Carla Robbins of The New York Times and Gideon Rose of Foreign Affairs magazine join Martin Savidge to discuss the weeks top stories: A new intelligence report suggesting al-Qaeda may be on the decline, the discussion over Senator Hillary Clinton as a potential member of the Obama cabinet and reports that Iran now has enough uranium to produce a nuclear bomb.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Who said progressives can’t win? By Jove, we won a big one today. In a victory for the left wing of the Democratic Party, Representative Henry Waxman of California has just successfully ousted Representative John Dingell of Michigan from his longtime perch as head of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The downside, alas, is that we lose Representative Waxman’s careful and diligent probing of government oversteps. Few others have taken on Bush, Cheney et al with such vigor asking such candid questions. Since winning back control of the Congress, Representative Waxman has played a lead role in staking out a far more aggressive stance towards the Bush Administration than many other more cautious leaderships of the Democratic Party would take.

Congressman Waxman used his House Oversight chairmanship to grill the Administration on issues from the Attorney General scandals to Guantanamo to FEMA & the response to Katrina, making him a hero to the progressive left. Such competence should be rewarded.

According to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office the vote count in the Democratic Caucus was Waxman 137 votes, Dingell 122 votes.

The defeat of Dingell is also a major victory for environmentalists, removing a key obstacle to real energy reform and breaks a major link to corporate control of the Congress. Dingell, who first entered the House way back when Eisenhower was President, had been the head Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee since 1981. But many of the more liberal members over the years came to view him as too friendly to Michigan’s auto industry and hostile to environmentalists — especially on issues like climate change and carbon limits. Though to be fair and appreciative, Congressman Dingell has been a champion of universal health care throughout his 53 year Congressional career.

More from the New York Times:

Besides seating a committed environmentalist as head of the energy committee, the vote also removes one of the auto industry’s best friends from a key leadership post — further evidence of how much power the American car-makers, whose executives have been pleading for federal money, have lost in Congress.

The vote on Thursday morning reportedly surprised some Dingell supporters, who had expected Mr. Dingell to prevail despite Wednesday’s 25-to-22 vote by the Democrats’ Steering and Policy Committee in favor of Mr. Waxman’s challenge.

Mr. Dingell has been the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce committee since 1981 and has been in Congress since 1955, having won his seat in a special election after his father died in office. In February, Mr. Dingell will become the longest-serving member in the history of the House.

Speaker Pelosi, who has often clashed with Mr. Dingell, particularly on environmental matters, leads the steering committee, which includes the entire House leadership. Ms. Pelosi backed a candidate who opposed Mr. Dingell in a Democratic primary in 2002, but she has remained officially neutral in the Dingell-Waxman brawl. The steering committee vote was conducted in secret.

The chairmanship of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is a key post, since the committee will handle legislation on climate change, energy and health care that President-elect Obama is hoping to move through the new Congress.

Mr. Waxman, who has been the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was backed by many environmentalists for his stands on clean air and global warming, and he has a long record of leadership on health care issues.

Environmental groups reacted swiftly and mostly positively to the ascension of Mr. Waxman. “Chairman Waxman has been a leader on global warming for many years, and we look forward to working closely with him in his new role,” said Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Mr. Dingell has also shepherded numerous environmental and health care bills through Congress in his decades of service. He has sponsored universal health care legislation in every session of Congress since he was first elected. Both men are considered hard-driving chairmen, but Mr. Waxman is generally regarded as more liberal than Mr. Dingell, and has sponsored tougher global warming legislation. Mr. Dingell’s backers argued, unsuccessfully, that he was more likely to knit together a broad coalition of labor, industry and environmentalists in fashioning a climate change bill.

Mr. Waxman, 69, ran a low-key campaign for the post, in part because his challenge upsets the seniority system in the House and in part because Mr. Dingell, at 82, has had a number of health problems, including recent knee-replacement surgery.

Mr. Waxman said through a spokesman on Wednesday that he was a better leader to push Mr. Obama’s agenda through Congress.

“I am running for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee because we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance health care, achieve energy independence and tackle climate change,” he said in a statement. “These are difficult and contentious issues, and I believe I can provide effective leadership so that Congress and the new administration working together can deliver results for the American people.”

From my blog, By The Fault.

It is pretty evident that the world is looking past the Bush era and anxiously awaiting an Obama Presidency though in the interim the world seems to be having a collective well now what moment. No doubt, President Obama faces an array of foreign policy challenges left adrift by the Bush Administration and no doubt an Obama Presidency will devote most of its international attention to unwinding in Iraq and resolving the war on the terror in the Hindu Kush. When it comes to the Asia-Pacific, Obama faces certainly complex challenges ranging from the economic to security issues to climatic change to environmental degradation to democratic governance and human rights. As with much of the Obama agenda, it’s not clear what an Obama Administration intends or protends.

2008 has been both a remarkable and difficult year in the Asia-Pacific region. The political landscape, for starters, is much altered. We have new leaders in South Korea (more conservative), Australia (more liberal), New Zealand (more conservative), Thailand (more disturbed), the Maldives (fresh and new), and Japan (plus c’est la meme chose, plus ça change). Lingering political crises plague the region in Malaysia and Burma and while a long civil war in Sri Lanka seems to be winding down, it is still on-going. India, which earlier this year passed a nuclear treaty with the United States, is scheduled to head to the polls next year and it’s not clear in which direction India will head. 2008 has been a year of widespread religious rioting and political turmoil across the north of India and the global downturn has been to affect India’s fast-growing economy. And there’s little question that for the past eight years with US attention so diverted, China has taken advantage to pursue its global ambitions in Asia and Africa but also increasingly in Latin America. That Venezuela just signed a military treaty of co-operation with Beijing should worry policy makers in Washington. And then there is North Korea where questions over the health of the sixty-six year old Kim Jong-Il’s arise almost on weekly basis. There are questions over the war on terror in places ranging from India to the Philippines to Indonesia. The downturn in the US economy has already impacted the export-oriented economies of the region. In short, Asian questions loom large.

Here’s a look at questions and views in the global and Asia-Pacific press looking what an Obama Presidency might mean for the region.

Obama Skeptics in Asia
By Richard Halloran for Real Clear Politics.

From Japanese commentators flowed considerable anxiety. Yomiuri, Japan’s largest circulating newspaper, said “so far, Obama has talked only in generalities.” The paper worried that he would be protectionist. Asahi, a leftist paper, said that for Japanese, Obama was an “unknown quantity.”

Yoshihisa Komori, a columnist in the conservative Sankei, called Obama “a frighteningly unknown politician” who would rely less on traditional alliances, such as that with Japan, and more on international organizations in foreign policy.

In South Korea, the largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, applauded Obama’s election but added: “Yet Obama has shortcomings, such as scant diplomatic experience and no administrative career. He is also inclined to protectionist trade policies on behalf of the U.S. economy.”

Filipinos split on Obama’s stance on the 600 American troops posted in the southern Philippines to help the Philippine Armed Forces fight Moro insurgents and terrorists. Some urged Obama to keep the troops there, others urged him to withdraw them.

The Thai newspaper Nation quoted Obama: “Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states.” The paper then lamented the bitter “red and yellow” divisions in Thailand today, wishing they “could correspond to blue and red in the US.”

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he had written to Obama: “Many issues will claim your attention. May I make a case for the importance of Southeast Asia to the US, a region which is not unfamiliar to you,” referring to Obama’s childhood in neighboring Indonesia. A writer for the Straits Times, Joanna Lee, however, was skeptical of Obama’s emphasis on hope: “Alas, I’m not sure hope is enough.”

Global Man of Mystery
By Greg Sheridan in The Australian.

