THE MYTH OF A TOSS-UP ELECTION

By Alan Abramowitz, Thomas E. Mann, and Larry J. Sabato

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=AIA2008072401

“Too close to call.” “Within the margin of error.” “A statistical dead heat.” If you’ve been following news coverage of the 2008 presidential election, you’re probably familiar with these phrases. Media commentary on the presidential horserace, reflecting the results of a series of new national polls, has strained to make a case for a hotly contested election that is essentially up for grabs.

Signs of Barack Obama’s weaknesses allegedly abound. The huge generic Democratic Party advantage is not reflected in the McCain-Obama pairings in national polls. Why, according to the constant refrain, hasn’t Obama put this election away? A large number of Clinton supporters in the primaries refuse to commit to Obama. White working class and senior voters tilt decidedly to McCain. Racial resentment limits Obama’s support among these two critical voting blocs. Enthusiasm among young voters and African-Americans, two groups strongly attracted to Obama, is waning. Blah, blah, blah.

While no election outcome is guaranteed and McCain’s prospects could improve over the next three and a half months, virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed–historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months–point to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November. Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry. Again, maybe conditions will change in McCain’s favor, and if they do, they should also be accurately described by the media. But current data do not justify calling this election a toss-up.

Consider the following.

Except for a few days when the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls showed a tie, Barack Obama has led John McCain in every national poll in the past two months. Obama’s average margin has consistently been in the 4-6 point range during this time. By contrast, the polls in 2000 and 2004 showed much more variation over time. State polling results have also consistently given Obama the advantage. According to realclearpolitics.com, Obama is currently leading in 26 states and the District of Columbia with a total of 322 electoral votes; McCain is currently leading in 24 states with a total of 216 electoral votes. Obama is leading in every state carried by John Kerry in 2004 along with six states carried by George Bush: Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada and Colorado. A seventh Bush state, Virginia, is tied.

Obama is leading in 11 of the 12 swing states that were decided by a margin of five points or less in 2004 including five of the six that were carried by George Bush. And while Obama has a comfortable lead in every state that John Kerry won by a margin of more than five points in 2004, McCain is in a difficult battle in a number of states that Bush carried by a margin of more than five points including such solidly red states as Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Virginia, and North Carolina.

And remember these June and July polls may well understate Obama’s eventual margin. Ronald Reagan did not capitalize on the huge structural advantage Republicans enjoyed in 1980 until after the party conventions and presidential debate. It took a while and a sufficient level of comfort with the challenger for anti-Carter votes to translate into support for Reagan. If Obama’s performance over the last eighteen months is any guide, a similar pattern could unfold in 2008.

Aside from the horserace results, there is evidence of a growing Democratic party advantage in the electorate. A recent analysis by Rhodes Cook of voter registration data in 29 states and the District of Columbia that permit registration by party shows that since November of 2004, Democratic registration has increased by almost 700,000 while Republican registration has declined by almost one million.

Democrats now enjoy a substantial lead over Republicans in voter identification. According to the Gallup Poll, the two parties have gone from near parity four years ago to a 12 point Democratic advantage in the first half of 2008. And polling data continue to show that Democrats are more satisfied with their party’s nominee than Republicans voters and more highly motivated to vote. While Republicans normally benefit from higher turnout among their supporters, that may not be the case this year.

In order to defeat Barack Obama, John McCain will have to convince a lot of currently disgruntled Republicans to turn out and vote for him. Yet mobilizing the Republican base, a strategy employed successfully by Karl Rove in 2002 and 2004, won’t be enough for McCain to win in 2008. He’ll also have to convince a majority of independents and a substantial number of Democrats to vote for him. That’s a task that proved too difficult even for Rove in the 2006 midterm election and it may be still more difficult in 2008. That’s because since 2006 the political environment has gone from bad to worse for Republicans.

It is no exaggeration to say that the political environment this year is one of the worst for a party in the White House in the past sixty years. You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find an election involving the combination of an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession. 1952 was also the last time the party in power wasn’t represented by either the incumbent president or the incumbent vice-president. But the fact that Democrat Harry Truman wasn’t on the ballot didn’t stop Republican Dwight Eisenhower from inflicting a crushing defeat on Truman’s would-be successor, Adlai Stevenson.

Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.

