Bill Schneider, an academic and Third Way centrist, recently wrote in a Politico opinion piece that the problem with the Republican presidential campaign isn’t just the competence of the candidate, Mitt Romney, but rather the fact that the GOP has trapped itself in the past, unable to accomodate the change that is taking place in the country:

Republicans still haven’t figured out how to compete in the New America. An America that is more diverse, better educated, more tolerant and more open to change. They’re stuck in the Old America: Clint Eastwood.

Look at the evidence: For decades, Republicans have taken advantage of a conservative social issue backlash. But President Barack Obama now leads Romney by 20 points on “handling social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage,” according to an Associated Press poll. Conservatives like to call themselves “values voters.” But more Americans say Obama “shares my values” than Romney, 50 percent to 40 percent, in a Pew Research Center poll.

This point of view has lots to recommend it, although we may not have totally managed the transition to “New America” just yet. Specifically, many Southern states and a few Western and Midwestern outliers are digging in their heels.  Sadly, Missouri, seems to be among them.

The evidence is clear when you consider that actual integrity, coherence or viable policy, all seem to count for nothing in Missouri political life:

–Romney is clearly incompetent, frantically spewing this and that rightwing slogan, alternately trying to soothe the moderates, all the while playing peek-a-boo with his policy proposals, his tax returns, what-have-you, yet his lead in Missouri polls persists even as President Obama is surging elsehwere.

–Rep. Todd Akin, a dim-bulb, religious fanatic, suffering from near-terminal foot-in-mouth disease, is running within the margin of error in his senate race against Claire McCaskill. He is doing this despite his lackluster record in the House of Representatives, and her record of steady, moderate achievement.

–The Republicans who currently run Jefferson City have managed to do almost nothing useful during their tenure, and are frequently even at loggerheads amongst themselves when the interests of their various lobbyist paymasters conflict. But five’ll get you ten that, except for those who are term-limited, they’ll all mostly be back after the next election.

That’s the way things work in “Old America” where the ritual evocation of the scary Muslim, socialist, communist, in-over-his-head naif, brilliant schemer, and, incidentally, African-American, man in the white house is enough to leave normally intelligent individuals in such a panic that they can’t figure out how they’re being sold down the river. However, just remember that even though Old America may be enjoying a last hurrah in Missouri, it’s still a fact that the old always, eventually, gives way to the new.  

Roy Blunt may be a little too obsessed with Robin Carnahan; she may not be quite as powerful as he thinks. According to Big Bucks Blunt, he is opposing not “Obamacare” which seems to be the bane of most members of the Party of No, but Carnahan’s government takeover – as he twittered earlier:

According to @RasmussenPoll 60% of Missourians support our position on health care. Only 37% want Carnahan’s govt-takeover.

Carnahan has recently expressed support for health care reform; she is after all a reasonably sane individual, and there is no reason to oppose it unless you are unhinged (Tea-Party) or lying about it as a tool to regain power (other Republicans). However, she might be a little surprised to know that she is the entity responsible for what so many of the cowering right wing consider a government takeover.

If Blunt does manage to establish that Carnahan should be credited for health care reform, he may live to regret it. He cites the Rasmussen polls, which many consider to have a Republican bias because they so consistently perform as an outlier in the direction of Republican druthers, to claim that health care reform is not popular in Missouri. Other polls show, however, that the national trend is now moving in the President’s favor and once health care is passed – and the news tonight is that reconciliation will start Monday – approval  rates in Missouri will likely climb. Which, oh frabjous day, may well leave Roy Blunt out on a limb while Carnahan picnics underneath.

President Barack Obama speaks with a foreign leader in the Oval Office on his first day in office 1/21/09. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.

From yesterday’s White House press briefing:

…MR. GIBBS:  Well, look, I think — not surprisingly, I doubt I’m going to enumerate them.  But I think anybody is hard-pressed to look back over a significant period of time like 99 or a hundred days and think you wouldn’t have done some things differently.  I’ve mentioned a decision today that the President would have made quite differently than was made in this White House.  I think it is safe to say that the President spends some time each day reflecting on what’s been done here in the course of any given day, and has asked us and asks himself to figure out how he can do what he does better.

When the President was first elected to the United States Senate, I remember one of the very first staff meetings that we had.  Then-Senator Obama said to all of us that were assembled that he knew that there were certain sacrifices in public service, that we could all figure out how to do something that gives us more time with our families or maybe earns us more in our paychecks, but he thought there were probably few things that we could do that were — be more rewarding if we worked every day to help people improve their lives.  I think that’s what he gets up every day thinking, and thinks each and every day about how he can improve, making sure that that happens.

Q    Do you want to juggle less balls, maybe?

MR. GIBBS:  Say again?

Q    Do you want to throw some of the balls out that you’re juggling; juggling too many?

MR. GIBBS:  No, I — I have addressed this and I think the President will probably get a chance to address this tomorrow — we don’t have the luxury of picking the problems that we address that face this country or face the American people, because we’re in a — we’re in a time period in which there’s a lot on the American people’s plate — whether it’s creating jobs; whether it’s stabilizing the financial system; whether it’s getting credit flowing; whether it’s making a college education more affordable; whether it’s cutting the cost for health care; finding a path towards true energy independence; making our nation safer; rehabilitating our image in the world in order to ensure that we have the greatest leverage and power to push the national interests of this country.  I’m not sure which of those things you would decide as less important in that group.

