Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Happy Columbus Day! While the legal holiday is observed on a Monday, it was actually October 12, 1492, that Christopher Columbus saw the Bahamas. As we all know now, he was not the first European to “discover” America, but be careful to whom you say that. I am old enough to remember the late PA Supreme Court Justice Michael A. Musmanno, a wonderfully colorful man who went on a six-week tour of the nation to defend Columbus when Yale scholars declared that Leif Ericson had landed in America first. Ironically, Musmanno died on Columbus Day!
As many of you have reminded me, it’s been weeks since I’ve taken hand to keyboard to share my thoughts about this presidential race. It’s not like I’m vacationing! Between money (read the economy and Wall Street) and politics, my two principal news beats these days, my plate has been very full indeed. Since the presidential conventions, I’ve had two interviews with Barack Obama and one with John McCain and multiple interviews with surrogates. Obviously, both campaigns know how important Pennsylvania and neighboring Ohio (just 30 miles west of me) are in this contest, and I can practically guarantee that if Pennsylvania and Ohio vote alike on November 4, that man will be president.
So, three weeks from decision day, where do we stand? Can you say President Obama? No, wait, could it be President McCain?
In this latest PSF, let me share my thoughts as someone who has spent 25 years in the political world – first, as a behind-the-scenes player, and, now, as an observer and commentator. As always, I welcome your off-the-record views. If you prefer not to get these occasional missives, there’s a button below to get off the list. Otherwise, dear Politically Savvy Friend, read on.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Wall Street Mess -- Calling FDR:
A friend of mine asked me the other day where was Franklin D. Roosevelt when we needed him. The reference, of course, was to FDR’s famous call in his First Inaugural: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” In the wake of the collapse of the Stock Market, causing most of us to lose more than one-third of our retirement funds, the absence of presidential leadership has been obvious.
It’s not that President Bush isn’t trying. It’s just that nobody cares what he says. His job approval ratings are in the mid-20s, the lowest of his presidency, and most financial analysts concluded that every time he spoke to the nation last week the market dropped some more.
Of course, presidents are not economists, finance wizards, or portfolio money managers. But they do have experts around them that are or should be. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may know a thing or two, but it’s not clear that even they know how to turn this market or the economy around. We begin this week with some hopeful signs. The stock market has resurged some 900+ points, and we are now seeing some concrete action out of Washington.
What surprised me most is that the Bush administration, having pushed so hard for its Wall Street rescue plan (or bailout, as detractors call it), seemed so unprepared to implement it, once Congress approved the bill a week ago. I would have thought the implementation plan would have been on the drawing board as the Congress debated its inevitable passage. The consequence has been delay, instead of action, and we all saw how Wall Street reacted to that. But concerted global action over this last weekend gives hope that maybe, just maybe, we can regain our footing.
Ultimately, the market will bottom out and eventually regain some, if not all, the losses over the next two years, if not sooner. At least that’s what the experts say. But all this focus on the economy demonstrates like nothing else how important it is to have a president with a team in place to make sure these meltdowns don’t occur and, if they do, to have a plan to minimize their impact on average working people. The Bush administration had neither.
It’s the Economy, Stupid:
When you’re hurting economically, it’s always about you. That’s a basic rule in politics. The candidate who can address your concerns or at least appears sympathetic to your plight will get your support. No surprise, every recent poll puts the economy and jobs as the #1 issue in this presidential race – 57% in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. Most of us have felt a lot of economic pain in recent months – unrestrained energy and food price increases, higher unemployment, devaluation of our homes, and now the evisceration of our 401-Ks and IRAs.
Baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964), some 76 million of us, are particularly hurt by the latter, even if it’s just a paper loss (as long as we don’t cash in). My father’s generation had guaranteed company pensions, the so-called defined benefit plans, where the retired employee got a check every month from his employer for as long as he lived. Corporate America abandoned that approach when it became too expensive to sustain, and substituted a plan tied to the stock market wherein employees would deposit part of their own money (often matched partially by the employer) in a 401-K. Gone are those guaranteed monthly pension checks during retirement – except, of course, Social Security. Your retirement security depends on the return of your money set aside in investment accounts of your choosing and always subject to the vagaries of the stock market. That’s why everyone is so angry about what happened on Wall Street and the failure of our politicians to prevent it.
[Parenthetically, the only people left with those old-fashioned pension checks are public employees – teachers, government workers, and elected officials. We, the taxpayers, pay much of that monthly check, and I suspect that this last remnant of defined benefit will disappear in the years ahead, particularly if the typical American retiree appears to struggle while their neighbor who worked for the taxpayer enjoys a comfortable retirement.]
All this is to say that Americans hunger for a president who, not only understands all this, but appears willing to protect our jobs and restore jobs shipped overseas, raise our wages so we can (at least) stay even with inflation, provide affordable health care for all, and maintain our retirement security. It’s a very tall order.
McCain or Obama – Can Either One Make Life Better?
In their gut, most Americans don’t think either John McCain or Barack Obama can really do all that is necessary to make our lives better. Such is our cynicism that it’s easy to say that it doesn’t really matter who wins the White House, at least on the economy. But empathy is important and forced to choose, most Americans think Obama can address the economy better than McCain. In the latest Newsweek poll, those polled said Obama would do a better job on the economy and jobs than McCain by a 54% to 35% margin. Close to the same result in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, 50% to 30%. We see similar results on health care, 56% to 30% for Obama in the Newsweek poll and 52% to 32% in the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll.
McCain’s initial response to Wall Street even if taken out of contest (“The fundamentals of our economy are sound.”), coupled with his short-lived suspension of his campaign and refusal to debate Obama until Congress resolved its response to the crisis, made it easy for Obama to portray him as “out-of-touch” and a bit schizophrenic. That’s not fair to McCain, but nothing is ever fair in politics.
Fundamentally, what hurts McCain, in my view, is the general sense that, at least on the economy, he is really not much different than President Bush, someone traditionally hostile to government regulation of Wall Street, generally pro-business, and much more attuned to the interests of the wealthy than working Americans. In short, in difficult economic times, it’s tough to be a Republican politician because it’s so easy for Democrats to affix a label to you.
McCain Tries to Change the Theme Line:
Democrats don’t like it, but the McCain campaign did exactly what a smart candidate does when the number one issue in a campaign is against you – change the issue. Enter Bill Ayers, a ‘60s anti-war radical who cofounded the Weathermen underground movement and participated in the bombing of the NYC police headquarters, the U.S. Capitol, and the Pentagon in the early 1970s, activities that occurred when Obama was a young kid, but actions that caused damage to public property but, fortunately, no death or injury. Not my kind of guy, that’s for sure.
Fast forward to the mid-1990s in Chicago. By this time, Ayers has become a prominent educator in that city, with multiple Masters degrees and a doctorate. Ayers, now a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, worked with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to write the so-called Chicago Annenberg Challenge, securing $49 million to reform the Chicago public schools over a five-year period. [Walter Annenberg, a Republican who died in 2002, was the billionaire Philadelphia publisher who was President Reagan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom]. Obama was an original member of the board named to distribute that money. Besides their association in this project, Obama and Ayers were board members on the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty philanthropic group. It’s also a fact that Obama was in Ayers home when Ayers hosted an event at which then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer presented Obama as her choice to succeed her in the 1996 Democratic primary.
What are we to make of all this? Obama has condemned Ayers’ illegal activity and calls McCain’s attempt to question his character through Ayers as “guilt by association.” He says he never “palled around” with Ayers, as McCain’s running-mate has charged. But McCain and his allies suggest that it’s just not believable that Obama was unaware of Ayers’ background and that he should have, if he had any decent character at all, completely excused himself from any association with this man. [This is similar, by the way, to the same argument made against Obama because of his long-time association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose anti-American, anti-white rhetoric was so inflammatory during the primary season].
PSF’ers can make their own judgment about what this says about Obama or McCain, for that matter. The political question is – has it worked to help McCain? Not yet, is my quick answer. Sure it’s “red meat” for the Republican base that wants McCain to attack Obama more vigorously, but the last-minute nature of the attack strikes many as “desperation” politics. The Fox News poll last week found that 61% of those polled said it made no difference to their vote. Even worse for McCain, some 51% said McCain was running a “negative” campaign for president, while only 21% said that of Obama.
So while McCain’s campaign may be right to change the issue from the economy to something else, a character assault on Obama because of his association (whatever it was) with Bill Ayers doesn’t seem to be working, at least not yet. Perhaps a better issue for McCain might be national security.
Sarah Palin (a/k/a Tina Fey) Becomes a Pop Culture Phenom:
Whether you think Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States, no one can doubt that she has taken America by storm – and thanks to Tina Fey – has singlehandedly restored Saturday Night Live to “must-watch” television.
I have not met Palin, so I don’t know what she is really like in person, but her spunky style has certainly hit a chord with many. But, let’s be honest, she has also become a figure of ridicule – and, at this stage of the campaign, it’s unclear whether the strong support she gets from some trumps the shake-of-the-head others give her. The most recent Newsweek poll gives her a 49% to 45% favorable rating.
Nonetheless, McCain’s choice of Palin, in my view, did exactly what was intended. It brought the Christian conservative evangelicals back on board the Republican ticket. McCain is a social conservative, but he’s never really been comfortable with the Falwell-Robertson ideology. Palin is not only comfortable with that ideology -- she lives her beliefs. That scares some Americans, but it was those Christian conservative voters who delivered the state of Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004 and nearly delivered Pennsylvania.
Fundamentally, I don’t believe that either Joe Biden, who can quite legitimately point to his Pennsylvania roots, or Sarah Palin determines the outcome of this election. The race is between Obama and McCain, not their running-mates. The last vice presidential nominee to make a difference electorally was Lyndon Baines Johnson who delivered Texas – and the White House – to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
PENNSYLVANIA
Up for Grabs:
As the economy got worse, Barack Obama’s poll numbers got better in Pennsylvania. His lead last week over John McCain ranged from 12% (Marist poll) to 15% (SurveyUSA). Mind you, in September, Obama’s lead was well within the margin of error, ranging from 1% (Strategic Vision) to 4% (Morning Call). So is the recent double-digit bump for Obama a temporary surge, or a predictor of the final outcome?
McCain obviously believes it’s temporary, as both he and Palin criss-cross much of the state and, almost as importantly, their TV ads – and those of groups that support them – continue to run at full strength. Obama hardly thinks PA is decided yet either, as he and Biden stump the state and bring in some heavy-weights like President and Senator Clinton to campaign in Scranton this past weekend.
In short, both candidates act like this state is up for grabs, regardless of the polls. Maybe they know something we don’t know!
The Key for Victory in PA:
James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. It was a clever line, but not exactly right. In many ways, PA is like 50 states – urban centers, manufacturing river towns, rural deer country, agricultural heartlands, areas that identify with the east coast and other parts that are clearly Midwestern in outlook. PA has liberal Republicans and very conservative Republicans, just as it has liberal Democrats and very conservative Democrats, and both parties have Christian evangelicals. And, yes, many Pennsylvanians have guns, religion, and a small-town ethos. Bottom line, this is a hard state to categorize.
But the keys to victory are not hard to discern.
Four years ago, John Kerry just barely defeated George Bush in PA by 2.5% of the vote, or 144,000 votes out of 4.7 million votes cast. The Democratic victory began in Philadelphia where Kerry racked up a record 412,000 vote margin over Bush. In August, Gov. Ed Rendell told me that he hoped Philadelphia would beat that record for Obama this November. The latest registration figures show it possible: Philadelphia has about 852,000 Democrats, 145,000 Republicans, and 93,000 independents (or other third-party members). Could Philadelphia give Obama a 500,000 vote lead? It would be astounding, but do-able. Last Saturday’s four-stop visit within Philadelphia by Obama was designed to do just that.
The suburbs of Philadelphia used to be a sure Republican thing. No more. In 2004, Kerry carried three of the four “bedroom” counties – Montgomery (by 46,000 votes), Bucks (by 9,000 votes), and Delaware (by 42,000 votes), losing only Chester County (by 10,000 for Bush). This year, McCain thinks he can do better by stressing his “maverick” independent style. What hampers that is the growth of Democrats in these counties. Montgomery County has now turned Democratic by 19,000 votes, with only 10,000 votes separating Republicans from Democrats in Bucks County and 23,000 in Delaware County.
But even if Obama scores big in Southeastern PA like Kerry did, that does not guarantee victory in the state. Pennsylvania has important concentration of voters in the Northeast (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre), Northwest (Erie), South Central East (Harrisburg/Lancaster/York), South Central West (Johnstown, Altoona, Somerset), and the voter-rich area surrounding Pittsburgh in Southwestern PA. And I’ve left out lots other important nooks and crannies of the state.
Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh) is almost certainly going to vote for Obama. While not as lopsided as Philadelphia, it is overwhelmingly Democratic. Latest registration numbers have roughly 586,000 Dems here to 254,000 Republicans and 101,000 independents. In 2004, Kerry beat Bush here by 97,000 votes. In my view, Obama has the potential to win Allegheny County by more than 100,000 votes, depending on whether all the new registrants actually turn up to vote, but it is hardly a done deal.
It looks much better for McCain outside Pittsburgh and its immediate environs. Take Westmoreland County, where Democrats have a 49,000 voter registration edge over the Republicans: Four years ago, Bush beat Kerry in this county by 22,000 votes. In Washington County, Dems have a 40,000 registration edge today but Kerry only beat Bush by 552 votes. In Beaver County, Dems lead Republicans by 34,000 voters but Kerry only won by 2,200 votes. Take Lawrence County where Dems outnumber Republicans by 12,000 voters but Bush won by 551 votes. You get the picture.
The conservative Democrats in Southwestern PA can never be taken for granted by a Democratic candidate running statewide. Neither Obama nor McCain have campaigned in this region since late August – although Palin was here last Friday and Michelle Obama is expected on Thursday – but at some point the race will come down to regions west of the Susquehanna River. Both Gov. Ed Rendell and former Gov. Tom Ridge have certainly counseled their party nominees – western Pennsylvanians like retail politics, vote a higher percentage than back east, and are never predictable. In the end, while small in numbers, how Democratic counties like Beaver County and Washington County vote could well predict who wins the state of Pennsylvania.
The Role of Race in PA:
Finally, a word about race. I had a Democratic committeeman from this area come up to me a few months ago and bluntly tell me that he could never support Obama because he’s black. It’s abhorrent to me that anyone would vote for or against someone on the basis of race, gender, or religion, but we all know that it happens in every election. I have written about this in earlier PSFs. While most of us can point to stories from friends or relatives who say they know somebody who will never vote for Obama because of his race, it’s hard to measure the impact of this.
Last spring, Rendell observed that he felt in his race against an African American in Pennsylvania, the white candidate benefitted by as much as five to seven percentage points. He should know, not only as an astute politician but also as one who ran against an African American in 2006, the Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, a Republican. If Rendell is correct, then Obama needs a double-digit lead to win PA.
But I don’t know if Rendell is right, especially when it comes to Barack Obama and John McCain. It seems to me that there are so many other legitimate reasons to vote for one or against these candidates that race is consequential only for the true racists, which I hope is less than one percent of the PA electorate, not seven percent.
Still, there is a gnawing feeling that race will play a greater role in this election than anyone wants to admit. There is not much Obama can do about this, although his recent 60-second biographical ad featuring his white mother and white grandparents was a subliminal way to deal with the issue. My gut instinct is what worries some white voters is not Obama but other African Americans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (notice how they’ve disappeared this election season?) who appear to have made a career blaming whites for everything wrong in the black community. One white woman asked me the other day if I thought Obama would be beholden to those leaders if he won.
Obama deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of Jackson or Sharpton – just as John McCain deserves to be judged on his own, not by what people think of George W. Bush. But it’s the nature of politics to obfuscate rather than clarify. We won’t know the role of race in this contest until the votes are counted.
There is always much more that I can opine on, especially here in Pennsylvania. But let me save something for another PSF next week. I’m committed to doing at least one a week through and right after the election. As always, I welcome your comments – and hope to see some of you out on the campaign trail.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Week That Was
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Last week was certainly a fascinating political week where political news – local, state, and national -- seemed to pile up on itself, and much of it involved Pittsburgh. So much for the summer doldrums. For me personally, last week week was a hectic week with one-on-one interviews with Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain during his visit to Pittsburgh wherein he confused the Pittsburgh Steelers with the Green Bay Packers and with Steelers chairman Dan Rooney on the future of the beloved local football team, followed by a trip to Harrisburg to cover the financial rescue plan of Don Barden’s North Shore casino (still under construction) by Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm on the very same day that state Attorney General Tom Corbett charged 12 past and present Democratic officials and staffers with multiple felonies for using state tax dollars to reward employees for political campaign work. And let’s not forget a Westmoreland County jury acquitting state Sen. Bob Regola of perjury charges over the death of his next door neighbor’s 14-year old with a loaded handgun of Regola’s. Wow! Catch your breath.
We’ve got a lot of issues to cover in this edition of my PSF e-newsletter. As always, I welcome your off-the-record comments, or if you want to post something publicly, go to my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com. As always, if you prefer not to receive this occasional email, feel free to use the unsubscribe key below. I really hate to lose you, but I don’t want to be anyone’s spam! As regular PSF’ers know, I write this freebie out of love on the dubious assumption that after 14 years on Capitol Hill as chief of staff to a PA congressman and now nearly 14 years on the “other” side as a television/radio political analyst and TV reporter in “real” America outside the Capitol Beltway, my observations might be amusing, if not helpful. The honest truth is that I just like to write about politics!
BEYOND THE BELTWAY:
Did McCain Fumble in Pittsburgh?
The political blogosphere, the cable news shows, and now some of the mainstream print and broadcast media have picked up on parts of my KDKA-TV interview with John McCain last Wednesday at the Consol Energy Research facility in Pittsburgh. The essence of the story is, that in response to my questions, McCain recounted how he resisted physical torture (he calls it “pressure”) by the North Vietnamese to name his crewmates by reciting instead the names of the Steelers defensive line. Well, as many others have already pointed out, McCain’s original account of this story was that he named the Green Bay Packers, not the Steelers as he said to me. The McCain campaign says the senator just made a mistake in this Pittsburgh interview.
What Actually Happened?
As the political editor for KDKA-TV, I have wanted to do a sit-down interview with the Arizona senator for quite some time. During the PA Democratic primary, I had a number of one-on-one interviews with U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but the Republican candidate was not available to local media when he visited Pittsburgh in April. This trip in July was different. Working with McCain’s new press person for PA & Ohio, the campaign set aside 5 minutes for me, following the senator’s tour of the Consol research facility. [The day before I was able to cover McCain’s arrival and his ‘unannounced’ visit to Primanti’s, Pittsburgh’s famous sandwich shop, wherein he joked on camera with me that Primanti’s sandwiches, known for piling on French fries and sauerkraut along with meat between two slices of bread, was actually “low cal.” It was at Primanti’s, by the way, that McCain also joked about U.S. cigarette exports to Iran killing more Iranians].
As is typical of most campaigns, I was asked to be in place about a half-hour (at least) before the one-on-one interview. My photographer, Jeff Roupe, working with the photographer from WPXI-TV, another local station getting an interview, was actually there a couple hours ahead of time, setting up lights, positioning chairs, and testing microphones. And the campaign staff had their American flag properly positioned for the camera shot. At the last minute, we were told that Cindy McCain would also be joining the senator for the interview. The photographers quickly rearranged everything!
Now my approach to these presidential interviews, especially since time is so constrained, is to keep the focus very local. The national media, who have much better daily access to the candidates than the local media does, can query Obama and McCain about the great national and international issues. I want to ask about things that are important to western Pennsylvanians, and I never ever have sufficient time to do even that.
