Beware polls, but I love them.

The only credential I have to post on presidential elections is I'm old. I can remember in pretty good detail every presidential election since 1948. So some comments on polls.

We all remember or have read about Truman V. Dewey in 1948. Gallup, and I believe Roper, were the only two nationally recognized polls. They both blew it. Dewey was so far ahead they reasoned why poll the two weeks before the election. So what did they and we learn. CAMPAIGNS DO MATTER. Several elections since'48 have shown this.

Also, of course, POLL UP TO THE LAST DAY.

Today with the proliferation of polls, it's best to taka a poll of polls. They'll all probably be close by election day, but still it's a good thing to check an average of the polls.

Be alert for prejudice. Some polls put R or D after their name to show the runners of the poll are definitely working for one party or another. Some are on one side or the other but don't tell you that. Rasmussen, for example, is run by a far right Republican and is endorsed by Larry Kudlow an equally far right market analyst. It is only fair to say this poll has been pretty accurate at the end (election day) but shows some amazing results before, making it possible the poll is trying to shape opinion rather than measure it.

Watch out for tricks. Zogby used exit polls in 2004 to adjust it findings, showing a big Democratic sweep. Fooled Ted Kennedy and ruined a lot of Kerry election parties.

I think we all love polls. They're a lot of fun. But you have to watch out. They all have a rather low bar to jump. It's called the 'margin of error.' They just have to get close, which most do. Recently Gallup crossed the line a little by putting out three resuls within a day. Two polls had Obama ahead; one had McCain by 4 points. Ah, the secret. Margin of error. The two Obama ahead polls had a margin or error of plus/minus 2.5 percent. The McCain ahead poll had margin of error plus/minus/ 6 percent. No one to my knowledge in the media caught this. Happy polling.

Shame on McCain

Sorry I missed posting yesterday. But I do want to take up the question of biased media coverage of the presidential campaign.

It has long been a staple of popular wisdom that the main stream media has "liberal" bias." This is true and false. Let me explain. I believe very strongly that if we were to poll the writers and broadcasters of the MSM, a clear majority would personally favor the election of Barrack Obama. This is a bias. Liberals would say this bias is present becuse the MSM is better informed on the issues and naturally comes to the conclusion that Obama is better candidate on issues and personally than John McCain. Conservatives would contend this bias comes from the backgrounds of their education and the favoritism which these liberals receive from their older liberal colleagues. So we say the MSM has a liberal PERSONAL bias.

But the real question is: Does this bias show up in the reporting and anlysis of these likely to be liberal media figures? My answer is "no." Why? Because of the attacks and the general impression that the MSM is liberal, that same media overcompensates in a conservative direction to show their objectivity. A survey has been released that shows that Obama gets overwhelming negative coverage. This has been very apparent in the last few days. Hours have been spent by the networks and reams devoted by the newspapers to the issue of Obama NOT visiting a military hospital in Germany. I believe all fair minded people would agree this has little to do with who would make a good president.

But here is how it works. The Republicans put out an TV commercial with the suggestion that Obama does not care about these wounded troops and shows his poor priorities. It is an extension of McCain's suggestion that Obama is not patriotic---'he(Obama) would lose a war to win an election.' Since the commercial is so extreme the MSM runs it again and again even though the McCain campaign pays to air the ad only a few times. The TV networks then ask a Republican and a Democrat to comment on the commercial. The Democrat says it is 'dishonorable'. The Republican says it is justtified and true.

All commentators of the MSM, even most conservative ones, get up their courage and timidly say the commercial is dishonest--making statements and juxaposing images dishonestly. And they are right. But their comments are strictly secondary to the commercial itself and the fighting between the Republican and Democrat surrogates. And McCain gets hundreds of thousands dollars of free 'air' time.

Aristotle once said 'The equality of unequals is inequality.' In the case of this McCain commercial and a couple of other of his, Aristotle was right. This 'wounded soldier' commercial is not just Republican Vs. Democrat. Not just McCain vs. Obama. It is honor vs. dishonor. And McCain should be ashamed.

Roll the dice!!!

When I starting teaching Government in 1958, one of the things my students really loved was the "presidential availability" unit. "Presidential availability" refers not to what the U.S. constitution requires to be elected preident, but to what real world factors would make a person electable. It's best to look at it from the negative. So with a class of 40 students we would list and discuss those things which would keep a party from even nominating a person for president.

