Trial-Heat Election Model Predicts 52.7 McCain Victory

Even the most sophisticated political science models are likely to exclude relevant variables contributing to the outcome of a presidential election, and thus - while often quite good - I've normally considered presidential forecasting research as knife-sharpening exercises rather than particularly reliable predictions of general election voting outcomes.

That said, with the intensity of this year's race more dramatic than any election in my lifetime, I've been paying some attention to the symposium on forecasting the 2008 elections at PS: Political Science & Politics, the journal of the profession at the American Political Science Association.

The symposium features ten research articles, both on the presidential race and the congressional elections.

Considering all the attention in the media and the blogosphere to a seeming Barack Obama November landslide, readers might want to mull over the piece from James Campbell, "The Trial-Heat Forecast of the 2008 Presidential Vote: Performance and Value Considerations in an Open-Seat Election."

Campbell's model combines Gallup's Labor Day "trial-heat" poll findings (head-to-head polls) with second-quarter GDP growth rates into a forecasting model that - in its most recent specifications, from 1992 to 2004 - has been accurate within one-half a percentage point of Gallup's final pre-election survey.

Here's how Campbell describes the model (with citations excluded):

In drawing heavily upon the preference polls, the models reflect both retrospective and (pre-campaign) prospective evaluations by the voters. While some voters may simply cast a verdict on whether they are satisfied with the performance of the in-party, other voters evaluate the issue positions, values, and character traits of the candidates and can do much of this even before the general-election campaign gets underway. Yet others may weigh both retrospective and prospective considerations in forming early vote inclinations. Unlike approval ratings, the trial-heat polls tap evaluations produced by whatever mix of prospective and retrospective considerations that voters in a particular year find convincing. The use of the early preference polls also allows the forecast to reflect the candidates’ relative success in uniting their parties’ bases at the outset of the campaign. This is an important aspect of the models since early party unity is more important to the overall vote than either the unity of partisans deciding later in the campaign or the division of later-deciding swing voters.

"Retrospective voting" refers to voters deciding their pick on the basis of the incumbent party's past policy performance: "What have you done for me lately?"

What Campbell finds, however, is that trial-heat models don't assume retrospective evaluations as a valid predictor of voter outcomes. What's key is that candidates matter, but also that open-seat elections are more closely decided presidential races (than when an incumbent is running for reelection), and that "dead-heat" contests are more likely in a open-seat election within a competitive party system environment.

Frankly, that sounds a lot like the state of the 2008 campaign is it now stands. As of today, Gallup shows a virtual dead-heat in the presidential horse race, with Barack Obama leading John McCain 49 to 47 percent among likely voters. As Campbell notes:

In short, the greater competition and less retrospective character of open-seat elections makes preferences polls particularly better suited than presidential approval ratings to predict the vote in open-seat elections.

"Preference polls" are those on the incumbent president's public approval ratings, and the implication here is that George W. Bush's historic low approval rates are likely to have a marginal impact on the outcome of the election.

Here's Campbell's conclusion:

There are ... however, good reasons to think that a big Obama win might not be in the cards. If voters are not purely retrospective or, at least, consider the presidential candidates’ records as well as the administration’s performance, if open-seat elections are more prospectively decided and more closely fought, and if elections for third-terms are fought on a level playing field rather than one tilted against the in-party, then we may be in for tight race....

So, what should we anticipate? What are the forecasts of the trial-heat forecast and its companion convention bump equation? First, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ August release of the real GDP growth rate in the second quarter was 3.3%(annualized). Second, the preference poll conducted by Gallup from September 5 to 7, the first poll in September after the conventions, indicated that 49% expressed a preference for Senator John McCain, 44% expressed a preference for Senator Barack Obama, and that the remaining 7% favored a third-party candidate or were undecided. Converted to two-party preferences, Senator McCain as the in-party candidate had 52.7% of the two-party split. Plugging the second-quarter growth rate and the Labor Day preference poll numbers into the trial-heat equation produces a forecast that Senator McCain should be expected to receive 52.7% of the two-party popular vote. Based on the out-of-sample errors of this equation, the likelihood that Senator McCain will receive the vote plurality is 83%. The companion convention-bump equation predicts a vote of 52.2%. This is based on the pre-convention preference poll split of 50% for McCain, a net convention bump of 2.7%, and the secondquarter GDP growth rate used in the trial-heat forecast equation. Based on the out-of-sample errors of this equation, there is a 76% probability that Senator McCain will receive a plurality of the national two-party popular vote.

As noted in the introduction to this post, election forecasts are limited to the variables specified in the model, and Campbell's forecast doesn't seem to be catching the impact of dramatic late economic shocks (like the past few weeks), as well as other factors unique to this year, such as considerably likely variation between reported survey responses and actual election day vote-behavior (the possibility of a "Bradley effect" dampening the support for the Democratic ticket).

That said, given uncertain market trends (up-and-down again stock rallies), the potential effect on the polls from John McCain's improved debate performance, and the unknown impact of party mobilization and youth turnout on election day, this race is going down to the wire as a potentially 50-50 election.

Given this analysis, the GOP ticket is performing much better than would be expected in this year's prevailing electoral environment, and it's way too soon to be announcing a Democratic Party landslide.

Footnote: Skeptics of the case made here are encouraged to check some of the other research pieces at the symposium, especially, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien's, "Leading Economic Indicators, the Polls, and the Presidential Vote."

Incendiary Sign or Naïve Political Memorabilia?

Some hard-left Democrats see their chance to even the score a bit, although all I'm seeing here is a collection of campaign memorabilia rather than a full-blown statement of revolutionary fervor at a Barack Obama campaign office (compare below).

But the Broward Sun-Sentinel provides some interesting background:

Among the images that greeted visitors to the John McCain campaign office in Pompano Beach this week was a sign headlined "Barrack Hussein Obama” that compared the Democratic presidential candidate to Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro.

Shown a picture of the sign Thursday night, Broward Republican Chairman Chip LaMarca said he was "disgusted" by it and would immediately go to the office and remove it.

"I'm speechless at the ignorance," LaMarca said. "It's not something we can condone.

"We're trying to promote positive messages for our candidates. I understand people want their candidate to win. It's ridiculous. I'll find out who put it up there, and maybe they'll volunteer somewhere else."

The sign on an 8 1/2 by 14 inch sheet of paper looks as if it was printed from a personal computer. It's part of a gallery of posters and signs on the wall immediately inside the front door of the Pompano office, near the intersection of Sample Road and U.S. 1.

Others signs on the wall include a portrait of McCain and his wife, Cindy, Republican elephants, patriotic sayings, and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin holding a large hunting rifle.

The sign in question mocked Obama's call for change and asked what other figures "called for change in this fashion." The answer: Marx, Hitler, Castro, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini. "And you want Obama for President? Are you nuts,” the sign said.

So, the Broward Republican Chair moved quickly to have this volunteer's poster taken down...

Meanwhile, I don't recall a similar outrage on the left when Ohio's James Burge, a Lorain County Common Pleas Judge, mounted a companion set of wall-sized images of Che Guevara and Barack Obama in his county governmental office.

Hmm, maybe we're seeing a bit of desperation on the left...

Mentally-Challenged Georgia Man Coerced to Vote Obama

Via Captain Ed: Election officials in Albany, Georgia, are investigating the case of Jack Justice, a developmentally-disabled adult, who was coerced to cast a ballot for Barack Obama in the state's early voting:

There's no word yet on possible ACORN involvement, although I doubt this will be the last of such outrages this year.

7th Grader Called Racist for Wearing McCain-Palin T-Shirt

From Volusia County, Florida: Ashleigh Jones, a 7th grader at New Smyrna Beach Middle School, was called a racist for wearing a McCain-Palin campaign shirt on campus:

Jones is volunteering at the Republican Headquarters in New Smyrna Beach. The Palin t-shirt was a gift from her fellow volunteers.

But when she wore it to school she learned just how tough politics can be.

“Some of the students were calling me racist because I was Caucasian,” she said. “I wanted the Caucasian man to win. And I told them that’s not true. It’s my freedom of speech, it’s my opinion.”

Jones' parents are taking the attacks in stride, seeing this as a chance for their daughter to express her views appropriately.

Jones, the 7th grader, plans to wear her shirt to school again.

Recall that Democratic-leftists are assumed to be more "tolerant" of difference than conservatives, but as we've seen this season, the essential totalitarianism of left-wing ideology is on full display.

Charles Krauthammer offered a penetrating analysis of the left's racism double-standard:

Let me get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association - with total strangers, mind you - but worse: guilty according to The New York Times of "race-baiting and xenophobia."

But should you bring up Barack Obama's real associations - 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004) and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN - you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.

Yep, racism - facism, even.

We need more kids like Ashleigh Jones out there, standing up for what's right.

William Ayers and Social-Justice Education

Inside Higher Ed reported the other day that over 3,000 professional educators and university professors have signed a petition in support of William Ayers, the unrepentent '60s terrorist and known associate of Barack Obama.

The petition, at Support Bill Ayers, states:

His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution — including publishing 16 books — to the field of education.

What is that "exemplary contribution"?

According to Sol Stern, at the Wall Street Journal, Ayers' educational pedagogy advocates the destruction of America as a social responsibility:

I've studied Mr. Ayers's work for years and read most of his books. His hatred of America is as virulent as when he planted a bomb at the Pentagon. And this hatred informs his educational "reform" efforts. Of course, Mr. Obama isn't going to appoint him to run the education department. But the media mainstreaming of a figure like Mr. Ayers could have terrible consequences for the country's politics and public schools....

Mr. Ayers was hired by the Chicago public schools to train teachers, and played a leading role in the $160 million Annenberg Challenge grant that distributed funds to a host of so-called school-reform projects, including some social-justice themed schools and schools organized by Acorn. Barack Obama became the first chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge organization in 1995. When asked for an opinion on the Obama/Ayers connection, Mayor Daley told the New York Times that Mr. Ayers had "done a lot of good in this city and nationally."

In fact, as one of the leaders of a movement for bringing radical social-justice teaching into our public school classrooms, Mr. Ayers is not a school reformer. He is a school destroyer.

He still hopes for a revolutionary upheaval that will finally bring down American capitalism and imperialism, but this time around Mr. Ayers sows the seeds of resistance and rebellion in America's future teachers. Thus, education students signing up for a course Mr. Ayers teaches at UIC, "On Urban Education," can read these exhortations from the course description: "Homelessness, crime, racism, oppression -- we have the resources and knowledge to fight and overcome these things. We need to look beyond our isolated situations, to define our problems globally. We cannot be child advocates . . . in Chicago or New York and ignore the web that links us with the children of India or Palestine."

The readings Mr. Ayers assigns to his university students are as intellectually diverse as a political commissar's indoctrination session in one of his favorite communist tyrannies. The list for his urban education course includes the bible of the critical pedagogy movement, Brazilian Marxist Paolo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"; two books by Mr. Ayers himself; and "Teaching to Transgress" by bell hooks (lower case), the radical black feminist writer.

Two years ago Mr. Ayers shared with his students a letter he wrote to a young radical friend: "I've been told to grow up from the time I was ten until this morning. Bullshit. Anyone who salutes your 'youthful idealism' is a patronizing reactionary. Resist! Don't grow up! I went to Camp Casey [Cindy Sheehan's vigil at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas] in August precisely because I'm an agnostic about how and where the rebellion will break out, but I know I want to be there and I know it will break out." (The letter is on his Web site, http://www.billayers.org/.)

America's ideal of public schooling as a means of assimilating all children (and particularly the children of new immigrants) into a common civic and democratic culture is already under assault from the multiculturalists and their race- and gender-centered pedagogy. Mr. Ayers has tried to give the civic culture ideal a coup de grace, contemptuously dismissing it as nothing more than what the critical pedagogy theorists commonly refer to as "capitalist hegemony."

In the world of the Ed schools, Mr. Ayers's movement has established a sizeable beachhead -- witness his election earlier this year as vice president for curriculum of the American Education Research Association, the nation's largest organization of education professors and researchers.

If Barack Obama wins on Nov. 4, the "guy in the neighborhood" is not likely to get an invitation to the Lincoln bedroom. But with the Democrats controlling all three branches of government, there's a real danger that Mr. Ayers's social-justice movement in the schools will get even more room to maneuver and grow.

I took a brief look at the Support Bill Ayers petition.

Jack Donnelly and Adolph Reed, Jr., two political scientists whose works I've read, have signed on in support of Ayers. I'm sure I'd find more if I examined the petition more carefully.

Donnelly's a specialist in international human rights and a U.C. Berkeley alumnus, while Reed's an announced black-studies radical who sees Barack Obama as a race-accomodationist sell-out.

Whatever their motivations, as well as all of the others, it's clear to me that the ideological indoctrination they support is a disaster for the future of this nation.

Image Credit: Wall Street Journal

Barack Obama and the Pre-Roe Legal Regime

As Ed Whelan argues, had Roe v. Wade been on the books in 1961, Stanley Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother, may well have aborted her pregnancy:

Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right. Very possibly not. (I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)

Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.

Thus, Obama quite possibly owes his life to the pre-Roe legal regime that prohibited the termination of pregnancy.

Read the rest of Whelan's piece, here (no matter the Illinois Senator's own position on the issue, Obama's backers might not now have "The One" as their candidate had his mother taken advantage of the very policies he now promotes).

For context, recall that "Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States."

Obama Risks Driver’s Licenses for Illegal Aliens

Via Ben Smith, here's the new ad from the National Republican Trust:

Here's the background:

The driver’s license issue emerged in September 2007, when then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer ordered New York officials to grant driver’s licenses to illegals. During the Oct. 30, 2007, Democratic primary debate at Drexel University, Sen. Hillary Clinton fumbled a question from the late Tim Russert over whether she supported Spitzer’s plan. As for Obama, he has supported driver’s licenses for illegals since his days in the Illinois Senate, and continues to maintain that training illegals to drive, and insuring them, enhances public safety.

No doubt Democrats will renounce this as pure fear-mongering (especially members of the radical left, who are either domestic terrorists themselves, terrorist cheerleaders, or terrorist enablers).

Yet, whether there is a direct relationship between support for illegrant immigrant driver's licenses and the boarding of flights to commit mass destruction (terrorists could board U.S. flights with foreign passports), Barack Obama's position puts him on the opposite side of public opinion on the issue.

Barack Obama is genuinely too radical and too risky.

The Shape of the Race, 10-16-08

I noted earlier, in my "Shape of the Race" essay from October 1, that "Republicans are getting worried and are urging McCain to go on the offensive against Obama."

Since then, with all due respect, it seems the sky is falling for a number of conservatives, who are throwing up their hands, crying, "well, darn, we should at least save the filibuster" (here and here, for example).

To be fair, I've been tempted to join in the pre-election mourning, but I can't: I simply don't believe the game's up, that the self-identified Democratic socialist Barack Obama has things all sewn up.

And, well, he doesn't, frankly.

Investor's Business Daily, widely respected as running one of the most accurate polling operations in recent elections, has Obama up by just three points in its most recent survey, 45 to 42 percent:

McCain clung to a three-point margin behind Obama entering their last debate. The race remains a virtual dead heat among Independents, with 24% still undecided. Investors are also dead- locked, while non-investors favor Obama. So far, McCain is not doing as well as Bush did in 2004 with key GOP support groups, including those who call themselves conservatives and married women.

Plus, Rasmussen has McCain within four points of Obama, 50 to 46 percent (as of 10-16):

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote while John McCain earns 46%. It’s the first time since September 25 that McCain’s support has reached 46%, but Obama has now enjoyed a four-to-eight point advantage for twenty-one straight days...

Finally, the race has tightened dramatically in Gallup's daily tracking poll, which just recently began reporting the findings on "likely voters," rather than "register voters" (and was thus showing larger trends for Obama), and now we see a true dead-heat, 49-47 percent!

The "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections. Today's results show Obama with a two-point advantage over McCain using this likely voter model, 49% to 47%, this is within the poll's margin of error.

Imagine that ... a "two-point advantage..."

Keep in mind that Barack Obama also has the highest unfavorables of any presidential candidate since Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Barack Obama just can't put John McCain away.

We'll see the full impact of last night's debate by the end of the weekend, but I'm not expecting the dynamics to change all that much. Obama's had the headway for weeks, and the while economic crisis remains the driving issue in the electorate, there's a large sense of uncertainty floating around.

Never surrender!

Graphic Credit: Gallup Poll

Daily Kos and "Joe the Racist Plumber"

Daily Kos has attacked Joe Wurzelbacher as "Joe the Racist Plumber."

Daily Kos also published Wurzelbacher's address online earlier today.

Now, here's how Markos Moulitsas defends his blog's program of poliltical demonization:

If you want a radical departure from the governments we've suffered the last several decades, we must deliver a whipping the likes Republicans haven't seen in ages.

I realize there are people uncomfortable with aggressive language and action. That's the difference between liberal weenies and movement progressives. Liberal weenies sit around thinking that "the truth" is enough for victory, and that if we simply explain to voters why Democrats are better, why, we can't possibly lose any elections! That's the crowd that wants to keep the "high ground" and doesn't want to go down in the gutters and fight the GOP where they live, lest we get a little muddied ourselves.

Movement progressives realize that we must do everything necessary allowable under the law to win because elections have consequences. This isn't about who is most pure, but about taking the fight to the enemy and aggressively embracing progressivism, offering clear contrasts between us and them, and fighting fire with fire. There's no ambiguity about where I belong.

So to my fellow movement progressives, embrace that killer instinct and let's finish the job. We've got conservatives demoralized and on the run. They are retrenching around their most important voices. So let's pick off those they've left exposed and go after their best defended leaders as well.

There you have it ... straight from the voice of the "mainstream of the Democratic Party."

I'll tell you what ... I'm not demoralized.

Note: "Today, 'progressive' is the term of choice for practically everyone who has a politics that used to be called 'radical.'"

This includes Barack Obama.

I'll be fighting the left with the GOP in power or in opposition. There's nothing worse the Markos Moulitisas and his ilk, and I'll take my stand for what's right.

Barack "Spread the Wealth" Obama

All along conservatives have hammered the point that Barack Obama is fundamentally a socialist radical.

Now, with last night's debate, the question which had long seemed forgotten in the mainstream media, is back in play. Indeed, James Pethokoukis asks, "Did Barack 'Spread the Wealth' Obama Just Blow the Election?"

A while back I chatted with a University of Chicago professor who was a frequent lunch companion of Obama's. This professor said that Obama was as close to a full-out Marxist as anyone who has ever run for president of the United States. Now, I tend to quickly dismiss that kind of talk as way over the top. My working assumption is that Obama is firmly within the mainstream of Democratic politics. But if he is as free with that sort of redistributive philosophy in private as he was on the campaign trail this week, I have no doubt that U of C professor really does figure him as a radical. And after last night's debate, a few more Americans might think that way, too. McCain's best line: "Now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes. We need to encourage business, create jobs, not spread the wealth around."

And by the way, I just noticed that the IBD/TIPP poll, the most accurate in 2004, has McCain down by just 3 points. If the contest is perceived by the voters as a contest between a wealth redistributor and a wealth creator, then it could be a long night come Nov. 4. This is still a center-right country, gang. Note this Gallup poll from June:

When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today's consumer, Americans overwhelmingly—by 84% to 13%—prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.

There you go.

I personally have no doubts at all the Barack Obama is socialist - perhaps not a full-blown Marxist Leninist, as I've written - but he's definitely socialist in his basic orientation on the relationship between economic class and state power.

What's amazing is how so many on the Democratic Party-left refuse to identify with that ideological label, preferring the amorphous "progressive" instead. It's six in one hand and a half-dozen in the other, for practical purposes.

Thankfully, Obama has yet to close the sale, so American tradition and values still may see the light of day after November 4.

Joe Wurzelbacher Attacked by Netroots Mobs!

Here's the new McCain ad buy, featuring “Joe the Plumber”:

This is, of course, Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio "Joe Sixpack" dude, who was the initial focus of last's night's presidential debate, and who is now the target of a coordinated defamation campaign by the radical left, which includes the release of Wurzelbacher's home address at Daily Kos.

The New Editor puts the Wurzelbacher smears in perspective:

By now everyone who follows politics has heard of Joe Wurzelbacher, a guy from Toledo known now as 'Joe the Plumber,' who asked a question of Barack Obama in a campaign rope line, and was referenced numerous times in last night's debate.

Like many of us, Mr. Wurzelbacher has questions about Barack Obama's tax policy, among other things.

So what happens to Mr. Wurzelbacher for expressing his views?

Reports in the mainstream media appear claiming that he is unlicensed (even though he doesn't need one as an employee of a business or as a contractor working on a residence), and that he apparently has a tax lien filed against him.

Not to be outdone, the Daily Kos published his home address for all the world to see.

The Democratic Underground just threw whatever they could at the guy.

Better think a little longer next time if you wish to criticize a Chicago Democrat running for president (or anything else, for that matter).

You might get 'the treatment.'

Update: Atlantic Monthly smear artist Andrew Sullivan chimes in -- in what appears to be part of his full court press to be named honorary Democratic Party Chicago precinct captain -- here and here.

Update II: More from the excruciatingly slimy Sullivan, who takes issue with the fact that Joe is Wurzelbacher's middle name, not his first.

Frankly, nothing is beneath the left these days ... nothing!

Virginia GOP Mailer Hits Democrats on Appeasement

The Virginia Republican Party has sent out a mass-mailer attacking the Democratic Party for appeasing our enemies.

Talking Points Memo is up in arms about it, denouncing the "slime."

In the race's final stretch, much of the real sludge and slime that floats to the surface will be the work not of the campaigns but of under-the-radar operations run by state parties and the like.

Here, for instance, is a new mailer from the Republican Party of Virginia that has to be seen to be believed. It hits Dems -- and by extension, Obama -- for wanting to appease terrorists and rogue leaders.

But the key is the last page, which displays a man who looks like Obama but with the same dark and sinister aspect as the bad actors depicted elsewhere in the mailing. Note the words superimposed over his face (click on the images to enlarge)...

Click the link for the image, which is narrow-cut photo of Obama-like figure.

TPM's rebuttal is not only to excoriate the "sleaze," but to argue that Barack Obama's policy is essentially identical to the current administration's, which is said to now be meeting with our enemies and finalizing diplomatic agreements that in fact consolidate the status quo (with a link here).

The problem with this is that not only has the Democratic Party long demonstrated in Iraq and Iran that it's the party of surrender, but that many prominent voices on the right have repudiated the Bush administration's capituation to Pyonyang and Tehran.

A John McCain administration, in this view, would return the U.S. to a foreign policy of firmness, bolstered by victory in Iraq.

Barack Obama, in contrast, will meet with our enemies "without precondition," which is translated into making absolutely no demands on the forces of evil arrayed against the United States.

Keep in mind, the Virginia Republican Party is simply playing traditional direct-mail politics. If folks want to see sleaze, just keep your eyes on the activities of the Kos-backed Demcratic Party base in the days ahead. Barack Obama had no comeback to McCain denunciation last night of the disgusting t-shirts worn by Democrat activists attacking Sarah Palin.

The Democrats will appease out enemies, and TPM's faux outrage does nothing to rebut that fact.

Obama Plays Defense in Final Presidential Debate

I let out a hoot last night when John McCain slipped in calling Barack Obama "Senator Government." The Wall Street Journal says that was the best moment of the debate:

Whether or not last night's much-improved debate performance helps John McCain rally in the polls, at least voters finally got a clearer sense of the policy differences. For our money, the best line of the night was Mr. McCain's Freudian slip of referring to Barack Obama as "Senator Government." Neither candidate is offering policies that meet the serious economic moment. But Mr. McCain would let Americans keep more of their own income to ride out the downturn, while Mr. Obama is revealing that his default agenda is to spend money and expand the government.

Beyond this, I think Barack Obama was on defense the whole night. McCain won the debate for his aggressive stance and clearly detailed responses on the economy. Unfortunately, I have to agree with Noah Pollock that the Arizona Senator missed a chance to drive the stake:

Opportunities abounded to drive home simple, direct, and perfectly legitimate arguments against Obama: his support for federally-funded and late-term abortions, his mendacity about his tax and health care plans, his associations with America-hating radicals and anti-Semites. He repeatedly tiptoed up to the line, but never quite crossed it. The effect was to discredit such accusations. The back-and-forth about Ayers ended up absolving Obama far more than it incriminated him. If you’re going to bring up Ayers, you better be ready to say something poignant and damaging. Instead, McCain served up Obama a stellar opportunity to make himself look perfectly innocent. And that is exactly what Obama did.

I'll have more on the debate later, and both sides are going to spin their candidate as the winner.

The truth remains that Barack Obama is benefiting from the economy, and Americans are setting aside reservations about machine politics and ideological radicalism in the hope of something new.

Be careful what you wish for, as they say...

McCain Must Expose the Real Obama

Tony Blankley lays out John McCain's challenge in tonight's debate:

The essence of this election season couldn't be simpler. The American public is so appalled at the condition of the country (which it unfairly, but not implausibly blames on the despised President Bush) that with fate casting John McCain in the role of Bush's surrogate, a majority actually is considering voting for Sen. Obama. And when an electorate is intent on doing something, the last thing it wants to hear about are the facts. Moreover, the public's lack of interest in the facts is facilitated by the major American media's refusal to report them....

During the past few weeks, as I have been traveling extensively across the country, I have yet to find anyone (including a few reporters and producers at local news stations in Florida, California and New York) who has heard [all the relevant facts of Obama's opportunistically corrupt past]. The response when I recite the facts is always about the same. More or less: "Really? Wow!"

A few days ago, a senior McCain campaign aide was reported to have said that McCain would rather lose with dignity than win by questionable means. I hope that isn't Sen. McCain's view because the aide has it exactly backward. If the polls are reasonably accurate, three weeks of John McCain's campaigning is the only thing standing in the way of the American public making the most uninformed presidential decision since the invention of the telegraph.

John McCain has an unambiguous duty to the nation to force the public to at least be informed as to the nature and character of Sen. Obama. He needs to lay out all the accurate available information of Obama's prior alliances, affiliations and conduct both for the purpose of revealing Obama's character and Obama's radical policy disposition.

The Obama campaign has raised to a high art the technique of politically intimidating people from commenting honestly about Obama. They play the race card dishonestly, and almost the entire deck from which they deal is filled with race cards and threats of litigation. Real racism is appalling, but the act of falsely charging racism undercuts the very causes of equality and tolerance.

As courageous as John McCain's life has been to date, the next three weeks may be his most heroic. He must do his duty and alert the public despite the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" that will be shot into his back as he does so. Once he has discharged that duty -- and arranged for sufficient lawyers to protect the ballot boxes from what is likely to be an unprecedented campaign of attempted voter fraud -- Sen. McCain may be confident that his honor will be intact. And he will be ready to serve as our 44th president.

McCain apparently still seeks to take the high road, but he needs to realize that telling the truth about Barack Obama's shady political pedigree is not "dirty politics" but smart strategy.

The credit markets are stabilizing, and polling shows that people are not desperately worried about their economic situation - this means that the market crisis may have peaked just in time for an effective GOP push-back against Barack Obama's oppositional character.

Leftists Look the Other Way on Obama's Radical Past

Tracy, a commenter at my previous post, argued:

Don't you think if there was anything under his rocks, the dirtdobbers would have found it in four years. The worst thing Obama has on his dossier is some fleeting aquaintances with some undesirables. Get a life people.

We have some time to go yet before November 4th, but for die-hard Barack Obama supporters, there is no radical revelation would shake them from their worship of "The One."

Image Credit: PA Pundits

What is Happening to this Country?

I've said it before, but the more I learn about Barack Obama the more I'm convinced he'll be an unbelievable, unending nightmare for the United States.

Melanie Phillips nails it:

You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.

It's not just that the most radical ideologues in America have found an eager ally in Barack Obama, but that the national media and public opinion have enabled and embraced this man.

This really is change, but it's something I can't believe, or believe in.

What is happening to the country?

Obama Backer Displays John McCain in Klan Sheets

I sometimes don't know what to think.

Just days after a supporter of Barack Obama attacked Sarah Palin with a disgusting photographic t-shirt at the official campaign webpage, now an Obama backer is alleging John McCain is a bat-wielding Klansman about to lynch Senator Obama:

Ron Havens has a reputation for provocative Halloween displays that reflect his strong political views.

But even Havens was pretty sure his latest effort was over the top. That didn't stop him from setting it up in plain sight anyway.

Havens, who lives on Schuyler County Route 15 (Ridge Road) just south of Odessa, this week set up a Halloween display featuring mannequins that look like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain.

But the Obama figure looks like he is running, and the McCain likeness is dressed in the hooded robe of the Ku Klux Klan and is carrying a baseball bat.

Havens is quick to point out he is a liberal and a big supporter of Obama, and that the scene is meant to provoke thought about the way he believes Obama has been unfairly treated by the McCain campaign.

Not only does Havens acknowledge that the display's beyond the pale, the local NAACP official refused to condemn the provocation:

Georgia Verdier, president of the Elmira-Corning Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she was concerned about the injection of race into the presidential campaign when someone called her to complain about the scene.

After viewing a photograph of Havens' display, Verdier said it seems innocuous enough, but she's still concerned it may send the wrong message.

"It looks friendly but I am concerned not so much about this display, but in general about the fear and hate that have entered the campaign," Verdier said.

Of course, the "hate and fear" is being spewed by leftists and their endless allegations of racism, but it's all "innocuous" when directed at the GOP.

This has been the nastiest campaign in memory, and it's not because of John McCain's supporters.

Nebraska’s Child Abandonment Nightmare

I'm frankly blown away at the news that a Detroit mother drove 12 hours and 700 miles in the middle of the night to abandon her 13 year-old son at a "safe-haven" hospital in Omaha, Nebraska:

A Michigan mother drove roughly 12 hours to Omaha, so she could abandon her 13-year-old son at a hospital under the state's unique safe-haven law, Nebraska officials said Monday.

The boy from the Detroit area is the second teenager from outside Nebraska and 18th child overall abandoned in the state since the law took effect in July.

"I certainly recognize and can commiserate and empathize with families across our state and across the country who are obviously struggling with parenting issues, but this is not the appropriate way of dealing with them, whether you're in Nebraska or whether you're in another state," said Todd Landry, who heads the state's Department of Health and Human Services' division of children and family services.

There was no sign the boy was in immediate danger before he was abandoned early Monday, but an investigation into the boy's situation was still continuing, Landry said.

The boy has been placed in an emergency shelter. Landry said the family doesn't appear to have ties to Nebraska and he wasn't sure if the family had sought help in Michigan first.

State officials have met with the boy's mother, Landry said but wouldn't immediately address her reasons for leaving her son. He said he believed the boy's parents were married but wasn't sure if the father agreed to the decision.

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, who is Republican, issued a press release on October 7 acknowledging the dire consequences of the law and announcing the state's intent to amend the legislation:

Abandonment of an older child is potentially very devastating. Human services professionals have highlighted the difference in giving up a baby who will grow up knowing their birth family wanted a better life for them versus the impact of a parent giving up on an older child.

Nebraskans believe strongly in parental responsibility. The essential element defining any family is the knowledge that parents provide unconditional love for their children.

Here's Captain Ed's remarks on the law, from October 9:

When Nebraska passed a law that allowed panicked mothers to abandon their babies at hospitals with immunity from prosecution, many hailed it as a breakthrough in helping to keep unwanted infants alive. Now it looks more like a poster child for bad legislation.

But note this from the comments at a "women's issues" blog:

This is perhaps just another canary in the mineshaft of just how tight and tense our world - especially financially - is becoming.

If anything ... these [open-ended] laws should be universal across the country.

No doubt the writer's a Democrat, and is looking forward to a Barack Obama administration.

This is not a stretch: Recall that Obama, aka Senator Infanticide, has consistently voted against born-alive infant protection legislation, which indicates the Democratic nominee's demonstrated willingness to abandon those most in need of society's protection - not unlike the Detroit mother who abandoned her son, along with her moral responsibility, at the steps of the hospital's door.

Image Credit: ABC News

The Wright Ticket to the McCain Comeback

The Los Angeles Times reports that John McCain is looking for another comeback:

John McCain unveiled a feisty new campaign speech Monday, but the talk of change and promise of a fist-shaking fight to November failed to allay Republican concerns that the presidential race may be slipping beyond his grasp.

With 21 days to the election, there was widespread agreement that Wednesday night's third and final presidential debate would be a crucial opportunity - and perhaps the last one - for the Arizona senator to change the course of a race that appears to be moving strongly in Democrat Barack Obama's direction.

But the consensus ended there. For just about every Republican urging McCain to focus relentlessly on the economy, there was another who said McCain should continue questioning Obama's character by citing his association with William Ayers, a Vietnam-era radical. Some said the GOP nominee needed to do both, and also bring up the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's controversial former pastor; others called that a mistake and said that a mix of messages was part of McCain's problem.

It now appears that McCain will raise Obama's relationship to Ayers in tomorrow's debate.

I'm one those who've been disappointed in McCain's aversion to attacking Obama's radical ties, although I understand the reasoning: McCain's been searching for the right approach that balances toughness and the bounds of decency (for fear of being labeled "racist").

It's been a difficult process, and it may be too late in many respects, at least on Ayers and ACORN.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is another story, however. Obama was badly damaged by viral videos and revelations of his pastor's fire-and-brimstone anti-Americanism. If McCain wants to get serious about attacking the Illinois Senator's questionable associations, Wright's the ticket. Obama admitted a close friendship to his pastor, and he attended Trinity United Church for close to two decades.

Stanley Kurtz, who's done more than anyone else to reveal the extent of Barack Obama's radical associations, has a new report indicating that Obama's relationship to Wright was more significant than previously reported - that from Wright, to Ayers, and the Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama's radicalism can be seen as a set-piece of funding, planning, and indoctrination.

Can this be the October Surprise?

It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.

John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.

Read the whole thing.

Barack Obama's ties to anti-American pedagogists and extremist black-separatists are not insignificant.

For John McCain, in looking for a comeback, he need look no further than Barack Obama's long history of funding and empowering groups who would denounce the U.S. as an "ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization."

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

Obama Plays Race Card as More Blacks Are Elected

The New York Times has an important article up tonight, the implications of which will be dismissed by those who insist on making allegations of racism against those who speak critically of Barack Obama.

As the Times reports, black officials in state governments across the country are steadily working their way to successful careers in politics, and the remarkable change here is that white majority constituencies are supporting them:

Political analysts say [black] electoral gains are quietly changing the political landscape, increasing the number of black lawmakers adept at crossing color lines as well as the ranks of white voters who are familiar, and increasingly comfortable, with black political leadership.

The black officials, who often serve in small- and medium-size towns, have been overshadowed by the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who if elected would be the first African-American to hold that office.

But over the last 10 years, about 200 black politicians have won positions once held by whites in legislatures and city halls in states like New Hampshire, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee.

In 2007, about 30 percent of the nation’s 622 black state legislators represented predominantly white districts, up from about 16 percent in 2001, according to data collected by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group based in Washington that has kept statistics on black elected officials for nearly 40 years.

Political scientists and local officials also point to an increase in the number of black mayors who represent predominantly white cities in places like Asheville, N.C., population 74,000, and Columbus, Ohio, population 748,000. According to a study conducted by Zoltan L. Hajnal, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, about 40 percent of Americans have lived in or near cities that have elected black mayors or in states with black governors.

According to the report, black office-seekers still represent primarily minority communities, but the statistics indicate a startling transformation toward color-blind political representation across large segments of the nation.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's campaign has made systematic use of racial allegations to propel a candidacy that at one time based its appeal on post-racial transcendence.

Mark Levin has more on this, and the contrast between objective black progress and opportunistic race-baiting is just astounding:

Barack Obama's campaign has managed to paint Geraldine Ferraro, Bill Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin as racists. Meanwhile, how dare anyone suggest that Obama's voluntary association with a racist pastor for 20 years, and his lame defense of the association, raises character questions.

Will the lib media be upset if we quote Aristotle, whose insight seems useful in this context?

"Those, then, are friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who are, moreover, friendly or unfriendly to the same people; for in that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves each other's friends." (Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, Chapter)

We choose our own friends and associates. And this is significant in Obama's case in particular as we are trying to get a sense of who he is and what informs him. Obama is asking the nation to honor him with its highest office. Yet, during most of his adulthood, he has befriended some of the worst kind of people — many of whom detest the nation Obama seeks to lead. And when combined with Obama's own extremism on issue after issue (is there a left-wing position he does not embrace?), there can be no doubt that an Obama administration working with a Democrat majority in Congress will fundamentally alter the nation's character in ways that will be very difficult to unravel.

America's commitment to color-blind equality, a commitment ironically confirmed by Obama's own nomination as the Democratic Party nominee, is one key area of public policy that will undergo transformation.

Strangely, the wheels of progress on race relations will likely grind to a halt, as a Democratic administration - with majorities in Congress - seeks to roll back race-neutral policies in areas of civil rights, education, and voting, with the likely result being the very kind of racial backlash against which Obama and his Democratic allies now decry.

It's Obama's Difference, Not His Race...

Democratic running mate Joseph Biden is in the news today. Apparently he's warning the McCain camp against encouraging "fringe people," a reference to the "angry" mobs who are allegedly threatening to Barack Obama.

This is just a few days after Congressman John Lewis, the civil rights veteran who was beaten while demonstrating at Selma, claimed that John McCain and Sarah Palin were "playing with fire" in invoking the George Wallace legacy of racial hatred.

This really is over the top irrationalism, especially since not one Democrat was upset about the left's Trig Palin smears, or Sandra Bernard's unhinged theatrical performances attacking Sarah Palin (warning she'll be gang-raped), or ... well, you get the picture.

The fact is that, as I've found in talking to people, over and over again, including top political science experts, there's very little Jim Crow racism to be found in the voting electorate; and in fact, we might as well see a reverse-Bradley effect pushing Obama over the finish line on November 4.

What bothers people about Barack Obama is not so much his race, but his difference - especially his oppositional difference to American tradition and values.

This passage, from today's New York Times, captures the common aversion to Obama among regular folks:

Race is indisputably a backdrop against which this campaign has unfolded ... but that does not mean opposing Mr. Obama or using harsh words is racist....

“At first I was open to Obama because I thought we needed new thinking about jobs and the economy,” said Burton Reed, a Republican at the rally here. “But the more I heard about him, the more worried I became. He says he’s Christian, but I hear he’s Muslim. And he just doesn’t sound pro-U.S.A. I kind of question his devotion to this country.”

One factor for Mr. Reed and several other Republicans and independents interviewed along the bus route on Sunday was Mr. Obama’s long association and friendship with Mr. Wright. Others said they simply had a hard time relating to Mr. Obama’s background or accepting his political positions, which are widely seen as liberal.

“The bottom line is, he isn’t one of us, and I’m scared to death of him,” said Lloyd Wood, a Republican and farmer in this rural town in southeast Ohio who came to the local Wal-Mart on Sunday for a campaign visit by Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain’s running mate.

“Guns, abortion, homosexuality, religion, protecting Israel, taxes,” Mr. Wood continued. “I feel like he is totally different from where I stand, and I worry what he would do to this country. And listen, I’ve voted for black Republicans before — voted for one for governor last time — but Obama is just this very privileged kind.”

A "very privileged kind"?

That pretty much sums up the basic resistance to Obama we saw during the Democratic primaries, the type of refrain one might have heard around the time the Illinois Senator alleged that working-class Pennsylvanians were likely to "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them..."

I think this is what's bothering so many people, including some of the kindest souls you'd ever be lucky enough to meet ... people without a wicked bone in their bodies.

Obama's "hope and change" is just a bit much, and now Democrats are trying to turn everday folks into KKK night-riders, which reveals just how deeply the Obama camp is willing to go in rekindling the racial tensions that have been steadily subisiding since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Paul Krugman Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote:

One would hardly know it from his New York Times commentaries, but Paul Krugman's actually one of the country's great contemporary economists...

The point's certainly relevant, with this morning's announcement that Professor Krugman has won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

I've been familiar with Krugman's work since my days in graduate school in the early '90s. I even attended a lecture given by Krugman while still at UCSB.

While Krugman's Nobel was awarded for his work on "the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity," many scholars remember him especially for the impact he made in strategic trade theory. As Tyler Cowen notes:

Krugman is very well known for his work on strategic trade theory, as it is now called. Building on ideas from Dixit, Helpman, and others, he showed how increasing returns could imply a possible role for welfare-improving protectionism. Krugman, however, insisted that he did not in practice favor protectionism; it is difficult for policymakers to fine tune the relevant variables. Boeing vs. Airbus is perhaps a simple example of the argument. If a government can subsidize the home firm to be a market leader, the subsidizing country can come out ahead through the mechanism of capturing the gains from increasing returns to scale. Here are some very useful slides on the theory. Here is Dixit's excellent summary of Krugman on trade. Krugman himself has admitted that parts of the theory may be less relevant for rich-poor countries trade (America and China) rather than rich-rich trade, such as America and Japan.

Because strategic trade theory gained powerful policy relevance simultaneously with the rise of Japanese economic power in the late-1980s, Krugman's work was often used to bolster arguments in favor of trade protection.

Consequently, Krugman spent later years shoring up his free trade bona fides, and in a 1994 Foreign Affairs essay he went so far as to ague that international economic competitiveness was a "dangerous obsession" (full article available in pdf, here). Clyde Prestowitz, himself a major advocate of strategic trade, took issue with Krugman's longstanding efforts of "running away from the implications of his own findings."

These are old debates, and while Krugman still claims "I’m not a protectionist," what's even more interesting about today's news are the political circumstances surrounding the award.

Krugman, in his capacity as a New York Times columnist, is a superstar on the hardcore ideological left. Many of these nutty nihilists are now claiming political vindication in the Nobel committee's decision, for example, Matthew Yglesias:

Krugman has become known to a wide audience as a left-of-center newspaper columnist. The fact that he’s a credentialed economist has always been well-known, but the point that he’s actually a really well-regarded economist is not all that well-understood. But a Nobel Prize is something people understand. It doesn’t make his political pronouncements the word of God, of course, and there are Nobel Prize winning economists on the right as well. But it does underscore the fact that very many people who really and truly know what they’re talking about think the progressive approach to economic and social policy is the way to go.

That's one of the more simplistic things I've read in some time, considering the partisanship associated with the award, but I'll let Jules Crittenden explain some of the thinking that went into the decision of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

I wouldn’t want to suggest Krugman excuses terrorism or hates America. It is likely, however, that his extensive Bush-bashing, Saddam-dismissing, GWOT-mocking absurdism was a heavy thumb on the Nobel scale.

These are the same folks who awarded Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work, so go figure.

GOP Struggles to Hold the South

I noted yesterday that 2008 may see a "critical election," whereby the recent economic and political trauma creates an electoral crisis reminiscent of the Civil War and the Great Depression, resulting in a Democratic landslide that shakes the nation's political coalitions to their foundations.

It's a dramatic scenario, and not particularly likely, in light of the nature of political dealignment in the U.S. since 1968 (independent voters and split-ticketing have become common and electoral volatility has been characteristic of recent party dynamics, with neither party able to secure a long-term advantage at the national level).

Yet, this morning's Wall Street Journal indicates that for the first time since the 1960s, the GOP ticket is at risk of losing the support of Southern voters: "In Virginia, McCain Struggles To Hold the South for GOP":

Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin are scheduled to roll into Virginia on Monday in a bid to stop the Republican ticket's slide in the state and thwart what once was unthinkable: fractures in the "Solid South," the backbone of successful Republican presidential politics for four decades.

Not long ago, Virginia appeared solidly in the McCain camp. Republican strategists knew the race would be tighter there in 2008 than in past years, but were confident enough not to open a standalone state headquarters and spent sparingly on advertising while pouring resources into other states.

But in the past week, polls began showing Sen. McCain falling well behind Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama in the state. Two weeks ago, Sen. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, held a rally in Prince William County, Va., long a conservative stronghold in a state that has voted for only one Democratic presidential nominee since 1948. The Democrats drew more than 20,000 people, many of whom waited an hour in a torrential downpour and lightning before the candidates arrived.

Fueled by demographic shifts, rising doubts about the direction of the country, perceived missteps by Sen. McCain and a voter-registration push by the Obama campaign that has helped add a net of 310,000 new, mostly younger voters, the Democratic ticket increasingly appears positioned to win Virginia and make critical inroads across the South. A CNN/Time Inc. poll released Wednesday shows Sen. Obama has opened a nine-point lead on Sen. McCain in Virginia.

The article also notes the Obama's competitive in North Carolina.

While Obama still trails in the Deep South states of Georgia and Mississippi, this year's electoral trends appear to be at least partially reversing the "secular relignment" of Southerners to the Republican column since Barry Goldwater's run for the White House in 1964.

That said, Barack Obama's lead in national polling is tighter than had been assumed, depending on the polling organization and whether one counts "registered" or "likely" voters. Jennifer Rubin, moreover, points to a number of continuing liablities that have preventing the Illinois Democrat from pulling out a double-digit lead in national surveys.

As always, much remains to be seen, and Wednesday night's debate offers one more chance for John McCain to change the dynamics of the race.