Obama/Bloomberg? Obama/Clinton?

There has been a bit of buzz around regarding Mike Bloomberg introducing Barak Obama today. There seems to be something appealing to people about a Obama/Bloomberg ticket. I think Jennifer Skalka at On Call gets it pretty much right about the chances of such a ticket, however.

What is most interesting is her final reason for why such a ticket is unlikely:

Reason 4: And finally, I think the longer this Dem fight continues, the more likely it is that Obama has no choice but to run with Hillary Clinton. Yes, I know this potentially violates my Reasons 2 and 3. And, yes, I know they're scratching each other's eyes out. I also know that she's provided the GOP with their talking points -- Obama isn't ready to be commander in chief or a steward of the economy. But, how are the dissatisfied masses of her supporters, after a possible floor fight, going to be placated? Ok, Obama/Clinton is no longer looking like The Dream Ticket -- even the folks at the Kodak Theatre debate might, these days, cringe at the suggestion. Call it The Misery Ticket. And let's get on with it.

I'm not sure I'm as convinced as she is that this is a real possibility, given all of the enmity generated by the campaign. I'm also not quite as willing to ignore her second point about the need to pick someone with a geographic advantage. That being said, the world in which the Obama campaign has to woo back the Clinton supporters in a firestorm 3 month process sure is depressing. The easiest way to solve that problem would be a joint ticket. I'm just not sure what Clinton gets out of the deal. And can Obama continue to be the "change" candidate with a Clinton on the ticket?

What effect would this have on down-ticket races? In some ways you would see the good of uniting the party without the bad of needing to focus on specific states during the general election. At the same time, the worry that Clinton drives Republican turnout more than Obama or McCain would likely apply as much to her as VP as it would to her at the top of the ticket. But with six more months of working to unite the GOP and brandish his Conservative bonafides, McCain may have less of a problem doing that himself than was once thought.

Implications of Gallup's Dem Defections

Two interesting points on the Gallup survey I linked to earlier, which finds that 28% of Clinton supporters would defect to McCain if Obama were the nominee versus 19% of Obama supporters who would do the same if Clinton were the nominee.

1) From Pew Research via Brian Schaffner via Mark Blumenthal, this type of threatend defection is not uncommon. In 2000, 14% of McCain backers said that they would vote for Gore rather than Bush. Two points here. First, 14% is a long way off from 28%. Second, and this is a point that Schaffner makes, Bush had over 7 months to recover from the diletarious effects fo the primary campaign. How long the Democratic nominee (likely Barak Obama) has to recover has a lot to do with when Clinton chooses to make an exit. If it is not until August at the convention, leaving Obama only 3 months to convince the base that they should come out to the polls, we may see a very different result.

2) More convincingly, Blumenthal points out that:

the Gallup analysis focuses solely on self-identified Democrats that say they vote in primaries. It does not cover to the ability of the two Democrats to attract independent or cross-over support from those who say they do not vote in Democratic primaries.

The implication of this is that while the Gallup poll shows a large difference in defections between Clinton and Obama to McCain (28% vs. 19%), the polling questions and methodology do not take into account the independents who would defect from Obama to McCain if Clinton were the nominee. In fact, Blumenthal goes on to note

Pew's Scott Keeter reported
that roughly equal numbers of voters are Obama-not-Clinton or
Clinton-not-Obama in matchups against John McCain. It would be
interesting to replicate those calculations using the Gallup Daily
data, although the fact that Obama gets 44% and Clinton 45% against
McCain suggests that the rough parity in these defector/cross-over
groups persists.

In fact, according to a new poll by NBC/WSJ, Obama may have an easier time bringing in Democrats than the Gallup poll suggests.

Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating
(35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29).
Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially,
should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.

Party Leaders' Dilemma

Brendan Nyhan applies the classic economic coordination and collective action problems to Dem party leaders' reluctance to take sides on the current primary battle. (h/t Marc Ambinder)

This analysis is quite convincing, except that the potential benefits may be starting to outweight the potential costs for party leaders of taking action. Nancy Pelosi is making some public moves to validate Obama as the eventual nominee by taking his position on the responsibility of superdelegates, and Harry Reid is making cryptic comments about potential actions being taken to ensure that we have a nominee before the DNC in August.

With new analysis from Gallup suggesting that 28% of Clinton supporters say that they would prefer McCain to Obama, any back room deal, which does not come off as truly the wish of Hillary Clinton risks alienating a large chunk of the Democratic party base. Just like the potential damage caused by superdelgates overturning the popular will of Democratic primary voters to support Clinton over Obama (based on delegate math or on the popular vote) at the convention, this type of action has potentially dire consequences. This is particularly important to conisder in light of 2008 Congressional elections. In close races in the Northeast, where a realignment is on its way to being fully completed, such as CT-04, NY-25, NJ-03, and in heavily Hispanic districts in the West such as NM-01, AZ-01, NV-03, turning off the Democratic base and causing them either to vote for McCain or, more likely, not to vote at all, could be particularly problematic. Chris Shays might be able to do enough to capture Obama voting independents in order to secure reelection if the Democratic base does not come out to support Jim Himes.

Party leaders likely need to act in order to avert a disaster caused by a chronically competitive presidential primary, but they also need to tread lightly.

GOP Attrition and the Presidential Elections

Darryl or I will write a real introductory post at some point, but I figured I'd just start writing before we had time to construct something cohesive.

One thing that has become quite apparent about the 2008 Congressional elections is the sorry state of the GOP. 5 GOP Senators are not seeking reelection, as compared to 0 Dems. 26 GOP House seats are open this cycle, as opposed to 7 Dems.

None of this is new information, and the attrition of GOP candidates, either new or currently serving, continues day by day. The latest is in NY-25 where the GOP's only candidate, Peter Cappuccilli Jr., has recently withdrawn his candidacy due to health concerns (h/t Hotline On Call).

What is particularly interesting is that even as the bloodbath that is the current state of the Democratic presidential race continues, causing a disadvantage for either Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton against GOP nom. John McCain, GOP incumbents and challengers continue to abandon ship.

McCain has, so far, been succesfull in distancing himself from the dismal reputation of the Bush Administration. The question in November will be, can Republican congressional candidates do the same? And will the disarray at the top of the Democratic ticket help Republicans retain seats? Right now, it doesn't look like if the GOP candidates think it will be enough.