Georgia On My Mind

I have this friend who lives in Atlanta. I would describe him as a devoted supporter of Barack Obama.

He says he has been disappointed and frustrated with Obama at times, but it often seems to me that he finds ways to justify or excuse those policies that he says have been disappointing and frustrating. This also leads, at times, to overly optimistic electoral expectations.

At one time, we were living parallel lives. We were pursuing our master's degrees in journalism at the University of North Texas, we were working full time at the same newspaper, and we were working part time as graduate assistants in UNT's editing lab.

Frequently, we were enrolled in the same classes. I used to tease him that I saw more of him than his wife or children did.

We got to know each other pretty well, and we found that we had a lot in common. We both considered ourselves Democrats, and we shared much the same world view.

Anyway, that friend and I went our separate ways eventually. He got his degree, and I got mine. He went on to get his doctorate at another school. I got a job teaching journalism. We had our different life experiences, as friends do.

To an extent, we've moved in different directions. He still considers himself a Democrat; I consider myself an independent. I guess his philosophy hasn't changed much; perhaps mine has, although I don't think of it that way.

But even if it is true, I don't look at it as a bad thing — more like what Joni Mitchell described in "Both Sides Now."

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"But now old friends are acting strange,
They shake their heads,
They say I've changed.
Something's lost
But something's gained
In living every day."

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Life has taken my friend to Atlanta, as I say — where, I presumed, he would obtain unique insights into the voting behavior of people in Georgia.

Maybe he has, but I'm inclined to think they are colored by his personal political perceptions, not necessarily by reality.

In 2008, he told me that Obama would win Georgia for two reasons — the black population of Georgia (roughly 30% of the total) would vote heavily for him (which it did, I suppose) and the presence of Libertarian — and Georgia native — Bob Barr on the ballot.

Barr, he said, would siphon off enough votes from John McCain to hand the state to the Democrats. He didn't.

More than 3.9 million people voted in Georgia in November 2008. About 28,000 of them voted for Barr.

That didn't really surprise me. Georgia has never struck me as being unusually susceptible to quixotic third–party candidacies.

When such a third–party candidate has caught fire elsewhere, in the region or the country at large — i.e., Ross Perot in '92 or George Wallace in '68 — Georgia has jumped right in there.

But, otherwise, third–party candidates have been non–factors in Georgia. Maybe the concept of a two–party system is too deeply ingrained in Georgians.

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As someone who has lived in the South all his life, that sort of seems to me to be true of the South in general, and the percentages from the last election in which a third–party candidate played a prominent role — 1992 — support that.

According to "The Almanac of American Politics 1994," states in the South Atlantic region of the country (Florida, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas) gave a much smaller share of their vote to Perot (16%) than almost any other region. The states in the Mississippi Valley — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — gave the smallest (11%).

In other words, even in a year in which the third–party candidate was bringing millions of previously politically inactive voters into the process, the South resisted the temptation to abandon the two–party arrangement.

The authors of the 1994 "Almanac," Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, used the numbers from the 1992 election to make the case for their observation of the "phenomenon" of straight–ticket voting that year. And I suppose it was a compelling argument for those who sought to explain what had happened that year.

Their analysis always struck me as being somewhat short–sighted, focused as it was on a single election.

See, I never really bought the idea that it was an isolated phenomenon. I have long believed that straight–ticket voting is a reality of American politics, particularly Southern politics. It was true in 1992. I believe it will be true in 2012 — and that the numbers from 2010 and recent presidential elections clearly suggest that the Democrats will lose every Southern state next year.

I know it was always a reality in Arkansas — but that was due, in large part, to the fact that there was really only one political party in Arkansas when I was growing up. The Democrats had a near monopoly on political power in Arkansas — and most of the South — in those days.

But that was really a different Democratic Party. As I have noted before, the politicians who led the Democratic Party in those days probably had much more in common philosophically with today's Republicans.

Eventually, in fact, many of them switched their party affiliations, but it took some time. The Southern Democrats of a generation or two back were trained at their mother's knees to be wary of Republicans.

Republicans were damn yankees, and the transition was a long time coming and really achieved incrementally. Southerners were voting for Republicans for president long before they started voting for Republicans for state and local offices.

The GOP, they were told, had inflicted Reconstruction on the South after the Civil War — and had been responsible for the poverty and misery that afflicted most who lived there, white and black, ever since. It was an article of faith, and so, with the exceptions of a few isolated pockets, most places in the South were run by Democrats for decades.

