Frederick C Harris writes: When African-Americans go to the polls next week, they are likely to support Barack Obama at a level approaching the 95 percent share of the black vote he received in 2008. As well they should, given the symbolic exceptionalism of his presidency and the modern Republican Party’s utter disregard for economic justice, civil rights and the social safety net.

But for those who had seen in President Obama’s election the culmination of four centuries of black hopes and aspirations and the realization of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a “beloved community,” the last four years must be reckoned a disappointment. Whether it ends in 2013 or 2017, the Obama presidency has already marked the decline, rather than the pinnacle, of a political vision centered on challenging racial inequality. The tragedy is that black elites — from intellectuals and civil rights leaders to politicians and clergy members — have acquiesced to this decline, seeing it as the necessary price for the pride and satisfaction of having a black family in the White House.

These are not easy words to write. Mr. Obama’s expansion of health insurance coverage was the most significant social legislation since the Great Society, his stimulus package blunted much of the devastation of the Great Recession, and the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul added major new protections for consumers. His politics would seem to vindicate the position of civil rights-era leaders like Bayard Rustin, who argued that blacks should form coalitions with other Democratic constituencies in support of universal, race-neutral policies — in opposition to activists like Malcolm X, who distrusted party politics and believed that blacks would be better positioned to advance their interests as an independent voting bloc, beholden to neither party.

But the triumph of “post-racial” Democratic politics has not been a triumph for African-Americans in the aggregate. It has failed to arrest the growing chasm of income and wealth inequality; to improve prospects for social and economic mobility; to halt the re-segregation of public schools and narrow the black-white achievement gap; and to prevent the Supreme Court from eroding the last vestiges of affirmative action. The once unimaginable successes of black diplomats like Colin L. Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Susan E. Rice and of black chief executives like Ursula M. Burns, Kenneth I. Chenault and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. cannot distract us from facts like these: 28 percent of African-Americans, and 37 percent of black children, are poor (compared with 10 percent of whites and 13 percent of white children); 13 percent of blacks are unemployed (compared with 7 percent of whites); more than 900,000 black men are in prison; blacks experienced a sharper drop in income since 2007 than any other racial group; black household wealth, which had been disproportionately concentrated in housing, has hit its lowest level in decades; blacks accounted, in 2009, for 44 percent of new H.I.V. infections. [Continue reading…]

Frank Bruni writes: After “a couple of Cadillacs,” a summer belly-flop abroad, a dismissive swipe at 47 percent of the population and a convention best remembered for Clint Eastwood’s chat with a chair, Mitt Romney is seemingly tied with President Obama. He has a real chance. It’s a remarkable turn of events, given how many errors he’s made and how ill suited he is to this particular juncture in the American story. And to size up the situation honestly is to consider one conclusion as seriously as any other:

Obama isn’t quite the candidate, or politician, he’s cracked up to be. The One is a fraction of his reputed self.

Yes, I know: the economy. It’s supposedly the source of most of his woes, the great weight he lugs around, a nearly fatal handicap. And the fact that he’s doing as well as he is affirms the sway of his personality and sense of his policies, at least according to his most fervent admirers.

I don’t buy it. For starters, a great many Americans understand that he doesn’t bear primary responsibility for the high rate of unemployment and the drops in home prices and incomes. A CNN/ORC poll last month showed that 54 percent of likely voters placed the blame chiefly on George W. Bush and Republicans.

Additionally, 68 percent indicated some optimism about economic conditions, which they said would be “somewhat good” or “very good” in a year. There’s room in those numbers for Obama to pull well ahead of a rival as profoundly flawed as Romney. Yet he hasn’t. [Continue reading…]

Saeed Kamali Dehghan writes: Mitt Romney is not particularly new to gaffes but when it comes to one about the relationship between Syria and Iran, he has shown extraordinary courage in repeating it at least six times just in the past year.

During last night’s foreign policy debate, Romney said: “Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea.”

In fact, Iran, a close ally of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has direct access to international waters through its large coastline on the Gulf and is not even a neighbour to Syria in order to rely on it as a route to the sea.

Instead, Syria gives Iran a physical access to Lebanon and its Hezbollah militia which is strategically important for Tehran leaders because of the group’s geographical position in respect to Israel.

It is not the first time that governor Romney has referred to Syria as a country that provides Iran with a route to the sea.

