Traditionally, it was thought that presidential general elections didn’t really start until Labor Day, or perhaps the two national political conventions. This year the September holiday is in very close proximity to the Democratic and Republican conventions. And the Republican campaign, at least, still seems to be going through all sorts of preparatory shake-down cruises.
But some aspects of the general election landscape become more or less established long before the official opening gun sounds. And according to Roll Call‘s electoral handicapper Stu Rothenberg, the fundamental lay of the land isn’t likely to change between now and November:

With just about four months to go until Election Day, the national political landscape continues to favor Democrats strongly. Indeed, almost every bit of national- level data reflects problems for the Republicans….
For months, even for years, the national news has been bad, so it’s not surprising that voters want change. All of the numbers strongly suggest that Americans see the Democratic Party as the better vehicle for bringing about change than the Republican Party.
In spite of some better news from Iraq, most Americans think the war was a mistake and the administration’s performance inept. Perhaps it’s a sign of Republicans’ problems that most GOP officeholders and strategists would rather talk about the war than about domestic issues.
The economy has sputtered along for a while, but the most recent news has been much worse. Increased unemployment, continuing problems in the nation’s financial sector and much higher fuel costs and commodity prices (and therefore inflationary pressures) have further eroded consumer confidence and pulled the rug out from under stocks.
There is simply no reason to believe that the news will improve measurably between now and late October, which means that there is no reason to believe that the American public’s underlying mood will turn up dramatically.

Horse-race coverage of the presidential contest tends to obscure the underlying partisan dynamics. But as Rothenberg–in no way a Democratic partisan–concludes, the horse bearing the unfortunate colors of the GOP has an exceptionally rough track ahead.

Thomas F. Schaller’s July 1 New York Times article “The South Will Fall Again” makes a strong case that the Obama campaign would be wise not to invest much time and resources into winning electoral votes in “the 11 states of the former Confederacy.” Schaller admits that Virginia and Florida are exceptional cases that Obama can hope to win on November 4th. But he pretty much disses the idea that the electoral votes of other southern states are in play.
Schaller relies on ’04 election data to prove his point. Only in 3 of the 11 southern states , FL, AR and VA, did Kerry cut Bush’s margin of victory below 10 percent. And only in FL did Kerry come within 5 percent of winning. Demographics have changed somewhat during the last 4 years, with a large Hispanic influx into the region and northern job-seekers emigrating south. But it’s unclear how much this would benefit Democrats.
Schaller cites aggregate statistics indicating the Black voter turnout in the 11 southern states is proportional to the population, “17.9 percent of the age-eligible population and 17.9 percent of actual voters in 2004.” He offers the example of Mississippi to illustrate that “the more blacks there are in a Southern state, the more likely the white voters are to vote Republican.”
In their May 16 NYT article “In the South, a Force to Challenge the G.O.P.,” Adam Nossitor and Janny Scott point out:

In one black precinct in the town of Amory, Miss., the number of voters nearly doubled, to 413, from the Congressional election in 2006, and this for a special election with nothing else on the ballot. Meanwhile, in a nearby white precinct, the number of voters dropped by nearly half.
A similar increase has been evident in Southern states with presidential primaries this year. In South Carolina, the black vote in the primary more than doubled from 2004, to 295,000, according to exit poll estimates. In Georgia, it rose to 536,000 from 289,000.
One expert on African-American politics, David A. Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, called those numbers “almost astounding.” Black turnout also shot up in states like Maryland, Virginia and Louisiana, even after Hurricane Katrina had driven many Louisianians out of state.

