Washington Post Poll: 2012 GOP Primary Race

From The Washington Post:

Q: If the 2012 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were being held today, for whom would you vote?

[Click to Enlarge]

Yes, Sarah Palin is leading here, but the real news -- to FHQ anyway -- is that half of the survey respondents in this case either chose no one/other, wouldn't vote or had no opinion one way or the other about the 2012 Republican nomination. That is an awfully high number compared to other similar polls conducted during 2009. Granted, the question was slightly different than some of the other surveys we have seen on this subject as well. In other instances, names were provided, but respondents in the Washington Post were asked not to recognize names but to recall them. In that regard, it isn't terribly surprising that Palin -- someone with the most name recognition currently -- led the list. That neither Huckabee nor Romney fared any better than they did -- 10% and 9% respectively -- was also surprising. [And no, FHQ does not attribute Huckabee's pardon trouble for any of this since the story broke after the poll.]

And no one candidate cleared the 20% barrier either.

Poll: Washington Post
Margin of Error: +/- 4%, +/-5%
Sample: 485 Republicans and 319 Republican-leaning independents (nationwide)
Conducted: November 19-23, 2009


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Rick Davis on New Media

This is part two in a series of posts on Rick Davis' recent visit with political science students and faculty at Wake Forest. See part one for some of Davis' thoughts on Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's vice presidential running mate.

The most underrated portion of the hour with Rick Davis this past Tuesday was his discussion of running a presidential campaign in the era of the 25 hour news cycle. [FHQ likes to add an extra hour for emphasis.] But to the McCain campaign (and I'd assume any other campaign for president or House or Senate or governor), this is something that has changed dramatically in the internet age. What he described taking place made me think of the masters of rapid response, the Clinton campaign in 1992, or more to the point, how they would have fared sixteen years in the future with Gennifer Flowers' and Paula Jones' accusations. It would have been completely different than simply going on 60 Minutes prior to New Hampshire.

Needless to say, Davis seemed to conjure up a vision from the campaign's perspective of both apprehension of and flat out animosity toward new media. Honestly, you can't blame him; it made his job more difficult. But Davis did seem to echo some of the same sentiment that came out of the White House earlier this week concerning liberal bloggers*. Davis called them, "guys who don't comb their hair and work from mom's basement." [Of course, I took exception to this as a blogger. I'll let you decide my ideological persuasion. I've certainly had the liberal label thrown at me. When I asked him my strategy question later on, I introduced myself as "Josh Putnam, Visiting Assistant professor ... and blogger. And (touching my head) I'd like to think I combed my hair this morning. I have a class to teach after this." He laughed it off and said I looked good. I'm so insecure.]

But Davis went on to describe the dilemma the McCain campaign was in and what most presidential campaigns must face these days. Bloggers and their "breaking stories at 2 in the morning" were only part of it. They had a warroom of sorts set up to monitor blogs and an in-house studio to respond nationally or to a targeted media market affiliate at the drop of a hat. The big deal, though was the media pool that was with them on the Straight Talk Express or on the campaign's plane en route to the next campaign stop. Davis drew a line between the Express of 2000 and the 2008 Express; that in 2000, the insurgent campaign and the bus were a novelty worth following. As such, they career journalists following them. But in 2008, in the new era and after old guard journos of 2000 had either retired or been laid off, they were being followed by a group of folks whose "average age must have been 25" and who were "carrying these little handheld cameras."

It was this latter point that Davis stressed the most. The campaign was just not ready for the changes since 2000. Senator McCain was fine, but without make up "looked like Caspar the Friendly Ghost" or "looked a hundred years old" on the tape shot on those cameras. What compounded matters was that the Obama campaign or their surrogates would quickly "release statements after one of these videos appeared on the news/web saying 'McCain looked frail today.'"

"That really bothered me," Davis said. [All the while I had two thoughts going through my head. One serious: The 2008 campaign really had a delicate nature to it in the face of two historic candidacies. Much was made of Barack Obama's race and even though it received attention, McCain's age often took a back seat. But there really was this weird racism/ageism undertone to the race. And one not so serious: Bobby Bowden knows how McCain felt.]

So the McCain camp, Davis in particular, had a dilemma: "Ban them [the reporters]" or "spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to rip seats out of the plane and put in a small studio" so McCain could do those interviews. They chose the latter.

What all this really drove home was the idea of the standard presidential candidates are held to. It isn't falling down stairs or eating unshucked tamales anymore. No, those are things you can kinda sorta help. But age or race or weight or baldness aren't things you can help (or help easily sometimes -- Sorry Chris Christie. I tried.). It's a different era and that came through in what Rick Davis spoke about.

*"And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me today those [internet left fringe] bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult." (from John Harwood at NBC, via Ta-Nehisi Coates)


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Rick Davis on Palin: VP Selection is easy when you're up 15 points, but is tough when you're down 15

This is part one in a series of posts on Rick Davis' recent visit with political science students and faculty at Wake Forest.

On Palin...
Davis mentioned that the campaign was keeping tabs on what the Democrats were doing over the summer; not necessarily in terms of their vice presidential selection, but poll position among various demographic groups. Beyond that, the McCain camp came up with a list of about 50 names that was ultimately whittled down to about 20. That was the serious list. At that point, Davis sat down with McCain with the names and the numbers and discussed the selection. Davis prefaced this by saying (I'm paraphrasing), "Because, you know, the candidate has some input, too."

To that point, the campaign seemed to be targeting possibilities that would help them sway Hillary Democrats (or are those Reagan Democrats?), but people like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg were not moving the needle in a positive direction for the Arizona senator among those folks in particular or overall. It was at this time that McCain proposed the idea of looking at women, but as Davis suggested, the reality was (and is) that there just aren't that many female Republican options. Admittedly, I was hoping during this point in the talk that Davis would name names of other Republican women considered, but all he said, in addition to the slim pickings comment, was that women in politics and business were considered. On the business front, I can't help but assume that both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman had their names come up, but don't know how seriously either was considered.