Many people mistakenly believe the South began moving away from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1980, when Reagan conservatives joined forces with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, but, in hindsight, that was really more symbolic of the completion of the shift than its beginning. It was in 1980 that the Moral Majority served as the bridge for the last holdouts, the Christian evangelicals, who seemed, prior to that time, to exist outside politics — at least as an interest group or voting bloc.

The real breaking point came in the 1960s, in the midst of the civil rights conflict, campus unrest and general social upheaval. Even Lyndon Johnson, the architect of the Great Society, acknowledged that his greatest legislative triumphs, the ones that guaranteed voting rights and civil rights to all Americans, likely had handed the South to the opposition for a generation or more.

His words have truly been prophetic. Of the 11 elections that have been held since Johnson won by historic proportions in 1964, the Democratic nominee has lost every Southern state in six of them — and has only come close to sweeping the region once (in 1976) even though the party has nominated Southerners for president five times.

Most Southern states have voted for the Republican nominee for president even in years when Republicans were struggling elsewhere ... even in years when native Southerners were on the Democrats' national ticket.

I have always had mixed feelings about the fierce loyalty of Southerners. I have often felt it was more a point of pride, of not wanting to admit when one has been wrong, than a point of principle.

When Southerners give their hearts to someone, it is usually for life. Likewise, when the South gives its allegiance to a person or a political party, it is a long–term commitment — in spite of the behavior of some philandering politicians.

Giving up on a relationship — be it social or political — is a last resort for most Southerners. It is what you do when all else has failed.

(Regarding the dissolution of social/legal relationships, I have always suspected that attitude has more to do with the regional stigma about divorce that still persists, to an extent, today and the reluctance of many Southerners to legally admit a mistake was made than any theological concerns about promises made to a higher power.)

That's probably the main reason why it was so surprising when Obama won the states of Virginia and North Carolina in 2008. Virginia hadn't voted for a Democrat since LBJ's day. North Carolina voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 but had been in the Republican column ever since.

For those states to vote for a Democrat after regularly voting for Republicans for years was an admission that could not have been easy for many of the voters in those states to make.

Numerically, it seems to have come a little easier to Virginians, who supported the Obama–Biden ticket by nearly 250,00 votes out of more than 3.7 million cast. North Carolinians, on the other hand, barely voted for Obama, giving him a winning margin of less than 15,000 votes out of 4.3 million.

I'm not really sure what this means for 2012. I mean, the 2008 results can't be explained strictly in racial terms, can they? The white share of the population is about the same in both states (64.8% in Virginia, 65.3% in North Carolina), and the black populations are comparable as well (19.0% in Virginia, 21.2% in North Carolina).

If anything, one would expect that a higher black population (along with half a million more participants) would produce a higher margin for Obama in North Carolina than Virginia — but the opposite was true.

What can be said with certainty is that both states voted Republican — heavily — in the 2010 congressional midterms.

• North Carolina re–elected Republican Sen. Richard Burr with 55% of the vote. That's pretty high for North Carolina. Statewide races frequently are much closer.
  
  North Carolina Republicans also captured a House seat from the Democrats.


• Virginia elected Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell in the off–year election of 2009, providing perhaps the first glimpse of what was to come.
  
  Neither of the state's senators was on the ballot in 2010, but Democratic Sen. Jim Webb, who defeated George Allen in the 2006 midterm election, announced earlier this year that he would not seek a second term. Ostensibly, his reason is that he wants to return to the private sector, but I can't help wondering if he has concluded that he caught lightning in a bottle six years ago and cannot duplicate the feat in 2012.
  
  Virginia Republicans grabbed three House seats from Democrats in 2010.

It was less surprising that Florida voted for Obama in 2008.

That's understandable. For quite awhile, Florida has been a melting pot for retirees from all over the nation so its politics tends to be quite different from just about any other Southern state. Until the advent of air conditioning, Florida was mostly a backwater kind of place with a population to match, but in recent decades, the only thing that has truly been Southern about Florida is its geographic location.

In many ways, its diverse population bears watching as an election year unfolds. It may be the closest thing to a political barometer, a cross–section of the American public, that one is likely to find.

The scene of an excruciating recount in 2000, Florida has now been on the winning side in 11 of the previous 12 elections — and conditions in 2008 were probably more favorable for the out–of–power party than at any other time that I can remember.