Schaller argues that even the most optimistic projections of Black turnout will not be enough to overcome the GOP advantage in the south. However, Schaller’s analysis doesn’t take recent polling trends into account. According to recent poll averages cited by Pollster.com, Obama is behind McCain 3.2 percent in FL, 5.3 percent in GA and 2.9 percent in NC, and Obama leads McCain by 1.4 percent in VA. Granted, early horse race polls are lousy predictors of what will happen in November, but they do give candidates some idea of how they are running. In light of these numbers, it doesn’t make much sense for Obama to “write off” NC or GA just yet, especially if he choses Sam Nunn as a running mate. It appears that his investment in those two states is good strategy at this stage.
Obama is not Kerry, who may have been the ideal candidate from the point of view of southern Republicans. Another consideration is that Republicans have a lot more to answer for this time around. And how well does Obama’s demonstrated ability to connect with young white voters play in the south? These are just a few of the issues Obama must consider in tweaking his southern strategy in the months ahead.

Colbert I. King, one of WaPo‘s Pulitzer Prize winners (2003), has an article commenting on the difference between Senator Obama’s speech this week at the Truman Memorial Building in Independence, MO and Frederick Douglass’s “4th of July Oration,” which was actually delivered on July 5th 1852 to Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. King is interested in the difference between the two speeches as a measure of America’s progress in race relations and the meaning of patriotism in this context.
Douglass’s speech, delivered 156 years ago today, is one of the masterpieces of American oratory and one of the most eloquent speeches ever delivered in the English language. Indeed, there is nothing Winston Churchill, Henry Clay or Martin Luther King, Jr. could have taught Douglass about tapping the power of the mother tongue. It is routinely included in ‘Great Speeches’ collections, usually in the ‘social criticism’ category, and it really has no peer as an educational tool for teaching people what slavery was like and how it corrupted America’s nobler ideals. You can read the whole dazzling thing right here.
King’s article cites interesting similarities between Senator Obama and Douglass:

Although generations apart, Douglass and Obama have common characteristics. Both are of mixed race. Like Douglass, Obama grew up without the steadying hand of a father…Both men sought life’s fortunes far from their places of birth.

King explains the similarities — and differences — between Obama’s speech and Douglass’s oration, among them:

And in their speeches on independence and patriotism, both cited the courage and wisdom of the men who sought total separation of the colonies from the crown…Obama’s speech, “The America We Love,” lauded the men of Lexington and Concord who launched the American Revolution. Obama also agreed with Douglass on the significance of the founding documents and the idea of liberty as a God-given right worth dying for.
But while Douglass noted his estrangement from America’s experiment with democracy, Obama claimed America as his own and the Fourth of July as a time to rejoice.

To be fair, Douglass concluded his remarkable speech on a stirring note of hope, and there is a sense in which Senator Obama’s nomination represents a giant step forward toward the fulfillment of Douglass’s hope and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream. All Americans should be proud that one of our major political parties has advanced to this patriotic milestone, and Democrats can take special pride that our Party has taken the lead. We can also be proud that our nominee apparent has the speech-making skills to illuminate the historic moment. The patriotic challenge before us now is to bring it home on November 4th.

In a coincidental timing that undoubtedly pleased a lot of his fans, former Sen. Jesse Helms died early this morning after a long, debilitating illness.
I don’t have much to say about Helms’ career beyond what I wrote earlier this year in a Washington Monthly review of a new Helms biography. He was a political pioneer in lots of ways, some having to do with the mechanical practice of politics, but mostly involving the racial and sexual wedge politics of the late twentieth century, which are still with us.
By all accounts Helms had his good points as a person if not as a politician, living a modest life of devotion to family and friends, and to his particular notion of the demands of God and country. That God alone can judge him now, and may he, as well as those he unjustly tormented, now rest in peace.

Each Independence Day, a lot of empty words are spilled, some honorably, some less honorably. But it’s important to understand that different people define the term “patriotism” quite differently.
Peter Beinart’s essay on patriotism in Time this week seeks to distinguish “conservative” from “liberal” patriotism:

