What To Do Between Now and Tuesday?

The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon.

Anonymous

Dear Friends,

For a great many Americans, the next 72 hours will be agonizingly long ones, filled with anxiety and fear, suffused with doubt or gloom, and characterized by epic uncertainty. 

And the challenge is: What to do between now and Tuesday?

Here's some background that can help you while away those harrowing hours -- and -- prepare for a celebrity role at the office on Monday or at your Election Night party. Or anywhere in between. And as the anonymous quote suggests, with just a little preparation you can appear to have had this knowledge for sometime.

And on that point, I'll acknowledge indebtedness to a host of very smart teachers -- political scientists, pollsters, pundits, and reporters from whom I have learned much in the lead-up to this election -- and the three institutions with whom they are associated:

o The American Enterprise Institute's Election Watch series, featuring Michael Barone, Karlyn Bowman, John Fortier, and Norman Ornstein -- the longest-running, most informative and entertaining political analysis program in town.

o A Brookings Institution and Princeton University Center for the Study of Democratic Politics project, co-directed by Brookings' Senior Fellow, Thomas Mann and Princeton professor, Larry Bartels, featuring a dozen of the nation's most distinguished political scientists and journalists who combine rigorous social science analysis and thoughtful empirical observations to make sense out of the American electoral process.

o The Pew Research Center, the preeminent polling organization whose CEO, Andrew Kohut, and associates, Scott Keeter and John Green, consistently generate the most accurate data and keen analysis.

And now, here are five ways to think about Election 2008.

o Follow the Money.

Welcome to the first $1,000,000,000 presidential campaign. Yes, that's “billion.” 

As of October 15th, the Obama and McCain Campaigns had raised $980 million -- $640 by the Obama camp and $340 by the McCain organization. 

To put this in perspective, John McCain has raised more money than John Kerry in 2004 and only slightly less than George Bush. By contrast, Obama will probably have raised more than Bush and Kerry combined by the time it's all over.

Obama's donor list of 3.1 million individuals is more than twice that of any other political candidate, and is more than the donor lists of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. 

“He's practically created a party of his own,” according to Anthony Corrado, Colby College professor and one the of nation's leading experts on campaign finance, to whom TMR is indebted for this data.

$310 million of Obama's money has come from donors who gave $200 or less and $215 million from those who gave $1000 or more. By comparison, George W. Bush raised $147 million from the $1000 + donors in 2004.

o Follow White Catholics.

“There is a long history of white Catholic voters being swing voters. If one looks at polling data over the last 20 years, white Catholics do indeed move from one party to another depending on the candidate and the issues, and they almost always end up on the winning side. A lot of analysts look at white Catholics as a key barometer of where the election is going,” according to John Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics at Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

William Galston, Brookings Senior Fellow and former Clinton White House domestic policy adviser, puts it quite simply: “As white Catholics go, so goes the election.”

Pew's polling data showed John McCain with a 13-point edge over Obama with White/non-Hispanic Catholics in late September; by late October, the lead had shifted dramatically giving Obama an 8-point lead. And by comparison, this was a group that supported George W. Bush in 2004 over his Catholic opponent, John Kerry.

A shift of this magnitude stems from multiple contributing factors, but one principal assumption is that White Catholics, whom Galston describes as “cross-pressured” between economic and social issues in their voting behavior, are more concerned with the economy than with abortion or same-sex marriage in 2008. And of the three states where gay marriage initiatives are on the ballot -- Arizona, Florida, and California -- only in Florida might it have any influence.

 o Follow Young Voters.

For years, young voters were the biggest “no-show” cohort in every national election, but that changed substantially in the 2004, according to the University of Maryland's youth voter research institute. 

21 million 18-29 year-olds voted in 2004, an increase of 4.5 million from the election of 2000. And turnout of eligible young voters increased by 9 percentage points, to 51.6 percent, up from 42.3 percent in 2000. 

In the 2006 midterm elections, turnout among 18 to 29 year-olds increased again, when they voted for Democratic candidates over Republicans in races for the House of Representatives (58% vs. 38%), the Senate (60% vs. 33%) and governor (55% vs. 34%).