One piece of good news is that he may keep Bush’s Defence Secretary Robert Gates in position. Gates knows Australia well and values the Australian alliance. He will be perhaps the only person about whom that can confidently be said at the top of an Obama administration. There is no sign that Obama has any knowledge of or interest in Australia, though it is good that he took a congratulatory call from Rudd.

It is conceivable that some American enemies, such as Iran, may use Obama’s election as the opportunity to strike a grand bargain with Washington.

It is equally possible that they may see weakness in Obama and try to exploit it, in effect testing the new president.

What Obama Means to Bangkok
By Shawn Crispin in the Asia Times.

It is precisely in places like Thailand that Obama will need to repair once strong, now strained bilateral alliances and reaffirm the US’s commitment to democracy and human rights in its foreign policy, both to restore America’s flagging credibility as a force for democratic good and to forestall China’s recent gains in the region, which have come by and large at the US’s expense.

Outgoing President George W Bush’s singular concentration on the “war on terror”, of which Southeast Asia was the campaign’s less militarized second front, came at a high cost to US credibility – including with its key strategic ally Thailand. Bangkok was a reluctant signatory to Bush’s military campaigns, providing a small number of troops to the coalition of the willing in Iraq while allowing US warplanes access its U-Tapao air base during runs to and from Afghanistan.

Obama Faces Tests in Japan and Korea
By Ian Rowley and Moon Ihlwan in Business Week.

America’s closet ally in Asia will seek assurances from Obama on regional security issues. Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, will closely scrutinize changes to U.S. relations with China and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force is involved in a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and close to Afghanistan.

With Kim Jong Il suffering serious health problems (BusinessWeek.com, 9/9/08), the Japanese will also be looking at how Obama changes U.S. policy toward North Korea. Much of the country was outraged in October when the Bush Administration removed North Korea from a list of terrorist countries (BusinessWeek.com, 10/13/08) in exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to verification measures for its nuclear activities. Families of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and 1980s condemned the move, and the Japanese government was upset that it was informed of the development only 30 minutes in advance. Japan’s Finance Minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, said the U.S. decision was “extremely regrettable.”

Making North Korea implement its promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons program will be a major security challenge for Obama. He has called the Bush Administration’s decision to remove North Korea from the terrorism blacklist a “modest step forward” but has said there must be an understanding of the consequences for North Korea if it does not follow through on its commitments. Obama’s willingness to talk directly to U.S. adversaries such as Pyongyang has created some worries in Seoul that South Korea’s voice in determining the fate of the Korean peninsula could weaken as there will be increasingly little room for President Lee Myung Bak’s government to play a role. Lee has criticized the so-called “sunshine policy” pursued by his predecessors, Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Dae Jung, arguing the South had only prolonged the oppressive regime of Kim Jong Il without addressing his nuclear ambitions and human rights issues in the North.

Obama And India
By C. Raja Mohan in Forbes.

As a series of recent statements from Obama on Kashmir get front-page treatment, India is waking up to the prospect of a major spat with the next administration in Washington over Kashmir. If India’s national neuralgia over Kashmir is reignited under an Obama administration, America will risk losing all the recent gains in its relationship with India under President George W. Bush.

Do recall that barely a few weeks ago, amid a gathering financial crisis, the Congressional Democrats rallied behind Bush to quickly approve a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement with India. The incoming vice president, Joseph Biden, has been a strong champion of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, and Obama, too, endorsed it, citing the importance of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

What then is driving the Obama foreign policy team to pick a new fight with India on Kashmir? It is not that the old liberal internationalists are back at wanting to solve all the world’s problems. It may not even be that the South Asia hands who served under President Clinton are stuck in a time warp about Indo-U.S. relations.

The potential conflict between India and the new administration stems from some of the big ideas Obama has articulated about America’s national security priorities. Obama has said he wants to shift America’s military energies from a needless war of choice in Iraq to the faltering war of necessity in Afghanistan.

Obama has also sensed, rightly, that the U.S. cannot stabilize Afghanistan unless it fixes Pakistan’s profound insecurities and gets its Army to level with the U.S. and stop supporting America’s enemies in Afghanistan. Few Indians disagree with Obama’s reasoning that the threats to Pakistan’s security are internal and do not come from India.

But many are beginning to get anxious about the third step in Obama’s logic: To get Pakistan to cooperate with the U.S. in Afghanistan, Washington must actively seek to resolve Islamabad’s problem with New Delhi over Kashmir. Put simply, the Indian fear is that they are being asked to pick up the political tab for America’s failed policy in Afghanistan, and for the Pakistan Army’s deliberate betrayal of U.S. interests there.

Obama to Retain Taiwan Policy
By Charles Synder in the Taipei Times.

n his comments on Taiwan, Obama has echoed the traditional views that have framed US policy toward the country since the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

However, Obama is expected to appoint advisers in the mold of former president Bill Clinton’s, who will likely espouse such policies as the “three noes” that Clinton declared during a visit to Shanghai, which virtually muzzled pro-independence Taiwanese.

Obama is unlikely to embrace the strident pro-Taiwan attitude Bush advocated in the early months of his presidency, when he approved the sale of a massive arms package to Taiwan and declared publicly that he would do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan against a Chinese military attack.

On the other hand, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) moving toward accommodation with Beijing, there would be no cause for the bitterness in US-Taiwan relations that marked the last years of the Bush and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) presidencies.

In its most direct statement on relations with Taiwan, the Obama campaign in May used the same boilerplate US State Department rhetoric from recent decades.

Obama and vide presidential candidate Joseph Biden “recognize the importance of maintaining the ‘one China’ policy, as laid out in the three communiques, and they also underscore that the Taiwan Relations Act” remains relevant, the statement said.

The duo “will work to ensure that a military conflict across the Taiwan Strait never arises by maintaining good relations with China and Taiwan and by making clear that we expect them to resolve their differences peacefully and through dialogue,” it said.

“While Barack Obama and Joe Biden oppose the use of force to resolve the issue, he [Obama] will act to ensure that Taiwan, a thriving democracy, is not coerced into accepting a change in its status against its will … This means maintaining our military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthening our alliances, and making clear to both Beijing and Taipei that a unilateral change in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is unacceptable,” the statement said.

While Obama, like every other policymaker in Washington, has felt constrained to pledge to provide Taiwan with the weapons it needs to defend itself under the TRA, he did not object when the Bush administration refused to sell Taiwan advanced F-16 fighter aircraft or diesel-electric submarines as part of the US$6.5 billion arms package approved last month.

President Obama and the Philippines
Editorial in The Manila Times.

We Filipinos should be concerned about how President Obama will treat the Philippines and Asean.

It may be good diplomacy for Malacanang, the National Security Adviser and the Department of Foreign Affairs to say days before the US election that whoever becomes the new American president would surely continue to pursue existing US policy toward the Philippines and Asean.

The truth is that we Filipinos should desire changes. For the Bush administration, overwhelmingly preoccupied with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East situation, has lowered the quality of its attention to Asean and the Philippines. The USA was markedly closer to Asean during the Reagan years and the early days of APEC.

This has not been noticed or remarked upon by those among us who unceasingly make an act of will to perceive America as nothing more than a former colonizer whose influence and presence in our country should be drastically diminished.

More realistic Filipinos who correctly see America as a friend and partner in making ours a better world–as a source of foreign direct investment and aid, as the most favorite destination of the majority of Filipinos seeking to emigrate and, of course, a source of problems every now and then–have seen how the Philippines has almost disappeared from the White House’s radar screen.

This despite the Philippine media’s coverage and praise of the activities of the American ambassador and her associates. The people appreciate the cooperation of our Armed Forces and their us US counterparts in Balikatan exercises, medical missions and other civic works, especially in Mindanao.