The President has decided that those are the issues that face this country, and he’s going to work every day to find a solution to move us a step forward toward reaching those goals…

[emphasis added]

President Obama is in Missouri this morning – holding a town hall meeting in Arnold – all with the media “celebrating” the milestone.

The President is popular, just not among what remains of the republican base:

A SurveyUSA poll of 1200 adults in the United States taken on April 27th and released on April 28th, sponsored by KABC-TV, Los Angeles with a margin of error of 2.9%:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President?

All

58% – approve

38% – disapprove

4% – not sure

Democrats [39% of sample]

86% – approve

12% – disapprove

2% – not sure

republicans [29% of sample]

31% – approve

64% – disapprove

5% – not sure

Independents [30% of sample]

47% – approve

47% – disapprove

5% – not sure

Considering what other polls (Pew and NYT/CBS, for instance) are telling us about party self identification, 29% for the republican sample seems a little generous. Those poor numbers could explain Arlen Specter.

Not being a fan of the media manufactured and very artificial 100 day label, I’ll just consider this a good start.

Public Policy Polling

The race for President in Missouri is so close we have to give the results of our final poll in decimal points. Barack Obama leads John McCain 49.4 to 48.6 in the state, an outcome that needless to say is within the poll’s margin of error…

…PPP surveyed 1,343 likely voters from October 31st to November 2nd. The survey’s margin of error is +/-2.7%.

Missouri Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters

Conducted November 2, 2008

By Rasmussen Reports for FOX News

2* If the Presidential Election were held today, would you vote for Republican John McCain,

Democrat Barack Obama, Libertarian Bob Barr, Independent Ralph Nader or Green Party

Candidate Cynthia Ann McKinney?

McCain – 49%

Obama – 49%

Barr – 0%

Nader – 0%

McKinney – 0%

Not sure – 2%

…NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

24 Hours Till Votes Are Counted, Missouri Is Still Tied, Could Go Either Way: McCain 48%, Obama 48%, in SurveyUSA‘s final tracking poll of Missouri, released Election Eve. No change since an identical SurveyUSA poll 1 week ago. Research, underwritten by KMOX radio in St. Louis and KCTV-TV in Kansas City…

…800 adults interviewed 10/30/08 through 11/02/08 yielded 754 registered voters and 674 likely voters….

…Margin of Sampling Error: ± 3.9%…

On September 9, 2007 CBS News and the New York Times released a 1035 sample poll in which the interviews took place between September 4th and the 8th.

I was struck by this particular response:

33% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th attacks on the United States, while 58% say he was not. These numbers haven’t changed much over the last two years.

WAS SADDAM PERSONALLY INVOLVED IN 9/11?

Now –  Yes 33% No 58%

9/2006 –  Yes 31% No 57%

10/2005 – Yes 33% No 55%

4/2003 –  Yes 53% No 38%

Still 33% after six years?

Where on earth did people get this stuff?

It could have been the marketing.

….That September the attempt to sell the war began in earnest, for, as White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card had told The New York Times in an unusually candid moment, “You don’t roll out a new product in August….”

Mixed messages, perhaps? Methinks dubya doth protest too much.

September 17, 2003

….Q Mr. President, Dr. Rice and Secretary Rumsfeld both said yesterday that they have seen no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with September 11th. Yet, on Meet the Press, Sunday, the Vice President said Iraq was a geographic base for the terrorists and he also said, I don’t know, or we don’t know, when asked if there was any involvement. Your critics say that this is some effort — deliberate effort to blur the line and confuse people. How would you answer that?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th. What the Vice President said was, is that he has been involved with al Qaeda. And al Zarqawi, al Qaeda operative, was in Baghdad. He’s the guy that ordered the killing of a U.S. diplomat. He’s a man who is still running loose, involved with the poisons network, involved with Ansar al-Islam. There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties….

September 15, 2006

….Q Mr. President, you have said throughout the war in Iraq and building up to the war in Iraq that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Zarqawi and al Qaeda. A Senate Intelligence Committee report a few weeks ago said there was no link, no relationship, and that the CIA knew this and issued a report last fall. And, yet, a month ago you were still saying there was a relationship. Why did you keep saying that? Why do you continue to say that? And do you still believe that?

THE PRESIDENT: The point I was making to Ken Herman’s question was that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terror, and that Mr. Zarqawi was in Iraq. He had been wounded in Afghanistan, had come to Iraq for treatment. He had ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen in Jordan. I never said there was an operational relationship. I was making the point that Saddam Hussein had been declared a state sponsor of terror for a reason, and, therefore, he was dangerous.

