some irresponsible fun with the idea that Obama’s gone from being the “presumptive” nominee to the “presumptuous” nominee who’s engaging in a “victory tour” and “acting presidential.”
Since a lot of the people mocking Obama’s “presumptuousness” are also predicting that Obama could lose because Americans just can’t envision him as Commander-in-Chief, this is a pretty disingenuous criticism. But the particular complaint that really makes me crazy is this one, as articulated by Milbank:

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported last week that Obama has directed his staff to begin planning for his transition to the White House, causing Republicans to howl about premature drape measuring.

We should all hope that both candidates are putting into motion some planning for a post-victory transition. That’s particularly true of Obama, given the vast personnel and policies changes invariably associated with a change of party administration. Anyone who remembers the chaos and lost time and opportunities associated with Bill Clinton’s transition operation in 1992 wouldn’t want to wish that on any president. And somehow, I doubt that most critics of Obama’s “presumptuousness” had issues with George W. Bush’s open transition planning during the Florida crisis of 2000, which had the cover, of course, of Bush’s claim that he had already won.
The idea that directing staff to begin thinking about the transition represents some sort of “taking the eyes off the ball” mistake by Obama doesn’t make any sense, either. Certainly his policy staff has some spare time; with the candidate’s agenda and platform already in place, their labors will be largely limited to new developments; nuances related to the candidate’s travel (viz. the deployment of his foreign policy advisors during the overseas trip); and later on, debate prep.
What would indeed represent dangerous “drape-measuring” behavior? Staff infighting and jockeying for future position in a “presumptive” administration. As I recall, a fair amount of that went on during the Gore and Kerry campaigns. But if that’s happening in Team Obama, it’s certainly been well-hidden–as opposed to Team McCain, where the candidate’s unfortunate tendency to blur the chain of command and tolerate rivalries among advisors is a bad sign not only for his campaign, but for a McCain administration.

The GOP is betting heavy that Dems’ opposition to drilling for oil in environmentally-sensitive areas is a big winner for Republicans. Chicago Tribune reporter Amanda Erickson quotes Sierra Club spokesman Josh Donner in her article today on Obama’s meeting on energy reform strategy with House of Reps members,

There’s a stalemate with Republicans…They are determined to filibuster anything [that does not involve drilling] … because Republicans think this is the issue they’re going to take to the bank.

As part of the GOP strategy, MN Republican Rep.Michelle Bachmann’s Wall St. Journal op-ed article, “The Democrats’ Energy Charade” vents her disdain for the Democratic-sponsored Drill Responsibly in leased Lands (DRILL) Act, which would increase the allowable leases in the National Petroleum Reserve, with some modest environmental precautions. But DRILL would not allow new exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), which is closer to existing pipeline structure. Nor would it permit additional offshore drilling for oil, which is a cornerstone of McCain’s energy ‘plan,’ along with nuclear power development and a suspension of the federal gas tax. And so it is anathema to Republicans.
In contrast to McCain’s plan, Sen. Obama opposes offshore drilling for oil, supports resolution of safety and storage issues before more nuclear power is expanded and he calls McCain’s ‘gas tax holiday’ a gimmick. Obama would require that oil companies drill in areas they have already leased, pay consumers a rebate and invest $150 billion in renewable energy
Democrats are having a tough time getting enough votes to move legislation like DRILL forward, due to the threat of a fillibuster and some ‘blue dog’ and ‘oil patch ‘ Dems who want drilling regulations eased. Recent opinion polls indicate that Dems do indeed have a very tough sell in their opposition to unrestricted drilling for oil. A June 26 Zogby poll showed 74 percent in support of offshore drilling. Even 58 percent of Dems in the poll favored offshore drilling. And in a recent CNN poll, 73 percent wanted it.
However, a Rasmussen poll taken on Monday night may have identified the weak link in the Republican position. The survey found that when respondents are given the choice between “cracking down on speculators or lifting the ban on offshore drilling,” 45 percent favor the former, while 42 percent favor the latter. The survey concludes that,

At this moment in time, there is support for offshore drilling, regulating speculators, more nuclear power, research for alternative energy sources, and drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The Rasmussen poll wrap-up also noted that their poll taken last week found,

…52% support building new nuclear plants, but 31% are opposed. This is a slight increase in support. Backing for Obama’s proposal to spend $150 billion on green energy resources dropped slightly to 54%…Forty-four percent (44%) say reducing the price of gas and oil is more important than protecting the environment, but 41% disagree. These numbers track closely with previous findings on this question.

Energy reform is clearly a tricky proposition for both parties. When congress adjourns for the August recess in a few days, there is a strong probability that nothing will have been passed. Then the battle is about spinning the blame for inaction, in which case the Rasmussen report notes,

In the latest survey, 46% oppose the present GOP congressional strategy of blocking other energy legislation until a vote on the offshore ban is allowed, but 28% support it. Even more Republicans (44%) are against their congressional leaders’ strategy than for it (38%)

It would be hard to make a persuasive case that alternative energy development could be a practicable substitute for drilling for more oil in the short term. Opinion polls indicate strong support for developing wind power as a longer-term reform, for example. But mid-west wind farms and the like still seem like a distant dream to many voters. ‘Sure, it sounds great, but we need oil now.’ Never mind that whatever oil we find won’t be in the pipeline for years. Most voters apparently believe also that adequate precautions could be taken to have new offshore drilling that doesn’t damage the environment.
Dems can help their case by fighting harder for limiting oil market speculation, as well as for developing alternative energy. And, Dems have under-used leverage to wield in holding Republicans more accountable for their obstruction of better fuel efficiency standards. Although, there hasn’t been much polling about it recently, a CBS News/New York Times poll taken back in April of last year found that 92 percent of Americans supported “requiring car manufacturers to produce cars that are more energy efficient” — about as close to unanimous as you find in opinion polls.

We’re not all that into mystic prognostication at TDS, but we nonetheless feel compelled to share an interesting fact from a CNNpolitics.com post, “Midsummer polls often provide early glimpse of election results.” You’ve heard it said here, among other places, that early horse-race polls don’t mean much. Turns out that is not always true. In Gallup Polls taken 100 days before the presidential election, the leading candidate has won in November in all but two presidential elections since 1960, Nixon-Kennedy (’60) and Dukakis-Bush (’88). That would be 10 of the last 12 presidential elections. Heck, why not calculate it from ’64 on — that would be 10 of the last 11 presidential elections. (Queue up Twilight Zone music). Gallup presently has Obama up by 8. May their streak continue.