More than perhaps any other state in the region, Florida's vote seems likely to be influenced by prevailing conditions in November 2012. Obama won the state with 51% of the vote in 2008, but, again, few solid conclusions can be reached based on the racial composition of the electorate. Whites represent a smaller share of the population in Florida (about 58%) than in in Virginia or North Carolina.

But the black vote in Florida is also smaller (around 15%).

In fact, half again as many Floridians are Hispanic (more than 22%), and, while those voters will be affected by economic conditions like anyone else, they may also be sensitive to immigration issues and particularly responsive to proposed solutions to those problems.

There may well be compelling reasons for Hispanic voters to feel overly encouraged or discouraged by U.S. immigration policy under Obama.

What can be said of voting behavior in Florida in 2010 is that Florida's voters made a right turn.

Republicans seized four House seats from Democrats, elected one of the original tea partiers to the U.S. Senate and replaced an outgoing Republican governor with another Republican governor.

There has been persistent talk, in fact, that the senator — Marco Rubio — will be the GOP running mate, no matter who the presidential nominee turns out to be.

And if that turns out to be true, the party really will be over in Florida ...

... and elsewhere in the South.

A Not-So-Simple Country Lawyer

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"I used to think that the Civil War was our country's greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate."

Sam Ervin
(1896–1985)

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This would have been the 115th birthday of a man who was widely regarded as a national hero when I was a boy but who seems to be largely forgotten today — Sam Ervin.

He called himself a "simple country lawyer" from North Carolina, the state he represented in the U.S. Senate for 20 years, but that didn't do justice to the man or his life's achievements.

He graduated from Harvard Law School, and he liked to joke that he completed the work "backwards," taking the third–year courses first, the second–year courses second and the first–year courses last. I'm not sure how he managed to do that, but apparently he did. He even passed the bar before he finished his work on his law degree.

Many great legal minds have spent all or part of their careers in Washington, D.C., but Ervin's was one of the finest — and perhaps its most noble characteristic was its willingness to embrace the kinds of shifts and changes that are inevitable in a diverse, pluralist system.

For many years, "Senator Sam," as he was affectionately known when he chaired the Senate's Watergate investigation committee, was a defender of segregation and the Jim Crow laws that still defined much of the South in the first half of the 20th century — but he changed his position and became a champion of civil liberties.

I've always felt that was a hallmark of an intelligent, mature person — the ability to keep an open mind, to concede when one has been wrong and to change one's position when facts and/or times change. Frankly, I have known few such people in my life.

I'm sure it would have been enlightening to hear Ervin's thoughts on 21st century America and the world.

But perhaps not.

Senator Sam was a man of his times, a product of his times. He was born in the late 19th century — before cars and airplanes, before radio and long before television. He suited the people he represented — but their descendants may or may not have been comfortable with him.

They might have been, though.

Admittedly, Senator Sam wasn't flashy, which might have been a severe strike against him in an internet–and–iPhone–dominated era, and it was indisputably true that he was a country lawyer — albeit one with a degree from Harvard — but he was far from simple.

He possessed a kind of wisdom that was once called common sense.

It never goes out of style — but sometimes (like now) it is in short supply.

Presidential Popularity

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On March 23, 1976, North Carolina Republicans celebrated
Ronald Reagan's 52% to 46% primary victory over President Ford.

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Peter Wehner wrote recently for National Review Online that the Gallup Poll's findings suggest that "George W. Bush, at a comparable time in his presidency, was in marginally better shape than Barack Obama is right now."

Wehner went on to observe that "[t]his runs counter to conventional wisdom that Obama is tremendously popular, and that Bush (based on the divisive nature of the 2000 election) was not. In fact ... what President Bush did was rise in the esteem of the public during the first five weeks of his presidency, while Obama has lost a bit of altitude."

Approval ratings, even those that use language as ambiguous as Gallup and other pollsters use to make such measurements, are only snapshots of public attitude at a particular point in time. They in no way predict how popular a president will be when his presidency is finished.

Ronald Reagan, for example, who was very popular when he left office and remains a revered figure today, two decades after leaving the White House, began his presidency with a 51% approval rating. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had an approval rating of 66% a couple of weeks after taking office, and his approval rating climbed to 75% two months after his inauguration, but it slid to 31% a couple of months before Carter handed the presidency to Reagan in 1981.