Part of the problem for Republicans in 2008 was that it was just plain hard to run with an R next to your name unless you were representing a ruby red state or congressional district. What was vexing the McCain campaign, though, and what led them to consider a woman for the number two position on the ticket, was that they were facing a tremendous gender gap among their core of white voters. In the end the only one who significantly closed that gap (and was someone who McCain could live with) was Sarah Palin. Among those white voters, she took an approximately 40 point gender gap and shrunk it to single digits. [Something that I really wanted to ask in follow up to this point is what Davis thought about the fact that the 2012 polling done thus far has consistently shown Palin trailing her male Republican counterparts relative to Obama in terms of the gender gap. Alas, I didn't have the opportunity.]

I wouldn't say they thought her selection was a no-brainer, but their were advantages to her having been picked. Even Steve Schmidt is drawing a distinction between 2008 Palin and potential 2012 Palin; calling her potential nomination in 2012 "catastrophic," but adding just today that her selection was defensible. ["I believe to this day that had she not been picked as a vice presidential candidate, we would have never been ahead, not for one second, not for one minute, not for one hour, not for one day."] The lead Schmidt references there was something Davis touched on as well: That in national polls, McCain was ahead after the Palin pick. Now granted, that was during that unprecedented string of events from the close of the Democratic convention on Thursday night, to the introduction of Palin on Friday to the Republican convention the following week. The lead may have been due to a Palin effect, but there very likely was at least something of an interactive effect between that and the convention bounce.

The McCain folks apparently are of a mind that it was Palin and not the convention though.


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Rick Davis at Wake Forest: A Series of Postscripts

On Sunday, I solicited FHQ readers for questions to pose to Rick Davis, who was visiting campus here at Wake Forest on Tuesday. The former 2000 and 2008 McCain campaign manager had an hour to speak and field questions from political science students and faculty here and offered a unique glimpse inside the McCain operation.

I'll skip over his prefatory comments, which focused on his past in the College Republicans in Alabama in the late 1970s. Those points were really only interesting for the description of his agree-to-disagree relationship with Karl Rove that found its origin not in the McCain-Bush divisions of the 2000 Republican nomination race (and infamously South Carolina), but in their College Republican days (Rove in Washington, Davis in Alabama).

Again, that was informative, but the meat of the event was the Q&A session. And believe it or not the "Palin question" did not lead. I was shocked; Davis was too, and said so when he got the second question, which happened to be about the former Alaska governor. One thing that was clear was that Davis has certainly spent some time around politicians. His answers were long, debate-style walls of talking points. I don't particularly have a problem with that (As I said, it was an informative hour.), but it had the effect of limiting the number of questions that were asked in a short period of time. In the end, beggars can't be choosers, though.

What did Davis have to say? I'll have a series of posts up throughout the day dealing with several different topics with which Davis dealt. Up first? Sarah Palin.


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Rick Davis

FHQ Readers:

John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, Rick Davis, is going to be on campus here at Wake on Tuesday. He's going to meet with the political science faculty and some students while he's here. I thought I'd give all our regular contributors a chance to pose a question that I can then attempt to have answered. If you have any questions about the 2008 presidential campaign, especially the approach of the McCain camp, just drop a note in the comments section below. Oh, and I'm guessing the Sarah Palin question will be asked, so you may want to go in a different direction.

Thanks,
Josh


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Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain

I spent a lot of time last week looking at the county-level 2008 v. 2004 map that The New York Times was running online (see below). It really is a fascinating feature, but if you've been around here long enough, this doesn't really come as any surprise. I like maps. [Incidentally, you can now compare 2008 to the past presidential elections back to 1992. Just click on "Voting Shifts."]

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Anyway, the more I looked at it, the more it looked like something I had remembered seeing somewhere before. In fact, it was right here at FHQ. One of the things that the early days of this election year allowed us was this wonderful three month period after John McCain had wrapped up the Republican nomination, but in which Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were still actively competing for the Democratic nomination. The polling that was released during that period produced what FHQ liked to call the McCain margin.* The formula was simple: Subtract Hillary Clinton's margin against John McCain in head-to-head trial heat polls in each state from the similar margin between Obama and McCain.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Above is the final McCain Margin map from June 3; the day of the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota. Now what you see isn't anything groundbreaking, but the areas in green (those where Clinton was doing better against McCain than Obama was) overlap to a large degree with the Times map above. It is that same swath of land from Oklahoma eastward and north into Appalachia. Now, Massachusetts and New York would have given their votes to either Democrat, and neither ever seemed terribly viable in those Appalachian states, but at the time Florida, Missouri and Pennsylvania lent some validity to that Clinton campaign argument that the New York senator would fare better in the electoral college against John McCain than would her senate colleague from Illinois. As it turned out, Obama won two of those three anyway.

While things changed for Barack Obama after the economic crisis hit (and even before that, for that matter), the same areas that vexed him during the primaries, ended up going against him on November 4. But they would have gone against either Democrat, right? Well, I'm not so sure Hillary Clinton (and by extension Bill Clinton) wouldn't have made things interesting in Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia. I could see a scenario where she exchanged the 16 electoral votes from North Carolina and Nebraska's 2nd district for the 22 from the three states above. That could have drastically recolored that Times map (...with North Carolina being much lighter blue and Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia turning blue in the process.).

That would have given Clinton 371 electoral votes (to McCain's 167). Where else would Clinton have potentially been more successful? More vulnerable?


*In 2012 the McCain Margin will be redubbed the Obama Margin because, unless Obama fails over the course of the next four years, the president-elect will run unopposed for the Democratic nomination. Translation: we get to compare the various Republican candidates against how they are doing versus President Obama in each of the states. And we probably won't have to wait until 2012. There will likely be some state level polling done in some of the more competitive states in 2011. [And I'm sure we'll start seeing national level trial heats as soon as the 2010 midterm elections are complete.]


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A November Surprise Scenario

Over this past weekend we had a discussion going about the effect the presence of early voting in a state would have on the McCain campaign's home-stretch strategy. The basic hypothesis was that states with early voting -- where Barack Obama would have some votes in the bank heading into election day based on the advantage the Illinois senator has enjoyed in early voting -- would not be focused on as heavily as states where early voting and absentee voting were minimized. In other words, if something were to happen to change people's minds in some way, you'd get more bang for your buck if you were campaigning the hardest in states with as little early voting as possible. States like Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But we can push this concept a little further. And, in fact, SarahLawrenceScott has done just that. If we were to look at the early voting information we have access to so far in this cycle and gauge whether that looks like it is on track to surpass the numbers from 2004, we can then make some basic assumptions that may give us a better idea of why the McCain folks are focusing where they are focusing.

