There would be hell in the party for a long time/4

As we mentioned in the previous posts of this series, 2008 is a year in which Democrats could win by a landslide because all the underground streams of American politcs favor them. Factor n. 1: the economy is in dire strait, and it will bring more pain and suffering to million of Americans approaching November. That is always an ominous sign for the team in place: Dubya must remember that a very mild recession in 1991-92 ousted his father from the White House in no time (and his share of the popular vote was less than Goldwater's one in the calamitous 1964 election).
Factor n. 2: "The balance of party identification in the American electorate now favors the Democratic Party by a decidedly larger margin than in either of the two previous presidential election cycles," as the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press tells us in its last survey. We tackled this issue some times ago, pointing out that there is "a huge advantage for the party that is ahead in what political scientists call party identification," aka the Democrats this year. Now, Pew data show that "36% [of voters] identify themselves as Democrats, and just 27% as Republicans. The share of voters who call themselves Republicans has declined by six points since 2004, and represents, on an annualized basis, the lowest percentage of self-identified Republican voters in 16 years of polling by the Center."
Factor n. 3: There is a large reject of the War in Iraq (about two thirds of citizens are against) and a widespread fatigue and disgust because of government's corruption.
Tha should be enough to call the election for the party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but Democrats have an exceptional talent in destroying themselves, particularly in election years (More).

Will Dubya Have His "Presidential" Library?

As the worst President of the United States ever prepares his exit, in January 2009, plans are drawn to build a monument to his legacy: a Presidential Library that should be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the alma mater of First Lady Laura Bush. The building should cost 0.5 billion dollars.

However, a group of teachers and staff from the School of Theology wrote to R. Gerald Turner, president of the Board of Trustees, to urge the board to “reconsider and to rescind SMU’s pursuit of the presidential library.” The letter, that you can read here, says among other things: "We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a preemptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends."

The Chronicle of Higher Education decided to ask its readers to sketch plans for a building that would show the world the accomplishment of George W. Bush (on top, one of the 120 plans sent to the magazine) and the contest was a success, as Scott Carlson relates in this video.

Black Militant Mumia Abu Jamal Has Right to New Hearing

Mumia Abu Jamal, on death row for a quarter of century, must be sentenced again during a new hearing within 90 days, or his death sentence will be automatically commuted in a sentence of life in prison. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing a police officer should stand, but that he should get a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions. Here, a long video interview recorded in jail.

Maybe Wright is Right

Washington DC - In his speech at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, Democratic candidate Barack Obama addressed openly the issue of race for the first time since the beginning of the campaign. The speech came in response to increasing criticisms of Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., a pastor of Trinity, the parish of the United Church of Christ that Obama attends in Chicago.

Reverend Wright is famous for his sometimes inflammatory rhetoric about race relations in the United States and the discrimination of the African-American minority. Last Tuesday, Senator Obama chose to acknowledge this country's history of segregation and how such past still affects American society today. He explicitely highlighted the need to remember the history of injustice and never to lose sight of the mistakes that have been made. He also encouraged the people of the United States to move beyond ethnic divisions and to start working together for a better, and more just, country.

The Wall Street Journal today publishes a little-noticed, yet stunning, statistics that might confirm the fact that the US is still a divided and segregated country.

In the last few years there has been a notable upswing in the murder rate of African-Americans, while the same figure for overall murders has declined steadily, or remained stable at worst. As a result, the number of black victims of murder exceeds today that of the white poplation, despite the fact that Afican-Americans only comprise 13% of all Americans.

According to the most recent statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of whites murdered declined from 7,005 in 2004 to 6,956 in 2006. At the same time, 7,421 black citizens were killed in 2006, an 11% increase from the 6,680 who died in 2004.

The only positive note is that this growing figure is still lower than it was in the early 1990s, when killings of African-Americans spiked due to a wave of drug-related crime.

There would be hell in the party for a long time/1

A ghost is haunting the sleep of Democratic party officials: Chicago 1968. No, they are not thinking to the possibility of violent clashes in Denver at the convention, next Summer, but they are extremely nervous about the protracted nomination fight, and some of them are publicly warning that the party needs to act fast to avoid disaster. (More)