In March, Romney made the exact gaffe at AIPAC conference.

Matt Stoller writes: The big economic strategy for the next term of whoever is Presidenti is essentially, “turn those machines back on”. It’s fracking to replace cheap oil and a new real estate bubble in housing. Essentially, the idea is to turn America into more and more of a resource extraction economy, or a petro-state. If American politics seems more and more oligarchical, that’s because the American political system is beginning to reflect the Middle Eastern oil states its economic investment implies it should. Here are a series of charts explaining what is going on.

First, this is data showing investment in various investment sectors.

American politics looks increasingly like a petro-state, and this chart shows why. In the 1990s, particularly the late 1990s, the Clinton economy showed parity between manufacturing of computers/electronic products and mining (mostly oil and gas extraction). The Bush economy, starting in 2003 when the invasion of Iraq went sour, saw enormous hockey stick like investment in fracking, tar sands, and other types of extractive mining. Technology investment showed a slight decline. Obama by and large has sustained these trends. [Continue reading…]

Richard Falk writes: In 2008, Barack Obama rekindled faith in the American electoral process for many, and revived the deeper promise of American democracy, bringing to the foreground of the national political experience a brilliant and compassionate African American candidate.

When Obama actually won the presidency, it was one of the most exciting political moments in my lifetime, and rather reassuring as a sequel to the dark years of George W Bush’s presidency.

Of course, many Americans didn’t share such positive feelings. An important embittered minority believed that the election of a liberal-minded black man was the lowest point ever reached in national politics, challenging this segment of society that now was deeply alienated from the prevailing political current to mobilise their forces so as to win back control of the country on behalf of white Christian Americans, and also a time to indulge such absurd scenarios as an imminent Muslim takeover of the society.

Such polarisation, gave rise to an Islamophobic surge that revived the mood of fear and paranoia that followed upon the 9/11 attacks and was reinforced by evangelical enthusiasm for Israel. In this regard, the Obama phenomenon was a mixed blessing as it contributed to a rising tide of rightest politics in the US that poses unprecedented dangers for the country and the world.

Nevertheless, as mentioned, Obama’s campaign and election was at the time a most welcome development, although not entirely free from doubts. From the outset, my hopes were tinged with concerns, although I did my best to suspend disbelief.

All along I found little evidence that Obama’s leadership would liberate the governing process from its threefold bondage to Wall Street, the Pentagon and Israel. Such a political will to mount such a challenge was never in evidence and never materialised. [Continue reading…]

Thomas B. Edsall writes: Early in the general election campaign, Mitt Romney made it clear that he was not going to disclose the details of his plans before voters cast their ballots.

“One of the things I found in a short campaign against Ted Kennedy was that when I said, for instance, that I wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, that was used to suggest I don’t care about education,” Mitt Romney told the Weekly Standard in an interview published April 2:

So I think it’s important for me to point out that I anticipate that there will be departments and agencies that will either be eliminated or combined with other agencies. So for instance, I anticipate that housing vouchers will be turned over to the states rather than be administered at the federal level, and so at this point I think of the programs to be eliminated or to be returned to the states, and we’ll see what consolidation opportunities exist as a result of those program eliminations. So will there be some that get eliminated or combined? The answer is yes, but I’m not going to give you a list right now.

This was a dangerous assertion. It amounted to waving a red flag in front of reporters.

With the presidential election just two weeks away, Romney’s gamble may be paying off. He has failed to specify where he would wield the budget knife, and he has defied, with a striking degree of success, the relatively quiet group of people who have called for him to honor a host of traditional disclosure and campaign practices. [Continue reading…]

A correspondent for Tehran Bureau reports: If there were global statistics regarding which nations have been paying the most attention to the U.S. presidential campaign, Iran would probably be at the top. The crushing sanctions imposed over the past year aimed at forcing Iran to curb or abandon its nuclear program have created more pain than ever for average Iranians. They see President Barack Obama as prepared to effectively destroy their country’s economy even as he has shown that he is not eager to launch a military strike on the Islamic Republic.

On the other hand, they consider former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as George W. Bush redux, and many believe that, if elected president, he will order a military attack on Iran.

“I believe it would be better if Romney was elected. We will suffer for a month, and then we will be all set,” says Ali Reza, 34, who peddles jeans around Rah Ahan Circle in south Tehran. What if armed conflict turns Iran into another Iraq? I ask. “That would be a catastrophe, by God!” he replies. “What can I say? They are both awful choices. Our luck here is that whichever way we turn, it’s a misfortune.”

