Panic Rising

I don't claim that there's any exterior cause for this, but I'm starting to get worried about the election. It's a familiar feeling: about once a week for the first five months of the year I got it as Barack and Hillary battled their way through the primaries. Even when Obama was on his 21-state winning streak, I would still enter election day panicked. So I suppose it's just reflexive.

On the other hand, let me take you back to February 1. It was the Friday beore the 18-0 Patriots, purported at the time to be the finest team ever fielded, matched up against the 13-6 Giants in the Super Bowl. My co-worker, a Bostonian and the biggest Patriots fan in the country, was in the kind of mood you get after you go 19-0. I suggested to her that she might leave open the possibility of a Pats loss, just so she wouldn't go insane if they did lose. "Impossible," she said.

So now we're five days from the election, and I'm hearing a lot of big talk. On about day 8, I was making a lot of big talk. But somehow, the confidence is gone, and I'm feeling morose and depressed. Things are going just a little too well. Obama's routing McCain in the polls (though they're tightening a little--doom!), he's relaxed and happy, and McCain is dirtier and more furious than ever. Every day some major conservative comes over to Obama's side, and every newspaper from the Idaho Statesman to the Chicago Tribune have endorsed Obama. You see signs like this. Early returns suggest a huge Obama turnout (except in Oregon, where they're lagging--doom!). The news for McCain just gets worse and worse.

And still I have a sinking feeling that things are not all well. Please let my spidey senses be off on this one...

CO, NM, and IA

From time to time I check out the electoral calculators by way of giving myself a reality check. Here's something to keep in mind when you're thinking about the map. Ohio doesn't matter. Florida doesn't matter. Virginia, NC, Missouri--none of these matter. If Obama wins just three states that Bush won in '04, he wins the election: Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa.

In each case, Obama has a lead of more than six points in aggregated poll results. McCain has pulled out of Colorado and Iowa, and Latinos are starting to break hard for Obama in New Mexico. You have to go back to early September, when McCain got his convention bounce, to find any polls Obama trailed. In Iowa, McCain has never led. If Obama picks up some of the other "battleground" states, it could get ugly quick--but they're just gravy. These three states ensure Obama the win.

Debate Observations

Both candidates needed to do certain things, and both did. McCain needed to stick to the talking points and not get too irritated or condescending. He needed to avoid a major error in fact. Obama needed to look presidential, speak in short, clear sentences, and not get irritated.

So fans of both candidates could be happy -- except that McCain's campaign is currently cratering. He didn't need to hold sway, he needed something that would turn the election around. He didn't get it. Worse, if you were leaning to Obama and tuned in just to see if he passed the smell test, you'd be pleased. A tie is a pretty big win for Obama.

Sometimes I think we over-analyze, too. Obama really does hold all the cards. In reality, this was a low-stakes event because he knows the issues and is right on them. It was far worse with Hillary because they agreed on everything. We had to start going to the tie-breakers to see who won, subtle things that are the height of subjectivity. But McCain versus Obama is night versus day. They don't agree on anything, and America largely agrees with Obama. As long as he didn't start jabbering incoherently, he was going to seem more reasonable simply because the guy you agree with always looks more reasonable. And most people agree with Obama.

A final point is just how much Palin may have damaged McCain. By tossing out someone who actually has no experience and demonstrates it, he has given America an object lesson in what inexperience looks like. And Obama doesn't look like that at all. In a perverse way, McCain has made the best case for Obama's experience by selecting Palin. This was thrown into sharp relief when, following Joe Biden's appearance on two networks (at least), announcers had to say that Palin wouldn't show. She couldn't because she's not ready. It made Obama's performance look less like stagecraft than actual knowledge--something Obama was having a hard time proving on his own.

Liveblogging the First Debate

Right on time--Lehrer starts things at 6pm straight up.

6:03 - Q about the financial crisis. Obama, looking straight into the camera. Standard response about the plan, the elements he wants. Pivots to a shot at McCain being part of the cause. Trying to irritate McCain right off the bat!

McCain, crocodile tears about Kennedy. Pivots to crocodile tears about homeowners. He's looking around the room, not just into the camera, like Obama. Sticks to talking points.

6:08 - Five minute open period. Obama jumps first. Looking presidential. Now talking to Lehrer. Shot at deregulators.