Obama and Ties with Republik Indonesia
By Aleksius Jemadu in the Jakarta Post.

The most important lesson the U.S. can learn from Bush’s failure is that in this era of globalization, its leadership in tackling critical world issues should be made more participatory. Now that its economy has become the main victim of the fallacies of the so called “market-oriented capitalism”, there is a need on the part of U.S. leaders to acknowledge the indispensability of other major powers such as China and Russia in solving acute world problems. Gone is the era of, “If you are not with me, I’ll do it my own way”.

Obama is believed to have a unique cultural background which should give him diplomatic shrewdness in winning the hearts and minds of those who became disappointed by Bush’s hawkish policies. It is at this particular juncture that Obama’s multicultural proclivities should meet the obsession of the Indonesian government under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to portray Indonesia as a leading representative of moderate Islam.

The synergy of Obama’s cultural openness and Indonesia’s moderate brand of Islamic politics may constitute a great contribution to the construction of more humane intercivilizational relationships.

Just because Obama has spent his childhood years in Indonesia is not a guarantee that he will be nice at all times to Indonesia. We must not forget the fact that all U.S. presidents from the Democratic Party have the tendency to spotlight human rights records of developing countries. When Bill Clinton was in the White House Indonesia was a vulnerable object of his criticisms over its widespread violations of human rights.

Although our human rights record today is improving, there are still some trouble spots that could affect ties between the two nations. First, over the last few years Indonesia has been strongly criticized by the U.S. government regarding its poor implementation of religious freedoms.

The powerlessness and indifference of Indonesian security authorities in preventing the destruction and forced closure of houses of worship of minority groups by certain radical Islamic groups remain a source of concern among U.S. policy makers. It is very likely that Obama’s liberal administration will seek clarification from the Indonesian government about this unfortunate reality.

From my blog, By The Fault.

South African singer Miriam Makeba died last night collapsing after performing in Naples. Widely known as “Mama Africa,” she had been a prominent exiled opponent of apartheid since the South African authorities revoked her passport in 1960 and refused to allow her to return after she traveled abroad. She was prevented from attending her mother’s funeral after touring in the United States and would not return to South Africa for over thirty years.

I have had the pleasure of hearing her live on more than one occasion and I mourn her passing.

Her obituary in the New York Times.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Obama carried New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, the West Coast and swept the industrial heartland of the mid-west (The Big Ten states) in addition to making inroads in the Mountain West and the South.

The Margin
The final margin looks to be just slightly more than six points which is surprising in some respects. My own expectations had been more on the order of an eight point win especially since Obama was racking up large landslide margins in some of the nation’s populous states. Obama would win five of the ten most populous states by landslide margin and lose but Texas by a landslide margin.

The Polls
Pre-election polls were largely accurate especially in the underlying trends and movement in the race. My thesis on the race was largely accurate and my own prediction of 349 ECVs for the Obama-Biden ticket deviated from the final results in just three states: Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina. In each of these the final tally was under a percentage point differential.

More troubling is the exit polling which for the third successive election failed to accurately call the election. The exit polling projected a margin of victory that far exceeded the actual six point margin.

Rahm Emmanuel
President-elect Obama confirmed the appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff.

“I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a president and administration to accomplish an agenda,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel.”

To begin with, I am relieved it’s not former Senator Tom Daschle. It is also a partisan choice and to be frank I was never one who viewed Obama’s post-partisanship as a good thing. Some fights are worth fighting and Congressman Emanuel knows to how fight and hard nosed. A consummate insider, Congressman Emanuel has intimate knowledge of the Washington power broker scene and the legislative ties. Though officially neutral in the primaries, Congressman Emanuel has close ties to the Clinton wing of the party and with the House leadership where he is currently the fourth-ranking Democrat.

So far, the appointment has received mixed reviews from the GOP.

The selection of Mr. Emanuel, known by some as “Rahmbo” because of his toughness, was met with criticism by some Republican lawmakers. The House minority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement, “This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

But Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who campaigned strenuously for his close friend Senator McCain called it “a wise choice.”

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political skills,” Senator Graham said in a statement.

He added: “He’s tough but fair. Honest, direct, and candid. These qualities will serve President-elect Obama well.”

My guess is that Congressman Boehner has been on the losing end of battles and that his comments reflect such. My read is that Senator Graham’s assessment is the more accurate.

Is The GOP Still A National Party?
The last remaining Republican Congressman in New England lost his bid for re-election. Senator Susan Collins did win her re-election bid in Maine. That leaves Collins, Senator Snowe and Senator Gregg as the sole Republicans in the Congress from New England. Here in California, the GOP’s fortunes are tied to Governor Schwarzenegger. Beyond that, it’s hard to see another California Republican on the horizon.

For the GOP, it’s back to drawing board and if I have any advice to offer the GOP it’s don’t take any advice from the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute or the Hudson Institute. They are the ones that got you in this mess.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Another day, another pitiful ad from the McCain campaign. This ad is a 30 second spot.

Here’s a clue Johnny Boy, look at at these ads from Right Change. If you want to win, and I am not sure you do, those are the types of ads that you need to run, not the above nonsense.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Fighting

Angry?

Yes We Can

A 527 group called Right Change has released four anti-Obama ads. Each ad revolves around either the crisis at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac highlighting Obama’s ties to Fannie Mae’s former CEO and current unofficial advisor Franklin Raines or on Obama’s economic proposals. Technically, three ads are anti-Obama (negative) and one pro-McCain (positive). Each ad is a 30 second spot and packs quite a punch.

It has been my view that the 527 group ads that are attacking Obama over his past associations with William Ayers and the Reverend Wright are largely missing the mark. These center, I think, on issues that are more front and center in the campaign right now and I think that they might be more effective in reversing the tide towards Obama.

Here is Right Change’s self-description:

RightChange.com is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping Americans see through the haze of politicians’ “spin” to understand the facts about crucial policy choices. Our goal is to make sure that the coming wave of political change in America is the “right” kind of change, in terms of conforming to the facts and common sense.

They may be a non-profit but I’m not sure about non-partisan because these are probably the hardest hitting anti-Obama ads that I have seen so far. I’ll also note that as of late last week, 527 groups were spending 3:1 in favour of pro-Obama groups. In terms of minutes per medium, most of the anti-McCain ads are actually running on radio, not television. It seems odd that both the Obama campaign which is running the largest radio ad buys ever and the anti-McCain 527 group ads would independently opt for radio. 527 groups by law cannot coordinate any part of their ads or strategy with any candidate or his campaign.

From my blog, By The Fault.

This letter contains sensitive judgements. Please limit copying, and protect the contents carefully.

1. Ahead of Senator Obama’s visit to London next week, I thought it would be useful to give you a snapshot of his personality, politics and emerging policies.

