Pushing the Panic Button

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When I was a journalism student in college, one of my professors said something that remains with me today. "Use real quotes whenever you can," this professor said. "People like to read what other people have to say."

Unless the article is clearly a personal opinion piece, he continued, readers don't care what the reporter has to say about anything. They only want the reporter to give them an account that is as complete — and as completely neutral — as possible.

Readers are interested in opinions, of course — which goes a long way, I think, toward explaining the public's fascination with public opinion polling.

Public opinion polling is an emerging science, and I believe many (regretfully, not all, but many) of its practitioners do try to learn from mistakes, theirs and others'. Pollsters in the mid–1930s learned from the Literary Digest's mistakes when the Digest predicted that Franklin D. Roosevelt would lose his bid for re–election in 1936 (primarily car and/or home telephone owners were polled, and those were two things that only the affluent could afford during the Great Depression, so the poll was skewed ).

Pollsters learned from their experience in 1948 — when Dewey defeated Truman — that, if you decide a race is a foregone conclusion and stop polling two weeks before the election, you do so at your own peril.

That kind of stuff seems like common sense today, but there was a time when it was not obvious. I honestly believe most pollsters really do want to be right so they try to make adjustments that will improve the efficiency of their polling.

It is still important to remember that all polls are not conducted equally. You need to know who is behind a poll and whether that person or group has a reputation for leaning to one side or the other. You need to know how questions are worded — even the slightest variation can affect the results, and some pollsters do choose certain words that are likely to get the kind of response they want.

(For such people, I suppose, a good thesaurus is the most valuable professional investment they can make.)

Those are issues that have affected polling all along, but new issues always crop up. For example, American law prevents pollsters from calling phone owners who will be charged simply for answering the call so people whose only phone is a cell phone will be underrepresented — and that affects certain demographic groups (the young, the poor, etc.) more than others.

That's the thing about polling. It's a work in progress.

Personally, I tend to favor Gallup. Gallup has been around much longer, and it has more credibility than the others, more of a reputation for neutrality.

But I pay attention to the others as well. Even if they have a bias of some kind, they can still tell you things about the public mood.

Having said that, I think there are a lot of messages coming from two polls that have come out in recent days — particularly the Washington Post/ABC News poll but also the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

As usual, though, the two sides are only interested in hearing what they want to hear — or reacting (perhaps overreacting is the better word) to results that seem to jeopardize their agenda.

Well, here we are, six months before the midterm elections, and there is a lot in the Washington Post/ABC News poll to worry members of the president's party, especially those who will be on the ballot this year. After all, the Washington Post and ABC News have been friendly to the administration.

By and large, Barack Obama's agenda is the Democratic Party's agenda. That is usually the case with an incumbent president. His party is his army. It takes its marching orders from him. So, even though the president's name will not be on the ballot in the sixth year of his presidency, he still hovers over this election like a Shakespearean ghost. His approval will have a huge influence on the outcome — and, historically, sixth–year midterms have not been kind to presidents.

Dan Balz and Peyton Craighill of the Washington Post observe that Obama's current approval rating is the lowest it has been since the Post began measuring it early in his presidency — 41%. That was Harry Truman's approval rating in May 1950; that November, Truman's approval was unchanged, and his party lost 29 House seats and six Senate seats.

Truman's successor, Republican Dwight Eisenhower, is the only postwar president whose approval clearly went up between May and late October in his sixth year (from 52% to 57%), but his party lost 48 House seats and 13 Senate seats.

Since the end of World War II, there have been seven presidents (or presidential teams) who faced a sixth–year midterm. In almost every case, their approval in spring of the midterm year was higher than their approval shortly before the election in November.

And only Bill Clinton, whose approval ratings were in the 60s in his sixth–year midterm, avoided losing ground in Congress, thanks primarily to the backlash over the Republicans' attempt to remove him from office.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates there are a number of areas where work needs to be done.

Balz and Craighill speculate that Obamacare will be a major issue, as it almost certainly will. A plurality in the Washington Post/ABC News poll opposes Obamacare. Nearly 60% of respondents say Obamacare is raising health care costs.

But that isn't the only thing that has Democrats pushing the panic button.

Balz and Craighill also write that "[p]essimism about the economy also persists, with more than seven in 10 describing the economy in negative terms. Public attitudes about the future of the economy are anything but rosy. Just 28 percent say they think the economy is getting better, while 36 percent say it is getting worse and 35 percent say it's staying the same."

Part of that, I am sure, has to do with the increased costs of health care, but it also has to do with the recovery, which has been as tepid as a recovery can be.

Two–thirds of the poll's respondents say the country is going in the wrong direction — an ominous conclusion for a sixth–year incumbent's constituents to reach.

Strategists for both parties are certainly keeping an eye on the 2016 races for the party nominations, which is addressed in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. That poll found that nearly 70% of respondents don't want either Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton to be the next president.

The news in that poll was slightly better for Obama — it showed his approval rating at 44%, but that isn't very encouraging. It is still lower than Obama's rating at this point in 2010.

Perhaps we'll get a better idea of how the recovery is coming along when the latest jobless report comes out on Friday.

A Black Rain's Gonna Fall

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"And what'll you do now, my blue–eyed son?
And what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a–goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a–fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
And the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it,
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a–gonna fall."

