Quayle's Endorsement

If former Vice President Dan Quayle is smart — and I believe the ship sailed on that one quite awhile ago — I think I would avoid taking sides on the 2012 Republican presidential race.

Publicly, anyway.

Privately, of course, he can do as he pleases — like anyone else.

But Quayle apparently is going to publicly announce his endorsement of Mitt Romney for the presidency today in Arizona.

And that could really open a Pandora's box.

Quayle, who was born in Indiana, grew up in Arizona, then returned to Indiana where he graduated from high school and worked for the family newspaper and practiced law before embarking on a political career that took him to the U.S. House and U.S. Senate before his four–year term as George H.W. Bush's vice president.

I guess Quayle had a pretty good image in Indiana when Bush picked him to be his running mate. He never got less than 54% of the vote, including the time he unseated incumbent Sen. Birch Bayh in 1980, and, for most people outside Indiana, I guess, the sight of him at the 1988 Republican convention was their first real exposure to him.

The choice was controversial from the start.

Quayle didn't help matters — either during the campaign, when Lloyd Bentsen memorably told him he was "no Jack Kennedy," or after the election and subsequent inauguration, when he told American Samoans they were "happy campers" or when he supposedly said he regretted not having studied Latin in school so he could converse with a group of Latin Americans.

That latter item, incidentally, is said to have started as a joke about Quayle that took on a life of its own. Some of Quayle's defenders clearly have indulged in some revisionist history — it's hard to deny the statements that live on in video and audio tape — but others are correct when they suggest that many of Quayle's alleged malapropisms started as jokes that appeared credible because he really did utter so many others.

Depending upon the identity of the GOP's eventual running mate, he or she should study the Bush–Quayle 1988 campaign for tips on what not to do — and how to handle the inevitable setbacks and misstatements. It's all part of living under the microscope.

It's a pity that Sarah Palin — or her handlers — didn't try to apply any of the lessons that should have been learned from the Quayle experience.

Quayle, it seems, is still learning. He's been away from the vice presidency for nearly 20 years now, but people still remember things he said — even if he doesn't.

Shira Schoenberg of the Boston Globe observed that "Quayle is known for his rhetorical blunders — once, spelling potato with an 'e' on the end."

As long as Quayle doesn't jump headlong into the campaign and draw more attention to himself, as long as he makes his endorsement and then retreats into private life, there probably won't be too many more reminders of the weird old days — when Quayle said things that were actually attributable, like when he mangled the United Negro College Fund's slogan by saying "what a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful."

So my advice to Quayle would be this:

Express your opinion. Make an endorsement. Put a Romney sticker on your car.

Then shut up.

We already have enough of your misstatements to write a book.

Come to think of it, several people already have. No sense in providing ample material for a sequel.

Oklahoma's First Lady

I used to live in Oklahoma. It's an interesting place — not nearly as backward or one–dimensional as some folks seem to think but, at the same time, most assuredly right wing in some of its political views.

Oh, sure, Oklahoma may seem a little stagnant politically. It has voted Republican in presidential elections 14 of the last 15 times, and far too many Oklahomans seem to share the opinions of their senior senator, a political Neanderthal who was first elected to the Senate when I was living there — in a special election to choose the successor for David Boren, who had resigned to become president of the University of Oklahoma.

And women and minorities have not been too successful in statewide races.

It's possible, given the fact that so many Oklahomans are full– or part–blooded native Americans, that Oklahoma has elected someone with at least a partial native American ancestry as its governor or one of its senators.

But all of the people who have been governor or senator from Oklahoma have been indisputably male — and, although one black Oklahoma politician in recent memory (J.C. Watts) has risen to national prominence, most of the winners of statewide races in Oklahoma have been (apparently) Caucasian.

Well, Oklahoma voters are going to make history of a sort this November.

The state's lieutenant governor, Jari Askins, a Democrat, was nominated by her party this week to run for governor. She will be opposed by Rep. Mary Fallin, who was the first woman elected lieutenant governor.

Thus, the stage is set for Oklahoma to elect a woman governor for the first time in its nearly 103–year history.

A couple of weeks before Oklahoma Democrats and Republicans held their primaries, the Rothenberg Political Report was calling the race to replace term–limited Democratic Gov. Brad Henry "safe" for the Republican nominee.

An Oklahoma Poll released shortly before the primaries seemed to support that conclusion, with Fallin leading Askins by six percentage points — but that finding was much closer than the double–digit advantages previous polls this year have shown.

