Friday, December 12, 2008

"Who is ‘We", Paleface?"

Generous as I am, I was inclined to give Colin Powell a pass when he broke ranks in September and endorsed Barack Obama for President. Sure it was a little disappointing to have to suspect that Gen. Powell was just another "race man" whose race is more important to him than his principles and loyalties. But considering the special circumstances of the race I was willing to cut him a break. Besides he had a genuine, even legitimate beef with the way he had been treated as a front man for the Bush Administration's Iraq policies, and John McCain had been even more bellicose than Bush.

But this liberality was implicitly conditioned on Powell's recognizing what conservatives had but discreetly avoided saying: that Powell's betrayal was understandable because he has always been a social liberal, in domestic matters a natural Democrat. On every social issue important to conservatives, Powell has been on the wrong side: abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage, criminal justice, and of course affirmative action, of which he has been such a conspicuous beneficiary. The tacit deal with Powell was: we'll be fairly quiet about this betrayal, so long as you stop representing yourself as a conservative and Republican, and especially stop lecturing us on our faults in a tone suggesting that you are a brother and colleague. You aren't.

Well General Powell didn't get the memo. He's out there pontificating again about what we Republicans did wrong and what we Republicans need to do to win elections in the future. As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, "Who is ‘We', paleface?"

What's striking about Powell's analysis is its utter vacuity. He accuses the GOP of attempting to "use polarization for political advantage" in the last campaign. This after a campaign ostentatious in its avoidance of anything that could be remotely considered as racially polarizing, to the extent of declaring Barack Obama's protégé-mentor relationship with the racialist firebrand the Rev. Jeremiah Wright off limits. While Obama used class war rhetoric as an instrument of polarization, ot was only late in the campaign that the GOP seriously tried to divide people even on the issues, something that should be permissible even "for political advantage".

Why is it no surprise that in the GOP's ongoing ideological Wrestlemania Powell wants to play the role of hero of ethnic minorities:
"...if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority."

Powell ... said the GOP must see what is in the "hearts and minds" of African-American, Hispanic and Asian voters "and not just try to influence them by… the principles and dogma."



This after an Administration which had made wooing Hispanics one of its main political goals, whose encouragement of mortgage lending to Hispanics to buy houses they couldn't afford was a major contributor to the subprime mortgage crisis. After the party nominated John McCain, whose one-time pro-amnesty stand was supposed to make him the Republican most acceptable to Hispanics. Does Powell really think that anything the GOP could do would have made significant inroads on the Democratic black block vote? Powell might have been more specific in advising the GOP how to read minority hearts and minds so as to appeal to them without enunciating any political principles and dogma. Perhaps the idea is to nominate candidates who appear leaderly and charismatic while being devoid of substance -- people like General Powell himself?

The interviewer should have asked General Powell if he would have taken strategic advice from someone who betrayed his comrades and went over to the other side during a battle. Here's my first official piece of advice to the Republican Party: do not take the advice of people like Colin Powell. If you find yourself doing anything they have recommended, check and double check your premises.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Turning Gold Into Bronze

The Prime Minister has long been acknowledged as a political wizard capable of transmuting the political elements, and he still is. He has now performed the feat of turning gold into bronze. Only he could put some backbone into a caucus as timid and enervated as the Liberals, only he could unite the three motley opposition parties in an enterprise requiring initiative, cooperation and trust. What is still inexplicable to me is how an entire government could commit hara-kiri, sitting back contentedly listening to a speech guaranteed to lead to its humiliation and defeat

Within 30 minutes of hearing the economic update I had been able to figure out its likely consequences. The removal of funding would force the opposition parties to do whatever they could to prevent it. Even a timid animal will fight when cornered, and the opposition parties were faced with losing two-thirds of their income. If your boss told you that your salary was being cut by two-thirds starting in the new year, and you had some way to get him fired before he could implement it, wouldn't you take it? So the opposition parties would have to unite to defeat this, no matter what else was contained in the same legislative package. And since they would be expressing non-confidence by defeating this measure, why not go the whole way and toss the Tories out of power? The majority opinion of constitutional experts would be (the Opposition parties would calculate) that the Governor General would refuse any request by the Prime Minister for a dissolution so soon after the next election; she would call on the leader of the second largest party and ask him whether he could form a government that would have the confidence of the House. That is a window of opportunity that eventually would close. After the government had been in power for a year or so the G-G would assent to a dissolution request — so the time to act had to be now. As Liberal strategist Scott Reid has explained so eloquently , once the Opposition attacks the King they must kill him. There is no public support for subsidies to political parties, so the Opposition needed a pretext to oppose the Government so strenuously, and one is readily available, in the failure of the Government to proceed immediately with a massive economic stimulus. Once the parties overcame their initial ingrained resistance to working together and defeating the government so early, the movement toward a coalition would take on a life of its own. Even if the Government recanted the funding threat, it would be too late to stop the coup. The Opposition parties could hardly back down because their funding was restored, because it would discredit their story that the whole thing isn't about funding in the first place.

If I could figure all this out immediately, where were Guy Giorno, Jim Flaherty, and Stephen Harper?

So where do we go now? The public campaign to arouse the public against this move will be a damp squib. Conservatives making their case are going to receive rough questioning from the media, and understandably so because they have been forced by their leaders to assert things that are, at a minimum, obviously disingenuous. As I type this, Heather Hiscox of CBC Newsworld is interrogating Pierre Poilievre in a voice dripping with contempt. And Poilievre asked for it, with ludicrous assertions such as that the GST cut enacted last year was a fiscal stimulus that would help the current situation. The opposition parties have concocted a plan to take power. So what? That's what political parties do — seek power.