Bob Dylan
(Emphasis added)

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When you look at the video of the oil that is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico from the sea floor, it is rolling, boiling, raging, furious, like the nuclear clouds that swirled above two Japanese cities 65 years ago this summer.

But when it reaches the surface and, then, the coastline, the oil is in globs — the embodiment of Dylan's "pellets of poison ... flooding [the] waters" nearly 50 years after he penned that phrase.

As I understand it, Dylan wrote the song during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and its symbolism was intended for the Cold War age and a nearly unimaginable nuclear war. But it has been two decades since communism's collapse left the Soviet Union in tatters. The nuclear threat still lives. The Soviet Union does not.

Yes, nuclear disaster will always be a possibility as long as any nuclear weapons exist. But even when the Soviet Union and the United States had their missiles aimed at each other, a more insidious threat was growing like a cancer.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union — and, even, to a degree, in the years before — oil emerged as a threat in so many ways.

It is only common sense to conclude that there must be at least some truth to the claims that the poisonous gases being belched into the air have affected the global climate. It may not be quite as dire as some alarmists have suggested, but that doesn't make the conclusion less valid, just less vivid.

So the air that we all breathe must be affected — to a certain degree. And so, too, it could be argued, is the rest of the natural world because, once the oxygen (and/or the water) has been altered, even if it is in minor ways, the entire ecosystem is affected and must adjust.

In such adjustments is the reality of evolution. I am not a scientist, but I presume that life on this planet has always been at the mercy of one thing or another — asteroids, earthquakes, hurricanes, plagues, etc.. The species that couldn't "roll with the changes" (as a song from my teen years urged) disappeared. That was what happened to the dinosaurs and most of the species that have lived on this planet.

But not man. Not yet.

There was a time when oil propelled civilization forward into an industrial age that meant better lives for everyone, but it seemed to reach a point of diminishing returns some time ago. We've known all along that oil was a nonrenewable energy source. The fact that there was a limited supply of oil should have inspired man from the beginning to develop other sources of energy to accomplish the many tasks oil increasingly was expected to achieve.

Maybe, in the beginning, there were those who could anticipate a time when the world would run out of oil. But they lacked the technology to seek its successor. Now that we have the technology, we are at the mercy of those who control the funds.

There was a time when it seems wars were fought for many reasons. In the last couple of decades, it seems all our wars are fought over the land beneath which a fortune in oil can be found. There may be side issues — religious, cultural, what have you — but when you get right down to it, oil (or, rather, the possession of it) is at the heart of armed conflict in the 21st century.

There are many reasons why the United States would be wise to free itself of its addiction to oil.

I say that in large part because the oil spewing into the Gulf is one of those events by which Americans judge the effectiveness of their leaders. Obama has made several trips to the Gulf region. He has addressed the nation about it (during which he spent much of his time talking about the need for alternative energy sources).

What else can he do? wonder his supporters, who no doubt wish the spill would go away. Many of them seem to comprehend the threat this catastrophe poses to the president and his legislative agenda. But they seem powerless — not unlike Obama himself — to do anything about it.

And so the image of an irresolute president is born. I have my own issues with that, not the least of which is that it isn't true. But perception is reality.

It reminds me of a great line from the 1981 film "Absence of Malice," in which a reporter (Sally Field) has a relationship with a liquor distributor (Paul Newman). Field implicates Newman in the disappearance of a local labor leader in an article she writes. When their relationship is exposed, Field's newspaper has to write an article about it, and one of the reporters is dispatched to interview Field.

Field is asked to describe the relationship. "Just say we were involved," she says haltingly. "That's true, isn't it?" the reporter asks. "No," Field replies, "but it's accurate."

(As someone who has worked for newspapers, that would be my verdict on how well the film portrayed the men and women who work for daily newspapers and the journalism profession itself — it wasn't true, but it was accurate.)

I guess that is how I feel about Obama's handling of the oil spill. It isn't his fault. And I'm sorry there are other pre–existing problems that are demanding their fair share of attention, like high unemployment and two wars, and potential problems, like predictions of an unusually active hurricane season, that may yet develop. But that is the way the presidency is. The American people judge a president's effectiveness by how he performs when he has to juggle chainsaws, not nerfballs.

To this point, Obama probably has been as effective as he can be. His problem, I think, is that expectations were unrealistic, although hardly surprising considering how he was presented to the voters. So, in that context, if someone said to me, "Is it true that Obama has been ineffective?" I would have to reply, "No, but it's accurate."

I read, in the Wall Street Journal, that a poll it conducted with NBC News indicates that "grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill" have left Americans "more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House."

OK, the Wall Street Journal has never been one of Obama's fans.

And it quotes a Republican pollster who reminds everyone that voter attitudes are typically set by June of any election year.

But that is merely conventional wisdom. Considering the source, it may seem partisan, but that is primarily because it doesn't favor the majority party. It seldom does. Ordinarily, it takes something very dramatic — usually an international crisis — to reverse such a trend.

And that could happen this year. Based on what the WSJ is reporting, Obama the pragmatist needs to hope that something dramatic does happen.