McCain jumps in, claims to have warned about the "train wreck coming." Hmmm. Heart not in that, he plays an old Ike talking point he's repeated 16,000 times. Sort of loses the thread trying to link Normandy up to financial crisis.

6:12 - Lehrer tries to get Obama to talk to McCain, he does, both handle it nicely. Obama repeats himself, starting it with "John..." McCain says, "what, did you think I couldn't hear him, Jim?"

6:13 - Man, I'm nervous.

6:15 - I have secured a beer. McCain rattles on about spending. "I've got a pen"--holds it up, looks surprised. "It's kind of old." What the hell?

6:16 - Obama says earmarks are just $18 billion a year, talks about larger structural problems. Good point. Split screen; McCain smirking for reasons only he knows. Perhaps he's thinking about that old pen.

6:18 - McCain goes on about earmarks. Looks a wee bit unhinged, but tries to tag Obama with only suspending his requests when he ran for President. Obama interrupts McCain, who continues with the amused smirk. Could be that we're in the weeds with tax policy, so I wonder how people are reading McCain's apparent amusement and dismissal of the lightweight to his left. Obama responds, and McCain is really grinning here.

6:24 - Uh oh, Obama's irritated now. Tries to interject dismissively. Looks bad.

6:25 - Now McCain responds. Also looks bad. Obama has rallied.

6:29 - Question is what they'd cut to pay for bailout. Obama elides the question, talks about what we need. McCain does the same. Lehrer notices; they still dodge him.

6:32 - McCain goes off the reservation: suggests a spending freeze. I don't think his advisors suggest that. Obama: what we need is a scalpel, not a hatchet. Talks about getting out of Iraq to save money. McCain plays the same notes: nukes and drilling. Wha ... ?

6:35 - Obama does look like he's engaging the questions and is transparent. McCain looks like a windup doll--pull the string and listen to the soundbite. Obama gives a nuanced description of budgeting, and McCain barks back some BS about government healthcare. Wha ... ?

6:38 - Obama really hammers McCain on being a stooge for Bush. McCain repeats a "miss congeniality" line, doesn't look at Obama, and it looks, well, pathetic. My confidence rallies. It's not the beer.

6:43 - Iraq. McCain is talking about the surge, Obama about the decision to invade. Shocking! Obama gives credit to the surge--overtly. Interesting. Then tags him pretty hard on the difference between tactics and strategy. Now going through all McCain's misjudgments about Iraq. He's stepping up.

6:47 - McCain: Obama doesn't understand the difference between strategy and tactics. McCain won't look at Obama. Won't do it. Obama constantly looks at, and tries to engage, McCain.

6:50 - As Obama and McCain trade on the subtle points of Iraq, McCain loses. Obama doesn't have to be right so much as look McCain's equal. He does--and I think this point will ultimately be borne out in polls. Palin's failure now stands as an example of how the unprepared can't fake it. Obama's not faking it--he's in command of his argument and the facts.

6:57 - Okay, I zoned out there for awhile why McCain was talking. Miss anything? Okay, Obama just mentioned McCain's famous "bomb bomb Iran" song and called him not credible. that'll wake you up.

6:59 - McCain peeved about the "bomb Iran" comment. Now talks a huge long list of things he did back in the middle-20th century that no one cares about. Moral he's attempting to send: I'm experienced. Actual moral: I'm old and rambling.

7:03 - New question! Iran. I awake.

7:06 - It occurs to me at times like this (when McCain is talking) that this debate will be condensed to three minutes of clips. Which will they show? Obama has few weak moments--and no blunders--thus far.

7:08 - Obama continues to shine as a person of substance in foreign relations. McCain cowers behind boilerplate and piquish spleen. It's not the end of the world, but Obama looks like the guy who is really in command. He has the cojones to stray from boilerplate. I'm as compromised as hell, but he's really looking good.

7:09 - McCain can't pronounce Ahmadinejad. Not a problem; no one else can, either. (I'm a dinner jacket, I'm a dinner jacket, I'madinna ... jad.)

7:12 - Ouch! Obama tags McCain on his (inadvertent) refusal to meet the President of Spain. McCain seethes, takes a shot about Obama's seal.

7:19 - Did McCain just say that Obama's naive because he doesn't understand that Russia invaded Georgia? I was in the other room.

