President-elect Obama's Weekly Radio/YouTube Address

Here is this week's radio/YouTube address from the President-elect:

The Audacity of Corruption

The arrest this morning of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) on federal charges of corruption revealed a scandal so sweeping it surely must establish a new low-water mark in the recent history of American political corruption. It unmasked a politician so drunk with his own power that he ran amok in unbelievably arrogant attempts to enrich himself and his wife while desperately trying to crush anyone who got in his way. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who came to national prominence leading the investigation into the Bush Administration's outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, is in charge of the Blagojevich probe. In a late morning news conference. Fitzgerald said that Blagojevich's actions constituted "a political corruption crime spree". That's putting it mildly.

The federal allegations against Blagojevich fall roughly into three categories:

1. The so-called 'pay to play' scheme in which the Illinois Governor is accused of demanding personal and/or political monetary kick-backs in exchange for awarding state contracts or granting state funds. As appalling as these charges are, they are pretty much the garden variety of political corruption. There is nothing particularly new in this, but it is loathsome nevertheless. In just the past few weeks two long-serving members of Congress lost their re-election bids because of similar corrupt behavior: Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) and Louisiana Representative William Jefferson (D). Some fine group of public servants that.

2. Blagojevich is accused of attempting to get at least one political writer for The Chicago Tribune fired in exchange for state backing of renovations at Chicago's Wrigley field, a facility owned by The Tribune's parent company. It seems the journalist(s) had written numerous articles and op-ed pieces highly critical of the Governor. Such overt attempts at muzzling members of the Fourth Estate are very rare in American politics, but are all too common in other countries. For example, Russia's Vladimir Putin would undoubtedly recognize a soul-mate in Mr. Blagojevich. Beyond disgusting, this alleged action earns Blagojevich a very special place in the Political Corruption Hall of Infamy. He will have to fight for a seat with the ghosts of despicable foreign dictators like Haiti's 'Papa Doc' Duvalier and Chile's Augusto Pinochet. Fair enough.

3. If you thought Blagojevich couldn't sink any lower, think again. The Federal criminal complaint asserts that Blagojevich was trying to sell the US Senate seat just vacated by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Although not totally unheard of in American politics, the brazenness of the Illinois Governor's efforts to get cash from such a high-level, high-profile appointment is breathtaking and virtually unprecedented. You'd have to look at the behavior of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe or Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko to find anything comparable in today's world. Great role models those.

Although we must be careful to preserve the very important legal presumption of innocence, it is clear that Blagojevich must go... and go now. If he refuses to resign, then the Illinois legislature should remove him from office immediately. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has suggested that the vacant Illinois Senate seat should be filled by a special election, not by appointment. That sounds like a very good idea. Maybe all the states should adopt that plan for filling Senate and House vacancies.

Fortunately, there is no indication whatsoever that President-elect Obama or anyone on his staff played any role in Blagojevich's nauseating behavior. That's a very good thing indeed. Nevertheless, with an eye to the important notion of the presumption of innocence, Obama must distance himself from Blagojevich in no uncertain terms. The President-elect should throw the Governor under the bus - and then back that bus over him repeatedly. 

As he gets ready to assume the highest office in the land, President-elect Obama must make it crystal clear that this sort of behavior by a public official is utterly unacceptable. No minced words, no nuanced phrases. 

CNN Poll: Obama Ratings At Historic High

Public approval ratings of President-elect Barack Obama are sky-high according to a poll released this morning by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation. The survey found that a staggering 79% of those queried approve of the way Obama has handled the transition so far. A mere 18% disapprove. President-elect Obama's approval mark is 14 points higher than the comparable number for Bush in 2000 and 17 points higher than former President Bill Clinton's approval rating in 1992.

CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said: "An... approval rating of seventy-nine percent [is] the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a President after a national disaster. To many Americans, the Bush administration was a national disaster." 

Amen to that, Mr. Schneider.

President-Elect Obama's Weekly Radio/YouTube Address

Here is this week's radio/YouTube address from the President-elect.

President-Elect Obama's Weekly Radio/YouTube Address

President-elect Obama delivers his weekly radio/YouTube address to the nation today (Thanksgiving Day) rather than in the usual Saturday morning time slot:

Gallup: Confidence in President-elect Obama Remains Sky High

Three weeks out from the election, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in eighty years and with a transition team working at warp speed, President-elect Obama maintains an extraordinary level of support from the American people. 