That brings me to a "what-if" from history that I've been pondering today. One-third of a century ago, in March 1976, Ronald Reagan came to North Carolina after losing all five Republican primaries that had been held to that point — and the most recent setback had been by 59% to 40% in Illinois, the state where Reagan was born. Reagan's campaign was nearly out of money, and the general feeling was that, if he could not pull off a victory in North Carolina, he would have no choice but to withdraw.

Reagan himself rejected any suggestion that he would withdraw if he failed to win in North Carolina. As Jules Witcover reported in his book "Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976," Reagan told adviser Lyn Nofziger prior to the primary, "I'm not going to get out of this thing. I'm going to win this. I'm in this all the way."

No one will ever know what Reagan might have done if he had been handed a sixth straight primary defeat. With the help of Sen. Jesse Helms, Reagan rebounded. He won the North Carolina primary and started winning other primaries as well. Instead of having the luxury of time to prepare for the fall campaign, President Ford fought Reagan through the rest of the primaries and went to the Republican convention in Kansas City that summer with the nomination still up in the air.

Reagan only failed to win the nomination by 60 votes. He won many of the primaries that came after North Carolina — including California, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Idaho, Nevada and Montana — and narrowly lost in Tennessee, Oregon and Kentucky.

What would have happened if Reagan had won a few more delegates and taken the nomination from Ford? Would he have defeated Carter that November? If so, would he have been overwhelmed by the economy and the Islamic Revolution, paving the way for Carter — or perhaps Ted Kennedy or Walter Mondale or Jerry Brown or another Democrat — to capture the White House in 1980?

And what if Ford had won North Carolina? Would Reagan have withdrawn shortly thereafter, with money continuing to dwindle and fewer and fewer contributors willing to donate money to an obviously losing cause? Would that have given Ford the momentum he needed to successfully challenge Carter in the fall? And would it have meant the end of Reagan's presidential ambitions?

God and Politics, 2008 Style

As North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole's beleaguered re-election campaign has chosen to raise the specter of God in the waning days of the campaign, I decided to pay a long-overdue visit to the God-o-Meter, belief.net's ranking of each candidate's faith.

It's been months since I visited the "God-o-Meter," but it appears to give Barack Obama a higher rating on religious issues than it gives John McCain.

It also had immediate reflections on the "godless" campaign commercial the Dole campaign has used recently.

Dan Gilgoff writes for the God-o-Meter that the rapid response ad produced by the campaign for Kay Hagan, Dole's opponent, "is a very post-2004 way for a Democrat to respond to a faith-based attack: quickly responding to the attack head-on and testifying unabashedly about one's faith commitment."

Hagan's tactic, Gilgoff says, is "a very 'Obama' way to respond to a faith-based attack, as opposed to the 'Kerry' way of responding: wringing one's hands and marrying each public pronouncement about one's faith to a reaffirmation of support for the complete separation of church and state."

As for Dole, Gilgoff observes, her commercial "is a stark reminder that faith-based attacks have been kept to a relative minimum in the presidential race."

Gilgoff goes on to point out that McCain has not used religion as a wedge issue in this campaign, not even using Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright to "skewer him for cozying up to a man of the cloth."

Although many voters have welcomed the de-emphasis of religion in the political debate, Gilgoff appears to draw the conclusion that refraining from "faith-based attacks" will cost McCain the election.

And he warns that could be the lesson Republicans take into the next presidential election cycle.

"[I]f [Sarah] Palin, Mike Huckabee, or another social conservative gets the nod in 2012, due to a post-McCain religious right uprising, we could be looking at more faith-based attacks at the presidential level," he writes.

Heaven forbid.

The 'Godless' Campaign

Kay Hagan, the Democrat who is challenging Sen. Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, announced she would file suit against Dole yesterday, claiming that she has been libeled by Dole's TV commercial that says Hagan is "godless."

It wouldn't surprise me if there's something to be said for Hagan's case. But it's a time-honored tradition for politicians who are losing to question their opponents' moral character. It's how politics is played.

Besides, the visage of God has been strangely absent from the proceedings this year. Sarah Palin's faith hasn't been mentioned frequently. Nor has Barack Obama's — once Jeremiah Wright departed the scene. But Dole's ad is proof that religion remains a potent issue for a politician to exploit, especially in a place like North Carolina, where many conservative Christians live.

Dole probably feels like she's under siege these days. Lately, she has been one of several Republicans in close Senate races who have been targeted by labor unions, according to a report in USA Today.

