“Ultimately, it will be a race about content,” says Mr. Winston. “Especially now, given concern on the Republican side about where this country is headed, voters want to hear how are you going to govern and where would you take this country.

To read the full breakdown of possible candidates, click to alaskadispatch.com

“Part of the dynamic here is the way President Obama and congressional Democrats govern ha[s] opened this door wide open for Republicans, but the public at this point isn’t just simply saying, ‘Look at how bad [Democrats] are.’ They want to know what you’re going to do — why should they vote for you?”

To read more, turn to thehill.com

To read the report and check out Pew’s methodology and toplines, go to pewresearch.org

“What’s our plan to create jobs and grow the economy?” said GOP pollster David Winston, who is advising the House Republican leadership on the effort. “That’s really what we have to address. We need command focus.”

To read more, turn to washingtonpost.com

Winston argues that the GOP should articulate a specific plan, but he also cautions against putting too much into it.

“One of the reason the door has opened for Republicans is that President Obama has focused on so many other things,” he added. “If you create an 87-point agenda, you’re making the same mistake.”

To read more, click to latimes.com

Polls taken during the healthcare debate last year found that senior citizens over 65 were more strongly opposed to the plan than any other age group — but over time, they were joined by middle-aged baby boomers, who became increasingly negative.

“Older voters are worried that the quality of their healthcare could decline,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster. “That opens a door where they’re willing to listen to Republicans. It’s a huge opportunity.”

To read more: click to latimes.com

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner shares his economic outlook and discusses trade with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow. David Winston, of The Winston Group, and Josh Gottheimer, of Burson-Marsteller, share their reactions to Geithner’s comments.

Of course, Obama isn’t on the ballot this November. But his ratings contribute to what Winston calls the public’s “overall sense of the ability to govern.” From that perspective, Obama’s troubles are the Democrats’ troubles.

To read more about the poll numbers and Republican response to them, read the full article at washingtonexaminer.com

Boehner released new data produced by Republican pollster David Winston. The survey of 1,000 registered voters just before the Memorial Day recess showed that 62 percent believed that by not passing a budget, Congress missed an opportunity to “rein in spending.”

Access the full article (with an account) on rollcall.com

“For the election, part of what you want to do is contrast what would happen if you were governing,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises party leaders in Congress. “The Democrats and President Obama spent months talking about health care, and Republicans say they should have spent that time working on jobs.”

Access the full article at washingtonpost.com

David Winston, a GOP pollster who worked on the 1994 Contract with America Republican majorities, says the 2010 elections offer a “real opportunity,” but so does 2012. The reason: The Bush tax cuts expire starting later this year, and the economy could get socked. “I don’t view this year as a one-shot deal.”

To check out the fill Washington Whispers post, go to usnews.com

“Branstad is proving that his credentials and an economic focus as a conservative puts together a large majority coalition,” said David Winston, a national Republican pollster. “It’s a good position for him to be in, and positions him well for the general election.”

To read the full article, click on desmoinesregister.com

“This isn’t a college debate about who made the best points,” said Republican strategist David Winston, who has seen tea party candidates rising as they focus their arguments on deficit spending and federal overreach. “If they’re going to win races, they have to prove they can build a coalition.”

To read the full article, turn to latimes.com

Politics: “Tea Party” is a bit of a loaded term on all sides of the debate. Does that make it hard to get an accurate reading?
Soltis: It depends on the question that you ask. Some pollsters ask “Do you support the Tea Party?” I believe there was a question some months ago, “Do you sympathize with the Tea Party?” We tried to ask a question that was pretty strong, so it was either yes or no, not how you feel about it. We wanted to get the most definite group.

To read the entire interview, go to politicsmagazine.com

“There’s a certain level of infrastructure that’s certainly important,” says David Winston, a Republican pollster. “But ultimately, it’s the broader message and the American people’s sense of who they want to have govern the country that matters.”

To read the full story, turn to CSMonitor.com

“It’s a good sample size,” David Winston, polling director of the Winston Group that did the poll for an education advocacy group, told the Ballot Box blog of The Hill newspaper.

The Tea Party adherents broke down 28% independent, 17% Democrat and only 57% Republican. Not coincidentally, this bipartisan breakdown has been the way that Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin has often described movement members as “commonsense Americans” worried and….

…angered by the over-reaching one-party control of Democrats in Washington these last 15 months, rooted initially in opposition to Obama’s $787 billion government economic stimulus package.

Read the full story at latimesblogs.com

David explains the GOP’s slow implementation of social media and reaching out to young voters.

David Winston, a Republican pollster, agrees. He says that Obama “has to do a kind of reset on health care and figure out if he can regain the initiative on the policy debate, since he clearly lost the month of August.” Winston cautions, however, that Obama has bigger problems than his message. “One of the difficult stress points of a majority coalition is how you keep your base and the people beyond the base together to sustain that coalition. Health care is the first clear example where the two have divergent views.”

If Republicans are heartened by Obama’s summer stumble, that doesn’t mean they should relax. Republicans, says Winston, should work to create a “positive policy choice”…

To read the full article, access nationalreview.com

“This is his big moment in managing a majority coalition,” said David Winston, a GOP strategist who compared Obama’s challenge to those faced — unsuccessfully — by three other former leaders: Clinton on healthcare, President George W. Bush on Social Security, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the budget battle that shut down part of the government during Clinton’s first term.

“Every one of them overreached,” said Winston. “But the question is, do they understand they have overreached? And what do they do in response?”

Access the LA Times article here

There are actually Democratic insiders who believe that passing health care reform is more politically important going into the congressional elections than even the economy. In contrast, Republican pollster David Winston, who advises the congressional GOP leadership, persuasively argues, “This is ultimately going to be an election about jobs. And there’s going to be one number that people will follow – and that’s the unemployment rate.”

Access the full blogpost

Her task now is to establish her own credibility on a range of voter issues. Her expertise on the crucial issue of energy gives her a good opportunity to join the current political debate. Had she focused on her energy bona fides during last year’s presidential election, she might have had a better shot at quieting critics.

Read the full post here: “Room for Debate”: What’s Sarah Palin’s Political Future?

Kristen Soltis talks to James Kirchick of The New Republic and Mindy Finn of Engage about the political implications of the torture issue, how the GOP may be affected and perceived, and whether or not this a problem for Democrats as well.

Kristen Soltis, Jen Stolp and Doug Heye talk about cable news networks and other media, and how they factor into the constant struggle between the right and the left.

Episode 4 continues with Kristen Soltis, Moira Bagley, and John Feehery discussing monetary issues in the US today, specifically with entitlements. How can the GOP address what’s wrong with this issue? Can they use it to reach out to young voters?

Moira Bagley, former press secretary of the RNC, and John Feehery of thefeeherytheory.com, join Kristen in a discussion about the government playing CEO, the free market, and regulations.

In this episode, Matt Moon, Nicki Kurokawa, and Kristen Soltis discuss the difficulties of standing in opposition to policies coming out of the White House. How can the GOP legitimately criticize actions that they may have engaged in themselves over the last decade? What are the benefits and drawbacks of offering alternatives?

The first episode of The Winston Group’s new podcast is up! “The Right Idea” is a video podcast that comes out twice a week featuring discussion of both current events and long-term strategy with some of Washington’s brightest young minds in politics and policy.

This week, Kristen Soltis talks to Matt Moon from The Tax Foundation and Nicole Kurokawa from the Cato Institute, about Obama’s budget proposals.

AU School of Public Affairs “What Do We Expect From Our Government?” Conference

EIN Seminar Program

1. Support for the stimulus bill has slipped quite a bit going from 63-24 in January to 51-39 in this survey. That means the margin went from +39 to +12, a significant shift. Additionally, Independents are evenly split with 45% approving and 44% disapproving.