Of course, that Oklahoma Poll also showed Askins trailing her primary opponent by 16 percentage points. But she pulled off an upset, winning by less than 1,500 votes, for which she has given considerable credit to former Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer.

Switzer endorsed Askins last week — and, clearly, one should never underestimate the power of a Sooner coach to influence Oklahoma politics. Switzer, after all, endorsed Henry in 2002 — and helped propel him to the first of two gubernatorial victories.

I think Rothenberg probably is right. This is really looking like a Republican year nationally, and, in Oklahoma, that makes this election Fallin's to lose — but, with Switzer on her side, I wouldn't underestimate Askins in this campaign.

Sometimes, of course, elections are largely symbolic, demonstrating in a way that virtually nothing else can how we have either grown or regressed as a people.

I've always felt, for example, that the 1960 election was symbolic with a Catholic winning the presidency. In the historical context, the outcome was about America's willingness as a predominantly Protestant nation to trust a Catholic to be its leader. It was on a lesser level, really, that the battle between the nominees, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, was waged.

Forty–eight years later, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battling for the Democratic presidential nomination, it was unavoidable that their duel would be regarded in the history books as symbolic — and then, when Obama won the presidency, the entire election earned, at the very least, recognition for its symbolic value.

The stakes aren't nearly so high in Oklahoma this year, but, even though there has been no discernible "plot" to deny women positions of authority there, circumstances have conspired to prevent women from governing the state — even though women have served as lieutenant governor for the last 15 years and could have become governor at any time if the incumbent had died or resigned.

This is an opportunity for Oklahoma to tear down that wall.

In 2010, nearly one–fifth of the U.S. Senate seats are held by women. If the current Supreme Court nominee is approved, one–third of the members of the highest court in the land (memorably referred to as "the Brethren" in Bob Woodward's 1979 book on the Court) will be women.

And Clinton, who came up short in her quest for the nomination, has risen to unexpected heights as the nation's secretary of state.

Having a woman in high office is not a new thing for most Americans. And Oklahoma will belatedly join that club in November.

Welcome to the 21st century.

This May Be Premature ...

A few minutes ago, Colin Powell announced on "Meet the Press" that he will "be voting" for Barack Obama — which I presume is an endorsement.

At least, it's being treated as one by the media. And Powell isn't denying that, by telling everyone that he plans to vote for Obama, he is encouraging others to do so as well.

Powell also said he does not plan to campaign for Obama in the last two weeks of the campaign.

But, aside from Powell's endorsement, I now feel inclined to predict that the Obama-Biden ticket will win the election — for other reasons (which I'll get into in a few minutes).

What effect, if any, will Powell's endorsement have on the election?

Personally, I feel it will have very little impact on what voters choose to do.

Although I still say, as I did when Powell's planned appearance on the program was hitting the blogosphere a couple of days ago, that the relative value of his endorsement may hinge on what happens in Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial in Alaska.

As I mentioned on Friday, Powell recently testified on Stevens' behalf in court. Stevens took the stand in his own defense on Friday.

If a verdict is reached in the case before the election, it may produce an ironic twist. The credibility of a high-profile Republican's endorsement of a Democrat could depend on the vindication of another Republican.

And that leads me to a point that was raised in a segment that followed Powell's appearance this morning.

In a discussion of the electoral map and the shifts that have been occurring (according to the polls), it was observed that a key demographic for both Obama and John McCain is "older, white voters."

To political observers, it's not news that older, white voters represent a major demographic.

The entertainment media focus advertising dollars on goods and services for young consumers, but older voters are the ones who, historically, show up at the polls and vote.

In 2004, 54% of the voters who participated were 45 years of age or older, and the Republican ticket received a majority of the vote from all voters who were 30 or older.

(In 2004, voters in the 18-29 age group supported the Democrat, but they accounted for only 17% of the vote.)

Race will remain important at least until the election results are known, because we have no precedent for a national campaign in which one of the nominees is black. At this point, no one knows what white voters will do when they're alone in the polling booth.

It's clear that what white voters do is important.

In 2004, 77% of the voters who participated were white, and the Republicans received 58% of their ballots.

But if, as was suggested during the program, those voters are shifting their preference, that can affect the electoral map.

What is likely to make older voters change their preference?

