election

On paper, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal would appear to be the perfect candidate to help shepherd the Republican Party out of its post-election mire. A Rhodes scholar of Indian descent, who became the youngest governor in the country upon assuming office in 2007 at the age of 36, Jindal possesses the intellect, youth, and philosophical outlook to both satisfy the whims of the party's base and court the interest of young and non-white voters--demographic groups which the GOP has been haemorrhaging to the Democrats in recent election cycles.

As such, it should come as no real surprise that the Republican leadership saw it fit to hand Jindal the fillip of presenting the party's official televised rebuttal to President Barack Obama's first speech to Congress: a perfect opportunity to introduce himself to a national audience, articulate a distinct vision for America's present and future, and lay the foundations for an already-mooted presidential run in less than four years' time.

However, if Tuesday's address truly was the first litmus test of a potential Jindal candidacy, then perhaps he would be better off sticking to his pledge (made on last week's edition of 'Meet the Press') to focus solely on getting re-elected as governor in 2011.

Jindal's performance has drawn widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, and rightly so. With the country in the midst of a historically unprecedented economic implosion, and its citizens eagerly looking towards their democracy's political elders for both leadership and solace, the Louisiana governor comprehensively failed to substantively address the Presidential speech that preceded him, or perhaps more importantly discuss the topic of the economic crisis itself in a meaningful or engaging way.

Instead, the GOP's spokesman chose to deliver an oft-heard and well-trodden diatribe on why Republicans favoured a diminutive role for the state in government, punctuated with a catchphrase--"Americans can do anything"--which undoubtedly appeared rousing on paper but was sapped of any inspirational potency by Jindal's awkward, uneven and surprisingly unpolished delivery.

At a time when the vast majority of Americans now face uncertainty and trepidation on a daily basis due to the current economic crisis, those looking towards the Republican Party for leadership or solace on Tuesday night must have been sorely disappointed. The entire country has just experienced a two-year presidential race that was publicized and scrutinized to its last breath by the media--does the GOP really believe that there's anyone in the country in doubt as to what each party stands for? Do they think that voter confusion was the root of John McCain's defeat in the fall? Bipartisan governance is strongly desired by the electorate now more than ever--why shun the possibility of co-operation and return instead to the tired talking points of the last eight years at the very first opportunity?

While Jindal's performance was poor, the content of his message also deserves much criticism. Yes, there is need for stringent oversight on such a large and contrived spending package as the one in question to avoid a return to the pork-barrel politics that has become synonymous with Washington, unquestionably. However, if the Republican Party want to follow Barack Obama's lead and turn this theme into a communications strategy that really resonates with the American people, they first need to dilute down their obvious distaste for large, centralized government. There is an appetite across the developed world for an expanded fiscal role for government that only the most serious of crises can create: however inconvenient it may be, Republicans ignore this sentiment at their peril.

Governor Jindal's speech on Tuesday night did nothing to dispel the perception among liberals and conservatives alike that the Republican Party has become a party lacking in ideas. If anything, it should have sent alarm bells ringing within the party, and forced many who watched it to reconsider whether the comparisons frequently made between Jindal and President Obama are rooted more in superficiality than substance.

It appears that MSNBC may have finally made their much-anticipated decision as to who will succeed the late Tim Russert as the next host of Meet the Press: the most watched Sunday talk show in America and the longest-running television show in broadcast history. In an article posted Monday, The Huffington Post is reporting with some confidence that David Gregory has seen off stiff competition to land the coveted anchor role when Tom Brokaw's run as interim host wraps up in January.

While widely respected within the media world, and viewed by many as a rising star, the prospect of Gregory being handed the keys to arguably NBC's most prized broadcasting possession has actually appeared increasingly slim in recent months. Unable to carve out a slot for himself amongst MSNBC's stellar cast of polemicists, Gregory found himself saddled with Race for the White House in March of this year: a bland panel show covering the American presidential race that clearly lacked a creative direction and suffered from its tendency to recycle talking heads chosen largely from MSNBC's own in-house pool of talent. The decision to renew the show into the New Year--under the revised and equally uninspiring moniker 1600 Pennsylvania Drive--only cast further doubt as to whether Gregory would ultimately be handed an opportunity by the network to truly shine.