2. In terms of shortening the recession, 39% of the electorate think it will while 45% do not.

3. In looking at the need for bipartisan support, versus Democrats only, 81% think it is important for the bill to have support of both parties, while 13% say it is OK for it pass just on Democrat support.

4. Obama’s Job approval is 62-15, while Pelosi’s fav-unf is 10-30, and among Independents she is at 9-36 (they ask ID slightly differently than other surveys).

5. Congressional Republicans are at 32-60, while Congressional Democrats are at 48-43. Among Independents Republicans are at 29-59, and Democrats are at 43-46.

6. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that the survey shows that Americans prefer tax cuts over increased government spending by almost a 3:1 margin to get us out of the recession. They asked the question two different ways. First was contrasting increased government spending versus reducing taxes on business. In that matchup 22% said increased government spending and 59% said reduced taxes for business. Among Independents that margin increased to 13-65. Even Democrats slightly preferred the cutting business taxes by a 40-43 margin. The second way the question was posed was contrasting increasing government spending versus reducing taxes. In that form 16% of the electorate preferred increasing government spending and 62% said cutting taxes. Among Independents it was 13-57, and among Democrats it was 20-59. To quote the CBS press release on the survey:

“There is evidence Americans might accept some of what the Republicans in Congress are proposing. Given achoice between higher government spending and tax cuts for business, Americans choose tax cuts: 59% say that is a better approach towards trying to end the recession.”

To view a PDF of the excerpt from the CBS News poll, click here.

“Here’s the dynamic in the public view,” Winston told me. “The economy is clearly the number one issue, and what is driving that is fear of unemployment. The unemployment numbers are so huge even in terms of what they were last month. So what the public is looking for in this whole stimulus package is, Will this create jobs?”

To read the entire blog, visit The National Review Online

Unquestionably, there were elements of truth in those complaints — Bush’s job approval was a significant drag on the ticket, for example, and some of the media did take sides in the presidential contest on a whole new level. But, just as it did in the 2006 elections and three special elections for House seats that followed, the Republican Party fundamentally misunderstood the root cause of its failure to maintain a majority coalition: an inability to articulate a positive agenda that connected with voters.

Instead, the blame was placed on everyone and everything but the issue-less, relentlessly negative campaigns that party operatives have promoted for years; campaigns aimed almost entirely at turning out an angry base rather than appealing to a broader coalition.

This year, the same players dragged out the same, tired negative campaign strategy and, not surprisingly, the party hit a brick wall. As Albert Einstein liked to say, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

To rebuild its winning coalition, the party must change, not by jettisoning its core principles but by using those principles to create a modern Republican Party, in touch once again with a country that remains center-right. Some party leaders and pundits have suggested the GOP has simply lost its way.

All it has to do to regain majority status, by their reckoning, is return to the principles of Ronald Reagan. But that thinking is based on revisionist history.

Reagan didn’t create Republican principles in the late 1970s. He crafted a modernized agenda based on those principles, but one that reflected the challenges of his time. For example, Reagan embraced the traditional Republican principle of less government regulation, but applied it to create a new environment that encouraged innovation and allowed the emerging technology industry to take off.

Reagan provides a good model. When it came to setting his agenda, he relied on a set of core values, but he wasn’t afraid of changing technologies or changing times. He embraced them, pushed bold solutions and made history.

The world today, however, is very different from the one Reagan inherited nearly 30 years ago. The GOP must develop a modern agenda that acknowledges those differences, addresses the key concerns of this generation of Americans and keeps the country strong and competitive.

Yes, we must remain true to our basic principles. Yes, we can look back for inspiration. But we must look forward for solutions that reflect the challenges of these times. And as we do, we must build that modern Republican agenda in a more inclusive way if the party is to have a long-term future.

The GOP cannot remain viable if it continues to sustain the kind of losses we saw this year with younger voters, Hispanics, middle-income voters and other key swing voters. The modern Republican agenda must connect with more than the base.

Along with accepting the need for a forward- looking, inclusive, modernized agenda, it’s time the party also embraces a modern approach to campaigns. The negative campaign strategy, tactics and training that have characterized Republican operations for most of the past two decades are more than outdated. They simply don’t work.

In fact, one could argue, at this point, they are doing more harm than good.

Is it any surprise that the Republican brand has become so negative when, over the past three election cycles, national Republican committees and individual campaigns have chosen to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads rather than promoting Republican ideas and candidates in a positive way?

On the National Republican Congressional Committee’s YouTube site, not one ad in the 60 highlighted on its first couple of video pages offered a positive view of the party or individual Republican House candidates. In 2008 as it did in 2006, the party squandered millions and, more importantly, a crucial opportunity to have a conversation with the American people about what Republicans would do to solve their problems.

What we have here is a “failure to communicate” on all fronts, especially when it comes to the new media technology. From YouTube to Twitter to the blogosphere to building effective e-mail lists, the GOP is significantly behind.

Building a new media capability must be a top priority of the incoming heads of the party committees. So should a revamping of the education and training programs that turn out young campaign operatives steeped in the mythology of negative campaigning and the antiquated notion that all politics is local.

These future leaders of the party must understand that ideas matter, that voters today are looking for leaders with positive solutions, and that nationalized elections are the new reality in the age of the new media.

If acceptance is the last phase of the five stages of grief, then it’s time Republicans moved on to this reality: A modern, future-oriented Republican agenda based on core principles and supported by a modern Republican Party is the way out of the wilderness.

Kristen Soltis: Poll Vaulting [American Spectator]

“America’s great strength is its diversity, its hard work, its good financial statements, its broad capital markets, its enormous natural resources and its work ethic …” This was a statement made last Tuesday by a well-known political leader, but probably not who you think.

It was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) responding to reporters’ questions about Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) statement the day before, “the fundamentals of the economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times.” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), like most of the broadcast and print media, conveniently omitted the second half of the statement in his attacks on McCain.

It makes one wonder whether Obama thinks Bloomberg “just doesn’t get it” either? Not likely, but then, he’s only courting Bloomberg, not running against him.

McCain learned the hard way that in politics, timing is everything. His attempt to instill some calm in a volatile situation may have been well-intentioned, even presidential. But in the current political and media environment, how and when you say something matters as much what you say.

Telling the American people that the underlying economy is strong when millions just lost a big chunk of their retirement savings isn’t a campaign tactic likely to win votes. While the race is still razor close, the mistake cost McCain his lead and his momentum.

It seems clear, however, that the underlying fundamentals of the Obama campaign have also changed over the past 10 days. Its tactics, from Obama’s sharp personal attacks on McCain to the harsher tone of its latest TV ads, have demonstrated that it reached a tipping point, casting aside all pretense that this is a different kind of campaign.

So, instead of coming up with real ideas for reforming Wall Street, the candidate of change now offers generic platitudes about “getting the country back on track.” The candidate of the future now poses for photo ops with past Clinton administration economic policy advisers, several who bear at least partial responsibility for the current crisis.

And the candidate who promised to run a different kind of campaign takes the gloves off. Last week, Obama consistently attacked McCain’s integrity and motives in dealing with Wall Street. Obama so distorted McCain’s long record of financial regulatory oversight that the Washington Post, in a stinging editorial Friday, took him to task and defended McCain.

The Post pointed out, among other things, that in 2006, McCain “pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — while Mr. Obama was notably silent” and went on to say, “Mr. Obama’s attack does not give a fair reading of the McCain record.”

