Clinton was at Bronko’s Restaurant having a beer when the bartender asked, “You want a shot with that Hillary?” After some deliberation, Clinton settled on a shot of Crown Royal, a Canadian whiskey.
She's a ma'am of the people!
Update: How did I miss that pick? Crown Royal? Could Hillary possibly have chosen a less elitist-sounding whiskey?
I've already looked in the past at the presidential nominee's home field advantage and concluded it was worth somewhere between five and seven percentage points. That is, presidential nominees tend to do about five to seven points better in their home state than they do nationally.
It seems logical to assume that the VP nomination has a similar effect; all other things being equal (which of course they aren't), a state that has a VP nominee should tend to vote a little more for that ticket than they might otherwise. We would assume that the effect would be smaller than for the presidential nominees.
So I put together a little spreadsheet that analyzes the past impacts of VP nominees. I'll illustrate with John Edwards, John Kerry's running mate in 2004. Edwards was from North Carolina, which Bush took by 12.44 percentage points in 2004. By contrast, Bush won North Carolina by 12.83 percentage points in 2000, so Edwards improved things by about 0.39 percentage points.
But that's not the whole story. Remember, Bush actually lost the popular vote nationally by 0.51 percentage points in 2000, and won by 2.46 percentage points in 2004, so there was a national trend for Bush to pick up 2.97 percentage points. Thus, the indicated improvement for the Democrats from having Edwards on the ticket appears to be about 3.36 percentage points.
Of course, there are lots of other things going on in the race, so it's impossible to say that was definitely the Silky Pony effect, but it appears to fit in well with prior years. I went back for the last 16 veep nominees. I excluded sitting vice presidents for two reasons. First, they only run with sitting presidents, and it seems far more likely that voters vote on the performance of that president rather than for their local boy as VP. And second, we don't face that situation this year.
Year VP Nom State Result Prior Trend Effect 2004 Edwards NC -12.44% -12.83% -3.0% 3.36% 2000 Cheney WY 39.79% 12.97% 8.0% 18.82% 2000 Lbrman CT 17.57% 18.14% -8.0% 7.43% 1996 Kemp NY -28.86% -15.85% -3.0% -10.06% 1992 Gore TN 4.65% -16.34% 13.3% 7.71% 1988 Quayle IN 20.15% 23.99% -10.5% 6.65% 1988 Bentsen TX -12.60% -27.50% 10.5% 4.40% 1984 Ferraro NY -8.01% -2.67% -8.5% 3.13% 1980 Bush TX 13.86% -3.17% 11.8% 5.23% 1976 Mondale MN 12.88% -5.51% 25.2% -6.82% 1976 Dole KS 7.50% 38.16% -25.2% -5.45% 1972 Shriver MA 8.97% 30.12% -22.5% 1.30% 1968 Muskie ME 22.23% 37.68% -23.3% 7.83% 1968 Agnew MD -1.55% -30.96% 23.3% 6.13% 1964 Hmphrey MN 27.76% 1.38% 22.3% 4.07% 1964 Miller NY -37.25% -5.26% -22.3% -9.68%
Average 2.75%
As you can see, 12 of the 16 nominees did improve their ticket's anticipated performance; the only ones who failed to do so were Kemp in 1996, both Dole and Mondale in 1976, and Bill Miller in 1964. Cheney in 2000 appears to have improved his ticket the most in his home state, but it should be noted that only Al Gore in 1992 appears to have swung his home state over into the winning column. And even there caution is in order; Bill Clinton was also a southerner and that may have had more to do with winning Tennessee than the presence of Gore. Overall the average VP appears to have resulted in a 2.75 percentage point improvement in his home state over what the ticket would have done without him (or her, in Ferraro's case). This seems a reasonable estimate. It's about half the presidential home field advantage.
Implications for 2008? Here's where things get really complicated. We cannot assume that McCain will carry the country by the same 2.46 percentage points that Bush did in 2004. And we cannot assume that the Democrats will win big as some of the polls are indicating. It seems safest to start both parties at even, by deducting 2.46 percentage points from the Republican net percentage in each state. This tips three states that Bush carried in 2004 into the Democrats' column: Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio. Obviously Ohio is the most important of those three; if McCain carries all the states Bush did except New Mexico and Iowa he still wins (barely) with 274 electoral college votes of the 270 needed. Thus it would seem that an Ohio politician like former Senator Rob Portman would be a logical choice.
