Obama Is Pathetically WRONG: Paterson Should Run!

While some liberals are complaining about the obvious racism among conservatives who oppose President Obama, another, more interesting, race issue has emerged. President Obama has asked Governor David Paterson of New York -- one of two sitting black governors and only the fourth in United States history -- not to run in the 2010 election. Paterson has rejected Obama's request -- good!

Paterson replaced Eliot Spitzer, who resigned following a prostitution scandal. Paterson was seemingly a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination until he made a major misstep. Earlier this year, he declined overtures from many people -- including Obama -- to choose Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary Clinton's vacated senate seat. Caroline Kennedy and her deceased uncle Ted Kennedy were key endorsers of Obama during the Democratic primaries.

Obama openly supported Kennedy, but he suddenly stopped speaking about the subject after the "pay-to-play" scandal involving his own senate seat erupted. Remarkably, many people in the media openly suggested that Paterson should choose Kennedy because she and Obama could do wonders for his fundraising efforts. Yet, these were the same type of issues that shaped the Blagojevich scandal.

Also, polls showed that a substantial number of New York voters did not even want Kennedy to take the seat. Her numbers worsened after an unimpressive speaking tour. But many Kennedy backers complained about Paterson's "handling" of Kennedy's "candidacy." Apparently, he treated her like any other potential appointee and asked tough questions. Ultimately, he chose Kirsten Gillibrand, an upstate moderate, for the position. This choice caused Paterson's approval numbers to skid.

Today, Paterson's approval ratings remain low. Paterson attributes some of the anger to race. This reason sounds more plausible than the fact that he decided not to appoint someone whom many New Yorkers did not want to hold the office.

If New Yorkers want people from political dynasties to lead them, they can choose Andrew Cuomo, who once warned Democratic primary voters that Obama would be unable to "shuck and jive" through a press conference. The New York Times predicts (or maybe hopes) that Obama's request that Paterson step aside should "neutralize any criticism [Cuomo] may face among the governor’s prominent black allies" for running against a black incumbent. If Paterson's "prominent black allies" are beholden to the White House, rather than their own principles, then the New York Times is correct.

The Bottom Line: Obama is absolutely, indisputably and shamefully wrong for doing this. While many liberals are attacking the racism of Obama's opponents (just as they did with Hillary Clinton -- but with far less damning material), Obama is "paying back" a black governor who refused to engage in nepotism and appoint the wealthy, white, privileged Carolyn Kennedy who campaigned for Obama, to the Senate. I see no reason why Obama deserves antiracist advocacy -- which he says is not even warranted -- while he is trying to push out a black candidate who has lost popularity seemingly for the mere fact that he stood up to Obama and the Kennedys.

Madness in Iran: Protests, Arrests and Political Mayhem

Americans thought Bush v. Gore was stressful: Protests Flare in Tehran as Opposition Disputes Vote - New York Times.

Last-Minute Polls All Over the Place, But Obama Leads in Virtually All of Them

The final round of presidential election polls offer nothing certain about Tuesday's results -- except that Obama leads in all of them. Despite Obama's consistent lead, the polls show a lot of variance, and the "fine print" often raises more questions.

Variation

Although the presidential election is really a series of state-to-state contests, the national popular vote polls can provide some indication of the overall sentiment of voters. The nationwide polls, however, lack uniformity: they either show that the race is very close or tied or that Obama will win in a landslide.

The most recent CBS poll, for example, has Obama up by 13 points (54-41), but Obama leads by only 2 points (47-45) in the final IBD/TIPP poll. Last week, Pew reported that Obama had a 12-point lead; today, the pollster gave Obama a comfortable, but much smaller, lead of 6 points. Overall, the Pollster.Com average of all the major polls has Obama up by 6 points nationally.

Fine Print

Reading the details in some of the polls only makes things even more confusing -- or interesting, depending upon your perspective. In the Pew poll, for example, people who have "already voted" favor Obama 52-39. The remaining 9% are in a category "undecided/other." I assume that people who have already voted are not undecided about how they voted. On the other hand, I cannot imagine what "other" candidate could garner 9% of the national vote among early voters. Furthermore, despite Obama's lead among those who have already voted, the Pew poll actually shows McCain winning among election-day voters 46-45. A significant amount of likely voters remain undecided, which I find baffling.

In an earlier post, I analyzed the CBS poll that gives Obama a 13-point lead. In that poll, Obama leads among early voters, but 50 percent of early voters in that survey are Democrats, 60% are women, and 16% are black -- which explains Obama's substantial lead.

The TIPP poll, co-sponsored by IBD (or Investor's Business Daily) does not provide the racial demographics of the individuals it polled (which is a startling omission). In that poll, a large degree of voters also remain undecided. For example, 11% of "northeastern" and 12% of "midwestern" voters have not picked a candidate yet, according to the poll. Interestingly, the pollster has a "hot topic" poll which seeks to determine whether Americans are "ready for socialism." The results will shock you (not really).

