GOP Picks Cleveland for '16 Convention

The Republicans announced today that they will hold their 2016 national convention in Cleveland.

My current home city was in the running, but, apparently, Dallas lost out because the city couldn't host the convention in June, which is when the Republicans want to hold it.

I'll grant you that June is usually a much better month to be in Dallas than July or August, which is when conventions have been held in recent election years. For the Republicans, it will be the first time they have convened in June since 1948.

The political/P.R. side of this is easy to understand. Ohio is perceived to be a swing state. Texas has voted for every Republican nominee, win or lose, since 1980.

Historically, it is true that no Republican has won a presidential election without the support of Ohio. A few Democrats have won presidential elections without winning Ohio (John F. Kennedy in 1960, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Grover Cleveland in 1892), but, historically speaking, if a major–party nominee loses Ohio, he has probably lost the election.

Is Ohio really that important in the Electoral College? Well, by itself, I suppose not. It is currently worth 18 electoral votes. Throughout the 20th century, it was worth at least 20 electoral votes and, at its peak, was worth 26. In only three elections since 1900, however, would the outcome have been changed if Ohio had voted for the other nominee.

Democrats have never held their national convention in Cleveland. They have held their convention in Ohio before — in 1880 and in 1856 when they met in Cincinnati. Democrats haven't picked their 2016 site yet — but, according to reports, two Ohio cities, Cleveland and Columbus, are among the six cities being considered.

Republicans met in Cleveland twice in the 20th century.

The first time was in 1924 when they nominated President Calvin Coolidge for a full four–year term. Coolidge became president less than a year earlier when Warren Harding died, and he went on to win by a landslide in November.

The Republicans returned 12 years later to nominate Gov. Al Landon of Kansas to run against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR routed Landon in November, carrying all but two states.

Obviously, if the Republicans are going to try to replicate one of those historical experiences, they will be hoping that 2016 produces another 1924, not another 1936 — although, technically, it won't be able to repeat either because, unless something unexpected happens, neither party will have an incumbent president on the ballot.

The Day Nixon Won the Presidency

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There haven't been many cliffhangers in presidential politics, and one of the most interesting, from the perspective of an historian, has to be the one that occurred 45 years ago today.

It was the last truly paper–thin popular vote margin in a presidential election in the 20th century, and it was the last time for nearly 40 years that voter turnout in a national election exceeded 60% — in spite of the fact that the voting age was lowered to 18 before the next presidential election.

And, if the outcome had been different, the nation might have been spared the Watergate scandal that consumed the Richard Nixon presidency.

But the Democrats' nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, had to win the grudging acceptance of those who had supported antiwar candidate Gene McCarthy in the primaries. The war influenced most voters that year, either directly or indirectly, and McCarthy's supporters didn't completely trust Humphrey because of his role in the Johnson administration.

Gradually, Humphrey had been winning them over that fall; Democrats who had supported McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy earlier in the year apparently began to realize that, like it or not, the choice was between Humphrey and Nixon, the man they had been demonizing for a couple of decades. About two weeks before the election, when Humphrey announced in Salt Lake City that he would pull the plug on the bombing in southeast Asia as "an acceptable risk for peace," the momentum was on his side.

"Up until Salt Lake City," wrote historian Theodore White, "the position of the Democrats had been that any bombing halt in Vietnam must be coupled with reciprocity on the part of the enemy. Now, in a three–point program, Humphrey declared that he would risk a complete bombing halt in the interests of peace, and then see what response might develop, reserving the right to resume bombing if no such response was clear."

The impact on the polls was immediate. Gallup reported that Humphrey had cut Nixon's lead in half.

Then, less than a week before the election, McCarthy ("who had been pouting on the Riviera" since losing the nomination to Humphrey, wrote historian William Manchester) announced his support for Humphrey — and, at that point, wrote Manchester, "Humphrey was at the top of his form; Nixon had begun to sound uncannily like Thomas E. Dewey."

The late Humphrey surge would have changed the outcome, many people argued, if the campaign had gone on for a day or two more — and, in fact, the Democrats had no one but themselves to blame for that. The Democratic National Committee decided to postpone the Chicago convention until the end of August to coincide with the birthday of President Lyndon Johnson.

At the time, it was the latest start for a national convention since the Civil War more than a century earlier — and the change cost Democrats valuable campaign time that could have altered the outcome of the general election.

(It is worth noting that LBJ was much more popular when that decision was made than he was when the convention was held.)

In hindsight, the whole election really hinged on the outcomes in three states — California, Illinois and Ohio. Nixon carried them all by relatively close margins. If Humphrey had carried all three, he would have been elected president.

And if Humphrey had carried any two of those three — or California alone — the independent candidacy of George Wallace would have accomplished its objective of forcing the election into the House of Representatives — where Wallace, who had been fading in the polls that autumn and must have been aware that he could not possibly win, could play the role of kingmaker.

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Nixon, a native Californian, never really seemed likely to lose his home state (although the Republican ticket did lose the home state of the vice presidential nominee, Spiro Agnew). Oh, sure, some major party presidential nominees had lost their home states over the years — Democrat Adlai Stevenson even managed to do it twice — and, if that had happened in 1968, Nixon would not have won in the Electoral College (and, given his final popular vote margins in both California and the nation as a whole, he might not have won the popular vote, either).

But, contrary to what modern political observers may think of California's electoral tendencies, the fact was that, in 1968, the state had voted Republican in three of the previous four presidential elections, and it had never rejected Nixon in a national campaign.

Realistically, California was off the table.

But if Humphrey could have won about 67,000 votes from Nixon in Illinois and about 45,000 votes from Nixon in Ohio, he could have prevented Nixon from receiving enough electoral votes to be elected. And if he had carried both of those states, along with California, he would have won the election outright.

That kind of scenario (or something like it) seemed like a real possibility on this day in 1968 — even moreso after midnight, when all three states (along with Missouri and, for a time, Texas) remained too close to call.

Humphrey and Nixon were even with each other in the polls heading into Election Day, and many states remained too close to call well into that evening — and the early morning hours of the next day. In fact, it was not until the next morning that the TV networks called the election for Nixon — and, even after they did that, some states stayed too close to call for awhile.

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My memory of those days is vague, owing primarily to my youth. But one memory stands out.

As I have written here before, I grew up within 350 miles of my grandparents. It wasn't all interstate in 1968, but my family still managed to visit my grandparents frequently. My father taught at a local college, which did not have summer sessions in those days, and my mother stayed at home until she re–entered the workforce in the mid–'70s so my family typically made two, even three trips to visit the grandparents in the summers — in addition to trips we usually made at Christmas and sometimes at Thanksgiving or during spring break.

I loved my grandparents and wanted to please them, and I'm sure I must have heard them talking about the election that summer. My mother's parents, with whom we always stayed when we visited Dallas, were Nixon supporters. My father's mother was a Democrat, and I am sure she supported Humphrey, but my maternal grandparents spent more time with me and had more influence on me.

Anyway, I must have heard them speaking of Nixon that summer. My grandfather could be — shall we say? — loquacious on certain topics, one of which was politics. My best guess is that I must have boldly asserted, at some point, that Nixon would win — and, then, as children will, I forgot about the conversation.

Until a day or two after the election.

It was then that I received the first telegram I had received in my then–brief life. It was from my grandparents and a couple of their friends (who must have been there when I made my prediction) congratulating me.