Of course, there are lots of other variables in the race. It is well-reported that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination that the state of New Jersey may come into play, which might indicate a prominent NJ politician like Christie Todd Whitman could swing the Garden State to the GOP. That would have the added effect of capitalizing on the resentment some women may feel with Hillary not getting the nod in the Democratic Convention, although it would not help McCain with the conservatives. But McCain could lose Ohio, New Mexico and Iowa and still win by picking up New Jersey.
For the Democrats, a lot depends on whom the nominee is, but Florida and Colorado would both seem to be within reach. Colorado's governor is Bill Ritter; the only problem is that he has even less experience in elective office than Barack Obama, having been elected in 2006. Bill Nelson would be the obvious choice for Florida.
Germans would choose Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama over Republican John McCain if they were eligible to vote in the U.S. presidential election, a poll for ARD television found.
Sixty-nine percent of Germans would vote for Clinton while only 10 percent would back McCain, according to the survey carried out Feb. 6. In a contest between Obama and McCain, 65 percent would support the Democrat with 11 percent backing the Republican, ARD said today in an e-mailed statement.
Those are my beliefs, and you need not examine only my past votes and speeches to assure yourselves that they are my genuine convictions. You can take added confidence from the positions I have defended during this campaign. I campaigned in Iowa in opposition to agriculture subsidies. I campaigned in New Hampshire against big government mandated health care and for a free market solution to the problem of unavailable and unaffordable health care. I campaigned in Michigan for the tax incentives and trade policies that will create new and better jobs in that economically troubled state. I campaigned in Florida against the national catastrophic insurance fund bill that passed the House of Representatives and defended my opposition to the prescription drug benefit bill that saddled Americans with yet another hugely expensive entitlement program. I have argued to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, to reduce the corporate tax rate and abolish the AMT. I have defended my position on protecting our Second Amendment rights, including my votes against waiting periods, bans on the so-called "assault weapons," and illegitimate lawsuits targeting gun manufacturers. I have proudly defended my twenty-four year pro-life record. Throughout this campaign, I have defended the President's brave decision to increase troop levels in Iraq to execute a long overdue counterinsurgency that has spared us the terrible calamity of losing that war. I held these positions because I believed they were in the best interests of my party and country."
I know that some have said there is nothing Senator McCain can do or say to change your minds and support him, but I do encourage you to read the speech with an open mind. I have never been one to stand on the sidelines; I want to be in the game.
Looks like Florida is about to get on the bus! Rasmussen, which only yesterday had Romney up by six, today reports the race dead even, and that's the worst news for McCain. Almost all the other pollsters show McCain up a couple points.
Bill Clinton attempted to sandbag McCain by talking about how much Hillary and he like each other; Drudge kept it on his front page all weekend (in his continuing effort to prop up Romney).
I seem to recall, however, from one of the debates earlier this year, Mr. McCain making reference to Senator Clinton's attempt to spend $1 million of taxpayer money on a Woodstock Concert Museum to honor what McCain called a "cultural and pharmaceutical event." His good-natured mockery of the Woodstock Concert ended with, perhaps, the most memorable line uttered by any candidate so far this year:
"I wasn't there. I was tied up at the time."
In fact, Bill does not want McCain to be the Republican nominee, because he knows McCain would school Hillary in any foreign policy/defense debate. I'm not guaranteeing a win in the general election; prospects are mediocre at best for any Republican candidate in this atmosphere. But McCain has the best chance of winning as John Hinderaker notes today:
Barring a surprise in Florida, Republican primary voters and caucus-goers on mega-Tuesday will face a stark but classic political choice: do they go with Romney, whose views across a broad range of issues are more palatable to conservatives and whose economic expertise may be badly needed, or with McCain, who seems pretty clearly more likely to prevent the Clintons from re-inhabiting the White House? It's not an easy choice. We'll have more to say about it in due course.
MR. ROMNEY: Well, there's no question but that — the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government.
In addition, I think it's indisputable that, at the time, McCain's Republican rivals supported the surge but were also happy that it was McCain who was all the way out on the limb. Last February, someone in the Romney camp told me that yes, Romney supported the surge, but that "McCain owns the surge." The implication was that if things didn't go well, McCain would be the one to suffer; the other guys would be OK precisely because they didn't put it all on the line for the surge.
In a major campaign coup, presidential candidate John McCain just gained the endorsement of one of the most popular political figures in Florida: Gov. Charlie Crist.
Crist praised McCain as a ''true American hero'' at the Lincoln Day Dinner here and said he decided to endorse him after ``thinking about it a lot.''
The endorsement from a governor with an approval rating that hovers near 70 percent could prove to be a crucial factor in persuading the 13 percent of undecided Republicans to vote for McCain on Tuesday.
