2008 President

Red Meat Gone, Green Backdrop Stays So, the Crystal Ball was right and the Crystal Ball was wrong. Yes, John McCain delivered a much more moderate message. But he also appeared, once again, against a green background for the first few minutes of the speech. In fact, he even added a stunningly bright, blue background as the video screen cycled through a series of pictures, almost all with solid green or blue sections immediately behind McCain. Perhaps the image consultants just think green is his color. More importantly, hopefully much more, was the content of his speech. At times interrupted by protestors, McCain began with a very stump-speech-sounding opening. Still, it was clearly a general election stump speech, and not the one he used in Republican primaries earlier this year. Looking back over the speech in greater detail is a worthwile endeavor, since it signals the path McCain has charted for the next two months. As news accounts noted, McCain used the word “conservative”‘ a grand total of zero times. Not once did he mention abortion or gay marriage, nor did he stress his immigration policy. The speech he delivered offered much more in the way of contrast than similarities

When asked in 1957 what the greatest threat a politician faced, the newly-elected British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, is alleged to have replied: “Events, dear boy, events.” The politicians and convention-goers in St. Paul last week got a first-hand lesson on the way events can influence politics. With Hurricane Gustav reaching land along the Gulf Coast Monday, the opening day of the Republican National Convention was reduced to a skeletal schedule. The original slate of speakers, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney was eliminated, and only the procedural elements of convening the convention and adopting the rules and platform were conducted. Convention organizers were forced to scramble to fit four days of speakers and events into three, still making changes on the fly even several days into the week to what was certainly a rigidly choreographed schedule. These changes make a day-by-day comparison of the conventions virtually impossible, but nonetheless some contrasts certainly merit discussion. The Venues Before launching into a comparison of the actual conventions, let’s first take a look at the venues the national committees chose for their week-long celebrations of party pride. We begin our comparison by looking at the convention halls themselves. Although having only

Two tickets full of history, one headed by the first African-American in position to become president, the other with a woman situated to become the nation’s first female vice president. Could it be that, in this increasingly diverse nation, we have seen the last of the all-white male party offerings that have characterized every presidential election in American history until 2008? The Crystal Ball bets so. With whites slated to become the minority in the United States by 2042, and with women increasingly being elected to the key stepping-stone offices of governor and senator, the transition to the future has begun. What is historic today will seem normal by mid-century. The newest additions for 2008 are the vice presidential nominees. Democrat Joe Biden is a classic Washington fixture-a household name among political people and, before his selection, almost unknown in the average American household. I still remember the TV commentators on election night 1972 marveling over this 29-year-old from Delaware who had defeated Sen. Caleb Boggs (R) in a giant upset. President Richard Nixon’s reelection sweep of the First State was not enough to save Boggs. Not yet of the constitutionally mandated age of 30 for Senate entry, Biden was

DAY THREE Sarah Palin’s speech was perhaps the defining moment of the 2008 Republican National Convention. While the headlining act doesn’t take the stage until tonight, Palin’s leap into the spotlight had television viewers and convention attendees in a tizzy in the days and hours leading up to her primetime address. The speech she gave turned out to be somewhat different from the speech many expected. Most pundits were expecting an introductory piece, laying out her biography and stressing her similarities with her running mate, John McCain. Instead they were treated to a more traditional vice-presidential attack dog speech. The crowds at the Xcel Center ate it up. For the most parts, the pundits did too. Still there are some lingering concerns about the tone she struck. Palin likened herself to a pit bull, and seemed quite comfortable with the attack dog role. She took on her opponent, Barack Obama, even more than she extolled her running mate’s virtues. She tried to play the change card in her own way, informing voters about her record as a reformer. Unlike in Obama’s vision of a changed Washington, attacking the other side is clearly not verboten. Palin attacked Obama’s past, saying that

NOTE: As we conclude 2008’s two weeks of intense national political party conventions, Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato offers a retrospective on some of the 18 conventions he has attended since 1976. The Crystal Ball will begin our annual election coverage next Thursday, so watch your inbox! One of the privileges of age is an assumed right to bore others with remembrances. Here are a few of mine about national political conventions. We are in the midst of convention season, a grand attempt to make interesting two weeks of predictable political propaganda staged for TV. Barack Obama becomes the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy, while McCain takes on the visage of Theodore Roosevelt. Dashes of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan will be added for spice. Yes, civic education is well served by the weeks devoted to politics-and we at the Center for Politics celebrate that-but the saccharine quality leaves a disagreeable aftertaste. It was not always so. My own political awakening began at my father’s knee in 1960. A World War II veteran who came back to the United States with civic fire, Dad was determined to make me a good citizen. So we watched both conventions together,