In preparing my questions, I decided to ask McCain the same first question I asked both Obama and Clinton in my initial sit-down interviews with them last March – when you think of Pittsburgh, what do you think of? It’s a good opening question, designed to get a quick honest answer. Not surprisingly, both Obama and McCain gave the same answer – the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now this, of course, is a popular answer in football-crazed western PA, but it is also very political. What is more interesting is what they say about the Steelers. In essence, the Illinois senator told me how he did not have a football team growing up in Hawaii so he adopted the Steelers as his own, and then he proceeded to name some of the great players from the Super Bowl team of the 1970s. You can check out Obama’s answer on the KDKA-TV website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=39209@kdka.dayport.com. .
Senator McCain’s elaboration on his answer last Wednesday was even more surprising to me. Here is the text:
Jon Delano: “Senator, when you think of Pittsburgh, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”
Sen. McCain: “The Steelers. [Laughter]. I was a mediocre high school athlete, and I loved and adored sports, but the Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in the early years. When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressure, the physical pressures, that were on me, I named the starting lineup, the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.” [Laughter].
Jon Delano: “Did you really?”
Sen. McCain: “Years ago, yes.”
Jon Delano: “In your POW camp?”
Sen. McCain: “Yes, yes, indeed.”
Jon Delano: “Could you do it today?”
Sen. McCain: “No, unfortunately, I couldn’t. But I certainly could then.”
Knowing my time limitations, I segued from this Steelers talk to ask McCain about Dan Rooney and the Steelers ownership issue, a very big front page news story in Pittsburgh, and then quickly moved on to more substantive local issues (i.e., does the senator, as a millionaire, feel the pain of average Pennsylvanians in this difficult economy – I had asked Obama the same question two weeks ago – and the use of PA coal to give us energy independence, along with the standard political questions about his chances in PA). You can watch my full interview with McCain on the KDKA-TV website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=43538@kdka.dayport.com.
The Aftermath:
At the moment McCain uttered his Steelers comment, I knew I had a story for one of our evening broadcasts – KDKA runs double the local news of the other two stations, from 4 pm to 7 pm – and I also knew McCain’s comments on the Rooneys added to its value. Smart politicians – and McCain is smart – know that framing an answer to a local audience is a guaranteed way of getting coverage.
Driving back to station after the interview, Jeff and I, along with my summer intern, reviewed what we recalled from the interview. I must admit that each of us, upon reflection, was puzzled by McCain’s comments because we all knew that the “Steel Curtain” of Super Bowl fame was a 1970s phenomenom. Did McCain really know the Steelers team during the earlier years when he was imprisoned? While I could name Greene, Greenwood, White, Holmes, and many other Steelers from the championship years, don’t ask me about those earlier teams. To be honest, we were not exactly sure when McCain was shot down either. Could McCain be making this stuff up about the Steelers?
Back at the station, after learning exactly when McCain was captured (October 26, 1967), our executive producer had the same reaction that something seemed peculiar. But none of us knew about the Green Bay Packers’ story, so the piece ran without comment, but carefully noted exactly when McCain was held captive so folks could draw their own conclusions. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=43555@kdka.dayport.com. By the next day, we all were aware that McCain’s autobiography contradicted his statements in Pittsburgh. In his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, he named the Green Bay Packers as the team he recited to his captors. Of course, Thursday evening we reported that, along with the McCain campaign’s view that this was simply a mistake. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=43612@kdka.dayport.com.
Since then, the story seems to have had a life of its own. I was surprised to open Saturday’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette to find the story on the front page, and I gather it has been picked up coast-to-coast in print and broadcast. Google “McCain Steelers” and you’ll get the drift.
Much Ado About Nothing?
Is this all much ado about nothing? Maybe and maybe not. Either John McCain deliberately lied to me in order to maximize local television coverage in a critical swing state, or he simply made a mistake, for whatever reason, confusing the Steelers with the Packers, perhaps because he had, just moments earlier, been presented with a special Steelers jersey and obviously had the Steelers on his mind.
I was there, and I have reviewed the original tape. I simply do not think that McCain was engaged in some deliberate, deceptive, or manipulative attempt to deceive western Pennsylvanians. Nothing about his demeanor in that portion of the interview appears calculating. Moreover, it would have been profoundly stupid to lie about something that he apparently not only wrote about in his autobiography but has also repeated orally. Whatever else the partisans may think about McCain, he is not stupid. Personally, I believe he made a mistake.
Why he made that mistake, we can only guess. I do think the jersey presentation might be part of it, but I think it was an innocent slip, nothing more. His political opponents, of course, have every right to characterize this as something more – and you know they will.
The larger question is: what impact, if any, will this have on the November election in Pennsylvania? In that regard, it may have some minor effect, but nothing fatal. True, everyone in Steelers country will know John McCain confused the Steelers and the Packers. Even if it’s an innocent mistake, it gets attention at the water cooler. McCain’s detractors will characterize this as some deliberate lie, or perhaps (almost as bad) the failings of an elderly man, but I’m not sure that will sell, at least not unless a pattern of similar behavior emerges that the public perceives. This is similar to the effort to portray Obama as a flip-flopper because he occasionally minces his words.
In the end, Pennsylvanians care a whole lot more about jobs and the economy, energy prices, health care, and the war in Iraq than they do about a slip of the tongue by either McCain or Obama.
PENNSYLVANIA
Corbett Makes His Move:
State politicians have been waiting months for Attorney General Tom Corbett to announce the results of secret grand jury investigations into what has been dubbed Bonusgate. On Thursday afternoon, Corbett, a Republican running for reelection this year and likely to run for governor in 2010, announced charges against twelve individuals, including one former high-ranking House legislator, one incumbent legislator, and ten legislative staffers and former staffers – all Democrats.
Former state Rep. Mike Veon, a Beaver County legislator defeated in 2006, was a prime target. After all, Veon was the second-ranking Democrat in the state House of Representatives. Corbett accused Veon and Mike Manzo, former chief of staff to current Democratic Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, of engineering a scheme to reward with taxpayer dollars (bonuses) those legislative staffers who worked on political campaigns or in other political efforts, like keeping presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2006. Corbett also claimed that a variety of political efforts, including fund-raising and opposition research, were run out of Veon’s government offices. Manzo is also charged with maintaining a ghost employee in Pittsburgh who engaged in sex with Manzo but did no legislative work for her government paycheck.
The allegations are very serious, and, if proved, could cost the defendants both massive fines and time in jail. I have known Corbett for two decades, and I have great respect for his legal skills. He says the investigations are on-going and that Republican legislators, who also handed out bonuses although not at the dollar level as the Democrats, are also targets. Time will tell.
Whither Bill DeWeese:
The most obvious remaining Democratic target is House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, the loquacious former Marine from Greene County for whom Manzo worked. In an exclusive TV interview with me five months ago, DeWeese made it clear that, not only did he do nothing wrong and was betrayed (my words, not his) by his staffers, but he also does not expect to be charged because he himself did nothing illegal. He told me that, while he knew of traditional Christmas bonuses in the sixty to one hundred dollar range, he was as surprised as anyone to learn about the thousands of dollars of bonuses linked to campaign work. Once he knew of the scheme, he brought in outside legal counsel to review the documents, make recommendations about changes to Democratic procedures that would prevent a repeat, and then turn everything over to Corbett and cooperate fully with the grand jury. DeWeese also fired Manzo and several other senior employees.
Harrisburg insiders always believed that Veon ran the political show, so it’s more than conceivable DeWeese was not involved in Bonusgate. In my interview, he called himself the CEO of a 1,000-person operation who, like a true Marine, delegated responsibility to others in the chain. Still, some think that he must have known more than he lets on, and that Manzo may cut a deal with Corbett that brings down DeWeese. Who knows. If you want to watch my February interview with DeWeese, it’s on the KDKA website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=38563@kdka.dayport.com.
The Peculiar Case of Sean Ramaley:
The only incumbent legislator charged by Corbett last week was 33-year old state Rep. Sean Ramaley, often portrayed as one of the young reformers in the state House. The presentment against Ramaley was the biggest surprise of the day, and the one that some Harrisburg insiders think smells the most of politics. Why? Because Ramaley is the Democratic nominee for state Senate in Beaver County (and a small part of Allegheny & Lawrence Counties), an open seat because of the retirement of the incumbent state senator. The district is three-to-two Democratic, and Ramaley was the odds-on favorite to win in November. The Republican candidate is Elder Vogel.
What brought Ramaley to Corbett’s attention was apparently his connection to Veon. In 2004, Ramaley, who is a lawyer and whose wife is an assistant district attorney in Allegheny County, left his job with the U.S. Department of Labor to run for state House in an open contest. After Ramaley won the Democratic nomination, Corbett says Veon hired Ramaley for a part-time job in his Beaver Falls office, working four hours a day. Nothing wrong with that except, says Corbett, Ramaley did nothing for his legislative paycheck. Instead, Corbett accuses Ramaley of campaigning on government time and using Veon’s office equipment for campaign work. Through his attorney, Ramaley denies all the charges.
Has anyone ever met a politician who does not campaign, or politick, on government time? As long as Ramaley did something “governmental” for his weekly paycheck, that charge will be hard to sustain against him. The more difficult count for Ramaley involves using taxpayer equipment and facilities for campaign purposes. While political old-timers reading this PSF will say that, too, was standard operating procedure in the old days, the law does not permit that today, either in Washington or Harrisburg. In the 21st century, smart politicians separate their campaign staff and resources from their governmental ones. If Veon did not, and Ramaley took advantage of that, the AG’s office has a case to take to the jury.
The political challenge for Ramaley and his fellow Dems is that he is on the ballot for state Senate this November. Innocent until proved guilty, he has the right to stay on the ballot, and nobody believes this will go to trial before the election. While some local Dems think Ramaley should step down, allowing Democratic committee people to pick a new nominee, others are not sure this is fair to Ramaley, who obviously believes he did nothing wrong. The decision is solely Ramaley’s, and there’s no indication of what he will do.
Could Corbett Aim Higher?
Besides looking at whether Majority Leader Bill DeWeese violated the law, there’s buzz that Corbett may be looking at whether the Nader petition battle leads to other officials at the highest level of state government. In 2004, Ralph Nader sought to run as an independent candidate for president against Republican George Bush and Democrat John Kerry. That year, Pennsylvania required such candidates to submit petitions signed by 25,697 registered voters in order to get placed on the ballot. Nader submitted 51,273 signatures. But after his petitions were challenged, the Commonwealth Court found that nearly two-thirds of Nader’s signatures were either invalid or fraudulent.
Writing for the Court, President Judge James Colins was scathing. “I am compelled to emphasize that this signature-gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court,” wrote Colins, saying Nader’s petitions “shocked the conscience” of the court.
Getting Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot was highest priority for Gov. Ed Rendell, the Kerry campaign, and the Democratic Party in 2004, and proving the fraud of Nader’s petitions was a massive undertaking. Polls showed a very tight race between Bush and Kerry with Nader hovering around 3 percent. In the end, with Nader off the ballot, Kerry squeaked out a win in Pennsylvania with 2.5 percent of the vote.
On Thursday, Corbett, who in 1988 was the Western PA campaign director for then Vice President George H. W. Bush and who, after Bush’s victory, became U.S. Attorney for Western PA, noted that at least 50 House Democratic caucus employees were engaged in reviewing the Nader petitions on government time. In his press statement, Corbett said the grand jury found that these employees contributed “a staggering number of man-hours.” Did the order to use Democratic staffers in this effort come from someone other than Veon? Well, as Corbett says, the investigation is on-going.
Upcoming Congressional Battles:
In 2006, Pennsylvania was one of those key states that helped deliver the Congress to the Democrats. Besides Bob Casey’s win over Rick Santorum for the U.S. Senate, four incumbent Republican members of the House lost reelection here in PA to Democratic challengers. In 2008, Democrats hope to add to those numbers, while Republicans think they have a shot at regaining a couple seats.
Back to reclaim her old seat is former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, a Republican from Allegheny County who lost to now U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire by about 9,800 votes. The 4th C.D. is one of those swing districts in Southwestern PA that voted for Bush in 2004, Lynn Swann (for governor) and Bob Casey (for senator) in 2006. Hart thinks she lost because the public mood was sour against incumbents (it was) and she did not react quickly enough against attacks that linked her to Bush and Santorum (that’s true, too). In the rematch, Altmire has a tremendous advantage in money and has been visible, especially on veterans issues. At the moment, this is Altmire’s to lose, and nobody I talk to really thinks he will. But if anyone can make a race of this, it’s Melissa Hart.
In Delaware County, many think U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, should keep the 7th C.D. in Democratic hands. Sestak defeated former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon by a whopping 33,000 votes two years ago. This year he is opposed by Republican Craig Williams, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, who served in the Marines during the Gulf War and returned to serve as legal counsel to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the current Iraq War. Williams’ background is impressive, but nobody knows him – yet.
Not far away in the 8th C.D. in Bucks County, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick by 1,500 votes, may have a tougher time holding onto his seat. The Republican is Tom Manion, a retired Johnson & Johnson executive whose son was killed in Iraq. Murphy himself is the only Iraq war veteran serving in Congress, and has done well in the fund-raising department. But this is a competitive district, and Republicans think Murphy can be beaten.
The fourth Democratic winner of ’06 who faces a challenge in ’08 is U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, a Democrat who defeated the morally challenged U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood by 12,000 votes in the 10th C.D. in northeast-central PA that should never elect a Democrat. This year the G.O.P. aims to prove that with its candidate, Chris Hackett, that the Carney win was a fluke because of Sherwood’s escapades with a mistress. Hackett, a wealthy entrepreneur who loaned his primary campaign some $800,000, narrowly won his G.O.P. primary but has the personal resources – and the voter registration edge – to make this competitive.
While freshman Democrats Altmire, Carney, Murphy, and Sestak have to defend their seats against Republican challengers, the Dems think they can actually pick up a couple more seats in PA. In the 3rd C.D. that stretches from Erie down into the suburbs of Pittsburgh, U.S. Rep. Phil English faces Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper, a newcomer to politics who heads up the Lake Erie Arboretum. English, who is generally regarded as one of the most moderate of PA Republicans, has breezed to victory in years past, but Dems think Dahlkemper can pull an upset. Like most of these races, much will depend on how much money she can raise to get herself better known.
Another perennial Dem target is U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican who represents parts of three SW PA counties in the 18th C.D., including many of the southern and eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. This year Murphy’s challenger is local businessman Steve O’Donnell who won a three-way primary in April. O’Donnell may have some personal money, but most think Murphy is going to be very tough to defeat even if he continues to have some alleged ethical issues. Murphy has been accused by some former staffers of requiring them to campaign on government time – sound familiar? – and the House Ethics Committee and the local FBI are reportedly looking into this. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=21611@kdka.dayport.com. Now this stuff was out shortly before the 2006 election and did not hurt Murphy at that time. Whether O’Donnell can make more of it this year remains to be seen. Most analysts I know think the hard-working Murphy is likely to get reelected, but O’Donnell has the potential to make this close.
While the Dems target two more incumbent Republicans, the G.O.P. thinks it has a good shot at another Dem incumbent, U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski. Kanjorski has represented the north-central 11th C.D. for years, and his challenger this year is a familiar one, Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta. Six years ago, Barletta lost to Kanjorski by 22,000 votes. But since then the mayor has become an iconic political figure because of his anti-immigrant stance, including a ban on illegals working in his city. The court later struck down Barletta’s ordinance, but he would appear to be stronger today than in 2002. One problem for the G.O.P. Kanjorski is an incredibly strong fund-raiser. At the end of the first quarter, Kanjorski already had $1.8 million in cash on hand.
While Pennsylvania could provide some pick-up for the G.O.P., the more likely scenario is status quo. That means the Dems also fail in their effort to unseat G.O.P. incumbents. Of course, it’s early, and I reserve the right to revise and extend as we get closer to Labor Day.
There’s always a lot more to write about, but this is long enough for the moment. Please feel free to leave your comments on these or any other topics. In the meantime, let’s hope this coming week is just a little less politically consequential than the one just past.
Last week was certainly a fascinating political week where political news – local, state, and national -- seemed to pile up on itself, and much of it involved Pittsburgh. So much for the summer doldrums. For me personally, last week week was a hectic week with one-on-one interviews with Republican presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John McCain during his visit to Pittsburgh wherein he confused the Pittsburgh Steelers with the Green Bay Packers and with Steelers chairman Dan Rooney on the future of the beloved local football team, followed by a trip to Harrisburg to cover the financial rescue plan of Don Barden’s North Shore casino (still under construction) by Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm on the very same day that state Attorney General Tom Corbett charged 12 past and present Democratic officials and staffers with multiple felonies for using state tax dollars to reward employees for political campaign work. And let’s not forget a Westmoreland County jury acquitting state Sen. Bob Regola of perjury charges over the death of his next door neighbor’s 14-year old with a loaded handgun of Regola’s. Wow! Catch your breath.
We’ve got a lot of issues to cover in this edition of my PSF e-newsletter. As always, I welcome your off-the-record comments, or if you want to post something publicly, go to my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com. As always, if you prefer not to receive this occasional email, feel free to use the unsubscribe key below. I really hate to lose you, but I don’t want to be anyone’s spam! As regular PSF’ers know, I write this freebie out of love on the dubious assumption that after 14 years on Capitol Hill as chief of staff to a PA congressman and now nearly 14 years on the “other” side as a television/radio political analyst and TV reporter in “real” America outside the Capitol Beltway, my observations might be amusing, if not helpful. The honest truth is that I just like to write about politics!
BEYOND THE BELTWAY:
Did McCain Fumble in Pittsburgh?
The political blogosphere, the cable news shows, and now some of the mainstream print and broadcast media have picked up on parts of my KDKA-TV interview with John McCain last Wednesday at the Consol Energy Research facility in Pittsburgh. The essence of the story is, that in response to my questions, McCain recounted how he resisted physical torture (he calls it “pressure”) by the North Vietnamese to name his crewmates by reciting instead the names of the Steelers defensive line. Well, as many others have already pointed out, McCain’s original account of this story was that he named the Green Bay Packers, not the Steelers as he said to me. The McCain campaign says the senator just made a mistake in this Pittsburgh interview.
What Actually Happened?
As the political editor for KDKA-TV, I have wanted to do a sit-down interview with the Arizona senator for quite some time. During the PA Democratic primary, I had a number of one-on-one interviews with U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but the Republican candidate was not available to local media when he visited Pittsburgh in April. This trip in July was different. Working with McCain’s new press person for PA & Ohio, the campaign set aside 5 minutes for me, following the senator’s tour of the Consol research facility. [The day before I was able to cover McCain’s arrival and his ‘unannounced’ visit to Primanti’s, Pittsburgh’s famous sandwich shop, wherein he joked on camera with me that Primanti’s sandwiches, known for piling on French fries and sauerkraut along with meat between two slices of bread, was actually “low cal.” It was at Primanti’s, by the way, that McCain also joked about U.S. cigarette exports to Iran killing more Iranians].
As is typical of most campaigns, I was asked to be in place about a half-hour (at least) before the one-on-one interview. My photographer, Jeff Roupe, working with the photographer from WPXI-TV, another local station getting an interview, was actually there a couple hours ahead of time, setting up lights, positioning chairs, and testing microphones. And the campaign staff had their American flag properly positioned for the camera shot. At the last minute, we were told that Cindy McCain would also be joining the senator for the interview. The photographers quickly rearranged everything!
Now my approach to these presidential interviews, especially since time is so constrained, is to keep the focus very local. The national media, who have much better daily access to the candidates than the local media does, can query Obama and McCain about the great national and international issues. I want to ask about things that are important to western Pennsylvanians, and I never ever have sufficient time to do even that.