I wish I could say I still have that telegram, but I don't. As nearly as I can remember, it said something like this: "Congratulations on your prediction! We're all proud of you!"

At that point in my life, I knew nothing about politics, but I guess my grandparents' praise made me feel like I was some sort of prodigy, that I was destined to be some kind of political historian.

Maybe I was. After all, I still enjoy analyzing election returns, and I still like to make predictions.

I must confess, however, that those predictions involve considerably more thought and research than the one I made in 1968.

Super Tuesday

Republicans in one–fifth of the 50 states voted in primaries or caucuses yesterday.

Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times insists that no "knockout punch" was delivered — and that may be so, but it is hardly surprising that someone at the Times, given the overwhelming advantage that left–leaning columnists enjoy there (and the fact that the Times' general editorial policies have favored the left for a long time), should feel that way.

The Wall Street Journal, which is not a left–leaning publication, also is not convinced that Super Tuesday has given anyone the momentum he needs to win the nomination. The Journal says Super Tuesday was a "split decision — "While Mitt Romney had a good night and stretched his lead among delegates, Rick Santorum did well enough to more than justify staying in the race."

The fact remains, though, that Mitt Romney finished first in six of those 10 contests. His margin of victory ranged from impressive to slim, but he can claim to have beaten party rivals in two of the biggest prizes that are likely to be up for grabs on Election Day in November — Florida and, now, Ohio.

Three if you include Romney's victory in Michigan (which hasn't necessarily been in doubt in recent elections, but, because it has been through such a difficult time in this recession, it could be a swing state in 2012).

The win in Ohio was particularly impressive, I thought. Santorum led Romney there by double digits a few weeks ago, but he finished second to Romney there yesterday.

True, Santorum did win three contests (North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee), but they were in states the Republicans are sure to win in November, anyway — and only the win in North Dakota was unexpected.

And Newt Gingrich won Georgia, the state he represented in the House for 20 years, but Georgia, too, is all but certain to be in the Republican column.

If Gingrich had lost in Georgia, that could have been a game changer. Without a win in his home state, Gingrich's best move probably would have been to fold up his tent — leaving the ultra–conservative vote to Santorum, who could have re–focused his efforts on winning the support of Republican centrists and right–of–center voters.

Instead, the fight for the extreme right will go on — to Alabama, Mississippi and Kansas next week.

Romney also won a few states that will probably vote Republican in the fall — Alaska and Virginia (which voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but are likely to be in the Republican column this November) — but he demonstrated an ability to win in states that will be important to Republican hopes for recapturing the White House.

No one is suggesting, of course, that Romney can win in Vermont or Massachusetts. But the voters there are more centrist than the Republican voters in general, and being able to win their support is going to be an important element in what is likely to be a complex and extremely tight campaign this fall.

There are still serious issues to be discussed — and, hopefully, they will be discussed between now and Election Day. Hopefully, this campaign will not prove to be like so many in recent times — in which minor distractions have been given most, if not all, of the attention.

Anticipating Super Tuesday

There's always a Super Tuesday in America's presidential politics — at least in modern times.

Presidential primaries are, as I have mentioned here before, relatively new phenomena in American politics — historically speaking.

Before Jimmy Carter made a point of entering every primary that was being held in 1976 (which caused a bit of a fuss back then), candidates would choose to enter some primaries and not to enter others.

After Carter was elected president, more states opted to hold primaries in both parties, and candidates felt obliged to enter all or most of them.

Somewhere along the line, each party's leadership happened on to the notion of holding several primaries on a single day, creating a Super Tuesday that would unofficially separate the presumptive nominee from the pretenders.

There are both pros and cons in this, and it is not my intention, on this occasion, to argue in favor or against having a Super Tuesday. That decision has been made for this presidential election cycle, for good or ill, and we're going to have one tomorrow.

So my objective is to anticipate what is likely to happen. More delegates will be up for grabs on Tuesday than have been committed so far:

• Georgia (76 delegates): Newt Gingrich represented a House district in northwest Georgia for 20 years, and he appears to have an unshakeable lead among the Republicans there.
  
  If Gingrich wins his home state, it will be only his second win in the primaries — and both will have been in the South. He won't have established himself as a vote getter in any other region.
  
  I don't know if his campaign will continue after tomorrow, but even if it does, I really don't think he will be much of a factor the rest of the way.


• Ohio (66): This is really the big prize. Although Ohio is not the most delegate–rich state that is voting on Tuesday, people pay attention to the results there because Ohio is a large state and what happens there is often seen as a national barometer.
  
  And, in fact, Ohio does have a reputation for being a national bellwether. What's more, no Republican has ever been elected president without winning Ohio.
  
  Thus, it is an attractive target. Victory there could have significant implications for the rest of the GOP race.
  
  As late as last week, polls showed Rick Santorum with a narrow lead over Mitt Romney. But I'm inclined to think that Romney's win in Saturday's Washington state caucuses — a state in which Romney's campaign didn't expect to do well originally — could give him the momentum he needs to win Ohio.
  
  Romney seems to sense as much. As CNN reports, the former Massachusetts governor appeared confident as he campaigned in Ohio during the weekend.


• Tennessee (58): Santorum may lose Ohio — I think he will — but his message is stronger than Romney's in the conservative South, and my sense is that he will win the Volunteer State handily.
  
  If Romney is the Republican standard bearer, though, I see most, if not all, the states in the South voting for him — as they did when John McCain — and, before him, Bob Dole — was the nominee. Romney will need to work to win over Southern Republicans, but he won't have to work too hard to get their votes this fall.


• Virginia (49): With only two names on the ballot — Romney and Ron Paul — this could be a deceptively lopsided primary.
  
  I was discussing this with my father the other night, and he observed that Paul would win his usual 10% of the popular vote. That's probably an exaggeration. I expect Paul to be a little more competitive in Virginia than that — I mean, there must be some voters in Virginia who would like to be voting for Santorum or Gingrich, but neither is on the ballot so they have no alternative but to vote for Paul if they wish to record their dissatisfaction with the apparent nominee.
  
  Nevertheless, I do expect Romney to win by a wide margin in Virginia.


• Oklahoma (43): I grew up in the South. Most of the time, I lived in Arkansas, but I also lived in Tennessee (briefly). As an adult, I have lived mostly in Arkansas and Texas, but I lived in Oklahoma for four years.
  
  Many people consider Oklahoma a part of the South, but I don't. To me, a Southern state is any state that was part of the United States when the Civil War occurred and chose to fight on the side of the South. Oklahoma did not join the Union until the 20th century.
  
  Oklahoma is every bit as conservative as any traditional Southern state, though, and that could certainly be bewildering at first glance. There are, after all, more registered Democrats than registered Republicans in the state. But, in many cases, Democrat has a more middle–of–the–road definition in Oklahoma than it does anywhere else, and the truth is that Oklahomans have only voted for the Democrats' presidential nominee once in the last 60 years.
  
  Sometimes their support is a bit tepid, but more Oklahomans vote for the Republican than the Democrat. Every time.
  
  Consequently, if Romney wins the nomination, I think he can count on Oklahoma's support in November — but I don't think he can count on Oklahoma tomorrow. Only registered Republicans will be voting, and they are a decidedly conservative bunch in Oklahoma.
  