[C]onservatives tend to believe that loving America today requires loving its past. Conservatives often fret about “politically correct” education, which forces America’s students to dwell on its past sins. They’re forever writing books like America: The Last Best Hope (by William J. Bennett) and America: A Patriotic Primer (by Lynne Cheney), which teach children that historically the U.S. was a pretty nifty place. These books are based on the belief that our national forefathers are a bit like our actual mothers and fathers: if we dishonor them, we dishonor ourselves….
If conservatives tend to see patriotism as an inheritance from a glorious past, liberals often see it as the promise of a future that redeems the past. Consider Obama’s original answer about the flag pin: “I won’t wear that pin on my chest,” he said last fall. “Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.” Will make this country great? It wasn’t great in the past? It’s not great as it is?
The liberal answer is, Not great enough. For liberals, America is less a common culture than a set of ideals about democracy, equality and the rule of law. American history is a chronicle of the distance between those ideals and reality. And American patriotism is the struggle to narrow the gap. Thus, patriotism isn’t about honoring and replicating the past; it’s about surpassing it.

Beinart goes on to make the pat and uncompelling argument that the two brands of patriotism are not only distinct, but precisely of equal value, presumably at all times and all places. Obviously, a lot of liberals share a reflexive pride in their country that’s not calibrated emotiionally to their precise assessment of America’s validation of its ideals and promise. And there are conservatives who stress the need for America to apply its ideals–sometimes to terrible effect, as in the neoconservative fantasy of a Middle East made over in our image. More importantly, he doesn’t really grapple with how we should think when conservative and liberal models of patriotism are in direct conflict.
But Beinart is definitely onto something, and I would argue that America today particularly needs the form of patriotism he identifies with liberals. To the extent that our country’s past has been characterized by true greatness, it has been when we did take our founding ideals seriously, at the expense of blind obedience to tradition or the kind of sentimental self-praise that is natural to people everywhere. And if we want people everywhere, and future generations of Americans, to consider this country something unique in the annals of nations, it’s a very good time to recommit ourselves to freedom, equality, justice, the rule of law, and the wise and generous use of the blessings we have been given by our forebears.

Editor’s Note: We are very pleased to publish this Strategy Memo by Bruce W. Jentleson, Professor of Public Policy Studies and Political Science at Duke University. Dr. Jentleson is probably best known as the author of American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century.
Print Version
His opposition to the Iraq war helped Barack Obama win the Democratic presidential nomination. Will it help him win the presidency?
It could and should, but isn’t necessarily helping him yet. Polls show Americans very strongly opposed to the Iraq war but not sure whether the anti-war Obama or pro-war John McCain will handle the issue better going forward. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer even issued a “bring it on” dare to “make the election about Iraq.”
Why this seeming paradox? And how can Obama translate opposition to the Iraq war to support for him?
Iraq needs to be addressed as a three-dimensional issue: (1) the war itself and the need to shift emphasis from what Obama is against to what he is for, and not just the calendar for getting out but the alternative strategy for doing so; (2) Iraq as a measure of Obama’s overall foreign policy capability, particularly passing the commander-in-chief test without getting trapped into the “I’ll bomb, too” Democratic wannabe role; and (3) Iraq as a temperature-taker as to whether this is another anti-military Democrat or someone who genuinely respects the institution, its people and its culture.
Initial General Election Poll Data
Four main points should be made about Iraq and public opinion:
First, Iraq remains a crucial issue. The economy is now issue #1, with 33% saying in the June ABC-Washington Post poll that it would be the most important issue in their vote for president. But Iraq is issue #2 at 19%, with the next nearest issue being health care at 8%. While it’s true that Iraq was the top issue a year ago, the fact that it is still as high as it is amidst the worst economic problems in at least a quarter century and despite the surge having reduced the sense of immediate crisis shows real political staying power.
Second, the public remains very opposed to the war. On whether going to war was the right or wrong decision, the numbers are 38% vs. 54%; phrased as “whether it was worth fighting,” 34% yes – 63% no. Some credit is being given to the surge with the percentage saying we are winning up from 29% in January 2007 to 38% in June 2008 (ABC-Washington Post). But the same poll showed only 41% in support of keeping military forces in “until civil order is restored” and 55% opposing. The Newsweek June 18-19 poll giving options for keeping “large numbers of U.S. military personnel in Iraq” had 45% saying bring them home now or in less than one year, 20% saying within 1-2 years, 4% 3-5 years and 26% as long as it takes to achieve U.S. goals.
Third, Democrats are faring well on party preference questions for both Iraq and foreign policy generally. When asked which party would handle Iraq better, Democrats have been pretty consistently getting a 10+ margin, e.g., 50% to 34% in an April CBS-New York Times poll. On who would do a better job generally on foreign policy, the gap in recent polls varies but favors Democrats, 51-31 the largest margin, 45-40 the narrowest. Even the narrowest contrasts quite favorably with the strongly pro-Republican pattern that largely held for many years, including 47-28 in the early Reagan years; 60-26 in October 1991 after the first Gulf War; 51-33 in March 1994 amidst the early Clinton administration failures in Somalia and elsewhere; and 53-36 at the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term. Terrorism is the one issue on which Republicans still hold an advantage. Here the recent range goes from 47-40 to 31-30, although juxtaposed with disapproval of the Bush terrorism policy (57-38).
Fourth, though, is that when personalized to the presidential candidates, the assessments are more mixed. McCain was ahead 50-41 in an April poll on who would do a better job handling the Iraq war. This was down to 46-43 in a May poll, and 47-46 in a June poll (ABC-Washington Post). Obama does better on the differently phrased question on confidence to “make the right decisions about the war in Iraq”. When asked in February their overall confidence levels were comparable (58% McCain, 57% Obama) but within that those very confident in McCain were 27% while only 20% were very confident in Obama. The following month the candidates remained even at 56% in the overall numbers but McCain’s very confident number had fallen to 19% with Obama at 17%. Still, these are quite different from issue-based preferences on which the anti-Iraq margin is much more robust.
In sum, while Iraq is not McCain’s issue, it is much less Obama’s than it could be given the issue preferences.

