The (Liberal) Silent Majority

From the early stages of the 2008 presidential campaign we have heard voices from various political analysts, conservative and liberal alike, warning the Democratic candidates not to be too liberal and urging Republicans to not stray from the party line. Many liberal pundits were horrified when Obama won the nomination of the party due to their morbidly pessimistic outlook on assessing their own country’s ability to select “one of the most liberal members of the chamber” as the next commander-in-chief. Jon Meacham of Newsweek, drawing from half-conclusive historic examples of the Reagan era and the “silent majority” of Nixon, warned the readers that,

Should Obama win, he will have to govern a nation that is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal—a perennial reality that past Democratic presidents have ignored at their peril.

My previous readers know that even I was swayed by that logic. Obama’s victory would not happen said even the most ardent supporters of Obama I know. And yet it did. I think this development of events requires further analysis, analysis not of historic patters, from which many historians falsely draw a clear correlation between the nation’s elected officials and the voters’ own convictions forgetting the other variables, but of clear demographic data and evidence. We all know that it is a paradox of the American party system that enables the election of Democratic majorities in Congress and the election of Republican presidents in the majority of our elections in the 20th century, but is there any other method we can find to look into “Joe the Plumber’s” psyche?

I recently came upon two very interesting reports. One, “Pulse of Equality” by Harris Interactive, was published on December 2, 2008. The other, a bit older, from June 2007, named “The Progressive Majority” made by Media Matters for America. I read both of them and they both point at the same fact: it is easier being blue in America than you might think. Below I present a handful of interesting statistics from the two reports.

Indeed, in the US more people identify themselves as conservatives than liberals. 32% call themselves conservative, 23% call themselves liberal, and 26% call themselves moderates. One of the grave errors of political analysts is putting these moderates in one group with the conservatives. Let’s examine the issues specifically to assess whether this common practice is correct.

60% of Americans favor big, strong, and active government, even if it means expanded spending. A staggering 84% of Americans support the raise of minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, a trend that is strong and irrelevant of election year changes, etc. An interesting anecdote is that 53% of Americans think the Bush tax cuts were not worth it, while only 39% think they were.

Getting to the hottest issues, 62% of Americans wish to protect Roe vs. Wade, while only 29% want it overturned. An interesting observation is that the support or the lack of it for legal abortion does not change much since 1994, as opposed to views on homosexuality. There is a clear and straight (no pun intended) line of rising support for some sort of legal marriages and unions (38% support for each of these, and only 22% of the will to grant any sort of recognition for these contracts). 69% of Americans oppose any measures that would disable qualified same-sex couples from adopting children.

Americans generally favor tougher gun control laws with 58% supporting and 39% opposing. Since 1997, the percentage of Americans favoring the death penalty has gone down by 15% and now the issue splits the nation in half. 83% of Americans support stricter environmental regulations and laws. 75% of Americans would be willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by solar or wind energy. Only 33% of Americans think illegal immigrants should be deported back to their respective countries, with the clear majority favoring legalizing their statuses. 69% of Americans think that providing healthcare to all Americans is the job of the government.

Both reports have much more statistics and percentages amassed from Gallup and Pew polls going back to the 1970s so they cannot be very mistaken. More Americans indeed call themselves conservatives than liberals, but the biggest group are the moderates. These two surveys show that moderates in the US lean toward liberal values, and that trend continues to grow – in no graph showing the changing opinion across the years of any issue does the number of conservative opinions increase.

“Joe the Plumber” seems to be favoring a strong government, he is pro-choice, pro-gun control and is tolerant of gay rights. That puts a few things in perspective.

The GOP should rethink it’s Palin, as well as the Jindal, card in the next elections if it wants to win. John McCain lost this election but he was most likely the best candidate the Republicans could put. Any other nominee and this election would resemble even more the 1964 LBJ showdown. If Republicans want to beat the Democrats in 2012 they need to take into account that their conservative nation is largely a myth perpetuated by themselves, a myth that just starts to show it does not work. If they want to win they need to put moderates in elections, forsaking the evangelicals. Democrats should also not attempt to buy evangelicals and concentrate on the moderates. I do not wish to purposefully alienate the evangelicals from politics, but just like the socialists and communists in the US they need to understand that a two-party system disables radical positions. They, not the Democrats, are the ones who can give the death blows to the party they cherished so much in the last 8 years.