  There was a definite evangelical influence in Oklahoma politics when I lived there, and I have no reason to think that has changed. My sense is that Santorum's anti–abortion, anti–contraception fervor will resonate with Oklahoma Republicans, and I expect him to win the Sooner state.


• Massachusetts (41): I've heard nothing to indicate that Romney won't win the state where he served as governor.
  
  He beat McCain in the 2008 primary, and I expect him to win easily tomorrow.


• Idaho caucuses (32): This one bewilders me. Idaho held a primary four years ago but switched to a caucus, which tends to appeal to party activists more than casual participants.
  
  The 2008 primary offers no clues to how Idahoans might vote. McCain won it with 70%. Paul received 24%.
  
  But Idaho is a rock–ribbed Republican state. Three–quarters of its state senators and more than 80% of its state representatives are Republicans, as are Idaho's governor and both of its U.S. senators.
  
  No Democrat has won Idaho since 1964, and, in most elections, Democratic presidential nominees cannot count on the support of as much as 40% of the voters on Election Day.
  
  I feel confident in predicting that the Republican nominee will win Idaho this fall, but I don't have a clue who will win there tomorrow.


• North Dakota caucuses (28): North Dakota is as much an enigma to me as Idaho.
  
  It has roughly the same history of supporting Republican candidates — albeit not as decisively — although, to be fair, it was fairly competitive in 2008.
  
  Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that the Republican nominee will win North Dakota in November. Who will win it tomorrow is less certain.


• Alaska district conventions (27): I haven't heard any poll results from Alaska, and I am unaware of any campaign appearances that any of the Republicans have made there.
  
  But Alaska is like North Dakota and Iowa. It is likely to vote Republican in November. Of the 13 presidential elections in which it has participated, Alaska has voted Republican in 12.
  
  Alaska does seem to have something of a libertarian streak so it wouldn't surprise me if, in a four–way race, Paul might be able to win Alaska.


• Vermont (17): Vermont was once a reliably Republican state.
  
  In the 19th century, Vermont routinely gave at least 70% of its votes to the Republicans. In the 20th century, it never voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt, even though it had four opportunities.
  
  But the Democrats have carried Vermont in the last five presidential elections, and they probably will again. Vermont leans to the left these days — it gave two–thirds of its ballots to Obama in 2008. Even its Republicans, who have a lot more in common with retiring Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe than they do with most of the Republicans who are seeking the presidency, are more centrist than most.
  
  My guess is that Vermont's Republican primary will have a fairly low turnout and that Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, will finish on top.

If one of the candidates can win half of the states that are holding primaries or caucuses tomorrow, that candidate can claim to have won Super Tuesday.

But if no one wins more than three, it will be inconclusive.

The Battle for the Senate

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.

Practically since the last vote was counted in the 2010 midterm elections, supporters of the administration have bemoaned the difficulty of accomplishing anything with this Congress. Barack Obama can't do anything with this do–nothing Congress, they say.

I find myself struggling to follow the logic.

If the administration has been unable to accomplish its objectives because the Congress — more specifically, the House because that is the chamber that is controlled by the Republicans — has been obstructing its efforts, then it seems to me there are really only two options:

1. Change the president to one who will work with the Congress or


2. Change the majority in Congress to one that will work with the president.

If the American people decide collectively that they want cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, the former seems more likely than the latter.

I mean, for Democrats to control both chambers of Congress, they would need to reverse the outcome of the midterm House elections, and that's a very tall order.

In 2010, Republicans took 64 seats from the Democrats. It wouldn't be necessary for Democrats to win that many to reclaim control of the House — unless the objective was not merely to win control of it but to regain the margin Democrats enjoyed in Obama's first two years in office.

To seize an extremely narrow majority (but a majority nevertheless) in the House, Democrats would need to increase their total by 25 seats in November. That certainly isn't impossible. Americans have taken at least 21 House seats from one party and given them to the other in the last three elections — but two of those elections were midterm election years, not presidential election years.

Historically, such turnover in Congress typically happens in midterm elections.

The party of an incumbent president who is seeking another term usually wins a few House seats in the process, whether the president wins or not, but only one such incumbent in the last 60 years has seen his party win as many seats as Democrats need to capture the House in 2012.

And no one has been suggesting that Democrats are likely to do that.

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball indicates that Republicans currently are likely to hold 234 seats, which is 16 more than they need to ensure a majority in 2013 and 2014. Democrats can expect to hold 186. A total of 15 seats are regarded as tossups.

The Rothenberg Political Report says only six House seats are "pure tossups" — and there are five more, although Rothenberg indicates that those seats are leaning, however slightly, to one party or the other.

Well, one thing is certainly clear. Barring the development of something totally unexpected, the numbers just don't seem to be there to flip the House back to the Democrats.

That doesn't faze some of the Democrats I know.

It's no secret that Congress isn't popular, but many Democrats appear to be gambling that, because of that unpopularity, not only will Obama be re–elected but the voters, frustrated by gridlock, will give him a Congress that will work with him.

Don't hold your breath — at least on the latter — writes Alan Abramowitz for Sabato's Crystal Ball.

"[D]espite the abysmal approval ratings that Congress has been receiving," Abramowitz writes, "2012 will not be an anti–incumbent election. That's because opinions about the performance of Congress and opinions about whether most congressional incumbents deserve to be re–elected have little or no influence on the outcomes of congressional elections."

Sweeping losses in the House in a presidential election year (in which a 25–seat turnover is possible) tend to happen when the president (or his surrogate) is in trouble with the voters — in 2008, for example, when Obama was elected after eight years of Republican rule, and in 1980, when Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide.

If a change is going to come in Congress, it seems more likely to come in the Senate, where the Democrats' once filibuster–proof majority was reduced significantly in the 2010 midterms but they still clung to a bare majority.

Only 51 members of the Senate are Democrats, and two independent members of the chamber typically vote with the Democrats, giving them 53 seats. Forty–seven members of the chamber are Republicans.

It's safe to say that — numerically, at least — the bar for success is much lower in the Senate.

If Obama is re–elected, Republicans would need to win four Senate seats to have control of both chambers. That might be easier said than done, but incumbents who win re–election have been known to lose some ground in the Senate simultaneously. Bill Clinton's Democrats lost three Senate seats when he was re–elected in 1996, and Ronald Reagan's Republicans lost a single Senate seat in 1984.

If Obama is defeated, Republicans would need to win only three seats. That would produce a 50–50 tie, but the Republicans would have effective control of the chamber because the new vice president, who would be responsible for casting any tie–breaking votes, would be a Republican.

The fortunes of the individual presidential nominees in certain states could influence the outcome of the battle for the Senate. Rothenberg observes that ticket splitting, in which someone votes for the nominee of one party at the top of the ticket but votes for nominees from the other party in races down the ballot, is "increasingly rare" in America.

Thus, the trend to straight–ticket voting should work in Obama's favor in places like Hawaii and Massachusetts. Both states have long histories of supporting Democrats for president, and both will have Senate races this year. Logically, both seats should be in Democratic hands after the votes are counted, but both are a bit shaky.

In Hawaii, Democratic incumbent Daniel Akaka is retiring, and in Massachusetts, Scott Brown is running for a full six–year term after winning last year's special election to succeed Ted Kennedy. Obama's presence on the ballot could help his party retain — or regain — those seats.

