Swing State Project

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Presidential Predictions

Posted by DavidNYC

If you're fond of electoral maps (and I think that a lot of readers here are), then you'll like the cool new feature on Dave Leip's site: a presidential predictions page. Users can download maps, allocate states according to their predictions, and upload them with comments. Dave lets you work with two kinds of maps: a straight-up prediction map and what he calls a "confidence" map, where you can adjust the color of each state depending upon the likelihood you think it will go one way or another. One of these days, I'll have to post my own set of predictions, too. Now if only Dave would just use blue for the Dems and red for the GOP like the rest of us....

Posted at 01:43 AM in General | Comments (3) | Technorati

Louisiana: Gov. Race Wrap-Up

Posted by DavidNYC

Earlier this week, I mentioned that Louisiana native Ricky would be posting a wrap-up of the governor's race there over at his blog, Timshel. It's up now (well, it's been up for a few days), and it bears checking out. Most interesting observation: Blanco won several counties (they call `em parishes in LA) that Republican Suzie Terrell won in last year's Senate race. There are plenty of possible explanations for this: Blanco ran a better campaign than Landrieu, Blanco is more conservative, racists wouldn't turn out for Jindal (who is of Indian heritage), etc. The most optimistic interpretation is that LA is now trending back toward the Dems, and at least one local paper, as Ricky points out, thinks this is the case.

Posted at 01:22 AM in Louisiana | Comments (1) | Technorati

North Carolina: We Can Always Dream

Posted by DavidNYC

For some reason, some Dems want to believe that North Carolina is competitive on the presidential level. My only guess is that folks who are familiar with the relatively liberal "Triangle" area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) over-generalize about the political nature of the state as a whole. In any event, though I think NC is firmly out of reach for us (margin: 13%), it's always nice to read things like this:

When the Bush administration moved on Tuesday to impose import quotas on certain Chinese textiles and clothing, it was responding to a furious outcry from North Carolina businesses, workers and elected officials.

...

But even as textile executives and unions attribute their woes to China, there are questions whether quotas like those proposed by the White House - temporary limits on the growth of imports of Chinese knitted fabrics, robes and bras - would do much to solve their problems.

Like most manufacturers, textile makers have been eliminating jobs for years, in large part to become more competitive in price. But they still face enormous pressure from low-wage countries, to the point where some economists question the practicality of trying to hang on to such work for Americans.

...

But people here have little patience for arguments about trade theory and global competition, and they are putting considerable pressure on President Bush.

Textile companies and their employees are organizing get-out-the-vote drives and warning that even ordinarily reliable Republican voters will turn against Mr. Bush and his allies in Congress if they fail to address their demands.

"The Solid South is no longer the Solid South for George W. Bush," said Jason C. Copland, executive vice president of Copland Fabrics and James's son. When Mr. Bush visited Winston-Salem earlier this month and talked about the need to retrain workers displaced by shifting trade patterns, people here were not soothed. "It was kind of like a slap in the face," the younger Mr. Copland said. "Why are we sending jobs over to Communist China? It was just like he didn't get it." [Emphasis added.]

From a purely political perspective (economic policy aside), tariffs in general just seem like a terrible path to choose these days. As soon as you favor one industry with tariffs, another comes clamoring for aid. Textile manufacturers are, unsurprisingly, pushing for a much broader array of tariffs than the Bush administration has implemented - in fact, they want to see all $10 billion of China's exports covered by trade "safeguards".

This time, though, the industry likely to be adversely affected by tariffs - clothing retailers - is very likely to put up a fight. That's because Wal-Mart knows how acutely higher clothing costs would hurt their always-narrow profit margins, especially at a time when its customers are shopping as frugally as possible.

Even if the textile industry winds up with just scraps, and even if the frustration in those quarters continues to boil over, I still think, as I noted above, that things won't be close in North Carolina. But anything that causes Karl Rove to spit out his morning coffee in anger should make Dems happy. (We know it's gotta be Rove and not Dubya because our President doesn't read the papers.) And if it forces the GOP to spend a few extra bucks in an otherwise safe state, that's good news for us.