DAY TWO With Hurricane Gustav thankfully downgraded to a tropical storm, Republicans were glad to get that cloud from over their heads. Convention planners were very much determined to keep Gustav from raining on their parade, and the second day of the GOP Convention in St. Paul had A-list speakers aplenty. President George W. Bush addressed the crowd via satellite from the White House, finding the middle ground between not appearing at all and flying all the way to St. Paul during a time of recovery from natural disaster. His speech had a rather bipartisan feel to it, only taking one dig at Democrats in the video address. The crowd received him warmly, just as they had his father, President George H. W. Bush, when he stepped onto the floor an hour or so earlier. The younger Bush adeptly avoided attempting to defend his record, relinquishing the opportunity in favor of complimenting Senator John McCain and the assembled delegates. All in all the unexpected arrangement of having the president appear via satellite rather than in person was probably a political gain. Delegates got to see and cheer their party’s leader, while Democrats were left without any of the visuals they

DAY ONE: MORNING There were lots of words John McCain’s campaign wanted to focus on during the first day of the Republican convention. Unfortunately, the spotlight of Day One has been far from the Twin Cities, where the convention is being held. The word of the day is unquestionably “Gustav.” The Category 2 hurricane made landfall Monday, the first scheduled day of the Republican National Convention. As a result of the hurricane, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney both cancelled their speeches to the convention. The Republican Party cancelled almost all official events Monday, excepting the procedural ones that are absolutely necessary for the nomination process and newly-scheduled speeches from First Lady Laura Bush and the woman who hopes to succeed her, Cindy McCain. What do these weather-related developments mean for the Republican message? Gustav is, essentially, a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it reminds Americans of Hurricane Katrina—far from President Bush’s shining hour. Instead of focusing on the future of the Republican Party, voters are treated to visuals that are virtual reruns of the Katrina coverage three years ago. With Bush’s poll numbers in the dumps, Republicans cannot afford to have too much reflection on

Wednesday On Monday, James Carville said that the Democrats had yet to find their stride, and that in his opinion, the convention began not with a bang, but with a politically lifeless whimper. And he was right. Despite the fact that Michelle Obama delivered a magnificently written speech (go back and read the transcript, especially the penultimate paragraph, and see if you can find a more talented speechwriter working today), most commentators agreed that the Democrats began their convention with messages that were too personal, and not tough enough. Carville and others wanted more “red meat,” as it’s called in politics—in other words, hard-hitting criticism aimed squarely at McCain’s policies. With no red meat to sate the appetite of Democratic activists for Red, Republican blood, restless pundits began to wonder aloud why Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Is he ferocious enough? Will he contribute enough to the ticket? Can he provide the red meat Democrats want? Say what you will about the protein content of Biden’s speech earlier tonight, but only the most hardened curmudgeon could have watched the biographical video and heard Beau Biden’s introduction without tearing up. That said, Joe Biden gave a fine

Tuesday When I was growing up in Washington, veteran political operatives had a saying: “Never underestimate the Clintons.” Just when you thought they were conquered by scandal, or defeated by formidable opponents, they would rise from the ashes stronger, more tenacious, and even more determined to preserve their legacy as Democratic icons. This entire week, commentators made the mistake of underestimating the Clintons. This entire week, pundits cynically predicted that the Clintons would somehow undercut Obama’s candidacy, that they were so bitter they couldn’t bring themselves to help their fellow Democrat. Just wait and see, they said. The pundits and the commentators couldn’t have been more wrong. Tonight, Hillary Clinton delivered one of the best, and certainly the most important speeches of her political career. After a brief bout of sore loserdom earlier in the summer, Hillary appeared tonight luminous and genuinely eager to help Barack Obama win what she couldn’t. It’s tempting here to insert some snide comment about how craven and calculating the Clintons tend to be, but Hillary’s speech wasn’t either. She was awesome—in every sense of the word. Not only did she deliver a full-throated endorsement of Barack Obama for president, she did so with humor,

Much of the commentary at the Democratic National Convention today centered not on Sen. Obama or his running mate, nor did many seem particularly concerned with the perennial themes of hope and change. Today, the watchword was unity. Specifically, party insiders and pundits spent most of the day wondering whether Sen. Hillary Clinton will, as promised, throw her support behind Obama. Of course, no one expects the Clintons to give anything but their full-throated support when they take the stage later this week. The question is: What will they do when the festivities calm down, and the country looks to the former president and first lady to campaign on behalf of the Democratic nominee. Will they rally behind the man who thwarted the renewal of the Clinton dynasty, or will they continue to offer only tepid support and reluctant praise? If the Clintons put aside their resentment and campaign vigorously for Obama over the next few months, a united Democratic party would be a formidable opponent for John McCain. If, however, the Clintons decide to sit this one out or, even worse, to imply that Obama still isn’t ready to be president, then all McCain has to is sit and