Well, first we eliminated about half the class by saying a women could not be nominated. In 1958, that was true, and I guess still applies today (sorry Hillary). Then the couple of blacks in the class were eliminated, then catholics (this was pre-Kennedy), Jews, non-believers, unmarried persons(ya, I know Buchannan), persons with obvious physical deformities, persons with southern European backgrounds, and on and on ---till almost no one in the class could ever aspire to be president!

The years have gone by and some "availibility" factors have fallen. Catholic (Kennedy), southern European background (Dukakis , I think) and we've gotten close on a woman.

Jackie Kennedy, a Republican at one time, once said something to the effect that 'the Democrats are so much more fun than the Republicans.' I think she's right. But fun can be dangerous. The Democrats really rolled the dice this year!!! They could have gone with Edwards---no presidential 'disabilities.' Instead they gave us a choice at the end between a WOMAN and a BLACK (African-American to be correct) , and, and, and, with a white mother and black father from Africa!!!! And with a pastor that knew all four verses of "God damn America." IT TAKES YOUR BREATH AWAY.

Okay, I'm a Democrat. I like to have fun. I like to live dangerously. But I also like to win. We'll just have to see. Maybe you can't have everything!!

The name of the game is "WIN"

As a former philosophy teacher, I have always had a tendency to "reductionism." Reductionism is the effort to reduce seemingly complex phenomena to a simpler explanation. I am a Democrat, but I must say I admire the Republicans mastery of "political reductionism." While the Democrats struggle to explain EVERY issue from war to the price of bread, the Repubs try, and often succeed, in reducing an election to a word or phrase. Nothing fancy or complicated to be sure.

In 2000, with relative world peace and a good economy, the Democrats, with Al Gore, waged a "deep intellectual debate", or tried to, on global interconnections with its myriad implications. The Republicans stuck with "Who would you rather have a beer with.". Pefect. Gore, even to his strong supporters, such as myself, did seem a bit----well, pompous, and pedantic. Yes , Gore won the popular vote but that's not the way we do it. We should, but we don't.

2004. John Kerry, an "intellectual giant", compared to Bush, was easy pickins' for the reductionists Republicans. Wind sailing, 'French ' tendencies, and, most important flip-flopping--I voted for the bill before I voted against it . Three strikes and you're out. Kerry strikes out. Add a fourth strike: Kerry's wife actual name: Teresa Simoes-Ferriera Heinz-Kerry. There's no fourth strike, but you get the point.

Now 2008. Obama trying to have a "deep" position on everything. From stay home African-American dads to 'I can make the Europeans love us again.' Good stuff. Maybe. And the Republicans: Obama, you blitthering idiot, you said the "surge" wouldn't work, but it did. Don't give us that complicated 'excuse' about the 'sunni awakening' being a real cause of reduced violence. The 'Sunni awakening' is a term my polling shows understood by about one per cent of American voters up to last week. And the press loves it, liberal as they might be. The "surge". We all know what that is. The "sunni awakening"; some kind of middle eastern religious revival?

Now, I'm not saying who's right. I'm just talking politics. Those Republicans sure know how to play---change that to know how to win.

Civilian supremacy. Who makes the call?

I mentioned in a previous post the doctrine of "civilian supremacy." Let me expand a bit on this essential of the American way.

Although not mentioned specifically in our constitution, it is accepted that certain principles are the foundation of the success of our democracy. Separation of powers, checks and balances, separation of church and state , and civilian supremacy are some of these bed rocks.

Probably the least known, but maybe the most important, is the doctrine of civilian supremacy. In effect this idea says that all military forces and commanders are, in the final analysis, under the control and direction of non-military (civilian) authority. This is extremely important because only armed (military) forces have the ability to take over control of our government, becaused they ARE armed. South America is a good example of NOT having civilian supremacy--a junta a week.

The closest we have come in my lifetime to abrogating civilian supremacy was the MacArthur-Truman fight over the Korean war. MacArthur desired to invade China after having a great success in driving communist chinese troops out of Korean. Truman favored driving the Chinese out of Korea, but not invading China. MacArthur lobbied American political figures to get the right to invade China. This was a clear violation of civilian supremacy. President Truman was the commander-in-chief and MacArthur had no right to lobby against a president, his commander.