However, the decision to choose Gregory over flashier and more high profile candidates such as Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow is a huge vote of confidence for the Los Angeles native--and one that is justly deserved. Having engaged in a number of fiery exchanges with members of the Bush administration--the President himself included--while a member of the White House press corps, Gregory has quickly carved out a reputation for possessing excellent journalistic instincts, a rare ability to clearly identify "the story behind the story," and a tenacious and unrelenting style of interrogative pursuit: assets that would all mesh perfectly with the format of the highly decorated Sunday talk show.

Moreover, by choosing Gregory over Matthews and company--the pioneers of MSNBC's newfound strategy of jettisoning objectivity for opinion, which has seen the network mimic Fox News's rating success at the cost of drawing strong criticism during the presidential campaign season--MSNBC executives would ensure that the reputation of one of the few last great bastion's of balanced objectivity within the American third estate remains intact. Anyone who questions whether such an edifying description is truly merited need only look at Colin Powell's decision to announce his endorsement of Barack Obama's candidacy on the show a few weeks ago--and the almost country-wide outpouring of grief following Russert's death in June of this year

In November 1863, President Lincoln made Thanksgiving Day (up till then rather unofficial and only vaguely celebrated) a National Holiday, inviting his "fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

As an American sojourning abroad, Thanksgiving has always been a bit difficult to explain. If asked, most Americans would mention pilgrims and native Americans - because that is what we learned in school. The mythology goes: the pilgrims at Plymouth survived a long and arduous winter in their rather poorly chosen location because the local Wampanoag, among them Squanto, taught them how to grow corn and fish for eels, among other essential survival skills. A feast was had to celebrate this neighbourliness and give thanks to God that everyone made it through. And that was the first Thanksgiving.

As schoolchildren, we commemorated this story by making little pilgrim collars and feathered hats (yes, really) out of construction paper. That all seems a bit trivial now, more about a safe America we fantasise about rather than the complicated America we have - and always have had.

One feast becomes a tradition only over time, and Thanksgiving was celebrated haphazardly throughout the United States up until the Civil War, with different states observing some sort of semi-religious feast at different times.

When Lincoln asked his citizens to take pause, it was only three months after 50,000 people died, on both sides, in a three day period at Gettysburg. Notably, he asked Americans not just to reflect and give thanks for their "singular deliverances and blessings," of the past year but also to have "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience." You have much to be thankful for, Lincoln reminded us, but there is much to regret - and much to get done, "to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it ... to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."

There is much to regret. There is much to be done. This is Thanksgiving. Its history - like our history - is not something you would find in a storybook (and there are no convenient costumes) but is borne out of the best hopes of our dark, divided heart.

The Obama campaign pioneered the use of 21st century social networking in American electoral politics. Its My.BarackObama.com website was a small miracle of technology and tact, building a platform that at once spread information, enlarged the supporter base, directed energy and, most importantly, raised money. Barack's Twitter feed kept thousands of supporters (and foes) abreast of his latest speeches and rallies. Obama's campaign even deployed text messages on its path to victory, considerably defter and more modern than McCain's much maligned robo-calls.

I got my last "tweet" from Obama on the morning of the 5th: "We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks". My.BarackObama.com now offers it services as a blank and vague portal for "local organising"; activity has slowed markedly on the site. Electoral victory put an end to the campaigning purpose of such tools, which in the previous months had been meticulous in their direction. Once the means achieve their desired end, they end themselves.

Yet the President-elect rolled out a new website, Change.gov, aimed at making the process of transition more transparent. A noble intention, of course, but when that intention is bolstered by such saccharine and cringe-worthy blog posts as this, it seems risible at best, propagandist at worst. We don't need the organ of the President-elect to tell us that "Words like 'brilliant,' 'sharp,' 'energetic,' and 'visionary' are coming from across the political spectrum in praise for President-elect Barack Obama's choices to lead his economic team." As a friend pointed out, much of the site reads like official Chinese Communist Party newspapers.

It is disappointing that the energy and dynamism of the previous months seems lost on Change.gov. In the hands of Obama's campaign, the internet was perfectly harnessed to build momentum and galvanise support. His new venture on the internet is on the path to becoming a reminder of the stultifying effect of power.

