Is the tipping point approaching?

TPT wonders whether Brown’s premiership is down to its final days.

With the the crushing defeat in Crewe and Nantwitch still stinging and dismal poll ratings, the only thing keeping Gordon Brown in Downing Street has been the fact that few senior figures in the Labour party are willing to put their heads above the parapet and call for Brown’s resignation. However, the formed Deputy Prime Minister Gordon Brown today praised David Milliband as a ‘great future leader’. Although he made it clear that he was not calling for Gordon Brown’s resignation, and indeed suggested that MPs would ‘pay a heavy price if you don’t get behind your leader’, this is the first time that a senior Labour figure has talked about a successor to Brown. In my view Miliband remains poor value in betting terms (though I would happily vote for him) but this does suggest that it might be a good idea to bet on Brown leaving office this year, although the Betfair odds are much less generous than those previously offered by Paddy Power.

How significant is Murdoch’s near endorsment of Obama?

Will it be ‘Murdoch wot won it’?

The shock victory of the Conservatives in the 1992 election was put down to the famous, or infamous, barrage of negative coverage against the then Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, in the popular British tabloid The Sun. The proprieter of the paper at that was none other than one Rupert Murdoch. Now, in 2008 Murdoch has announced that he was behind the New York Post’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Although Murdoch did not make a explicit endorsement he stated that Obama was a ‘rock star’ and ‘calling McCain, ‘unpredictable’ and claiming that ‘[He] doesn’t know much about the economy and – I say this sympathetically – I think he has a lot of problems’. The big question is whether this means anything, and whether this is going to affect the election. My take is that one shouldn’t read too much into it as Murdoch is the original Vicar of Bray, changing his political allegiances to suit him. Indeed, anyone who can switch back and forth between Labour and the Conservatives and cosy up to the Communist leadership in China is no man of principle.

I also don’t think that we’ll be seeing Fox News endorsing Obama any time soon. Sure Murdoch may have his own personal preferences but he knows what sells and he’ll also probably value the importance of hedging his bets. If McCain maintains his poll lead over Obama we’ll definitely see Murdoch start to wiggle back from his position. It must be remembered that in 1992 the Scottish edition of The Sun endorsed the Scottish National Party rather than the Conservatives. Also, few people can reasonably claim that the Sun’s support for Labour in 1997 was the reason for their landslide victory. In any case, it is not like the mainstream media is particularly sympathetic towards the GOP.

McCain opens up a comfortable lead over Obama

Could the ‘electability’ argument bring Hillary back from the dead?

My new national projections (likely voters, last poll ending May 28th) are:

Hillary Clinton 46.06
John McCain 45.87

John McCain 46.93
Barack Obama 42.13

McCain seems to have opened up a comfortable lead over Obama but is essentially tied with Clinton. This raises the question of whether Hillary Clinton can somehow use the rules committee to re-open the question of the nomination. Although, I had all but written off Clinton I still felt that her chances, although small, were better than those given by either the bookies or the betting exchanges. I would still rate them at no more than 10%, but it now looks closer to 15%. In any case it is blidingly obvious that, if the Democrats do select Obama rather than Clinton, they are making a huge strategic mistake, especially since her ’50+1′ tactics, and her experience, are extremely suited to an environment where Bush’s popularity is at rock bottom and Democrats have a huge lead in party ID. Given the antipathy between Obama and Clinton, a bet on Harold Ford Jr as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee (at 50/1) might seem in order, since that would appeal to both many of Obama’s supporters and the centre at the same time.

Will ‘Hagee-gate’ sink hopes of a McCain/Lieberman ticket?

Probably not, but either Hagee needs to leave CUFI, or Lieberman needs to reconsider his decision to attend their conference

I have to admit that as someone who is a fan of gambling and someone whose church attendance is limited to once a year and hoping that Celtic beat Rangers, I am in no position to criticise anyone’s belief. My knowledge of Hagee derives from the press accounts of what he has said, and as such might have taken his comments out of context (although I don’t how his comments could be explained away). However, I think that they were disgusting and I firmly agree with Joe Lieberman that John Hagee’s comments were, ‘deeply unacceptable and hurtful’ and with McCain’s belief that they were, ‘crazy and unacceptable’. I also think McCain made the right decision to repudiate Hagee’s support. Therefore I have to say that I think Joe Lieberman’s decision, along it must be said with other Senators and various diplomatic officials, to speak at the CUFI summit in July, will both damage McCain’s campaign and reduce the chances of a McCain/Lieberman ticket, although only slightly.