The broader point I was saying — I was reminding people was why we removed Saddam Hussein from power. He was dangerous. I would hope people aren’t trying to rewrite the history of Saddam Hussein — all of a sudden, he becomes kind of a benevolent fellow. He’s a dangerous man. And one of the reasons he was declared a state sponsor of terror was because that’s what he was. He harbored terrorists; he paid for families of suicide bombers. Never have I said that Saddam Hussein gave orders to attack 9/11. What I did say was, after 9/11, when you see a threat, you’ve got to take it seriously. And I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein — as did Congress, as did the United Nations. I firmly believe the world is better off without Saddam in power, Martha.

Dave. He’s back.

Q Sorry, I’ve got to get disentangled —

THE PRESIDENT: Would you like me the go to somebody else here, until you — (laughter.)

Q Sorry.

THE PRESIDENT: But take your time, please. (Laughter.)….

December 9, 2001

….RUSSERT: Let me turn to Iraq. When you were last on this program, September 16, five days after the attack on our country, I asked you whether there was any evidence that Iraq was involved in the attack and you said no.

Since that time, a couple of articles have appeared which I want to get you to react to. The first: The Czech interior minister said today that an Iraqi intelligence officer met with Mohammed Atta, one of the ringleaders of the September 11 terrorists attacks on the United States, just five months before the synchronized hijackings and mass killings were carried out.

And this from James Woolsey, former CIA director: “We know that at Salman Pak, in the southern edge of Baghdad, five different eye witnesses–three Iraqi defectors and two American U.N. inspectors–have said, and now there are aerial photographs to show it, a Boeing 707 that was used for training of hijackers, including non-Iraqi hijackers, trained very secretly to take over airplanes with knives.”

And we have photographs. As you can see that little white speck, and there it is.

RUSSERT: The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.

Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?

CHENEY: Well, what we now have that’s developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that’s been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.

Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don’t know at this point. But that’s clearly an avenue that we want to pursue….

Ooops, not in the run up to the war, eh?

I wonder where they heard all this stuff?

Program on International Policy Attitudes, October 2, 2003 [pdf]

….An analysis of those who were asked all of the key three perception questions does reveal a remarkable level of variation in the presence of misperceptions according to news source. Standing out in the analysis are Fox and NPR/PBS–but for opposite reasons. Fox was the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions. NPR/PBS are notable because their viewers and listeners consistently held fewer misperceptions than respondents who obtained their information from other news sources.

The table below shows this clearly. Listed are the breakouts of the sample according to the frequency of the three key misperceptions (i.e. the beliefs that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq) and their primary news source. Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions-and were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.

The sad part? Viewers of CBS had almost the same tendencies towards misperception as viewers of the Faux News Channel.

There you have it, watching certain cable television networks will make you really stupid.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Advice to the spouses of Republican legislators: Get some Xanax.  If your spouse refuses to take it, keep it for yourself.  And plenty of Tylenol.  Maybe arrange for daily massages, for both of you; that might help.  Above all, don’t let yourself run out of Jim Beam.  It’s going to be a rough … eternity. 

The signs of Republicans tanking are everywhere.  The once mighty 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain, has fallen.  By March of this year, he was polling at only 14.4 percent among Republican voters in Iowa.  Now it’s 1.8 percent.  Even Fred Thompson is getting 5.2 percent support.  But that’s not the bad news.  The bad news is that Obama is outpolling both of them AMONG REPUBLICANS with 6.7 percent. 

All right, so McCain’s an eyelash above nothing.  So what?  Romney, on the other hand, has gone from 11 percent in March to 21.8 percent.  If McCain’s figures go down, all that means is that somebody else’s go up, right?  Yes … sort of.

Except that the entire Republican field is such a stinking disappointment that only 36 percent of Republican voters are happy with their choices (compared to 61 percent of Democrats pleased with theirs).  And the GOP candidates are all crowded so far to the right that Democrats should be able to swing, not only the independents. but also the moderate Republicans.

No wonder that 40 percent of Republicans figure the Dems are going to win the presidency (compared to 12 percent of Dems who think the reverse).

It’s looking bad for the GOP in ’08.  But the really bleak news is beyond that. Republicans had Congress for twelve years and the whole shootin’ match for six.  They’ve produced the worst foreign policy debacle in our history, spent so much money that they made drunken sailors look fiscally responsible, put incompetents in charge of every federal agency, institutionalized corruption, and bestowed the treasury on the wealthy by granting them tax cuts and no bid contracts. 

People are starting to notice.

Registered Democrats and Democratic-leaners are now 50% of the population, while registered Republicans and Republican-leaners only comprise 35%–a strong swing from an equal 43%-43% tie in 2002.

Nor is that trend likely to reverse itself anytime soon.  One reason is that the youth vote has risen markedly in the last two elections.  At Yearly Kos, Howard Dean pointed out that that vote was up 20 percent in 2006 (from the previous off year elections in ’02) and that 61 percent of those between 18 and 29 voted for Democrats.

If the past is any guide, a young person who votes three times or more before turning thirty is likely to vote regularly all his life.  And if he votes for the same party those three times, he’ll probably vote for them all his life.

Republicans have alienated the youth of America these past six years and will pay for that mistake for the next sixty years.

So, in addition to Xanax, Tylenol, massages, and Jim Beam, spouses?  Better lay in a supply of Pepto Bismol.