First, let's look at the assumptions Scott has put together:

1. Assume something triggers a 4% loss for Obama (this was roughly the size of the Rev. Wright/McCain clinches drop, the Palin drop, and Obama's "soft" support in current polls) whether an Obama revelation or some geopolitical. We'll call it a November surprise.
   
   
2. Assume a 2.5% overperformance for Obama in early voting. In other words it is not that a greater proportion of his supporters vote early, but rather that GOTV would push his numbers up in a state that had 100% early voting.
   
   
3. Assume 50% of undecideds who vote early go for Obama.
   
   
4. Assume that after the surprise, just 20% of election day undecideds go for Obama.

If you start off with the Pollster averages for each state and combine that with the above assumptions you end up with something like this:


If we take these new, post-November surprise state margins and apply the three-category thresholds that FHQ employs -- >7% = strong, 3-7% = lean, <3% = toss up -- we end up with a map that has toss ups that look an awful lot like the targets the McCain campaign has.

[Click Map to Enlarge]

Virginia would flip back to McCain. Pennsylvania would be much more competitive than what the polls show, as would Ohio. And Florida and Wisconsin would look like dead heats. It could be argued that, well, those are the toss ups anyway. Well yeah, except Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don't really fit the bill according to recent polling in each of those states. However, the goal is to consider not only the potential effect early voting has, but to ascertain whether strategically, the McCain campaign is hedging its bets, hoping for something akin to the George W. Bush drunk-driving revelation (Though, perhaps it would have to be bigger) that broke during the final weekend of the 2000 race, happening in this race. Maybe, maybe not, but the decision to focus resources on the three states I just brought up looks more rational in this light than it does on the surface.

NOTE: I want to thank Scott for putting this material together and sharing it will me. It really adds to the earlier early voting discussion we had.


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Early Voting and McCain's Home-Stretch Strategy

In the comments section this morning, SarahLawrenceScott brought up what I think is a major reason or why we are seeing what we are seeing from the McCain campaign from a strategic standpoint lately. Why let it come out that you are potentially pulling out of Colorado? Well, for starters, it telegraphs where they are focusing, or have to focus: Pennsylvania. But why target Pennsylvania instead of Colorado? The latter looks closer now than the former -- at least by FHQ's measure.

Well, here's what Scott had to say:

"I just came up with what I think may be the explanation for a lot of what seems to be irrational behavior by the McCain campaign in their choice of states to allocate resources to.

Think, for a moment, what is the most likely victory scenario for McCain in terms of electoral votes. Just move up the Electoral College Spectrum until you get to 270?

No. The problem is that some of those states have already voted in large numbers. For McCain to win, he has to have the state of the race change nationally. But if that change occurs late (say, something equivalent to the Bin Laden tape of 2004 the weekend before the election), then its effect is tempered in early voting states.

Here's the map of states with early voting:

[Click Map to Enlarge]

McCain's best chance of winning is to get some of the states on Obama's side of the partisan line that don't have early voting.

Those are:

MN, WI, VA, MI, DE, PA, NY, CT, RI, MA, and NH.

Start by throwing out the deepest of the blue states. Now we've got, in reverse order of their position on the spectrum,

VA, NH, MI, PA, WI, and MN.

Looks an awful lot like where McCain is concentrating his resources, doesn't it?

The one exception there is Michigan. And if they're actually thinking things through (which I admit doesn't seem to be the case), then in the event of one more game-changer they can sweep into Michigan and try to launch a surprise attack of sorts. McCain has enough resources to do that in one largish state, and in the mean time he can save money and resources by leaving it off the list.

The other mystery is why he seems so fixated on Iowa. That I can't understand.

But at least this explains why the interest in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and even Ohio seems a little tepid. McCain needs to defend his states up through Florida, early voting or no (and thus we do see plenty of activity in North Carolina and Florida). That brings him to 227. Assume a major game-changer in the last week. He now adds the non-early-voting states of Virginia, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. He's at 265. McCain now wins if he can somehow pick off Nevada or Ohio (early voting, but pretty close), or Michigan (no early voting, but would need a last minute blitz).

It's a long shot, but that's the point. To win, McCain has to assume something crazy goes his way, and then be ready to capitalize on it if it does. Going after Pennsylvania, rather than the western states, is the best way to do that.

So the football analogy is no longer the hail Mary pass. Now it's down by 16 with under a minute to go and no time outs. If you can score a touchdown, the plan is clearly to go for a two point conversion. Not because that's the high percentage play--in fact, it's likely to make the defeat worse in point terms. But because if lightning strikes (in the analogy, recovering an onside kick), then at least you're poised to take advantage of it.

That's hypothesis one. Hypothesis two is that they're just clueless."

This is the exact same conclusion we came to yesterday in our weekly campaign discussion group meeting. I absolutely reject the notion that the typically top-notch campaign strategists the GOP has in its fold are clueless. They just don't have a favorable political climate in which to operate and that makes message consistency that much more difficult. We have to look no further than four years ago to see a similar contrast in message consistency. John Kerry never to did find the proper balance on how to deal with the Iraq war just as McCain has been back-peddling since the economic crisis hit. As Scott says, an early voting strategy is a long shot, but if the polls we have seen lately are accurate, then that is all the McCain campaign really has.

Good stuff, Scott. Thanks. I should also extend a thank you to Rich Clark who brought this to my attention yesterday.

Credit where credit is due: The map comes to us courtesy of Wikipedia (plus some FHQ alterations).


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While You Wait for the New Map, Here's a...Map

While You Wait for the New Map, Here's a...Map

Here is an interesting map the Obama campaign has put together to track mailers and robocalls the McCain campaign has been using recently. Good stuff and not surprisingly, there are an awful lot of points over North Carolina and Virginia. But McCain has made some moves in Maine, New Mexico and Wisconsin as well.

[Yeah, I'm a sucker for maps.]


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Open Thread: An Obama Landslide: How Far Could It Go?

Another slow polling day has reader, SarahLawrenceScott, asking:

"Supposing we do get a true Obama landslide, which state or states listed as McCain solid or lean are most likely to go for Obama?"