At Real Clear Politics' poll page, the race is shown as a dead heat. But is it really? Remember, probably half the voters have already voted. Giuliani probably has a slight lead among those, with McCain in second and Mitt probably a distant third. So the tie now is just among those who have not voted.
The moment was emblematic of a broader reality that has helped shape the Republican contest and could take center stage again on Thursday at a debate in Florida. Within the small circle of contenders, Mr. Romney has become the most disliked.
Even his supporters admit it. As I pointed to earlier today, Amy Goldstein in a gushing piece on the wonderfulness of Mitt, noted that nobody likes him. But at least the NY Times gets why:
Campaign insiders and outside strategists point to several factors driving the ill will, most notably, Mr. Romney’s attacks on opponents in television commercials, the perception of him as an ideological panderer and resentment about his seemingly unlimited resources as others have struggled to raise cash.
Yes, McCain has been in Congress since first elected in 1982, but he never succumbed to the Beltway Culture of Spending, whereas Romney fell into Washington's big spending trap somewhere between Michigan and Florida.
As Romney courted the Michigan vote, he proposed a $20 billion energy research/auto industry bailout plan likely to appeal to the Motor City state. Later, touting himself as the turnaround guy for a flailing economy, Romney released his own $233 billion stimulus package -- a price tag that dwarfs President Bush's $145 billion proposal.
Perhaps hoping to avoid the condemnation of the Ronulans, Ben Adler reverses the headline:
Ron Paul continues to best Giuliani
Of course the real news is that Giuliani continues to trail Ron Paul. Paul's a silly candidate, yes, the Dennis Kucinich of the right. He has some good ideas, like all "small-l" libertarians, but essentially he's a crank and the real news is that Giuliani's running behind him, not that Paul's besting the former frontrunner. And I do expect Giuliani to swamp Paul in Florida (but finish second or third).
Jay Cost tries to keep hope alive for the "Stop McCain" folks but he resorts to mumbo-jumbo here:
With McCain as the frontrunner - the way to look at this nomination battle should shift. Most of us had written McCain off last summer - so we were not expecting him to precipitate an ideological battle. If anything, we were expecting some kind of bottom-up opposition to Giuliani - with party elites accepting his candidacy, and rank-and-file pro-lifers rejecting it. The rise of McCain scrambles all of this. There is an ideological conflict brewing in the GOP - but not the one we thought we would see. This means that the way we have looked at nominations over the last few cycles does not hold. I think this contest could be longer than many have intuited - and the results in Florida could determine exactly who emerges as the "anti-McCain" candidate.
Considering that the primaries before Florida were supposed to determine who became the anti-Guiliani candidate, I feel pretty good about things.
Do not expect the press to catch this dynamic. It understands the here-and-now of contemporary politics much better than the forces and institutions that have guided it for decades. One effect of its misunderstanding will come on Super Tuesday, which it will treat just like the general election. That evening, it is going to focus relentlessly and exclusively on who wins which states - as if delegates are allocated like Electoral College electors. Do not get caught up with this, regardless of how splashily it is staged. With the prospect of a McCain candidacy, and the ideological divergence it implies - this is not the best way to analyze Super Tuesday, even though it is an important aspect. We also need to wait until the next day to see how the delegates are meted out - that will indicate just where this race is going to go.
What he's trying to say is that it doesn't matter who won South Carolina, or who wins Florida or Super-Tuesday, which of course is a lot of nonsense. Still, somebody has to write this stuff so that Hugh Hewitt can link it.
The Louisiana Caucuses were held last night, and according to Geraghty, McCain finished first, with Paul a close second (see why I don't pay much attention to caucuses?) and Romney third. According to this account, Paul might have won, but, you guessed it, they screwed up:
Ron Paul finished second. His supporters reportedly mobbed the 11 polling places, but many of them could not participate because they were not registered Republicans. They were required to cast provisional ballots, many of which will not count. (The provisional ballots are part of the reason for the delay in tallying the results.)
It can only be because he's good and noble and heroic and handsome. Amy Goldstein checks in at the American Thinker with a sloppy buss to the Mittster that deserves a good fisking:
Have you noticed how all of the Republican candidates can barely conceal their contempt for Governor Mitt Romney? It goes way beyond the typical good-natured competition that usually is the hallmark of Republican contests.
I think it has something to do with Mitt running negative ads at all the other candidates with the possible exception of Ron Paul. But not Amy!