There would be hell in the party for a long time/2

Concerning the Democratic candidate who will be nominated at the Convention in Denver, the media are still following the well-established script of a "race" open to all results, a furious contest that will be decided only on the finish line. The reality is completely different. Simple math tells us that Obama's lead in terms of delegates is not going to vanish, nor he can be denied the nomination without something akin to a party coup.
The numbers, courtesy of Real Clear Politics are quite simple: Obama has amassed 1,629 delegates, 132 more than Clinton's 1,497. There has been much talk about Clinton' advantage in obtaining the support of party officials, aka Superdelegates, but this is more wishful thinking than hard fact: Obama has been endorsed by 215 of them, and Hillary by 250, with some 270 of them still uncommitted. Clinton's support among them went down during the last month, her victories in Texas and Ohio notwithstanding.
The reason for this is simple: Superdelegates are politicians in good standing, and they can read the numbers of the popular vote, an area in which the senator from Illinois has a solid lead of about 3% (uncertainty is due to the fluctuating figures of caucuses). Party officials know that, barring a miracle in Pennsylvania, Obama will have more popular votes than Clinton at the end of the primaries season. True, the former First Lady is ahead in the polls there, but not as much as she would need to bridge the gap.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a staunch Clinton's supporter, painted a bizarre scenario a few days ago: "Let's assume that Sen. Clinton goes ahead in the popular vote count," he said, to offer the idea that Superdelegates could switch to Clinton because of that, even if Obama will enter the Convention with more pledged delegates. However, "Clinton will have to close a deficit of more than 700,000 votes," as The Politico pointed out. That means that Clinton should win by huge margins in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, while holding Obama to modest gains in states where he is ahead, like North Carolina and Oregon. (More)

There would be hell in the party for a long time/3

Obama cannot be stopped simply by debates, town meetings, and hand-shaking with voters, but Hillary Clinton could still have resort to the so-called "Tonya Harding's option." Tonya Harding was an interesting character of the 1990s: she was an ice-skater, very talented but somehow handicapped by her shorter and not very graceful persona. In 1994, she decided to solve the problem of a dangerous competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, simply sending a former boyfriend to break her a knee, which he did in such a clumsy manner that both conspirators were caught by the police in no time.
Politically, Clinton's unique option would be destroying Obama by a merciless character assassination, interrupted "by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism," as David Brooks wrote in The New York Times.
That would destroy the party, and open the door for an easy Republican victory in November, all this in a year when the Democrats could win by a landslide. (More)

Twenty-five years later...

On March 23, 1983, twenty-five years ago, President Ronald Reagan started one of the greatest waste of resources ever proposed in human history: "What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that (...) we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?" That was the military program later known as "Strategic Defense Initiative," and popularly baptized, Star Wars after George Lucas's movie of 1977.

Reagan went on: "I know this is a formidable technical task, one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century. (...) But isn't worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war? We know it is!"

The end of XX Century lapsed, eight more have passed, and no system capable intercepting and destroying strategic ballistic missiles exists today, nor will exist in a foreseeable future. From time to time, the Pentagon claims that a "successful" experiment has been performed, more often the attempts to shut down a high-altitude missile, or satellite, fail. Just to remember what 25 years means in the field of technology, one could point out that in 1983 there was no Macintosh computer, there were no portable phones, and internet was a mininetwork solely for military use, in the event of a full-scale nuclear war, nothing compared with the round-the-globe, free communication tool that we know today.

Other military endeavours, like the Manhattan Project, were completed in a short time: the program to build an atomic bomb from scratch was started in 1941 and had its first test in July 1945, not to mention the tragically successful explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Four years were enough. 

And what about satellites orbiting around the Earth? The U.S. Earth satellite program began in 1954 and, after the shock created by the Soviet success in launching Sputnik in October 1957, it was accelerated, with the goal of putting an American engine into orbit as soon as possible. On February 1, 1958, the Juno I rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, propelling Explorer 1 in space. Again, the task was accomplished in four years.

Let's take the example of the design of a pressurized water reactor for submarine propulsion: In February 1949, admiral Rickover was assigned to the Division of Reactor Development, Atomic Energy Commission, and the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, was launched and commissioned in 1954: six years.One must wonder if today American scientists are definitly more inept than their predecessors. As massive incompetence seems improbable, the reasons why Reagan's dream of an anti ballistic defense is still on paper must lay elsewhere. Probably, it is because a broad range of experts believed then – and still believe today – that a missile shield capable to destroy thousands of warheads from incoming nuclear missiles and guarantee full protection of the U.S. territory is simply impossible to build. Unless, that is, the United States used that shield to launch a first strike. Such an attack might destroy 90% or 95% of hostile missiles on the ground, before they could be fired. Only a handful would be left for the missile shield to knock down and this is the reason why Moscow leaders (Andropov then as Putin now) are ferociously opposed to it.

Russian paranoia may be understandable, but the results achieved after spending at least 150 billion inflation-adjusted dollars remain elusive.This didn't prevent the Cheney-Bush administration from spending more money than previous presidents on the project, and from breaking the United States' commitment to the 30-year-old ABM Treaty, ten years after the dissolving of the Soviet Union. The theory that the program should continue as a "guarantee" against the possibility of an attack by North Korea or Iran cannot be taken seriously.

