Tonight, voters will have the opportunity to watch the one and only vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.  Most pundits have noted that these debates don't change the race very much, but in 2012, the debate is now being seen as a bit more important.

That's because a "win" for Paul Ryan will continue the Republican resurgence that followed Mitt Romney's win in the first presidential debate.  Of course, a win by Biden will help shore up support for Barack Obama, and maybe recapture some voter support that was lost in the battleground states after last week's debate.

While not considered terribly important, the vice presidential debates have occasionally become famous for dramatic lines or memorable moments.

In the 1988 campaign, VP candidate Dan Quayle had been regularly pestered about his relative lack of experience to serve. During the debate, he again was asked the question about his qualifications to be Vice President (and by extension, President), and he responded by favorably comparing his experience with John Kennedy's before Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Bentsen responded, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."  This brought a huge response from the audience, and has been considered one of the great debating retorts of all time.  Of course, Bentsen and his running mate Michael Dukakis still lost the 1988 election to George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle.

In 1992, third party candidate Ross Perot was invited to participate in the presidential debates, and his running mate Admiral James Stockdale participated the vice presidential debate.  When the moderator asked Stockdale for an opening remark, Stockdale said, "Who amI?  Why am I here?"  This drew lots of laughs and applause, but Stockdale didn't really perform very well in that debate, and those opening remarks became real questions in the minds of many voters -- indeed, why was he there?

Hope you enjoy tonight's debate.  Tomorrow, we could be talking about a major surge in voter support of the Republican candidates, or a return to the support of the candidates we had seen prior to the first debate.

John Klemanski

Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan will be on Oakland University's campus today, as part of a day-long visit to Oakland County.  This will be an opportunity for students to see the candidate in person (a number of tickets were reserved for OU students), and to learn more about the 2012 campaign.

This is an opportunity to talk a bit about Oakland County and its voting patterns over the years.  Long known for its high income per household (the county typically was in the top 10 in household income in the U.S.), county voters had tended to support Republicans running for county-based U.S. House seats (anyone remember Bill Broomfield?) and went for Republican presidential candidates.

However, since 1996, a majority of the county's voters have supported Democratic presidential candidates in each election through 2008.  Moreover,Democratic U.S. Representative Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) beat long-time incumbent Republican Joe Knollenberg in 2008, as part of the 2008 "wave" election for Democrats.

This in part has to do with the changing demographics of the county. No longer are we in the top 10 in terms of household income (maybe in the top 25?), and the economic recession has been felt in many county households where at least one of the wage earners worked in the auto industry. Moreover, with the Great Recession, housing values dropped, and as a consequence, a number of families who had lived in Detroit or Wayne County moved into Oakland County communities such as Southfield and Farmington Hills. This has increased the diversity of the county, and made the county more Democratic than it had been before.

With its large and diverse population, the county is key to the capturing of Michigan's Electoral College votes.  Since Mitt Romney grew up in Oakland County, I'm sure Paul Ryan will remind voters of this many times while he is visiting here today.

I hope some of you are able to watch Paul Ryan today. This is a great opportunity for young people to be a part of what is one of the most important features of our democracy -- the campaign for U.S. President and Vice President.

John Klemanski

A couple of days ago, I speculated about how all of us determine who wins presidential debates.  Amanda wrote some interesting comments in her reply, and I think she has made some solid points.  Here's how I have viewed the debates, and the media swirl around "who won?" that always follows.

There has been some research on this topic -- I remember reading some articles back in graduate school that attempted to create a list of criteria for determining a debate winner.  Here is what I think about this, and what I recollect from my reading.

First, it is probably safe to say that for many voters, the debate winner is the candidate that a given voter already prefers. After all, we already like that candidate, and it's likely that we already agree with some or much of what they say. Because of that, we tend to overlook any mistakes our favorite candidate might make, and emphasize any mistakes made by the opposing candidate. Since so many voters appear to have already made up their minds, I'm not sure what effect the debates will have on Election Day.

Second, a "winner" might be seen as the candidate who had superior advocacy skills during the debate. This approach would be more consistent with how traditional debates are scored (remember high school or college debates?).  It's possible that the handful of undecided voters this year might be moved by one candidate's superior advocacy skills. Amanda mentioned this as a possibility in her earlier comments.