Yet, despite the editorial, Obama later that day said, “It is critical at this point that the markets and the public have confidence that their [the Fed and Treasury] work will be unimpeded by partisan wrangling and that leaders in both parties work in concert to solve the problem at hand.”

For some of us, this new strategy seemed oddly familiar — attack McCain but tell voters “I feel your pain.” Is it just possible Obama and Bill Clinton talked about something more than the work of the Clinton Foundation over their “makeup lunch”?

McCain had a bad week, but this race is far from over. Still, he cannot afford to let Obama define him further. In 1992, the country wasn’t in recession, but Clinton’s empathetic rhetoric and delivery convinced voters otherwise. George Bush actually did know what a grocery scanner was, but an erroneous news story created a suburban legend that Bush could never shake.

McCain must more clearly define himself. The debates, beginning Friday, give him that opportunity; and in doing so, he will regain the initiative because, in the end, Obama’s real views and his agenda are far to the left of the vast majority of Americans.

Although this first debate is supposed to focus on foreign policy, the events on Wall Street and in Washington this week will be a likely topic of discussion. Here, McCain has a substantive issue advantage. He opposes tax increases. So do the majority of Americans who, polls show, are dubious of any promise to increase taxes on anyone, including the “rich.”

Unlike Obama, he also has a track record of fighting against government spending and government waste that puts him on the side of the taxpayer. Also, he has been pushing an “all of the above” approach to economic energy independence, a matter of both economic and national security, popular with a public tired of high gasoline prices.

Foreign policy matters. But the candidate who clearly explains his plan to protect the economic security of America’s families by preserving their savings, their retirement and the value of their home, by alleviating the rising cost of living, including taxes, and by putting the government back on a sound economic footing, will win this election.

The upcoming debates give McCain the opportunity to define himself by clearly defining his economic vision for the people of this country. With the race this close and only 40-odd days away, there is no margin for “bad” weeks on either side.

You can access the article here, along with other commentary on the upcoming election.

The answer is simple. When it comes to picking their presidents, the American people want steak, not sizzle. McCain delivered a convention packed with a newfound energy and excitement following his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate and boffo speeches by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) that brought down the house.

And McCain closed it out by giving voters the steak they were looking for — an acceptance speech with substance. He moved viewers by telling them in a very personal way of his time as a prisoner of war and how it changed him. But he also offered up his vision for the future — one of reform and change — and ended with a little sizzle of his own, bringing the delegates to their feet with one of the best oratorical closes in recent political memory.

Despite all the pre-convention hype, when the confetti had settled, it was McCain’s “Country First” convention that won the ratings battle with 38.9 million viewers, beating out Obama’s 38.4 million. Palin blew Sen. Joseph Biden out of the park with 37.2 million viewers for her acceptance speech in contrast to the Delaware Democrat’s 24 million.

But the more important numbers are the post-convention polls. Initially, Obama got a small bounce after his convention, but it was a short-lived gain that masked what has been a tightening over the summer. When McCain and GOP Congressional leaders moved to make energy a central economic issue, Democrats’ generic advantage began to shrink.

Last week, Republicans were positioned for a breakout and McCain led the charge, delivering a convention bounce the Obama people didn’t see coming. On Sunday, the USA Today/Gallup Poll had McCain at 50 percent to 46 percent over Obama, an 11-point gain. But more significantly, it showed McCain has closed the gap on the key question of who can better handle the economy.

Before the conventions, Obama held a 19-point advantage on this most important of issues, but the new poll shows it has dropped to 3 points, within the margin of error. Gallup’s daily tracking, which showed Obama with an 8-point lead just after his convention, now puts McCain in the lead by 5.

By midweek, more polls will give us a better feel for the size and staying power of the bounce, but it’s already clear that “Country First” beat the “Colossus of Colorado.”

McCain’s surprise choice of Palin excited the base in a way that no other choice would have done while, at the same time, connecting with a number of key voter groups: married women with children, independents and blue-collar Democrats.

Reinforcing this connection with swing voters were McCain’s and Palin’s speeches.

McCain, in vintage form, smartly and honestly first took on his party: “We lost [the people’s] trust, when we valued our power over our principles. … We’re going to change that.”

Palin staked out her ground as a reformer with an electrifying speech that showed she represents a new generation of conservatives who don’t fit the narrow-minded, out-of-touch mold Democrats and the media have tried to cast on the GOP. Voters saw a changing of the GOP guard in St. Paul, Minn., and they liked it.

The post-convention environment finds Obama and his campaign on the defensive. By raising concerns about Palin’s experience, Obama, Biden and their bidders only raised more questions about Obama’s experience.

The over-the-top criticism of Palin by Democrats, left-wing bloggers and the media also put the Obama campaign on the defensive. After his campaign’s initial condescending statement in response to the Palin announcement, Obama and Biden tried to back away and take the high road. But thanks to continuing ill-advised comments by his surrogates, left-wing bloggers and even Oprah Winfrey, damage to his image has been done.

Obviously frustrated, Obama’s campaign has even complained that McCain’s convention slogan was an attack an his patriotism, thus conjuring up the Carly Simon line, “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” “Country First” had nothing to do with Obama and everything to do with McCain and his lifetime of service — the central theme repeated throughout the convention.

It’s a long time until November. Palin has hurdles to leap, and the Obama camp will pull out all the stops. The candidates will have to survive the debates, and voters will be watching closely. The conventions proved that.

But with the end of the convention period, the McCain campaign has a big and well-deserved win under its belt.

Article on rollcall.com

Choosing to stay with his comrades in a North Vietnam prison and enduring five and a half years of torture, starvation and solitary confinement, the Arizona Republican understands desperate circumstances better than most. Selecting a running mate is a big decision but an act of “desperation” in McCain’s biography of life experiences? Not hardly.

McCain has always understood the concept of high stakes, whether it was as a guest in the Hanoi Hilton or backing a troop surge in Iraq when the president and Defense secretary of his own party strongly opposed him. In the case of the surge, he was proved right.

It’s understandable that the media didn’t know what to make of McCain’s surprise choice of Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska. Many Republicans, myself included, didn’t know much about Palin either. So, that first round of press calls and appearances left reporters with little to chew on.

Now, we’ve had a few days to digest McCain’s selection and see Palin in action. Clearly, she faces some tough hurdles in the next few weeks, convincing not only the media but voters that she has the right stuff to sit a heartbeat away from the presidency.

But her maiden speech electrified a cheering crowd of thousands in Dayton, Ohio, and likely did the same with many more watching it at home. Her performance was near-perfect, stumble-free and personable as she hit all the right political and biographical notes.

Now that we’ve had a chance to watch a little bit of her performance on the stump and learn more about this unusual politician’s background and record, McCain’s decision still seems risky but also has the potential to reap big benefits for the campaign. Palin’s greatest strength is likely to be her firsthand knowledge and experience in the energy arena.

With energy the key component of the economic debate this year, her years taking on Big Oil while advocating a proactive, pro-drilling posture makes her the energy expert in the race. Her credibility on energy issues gives McCain the opportunity to continue the progress he’s already made on the economic issue with his call for more domestic drilling.

None of the other “big three” on the two tickets can claim her expertise on what is not only an economic issue but a national security issue, and apparently, she knows her stuff.

On “Meet the Press,” CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, who interviewed Palin last week before her selection, told Tom Brokaw she was impressed with Palin’s knowledge on energy, saying, “She came across so strong with regard to economic matters as they relate to energy and as they relate to overall economic growth, I think it was a very savvy pick actually.”

She also adds strength to the ticket as a reformer. Until now, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), with his call for change, has been able to appropriate the mantle of reformer that has characterized most of McCain’s Congressional career. While Washington insiders understand that McCain has earned his maverick label over two decades of taking issue with party leaders and presidents, many voters may not.

