Politico: No mandate without white voters

Hat tip to Markos for catching this one.

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

It's looking pretty clear that President Obama will win re-election. But we really don't know yet how big that win will be. That's not what these folks are talking about though. What they're saying is that no matter how big the win is - if he doesn't get enough of the white vote - it can't be a mandate.

Remember half-term Governor Palin's shit about "real America?" Yeah, that's what these folks are doing too.

The Team

This morning David Axelrod said that the final days of this campaign are very emotional. It made me think that the team of Axelrod, Plouffe and Gibbs is coming into the final home stretch of something they've been committed to for a long time - the political career of Barack Obama. While we're still counting on 4 more years of his presidency, their work is almost done.

I believe that this group has changed the way political campaigns will be run in the future. They dared to believe that the status quo wasn't the only way to win and then they worked their asses off to make it happen.

I suspect that after this election is over, we'll get a chance to hear from them about this campaign. In the meantime, here's a little trip down memory lane to hear what they had to say on that fateful night almost 4 years ago.

Women of the Senate

I was thinking about Senate races and some of the strong progressive women who are running this time around when I ran across this picture.

There was no indication of the date the photo was taken but I'm guessing it was during the 2008 campaign. Since then Kristen Gillibrand replaced Hillary Clinton (when the latter was named Secretary of State), Kay Hagan was elected to represent North Carolina, Jeanne Shaheen was elected in New Hampshire, and Blanche Lincoln lost her bid for re-election in 2010.

This year six of those women are up for re-election and an additional 5 are running. Senator Gillibrand put together this helpful graphic on the importance women candidates will play in Democrats holding/building their majority in the Senate this year.


Looking at the polling aggregates, it seems as though the 6 women running for re-election have a good chance of winning.

When it comes of the 5 newcomers, Mazie Hirono is a pretty sure thing in Hawaii, Elizabeth Warren is looking good in Massachusetts, and Tammy Baldwin has the edge in Wisconsin. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Shelley Berkley in Nevada are running behind - but not out of it yet.

What that looks like overall is that we are very likely to go from 12 Democratic women in the Senate to at least 15. And there's a possibility it could be up to 17. That's way short of parity. But we'll keep working on that (also on more women of color).

"It's up to you! You've got the power!"

At the end of his speech last night in Virginia, President Obama went off script. Check it out at 25:15 in this video.

I was backstage with David Plouffe. Some of you guys know he’s sort of a mastermind of campaign organization. And we were talking about how as the campaign goes on, we’ve become less relevant. I’m sort of a prop in the campaign. [Laughter]. He’s just botherin' a bunch of folks, calling, asking what’s going on.

The power is not with us any more. The planning – every thing we do – it doesn’t matter because now it’s all up to you. It’s up to the volunteers. It’s up to somebody knocking on a door. It’s up to somebody making a phone call. It’s up to somebody talking to their mom or their dad or their wife or their husband or their grandma or grandpa. And that’s how democracy is supposed to be! It’s up to you! You’ve got the power!

A call-out to non-angry white guys

Whether folks are willing to admit it or not - there is a powerful racial undertone to this presidential election. As I have noted on a couple of occasions, Adam Serwer nailed it almost a year and a half ago.

The Republican Party had a choice after 2008. They could continue to rely on a dwindling but still decisive share of the white vote to prevail, or they could try to bring more minorities into the party. While I'm not entirely sure how much of the decision was made by party leaders and how much is merely the unprecedented influence of Fox News, but whether it's pseudo scandals of the past two years, from birtherism to the NBPP [National Black Panther Party] case, the GOP's nationwide rush to ban sharia and institute draconian immigration laws, or characterizing nearly every administration policy as reparations, the conservative fixations of Obama's first term indicate that the GOP will end up relying at least in part on inflaming white racial resentment to close the gap.

In a moment of atypical candor, Senator Lindsay Graham spoke to the short-sideness of this strategy.

“The demographics race we’re losing badly [sic],” the senior senator from South Carolina explained. “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

So its telling to read analysis like this (at Real Clear Politics) that basically embraces the strategy and posits a Romney win completely on his ability to mobilize white voters.

In sum, I see the bottom slipping out from under Obama’s feet, and a campaign hoping to hold on just long enough to salvage a slim victory, one where he is almost certain to lose the popular vote. He is underperforming among whites and independents, and particularly among those likeliest to vote.

Think about that for a minute...the author of that piece isn't even trying to be subtle. Of course he's not going to say WHY he thinks the President is underperforming among white voters. That could get ugly. He's just stating it as a fact.

If I was a white guy I'd most likely be offended by all of this. And I believe there are many out there who don't want to get played like that. If so, take a listen again to this guy.

Mother's letter to President Obama: "You gave him something I could not"

I don't normally suggest going to HuffPo. But today I'm going to make an exception.

Please go take a look at the letter Elizabeth Messina wrote to the President about the impact he has had on her bi-racial son.

He was 5-years-old at the time you were elected president. And although I realize you were in the midst of pursing your dreams, you inadvertently simultaneously changed my son's life. Quite frankly, I believe you changed the lives of sons across the world. This, Mr. President, is no small thing. My son could see himself in you, the leader of our country, something no child of color had been able to do in America prior to your presidency. He was at an age when he had just become aware that my skin did not look like his. You gave my son in this moment something I could not.

But even more importantly, you'll want to see the photograph she took of her son that speaks even more loudly than her words.

No Commentary Required 11/3/12

As we head in to the home stretch, here are a few stories that tickled my fancy (I love that phrase).

When it comes to the delusion I just wrote about, one of James Fallows readers sees a more nefarious strategy at work.

It is clear that should Obama win in a couple of weeks, the right will need to portray that not as the American people choosing the other guy and his priorities/worldview, but as something fishy, possibly corrupt, and certainly illegitimate. That job will be all the easier if a foundation has been built in the political narrative that Romney was winning all along.

...it requires an underestimation of Rovian thought to dismiss the possibility that delegitimization is a conscious strategy of the right, and that the momentum narrative is a part of it.

*****

Have I said lately how much I love Ta-Nehisi Coates? He has a few words for the guys who are going after Nate Silver by suggesting he is "a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice."

Look, I'm nobody's tough guy. But as someone who spent a significant portion of my life seeking ways to not get punched in the face, it's really amazing how much interaction -- even now -- boils down to, as Chris Rock would say, "Can you kick my ass?"

*****

I agree with BooMan, who finds himself agreeing with Charles Krauthammer (what????)

Obama’s intention has always been to re-normalize, to reverse ideological course, to be the anti-Reagan — the author of a new liberal ascendancy. Nor did he hide his ambition. In his February 2009 address to Congress he declared his intention to transform America. This was no abstraction. He would do it in three areas: health care, education and energy.

*****

Mike Lofgren - the author of this bombshell - has a few words for the purists in which he sounds awfully Niebuhrian.

...citizenship demands that you get your hands dirty and consent to compromises that are sometimes repellent. In 28 years on Capitol Hill, I did not see a foreign policy carried out by presidents of either party that did not have elements that were morally repugnant, fraudulent, hypocritical, or all three. Citizens must get their hands dirty nevertheless. The alternative is to cease to be a citizen and let others do the work. I am certain they would be happy to oblige.

*****

And finally - just for laughs. Would you say that this pretty well captures where our Republican friends are these days?