Third, there are harder to measure characteristics of candidates that voters might choose to assess.  We speak of "leadership," or "trustworthiness" and "likeability," and sometimes simply if a candidate looks and acts like a President (whatever that might mean). I think this is where Mitt Romney can make up some ground. Even though the Romney campaign has been in full swing for at least 5 months, many voters don't know him very well. Fielding difficult questions and being poised under pressure can earn Mitt Romney lots of points with voters.

Fourth, a candidate might be considered the winner because of a major mistake made by the other candidate. This doesn't happen very often anymore, mostly because the candidates prepare so thoroughly now. They know to stay on message, and to emphasize their own talking points -- even if a question wants to take them in a different direction.  Remember Herman Cain's "9-9-9 Plan" debating tactic?  It didn't matter what the question was, he responded by talking about 9-9-9.

Finally, sometimes the winner is whomever the media calls the winner. Amanda pointed out in her reply to my first post that the media also can be biased about these matters. What we do know is that the media loves talking about a winner, which is one reason why I've posted my own views about this. While it makes for good entertainment -- and it could even sway some people's minds -- I don't find it entirely useful to talk about debate winners and losers.

Having said that -- enjoy tonight's debate!

John Klemanski

Over the years, presidential debates have become a fixture in the democratic process of electing our leaders.  We attach a great deal of importance to the debates as a rule, since we believe that debates offer a truer picture of the candidates than prepared speeches and TV advertisements.

And of course, we are encouraged by the media to place a great deal of importance on the debates. At least on one level, the debates are important -- in recent campaigns, over 50 million Americans have watched the debates. I must say that I too am fascinated by the debates, if only to see how the candidates present themselves.

After each debate, we want to discuss "who won the debate."  On more than one occasion, I've had a newspaper reporter call me to ask for my reaction, and in 2000, I participated in a focus group conducted by the Oakland Press, which brought about a dozen of local citizens together to watch the debates and then respond to questions asked by a Press reporter.

But I have always wondered about how we even determine which candidate has "won" the debate. I have some of my own ideas about this, but I am interested in hearing from someone who can tell us what criteria they use that helps them decide who won -- or is "winning" that important to you?  On Wednesday before the first presidential debate, I'll provide some criteria that I think some voters might be using, but first I'd like to hear from you about how you decide who won the debate.

John Klemanski

For several months, I've thought that this election was Mitt Romney's to lose.  More recently been thinking that he's losing it.  Public opinion polls taken in many of the battleground states have indicated slight to moderate leads for President Obama in virtually all of these states.  He's ahead of Mitt Romney in the key state of Ohio, and he's more comfortably ahead in Wisconsin (thought to be more in play because of Paul Ryan) and Michigan (once had been leaning Democratic, then more of a toss-up, now back again to lean Democratic).

New polls in New Hampshire have the President ahead, and he's slight ahead of Mitt Romney in Nevada and North Carolina (although my feeling is that President Obama will ultimately lose in NC).  These are all very good signs for President Obama, who overall numbers seem to be tracking upward, while Mitt Romney's numbers are sliding.

This puts more pressure on Mitt Romney to perform well in the presidential debates, the first of which will be held next Wednesday.  It's likely that the President will fall back on his experience as President, so can speak in greater detail about policy-making and making tough decisions. He has some successes to talk about (the auto bailout is generally a positive, even though there are some (like Mr. Romney) who opposed this effort.

I assume Mitt Romney will hammer the President on the sluggish economy over and over.  I think he needs to be careful, however.  If he only talks about the high unemployment rate, he'll sound like he has nothing else to talk about.  I'm guessing that he'll need to be fairly aggressive, without appearing too extreme.

However, at this stage of the campaign, Mitt Romney looks like he's slipping. Is he losing it?

John Klemanski

It seems as though the presidential campaign has become a contest of percentages.  Allow me to summarize:

"The 47%" -- Mitt Romney's now famous comments about the 47% of the voters who are on entitlements and who won't vote for him.  Therefore, it's "not my job" to care about them. This story has legs, it's now been about a week since the story first broke, and we're still talking about it.  It also caused the Romney Super PAC to strike back with a couple of Barack Obama comments from the past. One concerned Obama's support of "redistribution" and the other was his (I'll call it inelegant) comment about small business owners -- "you didn't build that."

"The 1%" -- this (and the remaining 99%) seem to be at the heart of campaign rhetoric this year.  Part of the reason why Mitt Romney has received so much criticism for his "47%" comment is that it fits nicely into people's notions about Romney being an out-of-touch wealthy elite who doesn't care about average people, and is looking to promote policies that favor the rich.

