I'm on vacation, so I won't be commenting on any specific states or races this week or next. I'll just put the race status out there for edification and comment. On the whole, McCain gains on Obama while not much else changes.
President
Tier I
Obama (50) - Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio
McCain (21) - Montana, Nevada, Virginia
Tier II
Obama (43) - Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania
McCain (64) - Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina
Tier III
Obama (32) - New Jersey, Oregon, Wisconsin
McCain (24) - Alaska, Georgia, North Dakota, South Dakota
Tier IV
Obama (168) - California, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington
McCain (136) - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming
Current Outlook
Electoral Vote
Obama 293 (pick up CO, IA, NM, OH)
McCain 245
Popular Vote
Obama 50.4%
McCain 49.1%
Governors
Democrats lead 22-17 in states not up for election this year.
Tier I
NONE
Tier II
Democrat (1) - North Carolina (Michael Easley retiring)
Tier III
Democrat (1) - Washington (Christine Gregoire)
Tier IV
Democrat (5) - Delaware (Ruth Minner retiring), Missouri (Matt Blunt retiring), Montana (Brian Schweitzer), New Hampshire (John Lynch), West Virginia (Joe Manchin)
Republican (4) - Indiana (Mitch Daniels), North Dakota (John Hoeven), Utah (Jon Huntsman), Vermont (Jim Douglas)
Current Outlook
Democrats 29 (pick up MO)
Republicans 21
Senate
Democrats lead uncontested seats 39-26.
Tier I
NONE
Tier II
Democrat (2) - Colorado (Wayne Allard retiring), Louisiana (Mary Landrieu)
Republican (2) - Mississippi special (Roger Wicker), Oregon (Gordon Smith)
Tier III
Democrat (1) - Alaska (Ted Stevens)
Republican (3) - Georgia (Saxby Chambliss), Minnesota (Norm Coleman), North Carolina (Elizabeth Dole)
Tier IV
Democrat (14) - Arkansas (Mark Pryor), Delaware (Joseph Biden), Illinois (Richard Durbin), Iowa (Tom Harkin), Massachusetts (John Kerry), Michigan (Carl Levin), Montana (Max Baucus), New Jersey (Frank Lautenberg), New Hampshire (John Sununu), New Mexico (Pete Domenici retiring), Rhode Island (Jack Reed), South Dakota (Tim Johnson), Virginia (John Warner retiring), West Virginia (Jay Rockefeller)
Republican (13) - Alabama (Jeff Sessions), Idaho (Larry Craig retiring), Kansas (Pat Roberts), Kentucky (Mitch McConnell), Maine (Susan Collins), Mississippi (Thad Cochran), Nebraska (Chuck Hagel retiring), Oklahoma (James Inhofe), South Carolina (Lindsey Graham), Tennessee (Lamar Alexander), Texas (John Cornyn), Wyoming (Michael Enzi), Wyoming special (John Barrasso)
Current Outlook
Democrats 56 (pick up AK, CO, NH, NM, VA)
Republicans 44
House
Tier I
Democrat (5) - AL-5 (Bud Cramer retiring), KS-2 (Nancy Boyda), NV-3 (Jon Porter), NJ-3 (Jim Saxton retiring), OH-15 (Deborah Pryce retiring)
Republican (8) - AK-AL (Don Young), LA-6 (Don Cazayoux), MN-3 (Jim Ramstad retiring), NJ-7 (Robert Ferguson retiring), NM-1 (Heather Wilson retiring), NC-8 (Robin Hayes), OH-16 (Ralph Regula retiring), WA-8 (Dave Reichert)
Tier II
Democrat (4) - CA-11 (Jerry McNerney), FL-16 (Tim Mahoney), NH-1 (Carol Shea-Porter), PA-10 (Christopher Carney)
Republican (5) - CO-4 (Marilyn Musgrave), CT-2 (Christopher Shays), LA-4 (Jim McCrery retiring), NY-29 (Randy Kuhl), TX-22 (Nick Lampson)
Tier III
Democrat (6) - AZ-1 (Rick Renzi retiring), GA-8 (Jim Marshall), IL-11 (Jerry Weller retiring), MS-1 (Travis Childers), PA-11 (Paul Kanjorski), WI-8 (Steve Kagen)
Republican (7) - AL-2 (Terry Everett retiring), FL-24 (Tom Feeney), IL-10 (Mark Kirk) MI-7 (Tim Walberg), NM-2 (Steve Pearce retiring), NY-26 (Tom Reynolds retiring) OH-1 (Steve Chabot)
Tier IV
Democrat (29) - AZ-5 (Harry Mitchell), AZ-8 (Gabrielle Giffords), CT-2 (Joe Courtney), CT-5 (Chris Murphy), FL-22 (Ron Klein), GA-12 (John Barrow), IL-8 (Melissa Bean), IL-14 (Bill Foster), IN-2 (Joe Donnelly), IN-7 (Andre Carson), IN-8 (Brad Ellsworth), IN-9 (Baron Hill), KS-3 (Dennis Moore), KY-3 (John Yarmuth), ME-1 (Tom Allen retiring), MN-1 (Tim Walz), NH-2 (Paul Hodes), NY-13 (Vito Fossella retiring), NY-19 (John Hall), NY-20 (Kirsten Gillibrand), NY-24 (Michael Arcuri), NY-25 (James Walsh retiring), OH-18 (Zack Space), OR-5 (Darlene Hooley retiring), PA-4 (Jason Altmire), PA-7 (Joe Sestak), PA-8 (Patrick Murphy), TX-23 (Ciro Rodriguez), VA-11 (Tom Davis retiring)