Abramowitz is a professor of political science at Emory University. Mann is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. Sabato is a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and director of its Center for Politics.

Six little words

By David Sirota

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_9988069

History books teem with six-word phrases, from the comforting (”Nothing to fear but fear itself”) to the inspiring (”Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”) to the embarrassing (”Read my lips: no new taxes”). But the six words “on the basis of union membership” could be more momentous than any of those. Though hardly Roosevelt’s rhetoric, Reagan’s bluster or Bush’s clumsiness, the clause could solve America’s wage crisis.

Of course, when Tom Geoghegan told me this in a Chicago park two weeks ago, I almost snarfed my coffee through my nose. Solving major social problems typically demands more than six words. But as the longtime labor lawyer and author explained his idea to me on a muggy afternoon, it started making sense.

Geoghegan reminded me that data show the more union members in an economy, the better workers’ pay. The problem, he said, is that weakened labor laws are allowing companies to bully and fire union-sympathetic workers, thus driving down union membership and wages.

Enter Geoghegan’s six words. If the Civil Rights Act was amended to prevent discrimination “on the basis of union membership,” it would curtail corporations’ anti-labor assault by making the right to join a union an official civil right.

“Hang on,” I interrupted. “Joining a union isn’t a civil right?”

Correct.

Under current law, if you are fired for union activity, you can only take your grievance to the National Labor Relations Board — a byzantine agency deliberately made more Kafkaesque by right-wing appointees and budget cuts. Today, the NLRB takes years to rule on labor law violations, often granting victims only their back pay.

Union leaders are now focused on reforming the NLRB — an admirable goal — but Geoghegan’s plan implies that workers are harmed by being legally leashed to Washington in the first place. His proposal says rather than being forced to rely on an unreliable bureaucracy for protection, workers should be empowered to defend themselves.

The six words would do just that. Regardless of whether the NLRB is strengthened or further weakened, persecuted workers would be able to haul union-busting thugs into court. There, unlike at the NLRB, plaintiffs can subpoena company records and win costly punitive damages.

Bolstering his argument, Geoghegan told me to consider variations in corporate behavior.

For example, because the Civil Rights Act bars racial discrimination, businesses are motivated to try to prevent bigotry — they want to avoid being sued. But when it comes to unions, there is no such deterrent. The lack of civil rights protection effectively encourages businesses to punish pro-union employees — and publicize the abuse to intimidate their workforce. By making the six words law, the dynamic would shift. Companies would have a reason — fear of litigation — to respect workers’ rights.

When Geoghegan and I finished chatting, I remembered why I believe he is America’s most talented writer and thinker on labor issues. His relative anonymity is a tragicomic commentary on the media and the American left. The Milton Friedmans are celebrated by pundits and cast in bronze by conservative think tanks, while the Geoghegans are dismissed by the chattering class and ignored by a progressive movement that regularly venerates Hollywood celebrities as its heroes.

Perhaps, though, this proposal will change things. In developing a way to shift incentives, Geoghegan has discovered a solution that both unionists and economists can love. It cribs the best from liberals’ pro-union sympathies and conservatives’ distrust of Big Government, and should make him famous (or at least a cabinet secretary).

After all, anyone who can bring such disparate ideologies and adversaries together is worthy of serious consideration — as is his six-word stroke of genius.

Denver political analyst David Sirota (http://www.credoaction.com/sirota) is author of “The Uprising,” published in June. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network.

UMWA Joins Labor Groups Endorsing Single Payer National Health Care

http://www.laborradio.org/node/9053

By Doug Cunningham

The United Mine Workers of America has endorsed a single-payer universal national health care system for the U.S. The mine worker’s union has joined more than 440 other labor organizations in backing the bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan. UMWA President Cecil Roberts.

: “When George Bush gets sick who pays for that? Aw come on, who pays for that?
: “We do!”)
“When ol’ Dick Cheney gets sick who pays for that?”
: “We Do!”)
“When Condaleeza Rice gets sick, who pays for that?”
:”We Do!”
“When Clarence Thomas gets sick, who pays for that?”
: “We Do!”
“I submit to you whatever they got when we’re out there knockin’ on doors we just simply say we want what they got and we’ll be happy!”

Roberts says the chances of getting universal single payer health care will go up with a political change in November.

: “We’re gonna get national single payer health care when we elect us a new President and a new Congress who will stand up for the American people!”