7:24 - Obama talks about oil in his response about Georgia. Good point, but a bit dry.

7:30 - They finish on their central points. Obama's talking about terror and Afghanistan, McCain about Iraq. This theme has run throughout. It's not a right/wrong issue--it's a real disagreement. We'll see who is declared the winner on that point on Nov 4.

Important Announcement

I regret to inform my reader that I will be suspending my blogging until the Packers win their next game. With the loss to the Dallas Cowboys Sunday, the nation has been brought to the brink of disaster. We must meet in sports bars as Americans, not Bears or Patriots fans, and we must drink strong ale until this crisis is resolved.

Some version of that joke is being told thousands of times across the country today in thousands of variations. It's always bad when your grand gesture instantly becomes the butt of a thousand jokes.

Anyway, some random further thoughts and items...

On pulling his ads. Various bloggers around the 'sphere are noting everytime someone sees an ad somewhere in the country. McCain says it takes a while to get them off, and the bloggers chuckle and keep on noting the airings. I actually believe him. I think it does take a while to get them off, and I think this was actually part of the plan. McCain only had $84 million to spend, thanks to opting in to the federal financing system. By pulling ads for a few days now, he stretches his dollar. I'm sure the thinking was that the grand gesture of suspension would more than compensate for lost air time, and he'd bank the money for a November push. Plus, the RNC and 527s can still run ads, right?

They like Joe. Alaskans, I mean. Forth-three percent say Biden has the background and experience to be president; only 37% think their governor does.

Fallows hammers John. "The candidate whose first response to the financial crisis was to propose firing the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and whose second response was to run ads linking his opponent (hazily) to former Fannie Mae officials (before news came out that his own campaign manager was still on the Freddie Mac payroll), now wants us to believe that statesmanship and love of country govern his every move on this issue?" That's just one of five acid critiques he offers on the suspension.

More Palin. It's only a minute and a half long, but I bet you can't make it to the end. Wow.


Watch CBS Videos Online

You can't follow something like that. Exeunt.

What a Day

John McCain was dealt two very low cards in this quadrennial edition of political Texas Hold 'em--a seven and a four, say. (Other candidates, like Romney, were the dreaded 2-3 combo of doom.) He just doesn't have a lot of options. Thus was his situation revealed this morning, when he beheld the latest ABC News/WaPo poll numbers: Obama 52, McCain 43.

(Sample analysis: " As a point of comparison, neither of the last two Democratic nominees -- John Kerry in 2004 or Al Gore in 2000 -- recorded support above 50 percent in a pre-election poll by the Post and ABC News.")

Financial crisis, advisor's on the payroll of Fannie/Freddie, debate imminent ... a rough start of the day. Well, why not call the whole thing off?

Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington after speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me....

We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the commission on presidential debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis....

Following September 11th, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now. Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country. [itals mine]

This put Obama in a slightly awkward position. As we all madly clicked around to find out what the hell this meant, there was a period of a couple hours where no one really knew. It was clearly an effort to turn that 7-4 hand into a winner, and it did sort of highlight the whole "Country First" theme. It was also, simultaneously, an obvious Hail Mary (Barney Frank: "the longest ... in the history of either football or Marys."), and so we pondered what Obama might do.

[Wrinkle: Turns out Obama had called McCain this morning so the two campaigns could draft some joint language about pulling together, and then while the Obama camp waited, McCain stormed up the high road to try to seize the day. Or not, depending on which campaign you listen to.]

I was sitting in the office of a co-worker strategizing--apparently on a wavelength Obama was tuned into--arguing that he needed to come out hard and say this is exactly the time for a debate. Oh Joy!--he did (and I'm taking the credit):

It’s my belief that this is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible with dealing with this mess. In my mind, actually, it's more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we wnt to take the economy as well as dealing with some of the issues of foreign policy that were initially the subject of the debate.

What I think is important is that we don’t suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics.

Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time. It’s not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else.

This is a world-class smack-down (cool and elegant, Obama-esque, but smack-down nonetheless), and with it Obama flipped the debate. Now it looked like McCain was charging down a blind alley, not up the high road. It gets worse. David Letterman was openly (and effectively) mocking him:

David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy.

Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"

Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Meanwhile, rather shockingly, Survey USA released a poll about the news that had happened earlier today. Major finding? 86% want the debate to go on as scheduled; only 10% want it cancelled. D'oh!

Meanwhile meanwhile, it looks like the bailout deal, the stated crisis that caused McCain to supsend his campaign in the first place, is 98% done. According to Kurtz, "Treasury has capitulated on almost every point (draft version of the deal here)," meaning that Dems will claim victory and the janitor will be cleaning up just in time for McCain to arrive and bring his own special brand of bipartisan comity.

Wait, I think I spelled that last word wrong.

McCain Falling

Today's Gallup Daily tracking poll, as I suspected, is showing a return to normalcy. After the convention bounce, McCain's numbers are now falling back to earth (even as his campaign descends into the gutter).



These numbers represent a three-day rolling average, from Wednesday through yesterday. In other words, they are likely rounding the effect of McCain's fall. It's not unreasonable to expect more of the same. And then we'll see where we stand.

(More good news: Nate Silver of 538 points out that the real metric shouldn't be the tracking polls anyway. It's all about the states, and it appears that the bounce, while real, wasn't proportionately spread. In many of the swing states, there was hardly any bounce at all--red states just got redder.)

What the Election Means

Yesterday, as I rode by bike home in the warmth of a late summer's dog day, I decided to take myself up Mount Tabor (a residential hill in Portland, technically a mountain--it's a dead volcano--but quite wee by any reasonable standard). The White Stripes were playing on the iPod, and I was in a relaxed, serene mood.

I have come to some calm regarding the election. Obama is running the best campaign he can, and there will be no rear-view mirror regrets that he didn't play rough or smart enough. McCain is transparently vicious, mendacious, and stupid, which is a shift from the more clever Bush campaigns. And the media for once isn't cutting the GOP any breaks. They lie and the media reports that it's a lie. So if we lose this one, it will be because there's a population sufficiently stupid to fall for the viciousness and lies. (I don't mean this as a polemical comment. I mean it seriously. There will be three types of McCain voters--habitual GOP voters who know better but vote McCain anyway, idealogues who in some cases literally believe the Dems/Obama is evil and who cannot be swayed by facts or external reality, and those so clueless that they have no political philosophy, no sense of how the candidates differ, and no clue that the selection of a president can affect their lives. If that troika is 51% of the voters, we're done.) In other words, it's out of our hands.

Today that serenity shifted to a kind of remorseful calm, not unlike the hours after a child learns there is no Santa Claus. But still, there is a reason to hope McCain doesn't lose. What follows comes from a comment I left on an old thread at BlueOregon. I fear even fewer people will read it than read this blog, so I'm trying to find that extra person to communicate to. It's a response to one of my favorite BlueOregonians, Chris Lowe, who wrote:

Obama has never inspired me. He's too much like (Bill) Clinton on policy, which I know is a good thing in many people's books but not mine. I think post-racialism is a myth & think that post-partisanship is a bad idea especially if your opponents aren't playing the same tune.

My response, and the reason I think Obama offers usch an opportunity.

Odd. I find him nothing like Clinton, who never inspired me, either. (I wrote in Mario Cuomo in '92 and voted Nader in '96.) Obama, on the other hand, is the first general election candidate who has ever inspired me. The sweep of history creates opportunities for different kind of leadership. Clinton, who was a cynical street-fighter, won in a conservative era and managed to govern successfully while conservatism was ascendent. I suspect that's the only shot we had in the 90s.

But now the times are different. Conservatism, such as the GOP have exploited it, is in tatters. The only thing left are lies and viciousness. There is a window of opportunity for re-making politics in the next decade. (If McCain wins, it will take a different course than if Obama is elected, but nevertheless, things are mid-change.) How will politics be remade? What form will they take? Obama is important because he can begin to guide that process.

I do believe in progress. I think that if he's elected, the effects on race relations will be transformed. We won't notice it for a generation, but looking back, we'll see how transformative it was. You're also right that post-partisanship is a mirage. But what's not a mirage is a turn away from hyper-partisanship and a single-minded focus on gathering and exercising power. In the dichotomy of liberty and equality, the left is the equality party. I see Obama as a figure who can re-introduce the myth of collectivism into society. I believe it will be a powerful antidote to the myth of individualism that has turned gangrenous on us.

