Picking a running mate.

Although this is an issue that obviously concerns both the Democrats and the Republicans, I will only deal with the latter ( for a very brief discussion of the Democratic conundrum see my reply to a comment by one of you on a previous post). 

So, John McCain is pondering who to put on his ticket and has launched the "vetting process" to find the best match. 

How do you pick a running mate? How has it been done in the past? 

For an very good and short article on this : read this. For a thirty minute coverage listen to NPR's political junkie. 

The choice of a VP is a strategic one and has always been so, at least ever since the VP was no longer the candidate that received the second most electoral college votes. And when did that rule change? After the 1796 election, John Adams was elected President and his archrival Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President; creating a somewhat awkward situation at the top of the executive branch. In 1804, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution changed that rule.

Basically you have several choices : 

1. You try and balance your ticket geographically : if you are from an Eastern State you run with someone from the West. McCain is from Arizona, he may want someone that has an eastern background. With this scenario in mind, Mitt Romney from Massachusetts who ran against McCain in the primaries and dropped out in a spectacular manner (remember he said it was for the good of the country and the party...) now thinks he is the real deal and that McCain will pick him, regardless of their lack of warm feelings towards one another. 
2. You try and balance your ticket ideologically : McCain being alledgedly rather  liberal on social issues or having a reputation for not being a true Republican might want to pick someone with strong conservative credentials in order to satisfy the religious wing of the party (Mike Huckabee?)
3. You pick someone whose presence on the ticket will deliver a strategic State in the general election. Historical example of this : Lyndon B. Johnson ran on John Fitzgerald Kennedy's ticket and was there to ensure a good performance for the Democrats in Texas : it worked and they were elected. But the two men hated each other and did not work as a team. In this year's context Charlie Christ, the popular governor from Florida (the hotly contested State that was a instrumental in getting George W. Bush elected in 2004) may be a clever choice.
4. You pick a person that shares your core values and with whom you will form an energetic and convincing team. A good example of this may be the Clinton-Gore ticket.
5. You chose a VP that is different from you in other ways and will bring some sort of equilibrium to the ticket : McCain will probably pick someone who is much younger than he is (although not too young : you don't want the photo ops to be ridiculous). Mc Cain being rather weak on economic issues, the Republican ticket might be stronger with someone with business and managing experience ( Mitt Romney?). Similarly McCain may choose a woman, or someone that isn't white (Bobby Jindal from Indian-American descent), or even both (Condolizza Rice?), this may also depend of who he is running against in November although there is no simple, hard and fast solution. 

To sum it all up for you. The pundits say that the top three contenders for the VP slot are Charlie Crist, Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal.

Charlie Crist, the governor from Florida. He would probably guarantee that Florida support the Republicans, even more so  because of what has happened there in the Democratic Party. He has solid conservative credentials but is not married which has raised questions on his sexual orientation, an issue that would not go down too well with the religious wing of the party. 

Selecting Mitt Romney would help McCain in the East, and with voters

 concerned about the economy since his main claim to fame is his success as a businessman and his "saving" the Salt Lake City  from olympian ruin in the 1990s. 

A more audacious choice would be the very young governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal. He is in his thirties and has just been elected, he is a Roman Catholic with traditional socially conservative views. This choice might reassure Republicans who fear that McCain is too old ( although obviously were McCain to die or be incapacitated during his term, a rather inexperienced VP would have to step up and lead the country) or too liberal. Jindal's ethnic origin could also be seen as an asset, helping change the image of the Republican party as a party of white males. 

An addendum to this post : a link to a NYT article on Jindal his gubernatorial campaign and his first steps as the Louisianna Governor. 

Exam on June, 19

Dear students, 

For those of you who will be taking the June 19 exam, I think it might be a good thing to have an hour long session during which we can discuss last term's exam. 

Remember that there is a fully written up set of answers on the google group that you may find helpful in understanding what went wrong in your paper and how you can avoid mistakes this time. 

Bring your answer sheet along and I will see if I can get your papers from the administration. 

I could make it to Cergy on Monday 9 or Tuesday 10 in the afternoon. Any preference? If this is during your exams let me know and we can reschedule. I will be back from the UK at the very start of the month of June. 