The rumoured prologue of the Commons would seem to be the right idea. If there is a defeat it must come on the budget, not a non-confidence motion. And the budget must be a spectacular one, since it's the last one the Conservatives may be introducing for a long time. I suppose the crucial question must be whether to include a major fiscal stimulus or not. I have argued before that the Government had to go with a big stimulus, whether it's sound economically or not, to avoid being put in the position of looking uncaring about people's economic anxieties, of Harper's becoming an R. B. Bennett or Herbert Hoover, consigning the Tories to obscurity for two or three decades. Those who reject this as contrary to conservative principles will make their case too.

When the G-G refuses the Prime Minister an election, the Tories will try to make this a new King-Byng affair and foment public outrage. I don't think this will work. In any case the new government will be a stable one, and after two-and-a- half years the next election will be about the new government's record, not the niceties of constitutional conventions.

The sad thing is that the Tories may be down to one out. It is that the economy takes a disastrous turn after the new government takes over, and it, and Michael Ignatieff, end up getting the blame.

When the dust settles, I imagine Stephen Harper will be able to stay on. My fingers are pointing at Flaherty and Giorno. There was much good in the Harris governments in Ontario, but there was in it a thuggish, brutish element, and just as bad, its people usually had a political tin ear. People who fit that description need to be kept out of important positions.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Libertarians or Libertines?

David Boaz of the Cato Institute takes on folks questioning whether there can be a political alignment when self-professed conservatives so outnumber liberals in the electorate, calling the liberal/moderate/conservative spectrum a "crude and one-dimensional view of the political spectrum". Libertarians, you see, don't fit within any one of those categories; in the Cato Institute's preferred formulation libertarians are "fiscally conservative and socially liberal". Wait a second, David. Didn't you just tell us that the liberal/conservative distinction was crude and one-dimensional? How does it suddenly become more sophisticated when it is applied to the whole grand tableau of social policy? The fact is that principled libertarians do not find themselves wholly on either side of the social liberal/conservative divide. Yes, on abortion and drugs libertarians find themselves aligned against conservatives. But as Matt Barnum notes:
On the other hand, conservatives and libertarians find themselves aligned on matters such as gun control, affirmative action, political speech (i.e. campaign finance reform), environmental regulations, education policy (generally), health regulations (i.e. smoking and fatty food bans), and freedom of association.
Randall Hoven offers a libertarian's defence of social conservatism The American Thinker. Seems he's not afraid of social conservatives when he looks at the agenda of the true liberty killers, the social liberals, and their massive planned expansions of government power.

Now it's up to libertarians to decide how they're going to describe themselves. But this sally from Boaz is just another salvo in the war for the soul of the Republican Party. It's quite understandable that libertarians want to pull the GOP in their direction. And reasonable and practical libertarians are an essential part of any conservative coalition, although the true believers are too ornery to become a permanent part of anything. But why is Boaz hyping the "social liberal" tag for libertarians? Boaz blew the gaff right after the election, when he described the ideal candidate for the future as "a candidate in either party who presented himself as a product of the social freedom of the Sixties and the economic freedom of the Eighties"

Say what? Boaz is expecting the GOP not only to move in the direction of limited government, but to buy into the Zeitgeist of the Sixties. In the culture wars this is a demand not just for surrender, but surrender and betrayal. Libertarians should ask themselves if they want to hitch their wagon to leaders who want to saddle them with an attachment to a culture that is distasteful if not repugnant to people with a conservative bent, when libertarianism as such need not take any position on whether America should be more like 60s San Francisco or 50s TV sitcoms.

Libertarians absolutely have to be respected by fusionists and others as the Republicans pull themselves together and reorganize, all in the midst of what will be a bloody fight to stave off at least the worst elements of Obama's radical agenda. But there is an element of the movement that is libertine, not libertarian, and they will be sabotaging the effort to fuse the various components of the conservative coalition. Innocent flower children as they may look in their bellbottoms and granny glasses, they need to be watched.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Bennett New Deal -- Take Two

For some reason I found myself looking at the paraphernalia surrounding the ceremonies associated with the Speech from the Throne very differently than I usually do. Ordinarily, by default, I revere the elaborate playacting, the odd rituals performed by sinecure holders with archaic titles, the recitation of formulas dating from century-old conflicts between Commons and the monarch. But not today. Just for a day I experienced the anarchistic stirrings that must be felt by people I usually disdain as just being ignorant of our national heritage because they consider this mummery and mumbo-jumbo as a waste of time. Why? I think it's because I think that we're entering a period like the '30s, where economic dislocation and downward social mobility will lead to middle class discontent with the existing order that will find political expression in wild and unpredictable ways.

Why? The Conservative Party of Canada is facing what may be a critical juncture in its history. The Tories have just enjoyed the rare experience of surviving an apparent economic meltdown occurring right in the midst of an election campaign and living to tell about it. The contours of politics for decades could be shaped by the conventional-wisdom answer to this question: who was responsible for our second Great Depression, and who did something about it? Now this could go either way. If the government is perceived as having bungled its way into a modern readaptation of the Great Depression, Stephen Harper could end up being remembered as a new R. B. Bennett, a cold-hearted miser fixated with adjusting his green eyeshades while the life and hopes of the "ordinary Canadian" life swirl down the drain and we could go through another period in which the Conservatives get to form the government once every half-century or so. If the government is perceived as fighting for the ordinary Jean the Plumber and trying something, however pathetic, to alleviate his plight, it could be rewarded by a grateful electorate like F.D.R. was, no matter that the New Deal not only did not end the Depression but may have lengthened it. Maybe the present situation is too uncertain and fluid to know right now what the government can actually do to look like it's dealing with the crisis with the right mixture of competence, innovation and empathy, but we can't wait too long either.