How much domestic spending in repairing crumbling infrastructure, or establishing a universal health care system, would have been possible using that money? The real mystery of American politics is how such a boondoggle could still get Congress appropriations every year, and its creator Ronald Reagan be revered as one of this Country's great presidents.

Misdiagnosis (or, the US's trouble in picking the right side)

It has happened many times already, in Vietnam, in Iran, in Afghanistan. And it is happening once again in Iraq; the United States seems to have a tendency to finance its own future defeat.

The British daily newspaper The Guardian reports in an article Friday that a Sunni militia that has been hired by Washington to fight the insurgents in Iraq is threatening to go on strike because the US has fallen behind with the payments of the combatants' salaries.

Leaders of the Sahwa - or Awakening -, which counts 80,000 members, are demanding that their $10 a day wage is resumed. They are accusing Washington to send them off to fighting al Qaeda in the most dangerous areas of Iraq to then abandon them to their own destiny.

In a telephone survey conducted for Channel 4 News, The Guardian found that out of 49 Sahwa councils, four with more than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike and two already have. "We know the Americans are using us to do their dirty work and kill off the resistance for them and then we get nothing for it," Abu Abdul-Aziz told the UK newspaper. He is the head of the council in infamous Abu Ghraib. "The Americans got what they wanted. We purged al-Qaeda for them and now people are saying why should we have any more deaths for the Americans. They have given us nothing."

The history of US involvement in foreign lands is fraught with mistakes and poor judgment.
In Iran, the CIA carried out its first successful regime-change operation in 1953, when it was able to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mussadegh because the US felt threatened by its ideology and nationalist fervor. The CIA's covert intervention preserved the Shah's power and the American control of Iran's oil infrastructure. In the decades that followed, the US continued backing the brutal authoritarian government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, which was so unpopular among the Iranian people that, in 1978-79, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was successful in gaining the support of Iranians and take over the country. He turned Iran into an Islamic Republic (today, almost thirty years later, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been listed by the Bush administration as part to the so-called "axis-of-evil" together with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and is viewed as one of the US worst nightmares).

In Vietnam, the US supported for over a decade the corrupt regime in the Southern part of the country, until it was swept away when the communist forces from the North entered into Saigon on April 30th 1975. Over 58,000 young Americans died during the war.

Finally, in Afghanistan, the US decided to provide training and weaponry to the Mujaheddin (of which Osama bin Laden was an active member) as a way of fighting the invading Russians in the 1980s, a decision that Washington is still paying for. Today, the situation in post-Taliban Afghanistan is still dire and the country is far from stable and secure.

What will happen with the awakening council of Iraq is hard to know. First of all, they might just stop helping the US in the fight against al-Qaeda, making it impossible for the American military, overstretched as it is, to root out insurgent movements within Iraq and to create a stable government in Baghdad. Secondly, who exactly the Sahwa represents, what are the long-term goals and plans of these militants, and what they expect from the future of Iraq, seems impossible to determine. Nobody in Washington appears to be particularly interested in finding out. Ten or twenty-years down the line, will the world have to be concerned about the Iraq's Sahwa evil-doers, that a long time ago, at the beginning of the new millennium, were being funded and then let down and angered by the US itself?

A few readings on US covert actions in the 20th Century:

Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004)
Kenneth J. Conboy, Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957-1958 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999)
Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002)
Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003)
Richard H. Schultz, The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1999)
Roger Warner, Backfire: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995)

DOES BARACK OBAMA NEED A REMEDIAL COURSE IN CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY?

The much-discussed speech by Senator Obama on racial relationship in the US began: "Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words [We the People] launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy."
This is, indeed, a peculiar vision about "America’s improbable experiment" (a line that resonates with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) because the consensus among scholars is that the experiment had its roots in a more radical document, something that should inspire a politician like Obama: Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. The "experiment" indeed began in 1776, and the jury is still out to decide if the document signed in Philadelphia eleven years later was a victory, or a defeat, in the struggle for a "more perfect democracy" (a word that in the text of 1787 is nowhere to be found). Any historian, moreover, would have a lot of trouble in accepting what follows: "Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787." First of all, the convention lasted through the Summer, and not the Spring, but Obama's text gives the bizarre feeling that the delegates had just arrived on American soil when, most certainly, Washington, Adams, Jefferson or Madison were born in the colonies, had fought the British troops, declared independence, and organized a government: enough to declare the experiment "real," one would say. True, many historians do accept the mainstream vision of a country that badly needed a stronger national government, but Senator Obama should be aware of the large production of scholars who have looked at the constitutional "coup" of 1787 and reached very different conclusions (does the name of Charles Beard rings a bell?). Also, quoting only a tiny fragment of the first sentence, Barack Obama lost the chance of remembering his audience that the union was formed to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty," all goals that 221 years later are far from being fully achieved.