Palin’s selection puts the reform issue back in play by letting McCain assert that his ticket, not Obama’s, represents a pair of real reformers. We know McCain’s record and we’re learning about her battles with powerful Republicans from Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska) to former Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski. This will provide a marked contrast with Obama, who has been unable to cite a single example in which he took on the political leadership of his party on any serious issue.

Palin can also claim her executive experience as a plus. While she has been in the governor’s office a relatively short time, McCain can point to her “reform” record in the energy area, taxes, education, ethics, and in her decision early on to do away with many of the trappings of office.

Finally, Palin gives McCain and Republicans an opportunity to rebuild the winning Republican coalition that fractured in 2006 by appealing to three key elements of that coalition: married women with children, independent women and blue-collar voters. She may pick up a few disgruntled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) voters, but her real strength is more likely to lie with these three groups, which were a significant contributing factor in the Republican loss of the House and Senate two years ago.

She will also be extraordinarily popular with the Republican base. We’ve seen evidence of this already as the more conservative elements of the party have praised the selection of Palin. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Palin’s selection is evidence that it is possible to choose a running mate capable of appealing to both the base and swing voters.

Sarah Palin has her work cut out for her in the next 60 or so days — getting through the convention, her first media interviews and the vice presidential debate to name three. She cleared her first hurdle Friday with room to spare.

Article on rollcall.com

All was going according to plan at the convention kickoff rally when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) inexplicably bungled his introduction of running mate Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.), calling him “the next president.” Taking a cue from his leader, Biden proudly followed suit by referring to Obama as “the next president of the United States, Barack America.”

This not the way to begin a nominating convention that needs to give Obama a bounce — a big bounce. The current political environment gives Democrats a substantial edge, yet almost three months after securing the nomination, Obama continues to underperform, running well behind the Democratic generic ballot advantage.

Despite switching a long list of liberal positions in an obvious move toward the center, he has failed to create a significant margin between himself and presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Democrats are concerned, and they should be.

The context for the fall election has changed significantly. Both McCain and Obama succeeded in their respective primaries, in large part, because of their positions on the Iraq War.

But, as the surge has succeeded and there appears to be light at the end of the Iraq tunnel, the economy has superseded the war as the top issue. Democrats had counted on voters’ anti-war feeling to carry them to victory in November. As that issue has faded, they have turned to the faltering economy as a fallback strategy.

While they still have an advantage over McCain and Republicans on the economy, polls show their lead is shrinking, and increasingly, they find themselves on the wrong side of the most critical element in the economic rubric of issues: energy.

Democrats can thank $4 a gallon for turning their election strategy on its head. Much to their dismay, Obama and Hill Democrats have now discovered that following “uber-green” Al Gore and his “handmaiden” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) down the “no drilling” path has put them squarely at odds with the vast majority of voters.

Democratic Members of the House and Senate can read polls, too, and are, no doubt, still waiting for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Pelosi to explain why the Democratic Congress’ job-approval numbers are lower than the president’s. The public was unhappy with Congress before energy emerged as the central economic concern, but Republicans had not given them a reason to reconsider the 2006 election.

The energy issue, led by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and McCain, has given voters a reason to consider Republicans again.

While neither campaign has developed a clear economic message, McCain’s support for increasing domestic energy is far closer to the views of the majority of Americans. Most polls show that about 70 percent of voters support increased drilling.

It’s not surprising that Obama, reinforced by most of the Democratic Party leadership, has resorted to a combination of classic Democratic class-warfare rhetoric (which didn’t work for Gore), personal shots and a one- dimensional message of change that is wearing thin.

Given Obama’s issue flip-flops over the past few weeks, Americans don’t really know what kind of change he offers other than the fact that he isn’t George Bush and, according to every Democrat including Obama who will hit the podium this week, John McCain is. Choosing the consummate Washington insider as his running mate reflects the obvious problems Obama is having with his brand.

He wants to continue to claim the mantle of change, but polls show people are simply not convinced he’s ready to be either commander in chief or chief diplomat. So, he picks Foreign Relations Chairman Biden in an effort to close the experience gap and runs headlong into his own outsider image of change, so carefully crafted during the primaries.

Biden brings a quick wit (which gets him into trouble on occasion) to the campaign, and that will make him a formidable opponent, particularly in the debates. He also will help with Catholics, a key voter group that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) won in the primaries by sizable margins.

But his sharp criticism during the primaries of Obama’s lack of experience only reinforces the underlying source of Obama’s underperformance, and when it comes to party unity, he simply isn’t Hillary Clinton.

Add to voter wariness their impatience with the kind of personal, nonissue attacks Obama launched last week over McCain’s “housing” gaffe and the outcome of the convention becomes even more important.

I suspect hardly a speaker will leave the stage without a crack about McCain’s homes or allusions to his age. That is exactly the kind of attack politics voters don’t want, and Obama promised to reject, putting him once again in conflict with his brand and giving the McCain campaign justification for raising Rezko, Wright, Ayres and other Obama skeletons as issues.

The Obama campaign is off track and off message, which is why the convention has become so crucial. Clearly frustrated by his lack of progress, Obama is discovering, as are Pelosi and Reid, that being the “anti-Bush” isn’t enough. Neither is simply being for some obtuse promise of “change.”

To be successful, the Democratic convention must convince voters that a leftist doctrinaire is really just like them, that his running mate’s earlier criticism of his lack of experience no longer applies, that Hillary and Bill Clinton are really on board, that Obama’s new attack strategy doesn’t conflict with his brand, and that Democrats are really in tune when it comes to energy and the economy.

That’s a tall order.

Article on rollcall.com

That would be the political equivalent of putting C-SPAN up against the Super Bowl and expecting ratings.

Let’s face it. McCain could parachute into the Broncos’ stadium with his new running mate, and the media would relegate his announcement to “in other political news yesterday.” This trial balloon, if it is a trial balloon, is a nonstarter.

His campaign already tried a direct assault on Obama’s oratorical skills the night Obama cinched the nomination. They’re still taking flak over that decision and the color green.

The timing and choice of the running mates, however, is one of the more interesting strategic decisions facing both campaigns. While who they select is important, in politics, timing, as the old line goes, is everything.

For Obama, the longer he can delay the announcement, the better off he is. Obama knows his issue positions are not in tune with the country. That’s a fact borne out in polling data showing the country is still center-right.

Obama can claim to be a centrist and even change his views to move in that direction, but any objective review of his legislative record and the positions he espoused during the primaries show him to be far left of center.

Until now, most of the media focus has been on process. It has centered on his oratorical skills, his wife, his racial identity, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obamamania, his biography, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and the VP choice. All process, no issues.

Once he chooses a running mate, however, the biggest process question will have been answered, and Obama might actually have to talk about issues in a substantive way. From a strategic point of view, the longer Obama can delay that moment and continue to talk, albeit effectively, in generalities about change, he takes time off the clock and puts McCain at a disadvantage.

For McCain, the debate over his choice of running mate is a distraction. The sooner he picks his VP candidate, the better, for several reasons. First, it lets McCain get back to talking about the issues, where he is strategically far better positioned than Obama.

McCain ought to ramp up his rhetoric on the differences between his views, which are center-right, and Obama’s leftist doctrine. McCain won’t win this election on style points, but he can win on substance.

Second, choosing a running mate doubles the number of official spokesmen for the campaign. This might seem a silly argument were it not for the fact that the national media coverage of Obama has been so excessive.

