How do you feel about spam on your cell phone? Once I got a text message from “Brianna” who “wanted to meet me” and I did not appreciate the porn spam. I’ve heard this story twice on NPR this afternoon and think it’s a terrible idea. If I heard this correctly, the Obama campaign will text-message its supporters and ask them to text-message everyone on their cell phone’s contact list. All we need is political spam on our cell phones, so I sure hope not!...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato says, HOW THE CONVENTION BALL BOUNCES: Convention bounces in recent history Forget the Olympics. Political junkies are in the convention pre-season. As we approach the Democratic National Convention on August 25 to 28 and the Republican National Convention on September 1 to 4, analysts just want to know one thing: How big are the bounces? The “bounce”, of course, refers to the jump in the polls that a party experiences as a result of...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s James E. Campbell says, Getting More Out of the Polls Political observers have become more sophisticated in their reading of polls in recent years. They know enough now not to read too much into summer polls. Poll leaders in June are not any more likely to win than their opponents who trail them in the summer polls. By the time of the conventions, though, polls become more meaningful. Since 1948, 12 of the 15 candidates leading in the Gallup poll after the conventions...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Justin M. Sizemore says, THE DEMOCRATIC GROUND GAME: Can New Voters Make the Difference? From the time Barack Obama declared his candidacy for president, his campaign realized it would benefit from what came to be called the enthusiasm gap. “In most campaigns, it’s a challenge to drag people out,” Western States Field Director Buffy Wicks told a group of volunteer organizers gathered in San Francisco last summer. “We’re not that campaign,”...

Here’s a report by The Caucus Blog of the New York Times: It was the handshake shown around the country. At about 9 p.m. Eastern time, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain briefly crossed paths in a rare moment in the presidential campaign (the Senate floor doesn’t count, and besides, neither of them has been there much lately). They shared the stage for 36 seconds at Saddleback Church, an evangelical mega-church here, where they briefly hugged each other and smiled, belying a nastier campaign...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Rhodes Cook says, GOING FOR THE BRONZE: Third parties to have an impact in ’08? When political reporters run low on topics to write about, they often turn their attention to third parties–the “lovable losers” of American politics. They never win at the presidential level but often are called upon to add color to campaigns that are sometimes badly in need of it. Not since 1972 has a third party actually won an electoral vote. Not since 1968...

I often read Chris Cillizza’s Washington Post column, ‘The Fix’. Here he evaluates 5 Republican and 5 Democratic VP hopefuls: Friday Veepstakes Line: Crunch Time! In conversations with a wide variety of sources on both sides of the aisle, we have some sense of the mindset of each man as he approaches one of the most momentous decisions in this campaign. For Obama, the general sense is that he will opt for a “safe” choice — a known commodity along the lines of either...

…and probably doesn’t want either! Superdelegate Kwame Kilpatrick! The New York Times: Judge Permits Detroit Mayor to Attend Party Convention Just when it seemed that the scandal involving Detroit’s embattled mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, who is facing assault and perjury charges, could not not grow any more bizarre, it did. On Thursday morning a judge ordered that Mr. Kilpatrick, a Democratic superedelegate, be allowed to attend the party’s national convention this month in Denver...

08/07/2008: Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato says, THE OTHER “HOUSE” ELECTIONS: STATEHOUSES ’08 Leave the presidential contest aside for the moment. At other levels of politics, the Republicans may eventually file the 2008 campaign under the Double Jeopardy category of “It Just Keeps Getting Worse”. Surely, GOP House strategists are asking themselves whether they are cursed this year. Just take a look at New York’s 13th district, which has been...

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Alan Abramowitz says, NINETY DAYS AND COUNTING: The Outlook for the 2008 Presidential Election in Early August In less than three months millions of Americans will go to the polls to choose the next president of the United States. For the first time since 1952, neither the incumbent president nor the incumbent vice-president will be on the ballot. Instead, the Republican Party, which has seen its popularity and electoral fortunes plummet since 2004, will pin its...

Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post Writers Group has an interesting article today that begins as follows: The bustling Obama headquarters on North Michigan Avenue invites comparisons to a start-up, teeming with young people in jeans clutching BlackBerrys as they walk through the halls. Yet in Democratic circles, another, potentially less welcome, parallel is being made: to the tight-knit and tight-lipped organization eight years ago of George W. Bush. Decisions are guarded with extreme secrecy,...

BBC: Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin’s prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died at 89, Russian media say. The author of the Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, who returned to Russia in 1994, died of either a stroke or heart failure.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball’s Rhodes Cook says, CLOSE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: Not the American norm For those voters who have come of age in the 21st century, the extremely close presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 must seem like the norm. But that is hardly the case. Over the course of American history, there have been more presidential elections decided by landslide margins than have been determined by narrow margins. Of the 46 contests held since nationwide tallies of the popular vote...

