It's a Crazy World, Waffling on Afghanistan?, More Obama Polls, Tracking NJ and VA, Health Care Plods Along, MA Senate Controversy

There has been a ton going on this week in the world of politics, so I'll get right to it....

Nutcases, Radicals and Dictators -- Oh, My! If there is one thing that the UN and G20 meetings has confirmed, it is that there are still a lot of crazies in the world....and that we need to keep an eye on the ones who could potentially get their hands on nuclear weapons.

From the re-emergence of Libya's nutty-again dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, who, apparently has quite an axe to grind with just about everyone in the world, to Iran's illegitimately elected (probably), nuclear-ambitious, holocaust-dening, always-nutty Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world is quite a scary place.

Of the two, while Qaddafi's rambling, long speech garnered the eye of the media, it is Ahmadinejad and Iran's nuclear ambitions that deserve our attention. A nuclear Iran is a scary prospect indeed. While Iran lacks the technological capability to launch a nuclear weapon that could reach U.S. territory, they could certainly turn the middle east into a crater, Israel included.

A much harder line is needed with Iran. President Obama is right to declare their actions unaccceptable, but the world needs to stand together to do much more than talk. Iran should have zero access to capital, equipment or trade unless and until it abandons its nuclear ambitions. They are simply too great a risk. What purpose does the UN serve if NOT to stop rogue nations like Iran from acquiring the ultimate destructive weapon?

At the G20, a slightly more sane gathering of nations, things were considerably tamer. Sure, we had the normal protests from the usual anti-globalization radicals, but the tone inside was considerably more business-like. That said, no real break throughs came out of the session. The leaders declared it a success and agreed to some underlying principles on things like regulation of the financial markets and pollution control. Nothing really meaty though.

The international schedule has been crowded as of late, particularly with the aftermath of a global recession. Unfortunately, I fear the world is just nibbling at the edges of the causes of the near-collapse of the global economy. No one has addressed in a serious way, how to eliminate the risk posed by "too big to fail" institutions, which are at the root of the severity of the recession. And it appears unlikely they will as the crisis has passed.

Is Obama Shooting Straight on Afghanistan? From the onset of his campaign for President, Barack Obama made it clear that he viewed the war in Afghanistan as a "war of necessity" as opposed to the Iraq war, which he viewed as a "war of choice". He relentlessly criticized the Bush Administration for failing to commit adequate resources to Afghanistan and for taking its eyes off the ball by focusing so much troop strength in Iraq.

It is concerning, then, that the President seems reluctant to send more troops and appears to have held back the recommendation of Gen. Stanley Mcchrystal to send at least 10,000 additional troops to the country.

Is Obama caving in to the left-wing of his party?

The worst solution in Afghanistan is to maintain the status quo. We could have a reasoned debate about whether a continued American presence makes sense (I tend to think it does, although we need a great deal more clarity on the mission objectives and conditions for exit), but EITHER commiting more troops OR exiting the theater are preferable to maintaining the status quo. We learned our lesson in Vietnam, that half-pregnant wars do not work.

Let's hope President Obama takes a clear position in the next couple of weeks and if he chooses to continue to leave troops in Afghanistan, that he commits a sufficient number to do the job.

More Obama Polling
It is remarkable, given everything that has happened over the first 8 months of his Presidency, that President Obama continues to enjoy popularity at or above his November totals. The hope and change President has seemed far less inspirational and a lot less visionary over the past few months than many had hoped. Yet, on his ultimate scorecard he is still faring pretty well.

President Obama has continued to hold on to the modest gains that he had achieved following his late-August lows. He has yet to have a polling day below his November margin of 7.2%.


In the monthly data, President Obama actually has a chance for September to be the first month that he gains ground. His average as of today is +12.0%, just slightly below his August average of +12.3%, but his daily numbers are tracking above the average, so it certainly looks that, at worst, President Obama will have a flat month in September. Not a bad recovery after the disaster over the summer.




NJ/VA Governor Updates
It's getting down to crunch time in the 2009 elections, and the only ones of significance are the fights for Governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The GOP would still have to be considered a favorite to take both seats, but things continue to get closer.