The GOP needs to remember that many Republican presidents before Reagan were pro-choice (Ford), and that Nixon, should he had not been “Watergated”, would most likely bring universal health care to the US 40 years ago.

Both parties have to wake up.

Acid, Humor & Endorsement

The last presidential debate was indeed unlike the previous ones. It is as difficult to assess. I agree with the view that for the first 30 minutes McCain had the upper hand, which came as an all too big of a surprise to Obama. Yet my surprise at Obama’s weakness in the first 30 minutes was nothing to what happened with McCain for the rest of the debate. His face expressions of bizarre derision and difficult-to-restrain anger made this debate a gold mine for spin doctors analyzing the behavior of candidates in these elections. Yet that is the extent of its positive influence. Obama did not win because he was good, but because McCain played a risky game of ACORN/Bill Ayers accusations, which frankly, I don’t think interest many voters. Those who think he’s a terrorist will still think he is a terrorist, and these who don’t want to believe what the other side says won’t anyway. This debate was not Obama’s clear victory. As a viewer I could see his eloquence and intellect, but the fact that both candidates were sitting during the debate, oddly enough, I think made Obama even more professorial and accounted for a certain disadvantage. It is Obama “in motion” performance that serves him best.

A nice break from all the election conflict was undoubtedly the Al Smith Foundation’s charity in which both McCain and Obama had to come up with humorous speeches. They were both successful, McCain perhaps a little bit funnier than Obama, but both of them did a good job, well, as good as an adult man aspiring to the highest office on a long campaign drawing to its end can do. I recommend watching these, especially if you haven’t seen a lot of laughter from the candidates thus far. Yes, they can laugh pretty hard. Here is McCain’s speech and here is Obama’s.

There has been some speculation lately that Colin Powell, the “lion of the Republican establishment”, might announce his endorsement of Barack Obama, yes, the Democratic candidate. Apparently, we will know by this Sunday. The political ramifications of this can surely shake foundations of this election.  Being a centrist and still pretty popular individual (if compared to other Bush government officials), yet also a representative of the military “elite” under three presidents, he might just be Obama’s Trojan Horse in getting the votes of the moderates. Nevertheless, it might also do the exact opposite, and alienate moderates from Obama who don’t know much of Powell’s negative opinion about the more conservative elements of his party. His possible support of McCain can also help the Republican ticket but surely not to such a degree as in the former case.

So what do you think, tell me in the poll below.

The AmeriCain Variance

There are a few things I want to touch on today. First, the debate. Result? As often as I like to criticize both candidates, this time I must say Obama impressed me with his eloquence, which I think was even higher than usual. McCain, one could sense, often times resorted to humor which gave an odd impression of nervousness rather than calmness. The questions were much better than in the first debate, however, again neither candidate really addressed them specifically, but rather lost the audience in a flow of rosy verbiage. Nevertheless, I must say Obama won this one (I think we’ve all grown to admit that the candidates rarely answer questions anyway, regardless of party) due not only to his oratory skills but also to his impressive self control. After McCain questioned his judgement and understanding, he simply gave one sharp response and did not pursue to embarrass or intimidate the Republican pick more, but quickly came to the other matters at hand.

Recent polls show Obama’s clear lead in the polls.

Barack Obama leads John McCain by 46 percent to 39 percent, according to a FOX News national registered voter poll released Friday. Two weeks ago Obama led by 45 percent to 39 percent (Sept. 22-23).

And that is a FOX News poll. I have been getting statements that my first real entry on this blog about the inevitable defeat of Obama now turns out to be a false projection. It is true I have (like most observers) not foreseen the economic calamity because at that moment in time it was simply recession. Undoubtedly, an opposition party gains while the party in power loses support in time of a moribund economic reality. However, there is still a lot of time to the election and anything can happen.

Anything? How about martial law introduced on election day by Bush to cancel the elections and organize a country-wide curfew? Some believe it may be so.