Background and Personality

2. The key themes which are important in understanding Obama’s political makeup are the following:

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- His personal makeup drives his view of politics. Obama talks of wanting to reach out to all Americans (“no red states or blue states, only the United States”). “I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible. It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story which has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many we are truly one.” The race issue is present in the campaign – the debate continues to rage over how much. Obama wanted to avoid it as much as possible until the Reverend Wright videos forced him to make his elegant speech on race in March and then, when this was clearly not enough for the latest Wright outburst, to disown him completely and leave his church;

- Star quality. Obama has always had it, at least since his arrival at Harvard. A friend in the progressive Chicago establishment said, “I honestly don’t remember what it was about him, but I was absolutely blown away. I said to several people that this guy, who is now 30 years old, is some day going to be President. He will be our first black President”. That was in the 1990s. His rise has been meteoric. He first came to the notice of the national political establishment when he won the Illinois Democratic primary for the US Senate in early 2004. But it was his mesmerising speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston which propelled him to stardom, at a low point for his party. He is the only black member of the Senate. He is already the most successful black elected politician in American history, to the discomfort of Jesse Jackson and others;

- The promise of post-partisanship. Throughout his career, from the time he won over the conservative board of the Harvard Law Review to today, Obama has succeeded in crossing traditional boundaries, and making a virtue of it. His political personality is much more difficult to define than McCain’s. His campaign has the features of a movement, but he has himself said that “without organisation, without policy, without plans”, movements will dissipate. He uses Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign as his example. More broadly, he is a mixture of idealism and progressive politics on the one hand and pragmatism and disciplined organization on the other. He resists pigeon-holing. People disagree about how sincere his post-partisanship is, and how successful his attempts to reach across the aisle would be, given his mixed record in the Senate;

- Obama is highly intelligent. Not just savvy – which most people at this level of American politics have to be. But intellectually smart; cerebral. His manner is frequently interrogative. He is a quick learner. He has the confidence to surround himself with bright people, and is said to listen carefully to and weigh their views. This can have its downsides – he can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons. He can talk too dispassionately for a national campaign about issues which touch people personally, eg his notorious San Francisco comments about small-town Pennsylvanians “clinging” to guns and religion. The charge of elitism leveled by both Clinton and McCain was rich coming from them, but not entirely unfair. Despite his blue-collar upbringing. Obama does betray a highly educated and upper middle class mindset;

- He is a supreme organiser and networker. Obama has 20 years’ experience of organising from the grassroots up. He has surrounded himself with experienced, creative campaign organisers, particularly David Axelrod and David Plouffe. He has broken all the financial records, especially for donations via the internet and from younger people. His campaign has been a brilliant combination of the strategic and emotional on the one hand (“change you can believe in”) and state-by-state organisation on the other. The latter, as much as the former, beat Hillary Clinton; and that remains in place against McCain;

- He is tough and competitive. That is of course the Chicago school. You don’t beat Clinton without being resilient (but, like her, his energy levels do dip and he can be uninspiring e.g. in debates). He loves basketball and poker. He demands loyalty.

- Ambition. Of course. He has talked at least since the 1980s about a shot at the Presidency. He plans each move carefully, and incrementally. The 1995 book was a very clever platform.

- Obama is cool. He looks cool, tall, slim. He is temperamentally cool (by any standards, not just in comparison with the more impetuous McCain). And maybe aloof, insensitive – see above. Friends like Tom Daschle told me that he demands calm and “no dramas” from those around him. That will, I think, be an important criterion for his choice of running mate;

- Luck. Obama has had his fair share, but also made his own. He was certainly lucky in having Democratic and Republican opponents for the US Senate in 2004 who were tarnished. He was lucky that Hillary Clinton had such a bad organisation in the primary campaign, and took so long to respond to Obama’s threat.

Policies

3. Obama’s politics and policies are still evolving. His Illinois and US Senate careers give us only a few clues as to his likely priorities in office. In the Senate he took a low profile in 2005-6, but was a diligent member of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectful and friendly to the veteran Republican Senator Lugar, with whom he travelled to London in 2005. His voting record was decidedly liberal. But the main impression is of someone who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his Presidential ambitions. Obama’s positions and policies emerging from the campaign are a better guide to a future Presidency, but “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) does of course set out the broad themes. If elected, Obama would have less of a track record than any recent President. Carter would be the nearest, but even he had four years as a Governor.

Domestic Policy

4. Since clinching the nomination in June, Obama (as is traditional at this stage) has tacked towards the centre. He has seemed to move on foreign policy (see below), intelligence (his decision to vote for the compromise legislation on interception, having initially threatened to filibuster), gun control (after the Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment), the death penalty (after the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana capital law for child rape) and more moderate comments on trade (again, see below). Most of these changes are not outright “flip-flops” but they do reflect a decision not to leave himself vulnerable to attacks from the right. They unsettle some Democrats.

5. Obama’s policies will continue to evolve during the campaign. Some of his positions on domestic policy are highly detailed, even as on others (such as energy policy) he is less specific in some areas than McCain. We have sent back detailed reports on Obama’s economic policy (in June) and trade policy (this week), so I will avoid detail here. The key overall domestic theme is Obama’s view that US economic policy, particularly during the Bush Administration, has benefited the few, not the many. He is concerned about the stagnation of real median wages while the costs of food, healthcare, education, pensions and fuel have soared. He talks of restoring the American dream to Middle America.

6. President Obama would reverse many of Bush’s economic policies. He wants to cut taxes on the middle-classes but would increase taxes on the rich. Instead of rolling back the state, he stresses the enabling role that government can play in improving the economy. He complains that outdated infrastructure, low levels of education, and a failing social safety net are hampering the economy’s ability to compete in a globalised world. He would invest heavily in all three.

7. Obama’s flagship economic policy is a plan for universal healthcare. This would build on the current employer-based system to expand cover. It would not create a single national health service, but would seek to fill the gaps in the current system. Help would be provided for those too poor to buy insurance. The self-employed and small employers would be able to use a government-administered scheme. Unsurprisingly, there is a lively debate about how much all this would cost.

8. As our parallel report makes clear, Obama’s position on trade is shifting. One senses three basic factors at work: an instinctive belief in the economic opportunities of free trade; an equally instinctive sympathy for those losing their jobs; and lastly a political calculation about handling the various special interest groups, particularly those (eg the unions) active during the primary campaign.

9. In recent weeks, Obama has repositioned himself somewhat towards free trade. But his advisers are adamant that he does intend to shift towards a “smarter” approach to trade and globalisation. The exact meaning of this is unclear, but it could mean relieving popular economic anxieties through measures such as healthcare, retraining and trade adjustment assistance before pursuing a broadly liberal trade agenda. Or it could mean doing that and pursuing a more “balanced” trade policy, with greater commitments to labour and environmental standards. The next (probably more protectionist) Congress will be a big factor. The choice for Obama looks like being, in practice, in the middle of the Democratic spectrum, not at the extremes – ie no return to Clinton liberalism but not the trades union agenda either. But there are few domestic political drivers for Obama to engage early on the DDA.

10. Obama has a progressive position on climate change and supports an economy-wide cap-and-trade system with permits being mainly auctioned. He and his campaign know that this will be an international priority in 2009, because of Copenhagen, but it is not clear how far an Obama Administration would try or be able to get with domestic leglislation early in his term. Other domestic priorities would probably take precedence eg healthcare and tax, possibly housing and energy. Obama is not a nuclear power enthusiast, and opposes drilling off the coast of the US. We will be writing a more detailed report on the two candidates’ environmental policies later this month.

11. Obama has a mainstream team of youthful economic advisers, with strong credentials. His director of economic policy, Jason Furman, comes fresh from a centrist Washington think tank. His chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, was plucked from relative obscurity in the University of Chicago by Obama (mainly because Clinton had sewn up the Democratic establishment). These two (and his other advisers) approach policy with refreshingly few prescriptions. They have drawn on a range of new thinking (eg behavioural economics) and are willing to challenge traditional Democrat ways of thinking. For example, they emphasise the need for government to be easy to use (so-called iPod government) and to help people to make the right decisions (automatic opt-in pensions, easy-to-compete tax returns). They are less keen on mandates and top-down regulation.

Foreign policy and national security

12. Although he has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for four years, and a regular attender of meetings in his first two, there is little Obama track record to refer back to. On the other hand, he has – as he stresses on the campaign trail – a uniquely internationalist background – Kenyan father, childhood in Indonesia, Muslim forbears. One of his biggest assets in the primary campaign was his decision to oppose the Iraq war from the start, unlike most of the other Democratic candidates.

13. As with McCain, there are some potential conflicts within his campaign team. On McCain’s side, there are obvious tensions between the realists and the neocons, In the Obama camp there is less overt tension, but a potential fault line between progressives like Tom Daschle, Susan Rice and Samantha Power on the one hand and the more pragmatic advisers on the other (Nunn, Hamilton, Danzig, Brzezinski). Tony Lake hovers between the two.

14. My judgement is that – so far – Obama approaches these issues essentially pragmatically, case-by-case. He has adopted a balanced approach to the big security issues, taking a robust position after 9/11, but nevertheless opposing the Iraq expedition; supporting a broader-based US policy towards Pakistan, but also the right to initiate unilateral US strikes; willing directly to criticise Russia and China, but avoiding talk of boycotts. I would expect this pragmatic realism to continue, not least because he needs to show that he has the depth, authority and judgement for the Presidency. These are qualities that the McCain campaign will test, given his relative inexperience compared to their candidate.

15. Obama has several overarching international themes:

- the need to restore US leadership This gets a strong response from campaign audiences. He stresses his multilateralist credentials, his commitment to Nato and transatlantic partnership, and his support for strong international institutions (the campaign are sympathetic to the Prime Minister’s institutional reform ideas, but have focused little on them so far). Obama has said that he admires Bush Senior, JFK and even Reagan – this is no doubt meant to show a sort of “bipartisan realism”;

- the need for engagement with other governments, friendly or not. He talks about “tough-minded diplomacy backed by the whole range of instruments of American power – political, economic and military.” Under fire from McCain, he has qualified his earlier position that he would be prepared to meet Ahmadinejad and other “rogue leaders”, saying that any such meeting would need to be prepared carefully by officials. But defeault engagement rather than default isolation would be a significant shift compared with Bush, and with a prospective McCain Administration; and,

- a more nuanced approach on terrorism. This will need to be fleshed out, but Obama talks about a policy which “draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might…In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists’ prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy…To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity — access to education and health care, trade and investment”. He talks a lot about winning the battle of ideas.

16. Obama’s big foreign policy/national security point, reiterated in his speech on 15 July, is that Bush’s Iraq adventure obscured the real tghreat from Afghanistan/Pakistan, which would be his No. 1 priority. He is strongly committed to doing more “militarily, economically and politically” in both countries, which he sees as the central front in the struggle against AQ. He promises two more combat brigades to Afghanistan after recuperation from Iraq, and $1 billion a year more in aid. He would ask the European NATO countries to do more. On Pakistan, Obama supports Biden’s proposal that the US should do more economic aid and institution-building, as well as traditional military assistance; in his speech he said he would triple non-military aid to Pakistan and make military aid more contingent on Palistani commitment on CT. he reserves the right to unilateral US strikes (McCain criticises this as bluster; Obama responds that he is simply articulating every Administration’s position). Beyond that there is a good deal of fleshing out needed to make Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan policy a reality.

17. Iraq will remain one of the major fault lines with McCain. Obama continues to argue that his decision to oppose the war from the outset was evidence of his sound judgement on national security issues. His pledge to end the war and withdraw all US combat forces within 16 months of taking office has proved popular in the Democratic primary. During the campaign itself he has come in for criticism for not acknowledging the success of the surge. He himself fuelled speculation that he was going to use his trip to Iraq to reposition himself when he said a fortnight ago that he would continue to refine his policy, promoting further accusations of flip flopping.

18. In his speech this week, Obama sought to address this, reiterating his commitment to end the war and withdrawn US combat forces within 16 months of taking office. In reality, his position that we need to be ‘as careful getting out as we were careless getting in”, leaves him some wriggle room. Even after his initial draw-down, he would leave behind a (large) residual force to target any remains of Al-Qaeda, protect US forces and diplomats and train and support Iraqi Security Forces. In practice, the positions of Bush, McCain and Obama are now starting to converge. Whatever the detail, our own proposed transition in south-east Iraq would be consistent with Obama’s likely approach. Obama’s ideas on a more expansive regional framework for Iraq would also fit well with our thinking.

19. Iraq remains difficult for Obama politically. Opinion polls consistently show that McCain polls as well, if not better than, Obama on Iraq, an area of policy where Obama would hope to score better given the unpopularity of the war. This reflects the success of the surge and American dislike of “defeat”.

20. Given that Iran is likely to be a major issue in real world politics this autumn, it is bound to continue to feature prominently in the campaign. Obama favours a twin track strategy of increased pressure, including tougher international sanctions, but also direct US engagement, which he hopes to trade for meaningful European, Russian and Chinese sanctions if Iran does not respond. Tony Lake made this clear in a recent interview in the Financial Times. During his European tour, Obama wants there to be no hint of difference between his own and the European approach on Iran – this is “a real red flag” according to one forign policy adviser. The next US President will face some difficult timing issues, with the Iranian Presidential election only a few months after his inauguration. If Obama wins, we will need to consider with him the articulation between (a) his desire for “unconditional” dialogue with Iran and (b) our and the UNSC’s requirement of prior suspension of enrichment before the nuclear negotiations proper can begin. Moves by the Bush Administration, however, may mean that these distinctions have blurred by January 2009.

21. On other subjects:

- the MEPP is unlikely to be a top priority for Obama, but he would pursue it reasonably vigorously, and with Clinton-style diplomacy, i.e. an envoy, engagement with Syria, and balanced pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians. Obama’s early position on Iran and his links with Reverend Wright and others raised some doubts about him in the American jewish community, although his speech to AIPAC did much to reassure;

- Russia: I would expect continuity with Bush’s approach. Some (though not all) of his advisers think Obama can trade deployment of BMD in Europe for meaningful Russian cooperation on Iran sanctions;

– China: he would continue, broadly, the “responsible stakeholder” approach;

- Non-Proliferation/Disarmament: he was an early supporter of the Kissinger/Nunn initiative, a strong supporter of the NPT and co-sponsored with Republican Dick Lugar legislation to secure loose nuclear materials. Now McCain has also embraced most of the Gang of Four agenda, there is little to differentiate the candidates, other than the Democrats’ general scepticism about BMD;

- Terrorism/Guantanamo: like McCain, Obama is committed to closing Guantanamo, and greater use of soft power, but couple with continued use of kinetic action where necessary;

- Africa/MDGs; his heart and mind tell him he should do more. He is committed to doubling the US aid budget by 2012, and says he will “capitalise a $2 billion Global Education Budget” to address the global education deficit. But he won’t want to be pigeon-holed as too focused on Africa; and this has not – despite Susan Rice’s influence – come through as a major campaign theme.

Glossary

AQ – Al Qaeda

BMD – Ballistic Missile Defence

CT – Counter-Terrorism

DDA – Doha Development Agenda

MDGs – Millenium Development Goals

MEPP – Middle East Peace Plan

NPT – Non-Proliferation Treaty

UNSC – United Nations Security Council

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The NRA has released the same ad in English, above, and in Spanish, below. The ad is a 45 second spot. The ad is running Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania.

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The above ad is a 30 second spot featuring Senator McCain addressing the political crisis in Washington. The ad below is a Spanish-language ad. It is also a 30 second spot. The ad hits Obama over immigration reform and Biden over his comments that Mexico is “dysfunctional society”. Biden’s comments on Mexico are from December 2, 2007.

Joe Biden shared his views on illegal immigration with an Iowa crowd, saying that the solution starts with big changes in the Mexican economy.

“They’re being irresponsible. This is the second-wealthiest nation in the hemisphere – we’re not talking about Sierra Leone,” the Democratic presidential candidate said. “This is a dysfunctional society.”