Because "[i]t would take an enormous and seismic event to change the drift of these powerful forces before November," the GOP pollster told the WSJ.

This isn't foolproof — far too many things can happen between now and November — but Obama had better hope that the oil spill gets resolved soon, and he'd better be prepared for anything else that might come along.

The things that eventually bring down presidencies — like "third–rate" burglaries, hostage situations and broken tax increase pledges — seldom seem big enough at first glance.

But they loom large in the rearview mirror.

The C Word

The "C" in "C word" doesn't stand for "color" — although I have no doubt that there are those among the Obama apologists who wish it did because that would be something their hero could blame that is beyond his control.

The "C" doesn't even stand for "conference" — as in "press conference," which is something Obama can control, and it's a good thing he held one on Thursday.

I say that not only because it is essential for a president to keep the country informed when the greatest disaster of its kind is happening in the Gulf of Mexico — which it is — but also because, as Doug Mataconis of Outside the Beltway reminded readers on Tuesday, the president's last press conference was nearly a year ago.

On that memorable occasion, Obama criticized the Cambridge, Mass., police for responding to a citizen's complaint and arresting a black man, who turned out to be a noted Harvard professor, for breaking into his own home.

It was also held during prime time, whereas Thursday's soiree was in the afternoon (and, presumably, drew a smaller audience). So, like Roger Maris' single–season home run record, I guess an asterisk is needed — because the clock is still running on Obama's streak between prime time press conferences.

Will the streak live for a year? Less than eight weeks to go. Does anyone know the Vegas odds?

The president pledged an open and accessible presidency, and, in fairness, he has been accessible for one–on–one interviews with some members of the press, usually the ones whose employers already have shown themselves to be editorially sympathetic to Obama's agenda.

A president has many ways of communicating with the people — and, since the Kennedy presidency, the televised press conference has been one of the most effective ways of explaining policy. Not all presidents have excelled at the give and take with the press (JFK did set that bar pretty high), but the nine men who succeeded Kennedy (including Obama — because, after all, no matter how many one–on–one interviews a president does, there's nothing more American, more democratic than an open press conference in which a dozen or more people get the chance to ask the president a question in front of a national TV audience) have utilized it.

In spite of his much–publicized oratorical skills, Obama has been reluctant to hold press conferences. He got off to a rather fast start, holding monthly press conferences in the first couple of months, but the pace of his press conferences seemed to taper off after his faux pas about his bowling skills and the Special Olympics — and was nonexistent after the Sotomayor confirmation hearings last summer.

No, the "C" in "C word" clearly doesn't stand for "press conference" — although maybe it does qualify as a word for which this White House has little fondness. After all, Obama could have used the occasion of Labor Day to hold a press conference and reassure unemployed Americans, who saw their ranks swell by nearly 250,000 the month before, but he did not.

Perhaps he didn't hold a press conference on Labor Day because he was too busy putting the finishing touches on the speech he was scheduled to give to America's schoolchildren the next day.

Or maybe he was too tired after traveling to Cincinnati to give a speech on health care reform on Labor Day.

Well, that's ancient history now, I suppose.

I guess the "C" in "C word" could stand for "crude," as in crude oil. Alphabetically, of course, it could — and perhaps that would be appropriate, given that, during Thursday's press conference, Obama told America that "[rapid response] has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred" more than a month ago.

Perhaps it was just coincidental that, as Obama was saying that, in my mind's eye, I saw the mayor from "Jaws" telling the sheriff "it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, 'Huh? What?' You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."

No, actually, the "C word" is "competence." Sometimes it is expressed directly. Sometimes it is implied.

But that is the buzzword I have been reading and hearing lately. And, upon reflection, it does seem to me that, if it was fair to use that as the standard by which to judge George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina or Jimmy Carter's handling of Three–Mile Island, it's fair in this case as well.

At first, I guess I tended to brush off criticism as more from the sour grapes crowd. In fact, I think the first article I saw was a double whammy — a column from former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan in the Rupert Murdoch–owned Wall Street Journal.

"He was supposed to be competent," moaned the headline on Noonan's column, and I almost didn't bother to read what she had written. But then I did, and I couldn't help admitting there were times when I felt she might be on to something. Like:

• when she started with the observation that "[t]his is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts."


• or when she wrote that Obama "continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. ... [H]e has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another."
  
  Kind of like that Labor Day thing I mentioned earlier. Seems like an obvious time for a president who is presiding over a nation reeling from an economic crisis to hold a press conference on job creation. And maybe, I mused at the time, that is precisely why he did not hold a press conference. Too obvious. Style would be critiqued with no attention given to substance. The spin would be all about politics.
  
  Well, I mused that at the time. But I never really believed it.
  
  Anyway, the days after Labor Day turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. At some point, it became obvious that the press conference on joblessness — which, for months, has been getting the top spot in polls about Americans' No. 1 concern — wasn't coming, that Obama hadn't merely been playing pre–emptive politics by not addressing the issue on Labor Day.


• or when Noonan complained that Obama "repeatedly took refuge in factual minutiae," observing that his professorial demeanor "made him seem like someone who won't see the big picture."
  
  His tendency to lecture isn't too appealing, either.