Anyhow, the more important question is how Democrats ought to handle this situation. Old-school guys like Sen. Ernest Hollings (who's retiring soon, anyway) have long supported tariffs. But will free traders be tempted to back protectionist policies to score points against Bush, and if they do, will that in turn hurt them with other industries? Is there a middle path we can walk? I'm really not sure, but I hope that every politician to the right of Hollings on the issue of trade is thinking about this one.

(Wal-Mart link via CalPundit.)

Posted at 12:25 AM in Safe States | Comments (3) | Technorati

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Sporadic Posting

Posted by DavidNYC

I just want to explain the sporadic frequency of posts (and the fact that I haven't done a full-bore state analysis in a while). I chose to start this blog at just about the worst time possible: the middle of my first semester at law school. As you may know, law schools are fond of working their first-year students to death. A month ago, my schedule wasn't so bad, but now that we're down to the last month of the semester, with exams just weeks away, it's hard for me to post regularly.

I should have the chance to put up some new material over Thanksgiving, and I'd like to catch up on a bunch of states over winter break. So thanks for bearing with me during this period of semi-hiatus. Heading into 2004, the Swing State Project should be strong - at least until my next finals period. :)

Posted at 11:44 PM in Site News | Comments (3) | Technorati

Sunday, November 16, 2003

Dems Win Louisiana Governor's Race

Posted by DavidNYC

In a very heartening bit of news for our side, Democrat Kathleen Blanco has defeated Republican Bobby Jindal in the Louisiana governor's race by a 52-48 margin. Kos has some comments, and Ricky over at Timshel, who is a native of Lafayette, LA & a keen observer of the LA political scene, promises some more in-depth commentary shortly.

Needless to say, coming on the heels of Sen. Mary Landrieu's victory last year, Blanco's win bodes well for Democratic prospects in Louisiana in general - we also won nearly every other statewide race - and for the presidential election in particular. We still have a pretty big hill to climb: The margin in 2000 was 7.32%. But I think the trek just got a bit easier.

Posted at 12:01 PM in Louisiana | Comments (3) | Technorati

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Rove Judicata

Posted by DavidNYC

Yesterday I speculated that the Bush administration might try to throw up a new & different set of tariffs to replace those which were struck down by the WTO on Monday. I also wondered whether the WTO would actually swallow this gambit. In other words, would the WTO force the EU, Japan, etc. to relitigate the new tariffs? Or would it be wise to Rove's scheme and say "You may have paraphrased a bit, but we know it's the same thing. And it's still illegal." This distinction matters because it took the WTO over a year and a half to rule against the administration. If the countries opposing us on steel tariffs had to start back again from square one, Rove might successfully drag the new challenge out past election day.

Via Kevin Drum, it looks like the administration may indeed be trying this ploy. The Financial Times article that Kevin cites refers to "complex methodological changes" to American law which would somehow protect steel producers. How these would differ from ordinary tariffs is not quite clear, though I have to imagine these would also be justiciable at the WTO. Otherwise, if these types of changes were judgment-proof, wouldn't the administration have pursued them in the first place?

Yet even the best-case scenario for Bush - ie, the EU has to relitigate everything - might still not be that great. Anger appears to be running high in Europe (doubtless exacerbated by other factors), high enough perhaps that the Europeans simply wouldn't bother waiting for another WTO ruling before launching retaliatory trade measures. I have to imagine the French can't wait to cause trouble for Bush, and the beleaguered Tony Blair probably can't afford to bend over yet again. Unfortunately, the Europeans somehow have it in their heads that Texas is a swing state (guys, it's Florida citrus you're interested in, trust me), but if George Bush has to sweat a little bit even when he visits his home state, I'll be happy with that.