1. He can win. Governor Romney appeals to economic conservatives and could appeal to foreign policy conservatives based upon his understanding of the issues. Most non-partisan foreign policy wonks who have briefed the major candidates tell me that Romney "gets it" better than any other candidate -- even better than those who have held high profile office for decades. Moreover, he is the candidate that the Democrats most fear.
Come on! Mitt's understanding of foreign policy consists of asking the folks at the State Department what to do. Can he win? CNN's recent poll showed a real stinkbomb for Mitt:
REGISTERED VOTERS Would Definitely Vote Against That Candidate in November
That's just a staggering number of people that Mitt has already pissed off.
2. Jealousy -- from his hair to his appearance to his family to his money - these are all reasons for deep seeded, if unseemly, jealousy. This green-eyed monster makes its appearance in almost every speech or presentation, in the form of a joke, a jab or a veiled reference.
It must be the hair! Now to be fair, here, Mitt does have nice hair. So does John Edwards.
3. He isn't beholden to interest groups. Governor Romney's wealth frees him from any influence that interest groups could apply to others - especially those who lack funds or who are Washington insiders. He doesn't need them, and that scares the interest groups and their allies. He is not of the game and wants to change it - and his personal wealth allows him to do so. He really can change Washington.
That was Ross Perot's argument, too. I expect it to go over just as well.
4. His brains - not only is he one of the smartest people ever to seek the presidency (having earned a Harvard MBA and JD simultaneously), but he understands the complexities of the issues that America faces and is able to devise workable solutions. Just look at his proposal for an economic stimulus and compare it to what the other candidates are proposing. Romney clearly can lead this country through economic challenges.
He's a smart guy, no doubt about that. Jimmy Carter was a physics major.
5. His wealth -- again. While he has raised more than any other candidate, Governor Romney doesn't need to raise the money in order to continue. Nevertheless, he understands that successful candidates must have people invested in their candidacy in order to succeed. He has learned the lessons of past wealthy businessmen who make vanity runs for the White House. The other candidates have to constantly raise money in order to continue their campaigns.
Yes, he has money, again. But note how she ties herself up into knots trying to have it both ways. He raises money to get people "invested" in his campaign, but he doesn't need to. He can just "lend" his campaign money. I'd hate to be a late "investor" in a campaign that failed; you know that late money is going to pay back the loan.
No mention of the negative campaigning. No attempt to balance Mitts undeniable strengths with his equally undeniable weaknesses.
Since the economy is emerging as a key issue in this campaign, I thought I would take a look at Mitt Romney's record of job creation as the governor of Massachusetts. The data to perform this analysis is readily available at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I went to the most requested tables for individual states, and started looking at the total nonfarm employment, seasonally adjusted.
Mitt Romney became governor of Massachusetts in January of 2003. He served the Bay State until January of 2007. The total nonfarm employment when he entered office was 3,225,900, and when he left office it was 3,260,300. Thus the total number of jobs created during Mitt's tenure was 34,400, or a 1.1% increase in the number of jobs over the four year period.
How does that stack up nationally? Well, the US economy as a whole added 5.4% new jobs over the four year period, so over the four years the nation did much better than Massachusetts. In fact, on average the US gained a higher percentage of new jobs every year than Mitt's Massachusetts gained over his entire four year term.
Okay, but maybe it was a regional problem, something out of Mitt's control that the Northeast experienced. So I checked the other states in New England for the four years in question. and it does appear that the area had something of a job creation slowdown compared to the national economy. Here they are in order of highest % of job growth:
New Hampshire: 4.2% Vermont: 3.2% Rhode Island: 2.5% Connecticut: 2.0% Maine 1.7% Massachusetts: 1.1%
Hey, somebody's gotta bring up the rear. Adding New Jersey and New York doesn't help, either, as each are around 2.7% in job growth over those same four years. I didn't do all the numbers, but the only states I could find that actually did worse than Massachusetts in job creation were Michigan (-3.8%) and Louisiana (-0.6%), and those are rather well-remarked basket cases for different reasons. Louisiana would clearly have outpaced Massachusetts in job creation over the years in question, had it not been for Katrina. Mississippi, also hit hard by Katrina, ended up with 3.4% job growth.
Mike Huckabee, whom everybody thinks is something of an economic dunce? Jobs in Arkansas grew at close to the national average (5.2%) from January 2003-January 2007.
So whence comes the notion that Mitt Romney knows what to do on the economy?
Expect to hear this meme being spread by the "drive-along" media today. Now, it's true that Mitt Romney was not very competitive in South Carolina, getting less than half the votes of Senator John McCain. But did he compete?