As for the speech itself, it was pure vanilla all the way. The bland bureaucratese of the language emphasized the sham formality atmosphere of the occasion, a non-event closer to a pre-season exhibition game than a season opener. It would help that when they did come up with a decent metaphor ("As one of our greatest hockey legends has observed, we need "to skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been." ), the G-G didn't botch the delivery.

The government is getting off to the right start by throwing the balanced budget under the bus. The booster shot of a deficit, whether actually being helpful or not, is what the mediacracy, the information classes, expect, and it would be prudent to give it to them.

Was the emphasis on northern development an attempt at channelling John Diefenbaker, reprising his "Northern Vision" of 1958? I guess it's better to copy the Chief than R. B. Bennett.

Regarding empathy and concern for the ordinary Canadian, the words were there:

"Many working-age Canadians are faced with the dual pressure of holding down a job and caring for their family. Increasing numbers of Canadians are taking care of elderly parents while also raising young children. Our Government is committed to supporting working families and helping make ends meet."
But we have yet to hear the music.

Mad Jack Layton is blasting the speech as "timid". That's a charge that could stick, not yet, but eventually....Mansbridge is painting this as presenting a very bleak picture of the future, something that did not really come through as I listened. That's the right approach, though, so long as it's combined with action and optimism. The phrase to be expunged from the glossary is "the fundamentals are strong"....Dion is acceding to the inevitable and will not oppose the speech.

Next act is the economic statement next week. That's when the bell will ring and the prizefight will really begin.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Where's the Rest of Me?

So said Ronald Reagan as Drake McHugh in Kings Row, the 1942 flick that Reagan thought to be his best performance. That's what GOP leaders will be saying tomorrow morning as they awake to the biggest Democratic win since 1964. The polls all converged yesterday at McCain-Palin behind 7 points or so (or more) and his chances of winning can be estimated at 2%.

For those watching at home, Indiana closes early; with most of the state closing at 6 PM E.T. and the Democrat northwest corner at 7 P.M. If Indiana goes Democrat the race can be called for Obama-Biden right then and there; if Virginia, also closing at 7, goes Dem by more than a point or two the race will likwise be over. If these states are for McCain or close, attention will shift to the 7:30 closers, North Carolina and Ohio; McCain needs both. This race should be over by 8 P.M.

The real race tonight will be the Democrats' fight for a ‘supermajority', the 60 votes needed to break Republican filibuters. 60 isn't as much a magic number as some make out; there's no guarantee that Republicans like Arlin Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will support GOP filibusters, nor that Democrats like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson will vote to break them. But it's an important symbol of Democrat ascendency. To get to 60 the Democrats will need to beat Coleman in Minnesota, a toss-up, and upset one of Mitch McConnell in Kentucky or Saxby Chambliss in Georgia, both early closing states.

To the crystal ball:

President

Obama-Biden 353, McCain-Palin 185

Obama-Biden 52%, McCain-Palin 46%, Oth 2%

Senate

Democrat +7

Close Races -- Dems NH (defeating Sununu), NC (defeating Dole), Oregon (defeating Smith), LA (Landrieu hold)
Reps MN (Coleman), KY (McConnell), GA (Chambliss, after runoff)

House

Dem +23

I've been on a roll on American predictions; in 2006 I had the House exactly right and missed only Virginia in the Senate; in 2004 I got every state right except Iowa, the closest in the nation. I'd say I hope I am wrong this year, except that if I am, it is more likely an Obama sweep, possibly approaching 400 electoral votes than a McCain win, and Dem Senate gains of 10 or so and 30 and more than what I have predicted.

Folks can take one day, Wednesday, to digest the results and mourn; Thursday starts the battle for the soul of American conservatism, likely to be both heart- wrenching and dirty.

"Alright. I know. I'm always wrong. I always have been, ever since I can remember." --as Drake McHugh in KINGS ROW (1942).

Monday, October 27, 2008

Two Minute Drill

With 7 days left in the campaign McCain-Palin is behind by 7 points. Pundits are obsessively dissecting the red states in which the GOP is trailing and needs to catch up in order to win: Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire, and wondering what secret message from above has led the GOP to continue to try to steal blue Pennsylvania, despite trailing by as much as 10 points there in the polls. But there's no need to be fixated on these states. What McCain needs is a 7 or 8 point national swing; accomplish that and the swing states will follow.

Everyone with the GOP's interests at heart seems to agree that the whole McCain effort, in advertising and public appearances, must concentrate on one or two themes and no more. But there's total disagreement on what those themes should be. This late in the game you have to toss a lot of plays, plays that would be good in different situations, out of the playbook. Let's take a look at the themes that could have been fruitful that McCain has to now discard.

1. William Ayers, Unrepentant Terrorist

Contributors on places like NR Online have been screaming from the stands for McCain to hit harder Obama's associations with William Ayers, unrepentant terrorist now occupied with trying to turn the public schools into teachers of socialist revolution. Obama's judgment in allowing Ayers to host a meeting for his campaign is indeed open to question. But McCain has already hit this in the debates, to the displeasure of the wired-up "independents" in the network focus groups.

2. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Race Baiter and America Hater

Out of an excess of delicacy McCain declared Obama's inspiration, mentor and long-time pastor out of bounds. It's too late to reverse course now; it would be slammed as a desperate act of race-baiting. Personally what I found most appalling about the Obamas' participation in this congregation is his bringing his 6 and 9 year daughters to this school of America hatred and race animosity. I'm hoping that they were safely ensconced in Sunday School during the Rev. Wright's rants.

3. Joe the Plumber
The McCain people felt they had a winning issue with Joe the Plumber. Instead what they have done is expose the weakness of a tactic the Republicans have successfully employed for 30 years: Working and middle class voters accepted lower tax rates on the rich following a principle of fairness, that everybody should get the same percentage tax reduction. Joe the Plumber brought to public attention a conflicting principle of fairness: working and middle class voters do not really oppose the idea of making people who earn more than $250K paying higher percentage tax rates, when the issue is framed that way. As John Dickerson has noted McCain was 4 points ahead of Obama a month ago on being "better on taxes"; now he's 14 points behind. Invocation of Joe the Plumber has backfired.

4. Experience and Maturity
Everyone knows that McCain is old as dirt and has been in politics forever. Those who are impressed by this are already on side. Obama, like Ronald Reagan, passed the looks-like-a-president test in the debates and can't be taken down on this issue now.

5. Terrorism and Iraq
After Obama's bellicose interest in invading Pakistan was expressed in the debates, the traditional GOP edge on this issue has slipped to 6 points. But this isn't a bad issue; it's just not a major concern of the public right now.

There's two plays McCain and Palin need to use to go for the upset next Tuesday:

1. DRAW THE TERRIFYING PICTURE OF TOTAL DEMOCRATIC CONTROL

The polls do show an opening here. People do not like the idea of the absolute rule of President Obama and two Democratic houses of congress. An advantage of this tactic is that it can be accomplished without seeming to go negative on Obama personally, something that's hurt McCain severely already. The GOP needs to push in the viewing audience's faces every wild and wacky pet idea of every left winger likely to wield power in the next Congress. There's a genuine moral duty to be performed here: the electorate needs to know that an Obama presidency with a Democratic House and filibuster-proof Senate could change America in a way they may not be expecting, may not like and which may be impossible to reverse.

BTW he adjective to use on the Democrats is not "socialist", which is not quite believable and sounds desperate, nor "liberal" which no longer packs enough of a punch. The word to use is "radical", which is scary enough for the present purposes and has the advantage of being incontrovertibly true.

Oh and every GOP Senate candidate in trouble should be using this argument too, as Elizabeth Dole is doing in North Carolina and Norm Coleman is doing in Minnesota.

2. SHOW THAT ONLY JOHN MCCAIN CAN BE TRUSTED TO FIX AND MAINTAIN THE ECONOMY

The economy is the most important issue for over half the population, and those who have a preference prefer Obama over McCain by 64% to 36%. John McCain cannot win the election without turning these numbers around.

This is the tricky one, since McCain has no particular expertise on the economy and tends to do confidence-sapping things like ad libbing major economic policies in the midst of a debate. Maybe the themes of experience and proven courage can be worked in here. Maybe he wants to be more specific about what regulation of financial institutions he will recommend to the new Congress. Maybe you want to throw the Hail Mary and warn that incompetent management of the economy in 1929 turned a stock market crash into The Great Depression, and that raised taxes and imposition of tariffs are two of the mistakes that contributed to it. I see on Fox News that McCain has rolled out his economic team today. Maybe that will lead to something.

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Those are the plays. Go to the shotgun, call three plays at a time in the huddle, run out of bounds before being tackled, and John McCain might well cash in on his current 10% chance of winning the election.

But if McCain keeps repeating his same old themes then, as an old pal of Sen. Obama's might say, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Ontario and Final Total Prediction

Ontario's volatility was illustrated neatly last week when Strategic Counsel produced an Ontario-only poll for the Globe and Mail and CTV showing the Tories 5 points ahead of the Grits. Wonderful! The next day they published their daily tracking poll; it showed the Grits ahead of the Tories by 6 points. The first poll had a much larger sample and was the more serious one, but it does illustrate what a roller coaster ride this has been. A column I read somewhere today recounted a day when one tracker had the Liberals ahead by 12 while another had the Conservatives ahead by 5.

One thing which must haunt the Tories (it sure haunts me) is that in the last 2 elections the latest polls overstated Conservative Ontario support by a considerable margin. My hypothesis is that this was due to the Tories being perceived as a risk, an alien party, a Western party, something they didn't feel comfortable with. People who were mad at the Liberals decided that they weren't mad enough to take this chance. If I am right the Ontario underperformance effect should not exist in this election. Love them or hate them, the Tories are now a known quantity; buyers know the product they will be getting. (Hence the Liberals' efforts to persuade people that the Tories have a "hidden agenda', a nightmare of depravity to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public as soon as they won a majority.)

The economic meltdown caused a drop in Tory support that probably put the Liberals ahead by 7 a week or so ago. There is no doubt they have recovered, the question is how much. There seems to be something of a late consensus; the Conservatives leading by 2. That is a 7 point swing from last time, and should produce a larger Tory seat margin than one would ordinarily expect because of the large number of wasted votes the Liberals amass piling up huge margins in metro Toronto. So I will go ahead and take the chance of overpredicting Ontario support for the third successive election. The distance between L and NDP support has dropped dramatically, allowing some Dipper pickups as well. The large-sample Strategic Counsel poll showed the NDP with a big lead over the Liberals in northern Ontario. If the tales of northern NDP gains are true, the Grits could be in for an unpleasant shock in Ontario.