Actually Joe, Mexico is the fourth wealthiest nation in the hemisphere as measured by total GDP. You’re forgetting Canada and Brazil both of which are larger economies and wealthier on a per capita basis. And if measured on a per capita basis, then Mexico also ranks below Bermuda, Costa Rica, Chile, Barbados, Aruba, Argentina, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, the Nederland Antilles, the Bahamas and the Falklands. Ah, Joe, so close and yet so far.

From my blog, By The Fault.

The Republican National Committee has released this Internet-only ad highlighting Obama’s questionable past associations — at BarackBook.com. The ad is a 75 second spot.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Senator McCain sat down with NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell for an interview last night.

Once again the national polls appear to be tightening up. While the economic turmoil has clearly benefited Senator Obama over the past two weeks, it was also a blunder for the McCain campaign to suspend its advertising allowing the Obama campaign complete dominance of the airwaves. Now with his ad buys back up, McCain seems to be gaining some traction in the national polls. It is important to remember that state polls lag the national polls but nonetheless most of the 14 battleground states have remained competitive through the Obama surge with the possible exception of Pennsylvania where the latest poll from late last week gave Obama an eight point margin.

Below the fold a Reuters report on the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain by 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, down from a 9-point edge a week earlier.

The new poll released on Tuesday was conducted Saturday through Monday, after the candidates met in their first debate on Friday.

Obama had led McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent in the poll’s previous survey released last week.

In the new poll, Obama, an Illinois senator, gained support among independents, closing a substantial gap with McCain who had been favored by crucial swing voters.

McCain, an Arizona senator, now leads Obama 48 percent to 45 percent among independents, the poll found. McCain was 10 points ahead of Obama among independent voters immediately after the Republican convention in early September.

ABC said McCain was laboring under the unpopular legacy of President George W. Bush, a fellow Republican.

Amid the U.S. financial crisis, a record 70 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush’s job performance, while only 26 percent approve, a new low for the Bush administration, the poll found.

The telephone poll of 1,070 registered voters and 916 likely voters had a 3-point margin of error.

From my blog, By The Fault.

Here are a dozen articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

The Incredible Shrinking Obama
By Rex Murphy in Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

Journalists used to tell stories, now they plumb narratives. Narrative is a pretentious borrowing from the abstraction-clotted world of academic criticism, where texts are interrogated, authors are dead and high-toned fatuousness is king. I’ll see your postmodern and raise you a meta.

Mr. Obama’s campaign, however, has renewed narrative’s trendy fizz. It is the very Perrier water (or is it San Pellegrino now?) of the better campaign reportage. Take no hike up Pundit Mountain without it. From the moment, the Obama surge took forceful shape, everyone – reporters, the scholars of blogland, the partisan howler monkeys of cable-news cage matches – has chattered on about Mr. Obama’s narrative.

Trouble is, most of the story of the campaign isn’t so much coming from the candidate himself as it is created by all those who, most in worshipful terms, have talked, written and reported on or about him. The Obama campaign is one great text generator, the grand fable of his fans.

Same-Sex Marriage Ban Is Tied to Obama Factor
By Jesse McKinley in the New York Times.

Could Senator Barack Obama’s popularity among black voters hurt gay couples in California who want to marry?

That is the concern of opponents of Proposition 8, a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which was legalized in May by the State Supreme Court.

Add Black homophobes to my list of worries.

Meltdown Puts Obama Back in Driving Seat
By Dennis Staunton in the Irish Times.

THIS WEEK’S meltdown in the markets has produced few winners but if the ill wind that has blown away half the investment banks on Wall Street has benefited anyone, it is Barack Obama.

After two weeks in the doldrums in the wake of the Republicans’ unexpectedly buoyant convention and the emergence of Sarah Palin as a fresh political star, the Democrats are back on top in the race for the White House.

Obama has regained the lead in national polls and wiped out McCain’s advantage in a number of key battleground states as the economy drives every other issue out of sight.

Is Obama Really that Good a Speaker?
By Daniel Finkelstein in the Times of London.

Bill Clinton’s policy adviser William Galston is frustrated with Barack Obama.

He thinks Obama is losing the debate on the economy, allowing McCain’s analysis – that lobbyists and Washington are the problem – to triumph because he doesn’t offer an analysis of his own.

Here They Go Again
By Jonathan Darman in Newsweek.

Rovean tactics alone do not win the Republican Party elections. This is a center-right country, and Democrats ignore this at their own peril.

To Democrats it simply does not make sense. The past eight years, with Republicans in control of the White House, have, they say, been disastrous for America. The military is beleaguered and beaten down after two long and taxing wars. The nation, they go on, has been disgraced in the eyes of the world. The economy has collapsed. The financial system is broken. Eighty percent of voters believe the nation is on the wrong track. Yet, a month and a half before the November election, the Democratic nominee for the presidency only slightly leads the Republican standard bearer in most polls. The GOP, in spite of everything, might somehow be able to hold on to power.

McCain and Obama Mostly Mum on Bailout
By Glenn Thrush and Tim Grieve writing for Politico.

If you think Henry Paulson’s three-page rewrite of the nation’s financial and governmental systems was vague and open-ended, you might want to check out the responses to his plan from John McCain and Barack Obama.

The presidential candidates are hardly powerless bystanders in the financial crisis — as senators and as leaders of their respective parties, either could have suspended his campaign and headed to Washington to lead his party’s legislative response to the proposal.

Far from that, neither McCain nor Obama has yet to venture so much as a detailed comment on the substance of today’s proposed $700 billion bailout. Instead the candidates are sticking to party-appropriate bromides while waiting to discern the public’s reaction, and also what move their parties’ respective congressional leaders are planning to make.

Biden: ‘It’s Nice To Be Back In Coal Country’
By Debra McCown in the Bristol Herald Courier (Virginia).

In his first visit to Southwest Virginia, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, speaking at the United Mine Workers’ annual fish fry here on Saturday, was quick to tout his ties to coal.

“I hope you won’t hold it against me, but I am a hard-coal miner, anthracite coal, Scranton, Pa.,” Biden said. “It’s nice to be back in coal country. … It’s a different accent [in Southwest Virginia] … but it’s the same deal. We were taught that our faith and our family was the only really important thing, and our faith and our family informed everything we did.”

Biden, a U.S. senator from Delaware, told the story of his great-grandfather, a mining engineer who was elected to the state Senate in 1904 and was rumored to be a Molly Maguire, a member of a secret organization tied to union activism and crime in the Pennsylvania coalfields in the 19th century.

“He went out of his way to prove that he wasn’t, and we were all praying that he was,” he said.

The Molly Maguires were a mostly Irish Catholic secret organization in the post Civil War era in the anthracite coal region of the United States that stretches from western New York down to Alabama. Barbara Freese, an Assistant Attorney General in Minnesota, wrote a book called Coal, A Human History. In it, she describes the Molly Maguires as “coal mining terrorists who for many years advanced their interests in the anthracite region through arson, beatings, and the systematic murder of coal bosses and others who stood in their way.” In a bloody five-month long strike in 1875, the Molly Maguires derailed trains, sabotaged machinery and burned down mine buildings. Their violence actually set back the process of union building in the early period of American industrialization. Someone may want to point this out to ol’ smokin’ Joe.

Texas’ Female Politicians Can Relate to Palin’s Ordeal
By Anna M. Tinsley in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Kay Granger knew what was coming. As soon as she heard that the governor of Alaska — a mother of five — was the Republican vice presidential candidate, Granger said she knew that Sarah Palin would be questioned about issues ranging from motherhood to job qualifications.