In spite of unprecedented media coverage of the transition and the fastest-paced naming of important staff and cabinet members in history, the President-elect enjoys wide-ranging support from nearly two-thirds of Americans. 

The latest Gallup poll shows that 65% of those surveyed indicated confidence that Obama will be a good or great President. Only 28% of those questioned expressed a lack of confidence in the President-elect's ability to do a good job. 

These numbers, a three-day rolling average ending yesterday, are unchanged from the day after his election.

President-Elect Obama's Weekly Address

Here you go. President-elect Obama's weekly radio/YouTube address.

Israeli President: Obama Gives Peace A Chance

In an interview today with The Times of London, Israeli President - and former Prime Minister - Shimon Peres says that the election of Barack Obama brings a "chance" of diplomatic dialogue between the Jewish state and its arch-enemy Iran. Peres believes that moving Iran away from its implacable hostility to Israel is critical to eventually securing an overall settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Although the office of Israeli President is largely ceremonial, Mr. Peres is one of Israel's most senior statesmen and is widely respected across the country's broad ideological spectrum. His views on foreign policy issues in particular carry a lot of weight in Israel and around the world. Mr. Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Peres indicated that he believes the President-elect can bring the vehemently anti-Israeli government of Iranian mullahs to the negotiating table provided that Mr. Obama can garner sufficient support from the broader international community. A key factor in getting Iran into productive and meaningful talks about the future of the Middle East, according to Peres, will the "new politial climate" created by Barack Obama's election to the US Presidency. Economic issues, particularly the falling price of oil, will also provide more incentive for Iran to get serious about assuming a more responsible role in international relations. 

"If there will be a united policy on Iran and there is a new [lower] price for oil then Iran will have to come to terms with a proportionate reality of our times," said President Peres.

From your lips to God's ears, Mr. President!

Exactly...

Lee Stranahan, writing this evening for The Huffington Post, sums up the feelings and hopes of many progressive bloggers. Batting down the idea that we in the "liberal blogosphere" are somehow up in arms over President-elect Obama's decisions to show leniency to Joe Lieberman and to appoint Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, Stranahan notes:

"Speaking for my tiny little chunk of the liberal blogosphere, I don't like Joe Lieberman. I was disgusted by Hillary's campaign. And I couldn't be happier with Obama's decisions." [emphasis mine]

Stranahan continues: "You see, I took all that talk about new politics seriously. In speech after speech, Obama said we had to move past 'the smallness of our politics' and he didn't single out Republicans. He didn't say the smallness of their politics. The smallness has been in both parties..." [emphasis in the original]

Mr. Stranahan concludes: "...Obama is showing confidence in the idea he ran on; that America was ready for not just new policies but for a whole new approach to governing. It's the biggest possible change I can imagine. It's not just good politics. It isn't some clever move. It's what those better angels that Obama kept mentioning look like. No wonder it's confusing to so many people of all ideological stripes.."

That is exactly why so many of us believe in, and voted for, Barack Obama. Over the past couple of decades, we all have been entangled in the smallness of our partisan politics. It will be hard - very hard - to break out of that habit, but it will be worth the effort to try. It is, at the very least, an uplifting experience to watch our new President-elect's attempts to take us there.

Bush Recession Gets Much Worse In October

As reported by Bloomberg News, retail sales in the US declined 2.8% in October, the largest one-month drop on record. Even worse, the decline in consumer buying was broad-based, cutting across virtually all segments of the economy.  Coming on the heels of the September collapse of the financial industry and the sharp rise in the unemployment rate in October, today's bleak economic news leaves little doubt that the Bush Recession is very bad and getting worse by the minute.

The current Republican Administration's reckless spending, irresponsible tax cuts for super-wealthy individuals and big corporations and its gross lack of regulatory oversight have finally yielded the inevitable -- and totally predictable -- results. The American economy is in shambles and sinking ever closer to depression-level territory with each passing day. Very tough times lie ahead.

President-elect Obama will no doubt be facing an even more dire economic situation when he takes the oath of office in the third week January next year. There is no real hope that the lame-duck Congress and the lame-duck President can, or will, take the tough measures necessary to begin a recovery. With only a one-seat Democratic majority in the Senate (and that's counting Mr. Unreliable, Joe Lieberman) and a disengaged, unresponsive Republican President, nothing of any real substance is likely to be enacted into law before February or March of 2009. It is going to be a long, slow crawl back from the edge of the economic abyss.