C GAIN FROM LIB (11): BRANT, GUELPH, HALTON, HURON-BRUCE, LONDON WEST, MISSISSAUGA-ERINDALE, MISSISSAUGA SOUTH, NEWMARKET-AURORA, OAK RIDGES-MARKHAM, OAKVILLE , THORNHILL

L GAIN FROM C (1) MISSISSAUGA-STREETSVILLE (where Wajid Khan switched parties)

NDP GAIN FROM L (5): ALGOMA-MANITOULIN-KAPUSKASING, BEACHES-EAST YORK, KENORA, SUDBURY, THUNDER BAY-RAINY RIVER

NDP GAIN FROM C (1) THUNDER BAY-SUPERIOR NORTH

That all adds up to this;

%: C 36, L 34, NDP 22, G 9

SEATS: C 48, L 38, NDP 20
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Adding up it comes to this:

CANADA:

% C 35, L 28, NDP 20, BQ 10, G 7

SEATS: C 133, L 82, BQ 51, NDP 40, IND 2

Let's hope I turn out to be a pessimist. By, say, 22 seats.

In The Boonies: Predictions for Everywhere Else but Ontario

Alberta

NO CHANGE

Manitoba

ST. BONIFACE (C Gain from L) (EPP says L) Hard to imagine this riding with its solid French component leaving the Grits; but the regional C trend (+6 against the Ls), a strong C campaign, and Winnipeg Free Press polls suggest a swing here in a close race.

WINNIPEG SOUTH CENTRE (L Hold) Weak NDP campaign saves incumbent Grit minister.

Saskatchewan

NO CHANGE (Small pro-NDP trend not enough to unseat Tories in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River or Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar)

Quebec
I will not go seat-by-seat here, saving it for my sister French publication, whose name and URL I don't recall at the moment.
Before looking at the polls I had been terrified by reports of total collapse in the C vote in Quebec and a Bloc sweep of Biblical proportions. A look at the final polls from 6 sources tell a different story. You know where the Bloc are compared to their % total in 2006? Down a point. The Tories are down 4 points, that's true. (The Grits are even, with the 5 points lost by the BQ and Cs going to the NDP and G). Unless there is some strange distribution of votes where the Conservatives are increasing their vote disproportionately in ridings where they have no hope, the ominous warnings of people like Chantal Hebert that the Tories had only 2 safe seats in the province can be ignored.) I think they can be ignored, although the tendency of Quebec late trends to magnify on voting day can't be ignored.
% BQ 42 L 21 C 21 NDP 11 G 5

Seats: BQ 51 L 14 C 8 NDP 1 IND 1

Newfoundland
ST . JOHN'S EAST (NDP GAIN from C)
ST. JOHN'S SOUTH-MOUNT PEARL (L GAIN from C) Imagine that: the Grits taking a riding away from the Tories today. I guess every dog has his day.
AVALON (C Hold) Fabian manning barely holds off clean sweep for Williams' ABC campaign.

New Brunswick

NO CHANGE (Either regional trends, incumbency/repeat candidates or other factors seem to be tending to the support of every incumbent party under challenge here. FREDERICTON going C would be a pleasant surprise.)
Nova Scotia

SOUTH SHORE-ST. MARGARET'S (NDP GAIN from C) (Atlantic polls are difficult to interpret because of small samples, but the NDP should pick up another seat somewhere; I'll pick this one.)

Prince Edward Island

NO CHANGE (Only opportunity where incumbent L retiring)

NEXT: The province where all the volatility has been in the last week, Ontario.
And then we add it all up.

Fantastic Finishes? B.C. Predictions

With staggered voting times across the country we in Ontario no longer have to wait until midnight to find out what's going on in La-La-Land North. And the odds that B.C. will make a difference between the 3 possible results: C Minority (96%), C Majority (4%), and L Minority (well, closer to 0% than 1 % but still worth mentioning) are small. Nevertheless this now inaptly named province contains some of the most interesting 3-way races in the country, plus the most determinative resolution of how many Greens will opt for tactical voting to defeat the Tories as they realize they have no chance to win a seat.

The polling results here for the Conservatives have been fairly stable throughout the campaign. The Grits started out disastrously but seem to have been recovering in the last 2 weeks. That plus some good breaks have saved them from a situation seemingly possible not long ago in which they could have been wiped out entirely.

I'll note areas where the vastly overrated Election Prediction project disagrees.... Let us cut to the chase:

BRITISH COLUMBIA:

C 40 NDP 26 L 23 G 11

C 22 NDP 9 L 5

CHANGES:

ESQUIMALT-JUAN DE FUCA: C GAIN from L (EPP says L: Keith Martin to prove not as popular as he thinks; will be close)

NEWTON-NORTH DELTA:: C GAIN from L (EPP says L; with Cs appealing to the ethnic vote, no reason they should be able to resist the swing here.)

RICHMOND: C GAIN from L: (outside Vancouver and Victoria, Ls should lose the close ones)

SURREY NORTH: C GAIN FROM NDP: (Dona Cadman C candidate here)

VANCOUVER KINGSWAY: L GAIN from C: (Not a real C loss as this was David Emerson's riding; could be close L/NDP battle, late L resurgence should win it)

VANCOUVER ISLAND NORTH: C Gain from NDP: (Easy; provincial swing restores former incumbent);
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OTHER INTERESTING RIDINGS:

NORTH VANCOUVER: L HOLD; (EPP says C gain from L) (For the uninitiated, not the same as VANCOUVER ISLAND NORTH. (Could go C, but late L resurgence in greater Vancouver saves popular incumbent.)