The Tyndall Report, a media watchdog Web site, found that since Obama won the nomination in June, he has gotten 114 minutes on the network evening news broadcasts to McCain’s 48. The weekly news magazines have given Obama twice as many covers.

McCain has made three foreign trips in recent months. Not only were the Big Three anchors uninterested in accompanying him, the network news coverage of the visits was minimal, particularly when compared to Obama’s weeklong media extravaganza. To doubters, I commend Howard Kurtz’s excoriating review of the media’s “imbalanced” coverage of Obama on CNN’s “Reliable Source” last Sunday.

Finally, naming his VP choice now moves McCain’s campaign beyond the unhelpful debate about the base and whether his running mate will appeal to the most conservative voters out there. The discussion ought to be focused on who can best address the issues that concern the vast majority of voters.

If McCain hopes to appeal to the kind of broad base he will need to defeat Obama, his running mate should bring experience in economic issues, such as how to create jobs and spur economic growth while keeping taxes low. Rudy Giuliani and former House Member-U.S. Trade Representative-Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman are good examples of possible choices who can talk about economic issues with credibility and also reach out to the center, where the election will be won or lost.

For McCain, much of the VP speculation has focused on two criteria — age and mollifying the base. His VP announcement gives him the opportunity to put the base argument to rest and take back the No. 1 issue for most voters: the economy.

Obama’s lack of experience in foreign policy has received media attention. His equal lack of experience in economic matters has not. Polls indicate Obama’s strength on economic issues has more to do with an unpopular Republican president (or a negative environment for the GOP) than either his economic proposals or any personal expertise.

McCain, who has spent 25 years dealing with the country’s economic problems, can claim far more experience on his worst day than Obama on his best. Obama’s thin record has called into question his qualifications to be commander in chief; the same skepticism ought to apply to his credentials to serve as economist in chief.

McCain’s VP selection gives him a media-intensive forum to outline his plans for the economy and change the debate. The sooner that discussion begins, the better.

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Thanks to the guy who told us “words matter,” issue “refining” as political speak now enters the realm of such classics as “revenue enhancement” (tax increases) and “strategic redeployment” (retreat). If this were just another politician, this kind of behavior would hardly be surprising.

But for the past 18 months, Obama has marketed himself to his supporters, especially his youngest backers, as a new kind of candidate, wrapping himself in “change we can believe in.”

But can we? I’m not knocking Obama simply because he had a change of heart or mind on a particular issue. It’s important that as candidates debate policy, voters give them the flexibility to rethink positions when circumstances change.

Finding one’s way through what is a political thicket of policy positions isn’t easy for any candidate. Voters want leaders with consistency and principle, but they also want men and women who constantly assess the social, economic and security environment as it is and as it might be.

When it comes to crafting policy, consistency is a good thing and at times essential; so is a willingness to revisit a position when circumstances dictate.

If the state of the economy worsens or a serious national security threat arises, it would be irresponsible for politicians not to acknowledge those changes and adjust their policies accordingly. After Pearl Harbor, what had been an isolationist Congress abruptly changed course because circumstances had changed, in that instance dramatically.

After 9/11, President Bush, who had opposed nation building in the 2000 campaign, reversed himself and embraced it as part of his Iraq policy. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that decision, it was a radically changed national security environment that led Bush to a proactive stance on the war on terror.

But is it changed circumstances or political expediency that is driving Obama’s policy U-turns? If Sen. Obama has now learned that the surge in Iraq has worked, that FISA is, in fact, necessary to protect the security of the United States, that overly restrictive gun laws don’t reduce crime, or that free trade does more good than harm, so be it.

If he now sees that welfare reform of the mid-1990s was necessary, that not all late-term abortions can be justified or that Iran “does pose a serious threat” to the United States after all, then his reversals on all these positions could be justified.

But that isn’t what he has been saying. To the contrary, he is trying to convince the American people that his recent policy switches on all these issues were, in fact, his views all along. That he is simply “refining” those original positions, not reversing them.

In the case of his wholesale abandonment of public financing, his explanation simply defies credulity. When faced with his first test of choosing principle or political advantage, Obama failed to live up to his own standards. That left some of even his staunchest supporters with a queasy feeling, wondering what happed to the high-minded principles that drew them to him in the first place.

Critics have tried to equate Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) change on domestic oil drilling with Obama’s policy switches. But in McCain’s case, economic and social circumstances did change significantly.

When gas goes to more than $4 a gallon, candidates ought to rethink every energy option — more domestic drilling, more nuclear power, more conservation and more alternative power sources. In adopting a comprehensive approach, McCain did exactly that.

Last week on Hannity & Colmes, National Review Editor Rich Lowry asked Democratic pundit Michael Brown a very compelling question. How would he explain Obama’s recent major policy switches to one of the millions of young, naive Obama supporters so personally invested in their candidate’s promise of “change you can believe in?”

Brown, without a moment’s hesitation, proffered that in order to get elected, all presidential candidates change positions once the primaries are over. Everybody moves to the center.

His advice to young Obamaniacs could be summed up as, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

That may work for most politicians, but it’s problematic for one who has set himself apart as a different kind of candidate, one who rejects the old politics. He may discover there is a high a price to pay when one walks away from the central promise and premise of a political campaign. Just ask George H.W. Bush, who once pledged, “No new taxes.”

Barack Obama has not rejected his original positions as wrong, misguided or even out of date. Instead, he has pushed principle aside and now offers his young idealists and the rest of the American people a general election theme — “refinement you can believe in.”

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Although the Democrat at one point led the sitting VP by 17 points, Bush rallied to beat Dukakis by 314 electoral votes. (Dukakis lost one when the Electoral College convened.)

In that election, Bush carried states such as Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Vermont and California. Yes, California. A short four years later, the tide had turned. Bill Clinton won by a margin of 5.6 points and got 370 electoral votes.

In the end, he trounced Bush by 202 votes in the Electoral College, carrying states such as Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana and West Virginia.

No, the 1988 and 1992 elections were not held in a parallel universe. In fact, looking at recent history, these kinds of margins in presidential races were more the norm than the exception.

Five months from the 2008 election, political pundits and operatives are trying to use national and state polls to predict a winner in this fall’s presidential sweepstakes.

In the stampede to handicap the odds for the November election, the debate over the value of national polls versus state polls has become an ongoing argument in political circles. What the discussion needs now, as the campaign moves into the general election phase, is context.

In close election battles, like the two most recent presidential races, the resulting margin in the Electoral College has been so close that a slight change in voter preference in just a state or two could have changed the eventual outcome. A small difference in Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, and we would be saying goodbye to President Gore or in the midst of President Kerry’s re-election battle.

But the closeness of those races has made us forget that when the margin at the national level becomes large enough, the margin in the Electoral College becomes not just bigger but exponentially bigger. What changes the dynamics of the presidential contest is the size of the winning national coalition, and that change simply overwhelms state-by-state dynamics.

In other words, when the breadth and depth of a candidate’s national coalition becomes substantial enough, it tends to tip many states in one direction. Historically, if a candidate wins the popular vote by approximately 5 points or more, the result in the Electoral College is far more lopsided than one might expect.

Harry Truman won in 1948 by 4.5 points yet defeated Thomas Dewey in the Electoral College by 115 votes (although one of his electors voted differently when the college convened). On the other hand, a win below 4 points tends to produce the kind of races we have seen in the past two elections, with Electoral College results of 271-266 in 2000 and 286-251 in 2004.

The one oddity came in 1968, when Richard Nixon won by less than 1 point but topped Hubert Humphrey by 110 electoral votes. This was the result of George Wallace’s third-party effort, which hurt Humphrey and skewed polls as predictors.

