McCain's Blurry Vision

This isn't about whether or not the septegenarian needs bifocals (although how would we know since he hasn't fully released his medical records?) Rather, we've got some striking news from Gallup.

Only one third (33%) of Americans believe John McCain has a clear plan to solve America's problems. That's a nine point drop since mid-March. Yup, it seems that despite his month-long free pass to define himself to the American voter as the Democrats continue their deathmatch nomination battle, McCain has presented himself and Americans simply aren't impressed.

But, the good news for Democrats (particularly Hillary Clinton) doesn't stop there. Gallup measured eight "character" ratings for the three leading presidential candidates. McCain's image among Americans slipped in seven. While Obama's numbers also softened, it was McCain who experienced the steepest decline. Considering the ongoing Democratic intramural fighting, it is surprising Hillary Clinton saw her image actually increase in response to most questions. There is a huge red flag for her, however. More than 6 out of ten don't view Clinton as trustworthy.

Overall, Obama has a significant lead (4 points or larger) over his rivals on three questions. McCain leads on two while Clinton, despite her improving numbers does not lead both her rivals on any question.

Comparing the two Democratic rivals, Obama holds leads over Clinton on four questions. The most striking is the "trust gap" of 23 points. Clinton has cut into Obama's lead on empathy (cares about people like you) and pride (proud to have as president). She holds on three questions, (has a plan, leadership and management) manifestation of the "experience" mantle she has worked to claim throughout the nomination battle.

In head-to-head matchups, McCain now trails both Democrats on three questions. He trails Obama on two more (values and pride). Clinton's "trust gap" with McCain is even larger (28 points). Conversely, McCain trails Clinton as the problem solver in the race by double digits (15) and is viewed as being unaware of the average American's problems (10 points).

	Clinton	McCain	Obama
Cares about the needs of people like you.	57 (+3)	52 (-2)	62 (-4)
Is a strong and decisive leader.	62 (+1)	66 (-3)	55 (-1)
Is honest and trustworthy.	37 (-7)	65 (-2)	60 (-3)
Shares your values.	46 (+1)	47 (+1)	51 (NC)
Has a clear plan for solving the country's problems.	47 (-2)	33 (-9)	40 (-1)
Understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives.	60 (+2)	50 (-5)	63 (-4)
Is someone you would be proud to have as president.	48 (+1)	51 (-4)	55 (-2)
Can manage the govt effectively.	54 (+3)	55 (-5)	48 (NC)
MoE = +/- 3%.

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog...He Was a Good Friend of Mine

Uhm, maybe not?

I'm of the opinion - and it may prove to be naive and foolish - that Rev. Wright's remergence in the public arena this weekend will eventually help Barack Obama's candidacy. I realize I'm swimming against the stream of conventional wisdom this Monday morning. Right now, MSNBC has the tag line: "CAMPAIGN ALERT: Rev. Wright Hurting Obama Campaign and Tamryn Hall opened this hour's coverage describing him as "the thorn in Obama's side."

So, with the media providing the "Wright is Wrong for Obama" refrain, why do I think this PR campaign has an upside?

Let's acknowledge the following:

1) The Wright controversy has been created by selective, inflammatory soundbites. The snapshots are unquestionably damaging to Obama's candidacy. But we are missing both the context of the remarks and the complexity of the man.
2) The controversy isn't going to disappear. If Democrats - or the Obama campaign - believed Rev. Wright was going to fade into the rearview mirror, that's wishful thinking. Rest assured: It ain't going to happen, because the Republicans won't let it. The Right Wing machine is in high gear. We've already been promised "Wright All the Time" in a general election.

If Wright had chosen to retreat into silence, it would have allowed the Republican smear machine to define him. Unlike recent Democratic candidates, Wright, a proud and accomplished man, chose to not back down. He decided to define and explain the African American church and inform the public about a lifetime devoted to social justice and compassion. He is refusing to allow his life story to be reduced to a soundbite.

How did he do? From my perspective, he scored some points during the speech. He did a great job of making the audience laugh, squirm and THINK more than a soundbite could ever do.
In the Q&A, he fumbled a bit, providing a handful of soundbites to the GOP attack ad library, probably causing heartburn for the Obama campaign.