One final thought: Fester, in the comments, observes that Rove's mission to protect steel makers at seemingly any cost suggests that Bush is prepared to give up on Michigan. I'm strongly inclined to agree here. Let's see if Bush makes any more visits to MI.

P.S. I've read more about steel that I ever imagined I would - and by now, I've probably written more about it than anyone would care to read. So I'm going to let this topic rest for a bit, at least until December 5th, which is when the EU is expected to implement its relatiatory tariffs. (Unless something big comes up, of course.)

(NYT and Miami Herald links thanks to Dan Drezner.)

Posted at 06:53 PM in Economy | Comments (1) | Technorati

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

TNR Misses the Point on Steel Tariffs

Posted by DavidNYC

TNR's "&c." blog makes what I think is a crucial misjudgment regarding the next phase of the fight over steel tariffs. Noam Scheiber (or whoever actually writes that blog) says that yesterday's final WTO ruling was a good thing for the administration. Bush gets to play up the fact that he tried to help the steel industry as best he could, but, poor dear, he was ultimately thwarted by "those faceless, bloodless, soulless, pointy-headed bureaucrats at the WTO [who] just wouldn't let him have his way."

Just like how Bush didn't go to war in Iraq because the UN said "no", right, fellas?

TNR goes on, in a parenthetical:

Granted, the administration could easily defy the WTO ruling if it really wanted to. But don't expect to hear about that option from anyone at the White House.

Sure, Karl Rove may not start barking up this tree. But do you really think that steel workers (who certainly have no love for the World Trade Organization) and steel mill owners will just philosophically resign themselves to a defeat at the hands of the WTO? Jeez, that would mean caving to the French, mon dieu! I can easily see both of these groups clamoring for Bush to tell the WTO to go shove it - which of course Bush can't do, unless he wants a trade war on his hands.

Rove may have some rabbits up his sleeves - he often does. He may come up with some new clever way to mollify the steel industry (targeted tax breaks, maybe?). Or Bush may just try to impose a slightly different set of tariffs, forcing the EU & Co. back to square one at the WTO. (I admit I have no idea if this tactic is viable - there may be some sort of res judicata principle at work here.) But I don't expect the steel industry to quietly swallow this latest development. No - these guys are going to get angry.

Posted at 08:56 PM in Economy | Comments (5) | Technorati

Monday, November 10, 2003

Receive SSP Updates via E-mail

Posted by DavidNYC

I've added a new tool in the right-hand bar which allows you to sign up for e-mail updates from the SSP. If you sign up, you'll get an e-mail once a day informing you of the site's updates. Since some of my posts are very long, the e-mail will only contain excerpts - you'll have to click over to the site to read the full posts & participate in the comments section. If there's a strong interest in seeing the full posts in e-mail form, I'll consider changing the setup, but for now, just teasers.

The service is provided free by Bloglet. E-mail addresses are collected by Bloglet, but the site's privacy policy says that they will "never sell anyone's email address". I can also see the e-mail addresses of subscribers (unless you mark your account "private" over at Bloglet), but it goes without saying that I would never share these with anyone.

Let me know if you have any feedback about the service. I've never used it before and don't know anyone who has, so I'm curious to see how useful it is.

UPDATE: There's also an RSS feed available, for those of you who are so inclined.

Posted at 11:24 PM in Site News | Comments (1) | Technorati

Trade War is Hell

Posted by DavidNYC

From the AP:

The United States is facing up to $2.2 billion in European Union trade sanctions within weeks after a World Trade Organization appeals panel ruled Monday that U.S. tariffs on imported steel are illegal.

In a 170-page report, a three-member WTO panel rejected the bulk of the U.S. appeal of an earlier ruling that said the duties of up to 30 percent introduced in March 2002 by President Bush's administration breached trade rules.

The appeals body is WTO's highest tribunal, and the decision is final.

In a joint statement, the countries that brought the case said the United States had "no other choice" but to remove the import duties without delay. The European Union said it will impose retaliatory sanctions of up to $2.2 billion by introducing 100 percent duties on some U.S. imports, effectively pricing those goods out of the EU market.