But does that justify labeling your opponent as "godless?"

Even if Hagan takes the matter to court, she won't receive a judicial ruling until after the voters have handed down their ruling.

And few, if any, voters will be able to dismiss the memory of the Dole campaign's assertion.

It reminds me of a scene in "Anatomy of a Murder," in which the defense attorney, James Stewart, is told that a question he has asked of a witness is improper.

Stewart's character, of course, didn't ask the question because he wanted to get the witness' answer. He asked it because it was a way of introducing something into the record that he had been restricted from mentioning.

He apologizes and withdraws the question, after which the judge instructs the jury that it is to "disregard" both the question and the answer.

When Stewart returns to the defense counsel's table, the defendant leans over and whispers, "How can a jury disregard what it's already heard?"

"They can't," Stewart replies. "They can't."

North Carolina's voters will go to the polls next Tuesday with Dole's "godless" allegation thundering in their ears.

The last time he assessed it, Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, judged the North Carolina Senate race to be a "toss-up." That was nearly four weeks ago, on Oct. 4. I wonder what his opinion is, now that the Republicans have made a blatant effort to engage conservative Christians in the last-minute debate.

The Outlook from Tobacco Road

North Carolina seems to be an example of the presidential voting trend in most of the South — although the vote hasn't been lopsided, as it has been in some states.

With the solitary exception of its support for Jimmy Carter in 1976, North Carolina has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election since 1968. But it's frequently been close in North Carolina — closer than it tends to be in the rest of the South.

There will be a lot of electoral activity in the state this year, with incumbents from both parties seeking re-election. The nature and the competitive level of each race will decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain will be the beneficiary of the activity.

• North Carolina has a couple of statewide races in 2008 — for governor and senator.
  
  The governor, Democrat Mike Easley, is forced by state law to step down after serving two terms. His approval ratings have remained high, and he might be able to win a third term if the law allowed him to seek one.
  
  Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, says the governor’s office is likely to remain in Democratic hands. The state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Beverly Perdue, will be facing Pat McCrory, the Republican mayor of Charlotte, in the governor’s race in November.
  
  Easley was considered a possible candidate for Elizabeth Dole’s Senate seat this year, but he declined to make the race.
  
  As an experienced governor who will be leaving his office this year, he might be a good choice for running mate for Barack Obama. Easley is more conservative than many Democrats, which could serve to attract independents and Republicans.


• In the South, nearly every state (with the exception of Florida) will have a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot in November.
  
  In most states, the incumbent senators are running for re-election. As usual, some have no opponent — or merely token opposition.
  
  But some are facing competitive challenges for the seats they currently occupy — and some incumbents have chosen to retire, some for health reasons but some simply to avoid the very real possibility of being rejected by the voters.
  
  In North Carolina, Sen. Elizabeth Dole has been mentioned as a vulnerable incumbent, even though North Carolina has been a safe haven for most Republican candidates in recent years.
  
  State senator Kay Hagan won the Democratic nomination in May, and polls at the time showed her in a tight battle for Dole’s seat. One poll even showed her with a narrow lead right after the primaries.
  
  But by mid-June, Sabato was saying that ”[n]ow that the dust has settled and the initial over-excitement has ended, the actual landscape is a little more clear. What once seemed to be a dead heat is probably more like a 8-10% lead for Dole, perilous, but certainly no reason to begin writing her obituary just yet.”
  
  Nevertheless, Sabato says the race merely ”leans Republican” at this point — which appears (on the surface) to be less than a rousing endorsement for Dole’s chances of being re-elected to the seat that Jesse Helms held for three decades.
  
  The fact is, if Dole’s lead is 8-10%, as Sabato says, that puts her at the upper end in the typical range, historically, for Republican Senate candidates in North Carolina. Dole took a 9% triumph, 54% to 45%, when she was first elected to the Senate in 2002. Helms, in his final Senate race in 1996, received 53% of the vote.
  
  And Dole’s colleague in the Senate from North Carolina, Republican Richard Burr, received 52% of the vote when he won the seat that was vacated by Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards in 2004.
  
  Democrats tend to be competitive in North Carolina’s statewide races, but the voters usually support the Republicans — by relatively slim margins. And, even when Democrats win, as Edwards did in the 1998 Senate race and as Easley did in the governor’s races of 2000 and 2004, the margins have tended to be narrow.