Read more…

Editor’s Note: The Democratic Strategist welcomes submissions on the activities of “partners” who share similar goals on the political or intellectual battle-fronts. This piece from longtime TDS contributor Matt Compton is about the new online project of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to support Democratic state legislative candidates around the country.
Contributors to the The Democratic Strategist wear a lot of hats. By day, I’m the communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Today, we are launching a redesign of DLCC.org.
I bring this up on the Strategist because I want to note how our new online presence reflects an evolution in the way we approach political messaging and a reaction to the changing way that voters consume media.
A recent study for the Pew Project for the Internet and American Life found that fully 46 percent of all Americans have used the web to get news about the 2008 campaigns, share their views, and mobilize others.
That point is significant. The Internet has become an important resource for voters because it allows them to access candidates and campaigns directly without the filters of the media or the scripted distance imposed by television.
There are 7,382 legislators across the country, and they represent every conceivable kind of district. Most have been using radio, television, and mail for years, but for many, the Internet remains unfamiliar. They see its potential but have reservations about its complexity and challenges.
This cycle, our committee has partnered with Wired for Change to introduce a resource that reduces the barriers for campaigning online. We call it DLCCWeb.
Our goal is to make the Internet simple and affordable enough that all of our legislative candidates can build and update their own websites. They can choose from a range of templates and color schemes to create the best design for their campaigns. Blog publishing is built right into DLCCWeb, along with advocacy tools, online fundraising, and social network integration.
This cycle, more than 200 Democrats in 30 states (with a whole range of technology comfort levels) are using the Internet in a way that they haven’t before because of this service. To me, that represents a major step forward in participatory democracy and a big advantage for our party at the state level.
For our committee, a new website is the next logical step.
DLCC.org will be a clearinghouse for news about statehouses and legislative elections. The centerpiece will be a blog, hosted right on the front page, which will be updated multiple times a day, at least five days a week. Most posts will be short and quick, though each will include some sort of commentary and context. Most content will be written by our staff, but as we move forward, we plan to encourage contributions from our elected leaders and allies.
We want to start a conversation about our nation’s statehouses. We want to engage readers online to help us identify the next generation of leaders, to set real Democratic agendas in the legislatures, and to build new majorities before the next round Congressional redistricting.
I hope you’ll take a moment to visit the site and let me know what you think. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment here or there or send me an email — compton@dlcc.org.
Update: Check out a little marketing video that Wired for Change put together about DLCCWeb here.