And the Europeans aren't backing off their plans to toss a political hand grenade into next year's elections:

The European Union plans to target its tariffs at goods that are produced in important swing states in the 2004 presidential election. (Emphasis added.)

And other countries are ready to get in on the act:

In addition to the European Union, complaints were filed by Japan, South Korea, Norway, Switzerland, China, New Zealand and Brazil. All of those countries also could now seek to impose sanctions on U.S. imports if the duties are not removed, and Tokyo already has warned it may retaliate.

At least in a trade war, no one gets killed. I can't wait to see how this one plays out.

(Thanks to Seamus.)

Posted at 03:21 PM in Economy | Comments (5) | Technorati

Sunday, November 09, 2003

The Republicans are Doing the Math, Too

Posted by DavidNYC

I love writing this blog, but I know that this project is far from unique. In fact, I hope it's not: I expect that every Democratic presidential campaign, every left-wing think tank, and every progressive labor union is doing the same analysis, crunching the numbers and figuring out where we're going to fight this battle next year. Everyone is caught up with primary politics right now, and with good reason. But in the back corner of the office somewhere, there oughta be one guy or gal with a degree in political science, Googling like mad, hitting the library & plugging away at the Excel spreadsheets. While this may be back-burner stuff at the moment, it has to at least be on the back burner.

I say this because the Republicans have clearly started thinking out loud about this subject. This may be old news to some of you, but I recently came across a September memo put out by two Republican pollsters at Moore Information (MI), an Oregon-based consultancy. It's called "Why Dean Can Win." My reason for bringing up this memo is not to discuss Dean - the analysis on this site has been (and will remain) largely candidate-neutral until we actually have a nominee. I believe that, with a few specific exceptions (such as Clark in Arkansas), all of the major candidates are likely to fare equally well. In other words, I think the "electability" issue is bogus.

The MI memo does indeed discuss Dean extensively, and the discussion of his strengths is one of the most honest I've ever seen on the GOP side. (Though their grating use of the phrase "Democrat Party" drives me nuts.) But what really caught my eye is the chart in the middle, which I believe could apply to all of the potential candidates. (I won't reproduce it here, but you can look at it by following the link above.) Essentially, MI sees 183 EVs as solid Dem (they include Washington & Maine's 2nd CD, which I don't), and they see 87 EVs as lean-Dem, which includes only two states (NV and WV) that went GOP last time around. That's 270 electoral votes right there.

Of course, getting to 270 always looks easier on paper than it ever is in real life. As they say about baseball, that's why they play the games. But the point is that honest Republicans are taking this electoral math quite seriously. They know the election is going to come down to a handful of true battleground states - MI puts the number at just 13 - and they aren't so sure the numbers favor them. I'm not sure the numbers favor us, either, but the fact that the other side feels the same way gives me a lot of hope.

P.S. I'm not sure I've ever seen a Republican cop to a statement like this in print, which is why I give the MI memo high marks for honesty:

Furthermore, the ���far-left liberal��� charge which Republicans have used effectively in the past to define Democrats has much less impact today than it used to. The problem here is that the GOP spent years warning America about the ills of a left-wing liberal Clinton presidency and how it would destroy the economy, ruin our children, and leave America a twisted wreck. Well, we survived and the economy actually did well during much of the Clinton years. America didn���t have a problem with Bill Clinton being a far-left liberal, they had a problem with his inability to tell the truth and his total lack of morals.

Posted at 05:02 AM in General | Comments (9) | Technorati

Saturday, November 08, 2003

So is This a Real Recovery Now?

Posted by DavidNYC

A lot of the analysis on this site is predicated on a state of affairs which I acknowledge could change dramatically at any time: our slumping economy. But last week, we learned of a dramatic GDP spike, and by now, you've probably caught wind of the revised employment numbers, which show substantial growth dating back to August. I'm not a hardcore number-cruncher - when I look at things like unemployment figures, I do so with an eye to what I think the political consequences of presiding over a lousy economy will be. So are we in a genuine recovery now, and if so, should we consider chucking out the "angry unemployed voter" thesis?