In preparing my questions, I decided to ask McCain the same first question I asked both Obama and Clinton in my initial sit-down interviews with them last March – when you think of Pittsburgh, what do you think of? It’s a good opening question, designed to get a quick honest answer. Not surprisingly, both Obama and McCain gave the same answer – the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now this, of course, is a popular answer in football-crazed western PA, but it is also very political. What is more interesting is what they say about the Steelers. In essence, the Illinois senator told me how he did not have a football team growing up in Hawaii so he adopted the Steelers as his own, and then he proceeded to name some of the great players from the Super Bowl team of the 1970s. You can check out Obama’s answer on the KDKA-TV website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=39209@kdka.dayport.com. .
Senator McCain’s elaboration on his answer last Wednesday was even more surprising to me. Here is the text:
Jon Delano: “Senator, when you think of Pittsburgh, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”
Sen. McCain: “The Steelers. [Laughter]. I was a mediocre high school athlete, and I loved and adored sports, but the Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in the early years. When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressure, the physical pressures, that were on me, I named the starting lineup, the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.” [Laughter].
Jon Delano: “Did you really?”
Sen. McCain: “Years ago, yes.”
Jon Delano: “In your POW camp?”
Sen. McCain: “Yes, yes, indeed.”
Jon Delano: “Could you do it today?”
Sen. McCain: “No, unfortunately, I couldn’t. But I certainly could then.”
Knowing my time limitations, I segued from this Steelers talk to ask McCain about Dan Rooney and the Steelers ownership issue, a very big front page news story in Pittsburgh, and then quickly moved on to more substantive local issues (i.e., does the senator, as a millionaire, feel the pain of average Pennsylvanians in this difficult economy – I had asked Obama the same question two weeks ago – and the use of PA coal to give us energy independence, along with the standard political questions about his chances in PA). You can watch my full interview with McCain on the KDKA-TV website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=43538@kdka.dayport.com.
The Aftermath:
At the moment McCain uttered his Steelers comment, I knew I had a story for one of our evening broadcasts – KDKA runs double the local news of the other two stations, from 4 pm to 7 pm – and I also knew McCain’s comments on the Rooneys added to its value. Smart politicians – and McCain is smart – know that framing an answer to a local audience is a guaranteed way of getting coverage.
Driving back to station after the interview, Jeff and I, along with my summer intern, reviewed what we recalled from the interview. I must admit that each of us, upon reflection, was puzzled by McCain’s comments because we all knew that the “Steel Curtain” of Super Bowl fame was a 1970s phenomenom. Did McCain really know the Steelers team during the earlier years when he was imprisoned? While I could name Greene, Greenwood, White, Holmes, and many other Steelers from the championship years, don’t ask me about those earlier teams. To be honest, we were not exactly sure when McCain was shot down either. Could McCain be making this stuff up about the Steelers?
Back at the station, after learning exactly when McCain was captured (October 26, 1967), our executive producer had the same reaction that something seemed peculiar. But none of us knew about the Green Bay Packers’ story, so the piece ran without comment, but carefully noted exactly when McCain was held captive so folks could draw their own conclusions. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=43555@kdka.dayport.com. By the next day, we all were aware that McCain’s autobiography contradicted his statements in Pittsburgh. In his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers, he named the Green Bay Packers as the team he recited to his captors. Of course, Thursday evening we reported that, along with the McCain campaign’s view that this was simply a mistake. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=43612@kdka.dayport.com.
Since then, the story seems to have had a life of its own. I was surprised to open Saturday’s Pittsburgh Post Gazette to find the story on the front page, and I gather it has been picked up coast-to-coast in print and broadcast. Google “McCain Steelers” and you’ll get the drift.
Much Ado About Nothing?
Is this all much ado about nothing? Maybe and maybe not. Either John McCain deliberately lied to me in order to maximize local television coverage in a critical swing state, or he simply made a mistake, for whatever reason, confusing the Steelers with the Packers, perhaps because he had, just moments earlier, been presented with a special Steelers jersey and obviously had the Steelers on his mind.
I was there, and I have reviewed the original tape. I simply do not think that McCain was engaged in some deliberate, deceptive, or manipulative attempt to deceive western Pennsylvanians. Nothing about his demeanor in that portion of the interview appears calculating. Moreover, it would have been profoundly stupid to lie about something that he apparently not only wrote about in his autobiography but has also repeated orally. Whatever else the partisans may think about McCain, he is not stupid. Personally, I believe he made a mistake.
Why he made that mistake, we can only guess. I do think the jersey presentation might be part of it, but I think it was an innocent slip, nothing more. His political opponents, of course, have every right to characterize this as something more – and you know they will.
The larger question is: what impact, if any, will this have on the November election in Pennsylvania? In that regard, it may have some minor effect, but nothing fatal. True, everyone in Steelers country will know John McCain confused the Steelers and the Packers. Even if it’s an innocent mistake, it gets attention at the water cooler. McCain’s detractors will characterize this as some deliberate lie, or perhaps (almost as bad) the failings of an elderly man, but I’m not sure that will sell, at least not unless a pattern of similar behavior emerges that the public perceives. This is similar to the effort to portray Obama as a flip-flopper because he occasionally minces his words.
In the end, Pennsylvanians care a whole lot more about jobs and the economy, energy prices, health care, and the war in Iraq than they do about a slip of the tongue by either McCain or Obama.
PENNSYLVANIA
Corbett Makes His Move:
State politicians have been waiting months for Attorney General Tom Corbett to announce the results of secret grand jury investigations into what has been dubbed Bonusgate. On Thursday afternoon, Corbett, a Republican running for reelection this year and likely to run for governor in 2010, announced charges against twelve individuals, including one former high-ranking House legislator, one incumbent legislator, and ten legislative staffers and former staffers – all Democrats.
Former state Rep. Mike Veon, a Beaver County legislator defeated in 2006, was a prime target. After all, Veon was the second-ranking Democrat in the state House of Representatives. Corbett accused Veon and Mike Manzo, former chief of staff to current Democratic Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, of engineering a scheme to reward with taxpayer dollars (bonuses) those legislative staffers who worked on political campaigns or in other political efforts, like keeping presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the ballot in 2006. Corbett also claimed that a variety of political efforts, including fund-raising and opposition research, were run out of Veon’s government offices. Manzo is also charged with maintaining a ghost employee in Pittsburgh who engaged in sex with Manzo but did no legislative work for her government paycheck.
The allegations are very serious, and, if proved, could cost the defendants both massive fines and time in jail. I have known Corbett for two decades, and I have great respect for his legal skills. He says the investigations are on-going and that Republican legislators, who also handed out bonuses although not at the dollar level as the Democrats, are also targets. Time will tell.
Whither Bill DeWeese:
The most obvious remaining Democratic target is House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, the loquacious former Marine from Greene County for whom Manzo worked. In an exclusive TV interview with me five months ago, DeWeese made it clear that, not only did he do nothing wrong and was betrayed (my words, not his) by his staffers, but he also does not expect to be charged because he himself did nothing illegal. He told me that, while he knew of traditional Christmas bonuses in the sixty to one hundred dollar range, he was as surprised as anyone to learn about the thousands of dollars of bonuses linked to campaign work. Once he knew of the scheme, he brought in outside legal counsel to review the documents, make recommendations about changes to Democratic procedures that would prevent a repeat, and then turn everything over to Corbett and cooperate fully with the grand jury. DeWeese also fired Manzo and several other senior employees.
Harrisburg insiders always believed that Veon ran the political show, so it’s more than conceivable DeWeese was not involved in Bonusgate. In my interview, he called himself the CEO of a 1,000-person operation who, like a true Marine, delegated responsibility to others in the chain. Still, some think that he must have known more than he lets on, and that Manzo may cut a deal with Corbett that brings down DeWeese. Who knows. If you want to watch my February interview with DeWeese, it’s on the KDKA website at http://kdka.com/video/?id=38563@kdka.dayport.com.
The Peculiar Case of Sean Ramaley:
The only incumbent legislator charged by Corbett last week was 33-year old state Rep. Sean Ramaley, often portrayed as one of the young reformers in the state House. The presentment against Ramaley was the biggest surprise of the day, and the one that some Harrisburg insiders think smells the most of politics. Why? Because Ramaley is the Democratic nominee for state Senate in Beaver County (and a small part of Allegheny & Lawrence Counties), an open seat because of the retirement of the incumbent state senator. The district is three-to-two Democratic, and Ramaley was the odds-on favorite to win in November. The Republican candidate is Elder Vogel.
What brought Ramaley to Corbett’s attention was apparently his connection to Veon. In 2004, Ramaley, who is a lawyer and whose wife is an assistant district attorney in Allegheny County, left his job with the U.S. Department of Labor to run for state House in an open contest. After Ramaley won the Democratic nomination, Corbett says Veon hired Ramaley for a part-time job in his Beaver Falls office, working four hours a day. Nothing wrong with that except, says Corbett, Ramaley did nothing for his legislative paycheck. Instead, Corbett accuses Ramaley of campaigning on government time and using Veon’s office equipment for campaign work. Through his attorney, Ramaley denies all the charges.
Has anyone ever met a politician who does not campaign, or politick, on government time? As long as Ramaley did something “governmental” for his weekly paycheck, that charge will be hard to sustain against him. The more difficult count for Ramaley involves using taxpayer equipment and facilities for campaign purposes. While political old-timers reading this PSF will say that, too, was standard operating procedure in the old days, the law does not permit that today, either in Washington or Harrisburg. In the 21st century, smart politicians separate their campaign staff and resources from their governmental ones. If Veon did not, and Ramaley took advantage of that, the AG’s office has a case to take to the jury.
The political challenge for Ramaley and his fellow Dems is that he is on the ballot for state Senate this November. Innocent until proved guilty, he has the right to stay on the ballot, and nobody believes this will go to trial before the election. While some local Dems think Ramaley should step down, allowing Democratic committee people to pick a new nominee, others are not sure this is fair to Ramaley, who obviously believes he did nothing wrong. The decision is solely Ramaley’s, and there’s no indication of what he will do.
Could Corbett Aim Higher?
Besides looking at whether Majority Leader Bill DeWeese violated the law, there’s buzz that Corbett may be looking at whether the Nader petition battle leads to other officials at the highest level of state government. In 2004, Ralph Nader sought to run as an independent candidate for president against Republican George Bush and Democrat John Kerry. That year, Pennsylvania required such candidates to submit petitions signed by 25,697 registered voters in order to get placed on the ballot. Nader submitted 51,273 signatures. But after his petitions were challenged, the Commonwealth Court found that nearly two-thirds of Nader’s signatures were either invalid or fraudulent.
Writing for the Court, President Judge James Colins was scathing. “I am compelled to emphasize that this signature-gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court,” wrote Colins, saying Nader’s petitions “shocked the conscience” of the court.
Getting Nader off the Pennsylvania ballot was highest priority for Gov. Ed Rendell, the Kerry campaign, and the Democratic Party in 2004, and proving the fraud of Nader’s petitions was a massive undertaking. Polls showed a very tight race between Bush and Kerry with Nader hovering around 3 percent. In the end, with Nader off the ballot, Kerry squeaked out a win in Pennsylvania with 2.5 percent of the vote.
On Thursday, Corbett, who in 1988 was the Western PA campaign director for then Vice President George H. W. Bush and who, after Bush’s victory, became U.S. Attorney for Western PA, noted that at least 50 House Democratic caucus employees were engaged in reviewing the Nader petitions on government time. In his press statement, Corbett said the grand jury found that these employees contributed “a staggering number of man-hours.” Did the order to use Democratic staffers in this effort come from someone other than Veon? Well, as Corbett says, the investigation is on-going.
Upcoming Congressional Battles:
In 2006, Pennsylvania was one of those key states that helped deliver the Congress to the Democrats. Besides Bob Casey’s win over Rick Santorum for the U.S. Senate, four incumbent Republican members of the House lost reelection here in PA to Democratic challengers. In 2008, Democrats hope to add to those numbers, while Republicans think they have a shot at regaining a couple seats.
Back to reclaim her old seat is former U.S. Rep. Melissa Hart, a Republican from Allegheny County who lost to now U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire by about 9,800 votes. The 4th C.D. is one of those swing districts in Southwestern PA that voted for Bush in 2004, Lynn Swann (for governor) and Bob Casey (for senator) in 2006. Hart thinks she lost because the public mood was sour against incumbents (it was) and she did not react quickly enough against attacks that linked her to Bush and Santorum (that’s true, too). In the rematch, Altmire has a tremendous advantage in money and has been visible, especially on veterans issues. At the moment, this is Altmire’s to lose, and nobody I talk to really thinks he will. But if anyone can make a race of this, it’s Melissa Hart.
In Delaware County, many think U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, should keep the 7th C.D. in Democratic hands. Sestak defeated former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon by a whopping 33,000 votes two years ago. This year he is opposed by Republican Craig Williams, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, who served in the Marines during the Gulf War and returned to serve as legal counsel to the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the current Iraq War. Williams’ background is impressive, but nobody knows him – yet.
Not far away in the 8th C.D. in Bucks County, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who narrowly defeated U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick by 1,500 votes, may have a tougher time holding onto his seat. The Republican is Tom Manion, a retired Johnson & Johnson executive whose son was killed in Iraq. Murphy himself is the only Iraq war veteran serving in Congress, and has done well in the fund-raising department. But this is a competitive district, and Republicans think Murphy can be beaten.
The fourth Democratic winner of ’06 who faces a challenge in ’08 is U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, a Democrat who defeated the morally challenged U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood by 12,000 votes in the 10th C.D. in northeast-central PA that should never elect a Democrat. This year the G.O.P. aims to prove that with its candidate, Chris Hackett, that the Carney win was a fluke because of Sherwood’s escapades with a mistress. Hackett, a wealthy entrepreneur who loaned his primary campaign some $800,000, narrowly won his G.O.P. primary but has the personal resources – and the voter registration edge – to make this competitive.
While freshman Democrats Altmire, Carney, Murphy, and Sestak have to defend their seats against Republican challengers, the Dems think they can actually pick up a couple more seats in PA. In the 3rd C.D. that stretches from Erie down into the suburbs of Pittsburgh, U.S. Rep. Phil English faces Democrat Kathy Dahlkemper, a newcomer to politics who heads up the Lake Erie Arboretum. English, who is generally regarded as one of the most moderate of PA Republicans, has breezed to victory in years past, but Dems think Dahlkemper can pull an upset. Like most of these races, much will depend on how much money she can raise to get herself better known.
Another perennial Dem target is U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican who represents parts of three SW PA counties in the 18th C.D., including many of the southern and eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. This year Murphy’s challenger is local businessman Steve O’Donnell who won a three-way primary in April. O’Donnell may have some personal money, but most think Murphy is going to be very tough to defeat even if he continues to have some alleged ethical issues. Murphy has been accused by some former staffers of requiring them to campaign on government time – sound familiar? – and the House Ethics Committee and the local FBI are reportedly looking into this. See http://kdka.com/video/?id=21611@kdka.dayport.com. Now this stuff was out shortly before the 2006 election and did not hurt Murphy at that time. Whether O’Donnell can make more of it this year remains to be seen. Most analysts I know think the hard-working Murphy is likely to get reelected, but O’Donnell has the potential to make this close.
While the Dems target two more incumbent Republicans, the G.O.P. thinks it has a good shot at another Dem incumbent, U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski. Kanjorski has represented the north-central 11th C.D. for years, and his challenger this year is a familiar one, Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta. Six years ago, Barletta lost to Kanjorski by 22,000 votes. But since then the mayor has become an iconic political figure because of his anti-immigrant stance, including a ban on illegals working in his city. The court later struck down Barletta’s ordinance, but he would appear to be stronger today than in 2002. One problem for the G.O.P. Kanjorski is an incredibly strong fund-raiser. At the end of the first quarter, Kanjorski already had $1.8 million in cash on hand.
While Pennsylvania could provide some pick-up for the G.O.P., the more likely scenario is status quo. That means the Dems also fail in their effort to unseat G.O.P. incumbents. Of course, it’s early, and I reserve the right to revise and extend as we get closer to Labor Day.
There’s always a lot more to write about, but this is long enough for the moment. Please feel free to leave your comments on these or any other topics. In the meantime, let’s hope this coming week is just a little less politically consequential than the one just past.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Political Independence Day
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Happy Independence Day! In a political year of so many firsts, it’s easy to forget how novel this whole experiment in American democracy was 238 years ago when some wealthy white men met in Philadelphia to declare independence from an incompetent king and a despotic Parliament in Great Britain.
The notion that a colony could assert its own rights to elected representation and govern itself, separate and apart from its mother country, was mind-boggling at the time. The revolution of 1776, labeled by some historians a “conservative” revolution, clearly unleashed the “radical” belief among millions in the years that followed that political independence is a goal worth fighting – and dying – for. The killing of innocent Zimbabwe citizens by the Mugabe murder squads, when their only crime was a desire to exercise the basic democratic right to choose a new leader, demonstrates that the fight for democratic freedom begun in 1776 is still not won for many in 2008.
We should remember that as we proudly fly the flag on the Fourth of July, enjoy our family picnics, and ooh-and-aah to fireworks displays across the country.
Much has happened since my last PSF, so forgive a little bit of catch-up. As always, if you do not want to receive these political emails, just use the unsubscribe key. But I hope you will read on, and, more importantly, send me your personal comments, observations, and off-the-record opinions (and tips) about all things political. If you want to know more about me, see some of my recent TV stories, or post a public reaction, just log onto my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Summer of Our Discontent:
Nobody beyond the Washington Beltway is really happy about the direction of the country or the state of our economy these days. With four dollar a gallon gasoline, a stock market in rapid decline, a depressed housing market and growing foreclosures, and the rising costs of just about everything, family budgets are stretched beyond belief. Sometimes I wonder if the politicians in Washington really understand the pain.
In some of the latest polls in June, only 13% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) to 16% (Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll) of those polled think the country is heading in the “right” direction. Put another way, only 14% (both Gallup Poll and Newsweek Poll) are “satisfied” with the way things are going in this country. I can’t remember poll numbers this pessimistic.
While you have to wonder who these contented people really are, the fact is the vast, vast majority of Americans (76% to 84%) are unhappy about the state of the nation. And why not? It’s a rare family that has not seen its standard of living decline this year, as wages and salaries fail to keep even with rising costs. In short, Americans are in the dumps, both economically and emotionally.
Where is President Bush?
When it comes to dealing with the economy or addressing the energy crisis, President Bush is perceived by many Americans to be AWOL. Only 9% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) think Bush’s economic policies have left us better off today than we were before he took office in 2001. Some 75% say the Republican White House has made things worse.
With just six months left in office, the president is doing what many lame ducks do – escape Washington by traveling all over the world. But given how bad things are in this country and how indifferent he and his administration appear to be to problems that are stripping the value out of our wallets, it’s no surprise that his popularity is at all-time lows.
Every poll conducted in the last four weeks shows President Bush with job approvals ranging from 23% to 30%. His disapproval ranges from 64% to 73%. Unless something changes in the next few months, President Bush is likely to leave office as one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.
Parenthetically, some have suggested to me that George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. That’s a judgment better left to historians. Lots of presidents left office deeply unpopular (like Harry Truman), only to be resurrected years later. For Bush to be the worst president in history, he would have to beat such undistinguished predecessors as Millard Filmore, James Buchanan, and Chester Arthur. Another standard to consider is that only 16 presidents of 43 were reelected to a second term: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. Of those, three did not get to complete their second terms (Lincoln, McKinley, and Nixon). So credit President Bush with being in very rare presidential company. As for his legacy, that’s a column for later.
Where is the Congress?
The lack of presidential leadership on our major problems is matched by the seeming indifference emanating from both parties in the Congress. Only 13% to 19% in the four most recent polls (FOX/Opinion Dynamics, AP-Ipsos, Gallup, and Wall Street Journal/NBC) approve of the job Congress has done.
What’s there to approve? The partisan bickering has deadlocked the joint, and only on rare occasion (like the economic stimulus package) have both parties come together for action.
Having worked in that body for 14 years once upon a time, let me say that the Congress is inherently incapable of leadership, especially when there is little leadership out of a lame duck White House. With 535 politicians, often with separate agendas, it takes very strong House and Senate leaders to corral the troops, and I don’t see that leadership in either party right now.