• or the thing that seems so incredible to so many people — "the way both BP and the government, 40 days in, continue to act shocked, shocked that an accident like this could have happened. If you're drilling for oil in the deep sea, of course something terrible can happen, so you have a plan on what to do when it does.
  
  "How could there not have been a plan? How could it all be so ad hoc, so inadequate, so embarrassing? We're plugging it now with tires, mud and golf balls?"

Peter Wehner also has ties to previous Republican administrations, so you've got to consider the source, but I am compelled to admit that he puts his finger on a problem I have seen in not only Obama but also his most strident supporters.

"Obama is among the most thin–skinned presidents we have had," Wehner writes for Politics Daily. "In Obama's eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America's virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness."

It all has a Nixonian feel to it, doesn't it? And, in a telling observation, Wehner writes, "When arrogant men lose control of events it can easily lead to feelings of isolation, to striking out at critics, to bullying opponents, and to straying across lines that should not be crossed."

Shades of Watergate, for sure.

Then Wehner makes another point: "With Obama there is also the compulsive need to admonish others, to point fingers, to say that the problems he faces are not of his doing." He's been president for 16 months now, and he continues to blame his predecessor for everything. I gather, from what I see in the polls and in the primaries that have been held so far, that it's wearing thin, even with those who bent over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Last week, Obama spoke in the Rose Garden of the "cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill." Wasn't 16 months enough time to do something — or at least get started on something — about that cozy relationship?

Wehner concludes that Obama "was as unprepared to be president as any man in our lifetime" and he is "overmatched by events."

As I said, you can make a case for disregarding such thoughts from Noonan and Wehner. They have reputations as being among Obama's loyal opposition.

It isn't so easy to overlook what Charles Blow of the New York Times writes.

"People needed to be assured that Obama possessed three basic presidential traits: being informed, engaged and empathetic," says Blow.

• "As for the first trait, he was superb as always. I think amassing facts is his idea of being warm and fuzzy."


• "On the second, he was a bit wobbly."


• "On the third point, empathy, Obama came up short."

And empathy is one of those things Americans want to see in their presidents. Even if there isn't a damn thing the president can do — and there often isn't — people like to know that a president, in Bill Clinton's famous words, feels their pain.

Obama often seems to be above their pain.

A House Divided

The Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog focuses today on Barack Obama's declining approval numbers.

The results of one survey — from CNN.com — seem to be particularly vexing, for both CNN.com and the writers for the Times.

CNN.com reports a "split decision" over the Obama presidency at the one–year mark — the raw numbers actually give a slight edge to those disapproving, 48% to 47%, but when you consider there is a three–point margin for error, a whole range of actual outcomes becomes possible.

The point, CNN.com, which has been among the most enthusiastic of broadcasting's Obama cheerleaders, grudgingly acknowledges, is that "the economy by far remains issue No. 1 with Americans." Therefore, CNN.com concludes, "The dominance of domestic issues in importance is most likely a contributing factor to the slight dip in Obama's overall approval rating."

This doesn't surprise me, and I don't really feel it should surprise anyone else, either. I was writing about the perils of prolonged unemployment before Obama took the oath of office.

About a year ago, I wrote about how being out of work robs people of their dignity and makes them feel powerless. More people are out of work today than in January 2009, and when people feel powerless, they lash out at the party that is in power.

So I'm not surprised that the public opinion surveys are picking up two definite trends — persistent upticks in disapproval, persistent declines in the approval numbers — even though both CNN.com and the Los Angeles Times seem shocked and awed by this revelation.

Contributing to the drumbeat that disturbs Democrats is a report from Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in the Wall Street Journal. Quinnipiac's latest survey confirms CNN.com's conclusions: "A year into his presidency," Brown writes, "Barack Obama gets a decidedly mixed report card from the American people. His ratings are trending lower and for the first time as many Americans rate his job performance negatively as positively."

The Associated Press reports that Obama admitted to People magazine, in an interview last week, that he has not brought the country together.

Thanks for that update, Captain Obvious — as one of Obama's longtime media supporters, Maureen Dowd, labeled him in her recent New York Times column about the near–miss terror incident on Christmas Day — which, interestingly, grabbed people's attention but does not appear to have played much of a role in either of those poll results.

Forty years ago, when President–elect Richard Nixon talked about bringing the country together, he was speaking mostly of healing the wounds inflicted by the Vietnam War. There are more sources of the wounds today, but the still open, still bleeding wound of excessive unemployment affects more Americans directly than any other.

In spite of the bad news coming from these polls, the administration gets a warm fuzzy from Mark Mellman in The Hill. Mellman wishes Obama a happy anniversary — even though his actual anniversary in office is still a week away.

"All Americans can remain proud of electing a president whose father was a Kenyan immigrant," Mellman writes, adding that it "speaks to the goodness of our nation."

He also insists on offering built–in excuses.

First, he reminds readers of Mario Cuomo's "famous distinction between the poetry of campaigning and the prose of governing."

Obama, he says, "has handled this transition well, though a few of his supporters have found it more jarring." I'd say it's been jarring for more than just his supporters — or simply "a few" of them. "Their expressions of disappointment," Mellman continues, "reflect a failure to comprehend the implications of Cuomo's critical distinction."

