The 2008 Elections

[Normy]

I read this today, and it pretty much sums up my feelings. I don't agree 100% with Barry Obama's ideas, but I want to go on record that I think he is the better of the two alternatives and that I agree with the following article.

N!

One week into the presidential race and historians see little, if any, chance for John McCain to clinch the Presidency.

Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt destroyed Hoover in 1932. In that infamous race, an energetic Democrat removed from office a Republican who touted “market capitalism” while the country’s economy went steadily down the tubes.

“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.

“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.
John McCain has had more time than Barack Obama to focus on who he might select as his running mate. He’s facing a battle in this decision: His party is under attack by its ultraconservative fundamentalist christian wing to pick an evangelical for a VP, and these same people want a party platform dictated by the Southern Baptist Leadership Council. McCain wants neither. The result is turmoil.

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

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

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

Though the Democratic-controlled Congress isn’t very popular, Lichtman says the Democrats’ 2006 midterm wins resemble the midterm congressional gains of the out-party in 1966 and 1974, which both preceded a retaking of the White House two years later.

One of the few bright spots historians noted is that the public generally does not view McCain as a traditional Republican. And, as Republicans frequently point out, McCain isn't actually the incumbent dubya Bush, though the two have tended to vote the same.

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

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

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

Campbell also notes that McCain may benefit from the Democratic divisions that were on display in the primary, as Republicans did in 1968, when Democratic divisions over the war in Vietnam dogged Humphrey and helped hand [resigned] president Nixon victory. In any case, McCain's presidential bid is a return to both the Vietnam and Iraq wars for the United States.

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

[legion]

We've been paying for FDR's mistakes (the plethora of socialist programs) for 60 years with no end in sight.

I don't want to be paying for Obama's for the next 100.

[Rick Lee]

I don't agree with Obama on one single issue. I hate McCain too, but I can agree with him on a few things, so I'll have to hold my nose and vote for him. What historians say is the last reason in the world to vote a certain way. I don't think I've heard a single Obama supporter here explain why he'd make a better president than McCain. He has no record of accomplishment as a U.S. Senator, certainly not one of working with the other party and before that he never had a real job either. It takes a little more than a good speech writer to make a good president.

[MRM]

Just before Clinton beat Bush 1 in 1992 I read Geiorge Will make the most excellent historical analysis of why no Republican presidential candidate could lose in the foreseeable future. His analysis was spot on. But past performance does not predict future returns.

[dipso]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I don't agree with Obama on one single issue. I hate McCain too, but I can agree with him on a few things, so I'll have to hold my nose and vote for him. What historians say is the last reason in the world to vote a certain way. I don't think I've heard a single Obama supporter here explain why he'd make a better president than McCain. He has no record of accomplishment as a U.S. Senator, certainly not one of working with the other party and before that he never had a real job either. It takes a little more than a good speech writer to make a good president.

Because McCain is stupid.
Obama is smart.

If given the choice. What would you rather have?

Who would you want in charge, a stupid man or a smart one.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by dipso

Because McCain is stupid.
Obama is smart.

If given the choice. What would you rather have?

Who would you want in charge, a stupid man or a smart one.

That's real hard-hitting analysis and shows you've put a lot of thought into this.

Can you be less specific?

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by dipso

Because McCain is stupid.
Obama is smart.

If given the choice. What would you rather have?

Who would you want in charge, a stupid man or a smart one.

How about some facts to back up your charge? How is Obama smart and McCain Stupid?

This board is not a good reflection of the Country, but it is about 2/3rds for McCain and 1/3rd for Obama.

[dipso]

Originally Posted by red-beard

How about some facts to back up your charge? How is Obama smart and McCain Stupid?

This board is not a good reflection of the Country, but it is about 2/3rds for McCain and 1/3rd for Obama.

Well then , that's too bad for this board. What do you want me to do, Obama is going to win and McCain is going to lose. That's obvious.

Facts? Would you like me to manipulate them in Obamas favor or McCains favor?
You'll see for yourself soon enough. As soon as McCain comes out of hiding and has to start speaking to the public, now that the race is on, he will fall on his own sword.

I am not worried about it, several months is a long time for someone like McCain to keep his head above water.

[dipso]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

That's real hard-hitting analysis and shows you've put a lot of thought into this.

Can you be less specific?

maybe

[Rick Lee]

Dipso, you still haven't articulated what about Obama makes him best fit to be POTUS. McCain's being old or Obama's being a good speaker aren't real convincing. Tell me how raising taxes, expanding the welfare state and emboldening our enemies is gonna be the right thing to do.

[svandamme]

McCain is a senior citizen, about ready to turn senile citizen
chances are, he'll crumble mid election, rendering all this debating pointless

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by svandamme

McCain is a senior citizen, about ready to turn senile citizen
chances are, he'll crumble mid election, rendering all this debating pointless

That was a ringing and well-thought-out endorsement of Obama. Can any Obama supporter actually explain why he should be POTUS?

[aap1966]

Originally Posted by Normy

One week into the presidential race and historians see little, if any, chance for John McCain to clinch the Presidency.

What? Academics and intellectuals say McCain has no hope?
Cool, the Republicians have it sewn up!!

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by dipso

I am not worried about it, several months is a long time for someone like McCain to keep his head above water.

McCain has kept his head above water in public life since the day his Jet got shot down above Vietnam and he landed in a lake with several broken bones.

[tabs]

Fear will keep Obama out of the Presidency....he simply has no viable track record.

He will simply be a puppet for the puppet masters in Chicago... and I would say Mass except Tedy ain't long for this world.

[m21sniper]

Racism is likely to keep him out as well.

[livi]

You Americans really adore your candidates. How is it that, with such a large nation, you can´t come up with candidates that most of you actually don´t puke over?

[tabs]

Hail to the new American King...Richard Daly and his broither the prince William Daly...they are doing their dad proud on this fathers day...Mayor Richard Daly Sr of police riot fame during the 1968 Democratic Party Convention...

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by livi

You Americans really adore your candidates. How is it that, with such a large nation, you can´t come up with candidates that most of you actually don´t puke over?

Aside from being too old, i think McCain is a damn solid candidate. I will have no qualms whatsoever about voting for him.