It’s also unfair to blame only the Democrats who have a narrow majority in both houses right now. As a representative body, the rules allow the minority party, especially in the Senate, to block the majority’s agenda at almost every turn. The Republicans have done that, sometimes for good reasons, but it adds to the perception of inaction.
In a few months, voters will get the chance to rate the Congress by assessing their individual representative and (in some states) their senator. In early July, most pundits think the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate. If that happens, it’s not because the Democratic-controlled Congress accomplished much this last year. In truth, the public is blaming the Republicans, via unhappiness with President Bush, for the mess we’re in. Fair or not, when times are tough, the party in the White House almost always gets the blame.
The Race for the White House:
If you live in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, you are already being saturated with television ads from both John McCain and Barack Obama. People often ask me why the candidates don’t take a break this summer like they did in the old days. Well, truth is this election is up for grabs, and neither candidate can afford to let the other get a head start. So the public is doomed to a never-ending campaign on our TV screens.
With the mood so sour on President Bush, it’s a wonder that McCain is even in this race at all. But he is, in part because of his unusual background and in part because the nation is still uncertain about Obama.
Forget the national match-up polls. They are meaningless because we don’t elect presidents by popular vote [just ask Al Gore]. The presidential contest comes down to a state-by-state battle for electoral votes, and that’s what gives McCain hope that a Republican can win the White House this year.
I’ve seen one electoral college map that gives McCain 194 electoral votes to Obama’s 185, with 270 needed to win the White House. Thirteen states are up for grabs in this scenario. Another map, which allocates every state based on local opinion polls no matter how narrow the lead, gives Obama a whopping 317 votes, by awarding him states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states in which he currently leads by single digits within the margin of polling error.
Both campaigns are much too smart to think these early electoral college maps are predictive. Here’s my all-inclusive list of early-summer “battleground” states that will determine the next president: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Many of these 18 states may be lost to one candidate or the other by mid-September after both presidential conventions conclude. But in the meantime, watch Obama and McCain criss-cross the country with strategic stops in the states listed above.
Some Personal Reflections:
As PSF readers know, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidates over the years. I just had my third chance this year to sit down with Barack Obama when he was in Pittsburgh last week, and I’m looking forward to my first chance for a sit-down chat with John McCain in the near future [I have interviewed McCain in one of those media scrums, but that hardly counts for creating impressions].
As a journalist and political analyst (although one of those rare ones who worked on the government and campaign side before leaping to the dark side of media), I try hard to be scrupulously objective in these encounters. Generally, the campaign gives much less time than needed – I was given 5 minutes of air time with Obama that stretched to 6 minutes, 40 seconds, because of his answers – but you do form some judgments in both their demeanor before and after the interviews, as well as the way they answer your questions.
Obama is smart, politically astute, cordial, thoughtful, and careful in his answers. In this third interview, he acted like he remembered me (although that could be good staff work), but I’m not convinced that he does (unlike Hillary Clinton who spouted off things from our earlier off-camera conversations that evidenced she really did remember). I don’t fault the candidates for this, as they meet so many local journalists that one encounter probably seems like another.
Much more importantly, Obama’s answers to my questions were direct. In particular, I asked him about whether he could relate to the pain of average Americans (after all, he’s now a millionaire) which he answered (in my view) honestly, acknowledging that his circumstances today allow him to absorb the pain at the pump (unlike most of us) but stressing that he is not far removed from his days of struggle and reflecting that he is probably the closest to a “middle class” candidate for president in a long time.
You can watch my full interview with Obama, including his answers to my questions on presidential leadership, energy (especially clean coal technology), the Pennsylvania primary and upcoming contest here, and his plan to replace the White House bowling alley with a basketball court. Just click http://kdka.com/video/?id=43059@kdka.dayport.com. I’ll give equal time to McCain in my next PSF, after I sit down with him.
PENNSYLVANIA:
Up for Grabs:
Early in the PA primary season, I wrote that Obama could beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, if he did certain things, including camping out in western PA as per the Ed Rendell campaign playbook of 2002. Obama did not do this, and Clinton won the state by 9 percent. The western part of the state (indeed, almost all parts of the state outside Philadelphia) supported Clinton. While Obama won the city of Pittsburgh, he lost Allegheny County (where Pittsburgh is located) and was trounced in the neighboring southwestern counties that Democrats must win to carry the state. In Fayette County, for example, 79% of the Dems voted for Clinton over Obama.
Will these Democrats, even at Hillary’s urging, vote for Obama in November? To be absolutely honest, I don’t know. The most recent Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead by 4 points, 46 to 42. Considering that John Kerry only defeated George Bush by two points in Pennsylvania, it’s hard to consider the Keystone State as anything but a battleground in the months ahead.
What Obama has going for him is the economic mess that argues for change. Few people want a “third term” for George Bush, the very clever mantra Democratic pundits have used to frame John McCain. What he has going against him is that he is still not well known on a personal level and is subject to every suspicion and insinuation that his opponents can dredge up and that the conservative folks in this state could buy into.
And, yes, race will play a role, too. Gov. Rendell was excoriated by some when he suggested that an African American running for office in PA automatically loses five to seven percentage points because of race. Rendell cited his own campaign against former Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, an African American Republican. Whether the governor should have played political pundit is one thing, but Rendell was absolutely correct in his observation. Race does still matter to enough people that in a close election it can make a difference.
If Obama could beef up his PA schedule, so could McCain. McCain has spent even less time in PA than Obama. The Republican visited Pittsburgh just once during the primary, and is scheduled to make his first post-primary stop here next week. He did spend a day in the eastern part of the state last week, and I suspect we shall see a lot of both nominees in the months ahead.
History is pretty clear on the importance of Pennsylvania. The last Democrat to win the White House without PA was Harry Truman in 1948, and only two Republicans in U.S. history (beginning with Lincoln’s win here in 1860) have won the presidency without Pennsylvania – Richard Nixon and George Bush.
Statewide Contests Below the Surface:
Quickly now, can you name the candidates for State Treasurer? How about the challengers to state Attorney General Tom Corbett or Auditor General Jack Wagner? Surprise! Pennsylvanians will elect its three statewide row officers this year, positions that are often stepping stones to Governor and Senator.
Republican Corbett’s opponent for the state’s top legal job is Democrat John Morganelli, the district attorney of Northhampton County (back east in Allentown, PA). Democrat Wagner’s opponent for auditor general is Republican Chet Beiler of Lancaster County, a local businessman. So far, neither Morganelli nor Beiler have been particularly visible, while the incumbents do everything they can to say in the news.
The open seat for state Treasurer, the seat given up by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, features a race between two Philadelphians – Republican Tom Ellis, a former Montgomery County commissioner, and Democrat Rob McCord, a Montgomery County venture capitalist. McCord was much more visible in the primary because he had opponents, unlike Ellis, so perhaps has a slight leg up in this mostly invisible contest.
While there is so much other state and local political intrigue to opine on, I’m going to halt this here, asking my PSF’ers to give me the chance to pen something over the holiday weekend. If some events get rained out this weekend, I just might get Part II out on Monday! In the meantime, I hope you and your family have a terrific Fourth of July celebration. Despite our current travails, this is a great country because of the sacrifices of so many men and women. Few among us would want to live in any other nation, especially those for whom this kind of democratic debate would risk torture and death. The optimist in me knows that it won’t be long before America is back on a roll again.
Happy Independence Day! In a political year of so many firsts, it’s easy to forget how novel this whole experiment in American democracy was 238 years ago when some wealthy white men met in Philadelphia to declare independence from an incompetent king and a despotic Parliament in Great Britain.
The notion that a colony could assert its own rights to elected representation and govern itself, separate and apart from its mother country, was mind-boggling at the time. The revolution of 1776, labeled by some historians a “conservative” revolution, clearly unleashed the “radical” belief among millions in the years that followed that political independence is a goal worth fighting – and dying – for. The killing of innocent Zimbabwe citizens by the Mugabe murder squads, when their only crime was a desire to exercise the basic democratic right to choose a new leader, demonstrates that the fight for democratic freedom begun in 1776 is still not won for many in 2008.
We should remember that as we proudly fly the flag on the Fourth of July, enjoy our family picnics, and ooh-and-aah to fireworks displays across the country.
Much has happened since my last PSF, so forgive a little bit of catch-up. As always, if you do not want to receive these political emails, just use the unsubscribe key. But I hope you will read on, and, more importantly, send me your personal comments, observations, and off-the-record opinions (and tips) about all things political. If you want to know more about me, see some of my recent TV stories, or post a public reaction, just log onto my blog at www.delanosden.blogspot.com.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
The Summer of Our Discontent:
Nobody beyond the Washington Beltway is really happy about the direction of the country or the state of our economy these days. With four dollar a gallon gasoline, a stock market in rapid decline, a depressed housing market and growing foreclosures, and the rising costs of just about everything, family budgets are stretched beyond belief. Sometimes I wonder if the politicians in Washington really understand the pain.
In some of the latest polls in June, only 13% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) to 16% (Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll) of those polled think the country is heading in the “right” direction. Put another way, only 14% (both Gallup Poll and Newsweek Poll) are “satisfied” with the way things are going in this country. I can’t remember poll numbers this pessimistic.
While you have to wonder who these contented people really are, the fact is the vast, vast majority of Americans (76% to 84%) are unhappy about the state of the nation. And why not? It’s a rare family that has not seen its standard of living decline this year, as wages and salaries fail to keep even with rising costs. In short, Americans are in the dumps, both economically and emotionally.
Where is President Bush?
When it comes to dealing with the economy or addressing the energy crisis, President Bush is perceived by many Americans to be AWOL. Only 9% (LA Times/Bloomberg Poll) think Bush’s economic policies have left us better off today than we were before he took office in 2001. Some 75% say the Republican White House has made things worse.
With just six months left in office, the president is doing what many lame ducks do – escape Washington by traveling all over the world. But given how bad things are in this country and how indifferent he and his administration appear to be to problems that are stripping the value out of our wallets, it’s no surprise that his popularity is at all-time lows.
Every poll conducted in the last four weeks shows President Bush with job approvals ranging from 23% to 30%. His disapproval ranges from 64% to 73%. Unless something changes in the next few months, President Bush is likely to leave office as one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.
Parenthetically, some have suggested to me that George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. That’s a judgment better left to historians. Lots of presidents left office deeply unpopular (like Harry Truman), only to be resurrected years later. For Bush to be the worst president in history, he would have to beat such undistinguished predecessors as Millard Filmore, James Buchanan, and Chester Arthur. Another standard to consider is that only 16 presidents of 43 were reelected to a second term: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. Of those, three did not get to complete their second terms (Lincoln, McKinley, and Nixon). So credit President Bush with being in very rare presidential company. As for his legacy, that’s a column for later.
Where is the Congress?
The lack of presidential leadership on our major problems is matched by the seeming indifference emanating from both parties in the Congress. Only 13% to 19% in the four most recent polls (FOX/Opinion Dynamics, AP-Ipsos, Gallup, and Wall Street Journal/NBC) approve of the job Congress has done.
What’s there to approve? The partisan bickering has deadlocked the joint, and only on rare occasion (like the economic stimulus package) have both parties come together for action.
Having worked in that body for 14 years once upon a time, let me say that the Congress is inherently incapable of leadership, especially when there is little leadership out of a lame duck White House. With 535 politicians, often with separate agendas, it takes very strong House and Senate leaders to corral the troops, and I don’t see that leadership in either party right now.
It’s also unfair to blame only the Democrats who have a narrow majority in both houses right now. As a representative body, the rules allow the minority party, especially in the Senate, to block the majority’s agenda at almost every turn. The Republicans have done that, sometimes for good reasons, but it adds to the perception of inaction.
In a few months, voters will get the chance to rate the Congress by assessing their individual representative and (in some states) their senator. In early July, most pundits think the Democrats will pick up seats in both the House and Senate. If that happens, it’s not because the Democratic-controlled Congress accomplished much this last year. In truth, the public is blaming the Republicans, via unhappiness with President Bush, for the mess we’re in. Fair or not, when times are tough, the party in the White House almost always gets the blame.
The Race for the White House:
If you live in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, you are already being saturated with television ads from both John McCain and Barack Obama. People often ask me why the candidates don’t take a break this summer like they did in the old days. Well, truth is this election is up for grabs, and neither candidate can afford to let the other get a head start. So the public is doomed to a never-ending campaign on our TV screens.
With the mood so sour on President Bush, it’s a wonder that McCain is even in this race at all. But he is, in part because of his unusual background and in part because the nation is still uncertain about Obama.
Forget the national match-up polls. They are meaningless because we don’t elect presidents by popular vote [just ask Al Gore]. The presidential contest comes down to a state-by-state battle for electoral votes, and that’s what gives McCain hope that a Republican can win the White House this year.
I’ve seen one electoral college map that gives McCain 194 electoral votes to Obama’s 185, with 270 needed to win the White House. Thirteen states are up for grabs in this scenario. Another map, which allocates every state based on local opinion polls no matter how narrow the lead, gives Obama a whopping 317 votes, by awarding him states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states in which he currently leads by single digits within the margin of polling error.
Both campaigns are much too smart to think these early electoral college maps are predictive. Here’s my all-inclusive list of early-summer “battleground” states that will determine the next president: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Many of these 18 states may be lost to one candidate or the other by mid-September after both presidential conventions conclude. But in the meantime, watch Obama and McCain criss-cross the country with strategic stops in the states listed above.
Some Personal Reflections:
As PSF readers know, I’ve had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidates over the years. I just had my third chance this year to sit down with Barack Obama when he was in Pittsburgh last week, and I’m looking forward to my first chance for a sit-down chat with John McCain in the near future [I have interviewed McCain in one of those media scrums, but that hardly counts for creating impressions].
As a journalist and political analyst (although one of those rare ones who worked on the government and campaign side before leaping to the dark side of media), I try hard to be scrupulously objective in these encounters. Generally, the campaign gives much less time than needed – I was given 5 minutes of air time with Obama that stretched to 6 minutes, 40 seconds, because of his answers – but you do form some judgments in both their demeanor before and after the interviews, as well as the way they answer your questions.
Obama is smart, politically astute, cordial, thoughtful, and careful in his answers. In this third interview, he acted like he remembered me (although that could be good staff work), but I’m not convinced that he does (unlike Hillary Clinton who spouted off things from our earlier off-camera conversations that evidenced she really did remember). I don’t fault the candidates for this, as they meet so many local journalists that one encounter probably seems like another.
Much more importantly, Obama’s answers to my questions were direct. In particular, I asked him about whether he could relate to the pain of average Americans (after all, he’s now a millionaire) which he answered (in my view) honestly, acknowledging that his circumstances today allow him to absorb the pain at the pump (unlike most of us) but stressing that he is not far removed from his days of struggle and reflecting that he is probably the closest to a “middle class” candidate for president in a long time.
You can watch my full interview with Obama, including his answers to my questions on presidential leadership, energy (especially clean coal technology), the Pennsylvania primary and upcoming contest here, and his plan to replace the White House bowling alley with a basketball court. Just click http://kdka.com/video/?id=43059@kdka.dayport.com. I’ll give equal time to McCain in my next PSF, after I sit down with him.
PENNSYLVANIA:
Up for Grabs:
Early in the PA primary season, I wrote that Obama could beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, if he did certain things, including camping out in western PA as per the Ed Rendell campaign playbook of 2002. Obama did not do this, and Clinton won the state by 9 percent. The western part of the state (indeed, almost all parts of the state outside Philadelphia) supported Clinton. While Obama won the city of Pittsburgh, he lost Allegheny County (where Pittsburgh is located) and was trounced in the neighboring southwestern counties that Democrats must win to carry the state. In Fayette County, for example, 79% of the Dems voted for Clinton over Obama.
Will these Democrats, even at Hillary’s urging, vote for Obama in November? To be absolutely honest, I don’t know. The most recent Rasmussen poll has Obama ahead by 4 points, 46 to 42. Considering that John Kerry only defeated George Bush by two points in Pennsylvania, it’s hard to consider the Keystone State as anything but a battleground in the months ahead.
What Obama has going for him is the economic mess that argues for change. Few people want a “third term” for George Bush, the very clever mantra Democratic pundits have used to frame John McCain. What he has going against him is that he is still not well known on a personal level and is subject to every suspicion and insinuation that his opponents can dredge up and that the conservative folks in this state could buy into.
And, yes, race will play a role, too. Gov. Rendell was excoriated by some when he suggested that an African American running for office in PA automatically loses five to seven percentage points because of race. Rendell cited his own campaign against former Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann, an African American Republican. Whether the governor should have played political pundit is one thing, but Rendell was absolutely correct in his observation. Race does still matter to enough people that in a close election it can make a difference.
If Obama could beef up his PA schedule, so could McCain. McCain has spent even less time in PA than Obama. The Republican visited Pittsburgh just once during the primary, and is scheduled to make his first post-primary stop here next week. He did spend a day in the eastern part of the state last week, and I suspect we shall see a lot of both nominees in the months ahead.
History is pretty clear on the importance of Pennsylvania. The last Democrat to win the White House without PA was Harry Truman in 1948, and only two Republicans in U.S. history (beginning with Lincoln’s win here in 1860) have won the presidency without Pennsylvania – Richard Nixon and George Bush.
Statewide Contests Below the Surface:
Quickly now, can you name the candidates for State Treasurer? How about the challengers to state Attorney General Tom Corbett or Auditor General Jack Wagner? Surprise! Pennsylvanians will elect its three statewide row officers this year, positions that are often stepping stones to Governor and Senator.
Republican Corbett’s opponent for the state’s top legal job is Democrat John Morganelli, the district attorney of Northhampton County (back east in Allentown, PA). Democrat Wagner’s opponent for auditor general is Republican Chet Beiler of Lancaster County, a local businessman. So far, neither Morganelli nor Beiler have been particularly visible, while the incumbents do everything they can to say in the news.
The open seat for state Treasurer, the seat given up by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, features a race between two Philadelphians – Republican Tom Ellis, a former Montgomery County commissioner, and Democrat Rob McCord, a Montgomery County venture capitalist. McCord was much more visible in the primary because he had opponents, unlike Ellis, so perhaps has a slight leg up in this mostly invisible contest.
While there is so much other state and local political intrigue to opine on, I’m going to halt this here, asking my PSF’ers to give me the chance to pen something over the holiday weekend. If some events get rained out this weekend, I just might get Part II out on Monday! In the meantime, I hope you and your family have a terrific Fourth of July celebration. Despite our current travails, this is a great country because of the sacrifices of so many men and women. Few among us would want to live in any other nation, especially those for whom this kind of democratic debate would risk torture and death. The optimist in me knows that it won’t be long before America is back on a roll again.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
PA Primary Retrospective
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
The other night, I finally got 6 hours of sleep for the first time in awhile. Three days in a row of double shifts (Monday through Wednesday) does take a toll on the body, but what an exciting time to be right in the middle of this never-ending presidential battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Despite the spin on both sides, which have tended to exaggerate or minimize the importance of the Pennsylvania win for Clinton, this primary has reenergized the Hillary folks. More importantly, in my view, the nature of the Clinton win has planted seeds of doubts about Obama’s ability to win a national race against Republican John McCain.
And then there’s the resurgence of race in this contest, aided and abetted by the reappearance of Jeremiah Wright, who is doing no favors for his parishioner.
As you know, I have been scrupulously neutral in this presidential contest, reporting the facts but unafraid to tell you exactly what I think even if my friends in all three campaigns enjoy taking issue with me. In this quick PSF, let me lay out some of my post-primary thoughts. As always, you can leave public comments on my occasional blog – www.delanosden.blogspot.com – or just email me your private, off-the-record views. I love hearing from you, and now I just might have a few more minutes to respond!