Of course, it has to be pointed out that there is a lot of hypocrisy and hysteria going on here. There is no way that one can construe the decision to appear at CUFI as some sort of endorsement of Hagee and equate it with Obama’s continued association with Wright. Indeed, even now Obama remains a member of Wrights’ church and specifically limited his repudiation of Wright’s comments, rather than the man himself. Also, some of the reaction to Lieberman’s decision to appear at a CUFI event on web-logs like Daily Kos has revealed a very nasty side to the members of that website. The fact that Hagee managed to fool a large number of prominent and respected people means that it is not easy to immediately make a U-turn. Thankfully, the press coverage has been scattered and apart from few rants on TV, the damage to Lieberman seems minimal.

Overall, I think it would be prudent for either Lieberman to reassess his decision to attend, or for Hagee to fall on his sword and relinquish membership of CUFI. Given that the raison d’etre of a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be to unite America, being associated (however tangentially) with such a wacky, hateful and divisive figure such as Hagee would be a bad decision. It is also being spun by the few outlets who are covering this event as McCain hedging his repudiation, which is damaging in itself. However, I don’t think that this can really be used by the Democrats, not least because of Obama’s comments about his great-uncle. Indeed I suggest that it only reduces the possibility of Lieberman being on the ticket from events to 3/2 (40%), and even this can be reduced, especially if either Hagee or Lieberman acts quickly. In this context I think the odds of 23/1 quoted on Lieberman being McCain’s running on Betfair are ridiculous.

Reason #2: Obama will make the election about foreign policy

TPT continues his series on why Barack Obama won’t be US President

One of the reasons why Obama will not win in November is that he will focus on foreign policy, one of the Democrats’ weakest cards. As I have consistently said, although the American population are superfically antiwar, they are willing to listen to a case for continued involvement, provided it is made confidently and clearly. At the same time there is clear evidence that things are both improving in Iraq and that failure would embolden Iran, especially in relation to their development of a nuclear programme. In any case, in no Presidential election has the most dovish candidate ever won, unless the candidate sucessfully managed to shift the focus from foriegn policy to the domestic economy. Although McCain’s team should be doing more to shift the debate to their strength on national security, Obama and his electronic surrogates Daily Kos are doing McCain’s work for him.

Is is worth betting on a third party to take the White House?

Could the ‘Ron Paul bubble’ strike again?

With Barr’s victory in the Libertarian Party nomination it is interesting to consider whether the bubble that saw Ron Paul’s price hit a peak of 25 in the New Hampshire primary, could ever be repeated. Certainly, Barr doesn’t have the appeal to the antiwar fringe that Ron Paul did, and indeed his running mate Wayne Root actually donated money to Joe Lieberman, but could even a diminished coalition of paleoconservatives, libertarians and crazies move the third party betting price from 1.4 on Intrade.com to something higher? Although I am not suggesting that Barr has any chances, and a objective point of view would suggest there is more chance of Elvis being found alive than a President Barr, but given the stupidity of those who bet on Ron Paul, maybe there will be a new set of ‘greater fools’ emerging. Of course there is always the microscopic possibility that a more plausible third party bid might emerge.

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

More veepstakes speculation

TPT ponders Obama-Hagel

Given that there aren’t that many polls and the primary season is all but finished, speculation of who Obama and McCain’s running mate will be will probably dominate both the media and this web-log for the next few weeks. Reading Andrew Sullivan’s article about Chuck Hagel I was struck by how much one could say similary things about McCain and Lieberman, in that Lieberman (Hagel) is a solid Democrat (Republican) on everything but his support for (opposition to) the War in Iraq. However, the real difference between the two is while Lieberman is a respected figure who was selected as Gore’s running mate in 2000 and had the guts to stand up to Clinton, Hagel has done nothing. Another, more cynical, comparison would be between the large number of pieces of legislation that McCain and Lieberman have sponsored (or co-sponsored) together and Obama’s legislative achievements. It would also seem ridiculous for Hagel, a strong personal friend of McCain, to ditch the party at the very moment a moderate had triumphed, while Lieberman waited until the Kossacks had completely taken over the Democratic party to leave.

Note: I’m still adjusting to the WordPress rules about sidebars, so I apologise to the person whose post I just deleted.

McCain trails Obama and Clinton in Pennsylvania

But one Democrat does much better than the other

My latest projections are:

Hillary Clinton 49.86
John McCain 39.13

Barack Obama 44.91
John McCain 43.06

McCain trails Obama in Pennsylvania, which is a state that he should be beating Obama in if he wants a comfortable victory. However, at least Obama can take comfort in the fact that Obama, rather than Hillary is almost certain to be his opponent in November.