In Virginia -- my latest analysis of polls puts this at a 4.4% margin for Republican Robert McDonnell over Democrat Creigh Deeds, while the RCP average has an identical margin. This is practically a pick 'em in a state race with over a month to go and Deeds closing at a pretty good clip (we were talking mid-double digits a couple of months ago.)

In New Jersey -- my latest analysis still has it a 7.5% margin for Republican Chris Christie over incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) while the RCP average shows it a 6.6% race. This one is tightening too, although not as fast.

I'd been predicting from the get-go that Corzine would close in New Jersey, given its history of flirting with Republicans but electing Democrats. Could I have had this backwards? Might the DEMs pull it out in now-purple Virginia and get scortched in still-deep-blue New Jersey?

Health Care Bills Moving, But Not Too Fast
In the House, Nancy Pelosi is slowly moving towards a showdown on the floor sometime in the next month, basically negotiating only with Democrats. It appears likely that the bill will make it to the floor with a public option in it, as Pelosi has expressly rejected both co-ops and the "trigger" mechanism as alternatives. The problem Democrats face in the House, is that it is not clear that they can cobble together enough Democratic votes to pass a bill with the public option, and they will certainly get no GOP votes. It's also not clear that a bill that excludes a public option would attract enough liberal support. Back to the same problem -- the Dems are not on one page.

The Senate prospects, unbelieveably, actually look brighter than in the House. Despite lots of partisan committee votes, it appears that the Baucus bill will make it to the floor without major changes and with no obvious Democratic defections. If the Senate passes a bill without a public option, it will put major pressure on Pelosi and company to get the liberal wing in line and line up behind a similar bill.

Still a long tricky way to go on this one.

Hypocrites in Massachussetts
Governor Deval Patrick (D) has named Paul Kirk to fill in as an interim Senator until a special election is held in January to select the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D). He made this appointment after the legislature rushed through a bill, changing the law to allow such an appointment. The Governor waived a normal protocol that laws in the state be deferred for 90 days before taking effect, prompting a GOP court challenge, which appears to have at least initially failed.

Gov. Patrick and company were probably within their legal rights here. But that's not the point. The point is the hypocracy that they delayed in making the change in the law.

Massachussetts had previously had a law which allowed temporary appointments to the Senate. In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry (D) was seeking the Presidency, the legislature promptly changed the law to allow only selection by special election, guarding against a GOP Senator from then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R). Now, when a 60th Democrat is needed for health care reform, they switch it back. Changing the rules of election to serve a specific political outcome is wrong and should be condemned.

And while we are on the topic, shouldn't we have a uniform selection of laws across the country for how Senators are selected in the event of a vacancy?

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Deeds Spanks All Comers in VA Primary, Chrysler Sale Cleared, Sotomayor Hearings Set, President Obama's Political Capital

Deeds Smokes McAullife
I'll grade myself on my call yesterday on the Virginia gubernatorial primary: right theory, right order of finish, WAY off on order of magnitude. I pride myself on calling races right and I do feel that this site got it a lot more right than any other major political website, but there is definitely room for improvement.

As of this writing, with 99%+ of precincts reporting, Creigh Deeds pulled in a whopping 50% of the primary vote in the three-way race with Terry McAullife (26%) and Brian Moran (24%) a distant second and third. I believe all of the reasons why I projected a Deeds win held true (that Republican Open Primary voters overwhelmingly voted against McAullife), but in a much bigger way than I could have imagined. I envisioned maybe a 5 point Deeds win -- all of the polls showed the race more or less a dead heat. This just shows the difficulty in polling the result of an open primary, especially a very low turnout primary as this one was.

This sets up what I consider to be a true toss-up general election. Both Virginia and New Jersey appear to be very interesting races...stay tuned.

Chrysler Sale Moves Ahead Less than 24 hours after Justice Ginsberg granted a temporary stay of the Chrysler reorganization plan, the Supreme Court has reached the decision not to grant cert and take up the case. The reorganization will move ahead as planned with combined ownership by the UAW, the Federal Government and Fiat.