As progressives, it is important that we keep the mainstream media honest in their reporting about how we got into this mess and who is responsible for it. The chattering classes will, I fear, be all too willing to parrot the right wing wackos' efforts to blame the Democrats and President-elect Obama. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have already started down that path. They will certainly soon be followed by other wingnuts. Many in the mainstream media will be sorely tempted to take the bait because it is easy (no work involved) and simplistic (requires no real understanding of the issues).  

We can't let that happen.

Dixie Is Losing Its Political Relevance

Today's New York Times has a thought-provoking and insightful analysis of this year's Presidential election. The article, written by Adam Nossiter, focuses on the diminishing influence of the South in national elections caused by the complete dominance of the GOP in the region. If there had ever been any doubts about the Republicans' vice-like grip on Dixie, they were removed on November 4th.

Reaching many of the same conclusions we drew in our Hold-Recapture-Add blog earlier this week, Nossiter points out that the South has lost its ability to dictate that the Democratic ticket contain at least one Southerner. The Obama-Biden team is the first totally non-Southern Democratic ticket to win the White House since FDR, with Iowa native Henry Wallace as his VP, achieved that feat in 1940.

Worse yet, Dixie has become the only truly reliable base of what is now a very regionalized - and therefore highly marginalized - Republican Party. With the South so firmly in the GOP camp, it is one of those paradoxes of politics that Southern influence over the selection of the next Republican national ticket will also be severely limited. Republicans will simply be forced to give non-Southerners high profile slots on their Presidential tickets in order to be competitive on the national electoral map.

The Southern strategy of Richard Nixon has not only taken deep root in Dixie, it is sufficiently strong to ensure GOP victory in Dixie even in a year when all the headwinds were strongly against them. Nossiter's conclusion as to why the South, bucking the trend in every other part of the nation this year, went so overwhelmingly for the Republican team of McCain-Palin is as obvious as it is painful: race. 

The verdict of Appomattox, it seems, has yet to be accepted by far too many white Southerners.  Maybe it will come in time. After all, it has only been just over one hundred and forty-three years...

Barack Go Bragh!

This video will get your shamrock blood stirring:

h/t: PostPolitics

Hold-Recapture-Add: Making Geopolitics Work

As I examine some of the underlying truths of President-elect Obama's epic campaign and history-shattering election victory, one of my conclusions is that America has experienced a political realignment of sorts.

Even a brief review of the voting patterns in Tuesday's election reveals some very interesting details about the changing political landscape of the nation and of the two major political parties. When you look at this year's electoral map, one thing jumps out at you immediately. There is a geographic coherence to the 2008 election results. A quick comparison to the electoral maps from 2000 and 2004 confirms this idea. 

It seems that political allegiance in the US is increasingly linked to geographical location. This trend appears stronger than at any time since the run-up to the Civil War or, at least, since the period immediately following Reconstruction. Even in a time of great economic stress and two foreign wars, America's political fault-lines more and more follow geographical boundaries.  

It seems clear that the Obama campaign leveraged this geopolitical reality in order to put together a decisive electoral college victory. I call their strategy the 'hold-recapture-add' approach. It was an elegant strategy that maximized the use of advertising dollars and other resources while allowing the campaign to get full benefit of the increasing regionalization of American politics.

The idea was simple: Hold the Kerry 2004 states, recapture the two Gore states (IA and NM) that Kerry did not win four years ago and add as many other states with similar demographics and good prospects as practical. That turned out to be seven: OH, IN, VA, NC, FL, CO and NV. Note that, save for FL, all of the Obama add-ons physically adjoin the Gore-Kerry base. Is it a mere coincidence that these states are all contiguous? I don't think so. 

Let's examine how this geopolitical strategy played out in practice.

A closer look at Obama's victory margins by state tells the tale. In every Gore-Kerry state, Obama equalled or improved on his predecessors' popular vote performance. The Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, already deep blue, got even bluer. The sole 'barely-blue' exception in this region, New Hampshire, narrowly lost by Gore and barely won by Kerry, gave Obama a double-digit victory this time around. Otherwise, already large Democratic margins improved substantially in places like New York, New Jersey and Vermont. Most importantly, Obama far outpaced the previous Democratic tickets' margins in Pennsylvania, thwarting the McCain campaign's quixotic efforts to poach the Keystone State. 