A lot of conspiracy theorists recently like to talk about the National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51). The NSPD-51 allows the president to do pretty much anything in case of a “catastrophic emergency” in order for the “continuity of government” to happen. It is said Bush will invoke this directive to counter panic of the economic crisis before the elections or, in case Obama loses, after the elections to stop the “inevitable mass riots” all across America. Accordingly, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) already prepared plastic coffins in order to be ready for the “mass casualties”.

I am a big skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories and there are so many things to comment on the aforementioned case that I will not even attempt to list them, but one thing is sure: this election is important and it is going to get more and more intense, with possibly “any” scenario taking place.

McCain’s fall in the polls has caused his campaign to adopt a different strategy. While Palin’s attacks become more and more “dirty”, McCain tries to distant himself from all of it even at the cost of booing from his own supporters, as you can see here.

If McCain really speaks what he thinks then he has just gained a great deal of respect in my eyes. Yet this might as well be another high-risk strategy aimed at independents and perhaps even disgruntled Democrats.

Obama attacked McCain personally publishing the Keating Economics video, which you can look up. The video explains McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, the main persona of a very convoluted 1989 Keating Five corruption scandal. Personally, I don’t think Obama campaign’s accusations are true. The people interviewed in the video already sued the Democraic campaign for “being led” to answer in specific ways. But that is not the reason why I don’t believe it. I just don’t think any sane individual would run for election of the highest office in the country having played a clandestine role in a really shocking scandal (this scandal implies parallels to the subprime mortgage crisis of today) and subsequently lying about it in Congress (McCain is directly involved in it no doubt, but it is the extent of his involvement that is the issue). It is obvious for any candidate that the media will dig up any, even the most benign, inconsistency in the candidate’s life, and John McCain understands that. So, in a way, my refusal to believe the Obama campaign comes not from the actual accusations but rather from the logic of publishing such a video just now and from the assumption McCain is not delusional. It might be my naïveté, but I am always skeptical towards any revelations dug up for the purpose of winning elections.

Bears in Montana, Miss Congeniality & Three Inch Taller South Koreans

Well, the first debate is history. Initial reactions? Contrary to many news agencies I found the debate very dull and predictable. Both candidates said what they wanted to say (did anyone else realize the sheer number of instances in which the senators used the exact same phrases and statements took from the campaign trail?), attacked each other, then refuted what the attacker has just said, and so on ad infinitum. As a result, a common citizen who does not follow the campaign closely might not have seen many major differences between them. The issue on starting the war in Iraq was just pointless and bizarre. Not many people are interested who voted for what or what should/could have been done, but rather what can be done now. Luckily, later they switched to a more present day approach. Jim Lehrer had to ask 3 times the same question about the bailout to get any coherent answer from either candidate, in the end not looking satisfied anyway. There was alot of fake smiles and condescending animosity (Obama addressed McCain as John many times, but I do not remember McCain saying Barack, an interesting point, but I might have missed an instance of the contrary). On a good note, the debate was very useful to people who are just tuning into the race and want to know what the candidates think and not want to spend more than hour and a half on it.

Who won? Some say it was a tie, some it was Obama. I think Obama won, but not by a lot. McCain had strong offense, though his defense could use some polishing. Obama kept his style and remained calm, which served him well. I await to see the post-debate polls.

On a similar note, I am involved in a joint project called The Moderometer (now available at http://themoderometer.blogspot.com/, but soon to be at http://www.moderometer.com/). We take what the candidates say and then allocate a percentage depending on how “moderate” is the statement. I welcome you to check on that, and as we progress I will mention major updates on this blog.

The real thing everyone is waiting for is coming with the next debate: the Palin vs. Biden showdown. I am looking forward to reading someone’s post with the drinking game rules for that debate.

A House In Alaska

I received a fair share of feedback after my last entry, for which I am grateful. I want to clarify a bit more my stance on Joe Biden, which actually composes well with what I was determined to write about in the first place – the Republican VP pick, Sarah Palin.