• The state’s representation in the House reflects the division between the parties. Before the 2006 elections, Republicans held a 7-6 lead in the House delegation. After the 2006 elections, the Democrats held a 7-6 lead — thanks to Democrat Heath Shuler, the former football player who won the seat in the 11th district against incumbent Republican Charles Taylor.
  
  North Carolina’s 11th district is mountain country. It is nearly 90% white and 56% rural. It has tended to vote Republican in national campaigns — George W. Bush topped 55% of the vote in the district in both 2000 and 2004 — but Michael Barone, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, has referred to an ”ornery” streak in the 11th district’s voters.
  
  When voters have a reputation for being "ornery," they're apt to do anything.
  
  Even so, Sabato is keeping his eye on only one congressional race in North Carolina this year — and it isn’t Shuler’s seat. So I have to assume that that means Shuler has been meeting the needs of his district.
  
  Sabato is watching the 8th district race, which was decided by less than 400 votes two years ago. The district is in the southwestern portion of the state, along the North Carolina-South Carolina boundary.
  
  It is currently represented by Republican Robin Hayes, who won the seat in 1998. Hayes is in a rematch with the Democrat he defeated last time, high school teacher Larry Kissell, and, as Sabato observes, voters in the 8th will have the opportunity to ”re-write the ending if they choose.”
  
  At this point, it’s anyone’s guess whether the 8th district will keep Hayes in office or switch to the Democrat. Nearly 27% of the district’s residents are black, and nearly 70% of the population is urban.
  
  Sabato calls it a toss-up right now.
  
  In national politics, the 8th district voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, both times with 54% of the vote.

Who Is the Best Choice for Democrats?

As the backdrop to the compromise on the Michigan and Florida delegations, Democrats heard talk about "electability" and threats from some Democrats that they will abandon their party if their candidate isn't nominated.

The compromise didn't resolve the matter of which candidate will be nominated -- so it now appears that the decision will be left to the superdelegates.

Who's it going to be, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

When all is said and done, the Democrats can say that it was a virtual split. Obama has a slight edge in popular vote and delegate support, but timing is everything, as the saying goes.

And that leads, inevitably, to "What if ... ?" questions.

What if Texas and Ohio had voted with most of the other states in early February instead of early March?

What if voters in West Virginia and Kentucky had held their primaries in February instead of May? Would Obama have been able to build his remarkable primary/caucus winning streak?

Obama withdrew his membership from his church yesterday. If he had done that earlier, would it have changed the outcome in some of the states that followed? Would he have been able to secure the nomination by leaving his church?

What's the situation in states that will clearly be battleground states in the fall?

Here's a peek at a few of them.

• Clinton appears to give John McCain a tougher fight for Florida's 27 electoral votes than Obama.
  
  Quinnipiac University says Clinton leads McCain in Florida (48% to 41%) but it says McCain leads Obama (45% to 41%). Rasmussen Reports has different margins but identical outcomes -- Clinton over McCain (47% to 41%) and McCain over Obama (50% to 40%).
  
  
• The race for Michigan's 17 electoral votes seems to be favoring McCain, although polls suggest Clinton might be more competitive there than Obama.
  
  Neither Democrat has been leading in recent head-to-head polls.
  
  EPIC-MRA's latest surveys for WXYZ-Action News report that McCain leads both Democratic challengers (44-40 over Obama, 46-37 over Clinton).
  
  According to those results, Obama is more competitive against McCain than Clinton. But it's worth mentioning that EPIC-MRA's survey on McCain-Clinton was completed April 8 and I have found no surveys on that question that are more recent. The survey on McCain-Obama was completed May 22.
  
  But Clinton is tied with McCain (44-44) in the latest Rasmussen Reports while Obama trails by 4 points (41-37).
  
  
• It seems likely to me that California (55 electoral votes) will remain in the Democratic column, where it's been since 1992.
  
  Both Clinton and Obama have been leading in every California survey I've seen. The numbers are similar for both candidates -- one may lead McCain by a slightly higher margin than the other, but the polls consistently show the Democrat winning in California.
  
  At this point, I can't see anything changing the outcome in that state.
  
  
• In Ohio, there are 20 electoral votes available. Polls are mixed on Obama vs. McCain, with Obama leading the latest Survey USA poll (48% to 39%) and McCain in front in the latest Quinnipiac University survey (44% to 40%) and Rasmussen Reports (45% to 44%).
  