Why Gordon Brown is not out of the woods yet

The moment when he could have been removed seems to have passed – but will it be the first of many?

At the moment Gordon Brown seems to have dodged a bullet, as no-one has come forward to challlenge him. However, my belief is that although the Labour party seems to have a serious adversion to challenging their leaders, except when they have won three elections, I believe that there are simply too many hurdles that Brown will have to jump over to survive. This summer he wll have to naivgate the vote on the 42 days detention, put in a respectable showing in the Henley bye-election and claw back some ground in the opinion polls all while knowing that a formal challenge from any credible (or even a not so credible) candidate will probably start an avalanche that will destroy him within days, if not hours.

My view is still that the chances of Brown being forced from Number 10 before the end of the year are more than 50%. I also believe that although it is nice to see Miliband refuse to continue the fiction that the international community would somehow prefer Obama to McCain, any challenge would probably see one of the older Blairites, namely Charles Clarke or Alan Milburn in Downing Street.

McCain still leads Obama

McCain still has a small lead over Obama

My new national projections (last poll ending May 16th) are:

Hillary Clinton 46.86
John McCain 44.06

John McCain 45.94
Barack Obama 44.01

The situation is essentially unchanged; Clinton leads McCain by a small amount and the Senator from Arizona leads Obama by a slightly smaller amount.

Let McCain be McCain

How McCain can get his campaign back on track

There has been a recent spate of headlines bemoaning the Republican campaign. According to inside information it is highly disorganised and chaotic. My view is that McCain’s problems lie deeper than that. Although I have always rated McCain’s chances more highly than virtually everyone else, this time last year TPT suggested that McCain had chances of winning the nomination were relatively low unless he moved to the centre on economic issues, changed his campaign staff and stood his ground on immigration. In the event I was wrong as he managed to win by emphasising the Iraq war and leveraging Lieberman’s endorsement, the most significant event of the primary season, into a win in New Hampshire. Additionally, Obama’s numerous flaws gives him a very good chance of victory in November (in fact I am probably alone in still considering him the overwhelming favourite with about a 75% chance of victory at worst). However, I believe that McCain needs to do five things to maximise his chances for victory, all of which send a message to the electorate that he, rather than the Republican party is in control.

The first thing that McCain needs to do is to centralise his campaign. Although some day to day operations can be delegated, he needs to have his campaign, and the various state parties, putting forward one consistant message. Although, it was good to see him condemn the North Carolina GOP, he really needed to make sure that such ads were not aired at all. He also needs to make sure that the campaign is controlled by people who have his best interests at heart, and so are not willing to expend the necessary political capital and personal contacts to ensure that the campaign is effective (or worse actively use the campaign to build up their own stores of political capital), not by people who view him as the lesser of two evils or people looking to atone for past sins by refusing to lay a glove on Obama.

This leads me to my second point that McCain needs to start going after Obama. While the politics of dog-whistling should have no place in American politics, there is nothing wrong with questioning Obama’s credentials on foreign policy. McCain needs to come up with a group of surrogates who have strong national security credentials. Having Giuliani, Lieberman and even Republicans like Fred Thompson hammering away at Obama day after day on Wright, Ayers and foreign policy is far better than doing nothing, or leaving it to Bush. With Barr’s nomination as the Libertarian party’s nominee McCain also needs to do what the Humphrey campaign did to George Wallace and get a group of people persuading conservatives that voting for the Barr/Root ticket would be a disaster.

McCain also needs to keep emphasising Iraq. Although most polls show people that America is firmly anti-war more people trust McCain on Iraq than Obama and no dovish candidate has ever won a foriegn policy election. By moving the election to foreign policy, McCain can tap into the Republican’s traditional strengths on ‘daddy issues’ and also galvanise both the base and ‘Lieberdems’ on the one issue that unites them. I also firmly believe that Obama, and his wackier supporters, are fundamentally incapable of leaving such issues alone. There is even a strong case for outflanking Bush and Petraeus on the right and calling for a year long freeze in troop withdrawals (or even more troops). Not only will this undermine the notion that he is tied to Bush, but if the terrorists try a surge of their own, with the aim of disrupting the US elections, it may be strategically necessary.

However, the one thing that McCain needs to do is to be himself. This may sound cliched but McCain is most convincing when he is fighting for something that he believes in. Unlike Hillary, John McCain is no good at reinventing himself, and he is far better as a Republican version of JFK than as either a Thompson Republican or an Eisenhower Republican. The reason why I believe it would be a mistake to select Romney, Jindal or some nameless CEO is that it would show that he was unable to impose his leadership on the Republican party. Indeed, the previous three suggestions; rearranging his staff, attacking Obama and stressing Iraq are all three variations on the same theme, that to misquote Aaron Sorkin, ‘let McCain be McCain’. Indeed, McCain’s most effective moments, whether bashing Ron Paul, supporting the surge the ‘Miss Congeniality’ advert or being endorsed by Lieberman have all been moments when he has not run away from his beliefs or his character.