I was there and the outcry against Truman was unbelievable. A clear majority of Americans favored his impeachment; MacArthur, on his return to the U.S. was greeted as no other war hero we had had. MacArthur was asked to address congress to great acclaim. The argument was made that MacArthur knew the situation on the ground in Korean, he was a career military man and thus knew best what to do. In the end, civilian supremacy prevailed, but just by a nose.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater again came close to crossing the line. He argued, with some success, that the use of neclear weapons was a decision to be made by military commanders, not the president.

Now today, McCain flirts with the doctrine of military supremacy. His insistence that the key factor in the debate over when to leave Iraq should be controlled primarily by the commanders in the field, is very close to abandoning civilian supremacy. In fairness, he has not gone completely over the line, but he is close.

The doctrine of military supremacy in war has some surface obvious appeal---after all a general is a military 'expert.' But the danger of final decision being made by those with an army or armed men should be clear.

So McCain be careful. America be careful.

The three faces( images) of John McCain

A common misconception to this point in the '08 presidential election is that the McCain campaign is in disarary and has no winning theme. Quite to the contrary, there is slowly emerging a powerful 'accidental' strtegy which may well be unstoppable.

I say "accidental" because the strategy is not coming from his campaign, but being forced on the campaign by what works.

For the sake of analysis, let's assume three groups of voters: The least informed , the moderately informed, and the well informed. Of course these are not set, rigid groups, but the electorate may fairly be view against these markers, recognizing that the knowkedge of voters is on a continuum. Obama has one face, one image. McCain has three, and each image fits very well into the three electorate categories.

For the least informed , McCain is seen as a Navy pilot, shot down in some war, captured and tortured by a cruel enemy. So McCain in the enemy hospital bed picture.

For the moderately informed, McCain as the maverick. On ocassions disagreeing with his party, and most important, diverging at times from an unpopular President Bush. So McCain battling with Bush for the 2000 Republican nomination and calling Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance."

For the well informed, base of the party, McCain as the penitent, eschewing his 'liberal' tendencies by embracing a very hardline, rightwing stance. 'Family values' all the way; use of torture , anti-gay, progun, security at all costs, conservative supreme justices---all , by the way, a reversal in many ways from the image of the moderately informed. This is not 'flip-flopping', but like Romney, a seeing of the light, a conversion.

All three of these McCain's are 'real' in some ways, at some times. As the presidential campaign goes on, his advisors can emphasize each of the three as circumstances determine. The three together may be unstopable.

Is this the DECISIVE election?

In the couple of years I have been reading blogs and having this blog, I have not posted on politics. However, in the last several days some trends have emerged which I want to post on.

I do consider this election the most important in my years of following politics. I vaguely remember the presidential elections of '40 and '44. In '48 and since I have followed each presidential campaign very closely from, as they say today, the events on the ground.

For all of these years I have had my favorite, of course. But I have always contended that, because of our two-party system, which forces both parties to the middle, the outcome of the presidential election has not been totally decisive in determining which direction politics in our country is going. This year, however, I feel very strongly that this election is of vital importance to our country and its politics. Maybe I am jumping the gun. Maybe Obama and McCain are really not that different and economic and foreign policy would not be that much different regardless of which one wins.

But frankly, my concern is the last few days has greatly increased. I may discuss these in detail in future posts, but let me point out two trends I see developing which could have a generational lasting effect.

For many campaign cycles the Republicans have had the upper hand in the minds of voters on national defense matters. But this year this debate is beginning to spill over into the matter of personal patriotism. Dole came very close to this with Clinton. But now McCain has crossed the line. His suggestion that Obama would 'rather win an election' than have America 'win a war' is to call his opponent disloyal, unpatriotic and, indeed, treasonous. Yes. strong words. And I notice that one of the major polls is polling on 'who is more patriotic ,McCain or Obama.?

I am a democrat, but have always had some regard for McCain. But apparently feeling he is behind in the race, he is playing this patriotism card. In the 60 years I have closely followed presidential campaigns, this McCain approach is the most blatant and disturbing thing I have seen. And it comes from a "moderate" Republican. So my fear is this: If this McCain position succeeds, what will follow? Will not both parties see the success of this ploy, and will our elections become nothing but lurid personal attacks on the loyalty to America by each side? Will jingoism became the national touchstone of our parties?

If anyone out there in blogdom thinks such issues should be explored, drop me a comment. On this post I also was going to discuss the issue of 'civilian supremacy' which McCain is raising. But let me wait and see if if this post 'finds' anyone. I mentioned "two" trends above, but am dealing with just one at this time. Jack