PENNSYLVANIA
Just the Facts, Ma’am:
On Tuesday, nearly 55 percent of PA’s 4.2 million Democrats went to the polls, and Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 9.2 percent – 1,245,911 (54.6%) to 1,037,953 (45.4%). Correct mathematical “rounding” by the media reported this result as 55% to 45%, the so-called “double digit” lead, but the “truth” is that the win was closer to 9% than 10%. Details, perhaps, but let’s be accurate.
Clinton won 60 of the state’s 67 counties, winning 15 counties with 70 percent of the vote or more. Those included the Democrat-rich Lackawanna County (Scranton) which she won by 74% and the less populated southwestern PA county of Fayette County that delivered Clinton her best vote at 79%.
Obama carried the state’s largest county, Philadelphia, with 65% of the vote but lost two neighboring suburban counties, Montgomery County (the third largest Democratic county in the state after Allegheny) where Clinton won narrowly with 51% and Bucks County where she won with 63% of the vote.
Obama also won the city of Pittsburgh with 59% of the vote, but Clinton won the overall Allegheny County vote by 9%. Of the county’s 130 municipalities, including Pittsburgh, Obama won a couple dozen, but Clinton beat him in most communities, often by a two-to-one margin.
In the neighboring Pittsburgh area counties, Clinton easily won with double-digits, carrying Butler County by 27 points, Beaver County by 39, Westmoreland County by 39, and Washington County by 43 points over Obama.
The delegate sort is still on-going with 103 delegates elected in the 19 congressional districts and another 55 delegates allocated based on the final statewide percentage result. I have seen various reports that Clinton could pick up as many as 12 delegates over Obama to as few as 6. Nobody has the exact facts on this one yet. I’ll keep you posted as this gets figured out.
Clinton’s win was slightly bigger than the last two polls of the campaign which predicted a 6% win (Survey USA) and a 7% win (Quinnipiac) and considerably bigger than some of the late afternoon exit polls on Tuesday which suggested a narrower 4-point win for Clinton.
The Spin, For What It’s Worth:
The day after the election both campaigns went overboard in “analyzing” the Pennsylvania primary. No surprise. The Obama campaign down-played the result to nothing, while the Clintons made this sound like Hillary’s second coming.
The Obama spin was contained in an artfully written memo entitled, “A Fundamentally Unchanged Race.” Here’s an excerpt:
“Tonight, Hillary Clinton lost her last, best chance to make significant inroads in the pledged delegate count. . . .The only surprising result from Pennsylvania is that in a state considered tailor-made for Hillary Clinton that she was expected to win, Barack Obama was able to improve his standing among key voter groups since the Ohio primary. . . .As he has done in every state, Barack Obama campaigned hard to pick up as much support and as many delegates as possible and was able to stave off Clinton from achieving a significant pledged delegate gain from Pennsylvania. . . .The bottom line is that the Pennsylvania outcome does not change dynamic of this lengthy primary.”
The Clinton spin was delivered by the candidate herself in her cogent acceptance speech. Here’s an excerpt:
“I’m in this race to fight for you, to fight for everyone who has ever been counted out, for everyone fighting to pay the grocery bills or the medical bills, the credit card and mortgage payments, and the outrageous price of gas at the pump today. . . . The pundit's question whether Pennsylvanians would trust me with this charge and tonight you showed you do. . . .Today, here in Pennsylvania, you made your voices heard and because of you, the tide is turning. We were up against a formidable opponent who outspent us three to one. He broke every spending record in this state trying to knock us out of the race. Well, the people of Pennsylvania had other ideas tonight.”
In short, Obama says PA didn’t change a thing because his delegate lead is insurmountable, while Clinton says the tide has turned her way because Obama’s millions could not win him the support of middle class, working Democrats essential to victory.
Another Point of View:
Pennsylvania did matter, in my view, because it breathed important “life” into Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She has now won four of the last five primaries. Barack Obama could not deliver the knock-out punch in a critical “November” state. Moreover, Obama’s loss has raised questions about how he can win the general election when he lost some important Democratic constituencies who backed Clinton on Tuesday.
At the same time, Clinton did not get the delegate boost she needs, although everyone now knows Obama mathematically cannot win a majority of the pledged delegates either. In short, this race is now all about the 795 super delegates who will ultimately pick the nominee because the millions of Democrats who have been voting since January were unable to give either Obama or Clinton the magic 2,025 delegates needed for nomination.
That’s an important point. Pennsylvania and the remaining nine contests are really aimed at persuading the supers which candidate can win in November. And, in my view, that’s why the Pennsylvania primary has more significance than the Obama camp would wish, even if it’s not necessarily the “tide changer” Clinton believes.
How Clinton Won:
Hillary won on Tuesday because her prime constituency, women, stuck with her, while she was able to end the campaign with a majority of white men on her side. Exit polls found 68% of white women and 59% of women overall voted for Clinton. This is an important constituency when you consider that 58% of all Democratic voters in PA on Tuesday were women.
Men, who were fickle throughout most of this campaign going back and forth between Obama and Clinton, split evenly (49% to 51%). But white men, in the end, jumped back to Clinton, 57% to 43%, giving her the near double-digit lead she wanted.
Despite all the youth vote talk in this campaign, it was the older folks who turned out to vote. Some 22% of the Democratic electorate were 65 and over, while only 12% were under age 30. About six in 10 young voters backed Obama, while 63% of the larger older voting cohort supported Clinton. In short, age trumped youth.
On the religious front, Clinton beat Obama among Catholics, 70% to 30%, among Jews, 62% to 38%, and among white Protestants, 59% to 41%.
Obama did well among what some call the Democratic elites – well-educated, economically well-off liberals. In Allegheny County, for example, Obama won the Dems who live in Fox Chapel, Mt. Lebanon, Sewickley, and Pittsburgh’s 14th Ward, uniting them with the predominately African American communities of Braddock, Clairton, Duquesne, and Rankin. But for any Democrat, this is hardly a coalition for victory, especially in November. Clinton was the overwhelming favorite of the blue-collar, middle class working white, winning this vote 61% to 39%.
The stark political reality for Obama is that he cannot become president in November if he cannot win over these voters. As U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle commented this week, Obama “needs to demonstrate that he can connect with blue-collar, working class people.” Doyle is an uncommitted super delegate, whose district narrowly backed Obama. The Obama camp believes that in a race against the McCain economic issues, including rising gas prices, will keep Dems in the fold. I’m not so sure it will be that easy.
Revisiting the Role of Race:
Lots of folks are dancing around the subject of race, but when exit polls say that 16% of PA Democrats claim race played a factor in their decision, I suspect the real number is higher.
Now let’s be clear. I’m sure some African Americans voted for Obama solely because of his race, and I’m equally sure some whites voted for Clinton solely because of her race. About 90% of blacks voted for Obama. Did they all do so because of they thought he was the better candidate regardless of race? At the same time, 63% of whites voted for Clinton. Did they all do so because they thought she was the better candidate regardless of race?
Voting for or against anyone on the basis of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference, in my view, is an ignorant way of voting, but it’s as American as apple pie.
In Pennsylvania, Obama won one-third of the white vote and Clinton won 10% of the black vote. Clearly, these voters disregarded race. But what about the others? Again, let’s be clear. Just because a black voter votes for Obama or a white voter votes for Clinton does not automatically make them racists. That’s insulting to the vast majority of voters who have perfectly valid, non-racial reasons for backing their candidates.
But, politically, the role of race is important for Obama’s (and the Democratic Party’s) future success on Nov. 4, and here the concern is not black racists, who will vote for Obama no matter what. What concerns many in the Democratic Party, particularly some of its super delegates, is white racists who will never vote for a black.
The other day I caught this provocative diatribe on the internet from a Virginia blogger, who ascribes Clinton’s win in PA to racism:
“Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania because she pandered to the overt racism that exists among blue collar whites as well as the latent racism in too many others. She won because the bulk of her appeal comes from the less-educated, the less-tolerant and the less-intelligent among us. If you're a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin' white hick you probably voted for Hillary. And so did your ignorant, baby-popping, big-haired wife as well as that bleached-blond bar maid that you're seeing on the side. . . . Where I come from, the guys with the John Deere hats talk about how they voted for Hillary in the Virginia Democratic primary because ‘it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for the [N-word].’"
This portrayal of Clinton supporters in PA is both insulting – “a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin’ white hick” – and dead wrong. This hardly describes the majority voters of suburban Philadelphia in Montgomery and Bucks who backed Hillary over Barack, or suburban Pittsburgh for that matter. Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the notion that some whites, in every state, will simply never vote for an African American.
Political analysts must be up-front about that reality. I wish it weren’t so, but race does matter to some.
Still, to call every blue-collar, middle class worker in PA a “racist hick” is precisely the elitism that threatens to separate Obama from the base of his party. To be fair to the Illinois senator, I don’t think he has ever done that, even if some of his supporters have. But Obama’s own words in San Francisco, linking the economic unhappiness of these folks to their religion and guns, clearly cost him on April 22. To many, he came across as out-of-touch. Some 59% of those who attend church regularly voted for Clinton, along with 62% of those Pennsylvanians who have guns in the family.
Maybe I want to believe better of people, but I really don’t think the vast majority of Pennsylvanians are racist. Instead, voters were willing to let Obama make his case to them and he failed. But whether it’s latent racism or not (and I hope it’s not), Obama cannot be elected president if he is unable to connect with “regular folks” who want a president who understands them, shares their pain, and articulates a way to help them cope with the economic squeeze they feel.
Enter Jeremiah Wright:
When he could least afford it politically, Obama now has to contend with the reappearance of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who seems intent on restoring his good name without regard to the consequences on his famous parishioner. I watched Bill Moyer’s interview with Wright on PBS on Friday night, and obviously saw a different Wright than the one we have seen in those ugly video clips. That, of course, is the whole point of Wright’s speaking out, to suggest that what we saw on TV was not the “real” pastor, but a highly distorted picture. On Sunday, Wright will speak to the NAACP in Detroit, and then he addresses the National Press Club in Washington on Monday.
I understand the minister’s desire to rehabilitate his image. Who wouldn’t do that? But there is no way this can be helpful to Barack Obama. It only resurrects the old murky images of a screaming preacher and, frankly, the issue of race. And that undermines the central message of Obama’s candidacy.
At the beginning of this campaign, Obama won all-white Iowa (and many other states, too) because he transcended race. A multi-racial American, he came across to many as neither white nor black but as this uniquely transformational figure who could bridge the racial divide. But the rants of his pastor, whether fair or unfair, upended that image, at least for some Americans. This man, whom Obama called his spiritual mentor, said things from the pulpit that were not just offensive but clearly racial. Wright conjured up images of all the worst black preachers, the ones who blame whites and America for all that is wrong.
And, all of sudden, Obama is no longer a racially unifying candidate, but a black candidate who cannot disown his pastor even as he rejects the preacher’s tirades, saying they are rooted in an earlier generation of black liberation theology. The Pennsylvania primary suggests that Obama’s eloquent speech in Philadelphia on race did not work, at least not politically, with the audience he needs to reach the most.
So just when he needs to develop a strategy that can resurrect the “unifying” Obama that so many white voters embraced before Wright’s image cast across the TV screen, Wright reappears. Now he tells us that Obama’s words distancing himself from his pastor were merely the words of a “politician,” implying that Obama only said what he said in Philly because that was the political thing to do.
“He's a politician, I'm a pastor,” Wright told Moyers . “We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do."
Obviously, the pastor has every right to speak out and correct the record, as he sees it. But, in my view, if Wright had really wanted to help his parishioner win the presidency, he would have enjoyed his retirement and kept his mouth shut until the day after November
Moving On:
Pennsylvania is over until November where, in my view, John McCain has a good shot at winning the state, regardless of the ultimate Democratic nominee. For Clinton and Obama, of course, the race goes on.
Next Saturday, May 3, Guam will elect eight delegates to the convention, followed by Indiana (72 delegates) and North Carolina (115 delegates) on Tuesday, May 6. With one-third of its Democratic voters African American, nobody really expects Hillary to win North Carolina, but her campaign would like to keep Obama’s lead under double-digits, not unlike what Obama did in Pennsylvania.
Indiana appears up for grabs, although Obama has a slight poll lead and an advantage since the Chicago media market (where Obama calls home) overlaps into part of Indiana. In my view, Indiana is another place where those working class, blue-collar workers could make the difference. For what it’s worth, a life-time ago, nearly 30% of the Dems in Indiana voted for segregationist George C. Wallace.
Once again, the remaining nine races are all about spin and super delegates. Perhaps if Obama won nine straight, Clinton might fold. But why should she? And does anyone expect Obama to call it quits if Clinton wins the next nine? No, of course not. This race is not over until it’s over. And that won’t happen until all the super delegates weigh in with their choices because neither Obama nor Clinton will have a majority of the delegates when the last pledged delegates are elected on June 3.
Okay, folks, that’s my take on the PA presidential primary. I would welcome your views. Next week, I will review the other races in Pennsylvania, including the congressional battles where both sides dream of pick-ups. In the meantime, Pennsylvanians will enjoy a politics-free week (sort of) as it finally feels like spring! Is that a lawn mower I hear calling?
The other night, I finally got 6 hours of sleep for the first time in awhile. Three days in a row of double shifts (Monday through Wednesday) does take a toll on the body, but what an exciting time to be right in the middle of this never-ending presidential battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Despite the spin on both sides, which have tended to exaggerate or minimize the importance of the Pennsylvania win for Clinton, this primary has reenergized the Hillary folks. More importantly, in my view, the nature of the Clinton win has planted seeds of doubts about Obama’s ability to win a national race against Republican John McCain.
And then there’s the resurgence of race in this contest, aided and abetted by the reappearance of Jeremiah Wright, who is doing no favors for his parishioner.
As you know, I have been scrupulously neutral in this presidential contest, reporting the facts but unafraid to tell you exactly what I think even if my friends in all three campaigns enjoy taking issue with me. In this quick PSF, let me lay out some of my post-primary thoughts. As always, you can leave public comments on my occasional blog – www.delanosden.blogspot.com – or just email me your private, off-the-record views. I love hearing from you, and now I just might have a few more minutes to respond!
PENNSYLVANIA
Just the Facts, Ma’am:
On Tuesday, nearly 55 percent of PA’s 4.2 million Democrats went to the polls, and Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 9.2 percent – 1,245,911 (54.6%) to 1,037,953 (45.4%). Correct mathematical “rounding” by the media reported this result as 55% to 45%, the so-called “double digit” lead, but the “truth” is that the win was closer to 9% than 10%. Details, perhaps, but let’s be accurate.
Clinton won 60 of the state’s 67 counties, winning 15 counties with 70 percent of the vote or more. Those included the Democrat-rich Lackawanna County (Scranton) which she won by 74% and the less populated southwestern PA county of Fayette County that delivered Clinton her best vote at 79%.
Obama carried the state’s largest county, Philadelphia, with 65% of the vote but lost two neighboring suburban counties, Montgomery County (the third largest Democratic county in the state after Allegheny) where Clinton won narrowly with 51% and Bucks County where she won with 63% of the vote.
Obama also won the city of Pittsburgh with 59% of the vote, but Clinton won the overall Allegheny County vote by 9%. Of the county’s 130 municipalities, including Pittsburgh, Obama won a couple dozen, but Clinton beat him in most communities, often by a two-to-one margin.
In the neighboring Pittsburgh area counties, Clinton easily won with double-digits, carrying Butler County by 27 points, Beaver County by 39, Westmoreland County by 39, and Washington County by 43 points over Obama.
The delegate sort is still on-going with 103 delegates elected in the 19 congressional districts and another 55 delegates allocated based on the final statewide percentage result. I have seen various reports that Clinton could pick up as many as 12 delegates over Obama to as few as 6. Nobody has the exact facts on this one yet. I’ll keep you posted as this gets figured out.
Clinton’s win was slightly bigger than the last two polls of the campaign which predicted a 6% win (Survey USA) and a 7% win (Quinnipiac) and considerably bigger than some of the late afternoon exit polls on Tuesday which suggested a narrower 4-point win for Clinton.
The Spin, For What It’s Worth:
The day after the election both campaigns went overboard in “analyzing” the Pennsylvania primary. No surprise. The Obama campaign down-played the result to nothing, while the Clintons made this sound like Hillary’s second coming.
The Obama spin was contained in an artfully written memo entitled, “A Fundamentally Unchanged Race.” Here’s an excerpt:
“Tonight, Hillary Clinton lost her last, best chance to make significant inroads in the pledged delegate count. . . .The only surprising result from Pennsylvania is that in a state considered tailor-made for Hillary Clinton that she was expected to win, Barack Obama was able to improve his standing among key voter groups since the Ohio primary. . . .As he has done in every state, Barack Obama campaigned hard to pick up as much support and as many delegates as possible and was able to stave off Clinton from achieving a significant pledged delegate gain from Pennsylvania. . . .The bottom line is that the Pennsylvania outcome does not change dynamic of this lengthy primary.”
The Clinton spin was delivered by the candidate herself in her cogent acceptance speech. Here’s an excerpt:
“I’m in this race to fight for you, to fight for everyone who has ever been counted out, for everyone fighting to pay the grocery bills or the medical bills, the credit card and mortgage payments, and the outrageous price of gas at the pump today. . . . The pundit's question whether Pennsylvanians would trust me with this charge and tonight you showed you do. . . .Today, here in Pennsylvania, you made your voices heard and because of you, the tide is turning. We were up against a formidable opponent who outspent us three to one. He broke every spending record in this state trying to knock us out of the race. Well, the people of Pennsylvania had other ideas tonight.”
In short, Obama says PA didn’t change a thing because his delegate lead is insurmountable, while Clinton says the tide has turned her way because Obama’s millions could not win him the support of middle class, working Democrats essential to victory.
Another Point of View:
Pennsylvania did matter, in my view, because it breathed important “life” into Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She has now won four of the last five primaries. Barack Obama could not deliver the knock-out punch in a critical “November” state. Moreover, Obama’s loss has raised questions about how he can win the general election when he lost some important Democratic constituencies who backed Clinton on Tuesday.
At the same time, Clinton did not get the delegate boost she needs, although everyone now knows Obama mathematically cannot win a majority of the pledged delegates either. In short, this race is now all about the 795 super delegates who will ultimately pick the nominee because the millions of Democrats who have been voting since January were unable to give either Obama or Clinton the magic 2,025 delegates needed for nomination.
That’s an important point. Pennsylvania and the remaining nine contests are really aimed at persuading the supers which candidate can win in November. And, in my view, that’s why the Pennsylvania primary has more significance than the Obama camp would wish, even if it’s not necessarily the “tide changer” Clinton believes.
How Clinton Won:
Hillary won on Tuesday because her prime constituency, women, stuck with her, while she was able to end the campaign with a majority of white men on her side. Exit polls found 68% of white women and 59% of women overall voted for Clinton. This is an important constituency when you consider that 58% of all Democratic voters in PA on Tuesday were women.
Men, who were fickle throughout most of this campaign going back and forth between Obama and Clinton, split evenly (49% to 51%). But white men, in the end, jumped back to Clinton, 57% to 43%, giving her the near double-digit lead she wanted.
Despite all the youth vote talk in this campaign, it was the older folks who turned out to vote. Some 22% of the Democratic electorate were 65 and over, while only 12% were under age 30. About six in 10 young voters backed Obama, while 63% of the larger older voting cohort supported Clinton. In short, age trumped youth.
On the religious front, Clinton beat Obama among Catholics, 70% to 30%, among Jews, 62% to 38%, and among white Protestants, 59% to 41%.
Obama did well among what some call the Democratic elites – well-educated, economically well-off liberals. In Allegheny County, for example, Obama won the Dems who live in Fox Chapel, Mt. Lebanon, Sewickley, and Pittsburgh’s 14th Ward, uniting them with the predominately African American communities of Braddock, Clairton, Duquesne, and Rankin. But for any Democrat, this is hardly a coalition for victory, especially in November. Clinton was the overwhelming favorite of the blue-collar, middle class working white, winning this vote 61% to 39%.