"The 5%" -- the approximate percentage of voters who remain undecided. This percentage is quite low by historical standards, and perhaps reflects the increasing polarization of American politics.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next 40+ days.  Will we see candidates trying to shore up their base, or will we see messages taking a more moderate tone?  Haven't seen much in the way of moderate messaging so far.

"8.1%" -- the unemployment rate as of August, which has gone down a little, but not very much.  This figure is arguably a huge plus for the Romney campaign, because it can be argued that continued high unemployment is President Obama's fault.  The Romney campaign hasn't really capitalized very much on this, since it seems to be caught up in its own problems and spending time defending its own positions.

"33%" -- approximate percentage of voters who will vote early (i.e., prior to Election Day).  This has huge implications for the campaign organizations, because some voters will begin voting prior to the first presidential debate that is scheduled for October 3.  Lots can happen in 40 days, but a fair percentage of voters will have already made up their mind and cast their ballot.

Anyone have suggestions about other percentages important to this election?

John Klemanski

In last Sunday's Free Press, it was noted that this year's three constitutional amendment
ballot proposals all may go down to defeat, in part due to an overall "no" mood among the
voters. A statewide public opinion poll conducted recently showed less than 50% support for
all three proposals. The proposals include a proposal to protect collective bargaining
rights, one to retain the Emergency Financial Management law (PA 4), and one to require
public approval for international bridge projects.

Ballot proposals can be tricky. Over the years, I can remember a number of proposals that
were intentionally worded so that a voter who had a "yes" position had to vote "no" on the
ballot. This seems to be the case with the bridge project, although I think voters have
figured that one out. The proposal has been backed by Matty Moroun, owner of the Ambassador
bridge, who doesn't want any competition. In the past year, Governor Snyder has advocated
for a second bridge, but the Moroun family worked the legislature enough to stop that
project so far. A Yes vote would require that any international bridge project would first
need to be approved by the voters, making it more difficult for the bridge to be built.

I've discussed the Emergency Financial Management law in a previous blog. I still think
that the proposal to retain the law will pass, but according to the Freep article, the
overall "no" mood among voters so far on the proposals in general might keep it from
passing. Even if it doesn't pass, an earlier EFM law (now currently in effect pending the
outcome of this vote in November) would be the operating statute on these matters.

The collective bargaining proposal also is not generating enough support to pass, at least
so far. I'm guessing that there is an anti-labor union mood among many voters, who might
blame labor unions for our current economic woes. Supporters of the proposal are seeking
some constitutional protection against initiatives such as the one in Wisconsin. Of
course, Wisconsin Gov. Walker was subject to a recall election (which he won), and a state
judge recently threw out major parts of the law. This will end up in the Wisconsin Supreme
Court soon, in an effort to clarify what is permissible and what is not.

Voters like to simplify their lives -- and so they often adopt short-cuts that help them
uncomplicate their voting decisions. One way is to use party affiliation to select a
candidate. Another way is to vote "No" on all three ballot proposals, regardless of the
individual merits of the proposals. In my own view, a "no" vote on the bridge proposal
makes sense -- we need another bridge to help our economy (with few costs to state
taxpayers), and a decision on the project can be handled by our lawmakers without a prior
voter approval requirement.

The other proposals would seem to be more overtly partisan, or have been presented and
debated using a partisan lens. All of the proposals would be defeated if the vote was
today, but it's very close, and we still have about seven weeks left until Election Day.

John Klemanski

When we first talked about writing an “Election 2012” blog, I felt that we should include regular discussions about other elections than just for president.  To that end, I’ve included some comments on the Public Act 4 (Emergency Financial Manager)  ballot issue, and blogged about the Michigan U.S. Senate race between Debbie Stabenow and Pete Hoekstra.  

Today, I want to mention the three seats up for the Michigan Supreme Court this year.  As you know, Michigan has a somewhat odd way of nominating and electing its Supreme Court Justices.  We have party nominations, but then have non-partisan general elections.  The state political parties do play a role in the general election, and I’ve already seen a TV ad for the three nominees of the Democratic party (sponsored by the state party).

This election is particularly interesting because three seats out of the total of seven are up at the same time.  Moreover, voters will actually be making separate choices on the ballot because one election will complete a term that ends in two years.  The choices of the two major parties for this seat are incumbent Brian Zahra (Republican, appointed by Governor Snyder last year) and Democrat Sheila Jackson.