SAANICH AND THE GULF ISLANDS: C HOLD (EPP says L gain from C) (The most interesting riding in the whole country. The NDP had to withdraw after exposing his platform before a bunch of teenagers — but he's still on the ballot; how many people will vote for him. The Liberal, Briony Penn is a former Green supporter who did a well known Lady Godiva routine in Vancouver a few years ago to protest some kind of cutting of forests. The Green candidate, Andrew Lewis, ran last time and got 10% of the vote, and the Greens there are reportedly bitter at Penn's defection to the Liberals. A strong campaign has been waged urging voters to vote tactically and support Penn, one effective enough to cause both the C and G candidates to lodge complaints with whoever will listen.

The key here is the assumption by some that all NDP voters realizing their candidate is out will vote L or G. That is not true anywhere, and especially in British Columbia. A significant proportion of NDP supporters have Cs as their second choice. It only needs to be as high as 25% for the Cs to hold the seat. Considering the C strength in BC, incumbent Gary Lunn, who as far as I know has never felt compelled to strip publicly for purposes either good or evil, should be able to hold on — by a margin smaller than the number of voters who cast their votes for the withdrawn NDP.


NEXT: The Prairies

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Freak Show aka TownHall: McCain/Obama Pre-Game

Towmhalls are supposed to be McCain's forte; his forensic forum of advantage. The economy will dominate here, which is supposed to be McCain's weakness. He needs to neutralize that weakness to have any hope of winning the election. The Republicans have somehow managed to get themselves blamed both for the financial meltdown we're experiencing, as well as for the bailout needed to pull us out of it.

As John Dickerson pointed out in Slate, Town hall Forums can go very very wrong. It was in 1992 that Ponytail Guy showed up with his odd and disquieting question that annoyed Bush but which Clinton took as an opportunity to display his empathy, compassion, and love of clean politics. The voters able to ask questions at these town halls are scrupulously vetted as non-partisans -- meaning every partisan in Tennessee has been polishing their acting skills before applying to get in on Tuesday night.

This week the GOP has been trying to play up Sen. Barack Obama's ties to unrepentant terrorist William Ayers and black nationalist former pastor Jeremiah Wright. This isn't the night when McCain would really like to see these issues stressed. There's more important things to do Tuesday night. And it would be disadvantageous for McCain to be forced into repeating his desire to disavow Wright as an issue -- because national and state committees are very likely to be bringing it up in upcoming weeks.

Only a man with experience can pull us out of the mess we're in -- that's the message. Obama's not experienced enough to handle something we've never seen before. McCain's lead over Obama on the question "Who Is A Strong Leader?" has narrowed by 19 points in the last month. Specifics will be needed -- what is McCain going to do for the average guy who is hurting, with no sympathy whatsoever shown for the Bear Stearnses of the world. Specifics, specifics, and more specifics. Obama's making massive ad buys claiming McCain has no economic plan. (And just what is McCain's economic plan anyway?) That spending freeze McCain extemporized last time out needs to be returned to the mental recesses from which it sprang. It may be that the traditional GOP message of tax cuts and economic stimulation is no longer enough.

And no grumpiness. With some questionable cases to be considered, the best predictor of presidential elections since Nixon has been the candidates' likability.

As for Obama? Needs nothing more to be cool, attack Wall Street, and avoid making a disastrous gaffe. And avoid leaving the impression that he has wild spending plans that risk turning a bad situation into an irresolvable disaster.

Monday, September 29, 2008

On The Cusp: State of the Canadian Race 29/09

This is a look at the state of the race in Canada's General Election judged by the polls as we enter the week of the leaders' debates, with particular attention to the prospects of a majority government.

The first hypothesis is that in using the polls to estimate the Conservatives' chances of a majority government, the Green vote can be ignored entirely. It can be subtracted from the total and the results reallocated among the 3 major parties. The Greens will win at most a handful of seats, their strength is a nuisance to the Liberals and the NDP, and the nature of their demographic appeal can affect Liberal/NDP races. But the number of seats the Conservatives will win in a given region is best predicted by comparing their poll standing with only the other parties likely to win seats. That's why people who talk about a supposed "40% threshold" for a majority government are wrong. As support for minor parties who are not going to win seats goes higher, the threshold percentage of the total popular vote needed to win a majority becomes lower.

We'll look first at most up to date national poll numbers -- all with the Green vote (and those of other 6th parties) being removed. In surveys which leave undecideds out of the party totals we will assume that they will break in the same proportions as decided voters. The dates are the dates that the polls were taken, where that can be determined. We will call these numbers the Toral-adjusted totals.

Nanos Research C 40 L 28 NDP 22 BQ 11 (Sept. 26-28)
Harris-Decima C 41 L 29 NDP 21 BQ 9 (Sept. 25-28)
Ekos Research C 38 L 29 NDP 22 BQ 11 (Sept. 25-28)
Angus Reid/Toronto Star C 43 L 23 NDP 23 BQ 11 (Sept. 25)

The next complication is that the Bloc will be highly effective in turning its votes into seats, because of the concentration of its vote. Let's give the Bloc 40 seats for the purpose of this exercise. Are these majority government numbers for the Tories? The Tory numbers are more impressive than they look because of the size of the differential between the Conservatives and their closest challengers. All the numbers except those of Ekos Research would suggest a Tory majority government; Ekos would have them right on the cusp. Perhaps this may explain some of Prime Minister Harper's recent willingness to come out and ask for a majority government, where he had previously been trying to dispel fear that one might happen. They're assured enough of at least a minority, and just uncertain enough about the possibility of a majority, that the time may have seemed right to stop pretending that they didn't want anything for Christmas and come out and ask for what they want.