Billmon, for one, says not so fast. He asks a pair of crucial questions: "If growth downshifts to a 3-4% rate" from its current giddy high of 7.2%, "will the job-killing recovery return? And if it does, will growth continue to downshift?" I'm not about to a hazard a guess here, but it goes without saying that one quarter of good growth does not a full recovery make. As the New York Times reminds us, there was a four-month period of consecutive job gains late in 2002, which only wound up fizzling early this year.

I want to look at things from a different perspective, though: Even if we are now in a sustained, genuine, jobs-adding recovery, will it be enough by election day? At least one person in Congress is thinking along these lines:

Representative Pete Stark of California, the ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, noted that the current pace of job growth would need to continue for 19 months for the country to return to the peak employment level reached in early 2001.

So if we keep adding jobs at the October rate (126K/month), around 900,000 people who had jobs when Bush took office will still be jobless come November, 2004. (We've lost 2.4 million jobs since the peak in Feb. of 2001.) And if job creation follows the more conservative three-month trend (286K in Aug-Sep-Oct), 1.25 million people will be, as the saying goes, worse off than they were four years ago. Though I'm hesitant to invoke Hirdt's Law - because something hasn't ever happened in the past, it can't happen in the future - I am mindful that the last President who oversaw over four years of net job losses won a grand total of six states in his re-election bid. (Hoover.)

In any event, we clearly aren't out of the economic woods yet, though we may be on the right path out of the woods. Until we start seeing conclusive, continued signs of job growth, I'm going to hold off on revisiting my economic-related analysis.

UPDATE: Another nugget, again from the NYT:

Gene Sperling, a top economic adviser in the Clinton White House, encouraged Democratic candidates to use his calculations showing that even if the number of jobs increased every month between now and the election at last month's pace of 126,000 new jobs, it would still be the slowest recovery in terms of job creation since World War II.

Posted at 01:11 AM in Economy | Comments (1) | Technorati

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Domain Mapping

Posted by DavidNYC

If you arrive at the main page of this website via www.swingstateproject.com, the site should look normal. If, however, you try to get here by just typing in "swingstateproject.com" without the www, you'll get an ugly banner from Register.com at the bottom of the screen. For seemingly arcance technical reasons, I am unable to elegantly "map" the non-www address to the TypePad site and must instead rely on the clumsier technique of URL forwarding. Unfortunately, Register.com charges an arm and a leg ($49/year) for the privilege of "pretty" (ie, bannerless) forwarding, so I'm stuck with their free forwarding service. So if you come to this site and see that annoying banner, just retype the URL into your browser with the www this time, and voila! the banner will disappear.

And if any tech wizards out there have any good (ie, free) solutions to this problem, please let me know. Thanks.

Posted at 04:22 PM in Site News | Comments (3) | Technorati

Louisiana Governor's Race

Posted by DavidNYC

New daddy Kos provides a more in-depth update on the Louisiana governor's race. Shorter Kos: It's a dead heat, and while Blanco has run a lackluster campaign, she has $2m in the bank for the final stretch run, compared to Jindal's $1m. However, I disagree with Kos's conclusion that, if we lose this one, we Dems will have to do a lot of teeth-gnashing. I just don't think that one gubernatorial election is a great indicator of our overall strength, particularly if we win or lose by a very narrow margin.

These off-year elections are odd creatures, and I don't think anyone has conclusively figured out a pattern to them. In 2001, just two months after 9/11 - when Bush's halo was supposed to be at its brightest - the Democrats won both major governor's races, in blue NJ and red VA. Obviously, these results didn't serve as very good augurs for what happened in 2002. Now of course I'm rooting big-time for a Blanco victory, and I think this race may indeed wind up telling us something about the nature of the Louisiana electorate. But on a wider scale, I'm not going to read too much into this race, win or lose.