The stark political reality for Obama is that he cannot become president in November if he cannot win over these voters. As U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle commented this week, Obama “needs to demonstrate that he can connect with blue-collar, working class people.” Doyle is an uncommitted super delegate, whose district narrowly backed Obama. The Obama camp believes that in a race against the McCain economic issues, including rising gas prices, will keep Dems in the fold. I’m not so sure it will be that easy.
Revisiting the Role of Race:
Lots of folks are dancing around the subject of race, but when exit polls say that 16% of PA Democrats claim race played a factor in their decision, I suspect the real number is higher.
Now let’s be clear. I’m sure some African Americans voted for Obama solely because of his race, and I’m equally sure some whites voted for Clinton solely because of her race. About 90% of blacks voted for Obama. Did they all do so because of they thought he was the better candidate regardless of race? At the same time, 63% of whites voted for Clinton. Did they all do so because they thought she was the better candidate regardless of race?
Voting for or against anyone on the basis of race, gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference, in my view, is an ignorant way of voting, but it’s as American as apple pie.
In Pennsylvania, Obama won one-third of the white vote and Clinton won 10% of the black vote. Clearly, these voters disregarded race. But what about the others? Again, let’s be clear. Just because a black voter votes for Obama or a white voter votes for Clinton does not automatically make them racists. That’s insulting to the vast majority of voters who have perfectly valid, non-racial reasons for backing their candidates.
But, politically, the role of race is important for Obama’s (and the Democratic Party’s) future success on Nov. 4, and here the concern is not black racists, who will vote for Obama no matter what. What concerns many in the Democratic Party, particularly some of its super delegates, is white racists who will never vote for a black.
The other day I caught this provocative diatribe on the internet from a Virginia blogger, who ascribes Clinton’s win in PA to racism:
“Hillary Clinton won Pennsylvania because she pandered to the overt racism that exists among blue collar whites as well as the latent racism in too many others. She won because the bulk of her appeal comes from the less-educated, the less-tolerant and the less-intelligent among us. If you're a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin' white hick you probably voted for Hillary. And so did your ignorant, baby-popping, big-haired wife as well as that bleached-blond bar maid that you're seeing on the side. . . . Where I come from, the guys with the John Deere hats talk about how they voted for Hillary in the Virginia Democratic primary because ‘it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for the [N-word].’"
This portrayal of Clinton supporters in PA is both insulting – “a stupid, illiterate, gun-totin’ white hick” – and dead wrong. This hardly describes the majority voters of suburban Philadelphia in Montgomery and Bucks who backed Hillary over Barack, or suburban Pittsburgh for that matter. Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the notion that some whites, in every state, will simply never vote for an African American.
Political analysts must be up-front about that reality. I wish it weren’t so, but race does matter to some.
Still, to call every blue-collar, middle class worker in PA a “racist hick” is precisely the elitism that threatens to separate Obama from the base of his party. To be fair to the Illinois senator, I don’t think he has ever done that, even if some of his supporters have. But Obama’s own words in San Francisco, linking the economic unhappiness of these folks to their religion and guns, clearly cost him on April 22. To many, he came across as out-of-touch. Some 59% of those who attend church regularly voted for Clinton, along with 62% of those Pennsylvanians who have guns in the family.
Maybe I want to believe better of people, but I really don’t think the vast majority of Pennsylvanians are racist. Instead, voters were willing to let Obama make his case to them and he failed. But whether it’s latent racism or not (and I hope it’s not), Obama cannot be elected president if he is unable to connect with “regular folks” who want a president who understands them, shares their pain, and articulates a way to help them cope with the economic squeeze they feel.
Enter Jeremiah Wright:
When he could least afford it politically, Obama now has to contend with the reappearance of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who seems intent on restoring his good name without regard to the consequences on his famous parishioner. I watched Bill Moyer’s interview with Wright on PBS on Friday night, and obviously saw a different Wright than the one we have seen in those ugly video clips. That, of course, is the whole point of Wright’s speaking out, to suggest that what we saw on TV was not the “real” pastor, but a highly distorted picture. On Sunday, Wright will speak to the NAACP in Detroit, and then he addresses the National Press Club in Washington on Monday.
I understand the minister’s desire to rehabilitate his image. Who wouldn’t do that? But there is no way this can be helpful to Barack Obama. It only resurrects the old murky images of a screaming preacher and, frankly, the issue of race. And that undermines the central message of Obama’s candidacy.
At the beginning of this campaign, Obama won all-white Iowa (and many other states, too) because he transcended race. A multi-racial American, he came across to many as neither white nor black but as this uniquely transformational figure who could bridge the racial divide. But the rants of his pastor, whether fair or unfair, upended that image, at least for some Americans. This man, whom Obama called his spiritual mentor, said things from the pulpit that were not just offensive but clearly racial. Wright conjured up images of all the worst black preachers, the ones who blame whites and America for all that is wrong.
And, all of sudden, Obama is no longer a racially unifying candidate, but a black candidate who cannot disown his pastor even as he rejects the preacher’s tirades, saying they are rooted in an earlier generation of black liberation theology. The Pennsylvania primary suggests that Obama’s eloquent speech in Philadelphia on race did not work, at least not politically, with the audience he needs to reach the most.
So just when he needs to develop a strategy that can resurrect the “unifying” Obama that so many white voters embraced before Wright’s image cast across the TV screen, Wright reappears. Now he tells us that Obama’s words distancing himself from his pastor were merely the words of a “politician,” implying that Obama only said what he said in Philly because that was the political thing to do.
“He's a politician, I'm a pastor,” Wright told Moyers . “We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they're two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do."
Obviously, the pastor has every right to speak out and correct the record, as he sees it. But, in my view, if Wright had really wanted to help his parishioner win the presidency, he would have enjoyed his retirement and kept his mouth shut until the day after November
Moving On:
Pennsylvania is over until November where, in my view, John McCain has a good shot at winning the state, regardless of the ultimate Democratic nominee. For Clinton and Obama, of course, the race goes on.
Next Saturday, May 3, Guam will elect eight delegates to the convention, followed by Indiana (72 delegates) and North Carolina (115 delegates) on Tuesday, May 6. With one-third of its Democratic voters African American, nobody really expects Hillary to win North Carolina, but her campaign would like to keep Obama’s lead under double-digits, not unlike what Obama did in Pennsylvania.
Indiana appears up for grabs, although Obama has a slight poll lead and an advantage since the Chicago media market (where Obama calls home) overlaps into part of Indiana. In my view, Indiana is another place where those working class, blue-collar workers could make the difference. For what it’s worth, a life-time ago, nearly 30% of the Dems in Indiana voted for segregationist George C. Wallace.
Once again, the remaining nine races are all about spin and super delegates. Perhaps if Obama won nine straight, Clinton might fold. But why should she? And does anyone expect Obama to call it quits if Clinton wins the next nine? No, of course not. This race is not over until it’s over. And that won’t happen until all the super delegates weigh in with their choices because neither Obama nor Clinton will have a majority of the delegates when the last pledged delegates are elected on June 3.
Okay, folks, that’s my take on the PA presidential primary. I would welcome your views. Next week, I will review the other races in Pennsylvania, including the congressional battles where both sides dream of pick-ups. In the meantime, Pennsylvanians will enjoy a politics-free week (sort of) as it finally feels like spring! Is that a lawn mower I hear calling?
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Just Hours to Go
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
It all comes down to this. In just a few hours, the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania will "make or break" Hillary Clinton. A win by Barack Obama ends her campaign, virtually guaranteeing that Obama will become the Democratic nominee to face the putative Republican nominee, John McCain. But a win by Clinton of any size allows her to move forward to the remaining nine contests through June 3. And a "big" win in Pennsylvania by Clinton significantly improves her chance to be the Democratic nominee because of the message it sends to super delegates about her own electoral strengths and Obama's perceived weaknesses in an important general election state like Pennsylvania.
In this PSF, I'll share some last-minute thoughts about this presidential contest. Feel free to comment, and you can watch the news reports (scroll down on the right hand column of this blog) I have filed throughout this campaign.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Final Campaign Hours:
When you look at the schedule of the candidates over the last 48 hours, you know it takes a particularly driven individual to run for president of the United States. No reasonably thinking person would subject themselves to the brutal pace of criss-crossing a state like Pennsylvania at the pace of these candidates. As best as I can figure, from Sunday through Monday night, Hillary will hit Bethlehem, Johnstown, State College, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. President Clinton will join Hillary at a Market Square rally in Pittsburgh on Monday afternoon, while both Bill & Chelsea will join Hillary at UPenn's Palestra in Philadelphia tomorrow night. Barack is no different, hitting Lebanon, Reading, Scranton, Philadelphia, McKeesport, and Pittsburgh. Two Obama rallies in the Pittsburgh area on Monday, McKeesport Penn State at dinner and Pitt's Petersen Event Center later that evening, culminate the PA campaign for the Illinois senator.
A couple months ago I blogged that Pennsylvanians like candidates to engage in retail politics. They want to courted, wooed, and praised. And they don't like to be taken for granted by anyone. This state is so big, however, and so different, depending on the mountain or valley you're visiting, that statewide campaigning in a few short weeks is a challenge. James Carville once described PA as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. It was a clever line but wrong. PA is really Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with 50 states in between, each jealous of its own identity and prerogatives.
Early on, Clinton was all over the state, and Obama was not. He has tried to make up for that in the last days of the campaign with a creative "whistle stop" tour through parts of the state. But the general impression lingers among some that Clinton wants Pennsylvania's vote more than Obama, at least if you judge by physical presence in the state. Others will say that Obama has been more visible because he has outspent Clinton 5 to 1, 4 to 1, 3 to 1 on television, depending on the week and the media market. My view is that there has been no shortage of the candidates and their surrogates, with most voters ready to cast a ballot and be left alone!
Where Are the Votes?
This contest has certainly attracted interest among voters, as much as some now wish it would just be over. The latest registration figures show 4.2 million Democrats to 3.186 million Republicans, a one million person registration advantage for Dems in the state. How many of those will switch back to the GOP the day after the election remains to be seen, but the Dems will still enjoy one of their strongest registration advantages in recent history. Both camps engaged in active voter registration drives, but the political spin is that most of these new voters are Obama recruits. We will see on Election Day.
Of the state's 67 counties, 11 counties now boast more than 100,000+ Democrats, including Philadelphia County with 799,663; Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh) with 567,420; Montgomery (suburban Philly) with 247,881; Bucks County (suburban Philly) with 185,407; Delaware County (suburban Philly) with 157,301; Westmoreland County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 134,122; Berks County (Reading & environs) with 114,304; Chester County (suburban Philly) with 113,315; Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre, Hazelton & environs) with 106,816; York County (south central PA) with 104,816; and Lehigh County (Allentown & environs) with 101,763.
The next five counties with lots of Dems are just as courted by candidates, including Lackawanna County (Scranton & environs) with 98,992; Northampton County (Bethlehem & environs) with 97,002; Erie County (northwest PA) with 96,290; Lancaster County (south central PA) with 94,954; Washington County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 86,645; and Dauphin County (Harrisburg & environs) with 79,665. The remaining 51 counties have fewer than 50,000 Democrats, except for Beaver County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 68,644; Fayette County (southwest PA) with 61,935; and Cambria County (Johnstown & environs) with 55,876.
Add it all up, and one-third of the Democratic vote is in southeastern PA (Philadelphia & environs) and one-quarter of the vote is in southwestern PA (Pittsburgh & environs). That leaves a critical 40% of the vote spread across the state from Erie to Bethlehem, from Scranton to York -- Democrats that neither Clinton nor Obama can take for granted.
The Closing Arguments:
The last week is such a blur, that it's hard to know where to begin. The week began with Obama's unfortunate comments at a San Francisco fundraiser about "bitter" Pennsylvanians "clinging" to their guns, their religion, their anti-immigrant views, etc., and those words certainly gave Clinton the opening she needed to bring home her point that Obama is an "elitist" who does not "understand" working Pennsylvanians. She also sought to use the incident to validate her point that Obama is not really ready for prime-time presidential politics. Clinton rushed a commercial onto the air on the subject, driving home a not-so-subtle message that Obama had "offended" the very Democrats so needed to win both a primary and general election in this state.
My own take is that Obama is right that many Pennsylvanians are unhappy about the economy and the inability of Washington to make lives easier for average citizens. But to suggest that this is why people turn to guns and religion is nonsense. (He said later that this is not what he meant but that got lost in the political spin). Both religious faith and guns for hunting and sport are essential elements of life for many in western PA and, indeed, many areas outside the Philadelphia metro. Obama's comments clearly hurt him with some voters, but it's not clear to me that this did anything more than solidify some Clinton voters in their original view. In retrospect, it may be more of a campaign distraction that a vote-changer.
If Obama blew the guns and religion talisman of politics, he scored a coup on the holy grail of sports. In this region, the endorsement of Obama by Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was a clear positive for the senator, even as the Steelers "officially" assured their Clinton & McCain fans that the team does not "officially" endorse anyone. Still, Rooney is a beloved icon in this region, as are the Steelers, so his endorsement along with that of former Steelers Franco Harris, Dwight White, J.T. Thomas, Robin Cole, Edmund Nelson and Larry Brown made for nice headlines. Nonetheless, it probably won't change many votes.
The great debate in Philadelphia attracted viewers all across the state, but not everyone. Here in this region, more people tuned in to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins win their first hockey playoff series - 175,000 households - than watched the presidential debate - 118,000 households, according to Neilsen. No surprise. We love our sports.
I was at the Wednesday night debate and found the crowd outside the National Constitution Center to be the best part of the occasion. Wonderfully passionate supporters of Clinton and Obama mixed with those hawking their goods, yielding a cacophony of loud yelling and shouting that Joe Torsella, the CEO of the Constitution Center told me was "the music of democracy."
Inside the Center, the yelling was a bit different.
I will not pile on ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulus for their first round of questions, first, because everyone else has already done so and, second, because I have asked lots of questions at candidate debates and appreciate the challenge of asking both relevant and entertaining questions. Candidates always get asked questions they don't like, and the sign of a good candidate is the ability to deflect the question. Both Obama and Clinton should have expected questions about Pastor Jeremiah Wright, sniper fire in Bosnia, and the "bitter in PA" comments. These were legitimate questions. The lapel pin question struck me as bizarre, although a question on the Flag Amendment might have been in order. Fundamentally, if I had been asking questions, I would have mixed up the serious policy questions about the economy, the war, and trade (nobody asked about that) with these other topics. Going 45 or 55 minutes into a two-hour debate without a "substantive" policy question made the debate appear rather petty.
After the debate, spin alley was full of surrogates spinning away. Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, objected to the debate questions, saying essentially that PA voters were cheated of a debate on important issues to the state. U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, an Obama supporter, echoed Rendell's comments. In short, both camps seemed unhappy about the first questions, but, predictably, both thought their candidates out-performed the other. My own sense was that there were no knock-outs, Clinton was on her game, Obama seemed taken aback by the ABC assault, and nothing really changed.
In the waning days of this PA primary, both candidates have returned to their basic message, while attacking each other relentlessly. For Obama, it's all about change, while for Clinton, it's action not words. She stresses her life-time of experience and qualifications and her ability to get things done - while he focuses on changing the culture in Washington and a future that brings people together. Nothing new in these messages, but sometimes I think these themes have gotten lost in all the attacks each have inflicted on the other.
So Who Wins PA?
Predicting this election is like grabbing a handful of jello - it changes almost instantly. You can find a poll to suit your fancy. The common consensus is that Clinton is ahead by a few points, perhaps more, but nobody really knows. The Obama team has elevated lower expectations to an art form, suggesting privately that they expect a double digit loss and that if they come within 10 points of Hillary it will be a major upset. When I sat down a week ago with David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, he strenuously avoided predicting any kind of victory in PA, but had no problem setting a very high "victory" threshold for Clinton. The Clinton team says a win is a win, but knows that an Ohio-style victory (a 10.4% margin) is what the New York senator needs to gain any kind of momentum for the remaining contests.
On election night, I will be looking at both ends of the state. If women in suburban Philadelphia vote gender, Hillary can hit double digits, assuming a strong performance elsewhere. If those same women identify with Obama (as many well-off, educated folks have been doing in other states), then this race will be close. Similarly, western PA has been Clinton country from the beginning of this campaign, but Obama is making a strong close here. I will watch to see if students and younger voters show up in greater numbers than normal around here, and will look to see if Obama takes some of the more affluent suburbs (North Hills and South Hills) away from Clinton.
The desire for change is real, and that is Obama's true strength. But some PA Dems are not convinced that he brings the same skills and experience to the top job as Clinton does. She has worked hard to make that argument, obviously, and I will watch to see if it's resonating, especially among the Dems who live outside our urban centers. Early on, Rendell opined that African Americans running statewide lose 7 points because of their race, citing his own battle against Lynn Swann. PA has its fair share of racists, of all races, who will vote for or against a candidate based on the color of his/her skin. While I have heard comments from white males that they could never vote for a black, I have also heard from other males who will never vote for a woman. In the privacy of the secret ballot, all prejudices are allowed even if we would never sanction them in public.
In the end, gender and race may make the difference. While African Americans are expected to vote for Obama, will Pennsylvania women do the same for Clinton? On the answer to that question rests this election.
Pennsylvania Won't Be the Decider:
Absent a victory by Obama over Clinton, something the Obama people are not predicting, this race goes on. Assuming Clinton wins PA, unless the race is a total blow-out, she is unlikely to end up with more than a 10 to 15 vote delegate advantage over Obama. The proportionality rule guarantees that Obama will get his percentage share of the 158 delegates determined on April 22. Greg Giroux and Jonathan Allen at Congressional Quarterly did an interesting analysis
of the delegate battle, and they predict of the 103 delegates elected in the 19 congressional districts Clinton will get 53 to Obama's 50. Of course, a double-digit landslaide by Clinton changes that. Another 55 delegates will be apportioned based on the statewide percentage the winner gets. If Clinton gets 55% of the statewide vote, for example, she would get 30 of those 55 delegates, leaving 25 for Obama. In short, whatever happens in the popular vote, the delegate contest is likely to remain close.
Here's something most people don't know. Not every congressional district elects the same number of delegates, since delegates are awarded based on Democratic registration and Democratic performance. One district -- the 2nd (Philadelphia) -- gets 9 delegates. Five districts get 7 delegates - the 1st (Philadelphia), the 7th (Delaware County), the 8th (Bucks County), the 13th (Northeast Philly), and the 14th (Pittsburgh). One district - the 6th (Southeast PA) - gets 6 delegates. Six districts get 5 delegates - the 3rd (Northwest PA), the 4th (Pittsburgh suburbs), the 11th (Northeast PA), the 12th (Southwest PA), the 15th (Allentown/Bethlehem), and the 18th (Pittsburgh suburbs). The remaining congressional districts get just four delegates each.
After all is said and done, this race moves on to Guam on May 3, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
When it's all over on June 3, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will have a majority of pledged delegates to get the nomination. Until all the uncommitted super delegates make up their minds - and local super delegates think that will happen before the Fourth of July - the Democratic Party will not have a presidential nominee.
Just some quick thoughts on a Sunday night. As you know, I welcome yours. Have a Happy Election Day!
It all comes down to this. In just a few hours, the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania will "make or break" Hillary Clinton. A win by Barack Obama ends her campaign, virtually guaranteeing that Obama will become the Democratic nominee to face the putative Republican nominee, John McCain. But a win by Clinton of any size allows her to move forward to the remaining nine contests through June 3. And a "big" win in Pennsylvania by Clinton significantly improves her chance to be the Democratic nominee because of the message it sends to super delegates about her own electoral strengths and Obama's perceived weaknesses in an important general election state like Pennsylvania.