“Been there, saw it coming,” said Granger, a Republican congresswoman and former Fort Worth mayor. She and other locally elected women say they were grilled on similar issues when running for office years ago.

“There’s absolutely a double standard,” said Rebecca Deen, who heads the political science department at the University of Texas at Arlington. “People are still asking questions. And the questions that will be asked of a woman, at least in the foreseeable future, will be different than those asked of a man.”

Democrats’ Prejudice May Cost Obama Votes
By David Paul Kuhn writing for Politico.

The AP-Yahoo study concluded that white Democratic racism may cause 2.5 percent of voters to “turn away from Obama because of his race,” roughly the margin of President Bush’s victory over John F. Kerry in 2004.

White Democratic supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton were almost twice as likely as Obama’s primary supporters to cite a negative adjective in describing blacks — a finding consistent with trends in earlier polling. Only 59 percent of Clinton’s white Democratic supporters wanted Obama to be president.

The AP study also seems to have been conducted among a population of Democrats more skeptical of Obama than normal. While both the ABC News/Washington Post polls and the massive weekly summaries of the Gallup Poll show that since late August between 83 and 85 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Obama, the AP study interviewed a population where just seven in 10 Democrats said they support Obama.

Cindy McCain Campaigns — As She Lives — By Her Rules
By Lydia Martin in the Miami Herald.

The Arizona heiress with seven homes has traveled the globe for years doing humanitarian work, mostly aiding children and quietly donating plenty of money from a fortune estimated at $100 million. She may be the wife of a senator and presidential candidate, but from the time John McCain was elected to Congress in 1982, she has preferred to keep out of the political limelight. Spending time with kids — her four and the countless others with whom she has connected in orphanages and medical facilities — is how she feels most at ease.

McCain Drew $8.8 million in Two Days after Palin Selection
By Dan Morain in the Los Angeles Times.

John McCain raised more than $8.8 million in the two days after he announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would join him on the Republican ticket — his biggest two-day haul of the long-running presidential campaign.

The Republican National Committee collected $4.5 million the day McCain selected Palin, newly filed Federal Election Commission reports show.

McCain’s decision to tap the then-little-known politician excited the Republican rank and file, helping him raise about $2.1 million in increments of less than $1,000 in two days.

Altogether, McCain raised $6.8 million Aug. 30, the day after the Palin announcement, and $2 million the next day. Until then, McCain had never topped $2 million in a single day in this presidential campaign, the Federal Election Commission data show.

McCain, Obama Offer No-Pain, All-Gain Energy Promises
An editorial from the Austin American-Statesman.

The United States has two broad energy problems: its heavy dependence on foreign oil production to move its cars, trucks, trains and aircraft; and its dependence on two other fossil fuels, coal and natural gas, to produce well over half of its electricity. And burning oil, natural gas and coal all produce the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Both major presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., promise to tackle these huge problems, but in ways that sound like all gain no pain for the American people. If only.

The United States gets almost 70 percent of the oil it uses every year from wells in other countries. As Texas financier and oilman T. Boone Pickens has pointed out in his quest to reduce that dependence, the United States is paying $700 billion a year to other nations for their oil, money that some will use to build their own economies and others to finance terrorists or their own wars.

Unfortunately, the solutions offered by both candidates are flawed because they are trying to politically engineer their way into office without causing any discomfort to Americans — for whom the problem isn’t dependence on foreign oil but high gasoline prices.

Obama in the Mud: So Much for Honesty
Editorial in the Manchester Union Leader (New Hampshire).

When Barack Obama first began campaigning in New Hampshire in early 2007, many voters swooned. We watched him speak to retirees in Claremont one snowy February day that year. Not a single voter we talked with before he spoke planned to vote for him. Afterwards, many said they would. The word that spontaneously came from the lips of multiple attendees: sincere. They couldn’t remember a politician who spoke with such sincerity, they said. And many of them had been voting since World War II.

We wonder what those same voters think of Obama’s sincerity now. In the past few weeks, Obama has thrown so many false accusations against John McCain that just keeping track of them has become difficult. And these aren’t innocent errors. They are deliberate distortions of the sort Obama has always said he reviles.

From my blog, By The Fault.

An interesting new meme has appeared on the left. You might call it the “if Obama loses” meme. The idea being pushed by many Obama supporters is that it would be an undeniable effect of deep seated racism. We hear it from governors, gasbags and the kool-aid crowd. We hear it from deep thinkers and, um, others. Many of us find this curious in the extreme. We have been saying Obama would lose since the primary.

I was an early Obama supporter. The wrapper is impressive.

The problems for me started when I looked more closely. Once I got my mind around the baggage Obama was carrying, it was my opinion that he could not win a general election. Since my concern has always been winning, I switched my primary support to Edwards, I voted for him, and then later to Senator Clinton because that is who I thought was most likely to win in the general. This primary season more than any I can remember has shown the difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties. The Republicans nominated the one candidate who had a chance to win in spite of the fact they hated him. The Democrats chose to nominate the one candidate who had a chance of losing because they like him. I am honestly baffled by the idea that Obama is some kind of perfect candidate. In a piece that makes a point or two I agree with Richard Miniter says:

Too many think that elections turn on identities, not ideas.

If Obama loses–and it is still a big ‘if’–too many liberals will fail to heed the message that voters have been sending them since 1981. Seventy percent of the country is tired of 1960s liberalism. Indeed many find the hippie vision frightening: A country too ashamed of itself to fight its enemies, too unsure of itself to praise its own history,govern its children or corral its criminals,and too resentful of the rich to allow the economy to make more of them.

And I predict that, if Obama loses, liberals won’t ask the key question: If, instead, we had tried 1990s Clinton-DLC liberalism, would it have worked?

“A big ‘if’? If you say so. ”Would it have worked?” No, if ”1990s Clinton-DLC liberalism” is mentioned at all by Obama supporters in the wake of a loss I would expect a different context entirely. So far I have seem fingers pointed every direction but inward. Miniter also says this:

If Obama is rejected by voters, liberal activists will face a difficult moment. Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, sure. There was something wrong with them. A failure to connect. A remoteness. A coldness felt in some feathers of the left wing. Bill Clinton was an electoral success, but something about him didn’t sit right. The drama. The southerness. The welfare reform. The zaftig valley girl. Activists can understand why voters might have punished Hillary for the sins of Bill.

But Obama? He is perfect.

Something didn’t set right with Bubba, he’s got that part right. But it was not the “drama” the “southerness” or the “welfare reform”, to people like Miniter Bubba was a hick. It is the one thing Clinton can never be forgiven for. And then there is the last part; Obama is perfect. Perfect? As far as I can see Senator Obama is the most flawed presidential candidate in my memory. He is vulnerable in all the areas Republicans have historically shown an ability to exploit that often rises to an art form.

Obama is a great speaker but I do not believe him to be a great communicator. He is great in a stadium but not so much in a smaller room with no horizon at which he may gaze mistily. The Obama campaign is using Kennedy as a model and not doing badly. The problem is, this is not the 1960s. Obama could probably do well in that sort of ivory tower media environment where you only appear in peoples living room to make a grand speech occasionally. We don’t live in that environment any more. Expectations are a bit different for a president today and Obama has shown a singular inability to connect with voters in the way that, for example, Bill Clinton did. Obama has not made people believe that he “feels their pain”. Miniter says, “Too many think that elections turn on identities, not ideas.” In truth, they often do. I do not think most presidential elections are decided on issues and I do not think this one will be. People give their vote to the person they, for some intangible reason, trust. I will not list here all the reasons and relationships the Republicans will seize on to try to make Senator Obama seem like to much of a risk. We all know who and what they are. That is, if we are honest.