But Obama could just as easily hurt Democratic prospects in states like Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota, Rothenberg says. Presently, Democrats hold all four seats, but two are retiring, and those seats are regarded as likely to flip to the Republicans. The incumbents are running in the other two states, and those races are regarded as tossups by both Sabato and Rothenberg.

Nebraska was already likely to elect a Republican senator before incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson opted to retire, Sabato writes, so that didn't significantly alter the terrain, and that certainly makes sense, given the state's electoral history. But Nelson's decision "makes a Republican takeover of the Senate a little more likely," Sabato observes.

The task could be made even easier in the weeks and months ahead — and Rothenberg points out that it all could come down to half a dozen states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential race — and also happen to have Senate races on the ballot: Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Five of those seats (all but Nevada's) are currently held by Democrats, and three of those Democrats (the ones from New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin) are retiring.

New Mexico may be small, but it bears watching. With a reputation for being a bellwether (it's been on the winning side in 23 of the last 25 elections), it might be the most accurate political barometer on Election Night — in more ways than one.

Virginia, as I wrote last month, had been in the Republican column for more than 40 years until it voted for Obama in 2008. But his popularity has declined there, and I am sure that the state will vote Republican in November. The next question would be, will the Republican nominee's coattails help the GOP retake the seat it lost in 2006?

I don't know what to expect in Wisconsin. The state has supported Democratic presidential nominees in the last six presidential elections, and it has seldom sent Republicans to the Senate since the days of Joe McCarthy — but it voted for a Republican over three–term Sen. Russ Feingold i 2010, and it has frequently elected Republican governors, including the one who was elected in 2010.

Both Obama and his eventual opponent can be expected to spend a lot of time and money in those states. It remains to be seen what kind of an effect the presidential race has on the Senate campaigns there.

Innocence Lost: Four Dead in Ohio

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In so many ways, May 4, 1970, seemed like a fairly typical spring day.

Then as now, young people were preparing for the end of the school year. On college campuses, students were anticipating final exams. Those who were about to graduate were thinking about their lives after school. Some were polishing their resumes and their references. Others — who had no well–placed connections or lacked the resources for graduate school to rescue them from the draft — expected to soon be on their way to the jungles of Southeast Asia.

I was a mere child at the time, looking forward to summer vacation, but I was well aware of what was happening on the other side of the globe. Like everyone else, I knew about the war in Vietnam. I saw reports about it every night on the evening news. I saw articles about it in the morning paper, whether I read them or not as I made my way to the comics.

And I heard the adults in my world talk about it. My father was a professor at a small college in Arkansas. He and his colleagues often spoke about what was happening. Sometimes their conversations turned to young people who had been in their classrooms and wound up dying in combat.

As I was growing up, I became friendly with several of my father's students. We lived in the country, and my father's students often came to perform odd jobs for him when he was landscaping our property. I came to regard them as surrogate older siblings, and it was through them that I came to appreciate the divisions of the day, even if I didn't always understand the issues.

There were many things tearing at the fabric of American society in those days, but the war in Vietnam, in which hundreds of Americans were dying every week, was the great demarcation line between the generations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There were exceptions, of course, but, in general, young people were against the war and older people supported it.

That, however, was based on the assumption that everyone knew where and how the war was being waged. Americans had been lied to many times about the progress of the war effort during the Johnson presidency, but, until that time, the belief was that the hostilities were confined to North and South Vietnam.

But that changed in late April 1970. On April 30, President Nixon went on national television to announce the "Cambodian campaign," which came as a shock to many, regardless of whether they supported or opposed the war.

Less than two weeks earlier, Nixon had announced the planned withdrawal of 150,000 troops during that year. Although Nixon never actually said so, this withdrawal suggested that there would be no military action in Cambodia or other nearby countries like Laos and Thailand. His secretary of state had even assured the House Appropriations subcommittee that there were no plans to escalate the war.

But that assurance disappeared like a puff of smoke in a gust of wind when Nixon announced the Cambodian campaign.

An agonized outcry arose from college campuses across the nation, and angry demonstrations followed. As I recall, the National Guard was summoned to many campuses. That was hardly news. Guardsmen had been called out to restore the peace in many places in recent years as public opinion began to turn against the war in Vietnam. They had even been called upon to break up riots, and there had been times when their tactics were far from genteel. Thus, their presence on college campuses that weekend may have been unsettling to some, but it was hardly surprising.

In fact, there were even some opponents of the war who felt it was necessary for someone to restore order. Demonstrations that were sparked by Nixon's announcement turned violent in many places, including Kent, Ohio, the day after Nixon's speech. The wrath of the antiwar protesters soon turned on the ROTC building on the Kent State University campus.

Now, most people had never heard of Kent, Ohio, in early May 1970. Fewer were aware of the existence of Kent State. But that soon changed.

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On Monday, May 4, 1970, the Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of protesters on the Kent State campus. Four students were killed, including a fellow named Jeffrey Miller, over whose body a young runaway knelt, her face contorted in anguish, as a photojournalism student named John Filo snapped a picture that later won a Pulitzer Prize.

That photo may have been the most prominent of many images that came to symbolize the Vietnam era for millions.

The events of May 4 — in only 13 seconds, 67 bullets were fired — had a profound influence on the people of the day. For many, I suppose, it was a loss of innocence — if much innocence was left to lose.

For me, I would have to say it was perhaps the strangest moment of my childhood.

I was in elementary school, and I have no memory of anything that was said there, by anyone, in the aftermath of that bloody confrontation. I don't remember any of the teachers mentioning it, nor do I remember talking about it with my classmates.

But I vividly remember watching the news reports and being aware of the fact that young people, the same age as the people who were enrolled in my father's classes, had been shot down while trying to exercise their rights. I had seen many disturbing images in my brief life, but Kent State was the most disturbing for me.

Perhaps the most disturbing part was what came after the four students had died and nine others had been treated for their wounds. I guess the only appropriate word for it would be "ghoulish."

Apparently, many people — presumably supporters of both Nixon and the war effort — found it necessary to malign the dead.

For example, two of the four dead students were female — and one wasn't even a participant in the protest, just happened to be walking to class when a bullet struck her in the neck. Their families probably hadn't had time to claim their remains before completely unsubstantiated rumors were circulating about all four victims but especially the girls.

The girls were filthy, infested with lice, the rumors said. Neither wore underwear — which probably surprised no one since other rumors contended they were sexually promiscuous and even pregnant with illegitimate progeny. One of the girls was said to have been sick with syphilis and would have died soon, anyway.

In fact, the rumors indicated that all four victims were dirty (in keeping with the popular image of the time of unclean "hippies"), even though photos from that day and in the months prior showed four young people who appeared to be clean and well groomed.

As outrageous as the stories were, there were those who believed them, and, in 40 years, I have been able to reach only one conclusion. Those who died were guiltless. It was necessary to vilify them as much as possible to justify their deaths because, if their deaths could not be justified, the blame for those deaths rested with society.

And there were many in American society who simply would not accept that blame. It was easier for them to accept the idea that the four young people had brought their deaths on themselves.

It was a confusing time. It was often difficult to know who — or what — to believe. But the vitriolic nature of the rumors was reprehensible.

Nixon often spoke of unidentified "agitators" who, supposedly, were intent upon undermining the war effort — but, in hindsight, it seems more likely that Nixon feared that antiwar demonstrations undermined him.