Friday, September 26, 2008

McCain Vs. Obama, Part One

9:06...Lehrer in the tank already as he ignores the supposed theme of the evening, foreign policy, and leads off with a "financial crisis" question...allowing Obama to advertise his love for the ordinary American, and an unaccustomed concern that taxpayers get value for what they are paying....I've switched from Fox to CNN, which all in all has a more interesting bunch of commentators. They have a neat Audience Reaction meter which tracks the approvan of Democrats, Independents and Republicans...McCain shows himself equally supple in reducing the crisis to the currentproblems of the ordinary person on Main St., which are apparently more important than the possibility of the world financial system collapsing.

9:12 Obama skilfully expounds on the question what he thinks of the bailout without even a pretense of answering it. McCain finds an excuse to tell the old Eisenhower two-letter story, about the letter Eisenhower wrote in advance of D-Day taking full responsibility for the its failure had it occurred, but he blows it, not giving enough detail for people who don't already know the story to understand what he's talking about. It's a very poignant story if you tell it right. He emphasizes that he warned of these disasters in advance, and his demand for future accountability. AR heads way up on "accountability". Survived that question well enough I think.

9:15 These "people who live on Main Street" must be living in indescribable misery. The whole brunt of this crisis seem to have fallen on them.... Both candidates look like they are wisely going to ignore Lehrer's questions entirely and make whatever points they had planned to no matter what the question is....Obama looks defensive on earmarks. He may be startled to find him being out-populisted by a Republican....McCain's arm motions look stiff and awkward. The Republicans need to make sure every voter knows that this is because of the injuries he suffered as a POW. Perhaps he could start appearing in braces slings and bandages....On CNN's audience meter, independent approval of McCain jumps as he talks about his vote against the bill festooned with benefits for oil companies....Obama is asked what he will give up in terms of spending, and ignores the question entirely, instead giving his laundry list of things on which there needs to be more spending. Oh I beg your pardon. He will end unspecified "programs that don't work"....Whoops there goes Iowa for good. McCain calls for ending ethanol subsidies again....Spending freeze? Where did that come from? Is McCain making policy on the fly again? There will be lots of opportunities for Democrats to hit McCain on that all campaign long. John McCain -- wants to freeze spending on preventing childhood deaths...Huge gap on the AR meter as McCain talks about not letting the federal government run health care. Independent line moving up, moving closer to the Republicans.

9:42 Now we get into the meat. What are the lessons of Iraq? Oh oh...independent reaction bad as McCain talks about Iraq. And the Independents like Obama talking about he was against the war from the start. If Obama mentions his plan to get out on a deadline, McCain's response could decide the campaign...McCain is strong in saying that what's important about Iraq are the decisions that will be made in the future, not those made in the past....Obama's now stressing his 16-month deadline. Audience reaction good from both parties. And it slumps when McCain responds by talking about the successes of General Petreaus. I have long thought that despite the recent successes in Iraq, McCain's refusal to provide a deadline for getting out could cost him the campaign.

9:56 McCain slaughters Obama on Pakistan. I just hope the people listening can understand that it's not a good idea to start invading friendly regimes whose problem is their difficulty of controlling thir anti-American elements...Is Obama being effective dwelling so long on McCain's supposed errors about Afghanistan? I'm not sure people are going to understand his argument, and if the audience can't really understand the nature of a disagreement between the two, their default position, in foreign affairs, will be that McCain is right.

10:06 On to Iran...McCain wants "no second Holocaust". That should help fundraising in New York City....McCain starting to tire around 10:12, starting to stumble a bit. Obama's defense of direct diplomacy may or may not sell completely, but he's succeeding in sounding presidential. The Dem Ind and Rep approval lines on the AR meter are running almost even.

10:22 Obama is trying to look restrained and thoughtful as McCain gives him Hell on Georgia, but to me he looks more like a chastened schoolboy. McCain now reenergized...powerfully conveying outrage at the naivete of Obama's views...Weird coincidence of the day. McCain and Obama argue about who knows the difference between "strategy" and tactics". You know who doesn't understand that difference? Me. I was looking at Wikipedia today to try to figure it out.

10:31 McCain not so dumb as to try to actually estimate the likelihood of another 9/11 attack. If you say "high" you encourage panic and suggest the Republicans haven't been dealing adequately with the danger; if you say "low" you suggest the government's domestic security meaures may be unduly harsh and that all the hullaballoo about security is unncecesary.

10:36 The debate is fading, and people are losing interest. Or maybe it's just me.

MY VERDICT: A narrow McCain win, with Obama able to be satisfied that he held his own in the debate on his weakest area. As Rich Lowry stated on NRO, McCain was the aggressor on foreign policy, but Obama counterpunched adequately enough.
The polls on this debate will be important though, because if either candidate has a small 5% advantage on the question "Who won?", the popular wisdom will become that that candidate won, and 2 weeks from now the notion that that guy won will become the overwhelming consensus.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Elephants on the March -- Thursday at the RNC

Some thoughts on the go about the most important night of the Republican convention.

Meg Whitman, former EBay Chairman, a billionnaire, sometimes mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, speaking about the economy, gives the impression that in a debate she could buy and sell Joe Biden and make a profit on both ends. Carly Fiorina gives the same impression with an added political touch. I like CNN's countdown box on the lower right corner of the screen -- counting the minutes and seconds till Palin's speech as if was a liftoff into space.