By no means I consider Joe Biden to be a bad future Vice President. He is in fact the most experienced candidate for this position in a decade I would argue, and certainly the most qualified candidate of the Democratic Party in that time span. However, we must differentiate between the actual position of the Vice President and the “running” for it. I myself call this the candidatorial deficiency of a nominated official.

After he was elected, most of the liberal (and conservative at times, too) media deemed him as a suitable running mate for Obama, mainly for his experience in the realm of foreign policy and for his overt “normalcy”. The pill to be taken by the electorate was of a familiar package to most Americans – a white male who worked his way to the top. I heard only a few things about him before the nomination, but one of them was that he was a real “Bull Terrier” of the Democratic Party, someone who can revert the malaise of Hillary supporters, and independents as well. It seemed nothing could stop the winds of change …

Enter, Sarah Palin.

Palin brought to the race an attribute Biden could never have had – change, ironically. She is unlike most women in big American politics today. Being a mother of a big family, a pro-life activist, a hunter, and a woman of character she swept away the Nancy Pelosi-Hillary Clinton paradigm of a pro-choice feminist leader, mainly, of the Democratic Party. She is a pill for the American aching of today, a pill in a more fun-shaped novelty box than that of Biden.

I heard my fellow liberals say her first speech did not have any specifics and was “same old, same old” (it was actually written by Bush’s speechwriter). True, but who cares about specifics? This is a NRA-loving female hunter who already has her own action figures (I heard there were 3 models already, or was it 2?)! Returning to the matter at hand, she is the anti-Biden. Biden has better Vice Presidential credentials, but she herself is a much better candidate for that office, someone who does not have candidatorial deficiency. In other words, there is a subtle line between skills of campaigning for an office and personal assets of already being in it. She lacks experience (the whole seeing Russia from her window thing is simply humorous, it was compared to a few things like living close to Chevy Chase bank versus being Alan Greenspan). She has experience in budgetary matters, though her exact stance on economy seems to be a calque of McCain’s ideas (with few exceptions).

Nevertheless, she attracts more attention, be it by shock of liberal media at her lack of experience or the praise of the “change” element from the conservative ones. No foreign policy experience? But that is not why McCain chose her.  Her speeches are also more captivating. The “Bull Terrier” seems to have been degraded to a lower niche in this ecosystem – Palin must be a tiger. All this combined with her fascinating personality must cause Biden a lot of sleepless nights recently. He was even called “not exciting” by CNN. But Obama did not choose him to be exciting either! It is Obama who has to be exciting, Biden is supposed to be the practical backbone of the ticket.

If Biden wants to help Obama win he has to be freed from the clutches of the Obama Campaign’s regulators who are afraid to give him too much liberty as he has a history of giving remarks too hastily and often without thought. But he has to challenge Palin on her own battlefield. He has to show that even though he lives in Delaware which is not close to Russia at all, he makes up to it big time. Only after the media start talking about him again and about his speeches will he be able to help Obama. Their struggle is ultimately about what is more important to American people – change (Palin) or experience (Biden) – in a Vice President. They key to victory in these elections lies in the relationship between the patterns of importance of values in the vice presidential campaign related to the presidential race itself. Now that change and experience have been mixed within both tickets, it is the outlaying features, like personalities, that matter the most. As for now it is 1-0 for Palin.

In the next few weeks it will be interesting to see what will change in the campaigns of respective parties. Democrats have to show that change belongs to them, as well as take into possession the popular political discourse (Palin and McCain start to sound more and more like populists, an interesting development in the Republican campaign planning). Republicans cannot allow Democrats to grasp the “change” element in its totality, as well as remind voters that this race is really about McCain and not Palin, so that the fascinating TV sitcom “Palin” will be able to air until November allowing McCain to fly on its popularity right into the White House.

Why Barack Obama Will Lose The Elections

I have been an Obama supporter for some time now, though the reasons for this remain unclear to me. Were I upset by Hillary Clinton’s negative electorate not to be a fan of hers? I’m sure that was a factor. Or was I simply swallowed by the jaws of Obamamania? That probably played a role as about 95% of my friends are Obama supporters. These questions are elusive, yet insignificant. The important fact is that my excitement with Obama has reached its nadir. I still think he would be a better president than McCain, but my faith in his victory vanishes day by day watching the election coverage. Why? Let’s outline a few problems of the Democratic candidate (in fact, of many previous candidates of this party who failed).