Mellman also provides some cover for the administration through the words of a song from "Jesus Christ Superstar," which is appropriate, I suppose, given the many references to "The One" in the 2008 general election campaign.

"He’s a man, he’s just a man ..."

Mellman reminds readers (well, I presume it is a reminder — I never read it myself) that he predicted a year ago that Obama's approval ratings would be below 50% by now.

"Barack Obama is a special and extraordinary talented president, but he is just a man," Mellman writes, "buffeted by the same political forces that have afflicted his predecessors and will bedevil his successors."

Well, the house remains divided. As president, Obama must do something about that because, as Lincoln said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Presidential Priorities

Everyone has an agenda, even if everyone doesn't acknowledge it.

Everyone thinks his/her issue should be the priority.

And, when Barack Obama took office in January, there were a lot of things that needed to be addressed. I understand the pressure he was under.

So I tried to be patient — even though I have been unemployed since last year and I have grown increasingly alarmed each month as job losses have mounted.

I heard all the big talk in February when the stimulus package was passed. I thought job creation was the priority, especially when I heard Sen. Ben Nelson say, "Call us the jobs squad."

Of course, I thought job creation was a priority a few months earlier, when candidate Obama promised tax credits for businesses that hired Americans in 2009 and 2010. Turned out that was just another politician's pledge to win votes.

It was hard for me to stay silent when Obama famously filled out his NCAA tournament bracket in March, but I tried to be patient when Obama went on TV later in the month and compared his bowling skills to the Special Olympics. His remark opened up a discussion about the use of the word "retard," but it didn't alleviate the unemployment problem.

As the spring went on and administration critics held their famous "tea parties", I continued to try to be patient — as I did when an opening popped up in the Supreme Court. As president, Obama had to nominate a replacement.

By then, the battle lines seemed to have been drawn.

We got into the summer months, and, in July, the president urged the unemployed to be patient so I tried to be patient, but I knew then, as I know now, that time is not an infinite commodity for me. I was assured, by many sources, that job creation was not on the back burner. I wasn't convinced of that, but I put my trust in them.

Anyway, during the summer, the administration turned most of its attention to health care reform. And I tried to remain patient — but then Democrats helped to derail the public option that Obama wanted. Meaningful reform no longer seems like a possibility, even a remote one.

This week may have exhausted what was left of my patience.

While Obama was jetting to Copenhagen to press for Chicago to be the host of the 2016 Olympics, word came out that unemployment had gone up in September, that more than 250,000 jobs had been lost.

Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal reported on economists' assessment of the weak labor picture. National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers insisted that the worst of the recession is over. That's a hard sell for the unemployed, especially since one–third of jobless Americans have been out of work for more than six months.

Meanwhile, Obama seems to have been under the impression that his charisma would carry the day with the International Olympic Committee. It did not.

The Wall Street Journal, which hasn't exactly been Obama's ally, insisted that it would not "join those who pounded President Obama for taking a day to travel to Copenhagen."

But Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News, came closer to expressing my feelings when he wrote that "[t]his wasn't the President's fight. For a smart guy, he does some dumb things sometimes."

Or, as the New York Times asked, "What was President Obama thinking?"

The 'R Word' Isn't What You Think it Is

While those on the left insist on fanning the flames of racism and those on the right are equally insistent that race is not a factor in their opposition to Obama administration policies, a few people do seem to grasp what is really at stake — the future of the political realignment that left–leaning Americans believed had begun in 2006 and 2008.

Last week, Brent Budowsky pondered the prospects for realignment in The Hill. With more than 40% of Americans identifying themselves as independents, Budowsky writes, "Realignment is dead. President Barack Obama and Democrats blew it. Dealignment has arrived. Republicans blew it, and are now so repellent that Americans increasingly reject both political parties."

That supports something I have heard frequently — that neither party is really interested in the problems of ordinary Americans, that what politicians on both ends of the spectrum really care about is being re–elected, and a new party is needed.

But that isn't an original theme in American politics. Didn't we hear much the same thing when Ross Perot ran for president in 1992? Wasn't that a big part of George Wallace's message when, as an independent candidate for president in 1968, he carried five states after arguing that there wasn't "a dime's worth of difference" between the two parties and nearly sent the presidential selection to the House of Representatives?

In fact, these cries for a new political party have been amplified from time to time since the Democrats and Republicans emerged as the major parties in the mid–19th century. The cries seem to be louder when circumstances are bad — and most people appear to agree that things haven't been this bad — economically, anyway — since the Great Depression.

Those who have studied the history of political trends in America aren't surprised by periodic calls for a new party. But neither should they be surprised by the re–emergence of established trends — nor should they conclude that those trends have any special significance.

Which is why I was bemused to read Fred Barnes' piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day.

"Virginia has been kind to Democrats as of late," Barnes wrote, "[b]ut now the Democratic tide is ebbing in Virginia. In January Mr. Obama's approval rating was 62%, according to a Survey USA. By August it had fallen to 42%."

Barnes, a conservative commentator, observed that the Republican candidate leads the Democratic candidate in polls regarding this year's gubernatorial campaign. He wrote hopefully about the possibility that a Republican triumph in November "will demonstrate that 2008 may have been an aberration." But that, to me, is like comparing apples and oranges.