Clinton could never have done these things. He's a creature of hyper-partisanship, and he bought into the myth of liberty. That was a dark alley Dems went down, and we were beaten brutally by the thugs of Rove and Co. But now we have a chance to come blinking into the light. I'm hopeful.

Okay, hopeful, as you know now, is stretching it. Calm. I'm calm.

The Christian Vote

Barack Obama is making a serious effort to woo religious voters, and not just those fringey lefty evangelicals Jim Wallis represents. He's going for Bush's evangelicals.

"In my own life, " he said, "it's been a journey that began decades ago on the South Side of Chicago, when, working as a community organizer, helping to build struggling neighborhoods, I let Jesus Christ into my life. I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I placed my trust in Christ, that he could set me on the path to eternal life when I submitted myself to his will and I dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works."

As I listen to the pundits talk about this, they point out that Obama doesn't have to win the Christian vote, he just has to make inroads. True enough, but that's not really the whole picture. Leaving aside the issue of the electoral college, have a look at how Bush did in 2000 and 2004 among Christians. He barely lost the popular vote to Gore and beat Kerry by three percent. Overall, Bush did well both years among major religious blocs:

_____________________2000_______2004
Protestant___________ 56%________59%
Catholic _____________47%________52%
White evangelical_____80%________78%

An initial visual inspection seems to suggest that religious voters didn't really make up the difference, never mind that that following the election pundits fingered the 22% of voters who called "moral values" their most important issue (voting 4-1 for Bush). But wait. There's some texture that makes these numbers pop. Let's start with two other numbers: 50,456,169 and 62,040,606. Those are the totals voting for Bush in '00 and '04. Kerry improved on Gore's totals too, but by 3.5 million fewer than Bush.

Bush rallied the troops, and there was something to that statistic about "values." The troops he rallied were in the churches, and they were motivated to make one last push to see if the GOP could establish the permanent ruling majority they needed to roll back abortion rights and put a stop to gay marriage. Abortion foes had been banging the drum on "partial birth abortions" in 2003 and when you look back through polling of that period, you see that it was a major issue--and two-thirds of Americans thought it should be illegal. At the time, somewhere between a quarter and a third of Americans thought abortion should be illegal. Combine that with the gay marriage--Massachusetts had legalized it in May--and you had a very intense group of activists trying to get Bush elected. And these weren't just protestant evangelicals--Catholics were also brought into this effort. Despite the fact that Kerry was a practicing Catholic, he lost voters to the Methodist Bush.

So, instead of focusing on the percentages, let's have a look at actual bodies. It is there where you see the real change.

_____________________2000_________2004
Protestant_________23.7 mil_____33.5 mil
Catholic ___________6.2 mil______8.7 mil
White evangelical___5.7 mil_____11.1 mil

Bush did marginally worse in terms of percentages of white evangelicals in 2004, but fully 23% of the electorate were in that bloc--up from 14% in 2000.* So, among these groups, Bush picked up 17.7 million more votes in '04 than he did in '00.

So while cutting into Bush's percentages will obviously help Obama, merely reducing their desire to beat him, as they did Kerry, may more than win him the White House. How motivated are Americans now on religious issues? Way less. In 2004, a CBS/NYT poll asked respondents if they would consider voting for a candidate who didn't agree with them. 38% said no. Last month, Time asked respondents the same question, and only 23% said no. With gay marriage, 33% said they wouldn't vote for a candidate who didn't share their view in '04, but only 22% say that now.

And, even more to the point, evangelicals are less motivated by McCain, who has never been a friend to evangelicals. He has no serious outreach in the churches and absolutely no ground game to use church-goers as activists, as Bush famously (and probably illegally) did in 2004.

This is potentially a huge demographic shift, and one folks haven't been paying close enough attention to.
____________
*Exit pollsters used slightly different terminology, perhaps confusing the issue slightly. In 2000, they used the term "white religious right," while in '04 they used "white evangelical."

Big Lead for Obama

Okay, it's probably just the post-nomination bump, but still, Obama's lead in the current NBC/WSJ poll is impressive: 47 - 41%, with leads in a bunch of key demographics. Remember how Obama can't win women and the working-class? Not so much:

Obama is ahead with key demographics where his electability had previously been questioned. Obama leads among women 52%-33%, with Catholics 47%-40%, among independents 41%-36%, and even 47%-42% with blue-collar workers.

