Predictions

I don't have much of a track record with electoral predictions, so I'll just endorse this one, from Mike Lux. Mike's one of the invisible geniuses of Democratic politics, one of the very few people who can bridge the worlds of outside activist groups, donors, the party, and the realm of ideas -- without losing sight of his core values. Long ago, Mike was describing the outlines of the "citizen-based movement, independent of the party, that?s integrated, that?s effective" that Harold Meyerson proclaimed a done deal in the LA Weekly a few days ago.

Lux's prediction is basically that Kerry does four points better than the last polls in most of the swing states, which would result in a pretty solid electoral college win, and he's also reasonably optimistic about the Senate races outside of the South. That's about where I see things, Osama or No-sama. It's not because I believe in the iron law that undecideds break for the challenger, because in presidential races they obviously don't always. But the particular dynamics of this race are such that Bush has essentially demanded an all or nothing choice, and if a voter hasn't signed on yet, I don't know what's going to make them. (Although for every ultra-thoughtful undecided voter interviewed in the paper today, there's one whose logic is utterly impenetrable, like the woman interviewed last week who thought that Bush would do more to keep down prescription drug costs and she hadn't heard Kerry mention that.)

The real question is still turnout and new voters, and that's where the four points will come from. I had my doubts, but it does all seem to be coming together. Let's look at the alternative argument. I've started reading the right-wing blog redstate.org, a dailykos clone, although humorless and entirely without subtlety, and here's their case against Kerry's chances:

Kerry is running even in New Jersey and Hawaii, two Democratic states. He has pulled out of Colorado. He and Bush are focusing on the same core states, but Kerry is having to defend more. In addition, and a weakness of Kerry's campaign, grassroots activism has been outsourced to 527 organizations. Coordination with the candidate is illegal. The Bush campaign, on the other hand, has had an iron hand clenched around its 72, now 96, hour program. It knows who will be voting on a block by block basis in most, if not all, of the swing states.

If Bush can turn out his voters, he will win.

The interesting thing about this analysis is that it is demonstrably false in each and every particular: New Jersey is not in play, and Bush is still well below 50% in Hawaii, a weird glitch which the Democrats dealt with in time. Colorado would have been a bonus, and might still be. The only states Kerry is still seriously "defending" that Gore won are Wisconsin and Iowa, whereas Bush is "defending" the much larger states of Ohio and Florida as well as Nevada and New Hampshire. And while I have always worried about the "outsourcing" of political activity to independent groups, and especially about disconnecting advertising from the candidate, I have seen absolutely no sign that it has been any kind of a problem at all in the voter turnout activities. I'm sure that Americans Coming Together and the other 527s will ultimately turn out to be a mixed bag, with some areas a mess and others very strong. But none of the problems that I have heard about seem related to lack of coordination with the Kerry campaign, and there are many reasons to believe that the effort is much stronger for being able to operate independently. It is just so clear cut that the more people vote, especially new and infrequent voters, Democrats will win, that there is no need at all for any kind of coordination on message.

I'm sure it's true that the Bush campaign's "96 Hour Program" for voter turnout is much more tightly controlled and that they know their voters. But they have to. Even if Rove's fantasy of 4 million missing white evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 because they were turned off by the news of Bush's DUI were totally true, the Bush campaign would still have to find those voters and identify them. The potential pool of missing voters for Kerry is much larger, and you don't need as precise a list: increasing the number of new voters, young voters, African-American and Hispanic voters, and women will serve the purpose quite well, even if a few Bush voters get caught in the net.

p.s. When I first posted this, I didn't link to this historical analysis from earlier in the week that demonstrated that undecideds don't always break for the challenger in presidential elections, which raised some questions. I found this analysis generally persuasive, though not relevant. The best example of an incumbent getting the break is Ford in 1976, who mounted a ferocious comeback which despite his loss is still considered one of the most successful moves in modern politics. He almost got out of the hole Dick Cheney and Dick Nixon had dug for him. The other examples are mostly cases where a challenge failed to materialize, such as Stevenson in 1956, McGovern in 1972, and Mondale in 1984. By the last weekend, it was pretty obvious they were losers and undecideds went with the winner. But those examples don't apply here, and neither does Ford. Ford was the incumbent, but he was carrying Nixon's baggage, and as he separated himself and voters became comfortable with him on his own, he got a second look. Bush's baggage is his own.