Another reason Senator Obama could lose is the state of the Democratic Party. I have been a Democrat for many years and I have never seen the party so divided. It didn’t have to be this way. In any other year, in any other election the second place candidate who got the votes of 50% of the Democratic Party would have been the Vice Presidential candidate. I believe that if Obama had put Senator Clinton on the ticket they would have won. It would have been a close election but it could have been done. We live in a closely divided country. Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry may not have been perfect, as Miniter says, but if they were not able to eek out a victory with a mostly united party I do not think Obama, with all of his baggage, will make it “ground operation” or not. This has been my opinion for many months and it has absolutely nothing to do with race.

Obama may indeed win. I would welcome this because any Democrat in the White House is better than any Republican. I would be happy to be wrong. This is not an endorsement of McCain or the McCain/Palin ticket. I am a Democrat and as pointless as I think it is I will vote for Obama if I vote at all. My point is this race baiting needs to stop. The fact is, you can acknowledge there is at least some truth in what I have just said or you can say if Obama loses the only possible reason is his pigmentation. I do not believe any honest person can do the latter. It is a lie. Race is far from the only reason this man could lose the election. To say such a thing is to propagate a lie that could make it even more difficult for other people of color to make it to the place Senator Obama now finds himself. If you care about such things please consider that before you spread this particular meme.

Speaking only for me.

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This is the fifth poll of the critical battleground state of Ohio (link to US census demographic data) and the fourth to show the trendline in Senator McCain’s direction. Two weeks ago, the Quinnipiac poll showed that Senator Obama had a five point lead and last week, the Survey USA poll had McCain up by four. Today a new poll from the Ohio News Organization (a consortium of Ohio newspapers) shows McCain still holding a moderate lead over Obama in the Buckeye state. The poll has McCain leading 48% to 42%. Four percent expressed a preference for independent candidate Ralph Nader and 1% for Libertarian candidate Bob Barr.

In the battle for Ohio’s 20 electoral votes, Republican presidential nominee John McCain holds a 48-42 percent lead over Democratic opponent Barack Obama — but with lots of time left in a volatile race, according to the first Middletown Journal/Ohio Newspaper Poll.

The poll also surveyed Ohio voters on health care, energy, and their personal financial situations — with nearly half saying they are worse off today than four years ago.

The Ohio News Organization — a cooperative formed this year by the state’s eight largest daily newspapers — commissioned the poll. The Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati, which also runs the Ohio Poll, surveyed 869 likely Ohio voters Sept. 12-16, with an error margin of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

While McCain is in front, the poll showed his margin is less than secure. Four percent favored Independent Party candidate Ralph Nader, 1 percent opted for Libertarian Bob Barr, and 5 percent said they were undecided. In addition, 19 percent said they could change their mind by election day.

“Even though it seems like this presidential race has gone on for an eternity, in many ways, especially in Ohio, it’s just getting started,” said Eric Rademacher, interim co-director of the institute. “When you bring the margin of error into consideration it’s certainly a very close race in the state.”

He said voters are still learning about Obama, which will make the poll volatile through the month of September.

“There is a great deal of potential for change in this race,” Rademacher said. “Almost a quarter of Ohio voters are still looking carefully at the candidates and have yet to make a final vote decision.”

The poll revealed deep dissatisfaction about Ohioans’ personal economic situation: Asked if they are better off, worse off, or the same as four years ago, a slight majority said they were either the same (34 percent) or better off (19 percent), while 47 percent said they were worse off.

Energy policy, health care

The poll also illuminated the difficulties of reaching consensus on energy policy:

– 70 percent agreed that global warming is a proven fact, not an unproven theory. However, fewer than half — 46 percent — blamed man-made emissions.

– 55 percent said investing in alternative energy sources should be the top priority for U.S. energy policy, while 29 percent saw expanded exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas as the top priority.

– 59 percent favored building more nuclear power facilities.

McCain has advocated nuclear plant construction and additional off-shore drilling, while Obama has promised a massive investment in alternative and renewable energy sources.

In response to a question about health care, 65 percent of respondents said they support providing health care for all Americans, even if it means raising taxes.

Views on candidates

Respondents attributed to McCain more than Obama the qualities of “good judgment,” “qualified,” and “higher personal and ethical standards.”

Obama scored better than McCain with likely voters on “personally likeable” and “best understands the problems facing Ohio.”

The poll findings are in line with many other recent polls of the Ohio electorate in giving McCain a slight edge.

The University of Cincinnati’s Ohio Poll conducted one week earlier showed McCain with the same 48 percent support, but had Obama with 44 percent.

Nationally, Obama leads McCain 47-45 percent according to a Zogby International poll out Wednesday, a seven-point reversal from an August Zogby poll that had McCain in the lead. The pollster credits Obama’s national rise in the poll to increasing support from women.

Clarence Martin, 57, of Hillsboro, an employee of a shipping operation in central Ohio that is slated to be shut down soon, said he is backing McCain because he believes keeping taxes low is how to spur investment.

“I’m still on the fence but mostly for McCain,” said Martin. “It just seems like he’s a better choice than Obama at the moment.”

Martin’s employer, ABX Air, contracts with DHL Express, which announced in May it would close the Wilmington Air Park hub, eliminating 8,000 jobs, including Martin’s.

McCain supported DHL’s purchase of the hub and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, lobbied for DHL’s German-based parent firm to purchase the Wilmington business five years ago.

Jean Fleck, 68, of Toledo, who works in a box and container factory, said Obama “seems to give you a sense that he’s for the working people, and we need somebody like that.”

“These people that make all this money don’t realize what everyday life is like, and he gives me the impression he knows what it’s like. He’s just a regular person,” she said.

But Toledo entrepreneur Donnie Stevens, 27, said he supports McCain because, “I like smaller government. I don’t like national health care.”

The self-employed photographer and school maintenance worker predicted McCain will carry Ohio because Ohio voted in 2000 and 2004 for George W. Bush and he said McCain is “10 times” smarter than President Bush.

Andrew Kaminski, 54, of Stow, near Akron, said the abortion issue is a key one for him. “I can’t support Democrats because their platform is not pro-life in any way, shape or form,” Kaminski said.

McCain’s positions on social and moral issues strikes a chord with Deborah McGee, 60, of Southpoint, near Kentucky and West Virginia.

“He is not for same-sex marriage, he is not for abortion. And for me that’s two important things,” McGee said, adding that her husband is a Vietnam veteran — like McCain — and so, “maybe it’s a sentimental factor also.”

Obama has also said he does not support same-sex marriage, but supports civil unions. He supports abortion rights.

Several Obama supporters predicted that the Illinois senator’s race will be an impossible obstacle for many voters. Obama had a black father and a white mother.

“The color of Obama’s skin — he will not carry this area,” said William Nesselrode, 64, of Stockport in Morgan County. He said in his community people who support Obama put their signs in a field, rather than in their yard, apparently out of fear of being affiliated with him.

Obama supporter Elizabeth Snyder, 37, of Greenfield in Highland County, also was pessimistic about Obama’s chances of winning.

“There’s a lot of prejudiced people out there. I’m not one of them. If it’s not a reporter asking the question, they’ll say it’s because of his color,” Snyder said.

She said she tries to correct people when she hears them question Obama’s American nationality, but “you wind up in an argument over it.”

Takeaways
The value add from this poll is the comments of Ohio voters. They reflect that when a voter is ambivalent they tend to go for McCain. The other key takeaway is that this is fourth poll with a moderate but clear McCain trend. While the race remains close for Ohio’s 20 Electoral College vote, Ohio may not be the critical battleground state in 2008 election cycle as it was in 2004. This time around that honour is likely to go to Michigan and Pennsylvania. Other close states right now are Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico.

From my blog, By The Fault.