Heading up to Vali Asr Square, I get into the front seat of a cab. The driver, Mahmoud, is playing a pop tune on his stereo. I ask him who he prefers, Obama or Romney. “This Islamic Republic that we see here needs a fist over its head. Obama has made a fool of himself for four years. Someone has to come and put these guys in their places.”

Across from the Tehran City Theater stand three young adults — two women and a man, students at the nearby Art College. I ask what they think of the American political system. Laleh, 21, says, “The two U.S. parties seem the same to me, except that the Democrats keep their cards over the table, while the Republicans keep them under the table. But the Democrats are quite slick.”

I ask for her election prediction. “If Romney wins, Obama’s long-term programs will be put aside. But it is clear that Obama will win.”

Houman, 24, says that he has enjoyed following the campaign. “It’s become complicated. It is very close.”

Who does he prefer? I ask.

“There’s no difference!”

“Not at all?”

“Their Iran policies match. Obama will have to get fervid too.”

I remind him that Romney has criticized Obama for interceding on behalf of the Green Movement after its rise in 2009. Houman says, “Ya, I was totally against interceding. It would have made things worse.”

I ask if he believes there would have been any difference if Romney had been in office? “Obama chose that position at the request of the Green Movement leaders and their own calculus. If Romney believes in the Green Movement, he should study some of Mir Hossein Mousvai’s communiqués.”

Mousavi, the former prime minister, issued a series of communiqués during and after his 2009 campaign as a reformist candidate for the Iranian presidency (the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was declared the winner of the June vote amid widespread accusations of electoral fraud). In his seventh of these statements, Mousavi said that the regime’s crushing of domestic media outlets was opening the door to foreign intervention.

In his ninth communiqué, issued in July 2009 after the postelection protests and their violent suppression by the authorities, he added, “No matter how bitter this situation, it’s a feud between kindred, and we will regret it if we act immaturely and involve outsiders.”

Houman glances at his watch and sees that he has time to continue with the conversation. “The Republicans who attack Obama about the Green Movement didn’t speak up back then.”

And Romney?

He replies, “He is better than other Republican candidates, more moderate and more realistic.” He adds, “He seems to be a more intelligent person compared to George Bush’s team.”

With no security agents visible in the immediate vicinity, Golnoosh, who appears to be Houman’s girlfriend, is clasping his arm. “The issue of Iran has no effect on the U.S. voters,” she says. “Look, [former Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger in his recent interview said the same things about Iran as [Ambassador to the United Nations] Susan Rice and [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton have said. American foreign policy has never been so homogeneous over the last decade.”

How so?

“Because they have gone through major crises, like the Iraq war and Bin Laden, and nobody relishes making up new crises.”

Houman agrees. “Obama himself knows that this is not the time to attack Iran.” [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: The White House, under political pressure to respond forcefully to the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, is readying strike forces and drones but first has to find a target.

And if the administration does find a target, officials say it still has to weigh whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on al-Qaida is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group’s profile in the region, alienate governments the U.S. needs to fight the group in the future and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.

Details on the administration’s position and on its search for a possible target were provided by three current and one former administration official, as well as an analyst who was approached by the White House for help. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the high-level debates publicly.

In another effort to bolster Libyan security, the Pentagon and State Department have been developing a plan to train and equip a special operations force in Libya, according to a senior defense official.

Mairav Zonszein reports: in In mid-July, two prominent Republicans were enjoying the goods at a boutique winery in the Israeli settlement Psagot in the West Bank. Former George W. Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and Republican Jewish Coalition director Matt Brooks weren’t on vacation, but touring Israel in an effort to lobby American citizens to vote for Mitt Romney in November. Their hosts? “iVoteIsrael,” a group aiming to get Americans in Israel to cast ballots in the upcoming presidential election.

Launched by a group of American immigrants, iVoteIsrael believes Israelis “need a president in the White House who will stand by Israel in absolute commitment to its safety, security and right to defend itself.” The campaign facilitates online registration and collects absentee ballots at its many drop-box locations — including in settlements like Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion — which will then be mailed to the U.S. on voters’ behalf. But iVoteIsrael’s close ties to Republican officials, demagogic messaging and pro-settlement proclivities all point to a partisan bent — and their handling of absentee ballots may be in violation of U.S elections law.