There is no good news in these data for Republicans for next Tuesday's election.

According to Pew Center's data, the percentage of voters ages 18 to 29 identifying with the Democratic Party has increased from 48% in 2004 to 61% this year. Democrats have a nearly two-to-one margin over Republicans -- 61% to 32% -- up from a seven-point advantage in 2004. And they show a preference for Obama v. McCain by almost 2 to 1 -- 65% to 33%.

Pew data also shows that voters in the 30 to 49 year old cohort have shifted considerably since 2004, with nearly half (49%) identifying with or leaning toward the Democratic Party, up from 43% in 2004. This six-point advantage is a twelve-point shift from the comparable stage in 2004 when Republicans had a six-point advantage.

o Follow the Swing States.

First, which states “swing”? And what makes them “swing”?

Most experts agree that the “swing” or “battleground” states in 2008 are: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Others would add Minnesota, New Mexico, and even Georgia.

What changed? And what makes them “in play” this year?

Consider this: 

o according to Pew data from 28,000 interviews, there has been a marked shift in voter identification this year -- 38% identify themselves as Democrats, 34% as Independents, and 28% as Republicans. In 2004, 35% were Democrats, 33% were Republicans, and 32% were Independents; 

o further, Pew shows that in nearly all battleground states, Democrats now hold a several point advantage over Republicans, and in some cases a double digit lead -- 5 points in Virginia, which was evenly split in 2004; 9 points in Ohio, where Democrats had just a two point edge in 2004; 

o the powerful combination of four factors that are causing shifts in nearly every demographic cohort and a growing number of states -- the credit crisis and the financial meltdown, the discrepancy in the performance of the two campaigns and the two presidential candidates, Sarah Palin, and the Obama National Bank.

o Pirate Ship v. Tight Ship

At a Brookings/Princeton seminar this week on the role of money, mobilization, and advertising in the 2008 election, Politico.com's, Mike Allen, reported that a favorite metaphor for the McCain campaign among the political cognoscenti is “pirate ship,” descriptive of its rollicking, swashbuckling character.

By contrast, there is the Obama campaign, which almost every seasoned observer rates as the most well-managed, adult, and consistently smart venture in the history of the business -- the prototypical 'tight ship.'

In fairness, much of this owes to the howling storm into which the McCain ship has had to sail -- the combination of an historically unpopular president of the same party, the Obama juggernaut, the economic earthquake, and whatever other factors have created the significant numerical advantage for generic Democrats this year.

Any analysis of the McCain campaign must begin with those harsh realities, and the recognition that if circumstances had been different, so, too, might have been the trajectory of the campaigns.

But those factors don't explain the brilliance of the Obama team's strategy and its nearly flawless execution, nor do they explain away the carelessness or the profound lability of John McCain's candidacy.

Irrespective of one's political preference, three factors have conspired in the final phase of the campaign -- those few weeks in which a close race appears to have become a potentially toxic election for Republicans of every stripe: 

o vice presidential selection: voters appear to have judged Obama's decision as thoughtful, measured, and responsible; in contrast, McCain's was viewed as impulsive and irresponsible;

o debate performance: Obama was seen as disciplined, unruffled, and “presidential” in demeanor; and by contrast, McCain's peripatetic and sometimes dismissive manner made him seem smaller, older, and too often angry;

o response to the economic upheaval: McCain's “loose cannon” response reflected poorly on his governing style and political judgment; Obama surrounded himself with the 'best and the brightest' in economic and financial matters, took their counsel, and did not make the mistake of trying to interpose himself into an ongoing political and policy debate.

There's more, certainly, and people of good judgment and goodwill will weave different narratives about this most historic of American elections.

But the goal of this TMR is to provide readers with a selection of “talking points” to enhance their performance in “spin rooms” around the country.

And that brings us to two final directives: first, remember to “fall back” tonight because daylight savings has run its course; and second, vote your heart out on Tuesday, unless, of course, you've already done that.  

On the other hand, if you've already voted, try again!