For a concrete example of how this phenomenon works, look at the 2004 election. Both presidential campaigns were state- focused and not national-coalition-focused. Instead, they relied on base strategies that depended on finding like-minded voters in key states and turning them out.

This strategy was unfortunate for Republicans at the House level because it caused them to lose independents for the first time since the Gingrich revolution and set the table for the one-sided 2006 elections. With both campaigns focused on their respective bases, their reach was minimized; and, as a result, neither candidate had much of an ability to get more than 50 percent.

Each was talking to just enough voters to win in the key states they needed to eke out a national victory while the big middle, hardly a small part of the electorate, got short shrift. This year’s presidential campaign is much different.

Both Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have talked about building large coalitions and running 50-state campaigns. They are competing for voters whom presidential candidates did not pursue in the two previous elections.

Whether it is McCain going after the old Reagan Coalition by reaching out to working- class voters, independents and Catholics, or Obama focusing on independents, young people and upscale voters, both are trying to build a coalition far different and far larger than their immediate predecessors. Regardless of the outcome, this approach is better not only for the election process but, inevitably, for whomever becomes the next president.

Why does it matter whether a president wins by 370 electoral votes or just seven? Close races deny presidents the kind of indisputable mandate that gives him or her the political and popular strength to govern, and that is the purpose of a president just as it is a political party — to govern.

In the next few months, daily national tracking and polling in key states will fuel a running debate on the actual status of the race. While state-by-state polls could be predictive, keep an eye on the national polling margins.

As long as one side or the other stays ahead in these polls by at least 5 points, it will be clear which candidate is succeeding in building a broad-based winning coalition.

Article on rollcall.com

The “power, pork, and attack” strategy, devised and executed by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) over the course of seven years, did bring scandal with it. But to interpret the 2006 loss as the result of corruption is to miss the greater point.

Simply put, voters sacked the Republicans because they perceived the GOP had done nothing to address voter problems and fundamentally misunderstood their growing concerns with cost-of-living issues. Instead of offering new ideas, Republicans continued negative attacks and tried to “out-Tip” Tip O’Neill when it came to district-by-district pork.

The problem Republicans faced then —and still face today — stems from a lack of substance behind their brand, a reliance on dogmatic ideology to define themselves rather than focusing on finding solutions to larger voter concerns on health care, energy, jobs, housing and security.

The GOP “brand problem” has led voters to believe that Republicans do not care about people, in particular the middle class. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), whose recent GOP energy proposal is a significant step toward addressing negative voter perception, often says that Republicans have to “earn” their way back to majority status.

What does that mean? It means defining a view of the future that is compelling and possible, not defining one’s opponent. It means defining a Republican Party concerned about people, not one that says problems can’t be solved or it isn’t Washington’s job.

It means applying conservative principles to problems with the kind of intellectual vibrancy that underpinned the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions. That is the challenge facing the party in this historic election. The Republican brand problem is all about defining the future for voters — what a Republican president and Congress can do to help them.

We need a clean break from the politics of the past. We have to break from the party’s image of power for power’s sake, its image of incompetence, of a lack of purpose or caring. To prove that we are the party best able to achieve the lofty goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we have to create a modern GOP that embraces change.

That doesn’t mean abandoning conservative principles. It does mean, however, rejecting the thinking that got a right-of-center party on the wrong side of a right-of-center country. Data show the GOP label itself is a drag on the party and its candidates at all levels.

In a recent survey, we tested the Democratic message of unity and change to solve problems with a Republican message asserting that Washington is broken and needs fixing to ensure a safer, healthier, more prosperous future.

When the statements were read to voters without partisan attribution, the GOP message won by 12 points. When we attached partisan labels to the very same statements, it lost by 6 points. Clearly, the Republican Party brand is in serious trouble.

Given the products of a political party are its ideas on issues, years of running campaigns that relied on defining Democrats rather than Republican policies have weakened the GOP brand. Survey research over the past four years has shown Democrats with a huge issue-handling advantage on energy, education, health care and Social Security.

What should be even more alarming to Republicans is that research shows voters put more faith in Democrats to be more fiscally responsible and to better handle the economy, jobs and the Iraq War. Republicans hold an advantage on one issue, the war on terror, and they tie on taxes.

How did Republicans dig themselves into this hole? They simply forgot that the broader purpose behind Ronald Reagan’s and Newt Gingrich’s revolutions was to change America through ideas. When a party is more concerned about earmarks, hitting up K Street and attacking the opponent than finding conservative solutions for rising health care costs, falling home prices or high gas prices, voters will perceive its leaders as uncaring and insensitive to their needs.

Yet, despite the 2006 election debacle and despite three special election losses this year in Republican districts, a number of influential party operatives are arguing for more of the same. They advise, “Stick with the status quo; attack your opponent, bring home some bacon to brag about, spend more money. You’ll be fine.” Tell that to the three special election candidates who won’t be joining the House Republican Conference.

While Democrats face the same kind of voter discontent, they remain ahead in national polls because Republicans haven’t broken through as a viable alternative. Contrary to Democratic claims, however, voters haven’t embraced their party’s ideology over the past year. That gives Republicans an opening.

Whether the party can take advantage of the opportunity depends on whether it accepts the premise that ideas will win this election, not money or dogma, and shows that it is ready to govern. That will take a clean break from the past to modernize and create the Republican Party of the future.

Article on rollcall.com

Yet, in the week that his campaign and its willing followers in the media all but declared Obama the Democratic presidential nominee, his first step toward the general election was to take the low road by raising one of the sorriest episodes in the history of the Democratic Party — the Keating Five scandal of more than 20 years ago.

Introducing Obama at an Oregon town meeting Friday, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) happily did the candidate’s dirty work by lobbing the first cheap shot of the general election campaign. Ridiculing Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) support for less regulation, DeFazio sneered, “I guess maybe for a guy who was up to his neck in the Keating Five and saving[s] and loan scandal, less regulation is better.”

If Obama were sincere in his calls for a new kind of politics, one might have expected him to denounce DeFazio. But when asked about DeFazio’s attack, Obama instead called the Keating Five scandal fair game, saying, “I don’t have any doubt that John McCain’s public record about issues that he’s apologized for and written about is germane to the presidency.” So much for the “new” politics of Barack Obama.

Clearly, DeFazio’s attack and Obama’s reinforcement signaled a calculated decision to use the savings and loan scandal as political ammunition to hit McCain hard as a conventional Washington politician — corrupt and beholden to special interests.

There is just one impediment to the nasty little narrative Obama and DeFazio are trying to peddle: longtime Democratic lawyer Bob Bennett. In November 1989, Bennett was appointed special counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee by then-Chairman Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) and Vice Chairman Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) to investigate the relationship between five Senators and Charles Keating, owner of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan in California.

Bennett devotes an entire chapter in his new book, “In the Ring,” to the Keating Five scandal; his firsthand account not only clears McCain of wrongdoing, but to this observer, provides evidence of the grossest kind of political manipulation on the part of Senate Democratic leaders at the time.

After months of thorough investigating, Bennett recommended to the committee that no further action be taken against either McCain or then-Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), a result that didn’t go down well with Democrats on the committee. As Bennett puts it in his book, “My recommendation that the only Republican in the group, John McCain, be exonerated caused a big political problem, but my recommendations were based on evidence not politics.”

Bennett lost the fight when Senate Democratic leaders, fearing a political backlash if the bipartisan “Keating Five” became three Democrats, decided to ignore Bennett’s counsel and hold public hearings on all five Senators. Calling this decision “pure politics,” Bennett today says this was “perhaps the first time the recommendation of a special counsel not to charge a Senator was rejected.”