This is a good thing for what is left of Chrysler. It has a chance to remake itself. There is a lot of work to do. Chrysler lags badly in innovation, design and quality to its global competitors (Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen and Ford are all miles ahead in all three categories) and it may yet fail, but it has a lifeline and the small-car technology from Fiat to lean into. This expedited bankruptcy also sets the precedent for the much-larger GM to follow a similar process.

Sotomayor Hearings to Begin July 13th
The Senate judiciary committee hearings for Supreme Court-Designee Sonia Sotomayor will begin July 13th. This is earlier than many Senate Republicans had wanted, arguing for hearings no earlier than late August to allow a thorough review of Judge Sotomayor's record. As I previously discussed, this argument is nonesense as we are talking about a twice-Senate confirmed nominee whose record has already been thoroughly reviewed. But it is a normal tactic for the opposition party to play a waiting game and hope something blows up. I would still be very surprised if Sotomayor doesn't pick up 70 votes and sail through her nomination. But you never know.

That the hearings are set to begin smack-dab in the middle of when congressional Democrats had hoped to be debating health care reform will spread the President's capital awfully thin. Let's take a look at home much he still has.

Holding Strong But Still Trending Down
First, for our new readers, let me explain the methodology of the poll aggregation graphs below. Unlike many sites (such as the widely reported realclearpolitics), I do not treat all polls as equal. Polls have different sample sizes and are therefore given weight based on its overall sample size, to create one "super poll". Also, polls have different methodology for treatment of "no opinion". Gallup, for instance, reports "no opinion" responses (their latest poll shows 61% approve, 34% disapprove, 5% "no opinion") whereas Rasmussen does not (their latest poll 58% approve, 41% disapprove, does not add to 100% due to rounding.) Therefore looking at just the approval percentage is not meaningful. I therefore use what I call "approve minus disapprove", that is the percentage of those surveyed who approve minus the percentage that disapprove. This gives a consistent basis for comparing the results over time. If the number is positive, President Obama generally has public approval, if negative he does not. I also show for reference the 7.2% line, the percentage by which the President won the national popular vote in November. This methodology closely replicates the polling aggregation method that I used to correctly project within 0.1% the results of the November election.

The verdict so far this month? More of the same. President Obama continues to enjoy broad approval, but the margin continues to slowly tighten. He is more popular than he was in November -- that is there appear to be McCain voters who approve of the President. But you can see from the trend why the administration is intent on getting things done now -- in politics you either use political capital or lose it.

I also look at the poll breakdowns by polling methodology. As some polls survey all adult Americans, some restrict to registered voters and some attempt to target likely voters, the numbers naturally vary.

As of today, the numbers by polling type are:
Adult Americans: +30%
Registered Voters: +26%
Likely Voters: +17%

It is worth noting that Rasmussen is consistently the only poll tracking Likely Voters. This is worth noting as the Rasmussen results have been all over the map, bouncing between +6% and +17% over just the past 4 days. I find it hard to believe that President Obama's underlying popularity is shifting that much day to day, so I wonder somewhat if Rasmussen is tinkering with the methodology. The +17% number seems more realistic, given that it would be hard to believe that there is a 20%+ spread between registered and likely voters. The Gallup polling last year that looked at both generally showed a 3-5% spread between the two (registered voters tend to be somewhat more liberal than likely voters.)


Month to month, President Obama is still off about 4% in June versus his May numbers, but still over 18% above his November vote totals.

My conclusion: the President still has a lot of capital. People are wary of large deficits and continuing high unemployment but are generally feeling better about the direction of the country and the economy than they were a few months ago (consumer confidence is at its highest level since last September, and right track/wrong track polling has gone from -48% on election day to even today.) Republicans have yet to organize a coherent attack (Rush, Newt and Dick are not helping) or present clear policy alternatives. The honeymoon will end (Republicans will eventually rebuild their party and rally around a coherent message, people will continue to feel economic pain at least for the next several months and the country as a whole is definitely to the right of the President), but for now, the President can afford to press hard.

Whether all this capital translates into being able to do Health Care, Energy Reform AND Immigration Reform in a meaningful way remains to be seen. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush accomplished NONE of those three things in 8 years each in office. President Obama is attempting to do it in one. If he pulls it off, it will be the most significant first year of a President in U.S. history. It should be interesting to watch.

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