The governor of Ohio didn't help matters by insisting that the protesters were "worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes." In hindsight, that seems to have been part of the campaign of character assassination against the victims, to equate them with the worst figures of history.

I get the sense, looking back on that event, that a certain amount of radicalization occurred and continued to occur in an ever–expanding wave, the way that ripples from a tiny stone in a pond grow ever wider as they move away from Point Zero.

The extent of radicalization varied from one individual to the next, but I think it was the point where the younger generation of Americans began to realize that they had not always been told the truth by their elders, that there were some things in American life that were wrong and always would be wrong and that, if there was to be a change, it truly had to start with them.

Maybe they had inklings about that before, but most managed to rationalize some things that they could no longer rationalize after four people were killed by National Guardsmen at a place where young people believed they were safe.

If that wasn't true, what else had they been told that wasn't true?

Young white people of that time had been told that, all visible evidence to the contrary, things really were "separate but equal" for black citizens. Young males began to acknowledge that females of their own age were not being paid the same for doing the same job.

I think, on that day 40 years ago, the seeds were planted that made it possible for a black man and a white woman to battle for the presidential nomination in 2008.

The maturation process took awhile, but, perhaps, on May 4, 1970, young Americans began their journey to realizing what Thomas Jefferson really meant when he wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Maybe that is the legacy of Kent State.

What If ... ?

Here's a hypothetical for you to ponder.

What if 60,000 Ohio voters who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 had decided, instead, to vote for John Kerry?

I know the history books tell us that Bush won that election, and it may be hard to imagine him losing, but it wasn't so outlandish at the time. Kerry actually led Bush in public opinion polls through much of the campaign. He had a lot of financial support, and he did well in his debates with Bush.

And if 60,000 Ohioans had voted for Kerry instead of Bush, Kerry would have won the state — and the election.

But Bush, who got less than 50% job approval in two polls of likely voters that were released less than a week before the 2004 election, managed to win because:

• Bush exploited Kerry's own words on Iraq: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
• the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" undermined the qualification for leadership that Kerry emphasized at the national convention — his service during the Vietnam War; and
• Kerry was vulnerable to the Bush campaign's portrayal of him as a Massachusetts liberal.

At the very least, we would have had practically a reverse of what we had in 2000 — when Bush won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. Kerry would have finished with 271 electoral votes (assuming there were no "faithless electors"), the same number Bush had four years earlier. Kerry would have lost the popular vote — by an even wider margin than Bush did — and America would have had back–to–back elections in which the president–elect was the winner only in the Electoral College. Bear in mind, though, that, in this scenario, in which only 60,000 votes in Ohio are taken from the Republican nominee and given to the Democratic nominee, the results in none of the other 49 states would be altered. And, while it is reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of those 60,000 Ohio voters also voted for the Republican Senate nominee, incumbent George Voinovich, and other Republicans on the ballot, that is more detail than this scenario calls for. Without knowing where these voters were living in 2004, it is impossible to ascertain which congressional races, if any, might have been affected. But Ohio only has 18 congressional districts, 12 of which elected Republican representatives in 2004; even if all 12 could have been reversed in this scenario (and 60,000 votes would not have been nearly enough to accomplish that), Republicans still would have held the advantage in the House. For that matter, Voinovich would not have been denied re–election if he had lost 60,000 votes. He was re–elected that year by 1.5 million votes. Obviously, the GOP's 55–44 advantage in the Senate would have been unchanged. So this would have had little, if any, influence on the party divisions that existed in Congress. All that can be said is that, if 60,000 votes in Ohio had switched from Bush to Kerry, America would have had divided government from 2005 to 2007. Clearly, certain things that happened during Bush's second term — Hurricane Katrina comes to mind — almost certainly would have happened anyway. Natural disasters happen regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Whether Kerry would have been more engaged in evacuation efforts and other preparations before Katrina made landfall is something about which we can only speculate. Likewise, it seems to me, the legal battle over Terri Schiavo that took place in the early months of 2005 would have happened whether Bush or Kerry had been elected president. But, without Bush in the White House, I believe Republicans in Congress would have been hesitant to interfere. And I definitely believe Kerry never would have signed the infamous "Palm Sunday Compromise."
Kerry probably would have had to come up with at least one Supreme Court nomination. Chief Justice William Rehnquist died of cancer in September 2005.

And, considering her husband's health problems, it seems likely that Sandra Day O'Connor would have chosen to retire when she did. She was reported, in 2000, to be reluctant to retire while a Democrat was in the White House, but who knows how she might have felt if Kerry had been president and her husband was in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease? She might well have decided her husband was more important than politics.

Whether O'Connor would have decided to retire may be in doubt, but one thing seems certain. If Kerry had been president, Harriet Miers assuredly would not have been nominated to replace her if she had.

For that matter, it seems doubtful that John Roberts would have been Kerry's choice for chief justice. In fact, Kerry was one of the 22 senators who voted against Roberts' confirmation.

Based on the rhetoric of the campaign, I assume that Kerry would have ended American military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan by the time he would have sought re–election in 2008, which certainly would have eased the budget squeeze to a certain extent.

So I guess the main question that remains is, if Kerry had been elected in 2004, would America have avoided the economic meltdown from which it continues to suffer? That may depend on whether one is inclined to believe that the problems that led to the current recession had been put in motion many years before.

Would Kerry have been able to enact policies that would have spared the nation the anguish of the recession? Or would he have had to ask the nation for a second term while the economy collapsed around him?

And who would have been Kerry's Republican challenger in 2008? Would it have been McCain? If it had been, would Sarah Palin have been his running mate? Or would the Republicans have nominated Mitt Romney under those circumstances?

Whoever got the nomination, would he have been relentless in linking the Kerry administration to the bad economy? And would Kerry have retaliated by trying to make the case that the policies that led to the downturn began under one of the Bushes — or Ronald Reagan?

What would America and the world be like today if 60,000 people in Ohio had chosen Kerry over Bush?

Obama's Opportunism

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When Bill Clinton was president, he was often criticized — and, perhaps, deservedly so — for political opportunism.

Among those who criticized him were people who later became (and many still remain) enthusiastic supporters of Barack Obama. I find that to be hypocritical because Obama strikes me as being as much of an opportunist as Clinton ever was. If not more so.

Actually, it seems to me that anyone who goes into politics and manages to succeed to any degree is an opportunist. A politician may start out as a staunch advocate for whatever cause he/she may think is critical, and he/she may ride a wave of what is at least perceived to be genuine discontent over that issue to office, but, sooner or later, that politician must bow — at least to a certain extent and often temporarily — to whatever worries his/her constituents the most. It's the law of survival.

Thus, it was with some interest that I noted Obama's visit to Ohio this week.

Now, Obama's political survival is not on the line this year, but all the signs indicate that the members of his party who must face the voters this year are hunkering down in survival mode.

And with good reason.

As you can see from the chart I have attached to this post from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in Ohio has been higher than the national rate for much of the last 20 years. Perhaps that is due, at least in part, to the fact that Ohio is in the industrial midwest, which is usually vulnerable during economic downturns.

Whatever the reason(s) may be, if unemployment is going up in Ohio, I think you can be sure that a recession is occurring in the rest of America. Ohio's unemployment rate broke the double–digit barrier last spring, months before the national rate followed suit.

