Money
Now that Obama has opted out of the public financing system and McCain has decided to stay in, it appears that Obama may have about $250 million to invest in the months of September and October and McCain may have only about $85 million.
Should McCain be afraid? No and Yes. No, because I do not think that Obama’s financial edge will do much for him in advertising (traditional and non-traditional) for his candidacy and causes. The reason is simple — time is short, and there will be galore free publicity. Yes, because Obama might gain a very substantial advantage in voter registration, and mobilization with paid staff and localized promotion and patronage. It takes almost one-on-one to persuade a voter to register, and then actually vote on the election day. The upside of such voter mobilization is monumental. Here is one such analysis (from Los Angeles Times), “In Florida alone, more than half a million black registered voters stayed home in 2004. Hundreds of thousands more African Americans are eligible to vote but not registered. And campaign analysts have identified similar potential in North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri and Ohio. In these five states, which were crucial to the GOP’s presidential success in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush’s victory margins were generally slim enough to suggest that a major expansion of black turnout could lead to Democratic gains this year.”
Off-shore drilling
McCain has reversed his stance against off-shore drilling, and now advocates it. Obama continues to oppose this. The U.S. Congress currently has a statutory ban on off-shore drilling. What are the pros and cons?
With the high gas prices and improved technologies, voters are open to this idea — all public polls show that 55-60 percent of Americans support off-shore drilling. So that should help McCain, right? Not much for two reasons. One, the voters will always be reminded that McCain might be opportunistic and runs counter to McCain’s tough-it-out but do the right thing image. Two, the blue-collar, working class, lower income voters who are most affected by high gas prices are also surprisingly principled and tough (they would rather tough it), so McCain may gain no traction with this most plausible demographic group.
The principled-stubbornness of the working class demographic group came to most vivid demonstration when Clinton’s advocacy of temporary suspension of gas tax (and Obama’s opposition) did not fetch her any favors with this group in the Democratic primaries.
Newsweek outlier poll
There have been many national public preference presidential polls in the recent past. All of them show Obama edging McCain by about 5-6 points. However, the latest Newsweek poll shows the race to be 51 percent for Obama and 36 percent for McCain. And the reason for this outlier number is simple. In the Newsweek poll, 55 percent of the voters identify themselves as Democrats and 36 percent as Republicans. Given that each candidate gets about 80 percent of his party’s voters, Obama would naturally have 15 points lead (80 percent of 19.) But this number is clearly at odds with other preference measures — and they are probably correct. The party identification numbers in other preference measures have been about 37-38 percent as Democratic and 29-30 percent as Republican.
Race and Age
Does Obama’s race matter? It is challenging to measure but it does appear that the race does matter (unfavorably for the most part) for about 20 percent of the voters. Does McCain’s age matter? Preference measures are surprising in this — almost 30-40 percent of voters are negatively disposed to McCain’s age. So it appears that age is bigger impediment than issue. That would be too facile a conclusion because voters may be more reluctant to be truthful more about race than age and the intensity of negative disposition towards age may be less than that towards race.
Tags: Age, McCain, Money, Newsweek poll, Obama, Off-shore drilling, Public financing, Race