Simply put, Democrats on the Ethics Committee needed a Republican target to ensure the investigation did not become a one-party scandal even if it meant sacrificing John Glenn to do it. Apparently, Democrats were willing to ruin the reputations of two national heroes to protect the Democratic Party’s political fortunes.

The truth, which we can thank Bennett for revealing, is that neither McCain nor Glenn should have been included in the public hearings. This is an astonishing revelation that represents exactly the kind of morally bankrupt politics Barack Obama says he rejects. But his actions of last week call into question his rather insistent and constant claim to the moral high ground in this year’s election.

In choosing to use this issue, Obama made a conscious decision to ignore the Ethics Committee’s final report on the Keating affair in 1991, which concluded that “Senator McCain’s actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him.” Obama also chose to disregard later comments about McCain made by Fred Wertheimer, the head of Common Cause, which filed the original ethics complaint behind the Ethics Committee investigation.

Wertheimer was quoted in a 1999 New York Times article saying, “Senator McCain’s commitment on the issue [campaign finance reform] has been real and deep, and his leadership has been courageous in publicly challenging his own party and Senate colleagues.” Moreover, McCain himself has publicly and painfully accepted responsibility for his handling of the Keating situation.

Yet, Obama, the “new” politician, says this issue is fair game in the general election.

Last week, Mark McKinnon, the McCain campaign’s media strategist, suggested a series of debates and joint town-hall meetings between the two presumptive nominees beginning this summer. When asked about the McCain campaign proposal for these less structured joint appearances, Obama called it “a great idea,” telling reporters he would welcome the “opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain.”

Now we know what the Obama campaign considers a “substantive” issue, and it isn’t positive or “post-partisan.” What DeFazio and Obama did in raising the Keating Five scandal was no different than Senate Democrats’ willingness, almost two decades ago, to sacrifice the good names of two of the nation’s most devoted sons for pure political expediency.

There is nothing new or different in that, and it certainly isn’t what Barack Obama is selling. Instead, he has methodically created a self-serving self-portrait of a different kind of politician, one who will not stoop to the kind of raw campaign tactics that, too often, have marred our elections.

Obama’s actions last week make it increasingly clear his campaign is becoming all too familiar. It’s called politics as usual.

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It’s been a rough week for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Instead of finally closing the deal on the Democratic presidential nomination, he was soundly defeated by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary.

But more than just losing another major state, his failure to attract blue-collar Democrats has raised doubts about his ability to put together a winning coalition in key big states in November.

If that weren’t enough, Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, also re-emerged this week with defiant and impolitic appearances before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Press Club.

Still, I suspect, his campaign is comforting itself with the notion that at least things can’t get any worse. Except they can get worse — and much worse at that.

For the first time in nearly two decades, California may now be in play for both parties, the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

Unlike Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states where Obama’s weakness with “Reagan Democrats” has kept him from wrapping up the nomination, the Hispanic vote and, to a smaller degree, the Asian vote, could well be his Achilles’ heel in California this November.

Democrats will be quick to discount this notion, rejecting out of hand any possibility that this usually reliable Democratic mega state could end up in the Republican column. But even a basic analysis of primary election and exit poll results shows that Obama may have a Hispanic problem every bit as significant as his working-class disconnect that has been so apparent in recent primaries.

Looking at the overall outcome on Super Tuesday, Clinton won the Hispanic vote by a huge 63-35 percent margin. State by state, the numbers are equally remarkable. In New Mexico, her winning margin with Hispanic voters was 26 points; 38 points in New Jersey; 35 points in California; 47 points in New York; 20 points in Massachusetts; and 14 points in Arizona.

Even in his home state of Illinois, Obama only eked out a 1-point victory over Clinton with Hispanic voters, 50-49 percent. Post Super Tuesday, Clinton won the Hispanic vote in Texas, 66-32 percent and in Maryland, 55-45 percent.

While the Hispanic vote will play a key role in a number of states, none is more important or has more potential to change the outcome of the general election than California. Democrats must win California to win the presidency, and in recent presidential elections, Republicans have all but opted out of playing in the Golden State.

It takes an enormous amount of time and money to campaign in California, and for years, the odds didn’t favor Republicans. In 2000, Gore won the state with 53-42 percent. Kerry also carried California handily with 54-44 percent.

But Obama’s weakness with Hispanic voters could be a game changer in California.

In 2000, Hispanics accounted for 14 percent of the California electorate and 21 percent in 2004. One would expect that percentage to be even higher in 2008.

A more in-depth look into the numbers shows Obama’s usual strength with younger voters doesn’t hold true for young Hispanic voters.

In California, Obama won white voters ages 18-29 by a big margin, 63-32 percent. But Clinton won younger Hispanics, who voted more like Hispanics than young people, with 65-35 percent.

Obama is also at a disadvantage in California because the African-American vote, which now gives him more than 90 percent support in most states, makes up a much smaller part of the overall electorate. In 2006, it accounted for only 5 percent of the vote, 1 point less than the Asian community, which is also not good for Obama.

Clinton won Asian voters in the California primary by a staggering 71-25 percent. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also won the Asian vote easily by 62-37 percent.

Ideology may also be a factor in California. When asked to self-identify in the Democratic primary, white voters broke down 58 percent liberal, 32 percent moderate and 10 percent conservative. But among Hispanics, a much lower 43 percent identified themselves as liberal, 41 percent as moderate and 11 percent as conservative. Among Asians, the breakdown was even more favorable to the GOP, coming in as 34 percent liberal, 55 percent moderate and 11 percent conservative.

Arizona Sen. John McCain may have been at odds with a part of the GOP base on immigration and other issues. But as it turns out, he may be perfectly positioned to take advantage of Obama’s Hispanic problem, not just in California, but in blue states like New Jersey as well.

In 2004, Hispanic voters made up 10 percent of the New Jersey electorate. Kerry won the state with 53 percent, close enough to make New Jersey a target state for Republicans in 2008.

Clinton’s 38-point margin over Obama with Hispanic voters in the New Jersey primary, coupled with McCain’s moderate conservatism, could be a potent prescription for a tight race in November with even small movement in key groups like Hispanics or working-class swing voters.

The media are right to focus on the fissures in Obama’s electoral strategy that fail to address his problems with the kind of working-class voters who swung to Ronald Reagan in 1980. But they need to add Hispanic and even Asian voters to the list of Obama spoilers.

For the McCain campaign, they may have to add “California Here I Come” to music on the bus.

David Winston is president of The Winston Group, a Republican polling firm.

Correction: April 29, 2008

The column originally misidentified the percentage of Hispanic votes for Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the Illinois primary. Obama had a 1-point victory over Clinton among Hispanic voters, 50 percent to Clinton’s 49 percent.

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The morning show anchor raised the issue of New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s scolding of Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for their cynical assertions that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants to fight the Iraq War for another 100 years. Vieira asked Obama, “Are you willing to admit that you’ve distorted his statements?”

Obama, in the finest “I dare ya” tradition of Gary Hart, responded, “No. That’s not accurate. We can pull up the quotes on YouTube.”

Let’s do that, Senator. In truth, the video of McCain’s comments on the potential for a long commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq is clear. Contrary to Obama’s claims, McCain never advocated for a “100-year war.”

Zachary Roth wrote of Obama’s “stepped up attacks on McCain’s ‘100 years’ notion” in the Columbia Journalism Review: “Obama is seriously misleading voters — if not outright lying to them — about exactly what McCain said.” Similar sentiments have been expressed across the ideological media spectrum from Fox News to the Washington Post to Slate magazine.