WHEN THE UNTHINKABLE BECOMES REALITY

It was not even ten days ago when we stressed that American bankers, and politicians, were dancing on the Titanic's deck, while mainstream media provided the reassuring music. Well, it appears that last weekend the FED decided to launch the lifeboats, and the Bush administration scrambled to find a place aboard. The action arrived too late to prevent the well-deserved drowning of Bear Stearns, an investment bank with the reputation of having "often operated in the gray areas of Wall Street and with an aggressive, brass-knuckles approach.” Paul Krugman, a mainstream economist who often was a voice of sanity in the Bush administration's years of madness, writes in the New York Times his obituary of the epoch: "Between 2002 and 2007, false beliefs in the private sector — the belief that home prices only go up, that financial innovation had made risk go away, that a triple-A rating really meant that an investment was safe — led to an epidemic of bad lending. Meanwhile, false beliefs in the political arena — the belief of Alan Greenspan and his friends in the Bush administration that the market is always right and regulation always a bad thing — led Washington to ignore the warning signs."
One couldn't say it better. Now, the question is: what will the Democratic candidates say to the country? Are Obama and Hillary too busy counting delegates to offer a vision of economic rescue? Do they think that this election will be decided by clever commercials, and an appeal to voters' fatigue? If so, a political disaster will double the economic disaster which is under our eyes.

Counting Delegates or Looking at Paychecks?

According to a just-released memorandum by the House' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, ignored by mainstream media but put into the spotlight by our friends of dirt diggers digest, "executive pay is rising rapidly and dramatically" in the USA. The report is worth quoting at length: "According to Forbes magazine, CEOs of the largest 500 U.S. companies received an average of $15.2 million each in 2006, a collective raise of 38% over 2005. Many experts believe there is a growing disconnect between CEO pay and performance, as increases in executive pay cannot be explained by factors such as changes in firm size or performance. In a recent survey of more than 1,000 directors at large U.S. companies, 67% said that they believe boards are having difficulty controlling the size of CEO pay packages.
The large increases in executive compensation also have widened the gulf between CEO pay and that of the average worker. In 1980, CEOs in the United States were paid 40 times the average-worker. In 2006,the average Fortune 250 CEO was paid over 600 times the average worker. While CEO pay has soared, employees at the bottom of the pay scale have seen their real wages decline by more than 10%o over the past decade."

Florida, the Democratic Party, and the Vanishing Voter

While yesterday Florida’s Democratic party idea of a mail-in primary seemed feasible, today it looks dead-on-arrival again. This is because the Republicans who rule in Florida are certain that State law prohibits election officials from authenticating votes cast in a Party's primary outside the one organized by the State. This seems a potentially fatal blow to the controversial plan (Hillary Clinton, who hopes to have "her" Florida delegates seated at the Convention was very much opposed to it).

With the possibility of a new vote vanishing, efforts to find a way out from the nightmare of a battle inside the "Credential Committee" of a brokered convention, seem fruitless so far. As things stay today, it is quite possible that Americans will watch live at brawls between the Obama's and Clinton's factions on the floor of the Denver Convention.

Obama's Lead in National Polls Widens

The ferocious attacks of the last two weeks notwithstanding, Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 48% to 42% in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination: In fifteen months of daily polling on the race, Obama had reached even 50%, a figure statistically identical to the 48% of today. These polls, and the advantage both in popular vote and pledged delegates should strengthen the Senator of Illinois's position in the race.

Superdelegates: An Assessment

The "Superdelegates Transparency Project," has launched this widget. It allows readers to follow, day by day, the attitude of the so-called Superdelegates, that is the delegates who will go to the Democratic national Convention in Denver (CO) not because they were elected by a caucus or a primary election, but because they are (or have been) leaders of the party at various levels (Governors, members of the DNC etc.). According to the last calculations, Clinton has been endorsed by 249 Superdelegates, Obama by 211 ones, while 260 are still uncommitted and 75 more have not yet been nominated.

