The Nominating Process

Once again, party activists are considering changes in the presidential nomination process. In the Washington Post, Dan Balz writes:

Now a new effort to fix a broken system has begun. A commission established by the Democratic National Committee to review the nomination process held its first public meeting yesterday in Washington. A panel set up by the Republican National Committee to examine its process met privately a week ago.

A couple of observations are in order. First, I would quibble with the word broken. What's broken? In 2008, both parties nominated the candidates that their rank and file supported. The process allowed for an airing of issues, and on the Democratic side, it enabled voters to get a good long look at a relative newcomer to national politics.

Second, the only prediction that one may make with confidence is that any reforms will have unanticipated consequences. Front-loading was supposed to bring the process to an early close. But 2008 showed that two evenly-matched candidates can keep the contest going for a long time. Superdelegates purportedly would exercise independent judgment and tend to favor "establishment" candidates. In 2008, they followed the polls and flocked to Barack Obama.

You may find the Democratic Change Commission at http://www.democrats.org/a/2009/06/introducing_the.php

Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 7

At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast (transcript here but not on White House website), chief of staff Rahm Emanuel got a question about the movites of those opposing the health care public option:

RE: There’s no part in which I can say something off the record, is there? What are the rules?

DAVE COOK: I can’t bind 40 reporters [inaudible] We can’t go off –

RE: Because I was going to say something as a joke, but I can’t – [laughter] I’ll have to wait for Thursday night open mic night. It dealt with the motive part. We’ll just leave it at that.

Filling Gaps in the White House Website, Part 6

The White House website does not include two recent interviews with network correspondents.

The president told Harry Smith of CBS:

The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for -- those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That's what they do. That's what we've already seen. We shouldn't be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the -- Iranian people are seeking to -- let their voices be heard.

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, the president addressed the question of whether health care cost measures should be voluntary or mandatory:

OBAMA: What I've suggested is-- is that we have a-- a commission that helps-- made up of doctors, made up of experts, that helps set best-- best practices.
SAWYER: By law?
OBAMA: Well, what it does is-- that if we know what those best practices are, then I'm confident that doctors are going want to engage in best practices. But I'm also confident patients are going insist on it. Because one of the things they're going say is, "Well, gosh, Doctor. If-- if-- if-- what I'm hearing is, is that I just need one test instead of five. Am I paying for the other five?" Employers are going start asking, when they're shopping around for health systems for their employees, "Are we getting the best deal possible?" So, I-- I think that-- we-- we shouldn't be overly cynical. In some cases, people just don't know what the best practices are. And certain cultures build up. And we can change those cultures, but it's going require some work.

Obama Campaign Style in 2009

My student Nick Warshaw wrote a terrific study of the organization of the Obama campaign. (Hint to any publishers reading the blog: the ms would make a terrific book.) That campaign continues to be relevant, shaping the off-off-year elections. AP reports:

In this year's marquee races — gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia, where Deeds goes up against Republican Bob McDonnell, and New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine faces a tough challenge from Republican Chris Christie — candidates are trying to duplicate Obama's success using modern communications tools to mobilize supporters. "Any smart campaign will take a look at everything that was done before," said Mo Elleithee, who was a strategist for Terry McAuliffe's unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial primary bid in Virginia this year. "This will be a first test of how to take the '08 strategies."

Fundraising and Unanticipated Consequences

President Obama's fundraising success in 2008 and 2009 may have had the unanticipated consequence of making things harder for other candidates. The Kansas City Star reports:

While the bad economy takes the biggest share of blame for the problems, donors have other concerns. Many are tapped out after record donations in the Obama-McCain race in 2008. Others are giving to issues and causes, not candidates. For example, Hoffman’s fundraiser this week is for Organizing for America, a group put together to support President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Ambassadorships and Campaign Contributions

From the Center for Responsive Politics:

President Obama announced another 10 names for ambassadorships last week, and in doing so, he awarded another set of big donors and bundlers with plum positions
representing U.S. interests abroad. The new nominees for ambassadors to Belize, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Romania and Switzerland — along with their spouses and dependent children — have contributed at least $637,800 to federal candidates, parties and committees since 1989, CRP has found. Nearly that entire sum has gone to Democrats, including $32,775 to Obama himself and $8,300 to former primary
opponent and now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. These individuals also brought in at least $1.1 million for Obama's presidential bid as bundlers, and at least another half-a-million as bundlers for his inauguration.

Republican and Democratic presidents alike have given ambassadorships to political supporters. Late last year, however, former diplomat Morris Abramowitz urged the new president to change the practice: "Obama can publicly declare that he will not appoint ambassadors who have in effect secured their posts through financial contributions and who have little background to merit any such appointment." He explained that the practice "further diminishes the appeal of the Foreign Service, and it is particularly discouraging when many of the most important jobs are reserved for political appointees. In fact, not many talented professional career diplomats can become ambassadors under current practices, especially at the larger, more prestigious posts."

Obama's Widening 2008 Margin

Barack Obama won the 2008 popular vote over John McCain by a 53-46 percent margin. At Slate, Christopher Beam notices that current polls show something different:

When respondents were asked by the WSJ whom they voted for in the 2008 presidential elections, 41 percent said they voted for Obama, compared with 32 percent for McCain. Factor out the 18 percent who said they didn't vote, and you've got Obama beating McCain by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent.

The gap in the New York Times poll is even wider. In it, 48 percent of respondents said they voted for Obama, compared with 25 percent for McCain. Again, subtract the 19 percent who say they didn't vote, and you've got Obama winning by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, with 60 percent to McCain's 32 percent.

It is an old story. In Attitudes and Opinions (Routledge 2005), Oskamp and Schultz offer several examples of the social desirability bias. In a 1964 survey, 64 percent reported that they had voted for JFK four years earlier, even though he actually won only 49 percent of the vote.