The answer is clearly in the affirmative. Fox News reported on Saturday that Romney had spent over $4 million in the Palmetto State, and that fully half of all TV ads in the state had featured the Mittster.
The Washington Post reports that Romney did a total of 52 events in the state over a total of 22 days. He had four events on the Wednesday before the primary.
Now it's certainly true that Mitt abandoned South Carolina when he saw that a fourth place finish was likely. But the funny thing is that he didn't suffer for it; the final RCP averages showed him finishing with about 15.1% of the vote, which is right about where he ended up.
The Politico noticed that even as Romney stopped appearing in the state, he continued his TV ads:
The Romney camp is plowing tens of thousands more dollars into all the markets that serve South Carolina, including Savannah and Augusta, Ga., per a source who follows ad buys.
Romney went back on the air here Tuesday and, with his current buy, will now saturate the state heading into Saturday.
It was a smart move politically for Mitt to fold his tent in South Carolina to lower expectations. But don't buy the line that he didn't make an effort. He did, but it was unsuccessful.
Chuck Norris brought his tough-guy approach to the campaign trail Sunday, taking aim at John McCain's age and suggesting the Arizona senator might not last even a single term.
Wow! I have to admit, I thought the Huckster might have gotten the vote with that crack about knowing where to stick the flagpole, but apparently South Carolinians are ready to get over the whole Confederate Flag business. It's a big win and if the rumors are true that Mel Martinez will endorse Senator McCain in Florida, then it's Katie bar the door. InTrade now has him at 49 cents to win a dollar if he gets the nomination.
Romney's win in the Nevada caucuses actually gets him more delegates, but Ron Paul's apparent fluke second actually detracts from the credibility of that contest
The proof of the power of McCain Derangement Syndrome is that its sufferers have flocked in their madness to Mitt Romney as the only decent conservative alternative. Mr Romney, an immaculately coiffed and coutured 60-year old with a beguiling smile and a dreamy look, is a kind of Dorian Gray figure. But somewhere in an attic there must be a portrait of him that reflects the intellectual contortions, moral compromise and shameless dishonesty that has characterised his bid for the presidency.
Until a year or two ago Mr Romney held a range of beliefs - on abortion and gay marriage, for example, that were well to the left of anything Mr McCain has ever said.
Romney Tries to Deny Lobbyists Running His Campaign
I don't know the whole story here, but what's important is that Plastic Man's media do not like him and do not trust him. McCain gets a lot of criticism from the GOP corner that the media like him too much; to which I have to reply, that's a bad thing?
Republicans are going into a tough year, folks. We need all the help we can get.
I got to ask the first question this time! I noted that he sounded a bit under the weather and he acknowledged that he had a little cold due to the amount of handshaking he has to do.
I asked him to give us an anecdote about an incident of personal heroism he had observed. He related a moving story about one of his fellow POWs at the Hanoi Hilton named Michael Christian. In the early years of his confinement, McCain and the other POWs were kept in solitary confinement or with one or two other cellmates. At some point their treatment eased and they were given more group living arrangements.
He described their prison uniforms as consisting of old blue trousers and sandals that had been made out of old rubber tires, but eventually the North Vietnamese allowed them to receive some packages from home, including handkerchiefs. Mike took one of these, some red cloth and a needle and fashioned himself a miniature American flag, which he sewed into the inside of his shirt.
But eventually the NV discovered the flag and confiscated it from Mike. That evening he received a beating for over an hour from the guards. Later, when all the men were asleep, Senator McCain noticed something. Over in the corner of the cell, there was Mike Christian, working with his needle to create another American flag.
I was almost unable to respond, I got so choked up. After the phone call, I decided to do a little googling on Mike Christian. Here's a photo of him with his wife:
Note the items Mrs Christian is holding in her left hand; I strongly suspect those were the POW bracelets that were distributed in the early 1970s. Unfortunately Mike died in an apartment fire only a decade after returning home. According to this page, he received two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, the Legion of Merit, and two Purple Hearts.
There were several other questions during the conference call. I was particularly enthralled by the discussion by Senator McCain and a blogger about the issue of climate change and potential global warming. The senator highlighted that he favored cap and trade solutions, and became quite animated when comparing that to a proposed 'carbon tax', which McCain strongly opposes. He pointed out that it was easy for the elites in Georgetown who can walk to work, but everyday Americans have to drive in to their places of employment. It was a great moment, a slam-dunk.
Thanks as always to Patrick Hynes and Senator McCain for allowing me to participate in this event.