A LARGER, BIGGER DEMOCRATIC COALITION/2

Obama's pledged delegates: 1406
Clinton's pledged delegates: 1246


As we have noted in the first installment of this series, eight years of Republican control of Presidency and Congress politically activated new segments of the American electorate. How this fact will play in this year's races, and beyond, is the topic we should explore.
It is plain that the failure of the Bush presidency is the dominant fact of American politics today.George W. Bush's approval ratings stabilized around 30 percent, 25 percentage points below those of Ronald Reagan's in 1988. Bush's presidency has been marred by scandals, an unpopular war, and an economy that is already in recession, hardly ideal for any party wanting to hold onto the White House as Carter learned in 1980 ("Billygate," hostages in Iran, and stagflation).
The mobilization of new angry voters was what created the successes of Democratic political strategy since early 2006, when they focused on the campaign themes that brought their takeover of the House and Senate in November 2006. The majority in the Senate, for example, was entirely the byproduct of unexpected victories in Republican-held territory, like Montana or Virginia. The so-called success of the troop surge in Iraq, which has reduced the number of American casualties has not altered the centrality of George W. Bush and his failed presidency in the mind of Democratic voters approaching November.
Any forecast about the Presidential and Congressional elections must be based not on the last maneuvering of the candidates, but on long-term political trends. The central trend in recent years has been polarization of the electorate, a factor that for a long time was central to Karl Rove's successful strategy. About 90 percent of those identifying with a political party vote for that party's presidential candidate The exit polls in 2004 showed that John Kerry had won 89 percent of the Democratic vote, George W. Bush 93 percent of the Republican vote. As it is, this translates in a huge advantage for the party that is ahead in what political scientists call "party identification," simply because the pool of voters is larger. And what is the situation on this front? The Democratic advantage is now of almost 10 points, according to Rasmussen and even more according to the Gallup Organization. That disparity is one of the widest partisan gaps ever measured and it is clearly linked to the beginning of the primaries season: the 9.7 percentage point advantage for Democrats now is up from a 5.6 point advantage in January and a 2.1 point advantage in December.
To gauge the importance of this factor, imagine that in November vote the same 120 million Americans who voted in 2004 (there will be more voters, but it doesn't matter here). If Obama or Clinton will keep the share of 90 percent of the Democratic vote, that translates into a huge gap (12 million votes!) with the Republican candidate, assuming (somehow generously) that he will able to bring the same percentage of followers to the polls (this is a very optimistic assessment of Republican cohesiveness this year: even among Republicans, almost a third of Newsweek's survey respondents said they disapprove of the job Bush is doing).
This assumptions translate into 90 percent of 48 million votes for the Democratic standard bearer against 90 percent of 36 million votes for the Republican one. In an year of economic hardship as this one, there is no way the so-called Independents would split 50-50 between the two parties: more probably they will go 55-45 for the Democratic candidate, McCain's courtship of them notwithstanding. That means another 4 million votes in the democratic column (Independents are about a third of the voters, as of today). As there will be new voters, a large majority of them pulling the lever for the democratic candidates (remember that turnout in their primaries has been the double than in Republican ones) this will bring another 2 million votes net advantage to Hillary/Obama.
Question: Can the democrats squander a 18 MILLION VOTES ADVANTAGE between March and November? The answer is: "In theory, that is possible," Democrats have a long tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
However, this would really go against the odds. To win, it is enough to reassure the constituencies now pouring into their primaries, especially women, Latinos and young people: they should give the Democrats a comfortable edge in November's election, and potentially well beyond. Right now, calculations about the electoral college give the Democratic candidate a solid majority of 318 votes but the victory might be much larger, with Obama (who in the end will prevail over Clinton) collecting more than 350 votes in the electoral college.
If you add to this the real possibility of large majorities in the House (25 seats more) and in the Senate (6 to 8 seats more), one realizes that there are on the table long-term opportunities for the Democrats, the possibility of changing American political landscape for a generation, as Ronald Reagan did for Republicans in 1980. This, of course, is a question of leadership but it all depends on how the party leader will conduct themselves.

Republicans lose seat they had hold for 22 years

On Saturday, Republicans lost former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat in a hotly contested special election in Chicago (IL-14). Bill Foster, a Democrat running for his first political job, will go to Congress after defeating Republican millionaire Jim Oberweis 53% to 47%, a result that was unthinkable just weeks ago.

Hastert resigned his seat, and the special election was called to fill the remainder of his term. In November, the same two candidates will campaign for the full term 2009-2011.

The district has at its heart Kendall County, a reliably Republican fast-growing area in exurban Chicago that elected Hastert for the first time in 1986. Hastert was the Speaker of the House between 1999 and 2007, the longest-serving Republican in this capacity ever.

The special election is a huge psychological blow to the Republican Party, handicapped by a stream of senators' and representatives' retirements that forecast larger Democratic majorities in Congress after November. Hoping to turn the tide, the National Republican Congressional Committee spent $1.2 million on the race, to no avail.