Indeed. What do you think? With momentum now squarely behind Obama, the discussion has shifted to how high Obama's ceiling is in this election. We already have an idea of where the McCain campaign is aiming here. After the Michigan pullout last week, the Arizona senator's campaign indicated that they were targetting Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But can Obama break into any of those lean or strong states of McCain's?

Let me weigh in here so that I'm not the first to comment on my own post.

It may be best to remove the ones that won't go for Obama first. I would eliminate the far right column on the Electoral College Spectrum. In the next column over, I'd take out Arizona, South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska and Texas.

That leaves us with Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Dakota, and the two lean states, Montana and West Virginia.

You have three "groups" there: the southern states, the plains states and West Virginia. The Mountain state has been in the mid- to upper single digits for McCain since the conventions, but I just don't see that one going to Obama. If neither Kerry nor Gore could win there, I'm hard-pressed to see Obama succeeding.

But the other five states offer some interesting possibilities. With the exception of Mississippi, all of the states spent at least some time in the toss up category on FHQ's map. Obama had some sizable level of support in those states at certain points. I think Montana and North Dakota stand out there. The three southern states would have to see very heavy African American turnout to make it interesting.

But, and here's the thing, if this race looks in 26 days time like it does now, does that affect turnout? Would likely and potential McCain supporters stay home knowing he would not win anyway? This is where the potential for inreased African American participation in those three southern states is consequential. The trigger mechanism -- voting for the first African American presidential nominee -- is still there for those voters even if the race seems like a done deal. Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina are the most likely to go for Obama in the South and you could perhaps throw in Louisiana as well.

Increased African American participation or not, depressed conservative turnout could certainly tilt a few more states outside the South to Obama, and I think Montana and North Dakota are the most likely.

Your thoughts? The comments section awaits.


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Where is McCain Playing Offense Now that Michigan is Off the Table?

The discussion on this is already underway in the Muhlenberg post below, but the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan is big news deserving of its own post. In last night's Electoral College Spectrum, the Wolverine state the last of the Obama toss up states before they turn darker blue and the lean category begins. And it has been in that position for a while now, save a few iterations where New Mexico jumped into the toss up category. The decision, then, isn't totally from out of left field, but as I said, symbolically this is a huge [negative] admission for the McCain folks. If Michigan is off the table, that means that McCain has one less blue state to reach for to get to 270 electoral votes.

Where is he playing offense, though? The campaign says Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin (Thanks for the link, Scott.), but none of those three looks terribly attainable at this point. Minnesota, perhaps. The North Star state has been within the margin of error in a host of polls recently with the exception of the 12 point lead CNN showed Obama enjoying yesterday. But let's assume McCain wins Minnesota. He would still have play defense in Florida, not to mention run the table in the Nevada, Ohio and Virginia close state parlay. Minnesota would get McCain to 275 if he wins those three states and holds on to the remaining pink states. Obama could gain Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado -- Bush states four years ago -- and come up short.

The tendency has been to discount McCain's chances in light of events of the last couple of weeks, but the Arizona senator is still right there if -- and this is a big if -- the momentum can be shifted back. The problem is that that is going to be a tough sell -- kind of like the push for the 2nd district in Maine. That just seems like a move to get Obama to spend some time and/or money in the Pine Tree state. In reality the McCain campaign knew that they didn't necessarily need Michigan to win. It would have helped, but they didn't necessarily need it. But they know they need Virginia and Florida. And that may be why the Old Dominion has seen an increased McCain staff presence in the last couple of days.


Thanks to loyal FHQ reader and contributor, Jack, for the scoop.


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Is McCain Right? Does a Tie Go to the Runner?

"I was a little disappointed the media called it a tie, but I think that means when they call it a tie that means we win."
--John McCain

I may be a little late on this, but I thought I'd gauge the perceptions out there on this quotation. If you assume that a runner is an underdog and/or someone having to play offense, is that a win for the Arizona senator?

Here's what we know:
1) Last week was bad for McCain.
Effect: potentially lowered expectations

2) Foreign policy is supposed to be McCain's area.
Effect: Expectations were relatively high.

3) McCain played the experience/understanding card all night, but Obama was able to counter that by simply holding his own on the debate stage.
Effect: Well, that's where the tie comes in.


So, does McCain win in a draw scenario? More importantly, what happens if the McCain-Obama debates continue to be draws? That last one may or may not be obvious, but feel free to discuss while I update the electoral college map to reflect the changes brought about by yesterday's handful of polls.


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Open Thread: First 2008 Presidential Debate

Open Thread: First 2008 Presidential Debate

10:39pm: Alright, I'm retreating to the Electoral College lair to think about this one for a while.

10:37pm: And there's the handshake. That's a wrap.

10:34pm: McCain: Obama's stubbornness on the surge is akin to the Bush administration on other issues. I'm surprised that "he doesn't get it" hasn't made an appearance tonight...from either side.

10:33pm: Obama: Economic crisis is a national security issue.

10:32pm: Ooh, extra time.

10:31pm: I've been thinking about calling this a forgettable debate, but the Obama doesn't understand stuff proves that if you say something enough...

10:27pm: I'm not sure about this "reaching across the aisle" stuff from McCain. Have the last few days taught us nothing? What will he be able to reach across the aisle to do if he's elected?

10:25pm: Last question. Let's put it this way: There won't be a lot of back and forth on this one.

10:22pm: Obama from Russian oil fueling their government to alternative energy here in the US.

10:18pm: McCain continues to play the experience card. Now on Russia. Again, "I've been there," on Georgia.

10:12pm: "I'm not going to set the White House schedule. I don't even have a seal yet." Good one.

10:09pm: Is Obama's ability to pronounce these foreign names a good thing or a bad thing? Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. It is an interesting contrast between the two candidates, especially after McCain's issues getting Ahmadinejad out. How does that play into the Obama is a Muslim narrative.

10:08pm: Sitting down with leaders without pre-conditions. There's a blast from the past.

10:03pm: On to Iran.

10:00pm: Ugh, if you are going to add a personal story, you better know the name. McCain nailed his. Sure, it was the same one he's brought up in his acceptance speech, but still. Obama did not.

9:57pm: I think this not understanding thing has been talked about within the McCain campaign. Now on Pakistan, pre-Musharraf.