And this week, following Republican Scott Brown's victory in the special election in Massachusetts — coming on the heels of Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey — Obama appears to have gotten the message that voters are (a) worried about the cost of the health care reform plan and (b) convinced that not nearly enough is being done to encourage job creation, even though, nationally, unemployment is in double digits.

Obama remains personally popular in Massachusetts and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere. (Do you hear me, conspiracy theorists? They like him. They really like him.) But that popularity doesn't transfer easily to others — and it's especially hard when the historically unreliable voting blocs that showed up to elect Obama aren't motivated to turn out when he isn't on the ballot.

Now, the unemployment rate in Massachusetts is not as severe as it is in Ohio or the nation at large. But it is certainly bad enough. When Massachusetts' voters went to the polls in November 2008 and gave Obama nearly 62% of their ballots, unemployment in the Bay State was slightly higher than 6%, a little more than a full percentage point higher than it was when George W. Bush ran for re–election against John Kerry in 2004 but considerably higher than the state's 2.7% unemployment rate when Bush was elected president in 2000.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the unemployment rate in Massachusetts is 9.4%. I don't know how much attention either Brown or Martha Coakley gave it during the campaign, but I'm sure an unemployment rate that has more than tripled in the last 10 years was a factor for the voters.

The fact that the economy shed 85,000 jobs in December couldn't have helped the party in power, either.

(For that matter, New Jersey's unemployment rate was 9.7% when it elected a Republican governor in November. It cracked double digits in December. Virginia's unemployment rate is, by comparison, relatively modest — 6.9% — but it, too, has risen dramatically since the state voted for Obama in November 2008, when unemployment was below 5%.)

Obama's trip to Ohio may well have been planned months ahead of time, but the timing couldn't have been worse for a president who clearly prefers to tinker with the health care system instead of promote job creation.

Reality demanded that Obama at least give some lip service to joblessness when he visited the Cleveland suburbs of Lorain and Elyria, which he did. But I found it to be fleeting, obligatory, almost a tactic, a verbal bridge to what he really wanted to talk about — health care reform. And, to my disappointment (but, frankly, not really to my surprise), his enablers in the media have been all too willing to keep the spotlight on health care reform.

"You know," a friend of mine said to me after it was pointed out that the last president who tried to lead his party through a midterm election year that was plagued by double–digit unemployment was Ronald Reagan, "at least he's ahead of Reagan in one way. He doesn't stick his head in the sand about anything. Reagan wouldn't discuss financial assistance for AIDS research, wouldn't even say 'AIDS' in public until his old pal, Rock Hudson, died of it. And, by that time, so much time had been lost that it took years for us to catch up."

Aware as I am of the tragic and shameful treatment the federal government gave AIDS research in the early years, I have to wonder ... just what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

There's so much misdirection in political discourse these days. I haven't decided if it's a little better now — maybe it's worse? — than it was in 2004, when some people wanted to address the very issues that contributed to a major crisis while others were intent only on talking about the threat posed by gay marriage.

Obama conceded that "[t]hese are difficult and unsettling times," which couldn't have come as a surprise to any of his listeners, and he proceeded to repeat his vague and unconvincing claims that his policies had "saved" jobs. Yep, times are hard. But he insisted that "the worst of this economic storm has passed" because of the steps he and the Democrats in Washington have taken.

I would argue that the unemployment figures alone tell a different story. And the results of a recent Gallup Poll are on my side. Gallup reports that two–thirds of Americans believe an economic recovery won't start for at least another two years.

Clearly, there is a disconnect between Obama and ordinary Americans on this issue.

In truth, I find it ironic that Obama came to Ohio, where he received far more credit for addressing joblessness than he actually deserved. In October 2008, in Toledo, about 75 miles to the west–northwest of where he spoke yesterday, Obama addressed voters during his campaign against John McCain.

During that campaign stop, Obama pledged to offer tax credits to businesses that hired Americans in 2009 and 2010. The idea probably met a receptive audience in Lucas County. Unemployment was 8.8% there in October 2008 (by the following June, it had soared to 14.6%), but the plan was not part of the stimulus package that Obama and the Democrats rammed through Congress nearly a year ago.

Consequently, PolitiFact rates it a broken promise.

The rhetoric yesterday was much the same as we've heard for the last year. "So long as I have some breath in me, so long as I have the privilege of serving as your president, I will not stop fighting for you," he said. "I will take my lumps. But I won't stop fighting to bring back jobs here."

Well, some people are still buying it, but the approval ratings suggest that not as many are. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the priorities haven't shifted significantly. The emphasis is still on health care. He spoke about hitting a "buzz saw" with the loss of Ted Kennedy's seat, and he made it clear that health care was still at the top of his agenda. "This is our best chance to do it," he said. "We can't keep on putting this off."

They just don't get it, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert marveled.

"How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long–term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children," Herbert wrote.

"The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many."

You know, just when I think Herbert can't get any more on target, he writes a column like the one in today's Times. And he raises the bar another notch or two.

I hate to keep quoting him, and I certainly do recommend that you read the column for yourself, but here's an observation that is simply too good not to share.

"The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress," he writes. "The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large–scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump–start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

"What we'll get instead is rhetoric. It's cheap, so we can expect a lot of it."

Amen.

The Spirit of '76

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With his usual gift for seeing historical patterns and similarities, Michael Barone writes, in the National Review, that the 2008 presidential campaign most resembles the one from 1976 between President Gerald Ford and former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter.

In 1976, writes Barone:

• "The Republicans were the incumbent presidential party ... as they are now, but the Democrats had a big advantage in party identification ... far more than today."


• "The Republican president who had been elected and re-elected in the last two campaigns ... had dismal favorability ratings, far lower than George W. Bush's."
  
  (One of my vivid memories from the '76 campaign is of a cartoon by the Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Herb Block — better known as "Herblock." It showed Carter being asked by the press what he thought was the biggest obstacle facing his opponent. Carter's reply was a characteristically Southern response: "Pardon?" — which served as a not-so-subtle reminder of Ford's 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon.)


• "The Democratic nominee was a little-known outsider, with an appeal that was based on the idea that he could transcend the nation's racial divisions."
  
  Carter cultivated that image by winning decisive victories over George Wallace in Southern primaries. Florida was an early battleground victory that fueled the image of Carter as representative of the "New South" that was emerging and reinforced the message that politicians like Wallace represented the "Old South" that was disappearing.
  
  I have always believed, though, that the demise of Wallace's national political ambitions in 1976 was due more to the fact that the 1972 assassination attempt had left him wheelchair-bound and gave him the appearance of disability than it was to the phenomenon of his views falling out of favor with the voters.
  
  Such a phenomenon, I believe, never really occurred.
  
  To be sure, while Wallace's political influence was confined to his home state of Alabama for the last 20 years of his life, many elements of his political philosophy were absorbed into the Republican Party that has dominated the South for nearly four decades. Wallace remained a Democrat, but many of his supporters — and his own son — long ago shifted their allegiance to the Republicans.
  
  The sustained support for Republicans in the South seems to confirm Lyndon Johnson's prediction in the mid-1960s that the passage of the civil rights legislation would hand the South to the Republicans for a generation or more.
  
  Carter nearly swept the Southern states in 1976 — no other Democrat, including fellow Southerner Bill Clinton, has done that since — but it was close in many of them. (And the South has been reliably Republican ever since. In fact, only three Southern states — Louisiana, Clinton's home state of Arkansas and Al Gore's home state of Tennessee — voted for the Clinton-Gore ticket in both 1992 and 1996.)