I don't know what the vote in Virginia will say about attitudes toward Obama and his policies. At the moment, I'm not inclined to think there are any conclusions to be drawn — unless either side wins by a landslide.

If the Republican wins in Virginia, I don't think it will necessarily suggest that Obama's coalition has crumbled. I think it is more likely to confirm what I wrote about four months ago — that the party that loses the presidency wins the governor's office in Virginia the next year.

Admittedly, Obama accomplished something unusual for Democratic presidential nominees when he carried Virginia last year. He was the first Democrat to do so since 1964 — and he was the first non–incumbent Democrat to carry the state since Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

But the gubernatorial trend seems to function independently of the state's preference in presidential politics. Nominees of both parties have won the governor's office in the last 32 years — including Doug Wilder, the first black elected governor in any state — even though Virginia voted for Republican presidential candidates in 10 straight elections before voting for Obama last year.

If Democrat Creigh Deeds wins the election in six weeks, that may be a tangible sign that a realignment is taking place. But if Republican Bob McDonnell wins, it would be wrong to assume that it indicates anything more than business as usual.

And if the theory of realignment is dealt a setback in next year's midterm elections, it would be a serious mistake for Democrats to assume it is due to racism. It will be an indication that another political trend is alive and well, one I wrote about last month.

A president's party almost always takes it on the chin in the midterms. Obama knows what will minimize those losses — job creation — and claims he asks his economic advisers about job creation regularly. But promises he made on the campaign trail appear to have been abandoned in favor of political expedience.

Well, the nation is fast approaching a 10% unemployment rate — something with which more than a dozen states already are dealing. Unless there is clear improvement in the next six months, Obama's party is likely to lose ground in Congress in 2010.

Talk of a realignment will fade — and racism will have little, if anything, to do with it, regardless of how each side chooses to spin it.

The Buzz About McCain's Pick

The deadline for announcing John McCain's running mate still appears to be Friday.

I haven't heard his name mentioned much recently, but I'm still predicting that McCain will pick Tom Ridge as his running mate.

Everyone's got an opinion.

• Steven Thomma writes, for McClatchy Newspapers, that McCain is under some pressure with the deadline looming.
  
  Thomma also writes that the "fast-changing landscape in recent days has helped some potential choices and hurt others."
  
  Thomma proceeds to list these changes:
  
  
  1. "McCain has pulled into a neck-and-neck fight with Obama after trailing for weeks."
  
  
  2. "He's shored up support from social conservatives and has seen a payoff in the polls."
  
  
  3. "Obama picked Biden ... which could put a new emphasis on finding someone who could take on Biden in the vice presidential debate this fall."
  
  As a result, he suggests that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney have the inside track. But Pawlenty has said he is happy as governor of Minnesota, and it has been widely reported that McCain doesn't like Romney.
  
  
• Julie Mason writes, in the Houston Chronicle, that one of the senators from my home state of Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, is "getting a push from conservative and other pundits in the lead-up to next week's Republican National Convention."
  
  It seems, as Mason writes, a longshot. Hutchison has spoken openly of her desire to run for governor of Texas in 2010 (even though the incumbent, a fellow Republican, Rick Perry, indicates that he wants to seek another term), so a four-year hitch as vice president doesn't appear to be in her plans.
  
  But, with so many of Hillary Clinton's backers apparently looking for someone to support in November, McCain might be thinking about putting a woman on the ticket.
  
  And Hutchison is Texas' senior senator, with 15 years' experience in the Senate. She was elected to finish the unexpired term of Democrat Lloyd Bentsen, who resigned to take a Cabinet post under Bill Clinton, and she has been re-elected easily ever since.


• If the choice was up to Henry Olsen, I'm not sure who he would pick. But he's pretty clear, in the Wall Street Journal, that he does not believe McCain should put Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman on the ticket.
  
  Olsen points out something that has already been pointed out several times — Republican Abraham Lincoln put Democrat Andrew Johnson on his ticket when he ran for re-election in 1864.
  
  "That episode ended unhappily," Olsen writes, "for reasons directly relevant to the current situation."
  
  Perhaps the most significant point Olsen raises is this: "One must also contemplate the awful possibility that President McCain will not survive his term. Do Republican voters want to see a President Lieberman negotiate with a Democratic Congress on taxes, entitlements, judicial nominees and abortion? To ask this question is to answer it."

More Responses to Obama's Choice

Today is the day after Joe Biden was introduced to the American public as the running mate on the Democratic ticket. And responses continue to pour in.

• Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen write, in Politico, that Barack Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate tells us five things about the presumptive presidential nominee:
  
  
  1. He's fixing for a fight.
  
  
  2. He's a lot more conventional than advertised.
  
  
  3. He’s insecure about security.
  
  
  4. He’s more worried about Lunchbox Joe than Bubba.
  
  
  5. He doesn't hold a grudge — or at least he doesn't let it get in the way.
  
  I won't elaborate on the points. The post is short. I recommend that all my readers take a few minutes to read it for themselves.


• In what is sure to become familiar fare (for those who watch the Democratic convention this week, it will be familiar by the time Biden gives his acceptance speech), the Washington Post writes in glowing terms of Biden's life of "comebacks" of which the latest is his emergence as Obama's running mate after dropping out of the presidential race in the wake of an ignominious loss in Iowa.
  