Posted at 02:41 PM in Louisiana | Comments (4) | Technorati

Michigan: Additional Thoughts

Posted by DavidNYC

Dem uber-analyst Ruy Teixeira (who has graciously linked to this humble blog) points out an LA Times article discussing Michigan's swing state status. Surprise, surprise: The Democratic candidates aren't well-known yet & consequently have low poll numbers. Rove is presumably smart enough not to take solace in this - only 37% of Michiganders want to see Bush re-elected, according to the LAT. (The poll I linked to in the original post put that number even lower, at 33%.)

Based on the state's lousy economic conditions, Matt Yglesias feels pretty strongly that the odds of Michigan going GOP are about as good as seeing 80 degree weather on the Upper Peninsula in February. Bush may have visited Michigan 11 times since taking office, but the Washington Generals played the Globetrotters a few thousand times and they still never won, either.

Posted at 04:15 AM in Michigan | Technorati

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Post-Election Day Roundup

Posted by DavidNYC

Not too much doing in the swing states in yesterday's elections. The loss of the gubernatorial elections in KY & MS is disappointing, but neither is a swing state, even though KY went for Clinton twice. I recognize of course that there are plenty of other reasons to want Democratic governors, apart from Presidential politics. So I'm not saying these losses don't matter - far from it - but their ramifications are outside the scope of this site.

The Dems did well in the Virginia legislature elections, but as I understand it, most of their gains were confined to the northern VA suburbs of DC. While heartening, I think we still have a long way to go before the state winds up back in our column. But at least the momentum is (finally) going in our direction now - this was the first time 20 years that the Dems have added seats in the lower house.

Also reassuring were the results of elections in Pennsylvania, particularly the Philadelphia mayor's race. Democrats seemed to show up in force throughout the state, hopefully auguring good turnout next year.

Without a doubt, I think the most interesting swing state race will be Louisiana's gubernatorial election on Nov. 15th. I am sure that there will be plenty of discussion of this race over on Kos, but suffice it to say that things are neck-and-neck right now. I'm definitely not willing to hazard a prediction on this one, but after Landrieu's squeaker victory last year, I'll keep my fingers crossed and remain ever-so-slightly optimistic.

UPDATE: Reader Stratagem notes that the Democrats haven't seen an increase in their numbers in the House of Delegates in close to 30 years, not 20.

Posted at 11:26 PM in General | Technorati

Updating the Blog Roll

Posted by DavidNYC

I've added links to three swing-state focused political blogs in the blog roll to the right:

CO: Colorado Luis
OR/WA: Ridenbaugh Press
PA: Fester's Place

I also added a new site under the "Swing State Activism" section, the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network. I'd love to be able to add blogs & activism sites for all of the swing states, so if you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments.

Posted at 02:47 AM in Site News | Comments (3) | Technorati

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Europeans Threaten Trade Retaliation - Against Swing States

Posted by DavidNYC

Following up on my remarks yesterday about a potential trade war vis-a-vis the steel tariffs: The New York Times reports on European threats to retaliate if the US doesn't lift its trade "safeguards", which include both tariffs and illegal export subidies. Apparently, the WTO's appellate decision will be handed down earlier than I had realized: Nov. 10th. If the US doesn't comply with the WTO's ruling (which is widely expected to uphold a previous decision that declared the tariffs illegal), the EU is warning that it will impose up to $6.2 billion in sanctions against us.

The most intriguing bit here is that the Europeans definitely understand swing state politics:

The European Union already has a list of sanctions targeted at American products in ways intended to maximize political pain for Bush's Republican Party: they would aim at Harley Davidson motorcycles manufactured in Wisconsin, citrus products from Florida and textiles from the Southeast.

Will the Japanese follow suit and block imports of pacemakers from Minnesota? Or perhaps the Chinese will slap tariffs on Girls Gone Wild videos from Mardi Gras. Doubtless the chintzy plastic bead-making industry is awaiting these developments with bated breath.

