Many historians see little chance for McCain

Jolie Rouge

Many historians see little chance for McCain
David Paul Kuhn
Sun Jun 15, 8:05 AM ET

One week into the general election, the polls show a dead heat. But many presidential scholars doubt that John McCain stands much of a chance, if any.

Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932. “This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.

“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.

“It is one of the worst political environments for the party in power since World War II,” added Alan Abramowitz, a professor of public opinion and the presidency at Emory University. His forecasting model — which factors in gross domestic product, whether a party has completed two terms in the White House and net presidential approval rating — gives McCain about the same odds as Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Carter in 1980 — both of whom were handily defeated in elections that returned the presidency to the previously out-of-power party. “It would be a pretty stunning upset if McCain won,” Abramowitz said.

What’s more, Republicans have held the presidency for all but 12 years since the South became solidly Republican in the realignment of 1968 — which is among the longest runs with one party dominating in American history. “These things go in cycles,” said presidential historian Robert Dallek, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. “The public gets tired of one approach to politics. There is always a measure of optimism in this country, so they turn to the other party.”

That desire for change also tends to manifest itself at the end of a president’s second term. Only twice in the 20th century has a candidate from the same party as a two-term president won the presidency, most recently in 1988, when George H.W. Bush replaced the term-limited Ronald Reagan, who was about twice as popular in the last year of his presidency as President George W. Bush is now.

But the biggest obstacle in McCain’s path may be running in the same party as the most unpopular president America has had since at least the advent of modern polling. Only Harry Truman and Nixon — both of whom were dogged by unpopular wars abroad and political scandals at home — have been nearly as unpopular in their last year in office, and both men’s parties lost the presidency in the following election.

Though the Democratic-controlled Congress is nearly as unpopular as the president, Lichtman says the Democrats’ 2006 midterm wins resemble the midterm congressional gains of the out-party in 1966 and 1974, which both preceded a retaking of the White House two years later.

One of the few bright spots historians noted is that the public generally does not view McCain as a traditional Republican. And, as Republicans frequently point out, McCain is not an incumbent.

“Open-seat elections are somewhat different, so the referendum aspect is somewhat muted,” said James Campbell, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in campaigns and elections.

“McCain would be in much better shape if Bush’s approval rating were at 45 to 50 percent,” Campbell continued. “But the history is that in-party candidates are not penalized or rewarded to the same degree as incumbents.”

Campbell still casts McCain as the underdog. But he said McCain might have more appeal to moderates than Obama if the electorate decides McCain is “center right” while Obama is “far left.” Democrats have been repeatedly undone when their nominee was viewed as too liberal, and even as polls show a rise in the number of self-identified Democrats, there has been no corresponding increase in the number of self-identified liberals.

Campbell also notes that McCain may benefit from the Democratic divisions that were on display in the primary, as Republicans did in 1968, when Democratic divisions over the war in Vietnam dogged Humphrey and helped hand Nixon victory.

Still, many historians remain extremely skeptical about McCain’s prospects. “I can’t think of an upset where the underdog faced quite the odds that McCain faces in this election,” said Sidney Milkis, a professor of presidential politics at the University of Virginia. Even "Truman didn’t face as difficult a political context as McCain.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200...C1xduLAh5Aw_IE

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

I would be remiss not to mention Fightin’ Jacksonian Colonel Obama’s rhetorical venture to the armaments cabinet. And I wouldn’t want to be remiss. (Not really sure what “remiss” means, now that I think about it, but I think it’s bad.)

Here’s what he said: http://thepage.time.com/obama-pool-r...ia-fundraiser/

Okay, three things. No, make that four.

I. If I were a liberal Democrat I would squeal in fright that Obama was advocating violence against his political opponents and ushering in a police state. I am, instead, a rational adult capable of assessing context, so I know it was just meaningless rhetoric.

II. Obama was infamously quoted as wanting to roll back concealed carry laws. Apparently he sees some utility in them after all, at least when you’re under knife attack.

III. The point of that speech in The Untouchables he’s citing is a very, very, very interesting one. It was from an old Irish cop asserting that to beat Al Capone, Elliot Ness would have to bend the rules, and color outside the lines a bit – because Capone was an enemy who would use your own rules against you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g0RLyxP13o

I’ve always thought that speech applied very well to the war on terror. I would expect Obama to disagree with me there–but it’s interesting that he does seem to think that “the Chicago Way” applies to domestic politics. I suppose a pupil of Tony Rezko’s would have to think like that.

It makes sense, if you think Republicans are the real enemy, and that the terrorists are just a distraction from the progressive agenda.

IV. The essence of Malone’s speech in The Untouchables is a negation of the doctrine of proportionality. It’s not an eye for an eye, to which there is a kind of symmetric justice. It’s two eyes for an eye. The idea being that the disproportionate cost incurred will deter mobsters like Capone from attacking cops and breaking the law.

There’s something to that idea.

Does Obama understand this as it applies to international politics, or is it just a figure of speech? I suspect that this was a telling slip of the tongue. Intuitively, Obama understands along with the rest of us that “massive retaliation” is a winning strategy and that our national defense should be geared to dispensing the unthinkable to those who attempt the unthinkable toward us.

Therein lies our security. America is a bunch of hair-trigger badass gunslinging cowboys and you do not want to be on our bad side. That’s why we have those ten-megaton warheads riding in those silos in North Dakota and on those submarines deep down in the ocean somewhere. An attack on the United States or its interests will deliver catastrophic consequences. That’s the Chicago way. That’s what keeps us safe.

Intuitively, because that’s the metaphor he grabbed when he was on the spot, I think Obama understands this. But politically, he’s saying something else. Which is why Obama is, as Capone jeered at Ness later in that same film, “nothing but a lot of talk and a badge”. Will he do what it takes–whatever it takes–to keep America safe?

Can we afford to take that chance? What if he’s…remiss?


It’s a good thing Huckabee didn’t slip up and say anything like this, else the media would have jumped on his back and mauled him.

Oh wait…

If Obama wins in November, it’s because the media wills it. You can call me “master of the obvious,” if you’d like.

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Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Tuesday, October 07, 2008
"The Chicago Way"

My pals over at the Corner are very excited by the last-minute attempt to transform Bill Ayers into the Willie Horton of 2008. Well, good luck

In 1988, crime was a huge and rising problem - and Democrats still by and large resisted the effective crime control policies being developed at places like the Manhattan Institute and that would achieve such great results in the 1990s. So Willie Horton, the furloughed rapist and murderer, symbolized in very graphic terms something important and significant about Michael Dukakis the candidate.

But Bill Ayers? Does anybody really seriously believe that Barack Obama is a secret left-wing radical? And if not, then what is this fuss and fury supposed to show? It's like Ronald Reagan's opponents trying to beat him by pointing out that Birchers once supported him.

Negative campaigning only works when it offers a new data point to support a convincingly drawn hostile image.

So try this instead: The real problem with Barack Obama is not that he's a bomb-thrower, but that he's a product of the "Chicago way." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...7245642.column

Obama is not some wild-eyed radical. He's a normal Chicago politician. That's the problem.

Unfortunately for our team, it's probably not a big enough problem ....

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?