Tempers are flaring in Minnesota, a state that has long prided itself on what its residents call 'Minnesota nice' (for an amusing portrayal of this style of behaviour, look no further than Fargo, perhaps the best film the Coen brothers have made to date). The pyrogen is the still unsettled Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. As of today, Coleman is only 215 votes in the lead. Yesterday, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com projected - with startlingly confident precision - that Franken would manage to push 27 votes into the lead by the end of the recount.

With the margins that small, the one thing we can be sure of is that the eventual victor - whoever he may be - will have a hard time convincing his opponents that he won fair and square. For a taster of what is to come, take a look at politico.com's latest article on the subject. It is an extremely biased piece of work entitled 'Sloppy Dems may spell Franken advantage' (the title alone cries out for the attention of an editor). It relies heavily on the opinions of a "veteran Minnesota election law attorney" named Robert Hentges, who has this to say:

“Democrats are [thought to be] more creative, free-spirited, so the idea is that they’re more likely to make a mistake that the optical scan won’t pick up. But when they recount the hard copy, those votes will be counted for Franken. If you talk to Republicans, they say it will be Franken’s advantage, because Democrats are stupid and will screw up ballots more often.”

Since the Politico reporter seems to take Hentges' suggestions at face value, it's a fair bet that this meme will have legs. Of course, many Minnesota Democrats are poorer than the average citizen, and so often have to deal with longer lines to vote, and less reliable equipment when they do. But that was also true in Florida eight years ago, and didn't stop Republicans from labelling Al Gore's supporters as undereducated African-Americans and senile old fools. The suggestion was, of course, that these voters didn't really deserve their votes in the first place. Expect to hear more of that if Franken manages a victory.

Update: It turns out that the headline of the Politico piece genuinely was in need of some editing. I e-mailed the author, Daniel Libit, with my concerns, and he agreed that the piece's title - which he didn't choose - was inappropriate. It has now changed to 'Franken hopes may turn on absentee issue', which is decidedly more neutral.

Following in our footsteps, a New York Times editorial today forcefully argues for the abolition of the electoral college in favour of the popular vote. There are numerous reasons to dispense with the creaking, archaic system: much of the initial rationale of the system lay in slavery; it is unconscionable that the presidency can be awarded to the candidate for whom fewer Americans vote (as happened in 2000); and the electoral college exaggerates the importance of votes in "swing states" like Ohio and Florida, while diminishing their significance in "safe states" like New York and Texas.

But most importantly, in my opinion, the system reduces the diverse political landscape of the country into monochrome blocks. It creates the crippling sense of a "red state" vs "blue state" divide. If a popular vote was in place, this perception would not have room to flourish. As the editorial points out, over 40% of voters in deep red Alabama cast their ballot for Obama, while 4.5 million Californians voted for McCain (equivalent to the number of votes the Republican got in Texas). If Obama is serious about transcending red-blue fissures, he should welcome the burgeoning national movement for the popular vote.

The significance of the transition period for an incoming presidential administration cannot be overstated: not only does it offer the opportunity for the President-elect to identify the priorities within his or her legislative and policy agenda for the forthcoming term, but it also represents the first true test of managerial acumen at the highest governmental level; just ask Bill Clinton, who endured a number of early and largely self-inflicted blows to his executive authority as a result of tardy mobilization and ill-judged selections for his supporting cast (cf. Zoe Baird).

As such, the actions of the Obama transition team in the coming weeks should not be observered merely for the sake of palace intrigue. Instead, like a candidate's general election campaign, transition offers a fleeting glimpse as to how well prepared a future Obama administration is to meet the challenges ahead, while at the same time acting as a rough indicator as to what the President-elect's advisers believe are the key issues that need to be addressed internally between now and January 20th 2009. Over the brief but fervent period of time that has elapsed since Obama's electoral victory, I would suggest that the following has rung true:

The Obama Moment in America reminds the Chicago anthropologist John Comaroff of the Mandela Moment in his native South Africa in the early 1990s. The whole world has embraced the Obama Moment as its own, Comaroff says, because it marks “the reentry of a pariah nation into the world” on the terms of a revived democracy.

Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with John Comaroff. (52 minutes, 24 mb mp3)

There’s a bracing analysis here from a man who makes it his business to jar our perspective — whose definition of anthropology boils down to “critical estrangement.” Anthropology won the election, Comaroff says, only half kidding. He means not just that Barack Obama is the son of an anthropologist but has a mind to stand outside the consensus when he must.

Senator Joe Lieberman has been a thorn in the Democrats' side for a long time, but relations have only worsened since Connecticut primary voters booted him off the party ticket in 2006. Lieberman reacted by separating himself from the party and running as an independent, despite his earlier promises not to do so. Having campaigned for him in the primaries, many of his Democratic colleagues switched their support to the official party nominee, much to Lieberman's chagrin. He won re-election anyway, and since then has repeatedly broken his campaign promise to be loyal to the Democrats, stumping for his old friend John McCain, smearing Barack Obama, and delivering the keynote address at the Republican convention.

It's no surprise, then, that the party base want revenge. There is already outrage at the gentle approach President-elect Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have taken thus far. However, they ought to remember the proverb about not cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Kicking Lieberman out of the party might send a message that disloyalty will be punished, but other than that it would accomplish precious little. It would be far wiser for Democrats to send a forgiving and non-partisan message, and keep Lieberman on board for important Senate votes. There is currently a real prospect of their controlling a 60-seat majority in the Senate, which would let them stop Republican filibusters derailing their legislative goals. These are still goals that Lieberman shares, despite his alienation from the party. Here's hoping Democrats don't give him more reason to subvert these goals. Lieberman is the one who has been cutting off his nose to spite his face, and there is still a chance that he will come to see that.

In the sixth part of his exchange with KA Dilday, Anthony Barnett realises that Obama's victory was hardly as comprehensive as it seemed. Catch up with part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. 

Dear Kay,

You are right to mull it over. There are big issues to be addressed, from celebrity to Afghanistan not to speak of the recession. But not immediately. I had a shock about 36 hours afterwards. I'd known - I'd put it as strongly as that - since January that Barack Obama could win and that in his case his race would not prevent this. I suppose I must have been too confident that he would. It was only afterwards that I suddenly saw how close it was. Obama needed Lehman Brothers to turn all the "palling around with terrorists" junk into froth.

One American in three did not vote at all! Most Americans did not vote for Obama. He got 66 million to McCain's 58 million votes. Nearly a quarter of the US's 300 million plus population are under 18, still leaving over 230 million of which less than 130 million voted. Obama got the actual votes of barely more than one in four American adults. He and his supporters must do something about the extent of what remains, in effect, a form of disenfanchisement in the USA.

Elsewhere in openDemocracy, Anita Inder Singh explores the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges facing the next president. Singh paints a bleak picture: "The Taliban now control at least one-third of the country; President Karzai's fledging elected government struggles to extend its authority beyond the capital Kabul; and wracked by growing divisions and doubts, NATO seems to be at risk of losing a seven-year old war." Read the rest of the article here.

 

Last Tuesday, Barack Obama won clear majorities in both the electoral college and the popular vote. Their divergence in 2000 remains an aberration in American political history; remarkably, the parties' support in different states is distributed in such a way that the winner of the popular vote will tend to win the electoral college (with Democrats currently having only a slight structural advantage due to the more efficient distribution of their vote).

In that respect, things are better in the US than in the UK, where the first-past-the-post system has often put one or other of the major parties at a disadvantage (as well as denying the significant number of third-party voters proportionate impact). However, we should not let this obscure the fact that the electoral college system has a number of other drawbacks.

First, it gives voters in low-population states like Vermont and Wyoming over twice as much weight as those in high-population states like New York and Texas.

Second, it hampers the growth of third parties. Some will regard that as a good thing, on the grounds that it encourages stability and forces compromise, but I disagree.

Third, it allows states to disenfranchise voters without losing clout. Southern states originally supported it for just this reason, as it let them increase their electoral college votes by counting their slave population (albeit at a discounted rate, with each slave worth three fifths of a free man).

Fourth, states in which one party has a comfortable margin suffer decreased turnout, as their residents feel that their votes will not make a difference.

Fifth, these states get less attention from the candidates than large swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which force politicians to pander to their particular needs. For example, John McCain's defeat in Iowa was ensured by his (admirable) refusal to follow Barack Obama in supporting ethanol subsidies.