9:54pm: More on Obama not understanding from McCain. This time on Waziristan and Al Qeada.

9:45pm: McCain: "Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy." That one could bring some fireworks along the way.

9:40pm: McCain's on firmer ground on the surge.

9:38pm: On Guantanamo Bay? Mr. McCain, John Kerry is on the phone. He was against torture, before he was against for it.

9:34pm: Jim Lehrer is winning this debate so far. He's by far the most animated.

...trying to get either candidate to answer a question on scaled back spending in the face of the current economic climate.

9:33pm: "Using a hatchet where a scalpel is needed." A good line from Obama on a government spending freeze.

9:29pm: Ah, there's the first "most liberal senator" mention.

9:26pm: They've both warmed to this format now.

9:21pm: A lot of hand-raising from Obama on these McCain points on earmarks. Not Horshack-style hand-raising, but there's a pattern here on these split screens.

9:16 pm: Ooh, there's the first split screen (...on NBC). No sighing, no eye-rolling, just McCain writing at the moment.

9:13pm: Jim Lehrer is trying to turn this into a town hall meeting-lite. This is kind of weird. But the difference from four years ago is stark.

9:08pm: Shredding regulations. We may be hearing that lot from Obama. That's twice.

8:41pm: We are about fifteen minutes from go-time everyone. Elton John would have us believe that Saturday night's alright for fighting. We'll Friday night is fine by me, actually. And given the events of this week, we could see a real good one tonight.

First a quick review:
1) First debates are the most watched debates of any cycle.

2) Sit down debates are typically boring, highlighted by muted body language. Think Cheney-Lieberman. Well, that's an exaggeration.
Those look like podiums. I stand corrected.

3) If we can, let's try to get a variety to mediums represented here. Someone on C-SPAN, someone on the one of the major networks, someone online, etc. The first debate in 2004 had some different feeds floating around. C-SPAN had the non-speaking candidate's reactions at times, while most of the networks kept the camera trained on the speaker. The result was that people took away different impressions of the debate. Let's try to keep tabs on that tonight. I think I'm going to be on C-SPAN.

So we should have a lot of bored people watching tonight. I won't be one of them. So, turn on the set, open up a comment box and off we go.


Recent Posts:
Who You Callin' Underpolled?

Nothing to see here, folks.

The Electoral College Map (9/26/08)

Now They're Trying to Take Away My Debate!?!

The news of McCain's call to suspend the debate reminds me of a bit comedian, David Cross, did concerning the fallout from 9-11. Cross discussed how there were probably people in the aftermath of the attacks who were upset that football got canceled for a week. They may not have vocalized it, but there was probably some quiet discontent among a segment of the population. Well, political debates are certainly not to be equated with football, but to political junkies they may as well be one in the same.

Having said that, I'm still trying to sort out this McCain campaign suspension and the possibility of a debate delay. This obviously hasn't happened before. And as history (and Thomas Holbrook in Do Campaigns Matter?) would tell us, presidential election years rarely overlap with economic or military crises. But here we have one smack dab in the middle of what has already been an unprecedented presidential campaign. [Remember, if __________ can happen, then ____________ is more likely than ever to occur during this campaign. I joked a couple of weeks ago that we will see an electoral college tie and there will be a disputed state result simultaneously. This will trigger a battle between the legislative and judicial branches to decide the issue. I look forward to it.]

Here, though, are my instant history thoughts on this move by the McCain folks:

1) McCain once again has to do something to shake up the race. The Palin thing has faded with the focus shifted to the economy and the polls the last two days are favoring Obama in some of the critical battleground states.

2) This, to me, is a potential "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of proposition for Obama. If he stays committed to the debate, he can be cast as not caring about dealing with the economic crisis. If he goes along with McCain's wish, Obama will be the second person on the scene. In other words, he wouldn't look like much of a leader. My thinking here is that the McCain folks would once again try to craft a replay of some of the narrative surrounding Obama's trip abroad over the summer. Now, is this the way I expect this to play out? No, but the parallel did enter my mind. Which brings me to...

3) If this is politically motivated (I know, that never happens, especially in politics. Obama's trip, for instance, was just a fact-finding mission.), what does McCain expect get out of it? On the one hand, trying to push back the debate looks moderately defeatist. But on the other, focusing on the bailout issue, shows his willingness to take problems head on. Again, the leadership dimension. And I think that's where the answer lies. McCain = leader. Obama = follower. At least, that's the way they may try to spin it.

Thoughts? This one is a doozy.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (9/24/08)

The Electoral College Map (9/23/08)

The Links (9/23/08): Debates and Nightmares

Who's McCain Going to Pick? Why, Sarah Palin, of course. [Updated]

Update: Apparently, it is Palin.

Pawlenty's out.

Romney's out.

Is it Lieberman?

Palin?

She and Pawlenty apparently switched positions on InTrade overnight and she's approaching 100% now. Thoughts? Does this pull in those Hillary voters? It certainly shakes things up, though perhaps not in the way that David Brooks alluded to on PBS the other night. Does her age take Obama's age/experience off the table to some extent?


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On GOP Conventions and VP Selections

Can the World Position Itself for the Next President Before the Actual Election? In 2008, it won't be easy.

The following is a piece I wrote for, e-International Relations, a post-graduate run international affairs site based in Britain. It is a bit of a departure from some of the material here at FHQ and technically a touch out of my natural area of study. However, it was fun to sit down and think a bit about the current race for the White House from an international perspective. Here is a link to the article (as it is below) on their site.


For the first time since 1952, America and the world will be getting something different out of the US presidential election of 2008. Neither an incumbent president nor a vice president of the incumbent's party is running for the White House for the first time since the period following the Second World War. Without either in the running there is no direct way for voters within the American electorate to punish or reward the actions of the incumbent administration. With those fetters removed, comes the notion that the 2008 election and its outcome together represent something of an unknown quantity to the not only the American electorate, but to the rest of the world as well. And while people around the world do not have the right to vote in the election, they, and the nations where they are citizens, do have a stake in the outcome. Given that stake, though, do states across the globe attempt to gauge the the likelihood of one candidate or party succeeding and, in turn, position themselves for a new regime?