Forget the Olympics. Political junkies are in the convention pre-season. As we approach the Democratic National Convention on August 25 to 28 and the Republican National Convention on September 1 to 4, analysts just want to know one thing: How big are the bounces? The “bounce”, of course, refers to the jump in the polls that a party experiences as a result of its week of media propaganda, broadcast free on all major news networks and in every news publication. Don’t get us wrong. We favor giving each party its chance to tell a story about its nominee and its principles; this is invaluable civic education for voters who don’t pay close attention normally. Yet we shouldn’t see the conventions as more than they are. Ever since the 1972 GOP Convention that re-nominated President Richard Nixon, when the conclave literally followed a minute-by-minute script that detailed how long delegates should applaud in each instance, the parties have striven to follow the pure public relations model. Nary a discouraging word is spoken, every picture for the cameras is perfect, and “boring” becomes a religion. Thus, at the end of the week, with the nominee having delivered a much practiced and poll-tested

When political reporters run low on topics to write about, they often turn their attention to third parties–the “lovable losers” of American politics. They never win at the presidential level but often are called upon to add color to campaigns that are sometimes badly in need of it. Not since 1972 has a third party actually won an electoral vote. Not since 1968 has an independent or third party candidate carried a state. What interest they draw is usually reserved for “celebrity candidates,” which New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would certainly have been if he had chosen to mount an independent candidacy in 2008. When he did not, the brief focus on third parties rapidly receded. But in a close election this fall they could emerge as the balance of power, drawing votes that could tip battleground states to Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain. Or maybe, if a number of states are closely contested, they might push some states to Obama and others to McCain. Figure 1. THIRD PARTIES SINCE WORLD WAR II: AFFECTING THE ELECTION OUTCOME In six of the 15 presidential elections since World War II, the overall third party vote has exceeded the Democratic or

Political observers have become more sophisticated in their reading of polls in recent years. They know enough now not to read too much into summer polls. Poll leaders in June are not any more likely to win than their opponents who trail them in the summer polls. By the time of the conventions, though, polls become more meaningful. Since 1948, 12 of the 15 candidates leading in the Gallup poll after the conventions have gone on to win the national popular vote, and by late September the poll leaders have a record of 14 wins and one popular vote loss (Tom Dewey in 1948). There is more to learn about being sophisticated poll readers, however, than knowing when to take polls seriously. If we compare polls at points in the campaign to the eventual vote, it is clear that a poll lead among registered voters at some point in a campaign is not the same thing as the vote lead on Election Day. Poll leads are, however, related to vote leads in a systematic way, more closely related later in the campaign than earlier, but related throughout the campaign. The question is how are they related? How can we draw

From the time Barack Obama declared his candidacy for president, his campaign realized it would benefit from what came to be called the enthusiasm gap. “In most campaigns, it’s a challenge to drag people out,” Western States Field Director Buffy Wicks told a group of volunteer organizers gathered in San Francisco last summer. “We’re not that campaign,” Wicks added. A year before the January 2008 Iowa caucuses, Obama’s rallies were already drawing massive crowds and the Illinois senator inspired more excitement within the Democratic Party’s activist base than any candidate in recent memory. The campaign realized, however, “that enthusiasm alone will not win the nomination.” As part of an effort to “channel… enthusiasm into an organization capable of delivering victories,” the campaign devoted considerable resources to volunteer recruitment and training, building a grassroots mobilization effort of unprecedented scope and sophistication. In the months since Obama clinched the nomination, his campaign has embarked on an ambitious plan to expand that organization in hopes of leveraging the enthusiasm gap on a much larger general-election scale. Over the summer, the campaign has focused its attention on registering new voters. As a recent Crystal Ball article points out, record numbers of new voters registered

In less than three months millions of Americans will go to the polls to choose the next president of the United States. For the first time since 1952, neither the incumbent president nor the incumbent vice-president will be on the ballot. Instead, the Republican Party, which has seen its popularity and electoral fortunes plummet since 2004, will pin its hopes of keeping control of the White House on John McCain—an individual who has frequently clashed with his own party’s leadership. And McCain’s Democratic opponent will be Barack Obama, the first African-American ever to receive a major party presidential nomination. The fact that neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney will be on the ballot along with the unusual characteristics of the Republican and Democratic candidates have led to considerable uncertainty among political observers about what to expect in November. There is uncertainty not only about the eventual outcome but about whether the electoral map will undergo a drastic change from the familiar blue and red hues of the past two contests. Both Obama and McCain have been courting independent voters and campaigning in states that have not supported their party’s presidential candidates in many years. This has led some pundits to