There are moves afoot to overturn this flawed system. One of the cleverest, which bypasses the need to pass a constutional ammendment,is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.This is an agreement which kicks in when joined by enough states to command a majority in the electoral college, at which point these states promise to award their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. It has already been joined by Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland,and New Jersey. Let's hope that more states recognise the flawed nature of the current system, and join in the effort to reform it.

In the wake of Obama's victory, KA Dilday begins to digest an unprecedented result. Catch up with the earlier segments of her conversation wtih Anthony Barnett: part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.  

Dear Anthony:

From the moment the news was announced at about 4 am in London, and I heard the triumphant roar of the Harlem, New York City residents through the phone as I spoke to my sister overseas, I've been in a state of shock.  A black man with a funny name, and Hussein as a middle name no less, was elected president by more than half of the Americans who voted in the largest voter turnout in 100 years.

I never believed that enough of my fellow citizens would feel comfortable voting for a black man to be president for Obama to win. In a time of Islamophobia, I never believed that enough of my fellow citizens would feel comfortable voting for a man who had Muslim relatives for Obama to win. Until the moment when it became an irrefutable fact, I had underestimated my country.

So I consumed my dish of crow with relish.

One nagging concern though: while John McCain's concession speech was gracious, I inferred that he thought Barack Obama's success heralded the end of racism in America. Just as Thatcher's tenure as prime minister didn't mean the end of sexism in Britain, or Lula's and Morales' triumphs don't mean the end of classism in their respective countries, nor does Obama's success mean that racism no longer exists. But it does mean that for any one person with determination, anything is possible. And that is a powerful piece of knowledge to hold.

I think I'm going to take a few days to mull this over, Anthony, before we continue our conversation.

Kay

KA Dilday was recently a France-based fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs. She covered integration and immigration in France and traveled frequently to North Africa. She has written and edited for many American publications. She was an editor for the New York Times opinion page. 

 

Dennis highlights the success of California's Proposition 8, which amends the state constitution to ban gay marriage.  This was a bitter note in Tuesday's results, made all the more so by evidence that the surge in African-American turnout carried the proposition to victory. Gay rights activists clearly have a lot of work to do convincing socially conservative blacks, unless they plan on hoping that their high turnout was a passing aberration.

Other than continuing the slow process of convincing Americans of the rightness of their cause, or simply waiting for time to do its work as each new generation becomes more tolerant, these activists have a few options. Attorney Gloria Allred has already announced plans to challenge the constitutionality of the new constitutional amendment - unsurprisingly, this does not seem likely to succeed. Others are hoping to wait a few years and then introduce a new proposition to overturn this one - a prospect which suggests we may see decades of see-sawing court decisions and citizen initiatives.

In the meantime, what will happen to those same-sex couples who have already got married in California? Eugene Volokh has a good rundown of the possibilities. In brief, it appears quite possible that their marriages will be converted to domestic partnerships, either by the courts or by the legislature. Strangely enough, that would not provoke the ire of many who voted for Proposition 8 - a solid majority of Americans are comfortable with something very like gay marriage, so long as it is not called 'marriage'.

Despite the bad news in California, it is worth remembering that Connecticut and Massachusetts still have equal marriage rights, that New York recognises marriages in Massachusetts, and that President-elect Obama has promised to push for federal civil unions. Time remains the best ally supporters of gay marriage have on their side.

While the world celebrates Barack Obama's historic victory over John McCain, many ballot measures on the state level also deserve our attention (overview). Most controversial among them were the decisions on same-sex marriage and abortion that were up in several states.

With almost all states called, we have a pretty good picture of the electoral map. It looks like this:

Though not quite the stuff of Democrats' wildest fantasies (which featured Georgia and even Montana), this is about as good as they could have hoped for. It is already being called a "landslide" by the often restrained New York Times. Nonetheless, it looks somewhat less impressive than this:

Or this:

However,  those sorts of landslides look to be things of the past. America is now much more evenly split, with both parties calibrating their message so as to win 51% of the electorate. The Democrats in particular have moved to the centre ever since Bill Clinton, scarred by the experience of the 1984 and 1988 elections depicted above, in which their candidates were widely seen as too liberal. Of course, some commentators, like John Judis of the New Republic, are already interpreting this election as part of a leftward shift in the nation. They may well be right, and I am sure we shall be discussing this at openUSA over the coming weeks. But there is no missing the fact that many of the new congressmen the Democrats have gained are more conservative than their old colleagues. This is the result of a deliberate and apparently highly successful strategy of recruiting candidates in tune with their districts. It will help keep the Democrats close to the centre, and perhaps even mark the return of a South in which both parties are competitive. Perhaps then we may see an electoral map which is more uniformly blue.