Typically, an early reading of the tea leaves provides a glimpse into which party will have an advantage in the coming presidential election even before the two major parties' nominees are settled upon. Is there an incumbent running? How well is the American economy doing? How popular is the current president? However, given the fact that a similar electoral scenario has not presented itself for over half a century, the direct connection to the ruling administration is missing. Still, even with neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney on the ballot in November, the Republican Party is expected to suffer some punishment for Bush's nearly historically low approval ratings. It was that environment that gave rise to a field of prospective Republican presidential candidates lower in quality than in past cycles. Once John McCain overcame the hurdles of the organizational and fund-raising phase of the contest and then the early primary and caucus contests to emerge as the presumptive nominee, he presented, on some levels, a departure from the current administration. The Arizona senator's status as a maverick willing to break with his own party on some issues meshes well with the pivotal group of so-called swing voters occupying the center of the ideological spectrum within the American electorate. In many ways then, McCain is the ideal candidate for the Republican Party in such a hostile electoral situation.

As a result, the Republican Party, on the one hand, is ill-equipped to compete in this election given Bush's approval rating. But the party's stock improved with the selection of a candidate not necessarily as closely tied to the Bush White House and its policies as some of his opponents in the race for the Republican nomination. The forces at odds on the Republican side can be contrasted with a differing set of forces on the Democratic side. With a floundering economy and an unpopular president, the Democratic Party is viewed as the party to beat in the 2008 election. That advantage is/was mitigated by the historic candidacies of the party's two front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination. The race and gender issues surrounding Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, respectively, and the viability of each as candidates, offered unknowns not before confronted within American presidential politics.

That, then, was the decision set facing the American electorate from early March onward into June when Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. But that trio also provided international actors with an array of policy positions directly relevant on the world stage. However, the unprecedented nature of the nomination campaign made the international community's—not to mention the American press and pundits—ability to assess the playing field that much more difficult. Indeed, the nature of the 2008 cycle has been so volatile that positioning for the next administration has proven to be an exercise in determining which unknown quantity will do what once the next president is sworn into office in January 2009. Much of that has to do with the electoral situation the US finds itself in for the first time in nearly two generations. Under the circumstances that have marked the presidential elections of the interim, either an incumbent president would be running for re-election or his vice president would be seeking to succeed him.

Every election was a decision between the status quo and some form of change. The international community can prepare for a continuation of policies if the incumbent holds an advantage in the leading indicators of presidential election success discussed above. And it can just as easily position itself, in whole or in part, for a change if the challenger candidate is in a stronger position vis a vis an imperiled incumbent. Making the call on which of the two versions of change represented in this election to prepare for, though, is a completely different enterprise. According to a recent Pew Global Attitudes Project survey in 22 nations, those outside the US have an opinion on which candidate they think will do a better job in terms of US foreign policy. In all but one of the nations polled (Jordan), Obama performed better than McCain on that specific question. The Illinois senator far outpaced McCain most notably in the countries within Europe while holding significant, yet smaller, margins in other regions.

That is at the mass level though. Are matters any different at the level of government? It is difficult to tease this out, but the world is already on hold anticipating the Bush's replacement, whomever he may be. This was underscored by Bush's recent trip to Europe and during the recent G-8 meetings in Japan. Little emerged from either because Bush's power internationally is (and has been) in decline. However, is that a function of him being on his way out, the knowledge that some form of change is on the way, or a combination of the two? Most likely, it is a combination. Regardless though, the world has already begun preparing for life after Bush. Now, it is simply a matter of waiting to see to what extent US foreign policy will change.


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Insult to Injury: Obama and His Money

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. Is there really a sizable group of people (who have been paying attention) that are surprised by Obama opting out of the public financing system for the general election? I'd imagine there aren't that many folks out there with raised hands. Let's put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. If the roles were reversed and McCain was the candidate who had made the choice to skip out on the public financing system, would the uproar be as big? Well, that's hard to say, but McCain likely could be counted on to have been a bit more disciplined than to make such a promise in the first place. That may be the difference. Sports blogger, Dan Shanoff, is fond of stating in instances of sports meets crime that it is the cover up that gets someone in trouble and not the crime itself. In politics, the game is slightly different. It isn't the decision that gets you in trouble, but the flip-flop instead. That is the case here. The uproar isn't over the decision to fund the campaign outside of the public financing system itself, but rather the promise and subsequent change.

Even then, is it really about the flip-flop? Or could it be that the GOP and its supporters are genuinely concerned about their chances in the fall? That's understandable. On the one hand, all the leading indicators signal a down year for the party of Lincoln. The economy has seen better days, support for the Iraq war remains low, and President Bush is fighting a weekly battle against setting records for new approval rating lows. So there's that, and now the Democratic nominee is going to have a money advantage too! What does that extra cash mean to Obama? Well, for once, a Democratic nominee will be the one with a cash advantage. It doesn't happen often. But that money advantage won't necessarily translate into more votes for the junior senator from Illinois. What it likely means is that McCain, who is already playing defense in a difficult environment for anyone with an R by their name, will be even more on the defensive.

Ads will surely be a part of the Obama camp's strategy (they already are), but grassroots efforts in seemingly unlikely states could be a part of the equation as well. Extra cash means Obama can make McCain play defense (eg: spend time and money) in states he probably wouldn't want to. Take Alaska, for instance. The polling that was out there yesterday continued to show a close race (at least for Alaska!) between McCain and Obama. If Obama can force McCain to defend Alaska, then keeping Kerry swing state wins like Pennsylvania or New Hampshire safe gets much easier. The good folks over at fivethirtyeight.com are already discussing the pros and cons of an Obama trip to the Last Frontier.

And that is the origin of the excitement on the left end of the blogosphere (some may argue there is only a left end) and the backlash on the right. This decision to opt out isn't the real issue. The fear of having to defend or delight in potentially being competitive in typically red states is the issue. Democrats should enjoy being the monied party for once because it won't last. What was it Bush said? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...well, you won't fool me again. The GOP will certainly heed that advice and store this memory away to be used in a less hostile environment.


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Will Kennedy's Diagnosis Hurt McCain?