In this PSF, I'll share some last-minute thoughts about this presidential contest. Feel free to comment, and you can watch the news reports (scroll down on the right hand column of this blog) I have filed throughout this campaign.
PENNSYLVANIA
The Final Campaign Hours:
When you look at the schedule of the candidates over the last 48 hours, you know it takes a particularly driven individual to run for president of the United States. No reasonably thinking person would subject themselves to the brutal pace of criss-crossing a state like Pennsylvania at the pace of these candidates. As best as I can figure, from Sunday through Monday night, Hillary will hit Bethlehem, Johnstown, State College, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia. President Clinton will join Hillary at a Market Square rally in Pittsburgh on Monday afternoon, while both Bill & Chelsea will join Hillary at UPenn's Palestra in Philadelphia tomorrow night. Barack is no different, hitting Lebanon, Reading, Scranton, Philadelphia, McKeesport, and Pittsburgh. Two Obama rallies in the Pittsburgh area on Monday, McKeesport Penn State at dinner and Pitt's Petersen Event Center later that evening, culminate the PA campaign for the Illinois senator.
A couple months ago I blogged that Pennsylvanians like candidates to engage in retail politics. They want to courted, wooed, and praised. And they don't like to be taken for granted by anyone. This state is so big, however, and so different, depending on the mountain or valley you're visiting, that statewide campaigning in a few short weeks is a challenge. James Carville once described PA as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. It was a clever line but wrong. PA is really Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with 50 states in between, each jealous of its own identity and prerogatives.
Early on, Clinton was all over the state, and Obama was not. He has tried to make up for that in the last days of the campaign with a creative "whistle stop" tour through parts of the state. But the general impression lingers among some that Clinton wants Pennsylvania's vote more than Obama, at least if you judge by physical presence in the state. Others will say that Obama has been more visible because he has outspent Clinton 5 to 1, 4 to 1, 3 to 1 on television, depending on the week and the media market. My view is that there has been no shortage of the candidates and their surrogates, with most voters ready to cast a ballot and be left alone!
Where Are the Votes?
This contest has certainly attracted interest among voters, as much as some now wish it would just be over. The latest registration figures show 4.2 million Democrats to 3.186 million Republicans, a one million person registration advantage for Dems in the state. How many of those will switch back to the GOP the day after the election remains to be seen, but the Dems will still enjoy one of their strongest registration advantages in recent history. Both camps engaged in active voter registration drives, but the political spin is that most of these new voters are Obama recruits. We will see on Election Day.
Of the state's 67 counties, 11 counties now boast more than 100,000+ Democrats, including Philadelphia County with 799,663; Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh) with 567,420; Montgomery (suburban Philly) with 247,881; Bucks County (suburban Philly) with 185,407; Delaware County (suburban Philly) with 157,301; Westmoreland County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 134,122; Berks County (Reading & environs) with 114,304; Chester County (suburban Philly) with 113,315; Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre, Hazelton & environs) with 106,816; York County (south central PA) with 104,816; and Lehigh County (Allentown & environs) with 101,763.
The next five counties with lots of Dems are just as courted by candidates, including Lackawanna County (Scranton & environs) with 98,992; Northampton County (Bethlehem & environs) with 97,002; Erie County (northwest PA) with 96,290; Lancaster County (south central PA) with 94,954; Washington County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 86,645; and Dauphin County (Harrisburg & environs) with 79,665. The remaining 51 counties have fewer than 50,000 Democrats, except for Beaver County (suburban Pittsburgh) with 68,644; Fayette County (southwest PA) with 61,935; and Cambria County (Johnstown & environs) with 55,876.
Add it all up, and one-third of the Democratic vote is in southeastern PA (Philadelphia & environs) and one-quarter of the vote is in southwestern PA (Pittsburgh & environs). That leaves a critical 40% of the vote spread across the state from Erie to Bethlehem, from Scranton to York -- Democrats that neither Clinton nor Obama can take for granted.
The Closing Arguments:
The last week is such a blur, that it's hard to know where to begin. The week began with Obama's unfortunate comments at a San Francisco fundraiser about "bitter" Pennsylvanians "clinging" to their guns, their religion, their anti-immigrant views, etc., and those words certainly gave Clinton the opening she needed to bring home her point that Obama is an "elitist" who does not "understand" working Pennsylvanians. She also sought to use the incident to validate her point that Obama is not really ready for prime-time presidential politics. Clinton rushed a commercial onto the air on the subject, driving home a not-so-subtle message that Obama had "offended" the very Democrats so needed to win both a primary and general election in this state.
My own take is that Obama is right that many Pennsylvanians are unhappy about the economy and the inability of Washington to make lives easier for average citizens. But to suggest that this is why people turn to guns and religion is nonsense. (He said later that this is not what he meant but that got lost in the political spin). Both religious faith and guns for hunting and sport are essential elements of life for many in western PA and, indeed, many areas outside the Philadelphia metro. Obama's comments clearly hurt him with some voters, but it's not clear to me that this did anything more than solidify some Clinton voters in their original view. In retrospect, it may be more of a campaign distraction that a vote-changer.
If Obama blew the guns and religion talisman of politics, he scored a coup on the holy grail of sports. In this region, the endorsement of Obama by Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was a clear positive for the senator, even as the Steelers "officially" assured their Clinton & McCain fans that the team does not "officially" endorse anyone. Still, Rooney is a beloved icon in this region, as are the Steelers, so his endorsement along with that of former Steelers Franco Harris, Dwight White, J.T. Thomas, Robin Cole, Edmund Nelson and Larry Brown made for nice headlines. Nonetheless, it probably won't change many votes.
The great debate in Philadelphia attracted viewers all across the state, but not everyone. Here in this region, more people tuned in to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins win their first hockey playoff series - 175,000 households - than watched the presidential debate - 118,000 households, according to Neilsen. No surprise. We love our sports.
I was at the Wednesday night debate and found the crowd outside the National Constitution Center to be the best part of the occasion. Wonderfully passionate supporters of Clinton and Obama mixed with those hawking their goods, yielding a cacophony of loud yelling and shouting that Joe Torsella, the CEO of the Constitution Center told me was "the music of democracy."
Inside the Center, the yelling was a bit different.
I will not pile on ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulus for their first round of questions, first, because everyone else has already done so and, second, because I have asked lots of questions at candidate debates and appreciate the challenge of asking both relevant and entertaining questions. Candidates always get asked questions they don't like, and the sign of a good candidate is the ability to deflect the question. Both Obama and Clinton should have expected questions about Pastor Jeremiah Wright, sniper fire in Bosnia, and the "bitter in PA" comments. These were legitimate questions. The lapel pin question struck me as bizarre, although a question on the Flag Amendment might have been in order. Fundamentally, if I had been asking questions, I would have mixed up the serious policy questions about the economy, the war, and trade (nobody asked about that) with these other topics. Going 45 or 55 minutes into a two-hour debate without a "substantive" policy question made the debate appear rather petty.
After the debate, spin alley was full of surrogates spinning away. Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, objected to the debate questions, saying essentially that PA voters were cheated of a debate on important issues to the state. U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, an Obama supporter, echoed Rendell's comments. In short, both camps seemed unhappy about the first questions, but, predictably, both thought their candidates out-performed the other. My own sense was that there were no knock-outs, Clinton was on her game, Obama seemed taken aback by the ABC assault, and nothing really changed.
In the waning days of this PA primary, both candidates have returned to their basic message, while attacking each other relentlessly. For Obama, it's all about change, while for Clinton, it's action not words. She stresses her life-time of experience and qualifications and her ability to get things done - while he focuses on changing the culture in Washington and a future that brings people together. Nothing new in these messages, but sometimes I think these themes have gotten lost in all the attacks each have inflicted on the other.
So Who Wins PA?
Predicting this election is like grabbing a handful of jello - it changes almost instantly. You can find a poll to suit your fancy. The common consensus is that Clinton is ahead by a few points, perhaps more, but nobody really knows. The Obama team has elevated lower expectations to an art form, suggesting privately that they expect a double digit loss and that if they come within 10 points of Hillary it will be a major upset. When I sat down a week ago with David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, he strenuously avoided predicting any kind of victory in PA, but had no problem setting a very high "victory" threshold for Clinton. The Clinton team says a win is a win, but knows that an Ohio-style victory (a 10.4% margin) is what the New York senator needs to gain any kind of momentum for the remaining contests.
On election night, I will be looking at both ends of the state. If women in suburban Philadelphia vote gender, Hillary can hit double digits, assuming a strong performance elsewhere. If those same women identify with Obama (as many well-off, educated folks have been doing in other states), then this race will be close. Similarly, western PA has been Clinton country from the beginning of this campaign, but Obama is making a strong close here. I will watch to see if students and younger voters show up in greater numbers than normal around here, and will look to see if Obama takes some of the more affluent suburbs (North Hills and South Hills) away from Clinton.
The desire for change is real, and that is Obama's true strength. But some PA Dems are not convinced that he brings the same skills and experience to the top job as Clinton does. She has worked hard to make that argument, obviously, and I will watch to see if it's resonating, especially among the Dems who live outside our urban centers. Early on, Rendell opined that African Americans running statewide lose 7 points because of their race, citing his own battle against Lynn Swann. PA has its fair share of racists, of all races, who will vote for or against a candidate based on the color of his/her skin. While I have heard comments from white males that they could never vote for a black, I have also heard from other males who will never vote for a woman. In the privacy of the secret ballot, all prejudices are allowed even if we would never sanction them in public.
In the end, gender and race may make the difference. While African Americans are expected to vote for Obama, will Pennsylvania women do the same for Clinton? On the answer to that question rests this election.
Pennsylvania Won't Be the Decider:
Absent a victory by Obama over Clinton, something the Obama people are not predicting, this race goes on. Assuming Clinton wins PA, unless the race is a total blow-out, she is unlikely to end up with more than a 10 to 15 vote delegate advantage over Obama. The proportionality rule guarantees that Obama will get his percentage share of the 158 delegates determined on April 22. Greg Giroux and Jonathan Allen at Congressional Quarterly did an interesting analysis
of the delegate battle, and they predict of the 103 delegates elected in the 19 congressional districts Clinton will get 53 to Obama's 50. Of course, a double-digit landslaide by Clinton changes that. Another 55 delegates will be apportioned based on the statewide percentage the winner gets. If Clinton gets 55% of the statewide vote, for example, she would get 30 of those 55 delegates, leaving 25 for Obama. In short, whatever happens in the popular vote, the delegate contest is likely to remain close.
Here's something most people don't know. Not every congressional district elects the same number of delegates, since delegates are awarded based on Democratic registration and Democratic performance. One district -- the 2nd (Philadelphia) -- gets 9 delegates. Five districts get 7 delegates - the 1st (Philadelphia), the 7th (Delaware County), the 8th (Bucks County), the 13th (Northeast Philly), and the 14th (Pittsburgh). One district - the 6th (Southeast PA) - gets 6 delegates. Six districts get 5 delegates - the 3rd (Northwest PA), the 4th (Pittsburgh suburbs), the 11th (Northeast PA), the 12th (Southwest PA), the 15th (Allentown/Bethlehem), and the 18th (Pittsburgh suburbs). The remaining congressional districts get just four delegates each.
After all is said and done, this race moves on to Guam on May 3, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
When it's all over on June 3, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will have a majority of pledged delegates to get the nomination. Until all the uncommitted super delegates make up their minds - and local super delegates think that will happen before the Fourth of July - the Democratic Party will not have a presidential nominee.
Just some quick thoughts on a Sunday night. As you know, I welcome yours. Have a Happy Election Day!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Two Weeks to Go
Dear Politically Savvy Friends,
Two weeks from tomorrow, some 4 million+ Pennsylvania Democrats will have the chance to choose a nominee for president. The polls are showing an expected tightening of the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. No surprise there. Nobody, including the Clinton campaign, ever believed that Pennsylvania would roll over easily for any candidate. We are too ornery, too diverse, too independent, too smart to be taken for granted.
In this edition of my PSF, I examine the current state of the presidential race, along with some other PA races that will be on the April 22 ballot. As always, I welcome your comments and off-the-record tips.
But, first, a personal comment. I have very good friends on both sides of this Democratic battle, and several of them have taken me to task for not adopting their view of political events. That’s fine. I can take it. One of my friends deeply involved with one of the campaigns jokingly opined the other day: “The problem with you, Jon Delano, is that you’re too fair and even-handed.” He meant it as a criticism, but I’ll take it as a compliment. I am scrupulously neutral in political races, but I’m not afraid to tell you exactly what I think. So now, sit back and read on, my politically savvy friends.
ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA
Obama Steps Up His Campaign:
In my last PSF email (March 23), I opined that, despite double digit leads in all the polls at the time for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama could still win the state. (I think I was among the very few PA analysts at the time to say that). But I injected a very big IF – he could only win if he started to take the state seriously and campaign, full-time, on a retail level all across the commonwealth. A few days later, the Obama campaign announced their “Six Day” bus tour through Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvanians want their candidates to care about them, and the challenge is that this is a very big state with different politics depending on which valley, mountain top, or rolling plain you happen to visit. The Clintons know that, and the Clinton campaign has been going non-stop, back and forth, across Pennsylvania, picking up endorsements from countless local elected officials. On the ground, they are running a perfectly solid campaign.
But without the local political connections enjoyed by the Clintons, the Obama campaign seemed to struggle to get started, depending much more on volunteers and with some early campaign missteps, like “dissing” the state in a memorandum and a candidate who seemed to prefer being in other states. All that seems to have changed, and the poll numbers reflect it.
In polls conducted last week, SurveyUSA found the Clinton lead down to 12 points, Quinnipiac puts her lead at 9 points, and Rasmussen gives Clinton a 5 point lead. One poll, Public Policy Polling, calls it a dead heat with Obama ahead of Clinton by 2 points.
Now I’ve been through this polling nonsense for decades, and there are times when I would just toss all polls out the window. I usually suggest averaging all the polls for a better result, and then treating even that number with lots of grains of salt. In this case, the only conclusion is the obvious one: the race for Pennsylvania is not a done deal for anyone.
Clinton Fights Back:
The odds still favor Clinton for whom PA is a must-win state. As I noted in March, if Obama beats her in Pennsylvania, her campaign is over. Dead. Clinton knows that, and she is working this state hard, just like she won over skeptical New York state voters in 2000 when she ran for the U.S. Senate in her adopted state. She never stops. Hardly a day goes by that Hillary, Bill, or Chelsea aren’t stumping for votes here. With the political expertise of Gov. Ed Rendell and much of his political team, she doesn’t seem to miss a beat.
Her “economic summit” in Pittsburgh last Wednesday was classic, a mix of academia, labor, and business leaders exchanging views with her around a table, allowing Clinton to use her obvious intelligence to spin each comment into an observation about government failure in Washington and how her proposals would ameliorate the problem. The more you see Hillary in action, the more you appreciate how sharp this woman really is.
She does seem to have a cash problem, judging by the overwhelming Obama television ads now on the air. It’s not scientific, but I bet I see three or four of his ads to every one of hers. The Obama ads are very good, focusing on his bio, the American dream, and high gasoline prices. The latest Clinton ad is a take-off on her 3 am phone call ad, but this one focuses on the economy. All polls suggest the economy is the number one issue for Pennsylvanians, and it is a strong suit for her, as people think she is better qualified to turn the economy around, no doubt aided by memories of the good economic times presided over by her husband in the 1990s. But unless Clinton gets up on TV in some sort of visible way, she will be drowned out by the classy Obama commercials. That could make a difference.
Gender Gap Growing in PA:
What I have found striking thus far in the PA presidential primary is the growing gender gap between men and women. When Hillary was leading Barack by double-digits, she was winning both males and females. As the race tightens, it is largely because men are switching from Clinton to Obama. In the SurveyUSA poll, Clinton’s 5-point lead among men three weeks ago became a 7-point lead for Obama this week.
But what has kept the New York senator in the overall lead is women voters. The same poll showed a whopping 28-point lead for Clinton among women. Indeed, Clinton’s 62 percent of women voters was unchanged, while Obama just moved two points from 32 percent to 34 percent. In a state where women outvote men, Obama cannot win Pennsylvania unless he convinces more women to back his candidacy.
When I had the chance to interview Michelle Obama last week, I asked her about this gender problem. Her response was that it’s really just a question of women getting to know Barack better. She emphasized that Obama grew up among strong women, like his mother, his grandmother, and (of course) his wife and is comfortable among strong women and very cognizant of women’s needs. To be honest, I was impressed with Michelle and think the Obama campaign could make better use of her obvious talents to address the gender gap. So far, she has campaigned just once in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In the end, identity politics may be hard to overcome. Just as African Americans have rallied to Obama, despite Clinton’s strong civil rights record, so also women may be inclined to support Clinton, the first woman with a real shot at the White House, no matter how good Obama’s record on women’s issues.
Casey Shows a Risky Side:
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is the last person one imagines to take a political risk, so his endorsement of Obama last Friday was a bit of a political shocker. In early March, Pennsylvania’s soft-spoken, laid-back, conservative Democratic senator was insistent in both private and public conversations with me that he would not endorse either candidate until after the April 22 primary. So what changed?
Bottom line is pretty simple. Shortly before Easter, while on a family vacation, Casey reached the personal conclusion that he would vote for Obama on April 22. He says he was very impressed by Obama’s race speech in Philadelphia, and he acknowledges that his three daughters are strong Obama fans. But the question of going public with his decision to vote for Obama was a deeply personal one, made without consulting his political supporters.
Casey made the decision on Easter Sunday, called Obama and Clinton, and went public last Friday in Pittsburgh, surprising many in the political community. Will it make a difference for Obama? Hard to tell. Clinton has strong family ties to Northeast PA where Casey lives, and it may not change a lot there. One interesting impact, however, could be among Pennsylvania’s many pro-life Democrats for whom the Casey name is iconic. Now there’s no difference at all between Clinton and Obama on the abortion issue – both are pro-choice – but Casey’s support for Obama could be enough to convince pro-lifers that, if forced to choose between the two, Obama is preferable.
The SurveyUSA poll may offer some substantiation of my theory. Four weeks ago, pro-life Democrats backed Clinton, 53 to 36 percent. After the Casey endorsement, Obama picked up eight points here with Clinton ahead only 50 to 44. Now abortion is hardly an issue in this Democratic primary, but in a close election pro-life Dems could make the difference. This is especially important because Catholic Dems are critical in PA, and the Clintons have always done well among this constituency.
After Pennsylvania, What Happens?
Assuming Clinton wins PA, unless the race is a total blow-out, she is unlikely to end up with more than a 10 to 20 vote delegate advantage over Obama. The proportionality rule guarantees that Obama will get his percentage share of the 158 delegates determined on April 22. The race then moves on to Guam on May 3, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
When it’s all over on June 3, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will have a majority of pledged delegates to get the nomination.
Now some Obama supporters and their media allies are spinning that it’s all over and Clinton should drop out now. That’s preposterous. Why should she drop out when he hasn’t won it yet? It’s not over until all the votes are counted, and besides the states listed above the Democratic Party has to resolve the Michigan and Florida issue, at least if they want every vote to count.
Right now, before PA and the nine others vote, Obama leads among the delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses, 1414 to 1252. Not counting Michigan and Florida, there are 793 super-delegates. Some 221 of them have “endorsed” Obama and 251 have “endorsed” Clinton, giving Obama 1635 to Clinton’s 1503, a lead of just 132 delegates. It now takes 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. More delegates will be chosen in the remaining contests, and there are 331 super-delegates still uncommitted, including most of the PA Democratic members of Congress. Everybody expects these super-delegates to make the final decision, unless Clinton or Obama drop out, and nobody expects that. With the race so close, the appropriate time to call for people to “drop out” is after we know who has won! In the end, neither Obama nor Clinton can become the party nominee without super-delegates!