Republican (44) - AL-3 (Mike Rogers), AZ-3 (John Shadegg), CA-4 (John Doolittle retiring), CA-46 (Dana Rohrabacher), CA-50 (Brian Bilbray), FL-8 (Ric Keller), FL-9 (Gus Bilirakis), FL-13 (Vern Buchanan), FL-15 (Dave Weldon retiring), FL-18 (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen), FL-21 (Mario Diaz-Balart), FL-25 (Lincoln Diaz-Balart), ID-1 (Bill Sali), IL-6 (Peter Roskam), IL-13 (Judy Biggert), IL-18 (Ray LaHood retiring), IN-3 (Mark Souder), IA-4 (Tom Latham), KY-2 (Ron Lewis retiring), LA-7 (Charles Boustany), MD-1 (Wayne Gilchrest retiring), MI-9 (Joe Knollenberg), MN-2 (John Kline), MN-6 (Michele Bachmann), MO-6 (Sam Graves), MO-9 (Kenny Hulshof retiring), NE-2 (Lee Terry), NV-2 (Dean Heller) NJ-5 (Scott Garrett), NC-12 (Patrick McHenry), OH-2 (Jean Schmidt), OH-7 (Dave Hobson retiring), OH-14 (Steven LaTourette), PA-3 (Phil English), PA-6 (Jim Gerlach), PA-15 (Charlie Dent), PA-18 (Tim Murphy), TX-7 (John Culberson), TX-10 (Michael McCaul), VA-2 (Thelma Drake), VA-5 (Virgil Goode), VA-10 (Frank Wolf), WV-2 (Shelley Moore Capito), WY-AL (Barbara Cubin retiring)
Tier V
Democrat (198)
Republican (129)
Current Outlook
Democrats 242 (pick up AZ-1, IL-11, NV-3, NJ-3, NY-13, NY-25, OH-15, VA-11)
Republicans 193 (pick up LA-6, TX-22)
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
State of the Race
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7 comments:
I realize this is somewhat old news by now (I was offline for a few days), but why didn't you enable comments on the Saddlebrook story? My comment would have been that I suppose you also thought it was unimportant that Reagan had access to Carter's debate briefing books. It just goes without saying that if you know in advance what someone will say or did say, you have a rhetorical advantage. And unlike Warren, I don't think any of the rest of us has any reason to trust the integrity of a man (McCain) who has concluded that he has to turn his back on his most important core principles (most notably, fiscal responsibility) in order to be elected as a Republican. You think that someone who knows that hemorrhaging national debt to China is a national security issue and yet campaigns on maintaining and increasing tax cuts to the wealthiest segments of society and continuing to waste money on a war of choice that he has represented as won or almost won for the last 5 years would shrink at peeking at the beginning of an interview, if he thought that could help him get elected? Your thoughts are interesting, but your partisan biases do clearly show.
Michael,
Thanks for your comment. Let me clear up the comments issue. Immediately after I posted that blog post, we received an anti-Semitic comment. That type of commentary has no place on our website. In trying to delete it, I accidentally disabled all comments. I have fixed that. I urge anyone to write in with your thoughts there.
As far as Reagan having Carter's debate briefing book, I am not sure why you raise the issue. I assume you raise this as analogous. Reagan's team's possession of Carter's briefing book probably gave Reagan some advantage over Carter in the 1980 debate. I don't deny that at all. I don't know who was responsible for giving the book to Reagan's team, but if these people used unethical methods, they should be condemned and should have been in 1980.
Is that why Carter lost the debate? That's one of those "what if" questions that has no definitive answer. One of the most memorable moments of the 1980 Presidential debate was President Carter's invocation of his daughter in the debate ("I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, before I came here, to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry . . ."). Nothing in the briefing book caused this gaffe, which is arguably the most memorable moment of the 1980 debate.
If there is evidence that McCain had advance knowledge of Warren's questions, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. I would condemn McCain and his campaign. I agree that having advance notice of the questions would have been a huge advantage.