Once I get a bit of feedback from you, (if I do!) I will book a room and have an ad posted on your wall by Mrs. Dusseaux. 

the enigma : What on earth is Clinton up to?

Ever since last Tuesday I've been hearing pundits credit positively (= without the shadow of a doubt) Obama with the nomination. Super-delegates that had been holding out their decision are flocking to Barack Obama (before its too late for them to get any credit out of it), the figures indicate that regardless of what happens in the last States, Obama will soon reach the threshhold of 2,250 pledged delegates. 

And yet, oblivious and dismissive of all these petty facts and figures Sen. Clinton is racing on, campaigning in West Virginia today ; and in her speeches she shows no sign of giving up, she seems as fired up as ever. She is presenting the all-white and mostly working-class State of West-Virginia which is home to almost as many senior citizens as Florida, as yet another must win State (a bellwether State). In the polls, she had a huge lead over her opponent.  She reminded her audience that no Democrat had ever won the White House without winning West-Virginia's 5 electoral vote in the general election. Is she suggesting that if Barack Obama loses the W.V. primary to her, it means that he won't win in November? Similarly, when Sen. Clinton highlights Sen. Obama's inability to conquer the hard-working whites ( she quoted an article and declared : "Sen Obama's support among working, hard working Americans, white Americans is weakening again") not only is she painting his constituency as solely composed of high-flying elitist liberals, soft-working students and bums and Blacks. Is she playing the race card? Read a Polico Blog on this or listen to NPR's News and Notes.  

All this looks a bit like she's trying to discredit him for November, she doesn't want her boat to sink alone, does she? Is she preparing Obama's defeat to cast herself as the saviour of the Democratic Party in 2012, as has been suggested by some commentors. 

Next post will be on John McCain: it's been too long since I blogged about him.  What do you want to hear about? 

going, going, gone, but when?

This seems to be the question on everyone's lips right now. 

Tuesday's results are being interpreted as the end of her bid by most journalists, by the Obama campaign, as well as by some Clinton supporters. This interpretation is certainly reinforced by the fact that her operation is running out of money in a rather severe way. Old news that she has been lending money to her campaign since April has been hitting the headlines again, and one of the first things she said at her victory rally in Indianapolis was that she needed money from her supporters to continue her fight. But donations to the Clinton campaign have been declining for months, albeit with a bump after her Pennsylvania victory. 

What will happen if she wins the primaries in Kentucky and West-Virginia and in all likelyhood she will if she is still running? 

What should we make of her call for unity in her last speech (could she possibly be negotiating a place on the ticket? I don't think that it's very likely) ? 

When do you think she will drop out? 

Results of may 6 primary:

The media have hailed Barack Obama's victory in NC and his very good showing in Indiana (although he ultimately lost to Clinton who won the primary with by a narrow margin of 22, 000 votes, i.e. roughly 2%) as the critical turn in the race" (NPR) or even the end of the race (MSNBC): 

The NYTimes declared that Obama had won "decisively" and Clinton "barely". 

The media are interpreting this as the sign that Obama was capable of overcoming the Wright scandal and that therefor his candidacy is truly viable. Even the Drudge Report presents Obama as the sure nominee. I'm inclined to think that this is because the media, like all of us, are tiring a bi of the race : they want it to be done with. 

The right wing National Review has a more moderate and perhaps more biased analysis of the situation and highlights that Clinton does not want to quit the race, whereas other media present the NY Senator's options as dwindling. 

Sen. Clinton is still insisting that Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated and allowed to vote at the convention, she won these two States, although no candidate campaigned there and Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. By insisting so forcefully on this point, the Clinton campaign is presenting an potential Obama nomination as un-democratic since millions of voters in two key States were disenfranchised as a consequence of the DNC's decision not to allow them to hold their primaries before Super Tuesday. 

waiting for the results of N.C. and Indiana

There's quite a bit of suspense tonight as we all wait for the results of the two primaries that are currently underway. There's a good commentary on NYTimes presentng the three possible outcomes of today's races (two Clinton victories, two Obama victories, a split decision) and their meaning for the rest of the Democratic nomination process. 

