Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Catholics have emerged as a pivotal swing vote in recent presidential races. Evenly divided in a poll over the summer, Catholics make up about a quarter of the national electorate and about a third in the pivotal battleground states of Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Women have voted in greater proportions than men for almost three decades. But the hard-fought candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket have put new cultural and ideological elements more fully into play.
Senator Obama is the first presidential candidate to shun public financing, confident that he can keep reeling in small and large donations from his army of givers, which now numbers more than 2.5 million people. Obama has more than $US77 million in cash on hand, according to aides, and will seek to press home his advantage.
Senator Obama knew what he was getting when he picked Senator Biden: A veteran of six terms in the Senate, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, an Irish Catholic with working-class roots, a guy who had twice been tested in the arena of presidential politics. And a human verbal wrecking crew.
Senator John McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and the resulting jolt of energy among Republican voters appear to have caught Senator Barack Obama and his advisers by surprise and added to concern that the Obama campaign was not pushing back hard enough against Republican attacks.
Democrats are calling each other up to discuss how doomed they are, vowing to move to Canada as soon as the election is over and the inevitable worst has occurred. Really, we evacuated several hurricane-prone states with more cheer and optimism. Cheer up, Obama-ites. You’re overreacting.
Somebody needs to tell Senator Barack Obama that if he wants the chance to calmly answer the phone at 3 a.m. in the White House, he is going to need to start slamming down some phones at 3 p.m. along the campaign trail. I like much of what he has to say, especially about energy, but I don’t think people are feeling it in their guts, and I am a big believer that voters don’t listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs.
Senator Obama’s advisors said that combative edge was essential to blunt any progress Senator McCain was making as he sought to encroach on Mr. Obama’s trademark message of change. But Mr. Obama’s remarks are curiously reminiscent — right down to that mocking tone — to words he spoke nearly a year ago when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly tried to swipe the mantle of change and Mr. Obama demonstrated a fight that many had doubted he could muster.
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are confronting a sharply abbreviated general election campaign season, the product of the late nominating conventions and a boom in early voting in tightly contested states. This shortened timetable is forcing both campaigns to recalibrate the pace of television advertisements, accelerate voter turnout operations and tailor the candidates’ traveling schedules to accommodate states where voting is imminent.
Senators Barack Obama and John McCain each cite the mess at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a consequence of the corrosive coziness of lobbyists and politicians that they promise to end. But each man and his party also have ties to the fallen giants that will complicate the next president’s job of reshaping the mortgage finance companies that have been essential to the economy. And neither man has a record of directly challenging the companies they now criticize.