MSNBC: U.S. officials say the Justice Department has indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on charges related to a long-running investigation of business dealings in Alaska. Stevens, who has served in the U.S. Senate for 40 years, is up for re-election this year, and Democrats view his seat as one of their top pick-up opportunities. [snip] Seven other Alaska politicians had previously been indicted in the FBI’s long-running investigation of political corruption, including state Sen. John Cowdery,...

Apparently reporters have been pestering Larry Sabato, so he has issued a Special Edition of Sabato’s Crystal Ball: VICE PRESIDENT TIM KAINE? Pros and Cons of a New Dominion Decision. We have no earthly idea if Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is Obama’s choice for Vice President. All we know is that distinguished reporters who claim to have good sources are calling and saying that Kaine is on the short-short list. Since the Crystal Ball is based in Virginia, and since we have followed Tim...

Newsweek asked, I answer: For Republican Senator John McCain, why not Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin? Ever hear of McCain-Feingold in reference to campaign finance reform? If a liberal, divorced Jewish Democrat won’t fly with the GOP, why not someone McCain actually likes such as Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge? For Democratic Senator Barack Obama, the boldest and best move he could make would be asking Al Gore to top his ticket while Obama takes the Veep slot himself. This would...

07/24/2008 Alan Abramowitz on TRACKING THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: If you’re a political junkie like me, and if you’re reading this article there’s a pretty good chance you are, then you’re probably addicted to the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls. Where else can you follow the ups and downs of the presidential race every day? I can hardly wait to get my daily fix of Rasmussen every morning and Gallup every afternoon. [snip] Lately, though, something’s been bothering...

A Response to Alan Abramowitz, Thomas E. Mann, and Larry J. Sabato on THE MYTH OF A TOSS-UP ELECTION: 07/24/2008 James E. Campbell on RESPONSE: ANYBODY’S BALL GAME In their examination of the fundamentals and the polls to this point in the 2008 election, my esteemed colleagues Alan Abramowitz, Tom Mann, and Larry Sabato indicate that they believe that the presidential election is essentially a done deal. As they see the 2008 story developing, Barack Obama will win a comfortable victory, if...

07/24/2008 Alan Abramowitz, Thomas E. Mann, and Larry J. Sabato on THE MYTH OF A TOSS-UP ELECTION “Too close to call.” “Within the margin of error.” “A statistical dead heat.” If you’ve been following news coverage of the 2008 presidential election, you’re probably familiar with these phrases. Media commentary on the presidential horserace, reflecting the results of a series of new national polls, has strained to make a case for a hotly contested...

A Look Inside An Israeli Daniel Gordis: Dispatches from an Anxious State 18 July 2008: When Mistakes Are Worth Making For some strange reason, I remember the scene with clarity. I was in the kitchen, early on a Friday afternoon about a month ago, cooking Shabbat dinner. Micha, our youngest, now 15, was hanging out in the living room. The radio was on in the background, and on the hour, the news came on. It was over in minutes, and then the music returned. I hadn’t really paid attention to the news,...

AP via MSNBC: Phil Gramm, a top adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, said Friday he is resigning from the role as campaign co-chairman after his comments that the United States had become a “nation of whiners” who constantly complain about the state of the economy.

07/17/2008 Rhodes Cook on A NEW ELECTORATE IN THE MAKING? Speculation abounds these days about whether this fall’s presidential election will produce a dramatically different electoral map than the virtually static one of the last two contests. Will Colorado and Virginia lead an array of longtime Republican states that might be won this time by Democrat Barack Obama? Or might Michigan and Pennsylvania be in the vanguard of Democratic strongholds picked off by Republican John McCain? Those...

07/17/2008 Alan I. Abramowitz on DOES OBAMA HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WHITE VOTERS? “Poll Finds Obama’s Run Isn’t Closing Divide on Race,” reads the headline on the front page of the July 16th New York Times. The article beneath the headline observes that despite Barack Obama’s candidacy, the results of a new CBS/New York Times Poll show that American society is still deeply divided along racial lines. Blacks and whites continue to hold divergent views about the state of...

I missed several Sabato’s Crystal Ball emails due to accidental unsubscribing. Here is the last of many make-up posts. 06/19/2008 Alan I. Abramowitz on THE ELECTORAL BAROMETER VS. THE POLLS A question that keeps arising in connection with this year’s presidential race is why, given the extremely favorable political environment for Democrats, Barack Obama has not been able to establish a clear lead over John McCain in national polls. Based on President Bush’s extraordinarily low approval...

I missed several Sabato’s Crystal Ball emails due to accidental unsubscribing. Here is one of many make-up posts. 06/05/2008 Justin Sizemore’s HOW OBAMA DID IT: Big states, small states, caucuses and campaign strategy Shortly before ten o’clock on the evening February 1, 2008, Barack Obama’s chartered 737 took off from Albuquerque International Airport bound for Boise, Idaho, where the Illinois senator was scheduled to hold a rally the next day. In just four days voters in...