The main thrust of my criticism was that the New York Times and Obama's campaign questioned McCain's knowledge of the questions without any basis. In 1980, there were direct reports that Reagan's people had Carter's briefing book. The ONLY evidence in the NY Times article was that McCain was in a motorcade and was not in a figurative "cone of silence" during the entire hour-long Obama interview. Nobody has reported that McCain heard the questions, nor has anyone provided evidence of that. Are you arguing that McCain's good performance alone is evidence that he cheated? Are you saying that he could not have possibly done that well without assistance?
The point of the article was that the New York Times was willing to run with the story without any basis, yet the newspaper has ignored other stories (like John Edwards' story) even when there has been ample evidence to support these stories.
To some degree, we do have to rely on McCain's word unless we have evidence to the contrary. Your own comments indicate that you are not a McCain supporter and that you likely support Obama. Given the distrust that many leftists have of George W. Bush and any Republican, I suppose I can understand your reticence to take McCain at his word.
To some degree, if there is a dispute like this, we need to take some people at their word because we have no other evidence. If the situation were reversed, I would have to take Obama at his word, unless there was evidence to the contrary.
A quick glance through shows two errors (maybe more): Porter is not retiring in Nevada, and Gus Bilirakis is running in FL, not Mike Bilirakis.
JD, I do not take McCain's effective use of brief, clear, and in some cases arguably overly simplistic remarks (=sound bites, which we know are more effective in national campaigns than long, thoughtful answers) in the interview to be any kind of proof that he in fact saw or otherwise had knowledge of what happened in part of Obama's interview with Rev. Warren. However, I see no reason to take ANY politician at his/her word that they did not do anything they clearly COULD HAVE DONE that might have been to their advantage, if the evidence shows that they COULD HAVE done it, and there is no evidence beyond their word that they did not do it.
If all you really meant to do was to criticize the Times in the context you state, and not to criticize NBC for running an accurate story, the key points of which were essentially confirmed by the McCain campaign (i.e., that he was for the entire time before his interview with Rev. Warren in a car and then a green room where he could have had access to the Obama interview by various means), I misread your post and owe you an apology for accusing you of exhibiting partisan bias.
I do think, though, that a healthy skepticism of politicians is a good thing, and to the extent the media call attention to situations that are legitimately open to question - whether the politicians are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whatever - that's great. And this was such a situation.
Steven, you are correct on both counts. Those were simple typos...I didn't really edit this as I'm on vacation. They are corrected and I appreciate you calling them to my attention.
Michael,
I agree that skeptcism is necessary and valuable in dealing with politicians. However, it seems to me that the basic difference between you in JD is one of burden of proof.
JD seems to argue for the idea that when accused of something, the politician is "innocent until proven guilty." You seem to prefer the opposite, where the politician is "guilty until proven innocent." In this context (unlike criminal law), I don't necessarily think one is preferable, but how one views this burden will inevitably color how they view things.
If McCain had the opportunity to listen to the questions (which tends to not be in dispute), but have no evidence as to whether he did or not, do we assume that he did or that he did not? I tend to lean toward assuming he didn't, given that it would be almost impossible to prove that he didn't. I say this as if he's in a campaign car, he'll almost certainly be surrounded by people who would say he did not even if he did, which isn't much better than his word alone. If someone like that said he did and was credible, that would come close to proving that he did.
I'd also note that generally media standards (to the extent they exist anymore) require the people writing the story to prove any affirmative accusations, not require the subject to prove the negative.
Michael,
I do understand your point. I definitely think that we need to view politicians with some level of skepticism, because the (sad and unfortunate) fact is that politicians of both parties and all political persuasions have lied in the past and done deceitful things.
In many ways, this is a unique situation. For example, when Hillary Clinton told tales of being under sniper fire in Bosnia, there were not only several contrary accounts, but there was also video directly proving her incorrect. What makes this situation unique for politics is that there is no way to establish any facts as true or false. Unless someone who was with McCain states that he did hear the questions, we cannot prove anything. To me, the fact that he could have heard the questions is not enough.
I agree we need to be skeptical of politicians (and surely, there are plenty of times when I am), but unless there is evidence on which to make a judgment, it's hard for me to jump to conclusions and lay blame. It's true that politicians have been caught doing terrible things, but don't forget that they are often accused of false things as well. When these false accusations stick, it can really destroy someone.
One more thought. I wouldn't have even had a problem if the New York Times ran a story essentially saying, "Some questions were raised regarding whether Sen. McCain could have heard some of Pastor Rick Warren's questions in advance. Contrary to Warren's statement about McCain being in a cone of silence, McCain was actually en route to Lake Forest, CA during the first half of Sen. Obama's interview. While some are questioning McCain, no evidence has been unearthed indicating that McCain actually did hear the questions." Obviously, the tone of what I wrote is substantially different than the tone of the New York Times' article. In my opinion, my version is similar factually, but avoids the unnecessary insinuations made by the Times.
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