• A poor economy. Older voters know — in a way that most young voters do not — that their time is limited. When the economy is bad and those who have retired or are nearing retirement see their investments lose significant portions of their value, that will affect how they vote.


• Integrity. Older voters are not as willing to gamble as young voters are. Much has been said of Obama's "rock star" appeal, but older voters understand that they're not choosing the next winner of "American Idol" on Nov. 4.
  
  And when most older voters act on a recommendation, they do so based, at least in part, on the trustworthiness of the adviser. What would a conviction of Stevens tell older voters about Powell's judgment?

Over the years, though, research has indicated that endorsements have relatively little influence on voter decisions. In my experience, they tend to confirm positions already being taken by the majority in a state or community.

For example, the newspaper in my home city, the Dallas Morning News, endorsed McCain's candidacy yesterday.

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"The last time the nation saw Washington make real progress on deficit reduction was the 1990s, when a Democrat controlled the White House and Republicans held Congress. True, Republicans failed to cover themselves in deficit-reduction glory when they held the executive and legislative branches, but we read that as an argument in favor of divided government."

The Dallas Morning News

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However, "there's little evidence," write Jay Parsons and Theodore Kim in today's Morning News, that North Texas Democrats will expand, in 2008, beyond their surprising sweep of Dallas County races two years ago and record voter turnout in the March primary.

One of the paper's sources speculates that it may be a decade or more before area Democrats are truly competitive with Republicans.

In a state like Texas, where no Democratic presidential nominee has won since Jimmy Carter carried it in 1976, how much influence does an endorsement of McCain have? Some endorsements, in places where the race is perceived to be much closer, may have more influence on the outcome.

But what I think will truly influence the outcome is something I was reading earlier this morning — before "Meet the Press" came on.

A couple of days ago, Charles Blow wrote, in the New York Times, that he sees no plausible scenario in which McCain can win the election — "[u]nless Barack Obama slips up, Jeremiah Wright shows up or a serious national security emergency flares up."

His logic is simple and compelling.

"The wayward wizards of Wall Street delivered the election to Obama by pushing the economy to the verge of collapse, forcing leery voters to choose between their pocketbooks and their prejudices," he writes.

"McCain delivered it to Obama with his reckless pick of Sarah Palin. That stunt made everything that followed feel like a stunt, tarnishing McCain’s reputation and damaging his credibility so that when he went negative it backfired. And, some radical rabble among McCain’s supporters delivered it to Obama by mistaking his political rallies for lynch mobs.

"This perfect storm of poor judgments has set the stage for an Obama victory. It’s over."

NOTE: I'm going to wait a little while longer — to see if Obama commits a major gaffe, Wright returns to the campaign discussion or another Osama bin Laden video message pops up — but right now I expect to post my final presidential election prediction, state by state, on Tuesday, Oct. 28.

What I can tell you is that I am inclined to believe Blow when he says the financial disaster has forced the fence straddlers to "choose between their pocketbooks and their prejudices" — and their choice is likely to be Obama.

I think the jury is still out on the Palin selection, although her candidacy has become as much a media joke as Dan Quayle's was 20 years ago.

But, in 1988, voters picked Bush in spite of his running mate. It also helped that the Reagan economy was doing all right at the time.

I'll say this about Powell's interview on "Meet the Press." It has taken far too long for anyone to say this about Muslims in America.

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"I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, 'Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Colin Powell

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With 16 days left in the campaign, this election is taking on the look of a foregone conclusion. But it's not over quite yet.

It seems to me, though, that, for a party that has relied on the religious right to provide the winning margin in elections for nearly three decades, it's appropriate that victory this time may depend on divine intervention.

Will He or Won't He?

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The election of an African-American president “would be electrifying,” Powell told a George Washington University audience, "but at the same time [I have to] make a judgment here on which would be best for America."

CNN's Political Ticker

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

And there's a lot of talk about whether Powell will take the opportunity to endorse Barack Obama or John McCain.

Mike Allen speculates, on Politico.com, that Powell will endorse Obama's presidential campaign.

"The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on Sunday," Allen writes. "But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that Powell will endorse Obama. 'It’s going to make a lot of news, and certainly be personally embarrassing for McCain,' a McCain official said. 'It comes at a time when we need momentum, and it would create momentum against us.'"

CNN's Alexander Mooney joins in with his speculation on Powell's intentions in CNN's Political Ticker blog.

Ann Althouse, a law professor and blogger, chimes in in her blog, "[W]hy else would they book him on the third-to-the-last show before the election?"