Obama gets about 60% in Wyoming

Barack Obama won with a substantial margin the Wyoming's caucuses, where Hillary Clinton campaigned vigorously (her radio commercial about health care, here). Democratic officials reported a turnout about 11 times higher than the one in the 2004 primary. Wyoming is the less populated State in the U.S. but the most Republican: George W. Bush won 69% of the popular vote both in 2000 and in 2004. The last time a Democratic candidate got a majority here was with Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The next primary is now scheduled on March 11, in Mississippi.

DANCING ON THE TITANIC'S DECK

Data from the Federal Reserve show that the amount of equity Americans have in their homes has dropped below 50% for the first time since 1945. At the same time, the number of US homes repossessions, and the speed at which they were being repossessed, hit record levels in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on residential homes stood at 5.82 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of 2007, up 0,87% from one year earlier. The delinquency rate (the percentage of home owners unable to pay their mortgage last month) does not include loans in the process of foreclosure, that is homes that are about to be repossessed by the banks because of non-payments. The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process was 2.04 percent of all loans outstandingon December 31, 2007, an increase of 0,35% from the third quarter of 2007 and 0,85% from one year ago. That means that in the last twelve month, the number of Americans who lost their home because they were not able to pay the mortgage almost doubled, from 1.19% of all mortgage subscribers to 2.04%. In the exquisite language of The Wall Street Journal, "The 1.8 million mortgages now in default have created substantial personal hardship."

A LARGER, BIGGER DEMOCRATIC COALITION/1

While the interest of the media is focused on the candidates, political scientists should look at the tectonic shift under way in the American electorate. Seven years of Bush Administration have played the role of midwife to a new coalition of groups that is making the party younger, more affluent, more liberal, and more responsive to women, Latinos, and African-Americans. Of course, many of these constituencies were heavily tilted toward the Democrats already in the 1970s, but what is new is the growth of Latinos, and there commitment to the Democratic party. It is worth noting that still in 2004 Republicans scored some successes among them, playing the religious card (most of them are catholic, and traditionalist).

This shift, well described in a recent National Journal article, can be measured both by looking at the participation in the democratic primaries so far and by checking the polls about party affiliation.

We already noticed the surprisingly large turnout on the Democratic side ("Let's Crunch Some Numbers", below) but now Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International polls offer evidence that in 18 the states where it is possible to compare 2004 and 2008 caucuses and primaries, the share of the vote cast by young people has risen by substantial margins. Women's share of the vote has grown in 17 of the 18 states, albeit by smaller increments because the "gender gap" was already significant. In 12 of those states, Latinos have cast a larger percentage of votes, as have the voters who consider themselves liberals. African-Americans have boosted their share in 11 of the 18 states. Look at this chart, courtesy of National Journal, that shows how the movement was under way already in 2006.

The 1952 Scenario

The history of 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago is too well-known to be told again here (see the wonderful account by sociologist Todd Gitlin here ).

A better term of reference may be the 1952 Democratic race, when Senator Estes Kefauver went through the primary process, beat President Truman in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland, going to the Chicago convention with a lead of 257 delegates, with four other contenders trailing behind, including Adlai Stevenson. On the first ballot, Kefauver held the lead but Stevenson (Governor of Illinois) moved up to second place. Then ultimately Stevenson grabbed the designation from Kefauver on the third ballot, despite his failure to contest a single primary, with no accumulated Democratic votes compared to those of Kefauver's, and in spite of his late entry into the race. But the party elders thought he would be the better nominee.

Today, this should have been impossible: the new party rules give to the voters -through the primaries- about 80% of delegates who will go to the convention in Denver. The 1952 scenario (a candidate with a plurality of delegates who DOESN'T get the nomination) should have been impossible in 2008. It should, but... there are two candidates with roughly the same popular support (a slight advantage for Obama there) and superdelegates will play a key role in picking up the nominee.
Unfortunately, this had a bad effect in 1952 (Stevenson lost to Eisenhower 55% to 44%) and would be even worse now: an intraparty war in Denver, largely broadcasted on all American TV screens, would left the party exhausted and demoralized, opening the way to a (still improbable today) McCain's victory.

