Barack Obama: post ideological candidate. John McCain: reaches to independents

Workout notes 4000 yards; 5 x 100 on 2 warm up; 2000 in 33:15 (8:22, 8:20, 8:13, 8:20), 10 x 50 (drill/swim zoomers), 5 x 100 (25 fly, 75 free) on 2 (1:43-1:47), 5 x 100 (paddle, free, p, f, p) in 8:33.

The pool was packed; there were tons of dog-paddlers. Then again, by a real swimmer’s standards, I would be a dog paddler. After all, my 2000 came at just under 50 seconds a lap, rather than at 30 seconds a lap.

As far as that 2000: I wasn’t that tired though I lost concentration a bit during the last 500. I wouldn’t call it a race effort but a “concentrated” effort; I tried to swim with as good of form that I was capable.

Politics/Election
I am going to structure this in three parts:

1. John McCain’s softening ads and why he is doing this (my best guess anyway)

2. The state of the race: now versus this time in 2004

3. Barack Obama: how he is really not an ideologue but rather a pragmatist.

John McCain targeting Independent voters
Check out two of McCain’s latest ads:

Notice that this concludes that “he isn’t ready, YET”. As I said previously, the ad “gives permission” for a voter to see potential in Barack Obama and to even like him, and still not vote for him. Frankly, this is one of McCain’s best ads, IMHO.

Notice that McCain uses praise from Obama as a selling point! Note also that McCain talks about the environment and greenhouse gasses. This ad is clearly aimed at the independent voter and not at the “drill baby drill” crowd.

Why is McCain doing this?

Check out the data from the Daily Kos poll (research 2000) crosstabs:

We see that Obama is polling at 88 percent among Democrats and McCain is polling at 92 percent among Republicans. These numbers are very similar to the 2004 numbers which had Kerry winning Democrats at 89 percent and Bush winning Republicans at 93 percent.

But among independent voters, things are very different this year:

Obama is polling at 49 percent and McCain at 44 percent.

In 2004, Kerry got 49 percent and Bush got 48 percent.

But the news is even worse for McCain: there are more Democrats this year (in terms of percentage of the electorate) than there were in 2004. Hence 88-89 percent of Democrats is a larger percentage of the electorate than it was in 2004.

He is in a hole; he has no choice that to close the gap among the independents and flip a few of them. If McCain doesn’t win the independents, he loses.

The Current State of the Race Versus 2004

First check out the map in 2004, at roughly this time in the election:

One sees that 95 electoral votes were “safe” D, and 147 were “safe” R. This indeed held up on election day.

There were 101 electoral votes that “leaned” D, and 82 that “leaned” R. That held up on election day as well.

The rest were essential toss-ups: of these toss ups Kerry had a statistically insignificant lead in states worth 87 electoral votes (6 states); he ended up winning 3 of these states and 48 electoral votes. Bush had such a lead in one state with 13 electoral votes; he won it.

This year, things are very, very different.

Obama has a “safe” lead in states with 264 electoral votes; McCain has 118.
Obama has 47 electoral votes worth of “leaners”; McCain has 24.
Among the toss ups, states with 53 electoral votes have Obama with a statistically insignificant lead, McCain is in the same situation in states which total 29 electoral votes.

In short, McCain basically has to hold all of his leaners, sweep Obamas and win every single toss up state.

It could happen, but it isn’t likely.

Barack Obama, the Post Ideologue Candidate

I watched the interview that Barack Obama had with Rachel Maddow last night; you can see it here. The interview dealt with some interesting topics (electrification, the military situation in Afghanistan and why more troops are needed, etc.).

But the one that struck me was the part when Maddow asked him why he hadn’t used his success (so far) to repudiate conservatism as a failure. (about 4:45 into the video).

Obama smiled and mentioned that Maddow appeared to want a fight of some sort; he also said “we are winning, so we are doing something right.”

That wasn’t a direct response to her question but it got me to thinking: those who view Obama as some sort of a “liberal” standard bearer in a war against conservatism will be very disappointed.

Obama has never been about ideological warfare.

1. Remember the 2004 DNC speech that made him famous? You can hear it and read it at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

Here is the crucial part:

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper — that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

There is nothing there about taking it to the conservatives and banishing them from power.

Read what he wrote to the Daily Kos in 2005 (he wrote this himself; a staffer didn’t write this) This was in response to angst that he and the other Democrats weren’t doing enough to oppose the appointment of Justice Roberts to the Supreme Court:

There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate. And I don’t believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position. I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists – a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog – we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in “appeasing” the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda. The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.

I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

Emphasis mine. The point appears to be that people, in general, aren’t interested in ideological battles; they want solutions to our problems.

In some sense, I am that way as well. Yes, I am a liberal; that is how I see the world. That my outlook is thus may well be a function of genetics (see the video at the end of this post). But government ought to be running the country rather than keeping the faith with some ideological outlook. And hey, maybe, just maybe, the conservatives might be right from time to time.

Think about it: in my opinion, Bill Clinton was an effective president. What was the main criticism of him (aside from his personal behavior)? Time and time again, he was accused (by both the left and the right) of “not having convictions.”

In fact, biographies of him have stated that Bill Clinton did not want to be a slave to conviction; he wanted to do what was best for the country, period. (See Nigel Hamilton’s first book on Bill Clinton; of course one has to wade past the pages and pages of psychobabble about Clinton’s sex life to get to the good stuff)

I’ll add one further piece of evidence: where it is conventional wisdom that candidates “play to their base” during the primary and “move to the center” during the general election, Barack Obama talked about not being a slave to ideology during the primary!

Check this video at 30-35 seconds and at 1:05-1:20 into it; remember that this was prior to the South Carolina primary.

He also learns from his political adversaries; here he talks about how Ronald Reagan transformed the country in a way that even Bill Clinton did not (even though Bill Clinton was a more effective president, IMHO)

Update This youtube playlist takes about an hour (the whole playlist) but this shows Obama’s philosophy.

Bonus
Liberals versus Conservatives: genetic basis for the world view?