Aug 8, 2008 | 10:39 AM
Category:
Political
NO VP CANDIDATES… YET!
My prediction that I might be pondering the major candidates' vice presidential picks this week has – so far – gone astray. There are no picks to ponder. Maybe this coming week… but then there’s the Olympic competition for voters attention. Of course, the end of the Olympics is right up against the start of the Democratic Convention in Denver. Tight calendar and tough decisions. Or maybe we’ll just see the curtains rise on the VP picks amid the blaze of the conventions themselves… a ratings booster for sure.
OBAMA GOES FOR IT IN SEVEN GOP STATES
Now, let’s consider these seven states… all long time Republican stalwarts. Alaska is young. Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia have growing populations and many black voters. Montana has seen recent Democratic inroads, and North Dakota has sent only Democrats to Congress since 1986. Indiana borders Barack Obama's home state.
The Democratic presidential candidate is pouring money and manpower into all seven of them — at levels unmatched by Republican rival John McCain. For decades, these states have almost exclusively voted for Republican presidential candidates. So they have rarely seen any campaign action. Now, thanks in part to demographic and political shifts, they are emerging as new battlegrounds.
Obama’s campaign chief David Plouffe puts it this way: "We have the organizational ability and the financial ability to compete there, There is not a head fake among them." Undeterred, senior McCain strategist Steve Schmidt counters: "We feel very confident about holding these states." He also expressed optimism that McCain can win several Democratic-leaning perennial swing targets.
In the seven historically GOP bastions, Obama has run five six weeks of TV ads and dispatched dozens of workers to sign up legions of unregistered voters that his campaign believes can be persuaded to support the Illinois senator in droves if courted aggressively. Among their targets are blacks and young people, two constituencies that favor Obama but historically have been unreliable voters.
McCain is largely absent from most of these states, trusting for now that right-leaning well rooted supporters in all seven will prevail. Unlike McCain, Obama had a presence in all seven during the protracted Democratic primaries and that could benefit him.
But Republicans — and even some skeptical Democrats — claim Obama simply is trying to lure McCain into spending money defending GOP turf so he has less to compete with elsewhere.
That’s probably true, but can McCain afford to gamble that previously solid conservative majorities in all seven states will stay that way?
NEW BOOK CLAIMS OBAMA’S A LEFTY, NOT A REFORMER
The first serious negative biography of Senator Barack Obama casts the Democratic nominee as a fake reformer and a real liberal. The book is “The Case Against Barack Obama,” by National Review’s David Freddoso, obviously no friend of Democrats. I haven’t read it yet… but Politico.com says Freddoso blasts Obama for failing to take on the Chicago machine, for listening to “radical advisors,” and for backing “doctrinaire liberal” causes from teachers unions to abortion rights.
It does not, however, compare him to Paris Hilton, or dwell at length on his religion or race – making the substance of his “Case Against Barack Obama” somewhat fresh amid a campaign cacophony of hyperbolic web ads and alleged race cards.
But Freddoso also has some strong advice for McCain, his campaign and Republicans at large… contending that they are making the wrong case against Obama.
“I don’t think you beat Obama by saying that he’s Paris Hilton,” said Freddoso, referring to McCain’s latest advertising campaign. “The more important thing is really to look at is he who he says he is? Is he really this great reformer?”
Freddoso’s book, released this week by the conservative publishing house Regnery, occupies a small island in the often-shrill sea of criticism of Obama. As a range of conservatives suggest that Obama is a closet radical, and as McCain’s campaign aims to disqualify him from the White House on the grounds of his international fame, Freddoso makes a case that conservatives should look at the presumptive Democratic nominee's record.
His thesis: “It’s not that Obama is a bad person. It’s just that he’s like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington. And just like all the other liberals too.”
Freddoso’s is one of two new books harshly attacking Obama. The other, by Jerome Corsi, covers some of the same territory as the viral emails that have plagued the Democratic candidate, making much of his slender connections to Islam and his teenage drug use.
Freddoso opts largely for a fact-based critique, and writes that the viral and overt smears have allowed Obama to evade substantive criticism. Politico.com quotes the book as saying: “Too many of those criticizing Obama have been content merely to slander him,” adding that false rumors about Obama's religion and ancestry have produced “an intellectual laziness among the very people who should be carefully scrutinizing Obama.”
Many – including, apparently, McCain’s strategists – doubt a Republican can win a policy face-off… especially with all the Democratic talk that McCain would be bring nothing more than an expansion of the Bush presidency. So the upper level GOP thinking seems to be that the real campaign will need to hone in on the character of the candidates. With that in mind, Freddoso’s book attempts to build an alternate case against Obama.
Freddoso is convinced that his liberal record, more widely known, would sink Obama. For both Republican and Democratic insiders, his book may well become must reading.
HERE'S A STUPID IDEA
So we are hearing more about the Clintons’ potential role in Obama’s big show in Denver. Party officials now say former President Bill will be speaking on the convention’s third night (that’s Wed Aug 27). Rather strange, since that’s the night Obama will actually be nominated. Clinton gets a podium spot just before an address by the as-yet-to-be-named Obama running mate.
Hillary Clinton, of course, lost the nomination after a sometimes bitter primary contest and she’s now expected to speak on the convention’s second night, Tuesday. Now there’s been some talk this week among Sen. Clinton’s die hard supporters that her name should be placed in nomination… so that her backers can let off steam while having their votes recorded.
A stupid idea, one Mrs. Clinton needs to shoot down if she really intends to help Obama. And for her supporters, they just need to get over it!
MORE WOMEN WANT TO CARPOOL WITH OBAMA THAN MCCAIN
And now for my favorite political yarn of the week, a presidential poll involving only women. They were asked (strange as this may seem): Who would you rather car pool with… or go on vacation with? Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama or his Republican rival John McCain. The winner? Obama.
The poll – done for the Lifetime network – shows Obama with a strong lead among all women voters but McCain polls better with white women, seniors and stay-at-home moms. Pollster Kellyanne Conway says: "There's no question that Senator Obama wins the likeability contest." She adds that women who like Obama cite his personal attributes, while those who like McCain point to his experience and qualifications.
Both candidates have been competing for female supporters of Hillary Clinton… voters who may be angry or disappointed at her failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Asked who they would prefer to carpool with, 51 percent said Obama and 31 percent picked McCain. Asked if they would rather go on a summer vacation with the Obama family or the McCain family, 49 percent picked the Obamas and 26 percent the McCains. Eighteen percent said neither.
Asked who they planned to vote for in November, Obama led in all age groups except the over-65s, where McCain led by 46 to 37 percent. Women were split on racial lines, with blacks picking Obama by a whopping 89 to 4 per cent… and Hispanics by 62 to 21. White women favored McCain by 47 percent to 38.
Bottom line: Overall – the women who were surveyed favored Obama for the presidency 49 to 38 per cent.
Finally, the women were asked when they expect a woman to be elected president. Forty-four percent said it could happen within eight years. Three in 10 still believe Clinton will be the first female U.S. president.
Maybe, still maybe!