Posted at 07:50 PM in Economy | Technorati

Ohio: Additional Thoughts

Posted by DavidNYC

Not much to add on Ohio, except one commenter notes that no Republican has ever won the Presidency without carrying Ohio. This indeed has been true since the birth of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln's election. I'm not sure how significant this is, though: Only three Democrats since that time have ever won without carrying Ohio: Kennedy in 1960, FDR in 1944 & Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892. The bottom line is that it's simply been historically difficult to win without carrying Ohio for candidates of both parties.

All this reminds me of an amusing article on ESPN.com which said that no team whatsoever could win the Super Bowl last season because of a variety of "rules" - e.g., no team that won exactly seven games in one season has won the Super Bowl in the next, no coach whose last name begins with the letter "C" has ever taken his team to the Super Bowl, etc. Eventually, this list of rules manages to cover all 32 NFL teams, ensuring, of course, that there can be no winner.

Obviously, some of these historical rules are silly, even if others have some merit. The ultimate point is that the past isn't necessarily prologue. After all, Gore very nearly won (or did win, if you prefer) without taking Ohio, and I think we could do it again. But as I said in my original Ohio post, though, I think the rule will hold true for the Republicans: I just don't see how they can win without Ohio.

(And in case you were wondering, Tampa Bay broke Rule #7 to win Super Bowl 37.)

Posted at 07:15 PM in Ohio | Technorati

Up Next: Wisconsin

Posted by DavidNYC

Crossing Lake Michigan, we head to Wisconsin, another Dem swing state. Questions, comments and smart remarks greatly appreciated.

Posted at 06:48 PM in Wisconsin | Comments (6) | Technorati

Monday, November 03, 2003

Michigan

Posted by DavidNYC

Bring on the Wolverine State (does anyone actually call it that?):

Electoral Votes: 17 (18 in 2000)

2000 Results:

Gore: 51.28%
Bush: 46.14%
Nader: 1.99%
Buchanan: 0.00% (write-in)

Michigan is yet another state which lost an EV after redistricting, a process which, at present, has inflicted a number of papercuts on the Dems. Look at it this way: If the results of the 2004 election are identical to the 2000 contest, the Democrats would lose by 18 electoral votes, rather than just 4. Put another way, last time, we could have squeaked by if we had carried New Hampshire. This time, we'll need a good bit more than that. And as for Michigan, we definitely cannot afford to lose it. But I don't think we will.

I'll start with what I usually think is the most important issue in any state: unemployment. In Michigan, I think this issue will play a monster role. MI not only now has the fourth-highest unemployment rate of any state in the union (7.4%), but it has also experienced the fourth-largest swing since Bush took office (an increase of 2.8%). And as several people have recently noted, the current jobless recovery is not going to improve this situation. If and when Bush campaigns in MI, I can't but imagine that he'll be confronted by large crowds of angry, displaced workers - that is, if they aren't shunted off to those outrageous "free speech zones". I don't think the reception will be quite as bad as, say, Nixon's when he went to South America in 1958, but it won't be good, and Karl Rove can only insulate Bush so far.

Now, why is MI's unemployment situation so bad? If you've read the last few entries here on the SSP, you probably know what I'm going to discuss next: steel tariffs. Unlike PA, which is home to a lot of steel producers, Michigan's traditional rust belt industries are heavy steel consumers. I don't quite understand why Detroit failed to put up a fight when Bush first mooted these tariffs over two years ago, but in any case, the automakers (and other allied industries) are in full battle mode now. A new report (PDF) by the Institute for International Economics (a think tank which I understand is non-partisan and also widely respected - but correct me if I'm wrong on this count) states quite clearly that the tariffs are "unambiguously a drag on the U.S. economy" (emphasis in original). Further, anywhere from 12,000 to 43,000 job losses per year can be directly attributed to the tariffs. Now, that may not sound like a whole lot, but if you're a laid-off auto-worker and you're looking for someone to blame, the tariffs look like a very tempting target. I point this out because, while anyone might blame Bush for the sagging economy in general, it's a lot easier to link him to the tariffs specifically.