In the games of bridge and chess, as well as in warfare, there is a particular kind of strategy that is called an “endplay”. It is aimed at maneuvering the opponent into a situation where he or she is obligated to make a move and yet every possible move that is available results in a loss.
In a real sense this was the situation in which Wesley Clark found himself yesterday. By now – and with the benefit of hindsight – virtually every Democratic activist in America has thought of some clever response that Clark might have used to avoid the manufactured scandal and outrage over his remarks.
Rather than add to this specific discussion, however, it is worth stepping back a little and noting that an “endplay” situation of this general kind will invariably present itself whenever McCain’s military service is offered as proof of his superior qualifications for the presidency:
1. Any reply that suggests McCain’s military experience – – either as a pilot or prisoner of war – is not clear evidence of his qualifications for high office can easily be spun as denigrating him personally, his service, bravery, fortitude etc. (This can be easier or harder depending on the exact words of the particular response, but an “outrageous denigration of John McCain” can always be concocted. If the actual reply itself is not sufficient, it can be re-edited, words can be taken out of context or simply mischaracterized by partisan commentators).
2. On the other hand, any response that tries to express respect for aspects of McCain’s biography can always be used as a rhetorical stepping stone to launch increasingly more provocatively phrased questions that finally demand some kind of clear dissent from the person being interviewed (this is, in part, what happened to Clark; Obama, on the other hand, handles similar situations with great patience and skill).
There is no iron-clad strategy for evading this trap – litigation lawyers and partisan commentators are both expert in framing no-win, “so tell the jury, when did you stop beating your wife” questions that are extremely difficult to answer well in the high-pressure, unscripted environment of a courtroom or media interview.
One specific approach worth keeping in mind, however, is that it is usually effective to directly quote the opposing candidate himself in order to refute him.
For example, in his 2004 book “Why Courage Matters – The Way to a Braver Life” John McCain said:

“I don’t really need much courage for the challenges most frequently encountered in a political career. Political courage in our consensual political system is seldom all that courageous”.

Read more…

Today, as Matt Yglesias earlier reminded us amnesiac Americans, is Canada Day–the Canadian parallel, though not exact, to our Independence Day.
I confess that I am an inveterate Canadaphile, and not for such ideological reasons as its health care system or the striking fact that even its current conservative leaders have chosen to mark this Canada Day with apologies to its aboriginal population. No, it’s the basic decency, civility, and sense of humor of most Canadians that has long attracted me. And their highly sophisticated knowledge of our own political system has always put us to shame.
Back in 2000, our then-Ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin (an old friend) arranged for me to speak about Al Gore’s policy views to an Ottawa meeting of deputy ministers–the people who more or less ran the Canadian government. They asked far better questions–and not just on issues affecting Canada–than you’d probably get from anything like a similar audience in the U.S.
It’s been a few years since I’ve had an opportunity to go north of the border, but I miss it, from PEI to BC. I wish all our friends and neighbors there a very happy Canada Day.

Today in Ohio Barack Obama announced that he would promote a much more robust initiative than George W. Bush to involve faith-based organizations in anti-poverty and other worthy public works, while insisting that public funds not be used to proselytize or discriminate.
As Steve Benen explains, there was some initial confusion due to a wire story–quickly corrected by the Obama campaign–that Obama would not insist on non-discrimination in the hiring and firing of staff for publicly-funded services.
And that clarification won’t satisfy those who believe that public dollars should not be extended to any organization, religious or ortherwise, that discriminates in any of its activities, however remote from publicly-funded activities.
It hasn’t drawn as much initial attention as the discrimination issue, but Obama also made it clear that recipients of public dollars under his initiative would be required to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs. That proviso was undoubtedly motivated by the widespread perception that much of Bush’s faith-based dollars were distributed as ill-disguised payoffs to ministers who supported the administration’s broader political and policy goals.