The videos on YouTube that ought to really matter to voters are those of Obama that show his willing mischaracterization of McCain’s remarks along with his apologists who, when called upon to explain the boss’s dishonest statements about McCain, simply denied they were ever uttered.

When you know a candidate’s every word is on the Web usually in minutes, that kind of denial takes real chutzpah, and David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign manager, apparently has plenty of it. Two days before Obama’s “Today” appearance, Axelrod told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, “He [Obama] isn’t saying that Sen. McCain has said we would be at war for 100 years.” Really?

Let’s pull up some of Obama’s actual quotes on the matter. “We’re now bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years,” Obama said during the presidential debate in Cleveland on April 5. “[Sen. McCain] says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq,” he said at a rally in Houston on Feb. 19.

“And when it comes to foreign policy, John McCain says he wants to fight a 100-year war, a 100 years he says, as long as it takes,” Obama said at a rally in Bangor, Maine, on Feb. 9. Those are just three examples.

A similar denial strategy was attempted on the issue of Obama’s pledge last year to accept public financing in the general election. When Obama first publicly supported the notion, he was still an underfunded and underestimated candidate back in the presidential pack. His support of public financing was not only pragmatic, it also played into the image he was trying to create for himself as a “new” kind of politician, a post-partisan candidate unwilling to sell out to moneyed interests.

Last November, in response to a questionnaire from the Midwest Democracy Network asking whether he would agree to “forgo private funding in the general election campaign,” Obama responded with an unambiguous “yes.” He also pledged, “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”

Well, McCain agreed; but in February, when asked by The Associated Press about Obama’s stated intention to take public financing, his spokesman Bill Burton said, “There is no pledge.” I suppose it depends on what the meaning of “pledge” is. What really changed over those three months was the size of Obama’s bank account.

Both of these controversies — Obama’s distortion of McCain’s “100 years” statement and his decision to renege on his public financing promise — create a nagging suspicion that the man behind the curtain isn’t quite the wonderful wizard we’ve been led to believe.

Instead, Obama and his campaign are looking all too familiar these days –– typical politicians suffering from a sense of righteous entitlement that they believe gives them permission to depart, on occasion, from the usual political rules. Fudging the facts about what McCain says or doesn’t say is all right because this candidacy operates on a different moral plane.

Breaking a campaign promise is acceptable when the end — Obama’s ascension to the presidency — justifies the means. Until recently, it all seemed to be working for them.

But, as Obama’s stumbles and gaffes have finally begun to get media scrutiny, he and his spokesmen have been forced to take another approach, a kind of “thesaurus” strategy.

Instead of denial, they revise, explain, clarify and refine his statements while maintaining their inherent rightness. His remarks are misunderstood, distorted, misconstrued, mischaracterized, misrepresented or taken out of context by his political opponents or unfriendly media.

Obama certainly didn’t mean his white grandmother was a racist. He really didn’t like Ronald Reagan and those who said he did were just playing a “Washington trick.” Of course, Obama would have left his church had not his pastor retired and acknowledged that his statements “deeply offended people and were inappropriate.” Just for clarification, Jeremiah Wright has made no such public acknowledgement.

His remarks about bitter working-class voters in small towns turning to guns and religion were just a matter of poorly chosen words. He’s very sorry if anyone was offended, but the “underlying truth” of what he said remains.

All candidates say things in error. They misspeak. They get tired. A staffer makes a mistake. It happens, and explanations are sometimes necessary.

But when one sets himself apart as a new kind of leader, above the crass partisan politics of the past, he raises expectations. But instead of meeting them, Obama seems to believe he deserves a standard all his own.

Article on rollcall.com

In three short months, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) have managed to take lemonade and turn it into lemons. They and their campaigns have created a deep and increasingly bitter divide within the Democratic Party, unfortunately along racial and gender lines.

But it also is unfortunate for the political process and for the country.

The candidacies of Clinton and Obama are proof of how far we have come in righting wrongs of the past. While Republicans may benefit from the nasty turn this campaign has taken, no one who cares about the country ought to revel in this kind of primary fight.

But one cannot ignore the irony of the situation. The Democratic Party, which has spent the past thirty years promoting identity politics and the policies that go with it, now finds itself being torn apart by the very candidates who represent those politics.

Yet, it is the Clinton and Obama camps that must take responsibility for the negative tone of this campaign. Obama has claimed the mantle of the first “post-racial” presidential candidate, but his close relationship with a pastor of undisputed racial animus and virulent anti-Americanism has put his own character and judgment into question.

The Clintons have played the race card as well, whether it was Bill Clinton’s comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary or various Hillary supporters raising questions about Obama’s electability. But the Obama campaign’s comparison of Geraldine Ferraro’s comments to those of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was equally cynical.

When it comes to gender, Clinton has tried to have it both ways. She cried in New Hampshire. In Ohio, she harshly scolded, “Shame on you, Barack Obama”; and in a tone reminiscent of the OK Corral, challenged him to “meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior on this campaign.”

In recent weeks, as Obama has sent out a parade of mostly male party leaders to call for her exit, Clinton and her supporters, have taken to characterizing the effort as the “boys” against the “girl” in the race.

But it was “sniper-gate” that illustrated her attempts to be both victim and take-charge leader at the same time. Playing for sympathy, she told several audiences the story of her 1996 trip to Bosnia, joking that in the White House there was a saying, “If a place was too small, too dangerous or too poor, send the first lady.”

But then, she proceeded to portray herself as a kind of “G.I. Jane” on a perilous mission for the president, dodging bullets on the tarmac as she dashed to the safety of the motorcade. Winston Churchill once talked of the Boer War saying, “There is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without result.”

We all now know Mrs. Clinton was never under fire, but her tall tale definitely got results — just not the one she hoped for. As Sen. Clinton was trying to climb out of her self- imposed foxhole, the Obama camp went over the top comparing Bill Clinton to Joe McCarthy for a comment he made that they claimed questioned Obama’s patriotism.

Both candidates are to blame for the tenor of the campaign, and both candidates are beginning to pay a price with the voters.

In Gallup Poll daily tracking earlier in March, Obama beat McCain by 2 points, 46 percent to 44 percent. The most recent tracking, on March 29, shows a 5-point switch with McCain now beating Obama 47 percent to 44 percent. In the earlier poll, Clinton was leading McCain 47 percent to 45 percent. The newer numbers show McCain over Clinton, 48 percent to 44 percent. The poll had a 2-point error margin.

The most devastating numbers, however, are Gallup’s data showing that the bitterness between the Clinton and Obama voters could take a real toll in November. During polling March 7-22, a staggering 28 percent of Clinton voters and 19 percent of Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain if their candidate loses the nomination. Who are these voters?

Gallup found they are independents and conservative Democrats, the very swing voters who were the key components of Ronald Reagan’s winning majority coalition. It’s unlikely those numbers will remain that high. But the very fact that such a significant number of voters are willing to defect to the Republican nominee in this kind of negative political environment belies the argument that once the nomination process is over, the two Democratic candidates’ supporters will all come together in a Kumbaya moment.

Meanwhile, the Gallup Poll found McCain’s favorability had increased 11 points, reaching an eight-year high of 67 percent. The contrast between McCain and his potential rivals couldn’t be more stark.

Clinton and Obama have spent the past three weeks alternately sniping at each other or trying to explain one political problem after another. McCain has spent his time in more presidential endeavors, meeting with world leaders, giving major policy addresses and visiting the troops in Iraq. This week, voters will see his campaign focus on McCain’s lifetime of service to the country.

Obama and Clinton have given McCain an unexpected opportunity to reach voters with a positive message about himself, his hopes for the country and his solutions to the problems people care about. And this could go on for months.

Article on rollcall.com