This is probably about a week too late, but it's a question that's been floating around in my head recently that I've yet to see addressed anywhere. Ted Kennedy's ominous diagnosis last week underscores what is going to be a major issue in this presidential campaign: age. Rep. John Murtha (PA-D) has said McCain is too old, Howard Dean has said it won't be an issue and McCain himself has taken the self-deprecating route on his age. But like Nixon's five o'clock shadow during the televised debate against John Kennedy in 1960, the age difference between McCain and VANP (That's very almost nearly presumptive) Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, is going to be noticeable.

Is that necessarily a bad thing for McCain? No, because on the one hand you have age, but on the other is experience. The former carries something of a negative connotation while the latter is more positive. When voters begin to see more of the contrast between Obama and McCain will that trigger thoughts on age or experience? Do they see a 76 year old politician diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and project that onto a presidential candidate who would be 76 himself at the tail end of his first term as president? Or do voters see an experience gap between the two (Obama playing the naive role and McCain the role of someone who has been around the block a time or two)?

I suspect that this may vary based on party identification: Democrats see an old man in McCain while those on the right see an experienced candidate and a "reckless" younger candidate. But what do those independents think when they see that contrast? Where they fall will more than likely tip the balance toward age or experience emerging as the dominant view. As we've seen throughout the Democratic primaries, though, a person's age has a lot to do with this as well. Older voters have gravitated toward Clinton while younger voters have overwhelmingly backed Obama. Party ID may supersede age in the general election, but a voter's age may have some part in determining whether age or experience becomes the prevailing view.

In the end, age will take a backseat to the economy or the Iraq war, but it is a distinction that could prove consequential in an Obama-McCain general election campaign (especially if the election proves to be as close as it has look in some of the electoral college maps). What are your thoughts? Is it age, is it experience, or does it even matter? The comments section beckons.


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Would McCain Have Won Under the Ohio Plan?

I spent the weekend (at least in terms of this blog) looking at the potential presidential nomination reform plans that are being considered by both of the parties. The one plan that has some traction for the moment, is the Ohio Plan that the Republican Party Rules Committee passed last month. Next stop? St. Paul, where the plan will face increased scrutiny this summer at the GOP convention. And it may even face a hostile group of delegates if it reaches the floor for broad consideration. No, not because of those Ron Paul delegates. The Ohio Plan could encounter resistance from McCain delegates. Why, you ask? Well, victorious nominees rarely back plans that change the rules under which they won their nomination, especially if that means they (or someone similar to them) wouldn't have won. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And at a McCain-centered convention, delegates may be more willing to yield to their standard bearer on the issue.

Plus, let's remember that the GOP won't have the benefit of hindsight. Unlike the Democrats, the GOP can only alter its rules for presidential nomination during the preceding national convention. The Republicans then, won't know if having McCain wrap up their nomination three months prior to the Democrats will have an effect on the general election outcome (though they'll likely have a good idea whether the Democrats are indeed divided as a result of their longer process).

The question then, is would McCain have won the Republican nomination under the rules outlined in the Ohio Plan? First, let's glance at that map again:
Next, we'll have to willingly suspend our disbelief that such a plan could ever be put in place (and if you've been reading, you know FHQ has a laundry list of disbeliefs that will have to be suspended here). Let's also assume that if a candidate won a contest in 2008 under the current rules, they would have won the same contest under the Ohio Plan rules (at least among the competitive group of Republican contests--anything from Iowa to Texas/Ohio). According to the Ohio Plan rules, the same four states that led off the process under the current rules, would have kicked off primary season (Sorry Wyoming, Michigan and Florida). Iowa would have been followed by New Hampshire which would have been followed by South Carolina and Nevada. That wouldn't change any of the results we've seen under the current rules (but it would change the timing of the contests. None of these states would have been allowed to go prior to the beginning of February). Huckabee would have won Iowa. McCain still would have won New Hampshire and South Carolina and Romney would have won the Nevada caucuses.

Instead of Florida coming next, though, the process would shift from the "early 4" to a grouping of the least populous states (in teal above). In the process, McCain would have lost the advantage of that Florida win; a win that propelled him to the showing he had the next week on Super Tuesday. By the same token, Romney would have lost the influence of Michigan and Wyoming; wins that kept him viable heading into the next, contest-heavy week. With three different winners of four contests, there would be no clear favorite heading into the small state primary (Dare I call it Tiny Tuesday?) during the third week of February.

Among these 12 states' contests, McCain would have won one (Vermont), Huckabee would have won one (West Virginia) and Romney would have won five (Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Maine and Wyoming). The remaining five states (Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico and South Dakota) are states that have yet to hold contests during this cycle, so we don't know how those outcomes would have looked in a competitive environment.

What are the most likely directions those contests would have gone, though? Given Romney's success in the Prairie and Rocky Mountain states, the temptation is there to allocate him the wins in both Idaho and South Dakota. The difference is that the wins he actually got in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming were all caucus victories (Romney seems to have approached the 2008 primary season in much the same way that Barack Obama and his campaign did. They both focused on organization in those small, caucus states.). Idaho and South Dakota have primary systems in place and it is unclear how Romney would have fared in such a scenario in those states. Southern Idaho looks a lot like Utah, where Romney did very will on Super Tuesday and it is likely he would have won Gem state. South Dakota is bordered by six states, four of which Romney won, so I'll lump it in with the other Romney wins. That gives him seven wins out of those 12 small states.

As for the other three unknown states, McCain's home state advantage would likely have stretched into New Mexico, but Hawaii and Nebraska are tough ones to figure out. Nebraska likely would have been a Romney/Huckabee battle given the strength both had in the region. I'll be generous and throw Huckabee a bone on this one. Hawaii would have been a far away caucus; a set of circumstances that would have favored Romney. Of the 12 small states, Romney would have been a winner (or in good shape) in eight, while McCain and Huckabee each would have managed two wins.

That's a pretty significant win for Romney heading into the big states. Do those eight wins equal what Florida did for McCain, though? That's a tough question to answer. Romney looked good in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada before the actual primary season got underway in 2008, and though he had several foreseeable paths to the GOP nomination, just couldn't come through in the end. Projecting Romney's potential success in the early states of the Ohio Plan to the rest of the country, then, is not automatic, but nine wins in sixteen early contests is nothing to sneeze at either. He clearly would have had an advantage in money and delegates prior to the three "pods" of big state contests. That could have pitted McCain and Huckabee in a one-on-one battle for the number two position behind Romney instead of the Romney/Huckabee fight for the same distinction behind front-runner McCain that we actually witnessed. And that is a position Romney did not find himself in in 2008.