Ford's situation in 1976 probably was more precarious than John McCain's is today, as Barone asserts.

"An early summer Gallup poll showed him trailing Carter by 62% to 29%," Barone writes. "He had barely limped through the primary contests against Ronald Reagan, who continued his campaign up through the mid-August national convention."

(The Republicans managed to put on a happy face for the TV viewers, as you can see in the above picture.)

Yet Ford managed to close the gap and, by November, nearly pulled off the most remarkable upset in American political history. As Barone points out, a shift of less than 10,000 votes (out of a national total of 81 million) in the states of Ohio and Hawaii would have put Ford back in the White House.

(I remember hearing this argument from Republicans in 1976, and, while the math is accurate, I, for one, have always thought the logic was faulty. Ohio has a political history that would support the conclusion, but Hawaii, with its diverse population, has been a reliable state for Democrats since it joined the Union nearly 50 years ago. It was also one of only a half-dozen states that voted for Carter against Reagan in 1980. Because its population is so small, its vote margins seldom look large.)

It's anyone's guess what would have happened if Ford had won the 1976 election. He would have been ineligible to seek another term in 1980 (having served more than half of Nixon's second term), but voters may have grown weary of Republican presidents by that time — and, thus, Reagan might not have been elected president in 1980.

A Ford victory might have meant the end of Reagan's political career. As a result, the ascendance of Reagan's vice president, George H.W. Bush, or Bush's son, George W. Bush, might never have happened.

Bob Dole, as Ford's vice president, would have been the heir apparent for the GOP nomination in 1980. No doubt he would have been a more vigorous nominee at the age of 57 (his age during the 1980 campaign) than he was at the age of 73 (in 1996, when he actually was the nominee).

(In fact, Reagan and Dole did run against each other in the early Republican primaries in 1980 — but the race rapidly narrowed to Reagan and Bush, and Dole quickly dropped out along with the others in the GOP field like John Connally and Howard Baker. If Ford had been elected in 1976, Dole could have run in 1980 with the advantages of incumbency.)

In short, if those votes in Ohio and Hawaii had swung to Ford, the history of the last 32 years may have been altered in ways we can't imagine.

How did Ford nearly pull off a miraculous, Trumanesque comeback? The Ford campaign turned things around by using advertising to "fill in the blanks" in voters' minds about both candidates.

Ford, of course, was the president, but he had not been elected president or vice president (the first — and, so far, only — person to become president without being elected to either position first) and so voters had not had the normal opportunity to get to know him. And, as an outsider who had little name recognition prior to 1976, there were plenty of gaps in the public's knowledge about Carter.

Ford's advertising team focused on filling in those gaps — and nearly made American political history.

Barone thinks a similar strategy could benefit McCain this year.

"There's an assumption this year that voters know John McCain pretty well," says Barone. "But my sense is that there is still a lot of filling in the blanks that the McCain campaign can do."

As for Carter, Barone writes, "Most voters wanted to support a Democrat, and one who had smoothed over the nation's racial divisions — as they do today. The press up through early summer was giving him mostly adulatory coverage. But voters didn't know much about Carter. He made, as most candidates do, and as Obama seems to be doing now — some mistakes along the way."

Filling in such gaps — and exploiting weaknesses that are exposed by the opposition's mistakes — can only carry a candidate so far. Voters need reasons to vote for a candidate rather than against another one.

(I remember another of Herblock's cartoons, which dealt with the many faux pas committed by both candidates that autumn. In his book about the 1976 campaign, "Marathon," Jules Witcover wrote, "It had not been what one could call an uplifting campaign" and did a fine job of describing Herblock's cartoon:

("Herblock ... summed up the mess by depicting the two presidential candidates as boxers punching themselves in the jaw as the ringside announcer reported: 'Ford is rocked by a left to the jaw — Carter takes a hard right to the mouth — both men are hurting ...'")

Barone observes that the Ford campaign used its incumbency to its advantage. "Voters then, as now, thought the nation was off on the wrong track. The Ford campaign, with a catchy song, 'I'm Feeling Good About America,' and upbeat ads starting off with shots of Air Force One, argued that their candidate was leading the nation around the corner, making Americans feel proud again."

That one may be trickier for McCain. He's not an incumbent. And Air Force One is not his prop to use.

Barone acknowledges the problem. "The McCain campaign needs to do something similar" to what the Ford campaign did in 1976, he writes.

"Exactly how they can do this I'm not sure."

Down to the Wire Again in Ohio?

Four years ago, Ohio was considered a key to victory for John Kerry and George W. Bush. And it lived up to expectations, helping provide Bush with his electoral majority.

No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio — and Ohio has developed a well-deserved reputation for being a bellwether state. It has been in the winning column in every presidential election except two since 1892.

The two exceptions were 1944 (when it voted for Thomas Dewey against Franklin D. Roosevelt — Dewey's running mate, it is worth pointing out, was from Ohio) and 1960 (when it voted for Richard Nixon against John F. Kennedy).

And it's typically decided by razor-thin margins.

With neither a Senate seat nor the governor's office on the ballot, the main attractions for voters this year (excluding the Obama-McCain campaign itself) may be races for House seats.

Although the Ohio Republican Party was facing some problems in 2006 — and ultimately wound up losing the governor's office and one of the Senate seats — the party retained its edge in House representation. The Republicans lost a couple of seats but remained the state's majority party in the House.

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics says that, of the 18 districts in the state of Ohio, there are five races worth watching:

• The 1st sits in the southwestern corner of the state and includes the city of Cincinnati.
  
  It has been represented by Republican Steve Chalbot since 1994, but it has been competitive on the presidential level on a regular basis. It narrowly supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 — in 2004, in fact, it endorsed Bush by a margin of 3,261 votes out of more than 300,000.
  
  So this could be fertile territory for the Democrats' ticket in 2008, no matter what's happening between Chalbot and his challenger, state Rep. Steve Driehaus, whose campaign is being assisted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
  
  And history suggests that Chalbot is capable of turning back tough challengers. It remains to be seen if he can defeat one who is being financed by the DCCC.
  
  Chabot's voting record in the House has been generally conservative. Like his party's standard-bearer, he has been known to be a political maverick, willing to take risks for principle.
  
  Sabato says the district is likely to remain Republican.


• The 2nd is next door to the 1st, snaking its way along Ohio's southern border. It is the home of another Republican incumbent, Rep. Jean Schmidt, who is in a rematch with physician Victoria Wulsin.
  
  Two years ago, Schmidt defeated Wulsin by less than 2,600 votes out of less than 240,000 — in a district that routinely gave Bush more than 60% of its votes in the last two presidential elections.
  
  Part of Schmidt's problem may be her tendency to commit gaffes — especially her infamous advice on Iraq to colleague (and military veteran) John Murtha on the House floor: "[C]owards cut and run."
  
  The 2nd leans strongly Republican, but Schmidt hasn't proven to be the vote getter her party would like. Can she hold on to the seat? Like the 1st District, Sabato says the 2nd "leans Republican."


• In the 15th, GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce decided to retire after eight terms in the House. She has tended to be extremely conservative on economic issues, more moderate on social and foreign issues.
  