LET'S CRUNCH SOME NUMBERS

With 99% of the votes counted in Texas, it looks as though the number of votes in the Democratic primary will largely exceed the number of votes cast for Al Gore in 2000, and match John Kerry's vote total for the 2004 general election. Kerry received 2,832,704 votes in Texas in 2004. At this writing, Clinton and Obama are at 2,812,289 between them. A primary that has a party turnout similar, or larger, than a general election is simply unprecedented in American politics and, indeed, Republicans voters on March 4 were about ONE THIRD of the voters who supported Bush in the 2004 general election.
Let's look at the 2004 Presidential Primary: four years ago Kerry got about 560,000 votes, Edwards 120,000, Dean 40,000 and other candidates about 115,00 for a grand total of 835.000 ballots cast. That is two million less than the number of votes cast this year. Or, Democratic voters seem to be this year more than three times the number they were in 2004. Hillary Clinton received more votes than all Republican candidates combined in Texas last night, Barack Obama received nearly as many. Clinton doubled the vote total of Republican nominee John McCain, Obama nearly did as well.
Remember, this is Texas, home of George W. Bush, who got 61% of the vote in 2004. Here, no Democratic candidate for President won the state's electoral votes since Jimmy Carter in 1976. Democrats haven't won a Senate race since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, or a Governor's race since Ann Richards in 1990. Next Fall, observers may well throw their political maps out of the window.

Does Negative Political Advertising Pay?

One field of political communication that developed enormously in the last 20 years is related to TV commercials attacking political competitors: "negative campaigning" in the professional jargon. While there is no consensus on the general effect of smear tactics, several scholars maintain that they indeed damage the political process, shrinking and polarizing the electorate. What seems certain is that politicians hit by them, particularly if they are slow or timid in responding, do lose support. There are few doubts that Michael Dukakis's campaign was put in disarray by the "Willie Horton" and "Dukakis in the tank" commercials, produced by George Bush's consultants in 1988.
Compared to those, or to the "Swift Boat" ad aired by Republicans in 2004 against John Kerry, the "It's 3 AM and the telephone is ringing" commercial broadcasted in Texas by Hillary Clinton was not stronger than a cup of tea. And, in truth, it did not prevent Democrats from breaking any previous record of mobilization in Texas. However, while the last polls predicted a tie, with Obama catching up and maybe surpassing her, in the end it was the former First Lady who won. Part of her success can be explained by the effect of the commercial on precisely those voters it targeted, the Democrats and Independents, mostly female, who made up their mind only at the last minute.
The exit polls suggest that Obama and Clinton were tied among Democrats who made up their mind early (50-49), but there is evidence that she won handily among those voters who decided in the last three days, that is when her attacks were hitting Obama the hardest. In this category (one voter in five) Hillary got 60% of ballots, a huge margin. A pocket calculator is enough to show that it was this group which put her over the top, 51% to 47%. Obama's campaign responded, and You Tube quickly filled up with spoofs and parodies. No matter, the ad worked where it was supposed to work. Remember that before making any predictions about the results in November.

Lost in The Media Buzz About "Hillary's Comeback..."

In the media storm about Ohio, Texas, and a politically-born-again Hillary, the newspapers overlooked a significant poll by the respected Cook Political Report. The poll, published on Tuesday, shows that in the hypothetical general election match up, Obama holds a nine point lead over John McCain, 47% to 38%, with 15 percent of voters undecided or supporting others. This reverses the result of similar polls conducted in December, when McCain led 44% to 37%, and substantially increases the advantage Obama had in January (45 to 43, a statistical tie).
Apparently, each candidate is able to win among his own party members by equal proportions. McCain won among Republicans and those independents who lean toward the GOP by a 64-point margin, 77-33 percent, Obama won among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents by the same 64 points, 74 to 10 percent. Obama, however, has a significant lead among "pure" independents, those who don't love either party: 11 points, 46 to 35 percent.
Obama leads McCain among women by 20 points, 51 to 31 percent. McCain leads among men, but only slightly, 45 to 43 percent, again a statistical tie. Twelve percent of men, and 18 percent of women, are undecided. Obama leads McCain significantly among 18-34 year olds, 58 to 27 percent. Things are closer with 35-49 year olds and 50-64 year olds, with McCain leading 43 to 42 percent and 38 to 36 percent. Predictably, Obama leads in every region except the South, where McCain leads by 9 points, 47 to 38 percent.
We should remember that, before Reagan transformed politics in America, Democrats were the normal majority and Republicans could only win if Democrats were split, or if Republicans could win over the majority of Independents. Democrats today are not divided over any issue or set of values, and self-identification with the party recently jumped to 41.5%, the highest total on record in decades. Just 31.8% of voters consider themselves to be Republicans. The partisan gap—a 9.7 percentage point advantage for the Democrats—is by far the largest it has ever been. Even if the fight for the nomination between Obama and Clinton goes on, pollsters find no issues barrier blocking a Clinton supporter from voting Obama in the general election, or vice versa. Republicans' slim hopes therefore depend on McCain's long-standing appeal to Independent voters, but the state of the economy will probably push this constituency toward the Democrats, too.