Under the Ohio Plan then, McCain would have been in trouble instead of being in control after the first month of the process. Would McCain give his blessing at (or before) the convention to a plan that would have potentially cost him the 2008 nomination had it been in place? That, too, is a tough one to answer. McCain is a maverick (or so they tell me), so he may be willing to buck conventional wisdom. The only recent precedent is the Bush convention in 2000. That convention discussed the Delaware Plan (minus the New Hampshire/Iowa exemption) but it ultimately failed. And even in a season of change, the Ohio Plan will likely face similar resistance at the St. Paul convention (whether McCain endorses it or not).


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In Search of Ron Paul Delegates

Arizona senator John McCain may lay claim to being the Republican party's presumptive nominee, but efforts to shape the party behind the scenes during this presidential election year continue. While the much of the talk has centered around McCain uniting the various segments of the party behind him as the Democrats continue to wage a battle for their nomination, stories of dissension among the ranks continue to surface (and get lost in the headlines about bowling and sniper fire and "bitter" comments). Much of the dissension has been driven by Ron Paul (or at least by his supporters). And even though the Texas congressman scaled back his presidential efforts in the lead up to his early March congressional seat primary, those supporters have carried on, influencing the nomination system by alternate means.

What's on the table? Though Paul has admitted that winning the nomination isn't going to happen (see above link and a more recent reminder following the Texas primary), message boards devoted to the candidate's presidential run and the libertarian ideas he backs are littered with how to guides on how Paul can still become the nominee. Whether that is the unifying cry from these members of the Ron Paul Revolution though, is beside the point. That goal may never be realized but the byproduct of those efforts may influence to some extent who the delegates to September's convention are and the direction of state and national party platforms. And both may cause headaches for John McCain at a convention that is supposed to be all about him and his run for the White House.

It was easy early on to dismiss these stories as rabble rousing, but more and more evidence of these sorts of efforts has emerged to indicate that it is more than simply coincidence. The big questions then are, where are Paul supporters making inroads and in what ways? Much of this can be viewed through the lens of which type of delegate selection event a state uses, primary or caucus. As has been demonstrated in this space over the last few weeks (see posts on The Caucus Question here, here and here), caucuses offer an opportunity for a bit more delegate tweaking. This has been discussed in the context of the race for the Democratic nomination, but Ron Paul (or at least his supporters) has taken advantage of the caucuses as well. In Minnesota, Nevada and Washington (all caucus states) Paul has parlayed his initial showings into various levels of success.

In Minnesota, Paul supporters overran the congressional district caucuses during the first weekend in April and managed to win six of the twelve national convention delegates at stake during that phase of the process.

After placing a distant second in the Nevada caucuses in January, Paul stands a good chance of sending some delegates to the national convention from the Silver state after the next step, the state convention on April 26. He will be speaking at that convention as well. There's no better way to drum up some extra support than by making an appearance. It will be interesting to see if John McCain, who finished third behind Paul in the state, will show up to speak as well. There are an awful lot of Romney delegates available since the former Massachusetts governor secured a victory with over 51% of the vote.

Following a solid showing during the Washington caucuses in early February (Paul was third in a four candidate cluster with each winning between 15 and 26%), Paul supporters have pushed some Paul delegates through to the state convention. There is evidence of this out of Jefferson County and plenty of other anecdotal, yet unconfirmed, incidents of this in other parts of Washington as well.*

In primary states, the rules are much more clear cut and there obviously aren't as many steps in the process. People vote and the the outcome directly affects the number of delegates allocated to the winning candidate or candidates. The route Paul supporters have gone in several primary states has been to operate through the state party apparatus to influence delegate selection rules and state party platforms. The process then, to elect delegates to the state conventions in some primary states have seen increased participation from Ron Paul supporters. Again, this has no direct bearing on the national convention delegates allocated in the primary, but a Paul presence could affect those allocation rules and the platform planks decided upon in the state party platform.

In Florida, this has meant that some Paul backers have been blocked in their efforts to become precinct captains and to make it on to the Republican Executive Committee in the Sunshine state. The objective of Paul supporters is clear: to influence the Republican party's agenda in the state.

Paul supporters in Missouri found more success, hijacking several county caucuses in the Show-Me state. In Jackson County (in the Kansas City area) there was enough Paul support to send over 175 delegates to the next level of the caucus process. Those 175 will have some influence over the 55 delegates the state will send to the GOP convention and over the platform that emerges from the state convention.

The situation was similar in Oklahoma, where only one of the state's five congressional district conventions failed to send at least one Paul supporter on to the state convention next month. And while the rules require delegates to vote for the primary's victorious candidate, there is some indication that the Paul backers at the convention will attempt to change those rules in order to send some of their own to the national convention.

Paul's home state of Texas also saw action to push the Paul agenda onto the national party's radar. In both Travis and Tarrant Counties, Paul's supporters were able win or draw in senate districts in both counties.

In isolation these events don't seem to make that much of a difference in the race for the Republican nomination. Together however, they add up to a potential problem for McCain and the national party at their September convention in St. Paul, MN. The more Paul delegates that make it through to state and national conventions, the more Paul's agenda will be discussed. And what that translates into is a battle over the platform and potential ideological fissure within the GOP. So while all the talk has been about division within the Democratic party, something appears to be brewing on the Republican side as well. And the division here isn't over who is best able to answer and deal with a 3am phone call, it is division that gets to the heart of some basic Republican principles. The heights this grows to though depends in large measure on how many Paul delegates can make it through the process. Thus far, it has been more than one might expect given recent coverage of the race for the White House.

*There is an awful lot of material online to support such events happening across Washington as well as in other parts of the country. My rule on this is to only proceed with information that has been verified by, at least, a local news outlet. If it has been mentioned on any of the various Ron Paul Forums, and only there, such events were excluded. There is talk that similar sorts of activities have taken place in Alaska, Colorado and Louisiana as well. Most of the sources there are Ron Paul-related sources though.

[Thanks to campaign discussion group participant and UGA grad student, Patrick Rhamey, for planting this idea in my head.]