And contrary to the idea that his poor primary performances among Hispanics reflected an electability problem, he now leads 62%-28% with that group -- well ahead of John Kerry's 53%-44% advantage in 2004.

He does lose among some demos, but you always lose among some demos:

Yet among white men — who made up 36 percent of the electorate in the 2004 presidential election — Obama trails McCain by 20 points, 55-35 percent. “That is the reason why this election is close,” Hart notes.

In addition, McCain leads Obama among white suburban women (44-38), group which makes up about 10 percent of all voters that Hart calls “absolutely critical” for both candidates in the fall.

But this is rather remarkable:

However, Obama has a seven-point advantage (46-39) among all white women. How important is that lead? Newhouse explains that Republican candidates always expect to win white men by a substantial margin, but it is white women that usually decide the race. “If a Republican wins among white women, we usually win that election,” he says, noting that George W. Bush carried that group in 2000 and 2004.

You might expect this group--lots of Hillary supporters there--to be less receptive to Obama right now. If he wins white women, he's going to easily win the popular vote.

Why McCain Can't Win

Posted earlier today at BlueOregon.

As we slog through the seemingly unending mire of the Democratic primaries, a meme has taken hold: the longer Obama battles Clinton, the more likely it is that McCain will win the election. Nonsense. McCain is a weak candidate in a year when Republicans are running against their own party. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, there will be a Democrat in the White House come January. Take heart, ye who have suffered under Republicans for too long: change is coming. Here's why McCain can't win.

1. The economy
In 2004, the war and terror dominated people's priorities. When asked, 42% identified it as their number one concern. The economy was important, but substantially less so--only 26% thought it was the burning issue. In 2008, those numbers are reversed; 37% cite the economy, and only 29% cite Iraq and terror. Add the 20% who cite health care and gas prices as the paramount issues, and you have 57% of the public worried about pocketbook issues. McCain's response? A lame summer holiday from the gas tax, more privatization as the cure for health care, and making Bush's tax cuts permanent. His argument that cutting government waste can make up for lost revenues is poignant for being so wrong--and it's hardly convincing. McCain has said he doesn't understand or care about the economy. That ignorance will be fatal.

2. Women
Women vote in greater numbers than men and they typically lean toward Democrats. In 2000, women voted in favor of Gore 54-43%. And though they were a larger bloc in '04 (54-46%), women voted almost evenly for Bush and Kerry. Bush managed to swing this by appealing to evangelical women and the so-called "security moms." It is difficult to imagine a repeat of that pattern in 2008. Even if Hillary isn't the nominee, her election has brought a large number of women into the process. The issues this year are economic, not security, and the evangelical coalition is weakening, leaving women without a compelling reason to cross over from their natural allegiance. In current polling, Obama enjoys a 13-point advantage over women against McCain, and Hillary a 14-point lead.

3. Democratic demographic shift
Even before this primary process, which has been a remarkable tool for bringing in Democratic voters, there was a huge shift in party identification. Four years ago, Dems had only a slight advantage, with a 33-29% edge. Last year, when Pew polled people again, that advantage had swollen to 50-35%. And if the primaries so far have been any measure, the GOP are not winning the crossover battle nor the turnout battle, and Dems will consolidate this lead at election time.

First of all, let's start with intensity. Take a couple of battleground states from back when the GOP race was still competitive. In New Hampshire, roughly 52,000 more people voted Democratic than GOP. In Missouri, a whopping 235,000 more turned out to vote Democratic than Republican--and that's in a state that voted for Bush by a 7-point margin. The pattern repeats itself even in states like Alabama (2004 result, Bush by 26%) where total votes on the Dem side were only 23,000 fewer than the GOP out of 1.1 million cast.

And the numbers of crossover voters isn't even close. In New Hampshire--the state that twice made McCain--125,000 independents voted Dem while only 86,000 voted GOP. In Missouri, 180,000 indies voted Dem, and only 135,000 voted GOP.