  "Setbacks are followed by successes" in Biden's life and career, write Eli Saslow and Amy Goldstein in the Post, "and the cycle repeats. A tragic car accident, brain aneurysms, a plagiarism scandal, two failed presidential runs — nothing has permanently derailed him."
  
  
• But the response in the Washington Post hasn't been uniformly enthusiastic.
  
  In a group asssessment of the choice, Ed Rogers (former White House staffer under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush) says there are three reasons that Republicans should be glad Biden was the choice:
  
  
  1. Biden is not "another lightweight left-wing snob."
     
     "Everyone who cares about good government and serious politics can imagine him as president," Rogers says, "unlike Obama."
  
  
  2. "Biden has no following in a key state or among any particular voter group that will help Obama appeal to the center, nor does Biden reinforce Obama's appeal as an agent of change."
  
  
  3. "On any given day, there is a good chance that he will say something that could destroy the Democratic ticket or at least hurt its chances in November."
  
  Rogers says that, as a McCain supporter, he is "relieved and encouraged by the Biden selection."

(Pardon a personal note here: There is, I believe, something to be said about the fact that the Congress is, in part, to blame for the giant sucking sound we hear, of American lives and treasure being lost in Iraq. Congress has been the enabler of problematic behavior in this dysfunctional relationship that has existed between Congress and the Bush administration.

(But, as Congress has continued to authorize exorbitant defense spending, even as the economy has soured, are any of the presumptive nominees in a position to cast any stones?)

In the same assessment piece, Rutgers University history professor David Greenberg says, "Obama blew it." Greenberg says Obama's "over-the-top coyness damages him three ways —"


1. "First, it feeds the idea that he's a narcissist."


2. "Second, after so much hype, the choice could only disappoint. And really, we waited three months for Joe Biden?"


3. "Third, the protracted process short-sightedly allowed Hillary Clinton's name to re-enter the veepstakes — a move bound to further alienate her backers when she wasn't selected."
   
   We might get an idea how Hillary's supporters feel about the selection process when, on Wednesday, she is reportedly going to tell her delegates that they are free to vote for Obama on the first ballot. Will they still vote for Hillary? Will there be a floor demonstration?
   
   Stay tuned.


• Elizabeth Holmes writes, in the Wall Street Journal, that Biden and McCain share "striking similarities."
  
  "In their roughly 57 combined years in the U.S. Senate, Sen. McCain and Sen. Biden have forged much the same path," Holmes writes. "The pair has each earned a reputation for a quick tongue and become outspoken on foreign policy."


• The sub-headline on the article by Mike Dorning and James Oliphant in the Chicago Tribune summed up what the Obama camp appears to want voters to see when they look at the Obama-Biden ticket: "Experience. Foreign policy chops. Fists for a political fight. And, if Obama's lucky, an appeal to white working-class voters."


• Frankly, I expected to read something about the selection in Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times this morning.
  
  But she seems to be too busy obsessing over John McCain's "dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam" — and the "powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free."
  
  Although the article was written by someone who was adamantly anti-Hillary during the primaries, the argument sounds like it could have been fashioned by a feminist Clinton supporter in a general election campaign against McCain. It doesn't really seem like a plausible complaint coming from an Obama backer.
  
  Presumably, this is in response to the subject that was raised by the revelations in recent weeks about John Edwards' affair — although Edwards is never mentioned in Dowd's column today.
  
  And Edwards only appeared to threaten Obama's run to the nomination briefly — and in a marginal sort of way, at that, after finishing a fairly distant second to him in the Iowa caucus on January 3. In fact, Edwards found himself competing with Clinton for second place that night. When he came in far behind both Obama and Clinton the next week in New Hampshire, Edwards prepared to throw in the towel.
  
  Perhaps Dowd will have something to say about Biden in her next regularly scheduled column — which presumably will be Wednesday, the day Biden is supposed to accept the nomination.


• Dowd's colleague, Frank Rich, doesn't mention the running mate, either — except tangentially. But he may have provided a hint of what may be to come when the Democrats convene this week in Denver.
  
  "Change We Can Believe In" was an effective slogan during the Democrats' "familial brawl," Rich says in the New York Times, but now the opponents are McCain and the Republican Party. The message must be blunt.
  
  So it's time, Rich says, to put to rest "Change We Can Believe In" in favor of something like "Change Before It’s Too Late."
  
  If so, perhaps that puts the Biden selection into its proper perspective.

If that doesn't do the trick, here's something that might.

Yesterday, I wrote that the selection "was made with no apparent consideration given to the effect it might have on the electorate in November."

But Dan Balz raises a point in the Washington Post that I hadn't thought of.

"The die may have been cast for Biden ... when Russian forces invaded Georgia this month," Balz writes. "Until then, Obama may have believed he had more latitude in his choice, that he could worry less about dealing with his perceived weaknesses and instead pick a running mate who would more clearly buttress the change and generational messages at the heart of his candidacy.

"Once the tanks rolled, the weight of evidence shifted toward someone who would raise no questions in the area of national security. ... Among those under serious consideration, Biden, 65, was at the top on national security credentials."