Well, NBC may want to get some insight from a former secretary of state about the world situation. The financial crisis has dominated news reports lately (and deservedly so), but the fighting goes on in Iraq and the problems with Iran and Korea — and other nations in the world — haven't gone away.

It's obvious that the next president will have to confront the financial crisis immediately, but he will also face an increasingly unpredictable international situation — especially in the Middle East.

Four years ago, Osama bin Laden caught nearly everyone by surprise by releasing a video taped message the weekend before the election.

In his message, bin Laden said he personally directed the Sept. 11 hijackers and said George W. Bush had been negligent prior to the attacks. Many pollsters reported that surveys indicated movement in Bush's direction after the video tape was aired.

Joseph Nye recalls, in the Financial Times, that bin Laden's 2004 message affected voters by reminding them of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Put in the context of the 2008 campaign, Nye writes, "Americans are transfixed by the aftermath of the September surprise in financial markets. Could there be a very different surprise coming in October?"

NBC may want to ask Powell what he believes the terrorist leader may do between now and the 2008 election. Will he do something similar in an attempt to influence the outcome?

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"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."

Colin Powell
Speech to the U.N. Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003

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Also, Powell has served the last three Republican presidents in high-profile positions, and he considered running against the last Democratic president — as a Republican.

All of which would make a Powell endorsement of Obama really big news.

But, beyond the 24-hour news cycle such an endorsement would surely dominate, how much value would it have?

I guess that may depend — at least in part — on the outcome of the corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens.

Just last week, Powell testified in court on Stevens' behalf, saying that the Alaska senator had a "sterling" character and was "a trusted individual whose word you could rely on."

If Stevens is acquitted before the election, Powell's endorsement might have some benefit for its recipient.

But if he is convicted — or if the trial is still being conducted when the voters go to the polls — Powell's endorsement might not mean much.

Personally, I can't see the man who urged the United Nations (and, in the process, persuaded millions of fence-sitting Americans) to support an invasion of Iraq choosing to endorse Obama.

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"I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. ... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors ... and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama
Oct. 2, 2002

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Nor, for that matter, can I see Obama, who has made a point of emphasizing his opposition to the war, welcoming Powell's endorsement.

Unless he does so (cynically) on racial grounds.

And, if that's the case, is it still off the table to discuss Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

Edwards Endorses Obama

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards endorsed Democratic front-runner Barack Obama today.

Earlier in the campaign, Edwards was a candidate for the nomination, but he dropped out in January. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have coveted his endorsement in the last three months, but he waited until more than a week after the primary in his home state before announcing his decision.

I was an Edwards supporter, but I was left to make a different choice when Texas held its primary in March.

While I feel Edwards made the endorsement he needed to make to preserve any active role he will have in Democratic politics in the future, I can't help feeling he made a choice he didn't want to make.

Just as I did.

And I'm glad he waited until there was little to be gained from his endorsement -- other than perhaps to take the public's attention away from Clinton's massive win in West Virginia on Tuesday.

If anything is guaranteed to take the wind out of your sails following a blowout win, it's to have one of your former rivals endorse the front-runner.

But Clinton should roll up another large win in Kentucky next Tuesday. The surveys there have been very consistent -- her smallest lead is 25 points, 56% to 31%, in a Rasmussen Reports that concluded on May 5.

Her largest lead also came in a survey that concluded May 5. It was conducted by Survey USA, and it showed Clinton leading by 34 points, 62% to 28%.

Those surveys make sense. The numbers mirror the results in West Virginia, and the demographics in the two states are nearly identical.

It's a different story in Oregon, which is also scheduled to hold its primary next Tuesday.

In Oregon, polls have shown Obama maintaining a double-digit advantage. His smallest lead was 11 points, 54% to 43%, in a Survey USA poll that concluded May 11.

His largest lead is 20 points, 55% to 35%, in a Portland Tribune survey that concluded May 10.

So the polls indicate a split decision next Tuesday. In all likelihood, that means Obama's lead will be virtually unchanged in the delegate count.

Time is running out.

Is This What the Winner Gets?

Now that he's wrapped up the Republican nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain and his wife Cindy went to the White House today to receive the blessing of the current occupant of the Oval Office, George W. Bush.

It certainly made for the kind of photo I never expected to see eight years ago, after Bush and his campaign staff savaged McCain in South Carolina, demolished McCain's reputation and his bid for the nomination and gave the country a taste of what they were capable of when their backs were against the wall.