A few figures : 

Clinton's pledged delegates : 1,338

Obama's pledged delegates : 1,493

Today's primaries will allocate 187 delegates and after that there will only be 217 delegates to allocate in West Virginia ( a State with demographics similar to those of Pennsylvania and Indiana), Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. 

I'll just highlight a few crucial points : 

- If the Senator from Illinois loses Indiana  (his State's next door neighbour) it will probably be because he will have failed for the third time to appeal to working class whites (the previous States were Ohio and Pennsylvania). This will certainly fuel Clinton's warning that her opponent will be unable of winning in November if the blue-collar voters ( a central constituency of the Democratic Party) don't trust him. 

- If Clinton wins N.C or comes very close to Obama., it will certainly prove that momentum is on her side and moreover it will signal that either the Wright controversy has taken a serious toll on his campaign or that the Democratic voters have now become wary of his candidacy. 

- If Clinton loses both States, her bid for the White House will have met its end, although she may well not drop out before the start of June. 

- It's reasonable to expect that Sen. Clinton will take Indiana and that Sen. Obama will take North Carolina, albeit with a single digit lead and not the original 20% lead he had over his rival in polls a couple weeks ago. Clinton's bid will remain alive and kicking and Obama's campaign will be declining but far from dead. 

What I have found remarkable in the last couple weeks is that the working-class vote has become the central battlefield, as the Black vote was in the autumn. Do you remember when Obama was suspected of not being 'Black enough'? We've come a long way!

The other surprising outcome of this campaign that started earlier than ever before is that the States who weren't expected to have any weight because they vote so very late have become the most crucial ones. How ironical for Florida and Michigan who staged earlier primaries but were stripped of their delegates by the DNC for not abiding by the rules (more on this soon...). 

Could Clinton be on the rise, again?

I strongly recommend my favourite podcast on American politics : It's All Politics from NPR. This is truely an excellent show : it's short (15 minutes), features two entertaining commentators and is clever and thought provoking. Ron Elving and Ken Rudin were commenting on the recent developments of the Reverend Wright affair. As you may remember, Sen. Obama had  come under serious fire for the inflamatory rhetoric of his longtime pastor. As a response he had delivered an already famous speech on race. 

Jeremiah Wright has come back to haunt & hurt the Obama campaign : the pastor has recently given several speech in which he justified his most controversial comments and in which he clearly presented the attacks against him as indictments of the Black church. He is trying to make the contreversy broader and no longer personal. 

 This has proved a serious embarrassment to the Senator from Illinois who has now distanced himself from his former pastor (Jeremiah Wright is no longer the leading pastor of Trinity United Church). 

The radical approach of Rev. Wright to race politics and criticism of America has lead many to wonder whether Wright's feelings were reflecting that of a majority of Black churches. And what does this mean about Obama's message of racial reconciliation? 

Obama is probably being hurt significantly by these events. And indeed, he may be losing support in the public; this scandal will certainly make him vulnerable in the general election campaign, for there is no doubt that he will have to take a lot flak from the Republicans on account of Rev. Wright and despite the fact that he has now emphatically rejected his pastor's radical critique of white America. 

Paradoxically, although he might be losing some of his attraction for the public, a growing number of senior Democrats and superdelegates are endorsing him: former President Jimmy Carter hailed Obama's candidacy as welcomed change and  Joe Andrew switched allegiances from Clinton to Obama.

Is it possible that Obama may win the nomination mainly thanks to the support of superdelegates (a couple weeks ago I raised the same question about a possible Clinton victory, tables turned!)

Obama appears to have defeated Sen Clinton with the narrowest of margins in the Guam primary. 

Tuesday two  more States will be voting : Indiana and North Carolina. Although Sen. Obama has always been expected to win by a huge margin in N.C., his lead in the polls has not been growing. For a presentation of the most recent polls, you may want to check out the interviw with Mark Blumenthal on NPR's website.

For more detailed coverage, refer to the links to the media. Some of the differences on the approach to economic policy are well explained in an informative NYT video on the subject.