Ohio and Texas strenghten Clinton in key constituencies

It was good night for senator Hillary Clinton, all the more so because of Texas's and Ohio's exit polls. According to NBC's interviews, she had her usual strong support from women, and won white males in both states (see "Will 2008 Be a Remake of 2004? The Role of Working Class White Men" below). In Texas, she prevailed in this key constituency,50% to 48% and in Ohio with the larger majority of 58% to 39%. This gives her a strong rationale for continuing her campaign, because her major liability -the difficult relationship with white male voters- seems to fade. At the same time, one of Obama's most important assets -his ability to speak to a constituency that has been mostly favorable to Republicans in the last decade- is weakened.
Barack Obama made a great effort to win the Latino vote, but apparently he failed. The Texas Latino turnout was very large and these voters went Clinton in a landslide: 67% to 31%. And if Latinos will vote at this level in November Texas, that went by a large margin to Republicans in the last 32 years, would become a Democratic state (sealing victory for the Democratic candidate, whoever he or she is).


At the time of this writing, it is too early to say where the delegate count rests. Vermont and Rhode Island (where there were also primaries) cancel each other out. So it comes down to Texas and Ohio, but it is not clear whether Clinton has eaten into Obama's lead: it is still possible that he had won the delegate count last night. In this case, Clinton would have ended her good night with an important psychological result, but without making ground where it actually matters for the convention.
The good news for the party is that Democrats turned out in droves again: in 2008 the mobilization factor seems to be largely on the Democratic side. The bad news is that the enthusiasm must survive what can become a bitter political fight in the next weeks, or even months. Now, Obama has to prove that he can bounce back from his setbacks. He has had a charmed political season and a little political adversity is important to prepare for the brawl in the Fall. For Hillary Clinton, as the New York Times writes this morning, "the battle ahead is not so much against Mr. Obama as it is against a Democratic Party establishment that had once been ready to coalesce behind her but has been drifting toward Mr. Obama. The party wants a standard-bearer now."

Clinton Wins in Ohio and Texas, delegates' count still favors Obama

Winning in Ohio, Hillary Rodham Clinton ended a long string of defeats and kept her ambition of obtaining the nomination alive. However, Barack Obama keeps nearly the same delegate lead as he had before Tuesday primaries, and remains on his way to winning the contest. The psychological effect of yesterday's results will depend on the final count in Texas where, at midnight local time, Clinton and Obama were head-to-head. CNN projected a Clinton win.

Will Democratic Candidates Offer a New Vision For the Economy?

Unconvinced by Ben Bernanke's prayers, a total of 78% of Americans now say the national economy is getting worse. In the last days, Hillary Clinton's campaign in Texas adopted a more populist tone with a commercial about the economy, available on You Tube, or here. That may well be too little, too late: if her campaign had focused ont the economy and the middle class from the beginning, many primaries would have gone in a different direction. Today, only 14% of Americans approve of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy, 79% disapprove, and 7% are undecided. Only hard-core Republicans still support the President, and their number halved in a month: they were 29% in January according to a poll by the American Research Group. In February 2007, a solid 40% of voters approved Bush's performance, and it is plain that the crisis of subprime mortgages is hitting American families much more than the White House, Congress, or the candidates are willing to admit. This reality, however, will not have the political consequences it should if the Democratic candidates do not offer credible plans for the future. So far, both Hillary and Obama have only mumbled vague proposals of "renegotiating" the trading pact NAFTA (read the most recent controversy in the New York Times). That will go nowhere: the Democrats desperately need new ideas, putting an end to the "compassionate Republicans" attitude they have adopted since 1980.

Classic Political Ads: Daisy Girl (1964)

In Texas and Ohio, both Clinton and Obama aired videos on the theme of "What will happen to our children in case of war?" Their products were rather disappointing compared to this unsurpassed piece of political communication bravura, Tony Schwartz's spot for Lyndon Johnson (here in a poor quality version) that was aired only once, in September 1964, and completely dominated the campaign afterwards. It remains to this day more exciting and fresh of anything seen recent years.

Politics and Emotion

During the 1990s, Political Science Departments in American universities filled up with economists, and economics models became the major academic field allowing predictions not only for public behavior but also for politics in the United States.
Now, in some universities like Harvard, many social scientist admit that, although economics offers very elegant models, they are often models of how people "should" behave according to the paradigm of homo oeconomicus, rather than models of how people actually do behave. And so we bring in the psychology of judgment and decision making in order to find out how people actually do make decisions: a very interesting interview with Jennifer Lerner on Emotion, Judgment and Public Policy here.