In the first segment of a multi-part exchange, KA Dilday reminds Anthony Barnett of how Barack Obama's rise is very un-European. Read on: part II, part III, and part IV. 

Dear Anthony:

It's been several months since I told you that Barack Obama's nomination as the presidential candidate for a major political party, could only happen in America . But even as I said that, I also insisted that he would never be elected president because of his race, particularly since he was running against a patrician white man. Now, and I say this with a cautious optimism, it seems that on the night of 4 November (EST of course) I may be eating a dish of crow, and relishing every bite.

I've lived in three countries in Europe - France, The Netherlands and now the United Kingdom - and despite the western European belief, particularly in France, that their countries are more liberal and tolerant than the United States, none of them have ever voted someone from an ethnic minority to a major position in national government. France, despite having a Muslim population (mostly of north and sub-Saharan African descent) of nearly ten percent, has never elected any Muslims to their National Assembly, the directly-elected body of their bi-cameral parliament.

In a way I'm embarrassed that my excitement is based on a politics of identity - Obama's black, I'm black, hooray for the race! - because as a thoughtful person, I've always tried to base my decisions on a candidate's ideas and policies. And despite that I've always been registered as a political independent, unaffiliated with either major party, I didn't vote for another black man, Jesse Jackson, when he ran as an independent candidate for president in 1988. But I can't deny the thrill I felt when I colored in the dot next to Barack Obama's name on the absentee ballot that I scoured the mail for each day until it finally came last Monday. I'm still expecting an unpleasant surprise. I don't think the exposure of Obama's aunt as an illegal alien will derail him, but who knows what the Republican's dirty tricks strategists will throw up. They're fiendishly clever and unabashedly dissolute when it comes to winning elections. But could it be? A black man, president of the United States! Who would have thought it in my lifetime?

Optimistically yours,

Kay

KA Dilday was recently a France-based fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs. She covered integration and immigration in France and traveled frequently to North Africa. She has written and edited for many American publications. She was an editor for the New York Times opinion page. 

The networks are calling crucial state after crucial state for Obama, and Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com has just called the whole race. Upsets can always happen, but I think we can rely on his judgement. There will be more on this historic result tomorrow at openUSA.

If the Presidential race provides insufficient drama tonight, watch out for the results of the Senate races also taking place. There look likely to be some real nail-biters. Foremost among these is the match-up in Georgia between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin. The race looks so close that it may end up in a December runoff, prolonging the election season yet further. Another close race is in Minnesota, with comedian Al Franken challenging Republican Senator Norm Coleman. This should have been a solid Democratic gain this year, but Franken has proved to be a less than ideal candidate, with the race essentially tied in the polls.

The outcome of these races should interest us all, even if we are not Minnesotans or Georgians. The workings of the Senate mean that a minority of over 40 can effectively stall any legislation, so the Democrats are desperately hoping they can reach 60 seats. It looks unlikely at the moment, but if this is truly a landslide for Obama, he may have sufficiently long coat-tails to get his party there. Amid all the excitement and triumphalism that would surround an Obama victory, we should not forget that he may have a difficult time bringing about the change he has promised.

Update: The Democrats have managed to win Elizabeth Dole's seat in North Carolina, a pleasing result for them...

The Huffington Post is carrying an intriguing story regarding a survey conducted exactly two years ago by polling company SurveyNow, gauging the balance of voter support across the country in the event of a hypothetical Barack Obama-John McCain presidential showdown in 2008.

Interviewing 600 voters in each state, SurveyUSA was able to extrapolate that an Obama candidacy would take Illinois, Hawaii and the District of Columbia-and that's it. This would have left him with a grand total of 28 total electoral votes, and culminated in a landslide victory for John McCain.

If Howard Wilson was right in his assertion that a week is a long time in politics, then this should prove ample evidence that two years is a very very long time indeed.