What emerges from this burst of publicity? Wright becomes a more complete figure in the public mind. He forces people to see beyond the media's caricature. In the process, he raised some serious questions about the role of religion, educated others about black liberation theology and challenged us to acknowledge the complexity of race relations in 21st century America.

Additionally, by becoming a headline today, he has diffused the power of his comments in the long run. By the general election, voters are likely to say, "oh, yeah, we've heard all this before." It's similar to the crazy and indefensible comments that regularly come out of the Right Wing preachers' (think Falwell, Hagee & Robertson) mouths. We may be enraged when they claim divine retribution in hurricanes and terrorist attacks, but eventually we consider the source and move on.

Lastly, Wright may have provided Obama the additional cover he needed to distance himself from his erstwhile preacher. The reverend has chosen to take more flak, transfering much of the bile and outrage from Obama to himself. While many in the media are declaring these remarks as "Awful for Obama" and predicting collateral damage to his candidacy, they could be dead wrong. Obama is not the "Angry Black Man" Wright's caricature depicts.

Here is an opportunity to reinforce Obama's image as the "post-partisan and post-racial" candidate. He can say - once again - "I understand and feel the reverend's pain, but I do not share his anger."

MSNBC: Falls for One of the "Oldest Tricks in Politics"

This story has been in the "hourly loop" playing during MSNBC's "The Place for Politics" daytime coverage. There's a new anti-Obama ad (in addition to the abysmal NC State GOP one "denounced" by McCain yesterday) being peddled by the creator of the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad. I say "peddled" because there has been no "buy."

Oh, but no worries. MSNBC (and I'm sure the other 24-7 cable outlets) have decided to hawk what these fearmongers are shelling out for free.

The ad shows scenes from a desolate urban streetscape with tag lines saying "Tamika McFadden-Harris: Murdered shielding her daughter. Mike Boyd: Beaten with bricks in gang attacks." These are shown on the TeeVee screen as Contessa Brewer dutifully reads from the teleprompter:

A conservative third party group led by infamous ad man Floyd Brown claims Senator Obama is weak on street gangs and will be just as easy with terrorists. Well, here's the catch: Brown does not have a single ad buy in any TV market. Instead of paying for airtime, he just announces this in a press release for outlets like YouTube to pick up."

Contessa introduces the segment's talking heads (Craig Gordon from Newsday and Jonathan Allen from CQPolitics.com) and without even a hint of self-awareness, Contessa pivots to Gordon and asks:

"OK, so, Craig, is this a new way to get your ad covered without buying any time?

Craig (laughing) says, "Uh, it's actually one of the oldest tricks in politics where you, uh, even, even respectable campaigns will do this sometimes. Where they will announce an ad. They'll show the reporters. They'll be very vague about how much money they're going to spend putting it on the air. We all write about it. You put it on your TV networks and they've - voila! they've got their ad out there.

So, it's actually kind of an old trick that folks use sometime. Obviously, it's a pretty controversial topic for an ad. And we're talking about it here today so he's probably accomplished what he hoped to accomplish."

Come on, MSNBC. You don't even have to have a long memory to remember when Huckabee pulled this stunt. One of the reasons these "tricks" work is because the media enables and promotes them.

A Blue Wave Building

Much has been made about the surge in democratic registration across the country. As the Pennsylvania primary approached, the MSM reported about the long-time Republican bastions of Montgomery and Bucks Counties outside Philadelphia had flipped - becoming majority Democratic jurisdictions. This Democratic surge has been widely viewed by politicos as one of the positive side-effects of the interminable Democratic nomination fight, as party-building has preceded voting in each successive primary contest.

We've now got news that the trend continues, post-primary, in a critical state. The California Majority Report has reviewed the voter registration trends in California since the Golden State voted on SuperTuesday and Democrats continue to widen the gap between the two parties across the state:

This boost in Democratic registration isn't simply a temporary lift propelled by interest in the February presidential primary. In every Assembly district in the state since the cutoff for registration for the February primary, Democratic registration has risen while Republican registration has declined. Overall, Democratic registration has inched up by .6 percent statewide. Meanwhile GOP numbers continue their free-fall, declining by .4 percent, in the period between January 22nd and April 4th.