But the nomination belongs to McCain, and after humbling himself for the kind of people he pandered to in the last year or so, I guess it's not surprising that he wanted the endorsement of the president. Even with the president's abysmal approval ratings.

Even with the ugly things that Bush and Karl Rove said and implied about McCain in 2000.

It seems clear that neither man wanted the photo-op moment to go on any longer than necessary. The whole thing was over in about 10 minutes.

Kerry's Endorsement

How much currency is John Kerry's endorsement worth?

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee came to South Carolina to endorse Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president Thursday, bypassing his 2004 running mate, John Edwards of neighboring North Carolina.

Peter Gelzinis of the Boston Herald says the Massachusetts senator stabbed Edwards in the back -- after Edwards spent the autumn of 2004 endorsing Kerry's policies and defending him against all charges.

After the election, however, Edwards made no secret of his disagreements with Kerry or his belief that Kerry had been ineffective in countering the swift boat attacks from his rivals.

"Kerry could have climbed aboard the Barack Obama express ... in Manchester or Concord last week," Gelzinis writes. "Instead, the last Democrat to run for president chose to wait until the primary parade rolled into his former running mate['s] backyard of South Carolina."

Gelzinis says Kerry wants to help stop Edwards' campaign -- although Gelzinis acknowledges that circumstances have done a pretty fair job of stopping Edwards as it is. He says that a Democratic strategist told him, "[C]oming down to the state where Edwards beat [Kerry] in the primary four years ago tells you all you need to know.”

But Casey Ross writes (also in the Boston Herald) that Kerry's endorsement doesn't mean much.

He quotes a Boston University professor, who covered half a dozen presidential campaigns for the Los Angeles Times, as saying “Kerry does not have a powerful national presence anymore. I don’t see how his endorsement could harm Obama. But it’s not going to be a big deal in this campaign.”

That might not be the whole story.

USA Today says Kerry's endorsement brings "added organizational and fundraising strength," even if it doesn't bring many additional votes in a state Kerry lost to Edwards four years ago.

Or, as a political scientist at the University of Southern California puts it, "[W]hat [Kerry] brings is a Rolodex and a big list of contributors."

Money is truly the life blood of politics. With a substantial bank account, a candidate can stay in a race indefinitely, even if he doesn't have the actual votes.

In terms of delegates -- and actual voters -- Obama already has the numbers to be competitive until this summer's convention. He won the Iowa caucus and he currently leads the delegate count with 25 delegates committed to him. Hillary Clinton has 24 delegates and Edwards has 18.

This has been accomplished without Kerry's involvement.

To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must have the support of 2,025 delegates.

And that's something Kerry's endorsement may help provide.

Lieberman Takes A Stand in the Campaign

Back in 2000, Joe Lieberman was the Democratic nominee as Al Gore's running mate. Today, he is an unapologetic supporter of the Iraq War, and he is no longer a Democrat. He is still in the Senate, but he's now an Independent who usually lends his support to the Democrats in the Senate.

When it comes to his choice for the next president, although Lieberman is supporting one of his colleagues from the Senate, it's not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Chris Dodd -- or even John Edwards, who is now a former senator. It's John McCain, Republican senator from Arizona.

This makes three endorsements McCain picked up in roughly 36 hours. The others were the endorsements from the Des Moines Register, which I discussed here yesterday, and the Boston Globe.

It remains to be seen whether the Register's support will make a difference in the Iowa caucus, scheduled for Jan. 3. But Lieberman's endorsement and the support of the Globe may help McCain when New Hampshire voters hold their primaries on Jan. 8.

McCain's chances may be better in New Hampshire than they are in Iowa. Eight years ago, McCain was a distant fifth in Iowa and he hasn't put much of an effort there lately, either. But New Hampshire voted for McCain over George W. Bush in the 2000 primary.

The snow storm seems to have bumped just about everything else to the back burner in New England, as it has in just about every other place in the northern United States. But the Lieberman endorsement caught the attention of the Washington Post.

Actually, things might not be over as quickly as you might have anticipated. Adam Nagourney writes, in The New York Times, that there is a "growing sense among Republicans" that their nomination won't be wrapped up when the primary-laden date of Feb. 5 comes and goes.

And, if that is the case, all it will take is a handful of wins to keep someone in the race beyond Feb. 5.

Stay tuned.