  Sabato rates the district a toss-up. The campaign matches 2006 Democratic nominee Mary Jo Kilroy (who lost by less than 1,100 votes) and state Sen. Steve Stivers (who also happens to be an Iraq War veteran).
  
  The district (which includes the city of Columbus) is a tough one to call. Pryce was re-elected there in 2004 with 60% of the vote while Bush beat John Kerry there by a handful of votes.
  
  Sabato says the race should be an "interesting backdrop" to the presidential campaign in the state.


• The 16th is also an open seat. With Republican Ralph Regula's retirement, Democrats are sensing another opportunity to pick up a seat — even though the district, as Sabato points out, has been reliably Republican in presidential elections.
  
  The candidates in the northeastern Ohio district (that includes the city of Canton) are a couple of state senators — Democrat (and Iraq War veteran) John Boccieri and Republican Kirk Schuring.
  
  In Boccieri's case, the unpopularity of the Iraq War in the 16th could work against him. That's a factor political observers will be watching as the campaign plays out.


• The 18th is represented by Democrat Zack Space, who was elected to replace Bob Ney in 2006.
  
  Republicans have been taking aim at the "accidental congressman" and nominated Ohio's former agriculture director, Fred Dailey, to oppose him.
  
  Considering the district's history of supporting Republican presidential nominees, it seems plausible for Republicans to think they have a chance to retake the seat. But Sabato insists it is likely to remain in the Democratic column.
  
  Both parties' congressional campaign committees are getting involved in the race, and it should be interesting to see which one prevails.

As always, Ohio will bear watching on Election Night.

A Look at 'The Map'

During the weekend, I wrote about the Electoral College and how it works (read: how it really elects the president), and I made my first assessment of Barack Obama and John McCain in their head-to-head matchup in the Electoral College about a month ago.

Today, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics weighed in.

"[E]xcept for the guessing game about the vice presidential nominations," Sabato writes, "there's no greater fun to be had in July."

And he affirms some of the points I've been making.

For example ...

Sabato concedes that "[i]t is highly likely that a half-dozen or more states will flip sides," but he confirms my point, which has been that past election results are a pretty good way to assess the chances that a party's nominee has of winning a given state.

If, as Sabato says, "a half-dozen or more" states switch party allegiances this fall, "that suggests that around 40 states may keep the same color scheme."

And, Sabato writes, "If November unexpectedly becomes a landslide for one party, then many states may temporarily defect from their usual allegiances."

The key word in that sentence, whether you're Obama or McCain, is "temporarily." The winner of such a state can't count on its support when the next presidential election campaign rolls around.

For example, if Obama carries Colorado, as many people are suggesting that he might, that would be a significant shift in voting behavior. Colorado has voted for every Republican since 1968 — with the solitary exception of voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 (but the voters there resumed their Republican pattern when Clinton ran for re-election).

At this stage of the campaign — nearly four months before Election Day without knowing the identities of either running mate or what may happen in the world before the voters go to the polls — Sabato says it is necessary "to assume that the election will be basically competitive, let's say with the winner receiving 52% or less of the two-party vote."

A lot can happen in four months, and Sabato says "If one candidate's proportion of the vote climbs above 52%, then virtually all the swing states will move in his direction."

In Sabato's current scenario, there are eight states worth a total of 99 electoral votes that qualify as "swing states" — Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. It's a mix of small states (New Hampshire and Nevada), mid-sized states (Colorado, Virginia, Wisconsin) and large states (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania).

If these states are still the swing states by the middle of October, states like New Hampshire and Nevada can expect to get as much attention from both parties as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

If this race is as close as it was in 2000, every electoral vote will matter.

Which leads me to another interesting point that Sabato makes.

"History also suggests that the Electoral College system is only critical when the popular vote is reasonably close or disputed. That is, the College can potentially or actually upend the popular vote just in elections where the major-party candidates are within a point or two of one another."

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So where does Sabato think things stand on July 10?

Well, he starts with the states that appear to be "solid" for one party or another.

Obama has 13 states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington) and D.C. in that column, worth 183 electoral votes.

McCain has 17 "solid" states (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming) worth 144 electoral votes.

Sabato thinks it would be futile for either candidate to make much of an effort to win any of the "solid" states from the other, and I'm inclined to agree.

I think Sabato is right when he says McCain "will end up wasting a lot of money" if he tries to win a state like California. And I also think Sabato is right when he says he "will be surprised" if Obama is successful at capturing any of McCain's "solid" states — although he acknowledges the possibility that Obama could win Indiana if he puts Sen. Evan Bayh on his ticket.

From the "solid" states, we move on to the ones where the candidates are "likely" to win. These are also states where the chances are better for the opponent to pull off an upset.

Sabato lists only two "likely" states for Obama — Oregon and Minnesota — worth 17 votes (that gives Obama a total of 200 electoral votes from 15 states and D.C.). He lists five "likely" states — Alaska, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana and North Dakota — worth 30 electoral votes for McCain (and that gives him 174 electoral votes from 22 states).

From Obama's list, Sabato says McCain's best shot at an upset is in Oregon. "The only way McCain could steal Minnesota is by picking Gov. Tim Pawlenty as his running mate," Sabato says. "However, even a McCain-Pawlenty ticket would have a 50-50 chance, at best, of carrying Minnesota."

Sabato rates Obama's chances of winning some of McCain's "likely" states as better than his opponent's chances, but he's skeptical about the claim that Obama can produce enough of a turnout among blacks to reverse voting patterns of four decades in the South.

"If Libertarian nominee and former Georgia GOP Congressman Bob Barr wins his projected 6 to 8% in the Peach State, or if Obama chooses former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, Obama could have a shot at a plurality victory," Sabato says, "but for now we'll bet on McCain ... A giant African-American turnout might shift Mississippi (38% black) to Obama, but that is not our gamble."

That leaves the states that are "leaning" in one direction or another.

Again, there are two states in Obama's column — Iowa and New Mexico — worth 12 electoral votes. If those two states, along with the "likely" states and the "solid" states that Sabato has identified, do indeed vote for Obama, that gives him 212 electoral votes from 17 states and D.C.

McCain has three states "leaning" in his favor — Florida, Missouri, North Carolina — worth 53 electoral votes. If McCain sweeps all the states in his column, he will receive 227 electoral votes from 25 states.

Of the leaners, Sabato seems confident that Obama can hold both Iowa and New Mexico, especially if he puts New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on his ticket.

In McCain's case, Sabato says, "If he loses even one of them, he will be up against the Electoral College wall."

So then it's up to the states that are too close to call.

"If Obama carries Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, he's already at 269 (one vote short), and would need just one of the following states: Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Virginia," Sabato writes.

"Of course, if McCain managed to secure Ohio, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Virginia, we'd be at that fabled 269-269 tie."

And, Sabato continues, "If McCain can grab Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, while holding Ohio, he's back in the hunt, with smaller toss-up states proving decisive."

Actually, Sabato's prediction isn't that much different from my own. He allowed himself the luxury of putting the troublesome states in the "toss-up" column. But, excluding the "toss-ups," our predictions were identical.

In my prediction, I gave McCain six of the eight states Sabato lists as "toss-ups" — and, in my scenario, that gave him a 295-243 victory in the Electoral College.

It's all a guessing game right now.

Will the running mates make a difference?

What will happen in the world between now and November 4?

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%.