4. Splintering coalitions
The factions that kept Bush in the White House are not going to elect to put John McCain there. Bush's most reliable voters were Christian evangelicals. He picked up 61% of frequent church-goers, and won 79% of evangelical voters. Even more importantly, these were the foot-soldiers who got out the vote and gave Bush the largest total in American history. McCain has never been appealing to evangelicals, and his John Hagee debacle demonstrates how out of touch with this constituency he is. He may still win a majority of these votes, but in a year not animated by social issues, they won't be his free labor source and far fewer will show up to vote. (There's reason to believe he's got a closet full of skeletons that will further erode this faction.)

While Democrats don't understand why Republicans chafe at McCain's "maverick" ways, it's clear that his stand on immigration and campaign finance have put him in poor stead with two other reliable constituencies. These will further dampen the intensity of the base, a beleaguered lot who aren't excited about the election in the first place.

5. McCain's faults
The press loves to talk about what "flawed" candidates Obama and Clinton are, but the negatives for McCain are worse. For starters, he's 72, and that bothers more than a quarter of voters. In a year of change, a dinosaur is not the horse the GOP should be riding. His tendency toward anger, should it flare up in the debates again, will exacerbate fears about his age. Comics are already ridiculing his age, and if he turns into a cranky old guy, he could become a caricature by November.

And there are more substantive faults, too. His squeaky-clean image will be badly tarnished when more people learn about his history of marital infidelity and corruption. Cindy McCain earlier this year fiercely scolded Michelle Obama, but her history with John makes her a bigger liability:

McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money.

Cindy is, moreover, the heiress to a beer distributorship, and her money and family connections helped launch McCain's political career. He has kept his finances separate from hers, but in the general election, her wealth will become a major factor. What was the relationship between a powerful senator and a wealthy family? The calls for Cindy to release her tax records have begun, and they will only intensify.

Finally, there's the issue of corruption. McCain's history with the Keating 5 may be old history, but it will be brandished like a club whenever the GOP try to smear Democrats. There may be further evidence of double dealing; a recent example in Harper's Magazine, which detailed the money and people behind McCain's Reform Institute. And these kinds of stories will only increase in frequency.

6. The 45% barrier
All of these lead to a situation we can already document. Despite having the field to himself, with no scrutiny whatsoever, and a heated, poll-denting battle between Obama and Clinton, McCain still can't break 45% in the polls. These are McCain's salad days, before America hears about the scandals, starts thinking about his age, watches him melt down in debates, and sees constant attacks from the right and left. If he can't break 45% now, when exactly is he going to?

McCain is this year's Bob Dole, a loyal soldier the GOP have honored by nominating as their candidate. And he will surely suffer Dole's fate in November.

Changes Since '04

I am beginning to mount a case about why, barring Democratic meltdown or unforseen GOP-benefiting catastrophe, John McCain can't win in 2008. Looking back at some of the polling at election time, there have been some massive changes in public opinion. None of them benefit McCain. To wit:

____________________________2004____2008____Change
Bush approval _______________53%_____28%_____-25%
Iraq a good idea ____________52%_____33%_____-19%
Iraq brought security _______46%_____36%_____-10%
Economy good ________________47%_____26%_____-26%
Better off than 4 yrs ago____42%_____34%______-8%
Worse off than 4 yrs ago_____33%_____43%_____+10%
Right direction _____________49%_____75%_____+26%
Wrong track _________________46%_____20%_____-26%
Worried about terror ________71%_____39%_____-32%

The effect of priorities on the election are less predictable, but here the number 1 priorities Americans cite in 2004 (aggregate of three polls taken in 2004 by NBC, Time, and ABC) and now (aggregate of four recent polls):

___________________2004____2008____Change
Iraq/terror ________42%_____29%_____-13%
Economy ____________26%_____37%_____+11%
Health Care ________11%_____11%______NC
Gas prices __________5%______9%______+4%
"Moral issues"______16%______NA______--
Taxes________________4%______NA______--
Education____________6%______NA______--
Immigration__________NA______6%______--

As you can see, the fringe issues have changed. Now immigration has replaced moral issues as the cause of the right. It's unclear why pollsters have dropped education and taxes from their list. Also worth noting: while the health care numbers look the same, there's great volatily among polls. In the four recent polls I looked at, the percentage of Americans citing this as their biggest concern were 6%, 7%, 12%, and 18%. So that's one to watch.

Looking particularly at how the mood of the country has shifted from war and terror (29%) to the economy (37%), it's one of many suggestions that McCain is the wrong candidate this year.