The campaign comes at a fraught moment in the U.S.-Israel relationship, with Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at loggerheads over Iran policy, just as they clashed over settlements two years ago. Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, on the other hand, said he would never criticize Israel publicly or take any policy decisions without consulting with Netanyahu. Romney’s contention that Obama “threw Israel under the bus” because of public opposition to settlements and insufficient bellicosity toward Iran aligns him with positions held by Netanyahu and the Israeli right, including Israel’s decidedly Republican Jewish-American population.

With 163,000 eligible American voters living throughout Israel and the West Bank — as many as 10,000 registered just in the crucial battleground state of Florida — a strong showing of absentee voters from the Holy Land could swing the election. And iVoteIsrael knows it, spotlighting slim electoral margins in its messaging and citing the controversial 2000 Gore-Bush standoff decided by a few hundred absentee ballots in Florida. [Continue reading…]

Playwrite David Macaray indulges in some creative scripting for a presidential debate.

1. What was the most difficult class you took in college? Good question. Gives them a chance to come off as pleasantly humble. If they say Organic Chemistry, we know they’re not lying. If they can’t recall even one class that gave them trouble, it’s not going to ruin them, but they’ll come off as inattentive or evasive.

2. What trait or talent does your opponent possess that you most admire or wish you possessed? Wouldn’t we all like to know this? Mitt might say he wished he could debate or play basketball as well as the President, and Obama might say he envied Mitt because, as a Mormon, he gets to wear magic underwear.

3. With the exception of your wife or mother, what woman has had the most profound effect on your life? Tough question, especially being sprung without warning. That’s why it would be fascinating to hear their answers.

4. Who are your favorite writers? They better have some, otherwise they’re going to sound uninformed, uninquisitive and uncultured….positively Palinesque.

5. Who are your favorite singers or musical groups? We’d all like to know this. Wouldn’t it be shocking if Obama said he liked the Carpenters and Eagles, and Romney admitted to being a fan of Lil’ Kim?

6. Do you believe that, even with its atrocious human rights record, we should continue to give financial aid to Ruwati? A trick question meant to test their honesty. There is no such country as Ruwati. Would these guys admit to having never heard of the place, or would they try to bullshit us? [Continue reading…]

Noam Chomsky writes: With the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza reaching its peak, it’s useful to ask how the political campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we face. The simple answer is: badly, or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do about it?

There are two issues of overwhelming significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental disaster, and nuclear war.

The former is regularly on the front pages. On Sept. 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in The New York Times that the melting of Arctic sea ice had ended for the year, “but not before demolishing the previous record – and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region.”

The melting is much faster than predicted by sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N. report on global warming. New data indicate that summer ice might be gone by 2020, with severe consequences. Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050.

“But governments have not responded to the change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions,” Gillis writes. “To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil” – that is, to accelerate the catastrophe.

This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary willingness to sacrifice the lives of our children and grandchildren for short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an equally remarkable willingness to shut our eyes so as not to see the impending peril.

That’s hardly all. A new study from the Climate Vulnerability Monitor has found that “climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the next two decades.” The study was widely reported elsewhere but Americans have been spared the disturbing news.

The official Democratic and Republican platforms on climate matters are reviewed in Science magazine’s Sept. 14 issue. In a rare instance of bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the problem worse. [Continue reading…]

BuzzFeed reports: Mitt Romney’s foreign policy address offered the clearest articulation yet of his relationship to George W. Bush’s Freedom Agenda, offering a vision distinctly shaped by Bush’s views, but tempered by difficult lessons of 11 years of American war in the Muslim world.

Bush’s foreign policy legacy, at a low when he departed from office in the throes of an unpopular occupation of Iraq and deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, is in the early stages of a rehabilitation, at least in some circles. Bush’s defenders see the Arab Spring as the outcome of his belief in democracy in the region and, some argue, his invasion of Iraq — a notion most of the the regional leaders of the Arab Spring reject. And they note that his failures to resolve the standoff between Israel and the Palestinian leadership was followed by Obama’s similar failure, while Obama has unexpectedly embraced some of Bush’s more muscular national security tools.

But it was Romney’s speech, and its echoes of the Freedom Agenda, that drew rave reviews from some of the leading avatars and supporters of the clear and combative foreign policy of Bush’s first term.