I have never felt any kind of emotional connection when listening to Mitt Romney. He's a business conservative who only seemed to be speaking with passion during his presidential campaign when he talked about his grandiose plans for rejuvenating the auto industry in Michigan. On social issues, I thought it out and conjecture that his so frequent changes in belief were not because of insincerity, but because he treated his position on them as a product that he as a businessman was trying to sell. If you are trying to get the public to buy a product, you don't offer for sale the style of widget that you happen to like, do you? No...you offer the style of widget that you think the market wants to buy. And if the people of Massachusetts like different coloured widgets that the people voting in Republican presidential primaries, you offer each group the kind of widget they want.

Having said all that, Mitt sounded like a man who would have been a good vice presidential candidate. Between Mitt, Huck, and Rudy, the Democrats may have had the superstar public speaker in Obama, but the GOP who had the deep bench, and Rudy probably came through better in the clutch even than Obama.

I was hoping that Palin would put the line accepting the nomination of her party at the end of the speech instead of in its traditional place at the beginning. It would have made a great exit line.

From Palin what we were looking for was poise and confidence. As some blogger I cannot remember wrote earlier today, half of getting past the doorman is acting like you belong where you're going. She had established that before the two minute mark had past. The rest is now history. I was hoping for the best, but not expecting the best acceptance speech by a member of a GOP ticket since 1984. I was hoping for three or four memorable or funny lines, not 15 or 20.

Just from hearing Gov. Palin's rollout speech in Dayton I was completely astonished why anyone would assume that Sarah Palin was likely to be demolished by Joe Biden in a debate. If such a demolition is in the Democrats' plans, I would suggest they think again.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Palin as a Girl Thing -- Days 1, 2 and 3

The choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as GOP vice-presidential nominee should be a potential goldmine for political psychologists, whether academics or political practitioners whose major concern is to determine how the selection of a person from a given demographic will move the polls among downwardly mobile red-haired transexuals in Dubuque. I don't know how quickly academic grant applications can be churned out and approved, but if I were a political psychologist I'd be working every connection I have to find out.

Gov. Palin's inexperience, and solidly social conservative views, in one sense compromise the purity of this Rorschach test. It would, for example, be fascinating to see how feminists' views of the nomination would add up if they did not know of Palin's pro-life position. But we must work with what we have. The Palin nomination's disparate effect on men and women will be worth noting. But the resolution of this question isn't the main attraction; it's just the undercard. We will see different reactions from young, middle-aged, and old women; between working-middle- and upper class women; and between homemakers, women who work because they feel to have to to make a living, and career women. Of special interest will be the reactions of career women who have intentionally limited the size of their families in order to better pursue professional interests; and of those uncounted millions of women in the United States who have had abortions (a group unreachable by polls).

I first sensed that reactions to the nomination were not going to fall within the range I had expected when I read the facial expressions, the body language -- and heard the words -- of professional newsreaders and commentators like Gloria Borger and Cameron Brown on CNN. The not very unspoken subtext of their remarks was that a nominee for the vice presidency should be someone older that Sarah Palin, someone who had sacrificed more than Sarah Palin had, someone who had had to fight harder against the male establishment than Sarah Palin had -- someone, well, more like them. There was a resentment there that seemed to go beyond the quite reasonable point that supporters of Hillary Clinton's agenda could not be expected to do a 180 to support anyone who happened to be a woman.

The best way of following immediate real-time reaction to the choice among conservatives was NROnline. In general the reaction of social conservatives as reported on blogs like NROnline was wildly enthusiastic. NRO Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez -- a fierce Mitt Romney partisan -- was quickly noting that "What's already irritating me though is the suggestion that women will run to her because she's a woman. Pro-life Palin is going to be a hard sell for liberal feminists, even if she has a uterus." That is the theme that we would repeated as often as one could want over the next few days. Shortly thereafter Kathleen Parker, NRO Contributor and author of the influential anti-feminist
Save the Males, was the first to introduce in that forum the issue of the candidate's style and attire: ". Ranging over to more superficial turf, I'd like to suggest a style makeover . . .soonest.". I was not surprised: although women in politics may complain about the attention paid to their makeup and dress, in my experience 90% of the interest, and criticism, on these subjects is from women. The daily comparisons of the colour of Hillary Clinton's pantsuits to the colour of the daily terrorist threat warning was all from women. Parker later posted that her e-mailers were for scratching the makeover; readers liked the "hot librarian" look. it later turned out that Gov. Palin had adopted the up-do and "schoolmarmish glasses" look specifically to ensure that she wasn't taken unseriously because of her gender.

Lisa Schiffren, one time speechwriter for Dan Quayle, was the first I noticed to take up the theme of social class -- one that was to take on more prominence as the first weekend went by:
I love that she is a former union member, married to a member of the Steelworkers Union. Here comes Ohio, and many of those midwest blue collar workers who aren't so comfortable with the idea of the first "community organizer" president. That she is an athlete and a hunter makes the story even better. I bet the Palins paid for their house themselves (and it wasn't any $1.6 million mansion)
The first data came from the Rasmussen Pollreleased Sunday morning. 31% of women said they were more likely to support the Republicans because of the Palin choice, and 41% said they would be less likely. The figures for men were 43% more likely and 34% less likely. Rasmussen noted that the figures were capable of explanation as a simple reflection of the usual gender gap between the parties.

We'll find out more after Gov. Palin gets her chance to speak on Wednesday night.