Who will succeed Gordon Brown?

TPT looks at the betting odds

Given that is increasingly likely that Gordon Brown will be forced to resign as leader of the Labour Party (and by implication Prime Minister) the question now shifts to the person who will suceed him. It is axiomatic that, if he is removed, his sucessor will not come from the Labour left, or from many of the senior cabinet members. I simply cannot see Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling (although odds of 100/1 might be a bit too long), Ed Balls or John Cruddas suceeding him. For me there are only six credible candidates; David Miliband, Alan Johnson, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, Alan Milburn or James Purnell. Longshots whose odds are long enough to make betting on them worthwhile are: Hazel Blears, John Reid and (although I dislike his views on immigration) Frank Field. Of the six major contenders, Miliband, Straw and Purnell’s odds are simply too short while Johnson’s odds are about right.

My tips are: Alan Milburn (14/1), Charles Clarke (33/1), John Reid (50/1), Hazel Blears (100/1), Alastair Darling (100/1) and Frank Field (100/1).

How will ‘RFK-gate’ affect the McCain vs Obama contest?

Will it generate an outpouring of sympathy for Obama?

Hillary Clinton’s disgusting comments about RFK and Barack Obama have rightly resulted in condemnation from across the political spectrum and have almost certainly destroyed her campaign, though you can never completely write off the Clinton’s and she would do well to continue on for as long as possible so her horrible gaffe isn’t the last thing people remember about her. The question is now how this affects the general election. My take on this is sadly that this is bad news for McCain. This utterly makes sure that, even if Condi Rice is on the ticket, the African-American vote will turn out unaminously for Obama and a large number of’ ‘Hillary Democrats’ who had been considering defecting will vote for Obama. Of course, if some more revelations about Jeremiah Wright emerge things could change, but my guess is that McCain’s chances are only about 75% and falling.

Time for Gordon Brown to go

Why there has to be a challenge to Gordon Brown

Last night’s by-election result was disastrous for Labour, not just on its own but as a confirmation of he fact that Labour are doing disastrously in the opinion polls. Although I will still be voting for them at the next election it is pretty clear that the government will lose unless they make several changes, including replacing Gordon Brown. The problem with Brown is that he doesn’t have a vision for where he want to take the country and when he does come out with a good idea, such as closing the non-domiciled tax loophole, he hasn’t got the courage to back it up in the face of criticism. Although he made the correct decision to keep British troops in Iraq, he has constantly avoided justifying his decision, allowing his critics from the left to go unchallenged, and the Tories to keep quiet about their foriegn policy ideas. Similarly, although I heartily agree with Brown’s decision to reclassify cannabis, he has generally failed to pursue Tony Blair’s respect agenda and ailenated a lot of people by refusing to compromise on abortion.

I think the problem is getting the ball rolling. If Charles Clarke or Alan Milburn were to come out and directly challenge Gordon Brown he would be gone within 24 hours. However, the problem is that no-one is willing to put their head above the parapet, at least not yet. However, I still think that such a step is necessary and inevitable. Gordon Brown is the master of backstage politics (as he showed last year) so only a direct challenge will work. The worst scenario would be a continued level of low level sniping combined with a public facade of unity. Although I accept that, in the short term a contest could be messy, I would recommend, both as a British citizen as well as a gambler, one out of; Charles Clarke, Alan Milburn, John Reid (or my personal choice) Hazel Blears.

McCain/Lieberman speculation roundup

Momentum grows behind a McCain/Lieberman ticket

The past fews days has seen quite a bit of comment about the possibility of a McCain/Lieberman ticket. Lieberman seems to be dialling up the rhetoric and is demonstrating his potential effectiveness as a campaign surrogate. Economic conservatives seem to be warming to him, partially because he is not Huckabee, with both Larry Kudlow and the National Review Online suggesting that he be put on the ticket. The latter’s partial endorsement is interesting because they had previously threatened a floor fight, if McCain didn’t pick a candidate who was acceptable to them. Lieberman needs to work on getting acceptance from the Religious Right and continuing to remain acceptable to economic conservatives, while emphasising his credentials as a War Democrat. My suggestion is that he should run with YouTube’s refusal to remove terrorist propaganda and hold some hearings into the material they allow to be posted on their website.