Two slots will be for a full 8 year term.  In these contests, incumbent Stephen Markman and Colleen O’Brien (Republicans) will be running against Connie Kelley and Bridget McCormack (Democrats).  I know these are officially nonpartisan races, but there still seems to be quite a bit of partisanship in these elections. (By the way, 3rd parties also have nominated candidates who will appear on the ballot).

In the face of the presidential race, the Supreme Court elections likely won’t generate much interest or attention.  However, the result could change the overall partisan or ideological make-up of the Court, and for that reason alone should be considered important. As such, I wonder if Michigan shouldn’t consider adopting a new way of selecting judges.  After all, we elect state district court, court of appeals, and supreme court justices, but I wonder how many voters really know who they are voting for, and why.  I also know that there’s usually about a 25% ballot “roll-off” for these races, which means about 1 in 4 voters who votes for the top of the ballot race (president) doesn’t vote at all for the court races.  Moreover, for those voters who do vote, do they really know that much about the candidates or issues?  Hard to imagine.

John Klemanski

In a previous post, I noted that the most recent polling information at the time had the two presidential candidates in a virtual tie (in a poll taken prior to the Democratic convention).  CNN now reports that President Obama’s approval rating is at 51% (with 44% disapproving).  All along, I’ve pointed out that presidential approval is one of the primary predictors of an incumbent’s re-election success.  While I’m sure the improvement in approval is encouraging for President Obama, it is worth mentioning some historical information as it relates to approval and re-election.

In recent memory, two presidents running for re-election had job approval ratings prior to Election Day of above 60%.  Those two presidents were Ronald Reagan in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1996.  Both won re-election with relative ease.  On the opposite end, two presidents running for re-election had under a 40% job approval rating prior to their re-election bids – Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992.  Both of those candidates lost their re-election bids.

Of course, job approval ratings that are closer to 50% don’t provide as clear a picture of a president’s re-election prospects.  George W. Bush won re-election (more narrowly) in 2004 with a 52% job approval rating.  President Obama’s 51% approval is similar to that, and it will be interesting to see how much – and in what direction – that will move in the next 50+ days.  I’m guessing he might receive a small boost if he does well in the debates (and is expected), so maybe he does have a real chance for re-election.
Up to now, I’ve felt that President Obama’s re-election prospects were small, but for the first time, I see a real path for his re-election.  Lots can still happen, of course.

John Klemanski

The campaign finance reports for August are available, and we discover that Mitt Romney’s campaign committee, along with the RNC (and a joint fundraising committee), raised $111.6 million in August. This is the 3rd month in a row that the major Republican fundraising committees have raised more than $100 million.  This does not count the Super PACs associated with the Romney campaign, which are raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars as well.
The Washington Post reports that the Barack Obama campaign committee (and the DNC) raised about $114 million in August.  These numbers are staggering to me.  While the money is spent in a wide variety of ways, purchase of air time for TV ads comprises a fairly large percentage of campaign spending in a presidential race.  I am now thinking that maybe it’s not so bad that we don’t live in a strict battleground state (although some experts are putting Michigan as a “lean Democratic” state, so it’s still possible that we’ll see more active campaigning here over the next few months). Can you imagine the number of campaign commercials we’d have to endure if we were a battleground state?
The Michigan Campaign Finance Network (www.mcfn.org) does important work in investigating campaign spending by Super PACs in the presidential race.  They do what no one else does – they go to TV stations in each of Michigan’s media markets to determine which groups bought air time at Michigan TV stations.  Because campaign finance laws don’t require Super PACs to report directly how they spent their money, groups such as MCFN perform an important public service.  Their latest report on TV ad spending in Michigan shows that groups affiliated with Republicans and Mitt Romney have spent $10.9 million on TV ads through early September.
An opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press yesterday noted that if a politically active group such as a Super PAC isn’t required to reveal who is contributing to that group, then don’t listen to them.  We do seem to have lost some transparency in our political campaign finance system.  In research that Dave Dulio and I have done on the Republican presidential primary and general elections, we’ve noted that lots of campaign money that in previous elections went to political parties and candidate committees is now moving to the Super PACs.  In other words, money has gone from transparent and publicly reported giving to hidden and secret giving.  Not a plus for our democratic process, in my view.
John Klemanski