So you have union members who are pissed off about job losses on the one hand, and executives who are steamed about shrinking profit margins on the other - not a fortuitous mix for Bush. And D-Day on this matter is coming soon: The WTO already ruled that the tariffs were illegal back in June. The US appealed, but most observers expect the first ruling to be upheld. That appellate decision will be released some time in the next month or two. What happens then? Well, either Bush can come into compliance with the ruling and rescind the tariffs (and obviously anger everyone in the steel industry in PA, WV and OH he was hoping to win over). Or he can defiantly thumb his nose at the WTO - and we know that this Administration is not big on international bodies - and keep them in place. Apart from obviously exacerbating tensions with steel users, this might also trigger retaliatory tariffs from a whole slew of nations. In fact, nearly all of our major trading partners are complainants in the WTO proceeding: China, Japan, Korea, and the entire European Union - which now includes a bunch of countries which are supposedly part of the "New Europe" Bush is so fond of. Headlines proclaiming a trade war with 20 of our closest (or formerly closest) allies would be politically embarrassing for Bush in the midst of an election year. (Though of course, a trade spat with France might play well with the GOP base.)

Changing gears, I want to take a quick look at the subject of Michigan's large Arab-American population. While Arab Americans (most of whom are Christian, not Muslim) went heavily for Bush in 2000, the Administration's foreign policy has caused many to do a serious about-face. Zogby estimates that there are 490,000 Arab Americans living in Michigan, a sizable chunk given MI's population of about 10 million. Losing this demographic makes a difficult job that much harder for Bush & Co.

Also, Michigan elected a new Democratic Governor last year, Jennifer Granholm. While she hasn't been around as long as PA's Ed Rendell, and isn't as well-connected (he was the former chair of the DNC, after all), she does seem to be a rising star in the Democratic Party. Her margin was fairly narrow in 2002 (51-48), however, so it's hard to see how this will play out. Apparently, she remains quite popular (60% approval, but down from 70% in August), despite budget woes. Bush, on the other hand, has seen his popularity slip below the Mendoza Line - it's now just 47% in MI. In short, Michigan seems like a good bet to return to the Dem column - perhaps it's even the "safest" of the Dem swing states.

Posted at 09:12 PM in Michigan | Comments (3) | Technorati

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Swing States in Worse Economic Shape

Posted by DavidNYC

DHinMI, guest-hosting over at Kos, picks out an important nugget at the end of this NYT piece:

Compared with the rest of the country, jobs have disappeared more quickly, and incomes and house prices have grown more slowly in the nine states won by the winner in the last three presidential elections, according to Economy.com, a research company. Besides New Hampshire, the states are Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

"They're just getting pummeled by global competition and off-shore outsourcing," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com."

Apart from Kentucky (which had a spread of -14), all of these states are on the SSP list.

On a related note, DH also observes that even if the economy starts to improve, voter perceptions may not catch up with reality. In other words, if Joe Citizen still thinks the economy sucks, that will inform his decisions, regardless of what the facts say. My argument has been that reality may not match up with "reality": Just because the economy's performance meets the dictionary definition of the word "recovery" does not mean that we are experiencing a bona fide, job-creating, wealth-enhancing upswing.

And even if we do start to experience something that feels like a genuine recovery, it may simply be too late for it to have enough of an actual effect by election day. Unemployment, which stood at 4.1% when Bush took office, is now ay 6.1%. The President is running out of time to put a significant dent in this figure. Oh, Bush can (and will) flog the GDP numbers all he wants, but those aren't the numbers that matter to ordinary citizens. And evidently, this is going to be an even tougher sell in a big bunch of crucial swing states.

Posted at 10:01 PM in Economy | Comments (4) | Technorati