OH-18: No Sophomore Slump in Ohio

After the historic mid-term elections, the Republicans claimed they lost many of their seats not because of a bankrupt brand, failed policies or a widespread rejection by voters across the nation. Instead, they said their majority was lost because of a series of individual scandals. The "handful" of scalliwags, the thinking went, lost "safe" GOP districts: DeLay, Foley, Pombo and the litany of Abramoff-tinged congresscritters. They figured these districts would be easily recaptured in 2008, a presidential year when these districts would return to their red roots.

Well, it looks like one of those target districts, Zack Space's 18th District in Ohio, may be firming up for the Democrats. Due Space's strong fundraising and the Republican nominee's lack of resources, CQ Politics has changed it's rating in the race from "Leans Dem" to "Dem Favored." They write:

The typically strong conservative leanings of 18th District voters — President Bush took 57 percent of the vote there when he ran for re-election in 2004 — had Space perched precariously near the top of the GOP’s target list when this election cycle began.
But the Republicans still are struggling to recover from the damage done by the downfall of once-popular Republican Rep. Bob Ney, who dropped his bid for a seventh House term well into the 2006 campaign and then pled guilty to federal corruption charges related to his ties to convicted influencing-peddling lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Furthermore, the Republican nominated in the March 4 primary to challenge Space — Fred Dailey, a former state agriculture director — has a relatively low political profile, and a dangerously low amount of money in his campaign treasury. Updated campaign finance reports that both candidates recently filed with the Federal Election Commission show Dailey had just $36,000 left in his campaign account when April began, compared to the nearly $1 million in cash on hand reported by Space.

So, while Democratic turmoil continues at the presidential level, the downballot races continue to move toward building a stronger majority.

MS-01: Dem Childers In May Run-Off

While most eyes have been diverted this evening to the Keystone State Presidential Battle, Democrats came within a whisker-thin margin of picking up a deeply red district in the Deep South.

Travis Childers received 49% of the vote in the six candidate race to replace newly-appointed Senator Roger Wicker in MS-01. Coming less than 1,000 votes needed to reach the 5% threshold, Childers will now face a May 13 run-off with second-place finisher Greg Davis to finish out the term. Both will face each other again as the nominees for the same seat in November.

It will be much harder for Childers to turn the seat blue in November when turnoe to put surges nationwide for the presidential contest. But the fact he is a viable candidate in a conservative district provides another example of the Democrats' expanding playing field in the current political atmosphere.

The NRCC, already low on funds, has a tough decision to make. Do they expend their limited resources in defending this vulnerable seat (along with Louisiana 06)? Or do they husband their resources, and risk letting another seat (or two) slip from their control further demoralizing donors and members?

Let's hope the DCCC decides their "all in" in both races.

Who's Got the Teflon Armor?

The juxtaposition of two Gallup polls today provides an interesting snapshot of the American electorate in the midst of one of the most unpredictable presidential contests.

They contain promising news regarding the "macroclimate" for Democrats in the about-to-begin general election campaign but some troubling signals regarding presumptive GOP nominee John McCain's early strength.

The first shows Bush hitting historic lows. He's at 28% approval - the worst rating in the 70-year history of Gallup's presidential polling. Makes me wonder what McCain's strategists are thinking by continuing to embrace a failed presidency. What's the point of "shoring up the base" when they're abandoning their standard-bearer in record numbers? Or, can McCain escape (and perhaps reverse) the downward spiral of the Republican brand?

The second poll also contains good news for Barack Obama. It hints that Obama may indeed be the 21st century's first teflon candidate. Despite the media's pitbull tenacity about the "bitterly clinging" comments, today's poll shows only 26% of voters view Obama as "looking down on them." More (32%) view Hillary Clinton as the elitist in the nomination contest.

But before Democrats get too overconfident, there's another candidate for the Teflon Candidate. Fewer voters (only 22%) view McCain as less out of touch:

Is this more evidence the Democratic infighting is hurting Clinton and Obama while elevating McCain? It's also an early and worrisome signal that McCain may not have the Bush legacy as an albatross around his neck.

It's time for Democrats to end the intramural death match and move on to target McCain.

This is just a start from the DNC: