Chris Palko's blog

The final state of the Big Ten Strategy is not strictly part of the Big Ten--the University of Missouri is a member of the Big 12 athletic conference.  However, the state of Missouri is politically much more similar to the states of the Great Lakes than to the states of the Great Plains.  Missouri is vital not only for its 11 electoral votes, but because it is the most typical state in the entire country.  Besides its central location along the Mississippi River, consider what else makes it so typical:

• Has voted for the winner in the Presidential election twenty-four out of the last twenty-five times (Adlai Stevenson in 1956 is the exception).
• Racially average; black population is 12%, same as the national average.  There are less Hispanics than average, though.
• Culturally diverse; there is an eastern industrial city (St. Louis), the southern part of the state is culturally southern, typical blend of urban, suburban, and rural.
• Population density is closest to the national average of any state.
• Center of the national population is located in Osage County, near the center of the state.

Missouri was one of George W. Bush's best success stories in 2000 and 2004.  Missouri, a state that voted for Bill Clinton twice, voted for Bush by 3.4 points.  In 2004, Missouri went from swing state to rout when Bush won the state by 7.2 points.  That's a greater margin than New Jersey gave John Kerry.  Kerry was limited to a mere four counties in the entire state.

However, 2006 demonstrated once again how Missouri was a bellweather state.  Democrat Claire McCaskill defeated incumbent Jim Talent in the race for US Senate.  This race, along with the Webb-Allen race, flipped control of the Senate to the Democrats.  The map of which counties that McCaskill won shows the roadmap for victory for Democrats.  It will be up to Republicans to prevent a repeat of 2006.

In the past few election cycles, Iowa has been a closely fought state.  In 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush in the state by three-tenths of a percentage point, or only 4,144 votes.  There was a one point swing between 2000 and 2004, but that was enough to give Bush a seven-tenths of a point margin over John Kerry.  Because of how close this was, nine counties switched over from 2000 to 2004.  This total allowed Bush to win by a hair over 10,000 votes.  These results indicate that Iowa is one of the great swing states in the nation, and should be tightly contested.

Obama may be a stronger general election candidate here than in other Midwestern states.  Geographic proximity is the main reason.  Iowans have strong ties to Illinois and Chicago in particular.  For the majority of Iowans, Chicago is the closest big city to them (I'm not counting Des Moines as a "big city", though some may view it as truly being big).  The long time Chicago Cubs AAA team, the Iowa Cubs, has been in Des Moines.  Chicago papers are commonly found in Iowa.  For these reasons, Obama is more well known in Iowa than in other places.  He certainly showed strength in the Iowa caucuses, which was instrumental in allowing him to successfully capture the Democratic nomination.

On paper, Iowa should be a solidly Republican state.  It has one major population center in the middle of the state, a higher than average rural population, a nearly all white populaton, and one of the oldest populations in the nation.  Yet, it has been a swing state in recent years.  Why?  The best explanation is that Democrats do better in rural areas here than in most states.  Iowa is one the few places where you will find a lot of old-fashioned farm Democrats, the descendants of William Jennings Bryan.  These people feel the pinch of trying to make family farming work and are receptive to the populism of Democrats.

Promoted and bumped. -Patrick

By virtue of voting for native son Walter Mondale in 1984, Minnesota has the longest streak of voting Democratic in presidential elections.  It last voted for a Republican in 1972, when George McGovern was too extreme for this historically liberal state.  Despite this, Minnesota is not the Massachusetts of the Midwest.  Instead, it is now what Illinois once was; a key Midwestern state dominated by a big city where the suburbs make the difference.  In 2000, Bush got within two points of winning the state, assisted by a strong Nader vote (5.25%).  Four years later, Bush was able to increase his percentage of the vote by two points.  But with liberals wary of voting for Nader again, John Kerry was also able to increase the Democratic share of the vote by over three points.  Bush fell 3.5 points short of victory.

In this election cycle, there are two wild cards associated with Minnesota.  The first of which is the Republican National Convention being held in St. Paul.  The GOP has held its last two conventions deep in the heart of Blue America, Philadelphia and New York.  While the city of St. Paul is Democratic, there could be greater potential for a positive convention changing the mind of some locals.  If you live in the Twin Cities, you will have a constant media drumbeat about the convention.  This is a major form of political advertising, which could benefit Republicans.

Promoted and bumped. -Patrick

Wisconsin has been a state that has been a near tie in the past two Presidential elections.  In 2000, Al Gore beat George W. Bush by the very slim margin of 5,708 votes, a difference of 0.22 percentage points.  2004 was a near replay of 2000, as John Kerry beat Bush by a similar margin of 11,384 votes, a 0.38 percentage point difference.  Consiering these totals, it would be ludicrous for either McCain or Obama to assume Wisconsin will be in their pile.

What are McCain's keys to victory in Wisconsin?  First, he has to minimize the damage that Obama could do in Milwaukee and Madison.  In 2004, Bush came out of Milwaukee County with a 117,000 vote deficit.  It is likely that McCain will run no better or no worse than Bush.  With a declining population, Milwaukee can't turn out that many more new voters than other places in Wisconsin.

I was planning to do an analysis on Ohio, but after looking at Matt Hurley's post on Ohio, I realized that I couldn't really do any better than he did.  So I decided to move on and move next towards doing Michigan.

Michigan has been a state that has been tantalizing for Republicans in the past decade, but always out of reach.  In 2000, Al Gore won the state 51.3% to Bush's 46.1%.  Four years later, Bush made up a little ground, but he still trailed John Kerry by 3.5 points.  Pennsylvania and Michigan have been voting in much the same way during the last two presidential elections, with Michigan about a point more Democratic.

In the state, Michigan has been a Democratic province this decade.  Jennifer Granholm took office in 2002, and won reelection easily in 2006.  Fortunately for Republicans, Granholm's popularity has suffered due to the lackluster performance of the Michigan economy.  It's not a good sign for your political future when you are said to be presiding over a "one state recession".  Perhaps more than any other major state, in recent years Michigan has become fed up with a Democratic state government.  Michiganders are ready for change, but the change they want may be in McCain's favor, not Obama's.

Promoted and bumped. -Patrick

In the last two Presidential election cycles, Pennsylvania has been one of the most contested states.  In 2000, George W. Bush visited Pennsylvania more than any other state.  In 2004, Pennsylvania was once again a key target state.  Unfortunately for Bush, Pennsylvania did not go his way in either election.  In 2000, Al Gore beat Bush by a margin of 52% to 47.5%.  Bush got his share of the vote up to 48% in 2004, but John Kerry edged him out by two and a half percentage points.

Despite being a swing state, Pennsylvania is not similar to the rest of the nation.  Pennsylvania is the second oldest state in the nation, behind retirement haven Florida.  In some ways Pennsyvania is even older than Florida because Florida also attracts young people, whereas young people flee Pennsylvania in droves.  Pennsylvania has had some of the lowest population growth in the nation, with many areas losing population.  And despite being a northeastern state, Pennsylvania has the highest per-capita membership in the NRA in the country.

Promoted. Post your general election strategery in the comments. -Patrick

Now that the general election matchup has been set, it is worth taking a look at what the candidates can do to win the election.  In the case of Obama, his best strategy would be to try and flip a few Mountain West states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico.  But of course, I'm not writing this to help Obama!  When I was looking for a strategy for McCain to win this fall, the best opportunites for pickups for him were in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  Other surrounding states like Ohio, Iowa, and Missouri were closely held by Bush in 2004.  These states of the industrial Midwest were all within 5 or 6 points last election and constitute a heavy portion of the swing electoral votes.  All of these states, with the exception of Missouri, have large state universities that are part of the Big Ten athletic conference.  Therefore, I have titled the strategy, "The Big Ten Strategy".

I believe that all too often in the past, conservatives have dismissed some issues because they didn't believe they were relevant.  Perhaps the best example is health care.  I would guess that the vast majority of conservatives have health care.  Likely for this reason, conservatives did not think health care ranked as a high priority.  We sort of ceded the issue to liberals.  The only thing we cared about was avoiding universal health care.  The ferocious backlash to HillaryCare was testament to this.  Conservatives were really good at identifying what they were against.

However, in the 15 years since HillaryCare, the health care system has deteriorated greatly.  The cost of providing employer based health care has skyrocketed.  Real wages for Americans have stagnated in the last decade, mostly because health care has been so expensive.  High gas prices get all the attention because gas prices are posted on signs outside gas stations.  But health care has been a greater burden on families than gas prices have.  Saying that we have "the best health care system in the world", as I hear talk radio hosts say on occasion, defines being out of touch.

So what is the solution?  I'm not an expert on the subject, but it seems to me that the best way out of this is to delink health coverage from employers.  The employer provided health insurance system is a product of World War II wage controls.  To skirt them, employers offered health coverage for competitive advantage.  Amazingly, this system survives to the present day.  What this system does is that it makes the costs of health care not apparent to those using it.  You are much more likely to demand that MRI or a 3rd ACL surgery if you don't see the bills.  Delinking employer based health coverage would lead to greater rationing of services, not through government fiat, but through market forces.

Creating a real free market health system (don't be fooled, the current system is already half government controlled) means creating a national market for health care.  If you are forced to buy a plan from an in-state provider, then you may be forced to pay much higher rates than if another less expensive provider from another state was available.

If we are crafting health insurance reform, we are probably going to have to make the painful concession of insuring the poor through the government.  I know that this will be costly and will be inefficient and be a raw deal for those enrolled in the program.  But politically, I can't see a way we can continue with a health regime where some aren't insured.  We may believe that we will avoid expenditures by not covering the poor, but we will pay another way, through emergency room visits from those who are uninsured.  The government picks up the tab for that anyway.

The goal of avoiding single payer health care is important.  But to be effective, conservatives must also be for something, not merely against something the Democrats advocate.  If we don't make health care a top priority immediately, then make no mistake, we WILL have socialized health care that ruins everyone's coverage, not just the poor's.  And if that happens, the conservative movement will have to bear much of the blame for dismissing the pressing needs of the health care system with a shrug.

Call me a sucker for survey threads, but... promoted and bumped. -Patrick

What types of political media does everyone on this site take in?

In my case, the only traditional newspaper that I look at is my hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  That is partly because of local news, but also because it has an excellent conservative-libertarian editoral page.  Otherwise, I don't read any physical newspapers.

As far as talk radio, the only person who I sometimes listen to is Rush.  He's the only one who is doing original analysis.  All the others read talking points and repeat what Rush said.

On TV, I watch Fox News most of the time for news.  I love the panel on Special Report.  That has to be the best political news on TV right there.  I also make sure to watch O'Reilly as much as possible.  His program is ALWAYS interesting and he has shrewd instincts as to guess which topics will be interesting.  I don't make an effort of watching anything else.

On the internet, I check two sites when I wake up (this could be the third).  They are RealClearPolitics and NRO.  RCP does all the hard work for me and gathers all the top opinion pieces of the day.  NRO has great writers who discuss issues intelligently.

Since this is my first post on this site, I thought it would be appropriate to detail my experience with conservatism.

Before I could differentiate between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, two driving forces in my life made me receptive to being conservative later.  The first was being raised in a Catholic household.  My parents weren't very political when I was little, but they were religious.  Looking back on it, my faith precluded me from accepting the premises of the left.  The other influence was my inherent dislike of politcal correctness.  I remember being in 5th grade and my teacher held a debate on the question "Should we tear down a forest to build a mall?"  I was the only one who rose above a sentimental love of animals and thought that building a mall would be great.  The first political commentator that I really liked was John Stossel.  He would be on 20/20 after TGIF (keep in mind I was 10 or 11 at this time).  What he was saying matched what I felt about extremist enviromentalists and spending boondoggles.

I first really got into politcs during the 2000 election campaign.  It was very interesting before election day and what happened after only further cemented my interested in the political game.  By the age of 14, I was watching political shows and listening to talk radio.  By this time, I actively identified as a conservative.  This was of course the time in which Bush was actually popular and commentators spoke of such things as a "permanent majority".  But throughout high school, being a conservative was generally rather fun.

In a rather ironic twist, at the very time that the Bush house of cards began to fall apart, I shipped off to one of the most liberal colleges in the country, American University in Washington DC.  Hurricane Katrina struck on the very first day of classes my freshman year.  I have lived out the entire time in which the Republican Party fell apart in the great liberal bastion of Washington DC.  Despite our difficulties nationally, I have had a fine time being conservative in DC.  I have interned at such conservative organizations as the Media Research Center and Townhall.com.  I have had a great time attending conservative conferneces.  Most of all, I got involved in the AU College Republicans.  Now entering my senior year, I have been the Secretary for two years running.  We have been extraodinarily successful.  We created national headlines when we brought Karl Rove to campus and a bunch of leftists laid down in front of his car.  I have had the honor of interviewing Edwin Feulner, Sam Brownback, and Jonah Goldberg for our CR newsletter.  I have had a great time despite all the doom and gloom nationally.

I began questioning much of the prevailing wisdom in conservatism by 2006.  At that point I realized that criticizing the administrations war conduct was not "liberal", it was necessary to victory.  I shouldn't have been surprised that we lost in 2006.  When the AUCRs volunteered to help candidates in 2006, everyone we helped lost.  We did a trip to Philadelphia to help Rick Santorum, we knocked on doors in Northern Virginia for Geroge Allen, and we worked the polls on Election Day for Michael Steele in Prince Georges County, MD.  It was the worst political day of my short life.  I was at the Michael Steele "victory party" when I found out my representative, Melissa Hart, had lost when I didn't think she was being seriously contested.  It was a shame to see a great candidate like Michael Steele being weighed down by the mistakes of the administration.  I realized that something was amiss, and I don't think the problems have been solved yet.

I hope that in my blog I can help with the process of the conservative movement to once again connect with the American people.  The damning data present in Josh Kahn's post doesn't necessarily surprise me.  I have sensed that for a time that simply being more conservative won't solve the problem.  I think that conservatism has gone from being a set of common sense solutions to too often being an "ideology", a fixed set of beliefs that can never be changed.  I think this needs to change, and something like The Next Right seems to understand this.