  Against McCain, Clinton leads Ohio by 7 percentage points in Rasmussen (50% to 43%) and Quinnipiac (48% to 41%).
  
  Survey USA apparently is only asking respondents about Obama-McCain, because I have seen almost no results of a Clinton-McCain inquiry since early April (the exceptions to this are Missouri and North Carolina -- see below).
  
  The advantage in Ohio appears to belong to Clinton.
  
  
• Pennsylvania, with its 21 electoral votes, appears to be favoring the Democrat, whichever one that is.
  
  Obama's lead in the polls is pretty consistent, generally between 6 and 8 points (46-40 in Quinnipiac, 48-40 in Survey USA, 46-39 in Susquehanna Polling), a little narrower in Rasmussen Reports (45-43).
  
  Clinton's lead in Pennsylvania is consistent as well. It's also consistently a little higher than Obama's -- 11 points each in Rasmussen Reports (50-39) and Susquehanna Polling (49-38), 13 points in Quinnipiac (50-37).
  
  I'd say Democrats can expect to carry Pennsylvania for the fifth straight time.
  
  
• Georgia (15 electoral votes) is one of those Southern states in which Obama is expected to benefit from a large black turnout. (Blacks acccount for just under 30% of Georgia's population.)
  
  But the latest surveys of likely voters indicate McCain leads both Democrats by margins in double digits. Rasmussen Reports has McCain leading Clinton, 48% to 37%, and leading Obama, 53% to 39%.
  
  Strategic Vision's latest survey seems to confirm Rasmussen. It has McCain leading Obama, 54% to 40%. Apparently, it didn't ask respondents about McCain vs. Clinton.
  
  
• North Carolina (15 electoral votes) is another Southern state where Obama's race is expected to work in his favor. (About 21% of North Carolina's residents are black.)
  
  And the conservative Washington Times says Sen. Elizabeth Dole faces a tough battle for re-election this year.
  
  But, even though the climate for Republicans isn't good in North Carolina, McCain has been leading in most of the recent polls I've seen. And the only exception has been in Clinton's favor, not Obama's.
  
  Survey USA has McCain leading Obama in North Carolina, 51% to 43%, but it has Clinton leading McCain, 49% to 43%.
  
  Rasmussen Reports has McCain leading both Democrats by 3 points in North Carolina -- 48-45 over Obama and 43-40 over Clinton.
  
  And Public Policy Polling reports that McCain leads both Democrats as well. McCain leads Clinton in that survey, 48% to 40%, and he leads Obama, 49% to 42%.
  
  
• I've heard talk suggesting that Obama should pick Virginia Sen. Jim Webb or Gov. Tim Kaine as his running mate.
  
  The thinking is that a traditionally Republican state like Virginia (13 electoral votes) is a viable Democratic target in the presidential election -- if only because Virginia rejected incumbent Republican Senator George Allen in 2006 and put Webb in the Senate in his place.
  
  That logic may be correct, but the polls aren't all that favorable.
  
  Obama does run closer to McCain than Clinton in Virginia, but the polls still lean Republican in that state.
  
  Rasmussen Reports says McCain leads Obama 47-44 and he leads Clinton 47-41. The latest VCU Communications and Public Relations survey finds McCain leading Obama 44-36 and leading Clinton 47-38.
  
  In the interest of fairness, Obama led McCain in Survey USA 49-42.
  
  
• Missouri (11 electoral votes) is a bellwether state, having voted for the winner of almost every presidential election for a century.
  
  When polls ask voters in that state to choose between Obama and McCain, McCain leads in every survey. Sometimes the lead is slim (48-45 in Survey USA), sometimes it's wider (47-41 in Rasmussen Reports).
  
  But the last time I saw a poll that showed Obama leading McCain head-to-head in Missouri was in a survey from December. That was before the Iowa caucus, which gave Obama the early momentum he needed to overtake then-front runner Clinton.
  
  The results are more mixed when the choice is between Clinton and McCain.
  
  Survey USA apparently asked Missouri voters about Clinton vs. McCain and came up with Clinton 48%, McCain 46%. Rasmussen Reports says McCain leads Clinton, 45% to 43%.
  
  
• Historically, New Mexico (5 electoral votes) is another bellwether state.
  
  Rasmussen Reports found that Clinton leads McCain in his neighboring state, 47% to 41%. Rasmussen says Obama's lead is even higher, 50% to 41%, but Survey USA says Obama and McCain are tied in New Mexico, 44% to 44%.