Pretty soon, the only relevant polls -- the election-day results -- will give us an actual winner, and pundits will drown us with repetitive and unlearned commentary about the returns. Until then, the poll-obsessed readers can only speculate about the accuracy of the pre-election data. For a great resource in this process, visit the presidential polling site on Pollster.Com.

Who Won the Debate? Depends Upon Which Candidate You Support

The debate between John McCain and Barack Obama was pretty tepid, but it was good (and important) enough to warrant analysis. Partisans will definitely think "their guy" won, and each candidate provided the other with sufficient ammunition to claim victory.

What McCain Didn't Do for Obama

The Democrats wanted McCain to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog. He didn't. Instead, he came across as a senior statesman, offering tons of personal stories about handling problems in the past and even regretting some decisions. Several media outlets are making hay about him not making eye contact with Obama. I guess I was too bored to notice that.

What Obama Didn't Do for McCain

McCain needed Obama to look unsophisticated and raw. He didn't. He looked convincing on the stage.

Surprising Moments

Obama had the audacity to renew his argument that going to war was a bad decision. I agree that it was a bad decision, but choosing Joe Biden, who voted for the war, as a running mate diminishes the force of Obama's antiwar critique.

I was surprised that McCain raised the "experience" argument, which had defined much of his campaign against Obama until Sarah Palin's selection. Palin has a very skimpy resume, and most people believed that McCain had discarded the experience argument. Well, it's back, and it is now coupled with "you just don't get it" or "you are naive." McCain has begun to usurp Obama's slogans and use them against him ("change" and "you just don't get it").

Missed Opportunities

McCain missed the opportunity to expose Obama's inconsistency with respect to the war (saying it was a huge error, but picking Biden as a running mate), and Obama missed the opportunity to neutralize McCain's experience argument by either mentioning Palin or somehow showing that McCain's experience is a bad thing. He did this with Clinton in the primaries, but he was unable to do that during last night's debate.

Slip-Up

Obama said that Henry Kissinger does not disagree with the President of the United States speaking with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "without conditions." This actually came up during Sarah Palin's recent interview with Katie Couric. Couric did a "gotcha" on Palin, asking whether she thought Kissinger was naive (a charge McCain/Palin made of Obama) for wanting talks with Iran without conditions. Palin said that Kissinger, who advises McCain and Palin on foreign policy, does not believe this. Couric said that CBS had confirmed that he does. Gotcha!

Obama used the same argument during the debate, and McCain rebuffed him, saying that his "friend" does not support that position. Following the debate, Kissinger released a statement agreeing with McCain. Ouch. Well, not a huge ouch, but ouch. Turns out, he would support other governmental officials meeting with lower level Iranian officials, but not with either country's president, absent conditions. So this is the "Bush Doctrine" redux. Political scientists do not even agree what such a doctrine looks like (or even if it exists). Another failed gotcha.

McCain still cannot pronounce Ahmadinejad on the first try. Bless his heart.

Overall: Slight Nod to McCain

During the primaries, I watched the Democrats debate incessantly; so there was probably nothing Obama could have done that I had not already seen. I did not watch the Republicans during the primaries; so I was eager to see how McCain would perform. Although Democrats have portrayed McCain as a curmudgeon, he did not come across that way. This scores him major points, I believe, and makes any more argumentation on that issue look petty. Obama, however, did not look inept and raw, but still remains vulnerable to that charge, due to his relative lack of experience compared to McCain. Of course, if McCain emphasizes experience, then Palin becomes even more vulnerable than she already is.

I do believe that the public will probably declare McCain the winner, if they follow standards from previous presidential debates. As a good progressive, I was thoroughly convinced that Al Gore and John Kerry won their debates against Bush. Apparently, they did not sell themselves well to the public. Obama is his own candidate, but in many ways, he excites the same demographic as Gore and Kerry, but even more intensely. Highly-educated, coastal, liberal, professional types (like myself) will think he slaughtered McCain. To the rest of the country, he might have appeared a bit like a "know-it-all" (distinct from "uppity") and pious. Here's a message for highly-educated, coastal, liberal, professional types: you have to exit your own skin to try to appreciate this analysis.

These same portrayals tanked Gore and Kerry. In losing, they both were described as too bookish and self-righteous. Yet elite Democrats still seem incorrectly to believe that intellectual depth and nuance and the morality of liberal social democracy are winning arguments in presidential elections. If this were the case, then Gore and Kerry would have won, and Obama would be leading McCain by double-digits, especially given the tragedy of the war and the horrific economic conditions. The fact that the race is close should cause Democrats to rethink their presidential election strategies. Race has something to do with the closeness of the election, but it does not explain it altogether. The last two contests were close, as was Clinton's victory in 1992.

Although last night's debate was lackluster, next week's vice presidential debate could offer a lot of pizazz. The combination of Joe "Loose Cannon" Biden and Sarah "the Moose" Palin is too rich to ignore. Tune in next week for more analysis.