Pennsylvania will not be the “decider” unless Obama goes all out and defeats Clinton here. Looks like he returns to the state on Thursday (Philadelphia), while Clinton is back here on Wednesday (Pittsburgh), but these schedules could change. And next week, John McCain is planning a PA trip, just to prove he’s not forgotten. (By the way, both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are still on the PA Republican primary ballot). Most polls suggest in November, this state is up for grabs with McCain a strong contender against either Clinton or Obama. In short, this presidential campaign is hardly over.
PENNSYLVANIA’S OTHER RACES
Does Anyone Care about PA Treasurer?
Three statewide offices are on the ballot this year, but two of them won’t really be the focus of this April 22 primary. Two incumbents, Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Auditor General Jack Wagner, a Democrat, face no opposition until the fall when Northampton District Attorney John Morganelli takes on Corbett and Lancaster County businessman Chet Beiler takes on Wagner. Primary voters have no choices here.
But the Democratic race for state treasurer has prompted four Dems to compete for the job once held by Bob Casey. In ballot order, Dems choose among John Cordisco, Rob McCord, Dennis Morrison-Wesley, and Jennifer Mann. McCord, a wealthy venture capitalist from Montgomery County, is the most visible candidate so far, running TV ads with the help of $1 million he pumped into his own campaign. Cordisco is a former legislator from Bucks County and an attorney, while Mann is a state legislator from Lehigh County who is vice chair of the House Finance Committee. Morrison-Wesley is an investment advisor from Harrisburg who most recently worked for Comcast.
All four claim qualifications to manage the investment of the state’s $12 billion in revenues, and all four come from “back east” as far as western PA is concerned. Mann is the only woman on the ballot, while Morrison-Wesley is the only African-American. How much this will count, I suppose, depends on how much Clinton and Obama voters engage in identity politics. The Democratic winner will face bond attorney and former Montgomery County commissioner Tom Ellis, a Republican.
Congressional Battles Hard to Find this Spring:
Pennsylvania elects 19 members to the U.S. House of Representatives, but most of the real battles are on November 4. Indeed, two candidates are unopposed even then (U.S. Reps. Jack Murtha of Johnstown and Mike Doyle of Pittsburgh) unless a write-in surfaces on April 22.
Only four of the 19 congressional districts have primary battles and none are against an incumbent. In the 3rd District in northwestern PA (Erie south to Butler County), U.S. Rep. Phil English, a Republican, has no party opposition, but four Dems would like to have at him in November. They include Lake Erie Arboretum director Kathy Dahlkemper, Erie County councilman Kyle Foust, Erie attorney Tom Myers, and Erie lay minister Mike Waltner. Foust is the only candidate with an electoral base, but Dahlkemper has more money (largely her own). Dems have coveted this district for years, but English, who occasionally casts votes against his own party, is a visible and hard-working incumbent. He will be tough to defeat no matter who the Dems nominate.
In the state’s largest geographic congressional district in northwest and north central PA (the 5th District), three Dems and nine Republicans want to take the seat of retiring incumbent, U.S. Rep. John Peterson, a Republican. One candidate, 28-year old Matt Shaner has attracted media attention because he has spent more personal money on this race than any other candidate running for the House in America -- $1.22 million so far. Shaner heads up Shaner Investments in State College (Centre County). His opponents naturally accuse him of trying to “buy” the GOP nomination. Other Republicans include former Centre County commissioner Chris Exarchos, former Pine Creek Township (Clinton) supervisor John Krupa, Elk County coroner Lou Radkowski, Clarion Baptist pastor Keith Richardson, Woodward Township (Lycoming) supervisor Jeff Stroehman, Clarion mayor John Stroup, Centre County Republican chairman Glenn Thompson, and Bigler (Clearfield) financial consultant Derek Walker. Hard to figure out what’s going to happen in this race.
On the Democratic side, the candidates include Centre County native, Iraqi War veteran and former news correspondent Bill Cahir, Clearfield County commissioner Mark McCracken, and Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello. This district is solidly Republican, but the Dems think a blood bath on the GOP side gives them an opportunity, particularly if the state trends Democratic this fall.
Besides the 5th District, two Republicans are battling to take on U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, a Democrat, in the 10th District in north central and northeast PA, near Scranton/Wilkes Barre. Carney represents one of those districts nobody thought would go Democratic in 2006 but did, largely because of marital indiscretions of the GOP incumbent. Now the Republicans want it back, and Chris Hackett and Dan Meuser are battling for the privilege of beating Carney. Both are businessmen and both say they are conservatives. Hackett got some press when he had to fire an illegal immigrant who did housekeeping for his family, while the company Meuser owns is under attack for having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for such things as software piracy. In short, both candidates are bruising up each other, which could have benefits for Carney later this year.
The only other congressional primary battle is in the 18th District in suburban Pittsburgh, where U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican, is always thought to be vulnerable until he wins big. This year three Dems are vying to take him on: Steve O’Donnell of Monroeville, Beth Hafer of Mt. Lebanon, and Brien Wall of Upper St. Clair. For residents in the district (yes, I’m one of them), the contest has been largely invisible, although O’Donnell, the party endorsed Dem, has pumped out a mailing or two. Hafer, the daughter of former state treasurer Barbara Hafer, arguably has the greatest name recognition, while Wall says he has the best relationship with selected labor unions. At this stage, the race is probably a toss-up in the primary, although Murphy is clearly favored in the fall unless the ongoing FBI and Ethics Committee investigation into his use of staff for political purposes in 2006 turns up something before Nov. 4.
I’m going to stop here, reserving some comments about a few contested state Senate and state House races until later. As always, I welcome your comments. If you’re thinking ahead to the 2010 governor’s race, I recommend a piece I wrote for the April edition of Pittsburgh Magazine on Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato. It’s mostly biographical about the politician many think is the heir-apparent to Ed Rendell. Check it out. Spring seems to have finally hit western PA, so take a break from politics and enjoy the good weather!
Two weeks from tomorrow, some 4 million+ Pennsylvania Democrats will have the chance to choose a nominee for president. The polls are showing an expected tightening of the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. No surprise there. Nobody, including the Clinton campaign, ever believed that Pennsylvania would roll over easily for any candidate. We are too ornery, too diverse, too independent, too smart to be taken for granted.
In this edition of my PSF, I examine the current state of the presidential race, along with some other PA races that will be on the April 22 ballot. As always, I welcome your comments and off-the-record tips.
But, first, a personal comment. I have very good friends on both sides of this Democratic battle, and several of them have taken me to task for not adopting their view of political events. That’s fine. I can take it. One of my friends deeply involved with one of the campaigns jokingly opined the other day: “The problem with you, Jon Delano, is that you’re too fair and even-handed.” He meant it as a criticism, but I’ll take it as a compliment. I am scrupulously neutral in political races, but I’m not afraid to tell you exactly what I think. So now, sit back and read on, my politically savvy friends.
ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE THROUGH PENNSYLVANIA
Obama Steps Up His Campaign:
In my last PSF email (March 23), I opined that, despite double digit leads in all the polls at the time for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama could still win the state. (I think I was among the very few PA analysts at the time to say that). But I injected a very big IF – he could only win if he started to take the state seriously and campaign, full-time, on a retail level all across the commonwealth. A few days later, the Obama campaign announced their “Six Day” bus tour through Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvanians want their candidates to care about them, and the challenge is that this is a very big state with different politics depending on which valley, mountain top, or rolling plain you happen to visit. The Clintons know that, and the Clinton campaign has been going non-stop, back and forth, across Pennsylvania, picking up endorsements from countless local elected officials. On the ground, they are running a perfectly solid campaign.
But without the local political connections enjoyed by the Clintons, the Obama campaign seemed to struggle to get started, depending much more on volunteers and with some early campaign missteps, like “dissing” the state in a memorandum and a candidate who seemed to prefer being in other states. All that seems to have changed, and the poll numbers reflect it.
In polls conducted last week, SurveyUSA found the Clinton lead down to 12 points, Quinnipiac puts her lead at 9 points, and Rasmussen gives Clinton a 5 point lead. One poll, Public Policy Polling, calls it a dead heat with Obama ahead of Clinton by 2 points.
Now I’ve been through this polling nonsense for decades, and there are times when I would just toss all polls out the window. I usually suggest averaging all the polls for a better result, and then treating even that number with lots of grains of salt. In this case, the only conclusion is the obvious one: the race for Pennsylvania is not a done deal for anyone.
Clinton Fights Back:
The odds still favor Clinton for whom PA is a must-win state. As I noted in March, if Obama beats her in Pennsylvania, her campaign is over. Dead. Clinton knows that, and she is working this state hard, just like she won over skeptical New York state voters in 2000 when she ran for the U.S. Senate in her adopted state. She never stops. Hardly a day goes by that Hillary, Bill, or Chelsea aren’t stumping for votes here. With the political expertise of Gov. Ed Rendell and much of his political team, she doesn’t seem to miss a beat.
Her “economic summit” in Pittsburgh last Wednesday was classic, a mix of academia, labor, and business leaders exchanging views with her around a table, allowing Clinton to use her obvious intelligence to spin each comment into an observation about government failure in Washington and how her proposals would ameliorate the problem. The more you see Hillary in action, the more you appreciate how sharp this woman really is.
She does seem to have a cash problem, judging by the overwhelming Obama television ads now on the air. It’s not scientific, but I bet I see three or four of his ads to every one of hers. The Obama ads are very good, focusing on his bio, the American dream, and high gasoline prices. The latest Clinton ad is a take-off on her 3 am phone call ad, but this one focuses on the economy. All polls suggest the economy is the number one issue for Pennsylvanians, and it is a strong suit for her, as people think she is better qualified to turn the economy around, no doubt aided by memories of the good economic times presided over by her husband in the 1990s. But unless Clinton gets up on TV in some sort of visible way, she will be drowned out by the classy Obama commercials. That could make a difference.
Gender Gap Growing in PA:
What I have found striking thus far in the PA presidential primary is the growing gender gap between men and women. When Hillary was leading Barack by double-digits, she was winning both males and females. As the race tightens, it is largely because men are switching from Clinton to Obama. In the SurveyUSA poll, Clinton’s 5-point lead among men three weeks ago became a 7-point lead for Obama this week.
But what has kept the New York senator in the overall lead is women voters. The same poll showed a whopping 28-point lead for Clinton among women. Indeed, Clinton’s 62 percent of women voters was unchanged, while Obama just moved two points from 32 percent to 34 percent. In a state where women outvote men, Obama cannot win Pennsylvania unless he convinces more women to back his candidacy.
When I had the chance to interview Michelle Obama last week, I asked her about this gender problem. Her response was that it’s really just a question of women getting to know Barack better. She emphasized that Obama grew up among strong women, like his mother, his grandmother, and (of course) his wife and is comfortable among strong women and very cognizant of women’s needs. To be honest, I was impressed with Michelle and think the Obama campaign could make better use of her obvious talents to address the gender gap. So far, she has campaigned just once in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In the end, identity politics may be hard to overcome. Just as African Americans have rallied to Obama, despite Clinton’s strong civil rights record, so also women may be inclined to support Clinton, the first woman with a real shot at the White House, no matter how good Obama’s record on women’s issues.
Casey Shows a Risky Side:
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is the last person one imagines to take a political risk, so his endorsement of Obama last Friday was a bit of a political shocker. In early March, Pennsylvania’s soft-spoken, laid-back, conservative Democratic senator was insistent in both private and public conversations with me that he would not endorse either candidate until after the April 22 primary. So what changed?
Bottom line is pretty simple. Shortly before Easter, while on a family vacation, Casey reached the personal conclusion that he would vote for Obama on April 22. He says he was very impressed by Obama’s race speech in Philadelphia, and he acknowledges that his three daughters are strong Obama fans. But the question of going public with his decision to vote for Obama was a deeply personal one, made without consulting his political supporters.
Casey made the decision on Easter Sunday, called Obama and Clinton, and went public last Friday in Pittsburgh, surprising many in the political community. Will it make a difference for Obama? Hard to tell. Clinton has strong family ties to Northeast PA where Casey lives, and it may not change a lot there. One interesting impact, however, could be among Pennsylvania’s many pro-life Democrats for whom the Casey name is iconic. Now there’s no difference at all between Clinton and Obama on the abortion issue – both are pro-choice – but Casey’s support for Obama could be enough to convince pro-lifers that, if forced to choose between the two, Obama is preferable.
The SurveyUSA poll may offer some substantiation of my theory. Four weeks ago, pro-life Democrats backed Clinton, 53 to 36 percent. After the Casey endorsement, Obama picked up eight points here with Clinton ahead only 50 to 44. Now abortion is hardly an issue in this Democratic primary, but in a close election pro-life Dems could make the difference. This is especially important because Catholic Dems are critical in PA, and the Clintons have always done well among this constituency.
After Pennsylvania, What Happens?
Assuming Clinton wins PA, unless the race is a total blow-out, she is unlikely to end up with more than a 10 to 20 vote delegate advantage over Obama. The proportionality rule guarantees that Obama will get his percentage share of the 158 delegates determined on April 22. The race then moves on to Guam on May 3, Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, West Virginia on May 13, Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
When it’s all over on June 3, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will have a majority of pledged delegates to get the nomination.
Now some Obama supporters and their media allies are spinning that it’s all over and Clinton should drop out now. That’s preposterous. Why should she drop out when he hasn’t won it yet? It’s not over until all the votes are counted, and besides the states listed above the Democratic Party has to resolve the Michigan and Florida issue, at least if they want every vote to count.
Right now, before PA and the nine others vote, Obama leads among the delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses, 1414 to 1252. Not counting Michigan and Florida, there are 793 super-delegates. Some 221 of them have “endorsed” Obama and 251 have “endorsed” Clinton, giving Obama 1635 to Clinton’s 1503, a lead of just 132 delegates. It now takes 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. More delegates will be chosen in the remaining contests, and there are 331 super-delegates still uncommitted, including most of the PA Democratic members of Congress. Everybody expects these super-delegates to make the final decision, unless Clinton or Obama drop out, and nobody expects that. With the race so close, the appropriate time to call for people to “drop out” is after we know who has won! In the end, neither Obama nor Clinton can become the party nominee without super-delegates!
Pennsylvania will not be the “decider” unless Obama goes all out and defeats Clinton here. Looks like he returns to the state on Thursday (Philadelphia), while Clinton is back here on Wednesday (Pittsburgh), but these schedules could change. And next week, John McCain is planning a PA trip, just to prove he’s not forgotten. (By the way, both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee are still on the PA Republican primary ballot). Most polls suggest in November, this state is up for grabs with McCain a strong contender against either Clinton or Obama. In short, this presidential campaign is hardly over.
PENNSYLVANIA’S OTHER RACES
Does Anyone Care about PA Treasurer?
Three statewide offices are on the ballot this year, but two of them won’t really be the focus of this April 22 primary. Two incumbents, Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Auditor General Jack Wagner, a Democrat, face no opposition until the fall when Northampton District Attorney John Morganelli takes on Corbett and Lancaster County businessman Chet Beiler takes on Wagner. Primary voters have no choices here.
But the Democratic race for state treasurer has prompted four Dems to compete for the job once held by Bob Casey. In ballot order, Dems choose among John Cordisco, Rob McCord, Dennis Morrison-Wesley, and Jennifer Mann. McCord, a wealthy venture capitalist from Montgomery County, is the most visible candidate so far, running TV ads with the help of $1 million he pumped into his own campaign. Cordisco is a former legislator from Bucks County and an attorney, while Mann is a state legislator from Lehigh County who is vice chair of the House Finance Committee. Morrison-Wesley is an investment advisor from Harrisburg who most recently worked for Comcast.
All four claim qualifications to manage the investment of the state’s $12 billion in revenues, and all four come from “back east” as far as western PA is concerned. Mann is the only woman on the ballot, while Morrison-Wesley is the only African-American. How much this will count, I suppose, depends on how much Clinton and Obama voters engage in identity politics. The Democratic winner will face bond attorney and former Montgomery County commissioner Tom Ellis, a Republican.
Congressional Battles Hard to Find this Spring:
Pennsylvania elects 19 members to the U.S. House of Representatives, but most of the real battles are on November 4. Indeed, two candidates are unopposed even then (U.S. Reps. Jack Murtha of Johnstown and Mike Doyle of Pittsburgh) unless a write-in surfaces on April 22.
Only four of the 19 congressional districts have primary battles and none are against an incumbent. In the 3rd District in northwestern PA (Erie south to Butler County), U.S. Rep. Phil English, a Republican, has no party opposition, but four Dems would like to have at him in November. They include Lake Erie Arboretum director Kathy Dahlkemper, Erie County councilman Kyle Foust, Erie attorney Tom Myers, and Erie lay minister Mike Waltner. Foust is the only candidate with an electoral base, but Dahlkemper has more money (largely her own). Dems have coveted this district for years, but English, who occasionally casts votes against his own party, is a visible and hard-working incumbent. He will be tough to defeat no matter who the Dems nominate.
In the state’s largest geographic congressional district in northwest and north central PA (the 5th District), three Dems and nine Republicans want to take the seat of retiring incumbent, U.S. Rep. John Peterson, a Republican. One candidate, 28-year old Matt Shaner has attracted media attention because he has spent more personal money on this race than any other candidate running for the House in America -- $1.22 million so far. Shaner heads up Shaner Investments in State College (Centre County). His opponents naturally accuse him of trying to “buy” the GOP nomination. Other Republicans include former Centre County commissioner Chris Exarchos, former Pine Creek Township (Clinton) supervisor John Krupa, Elk County coroner Lou Radkowski, Clarion Baptist pastor Keith Richardson, Woodward Township (Lycoming) supervisor Jeff Stroehman, Clarion mayor John Stroup, Centre County Republican chairman Glenn Thompson, and Bigler (Clearfield) financial consultant Derek Walker. Hard to figure out what’s going to happen in this race.
On the Democratic side, the candidates include Centre County native, Iraqi War veteran and former news correspondent Bill Cahir, Clearfield County commissioner Mark McCracken, and Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello. This district is solidly Republican, but the Dems think a blood bath on the GOP side gives them an opportunity, particularly if the state trends Democratic this fall.
Besides the 5th District, two Republicans are battling to take on U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, a Democrat, in the 10th District in north central and northeast PA, near Scranton/Wilkes Barre. Carney represents one of those districts nobody thought would go Democratic in 2006 but did, largely because of marital indiscretions of the GOP incumbent. Now the Republicans want it back, and Chris Hackett and Dan Meuser are battling for the privilege of beating Carney. Both are businessmen and both say they are conservatives. Hackett got some press when he had to fire an illegal immigrant who did housekeeping for his family, while the company Meuser owns is under attack for having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for such things as software piracy. In short, both candidates are bruising up each other, which could have benefits for Carney later this year.
The only other congressional primary battle is in the 18th District in suburban Pittsburgh, where U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican, is always thought to be vulnerable until he wins big. This year three Dems are vying to take him on: Steve O’Donnell of Monroeville, Beth Hafer of Mt. Lebanon, and Brien Wall of Upper St. Clair. For residents in the district (yes, I’m one of them), the contest has been largely invisible, although O’Donnell, the party endorsed Dem, has pumped out a mailing or two. Hafer, the daughter of former state treasurer Barbara Hafer, arguably has the greatest name recognition, while Wall says he has the best relationship with selected labor unions. At this stage, the race is probably a toss-up in the primary, although Murphy is clearly favored in the fall unless the ongoing FBI and Ethics Committee investigation into his use of staff for political purposes in 2006 turns up something before Nov. 4.
I’m going to stop here, reserving some comments about a few contested state Senate and state House races until later. As always, I welcome your comments. If you’re thinking ahead to the 2010 governor’s race, I recommend a piece I wrote for the April edition of Pittsburgh Magazine on Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato. It’s mostly biographical about the politician many think is the heir-apparent to Ed Rendell. Check it out. Spring seems to have finally hit western PA, so take a break from politics and enjoy the good weather!
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