The Midwestern states also showed dramatic increases in the Democratic nominee's share of the popular vote. Wisconsin, narrowly carried by the Democrats in 2000 and 2004, gave Obama a crushing 13 point victory over John McCain. The story was much the same in MI and MN. Iowa, which Gore won by a whisker in 2000 and Kerry lost by another whisker in 2004, provided Obama with an easy 9-point victory. 

Most importantly, Ohio and Indiana (sandwiched between Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania) switched from the GOP column to the Democratic candidate. This shift gave Obama a complete run of the Midwest except for Missouri, where an extremely tight race is still not officially settled. For the moment, it appears McCain may eke out a very tiny win in Missouri. (Much of Missouri is, after all, an extension of the Upper South. See below for a detailed discussion of that region.)

The Great Plains and northern Rockies remained firmly Republican, although it's noteworthy that Obama did better than either Gore or Kerry in every one of these states (ND, SD, NE, KS, MT, WY, UT and ID). Some efforts were made in this region by the Obama campaign, but any gains here have to be attributed to DNC Chair Howard Dean's brilliant fifty-state strategy which put the Republicans on defense even where the Democratic ticket had few prospects.

Further west, Obama easily held the Pacific coast states (WA, OR, CA) and Hawaii. Once again, his popular vote margins in each of these four states easily outdistanced both Gore and Kerry. To his list of far-west wins, Obama added California's eastern neighbor, Nevada, a state that neither Gore nor Kerry had won. Remarkably, Obama won the Silver State by 14 percentage points! In the far northwest Pacific, Alaska, with its Governor on the GOP ticket, remained very red but even there Obama did noticeably better than Gore or Kerry.

In the Southwest, Obama continued his 'hold-recapture-add' strategy. Retaking the Democratic base state of New Mexico (which Gore had won by the tiniest of margins in 2000), Obama expanded into the adjoining state of Colorado. In New Mexico, he won by an astounding 15 point margin and easily carried CO with a sound 8 point lead.  Interestingly, even in John McCain's home state of Arizona, Obama got as large a share of the popular vote as either Kerry or Gore had been able to do in the previous two cycles.

 

In the deep South, things get very interesting. Obama managed to "re-capture" Florida, lost soundly by Kerry in 2004 and (arguably) 'won' narrowly by Gore in the infamous 2000 debacle. Other than a rather loose geographic border with GA and AL, there is not very much that is Southern about Florida these days. Demographically and politically, the Sunshine State is some sort of eccentric mix of the new Southwest and the old Northeast. Go figure.

In the remainder of the deep South (SC, GA, AL, MS, LA and TX) , Obama somewhat outperformed Gore and Kerry everywhere except LA (Katrina effect?), but he still lost all of these states to McCain. Heavy voter turnout among the relatively large African-American and (in the case of Texas) Latino populations no doubt boosted Obama above the Gore-Kerry levels in this region. 

The Upper South, where the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states meet the old Confederacy, is perhaps the most fascinating - and instructive - region of the 2008 election. Obama underperformed (or barely equalled) both Gore and Kerry in OK, AR, TN, KY and WV. Lacking large African-American populations or significant numbers of young voters or upscale, college-educated whites, Obama had no natural base from which to operate here. Evangelical Christians and socially conservative lower-income whites dominate the electorate in this part of the Upper South.

The two eastern-most states of the Upper South (Virginia and North Carolina) presented a very different picture this cycle. In recent years, Virginia has been trending more and more blue, becoming ever more like its Mid-Atlantic neighbors to the north while losing the historic similarity to its sister states of the old Confederacy. With more and more minorities, upscale whites, young people and college grads, the Old Dominion was fertile ground for Obama - and his campaign took full advantage of that fact. Breaking a forty-four year-old GOP lock on Virginia's electoral votes, Obama won the state by slightly more than four points.

North Carolina, the last of the Upper South states to consider, is very nearly a unique case. With a large African-American population, a growing Latino minority, lots of younger voters and above-average percentages of college graduates, the Tarheel State is in many ways not unlike its neighbor to the north, Virginia. However, the mountainous areas of western NC are demographically and culturally more akin to Tennessee and West Virginia. There are proportionately more lower-income, less well-educated whites here than in Virginia although that too is slowly changing. Hence the extremely close race in North Carolina, where Obama appears to have won by less than 1% of the vote in a state that has not gone for a Democrat in a generation.