“Terrific, comprehensive speech by Gov. Romney,” Bush’s first term Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted “He knows America’s role in the world should be as a leader not as a spectator.”

Romney’s speech offers a new Republican articulation of the Bush doctrine of moral clarity, wielded — as Romney said — “wisely, with solemnity and without false pride” to “make the world better—not perfect, but better.”

“What’s not to like?” asked Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, a leading foreign policy hawk and backer of Bush’s war in Iraq, who called the speech “kinder, gentler neocon.”

Kristol’s fellow travelers on the neoconservative right were ebullient. [Continue reading…]

Gary Younge writes: At a dinner table in Akron, Ohio, recently half a dozen Democratic activists took a break from trashing Ralph Nader for allowing a Bush victory in 2000 to discuss the material benefits of Barack Obama’s first term. One had been able to keep his children on his healthcare plan after graduation; another with a pre-existing condition had been able to move plans without penalty. Then there was an awkward silence, broken by the mention of the jobs saved in Toledo, 140 miles away, by the auto bailout. That brought us on to Republican Mitt Romney’s call to “Let Detroit go bankrupt“. And soon, the conversation is flowing as easily as the beer as talk turns to how bad things might have been – and could yet be – with Republicans at the helm.

Such are the cramped parameters within which Democratic loyalists converse. Questions about poverty, bankers, inequality, climate change or drone attacks are not engaged with a defence of Obama’s record on the economy, regulation, the environment or foreign policy but avoided with a threat: Romney. Speculation about what Obama might have done differently are met with arguments about what Bush did do wrong. Inquire if Obama will get more done if elected, and they shrug and point to the obstructionist Republicans in Congress.

Dare to prod further as to why anyone should vote for him given the likelihood that Republicans will win in Congress and they’ll take you right back where you started: Romney. Any question about the good things that might have happened as a result of Obama’s victory in 2008 is short-circuited by a response about the bad things that might happen as a result of his defeat in 2012. Hope curdled to fear. Everyone can tell you how things get worse; no one can tell you how they get better. [Continue reading…]

Dana Millbank writes: Barack Obama received a valuable reminder in his drubbing at Wednesday night’s debate: He is a president, not a king.

In the hours after the Republican challenger Mitt Romney embarrassed the incumbent in their first meeting, Obama loyalists expressed puzzlement that the incumbent had done badly. But Obama has only himself to blame, because he set himself up for Wednesday’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment. For the past four years, he has worked assiduously to avoid being questioned, maintaining a regal detachment from the media and other sources of dissent and skeptical inquiry.

Obama has set a modern record for refusal to be quizzed by the media, taking questions from reporters far less often than Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush. Though his opponent in 2008 promised to take questions from lawmakers like the British prime minister does, Obama has shied from mixing it up with members of Congress, too. And, especially since Rahm Emanuel’s departure, Obama is surrounded by a large number of yes men who aren’t likely to get in his face.

This insularity led directly to the Denver debacle: Obama was out of practice and unprepared to be challenged. The White House had supposed that Obama’s forays into social media — town hall meetings with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like — would replace traditional presidential communication. By relying on such venues, Obama’s argument skills atrophied, and he was ill-equipped to engage in old-fashioned give and take. [Continue reading…]

Kevin Baker writes: The president seemed unable to concentrate or focus throughout the debate, mouthing occasional numbers and assorted caveats to points he could never really complete. When it came to the issues, he offhandedly conceded much of the Republican worldview, something he is now apt to do at anytime, without warning.

What caused the financial crisis? Well, it had something to do with the banks. But Obama also had to admit it was poor people “who took out home mortgages they couldn’t afford.”

Physically, he looked shamefaced, even guilty. Whenever Romney made some point, he would drop his head, purse his lips, and nod, like a prisoner in the dock admitting to some shabby crime.

There is no reasonable explanation — no acceptable explanation — for such a performance.

We will get one, of course. We always do. Michael Dukakis had a cold for his big debate, and besides he was afraid that his wife couldn’t stand the mental strain of being First Lady. Al Gore never really wanted the political career that his father pressured him into. Etc., etc., etc. Barack Obama has repeatedly informed us that he hates living in the White House and can’t wait to be an ex-president.