In that Washington Post assessment piece I mentioned earlier, Todd Harris, a former McCain spokesman, refers to the Russia-Georgia clash and writes that Biden "brings decades of foreign policy experience to the ticket — and more than a little baggage."

Another example of how unforeseen events have the power to move campaigns in unexpected ways.

McCain's Running Mate Dilemma

The Wall Street Journal says Barack Obama has an easier assignment than John McCain has when it comes to picking a running mate.

And the Wall Street Journal is absolutely right.

"As a young, rookie candidate running on 'change,' Barack Obama can help himself by choosing a safe, seasoned politician like Evan Bayh or Joe Biden," observes the Journal.

"As the trailing candidate from an unpopular party, John McCain has the harder decision because there really is no obvious candidate."

The Journal proceeds to list all the names that get mentioned frequently in this conversation — and includes the reasons why those candidates would be a drag on the Republican ticket:

• Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — "[W]rong last name."


• Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — "[T]oo-frequent political opportunism that would disappoint much of the party."


• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — Ditto.


• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romeny — "[He] failed to catch fire in the primaries ... and ... his Mormonism seems to be an issue with many evangelicals." The Journal, for its part, finds fault with Romney because he "continues to defend his state health-care reform."


• Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman — "[H]e'd probably alienate too many social conservatives."

With some of the other names that have been mentioned, the Journal raises objections that aren't quite as severe — but it still raises objections:

• Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty — A conservative who is "as confused as Mr. McCain on global warming, but he seems to have more principles than Mr. Crist."


• Former Management and Budget director Rob Portman — "Some McCain advisers will say his Bush experience rules him out, but he has depth as a policy wonk."


• Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — Has "potential and appeal" but lacks "stature" and would "give up Mr. McCain's clear experience edge over Mr. Obama."


• Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — Ditto.


• Meg Whitman of eBay — "[The] magnitude of press scrutiny that any nominee must endure today is a lot to ask of someone who's never sought elective office."


• Fred Smith of FedEx — Ditto.


• South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — He "did stumble recently during a CNN interview ... . Still, it was a minor misstep, and Mr. McCain could do worse."

The Journal admits to favoring former Sen. Fred Thompson, who "might make sense ... (for) promising to serve one term, clean up the mess, and go home. On the other hand, he might be better suited for Attorney General if Mr. McCain prevails."

When all is said and done, the Journal concedes, "If there were a miracle choice for Mr. McCain, that person would be obvious by now. There isn't, and an attempt to find one can easily backfire."

Blaming Big Oil

In an editorial headlined "Obama's Dry Hole," the Wall Street Journal dismisses Barack Obama's argument that the oil companies have been stockpiling leases on federal lands to manipulate gas prices.

Obama alleges that "68 million acres that have the potential to nearly double America's total oil production" have gone untouched.

"[T[he notion is obviously false — at least to anyone who knows how oil and gas exploration actually works," the Wall Street Journal says.

Then it applauds "liberals" for "finally acknowledging the significance of supply and demand."

I don't know if the Wall Street Journal is just noticing this (as many on the right seem likely to act these days), but the law of supply and demand isn't being "finally" acknowledged.

It is one of many factors that thoughtful progressives see as important (along with the need for conservation, the sense of urgency for finding reliable and renewable sources of energy and other factors) in the energy debate.

But "supply and demand" seems to enter the conversation these days (on both sides) with the accompanying question about "Big Oil" and its alleged role in all this.

Well, if you're going to insist on pointing your finger at someone ...

Newsweek's Robert Samuelson suggests a new culprit — the speculators.

"A chorus of politicians, including John McCain, Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Lieberman, blames these financial slimeballs for piling into commodities markets and pushing prices to artificial and unconscionable levels," Samuelson writes.

"Gosh, if only it were that simple," he continues. "Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don't understand what's happening or don't want to acknowledge their complicity."

All the proposals I've heard for dealing with today's energy crisis seem to be based on the belief that there is a quick-fix solution out there to the reality of a finite supply of fossil fuels.

Whether the proposal is for a windfall profits tax (the logic behind the tax suggests that big oil is manipulating supply to inflate price, but such a tax is likely to restrict production and produce much less revenue than predicted) or a summer "tax holiday" (which would provide minimal — and temporary — financial aid to the consumer — while forcing state governments to cut their workforce — along with some important road maintenance projects), none of the "solutions" I've heard address the real issue of long-term energy needs — including independence from foreign energy suppliers.

So I guess, as Samuelson writes, the speculators are next on the blame list.

Isn't it time for our politicians to speak in depth about a long-term answer? I don't expect anyone to have the answer. How do we find it? That's the kind of vision we seek from our leaders.

We need a strategy.

An Internet Tip

A friend of mine told me yesterday that the Wall Street Journal will be providing free web access to its editorial/opinion pages.

And I want to share the tip with you.

In a release issued Thursday, the Journal said, "Since 2000, we've operated in a dual world on the Web. The majority of our daily editorial offerings have remained behind a paid subscription wall ... while our free site, OpinionJournal.com, offered select stories plus a few Web-only features. As of today, those two sites will merge and become a single free site for all Journal opinion, both in the U.S. and overseas editions, book reviews and leisure and arts."