County level Presidential results throughout the country, as well as results for US House races and local contests, confirm what is all too visible at the state level. The Republican Party's greatest strength is increasingly confined to areas with voters who are overwhelmingly white, lower-income and less well-educated than the country as a whole. 

In regional terms, the GOP has become an endangered species in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. It is in full retreat throughout the Midwest. It is losing ground even in its Great Plains and Rockies heartland. While still holding on in the interior parts of the Pacific coast states, the Republican Party has all but ceased to be an equal player in any state west of the Rockies. Only in the Deep South and, especially, in the Upper South do the Republicans still hold a firm grip on political power. 

It will be interesting to see how the emerging new Republican leadership sets about tackling their party's shrinking electoral prospects. It's a daunting task. As a committed Democrat, I'm not going to lose much sleep if it takes them a while to figure it out.

Dixville Notch Surprise: Obama!

For the first time in forty years, a Democrat has won the Presidential vote in the the tiny New Hampshire village of Dixville Notch. Here are the results, just announced a few moments ago:

Barack Obama: 15 votes

John McCain: 6 votes

Ralph Nader: 0 votes

The last Democrat to win in Dixville Notch was Hubert Humphrey in 1968. See our earlier post about this quaint New England village's tradition of voting at midnight and counting the votes immediately.

Our Final Electoral Vote Projection: Obama-Biden!

It's crunch time and we're not going to be coy - or equivocal - about our final electoral vote projection for 2008. For this final prediction we have assigned all toss-up states to one candidate or the other. We have also eliminated the distinction between a state that is leaning to a candidate and one that is solidly for a candidate.   

When the votes are counted tomorrow night, the electoral votes of every state will be awarded to one ticket or the other with no toss-ups and no difference based on margin of victory. Our final projection now conforms to the harsh reality of American Presidential elections.

That said, there are no changes to the states we indicated in our last projection were in the Obama column or the McCain column. Now they all show up on our map as either solid blue or solid red - the pale shading is gone. 

That gave Obama a starting point of 338 EVs and McCain 160 EVs for our final projection.  We then had to assign our previous toss-up states (four) and their electoral votes (forty) to one side or the other. Using the latest polling data, some historical trends, the available early voting data and some subjective assessments based on our experience with these states, we made the following assignments:

North Dakota (3 votes): to McCain

Indiana (11 votes): to McCain

Missouri (11 votes): to Obama

North Carolina (15 votes): to Obama

This brings Barack Obama to a total of 364 Electoral Votes and John McCain to 174.

The map to the right shows how we think the race will end up after all the votes are counted. It's nothing short of an electoral landslide for the Obama-Biden ticket. 

Now we're going to cross our fingers and hope that we are right.

Daily Tracking Polls: Righteous Wind Is Blowing

Here are the tracking poll results for today, November 3rd.

Gallup Daily Tracking*:  Obama 55%, McCain 44%

Rasmussen Daily Tracking:  Obama 52%, McCain 46%

Diageo/Hotline Daily Tracking:  Obama 50%, McCain 45%  

Research 2000 Daily Tracking:  Obama 51%, McCain 45%

*Final Pre-Election Estimate

Darth Vader Is 'Delighted'

See and hear for yourself in this newly released TV spot from the Obama campaign:

Sweet.

Today's Tracking Polls: All Treat, No Trick

Here are the tracking poll results for today, October 31st.

Gallup Daily Tracking:  Obama 52%, McCain 43%

Rasmussen Daily Tracking:  Obama 51%, McCain 47%

Diageo/Hotline Daily Tracking:  Obama 48%, McCain 41%  

Research 2000 Daily Tracking:  Obama 51%, McCain 45%

Today's Tracking Polls: Five More Days

Here are the tracking poll results for today, October 30th.

Gallup Daily Tracking*:  Obama 51%, McCain 44%

Rasmussen Daily Tracking:  Obama 51%, McCain 46%

Diageo/Hotline Daily Tracking:  Obama 48%, McCain 42%  

Research 2000 Daily Tracking:  Obama 50%, McCain 45%

*Note: Beginning today, and continuing for the rest of this election cycle, we will be using the Gallup Daily Tracking poll of likely voters rather than registered voters. At about this point in past campaigns, polls of likely voters have become more meaningful than those of registered voters. The other three tracking polls in our daily posting have already been using likely voter models for at least a couple of weeks. 

Video: Obama Ad - "His Choice"