Yet all of these personalized, psychological apologetics merely underscore the essential disconnect between the leadership of the Democratic party and its base. The leadership is now filled almost exclusively with careerists, who have no real goals they want to accomplish beyond their own advancement, and who actively don’t want to pursue any of the liberal ideas they pretend to support.

They don’t sound like they believe what they’re saying . . . because they don’t believe what they’re saying.

Neither does Mitt Romney, but he was able to put on a convincing act last night, visibly gaining confidence and command with each sally. By the end of the night, he seemed to have channeled not only Ronald Reagan’s genial manner and poise but even his voice.

Romney and his advisers displayed a sleight-of-hand beyond anything I thought them capable of. In Romney’s reach back toward the center in the debate, he had to lie almost incessantly, breezily denying most of the things he has been advocating in almost two years of campaigning. And it didn’t help Obama that Jim Lehrer looked as if he was up well past his bedtime, barely able to keep track of the debate much less effectively monitor it.

Obama had a perfect opportunity to impose his own agenda on last night’s debate. He could and should have made the entire evening a debate on Romney’s shocking contention that nearly half the country is made up of “victims and dependents,” mooching off the rest of us simply because they are not currently paying federal income taxes.

Romney did not want this made public, but he has not denied that he believes it, admitting only that he expressed himself badly. Could there possibly be any better setup? Obama could have turned the whole evening into a seminar on just how radical and bizarre Republican thinking has become. All of Romney’s attempts to obfuscate and lie about the figures of his fantastical schemes for balancing the budget could have been easily bulldozed.

A real president, a president of the professional ability that Democrats used to elect routinely, could have managed such a feat while simultaneously threatening the mullahs of Tehran into submission and making a condolence call to a sick child.

Instead, Obama signaled that he wants out. His diehard supporters are already trying to wave away this weirdly awful, unengaged performance as just his latest turn of Zen mastery, but that dog won’t hunt. They should steel themselves for more shocking displays of indifference over the next month on the part of this strangely diffident individual. It’s quite possible that he means what he says, and he really can’t wait to become an ex-president.

Matt Stoller writes: Let me just start by saying I hate horse race electoral analysis, because it’s bullshit. Not just meaningless, it’s frequently done by analysts who are on the payroll in one way or another of Wall Street or telecoms or pharma or whoever. More than that, the data is terrible. Despite the vaunted social scientists who claim, essentially, that elections can be manipulated through exquisitely crafted micro-targeting, we just don’t know that much about how voters behave. And more than that, politicians and pollsters don’t want to know. In 2008, it was obvious that foreclosures were going to have a massive impact on the electoral landscape. From 2008-2011, I counted one, yes, just one, paper looking at this problem. Tom Ferguson and Jie Chen showed that housing price declines were the main reason for Scott Brown’s capture of Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. The only other study I’ve seen took place this year, showing that 60% of Milwaukee’s black voters from 2008 have disappeared.

You can’t run a control America in which an economic crisis happened, and a non-control America in which one didn’t happen. So you can’t know what kind of impact the financial crisis and foreclosure crisis have had on voters, until after the election. But the fact that there is almost no analysis of the foreclosure crisis in the electoral context shows that political elites just don’t want to know what’s really going on. Field people, who are in charge of door knocking, know exactly how bad it is, because they know that if you can’t find your voters, you can’t get them to the polls. But if this were acknowledged, then the foreclosure crisis would have to be acknowledged, and then the banking oligarchs would have to be acknowledged. Better to run shitty campaigns based on poor data promoted dishonestly by hacks getting speaking fees from various trade associations. So recognize, first of all, that nearly all the prognostication you’re hearing on TV and radio, which is done by an intentionally ignorant professional class who just wants their team to win. It’s Jeff Connaughton’s “blob”, sliming its way through our broadcast media infrastructure.

That said, here’s my horse race electoral analysis!

A debate happened, and Obama didn’t do well. Prior to tonight, the conventional wisdom was that debates don’t determine elections. I have no idea if this is true going forward, and the only way to know is to watch the polls over the next few days. If every registered voter watched this debate and made a decision about who to vote for based on this debate, Mitt Romney would win. But who watched the debate? And do people decide based on this debate (or the post-debate spin)? Only Gallup can tell. Still, it’s useful to know what happened, and why, because at the very least, Obama and his team was embarrassed tonight. We’re in an election season, so the press is probably going to turn to this as An Important Moment (see the CNN headline: Romney Shakes Up Race) [Continue reading…]