First of all, Intellectualism. While listening to Obama speak at various rallies an American undergraduate can often relate to the candidate while he projects the same dualities and uncertainties present not only in 201 philosophy courses but in the entire analytical framework of higher education. Most of Obama’s answers start with “Yes, although…” or “No, however…”. This might be a reason for his appeal to the younger audience which, in schools and colleges all across the nation, is exposed to diversified view points and similar intellectual analogies, probably more than much of the adult nation. Yet the electorate does not only consist of vegetable-eating-V-Day-proponent-human-rights-watchers, but also of the populace which values straightforwardness and, therefore, supports candidates who are able to give brisk, even if faux pas, responses. A friend of mine in high school once reflected why in America people choose leaders to whom they can relate to on a personal level and not educated idealists with lofty plans. It may be a question, but it is also a valid observation. We can relate this to the “Kitty Dukakis Question” in 1988, or to the more recent attempt of John Kerry to go hunting, which, in the end, looked more gauche than sincere.

Second, Race. Obama is an African-American, which, sad as it may be, is too much for many of these rural Nebraska voters to take. Call it racism or xenophobia. Obama-Osama. “So we have to call the White House the Black House now?”. They would not vote for a candidate of any other race than Caucasian regardless of the party affiliation. Unfortunately, this is also the borderline for most of them and not much could be done in this matter. Joe Biden’s role was to diminish this very issue, but this Scranton boy is still the vice presidential candidate, and voters there still see the “popular” Obama as the leader in the ticket (though the aforementioned intellectualism also plays a role here).

This brings us to Vice Presidential Pick.  Joe Biden. The long days of waiting for Obama to announce this name. “I am not the guy,” he said days before his named being pulled from the hat. He was right. I myself was very excited for Hillary being the potential VP pick, but her negative electorate was probably the major reason for Obama campaign moguls not to choose her. But what about Joe Biden? A candidate that run in the primaries receiving 1% of the vote? A candidate remembered for plagiarizing one of his speeches in the 1988 campaign for president? I think Hillary’s negative electorate consists of voters who would vote for a Republican candidate in any case. Her supporters however were the most solid group of followers in the recent years of American politics, an asset she still maintains and will continue to have after the elections. Was Biden a good choice? No.

Lastly, Political Positions (or lack thereof). This directly ties to the first as well as to the third problem with Obama. Obama has been portrayed by many conservatives as the most liberal presidential candidate, which I actually find simply not true. Obama tries to show his stance in issues like abortion and gay rights in his already mentioned “Yes, but…” manner forgetting that this does not attract the Christian evangelicals who like “absolute” values, and at the same time alienates the liberal parts of society who also find these issues important making them stay at home during election day at the worst case. Even Biden’s expertise on foreign relations cannot wash away the fact that Obama and Biden did not agree on issues like the War in Iraq. Obama has not actaully presented that many policy proposals as you would expect from a candidate. The truth is that most candidates do not formulate specific policy plans until they are actually nominated in November, for whatever reasons. McCain is not strong in this area either, something that Obama can use in his campaign. But why I never hear any other topics other than health care, Russia, and energy independence? There are tons of other issues Obama can use to get the edge. Lou Dobbs made a good “Independent Convention” and Obama should pick up a few of the topics discussed on the show, for example rising college tuition rates.

All these points make Obama a kind of out-of-reality candidate for 55% of the nation, which is still enough to seal his fate. One might notice my not-so-accidental failure to mention Sarah Palin. She, however, deserves another more precise entry in the near future.  Judging from all this material my prediction is as follows: Obama will lose the presidential elections of 2008 to McCain/Palin ticket, unless the glamour of Palin will crash in the shady deals and scandals of her previous administration in the Alaskan offices. Obama can share the fate of Al Gore entering the realm of single-issue matters, or the fate of John Kerry continuing to be a good and popular (and rich) senator, but his chances of ever coming back to the ticket are as the chances of Al Gore being the VP candidate this year – not that big after all.