Valentina Pasquali

The results of two rounds of U.S.-led polling of public opinion in Iran, conducted in 2006 and 2008, portray a moderate Iranian people. The studies show Iranians as relatively pleased with their own system of government and electoral system, although critical of certain aspects of it. Iranians appear open to multilateralism and international organizations, even in the realm of human rights. While they are eager to push forward with the nuclear program, they don’t necessarily want to develop nuclear weapons. They long to be treated as an important regional actor but don’t wish for regional hegemony. They are suspicious of terrorist groups and even hold a generally positive view of the American people. In this overall temperate picture, deeply rooted animosity toward the U.S. Government remains as a fundamental component of the Iranian identity.

While Iran’s presidential elections approach, and as the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress discuss opportunities for an overture toward Teheran, Washington Prism’s Valentina Pasquali spoke to Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland, about his experience assessing the Iranian psyche. Mr. Kull is a political psychologist who studies world public opinion on international issues. He directed both the 2006 and the 2008 surveys in Iran.

Valentina Pasquali: What would you say was the most striking result of your two rounds of surveys in Iran?

Steven Kull: What comes through quite strongly is the extent to which Iranians are not in a revolutionary mindset. There is this image of Iranians being swept up by the kind of zeal one associates with the early days of the Bolsheviks, that they have an ideology that they are aiming to spread. I just don’t see any evidence of this, in the polling data and the focus groups. Iranians are supportive of an Islamic state, but they are also reaching out to the West in a variety of ways: they endorse democracy and human rights, and endorse changes for the role of women. They are evolving and trying to integrate these liberal ideas into their own system. But it is a struggle; they are not, by any means, ready to abandon their Islamic roots. They perceive the West, particularly the United States, as exerting a destabilizing effect on them and making it more difficult for them to find their way. In short, on the one hand, the number of people who truly identify with the revolutionary Islamic mindset is quite small. On the other, I should also underscore that the idea that Iranians, underneath it all, love America, love the West, and can’t wait for the current government to fall so that they can become a western-style democracy, is also a dream unsupported by reality.

VP: Where do Iranian people stand on the nuclear issue?

SK: Both in the polling and the focus groups we found widespread determination on the part of the Iranians to acquire a capacity to enrich uranium, combined with a strong sense of the constraints that should be put on developing a nuclear weapon. A fairly large majority perceives that developing a nuclear weapon would be contrary to the principles of Islam. The Iranian elite and religious leaders have put forward this view and it would be very difficult for them to change course. Maybe public opinion doesn’t determine their decisions, but there is something to be said about the normative environment the leadership has created, rooted in the idea that it would not be legitimate to acquire nuclear weapons. I think it would require a significant trigger for them to switch course, something would have to happen that dramatically increased the threat to Iran. It’s quite unlikely that they would just abruptly cross that line.

Now, it is also clear that the Iranians are aware of the fact that having a nuclear energy program serves more purposes than just nuclear energy. They want to be one step closer to having nuclear weapons capability. They perceive that this would give them a number of benefits: greater status and a deterrent effect on other parties. Moreover, there is a widespread perception that neighboring countries are not complying with the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iranians think that others are secretly developing nuclear weapons and that the NPT regime is fragile, and, as a result, they want to be well positioned should the NPT regime collapse.

VP: In the discussion of your work in Iran, you addressed the overstated perception Iranians have of American power in the world. Were you able to assess what this perception was born out of?

SK: The majority of Iranians we polled think the U.S. controls most of what happens in the world. In the focus groups we did, some of the views that were expressed were particularly potent, for example the idea that the U.S. controls Al-Qaeda. Why? I don’t have an easy answer to that. It is a belief that seems to have a quasi-religious connotation. When Iranians use the term ‘the Great Satan,’ they honestly describe how they perceive the U.S.; something like a cosmic principle, and not just an ordinary state that happens to be rather rich and well armed. Certainly the long history of the U.S. having a highly intrusive role in Iran matters. In general, I would say that there is a tendency in that part of the world toward conspiracy theory, a tendency to see complex organizing themes behind the surface of things. Even on the Al Jazeera website there is a section called conspiracy theory. With respect to Iranians in particular, there also is a history of discovering at a later time that America was behind something that they had not previously assumed. And so it has become a kind of default position to assume that America is behind something. Iranians’ perception of being under siege works as an important glue holding their society together. I think the best comparison to try understanding Iran is America shortly after 9/11. America was so cohesive, and there was very little criticism of the government. All the polls showed that the people’s attitude toward the government or everything American became much more positive. It’s not that people were lying, or making things up. But when people feel threatened, they tend to huddle closer together. Iran has that same quality, constantly feeling under siege.

VP: What do you think is the effect of international sanctions on the psyche of the Iranian people?

SK: It’s not something we polled on directly, but based on my experience, sanctions contribute to this generalized sense of being under pressure by the West. It also justifies the economic failures of the current government and it feeds into this idea that the U.S. is hostile to Islam itself and is out to undermine it.

VP: What was the people’s view of President Ahmadinejad, at least at the time of your most recent survey?

SK: About two-thirds of the people we interviewed at the beginning of 2008 expressed a favorable opinion. Because we heard so much about people coming to Iran and hearing negative views of the president we proofed further and divided people according to income and education. People with higher education or higher income were not as positive, they were more divided about Ahmadinejad. And those tend to probably be the people that Westerners encounter more often when they come to Tehran.

VP: How would you explain the animosity of the Iranian people toward the U.S. Government?

SK: I think it is important to recognize how deep the roots of this animosity are and how far back they go. For many people in Iran the experience of the Shah was a very negative one and the U.S. was always associated with it. I don’t think other Muslim countries have a history that could trigger that depth of animosity. However, it is also true that Iran has a stronger than average attraction to the west. It’s kind of a complex love/hate relation, which you can find broadly in the Muslim world but is more common in Iran. There is some magnetism, while, at the same time, animosity toward the U.S. plays a huge role in the structure of society. So much that it would be difficult to break away from it. Many politicians and leaders embrace this national narrative rooted in a negative relationship with the U.S. An effort to change this approach would rattle fundamental structures in Iran, and could be very destructive to the Iranian identity.

I do think that there is a genuine desire among most Iranians to improve relations; the question is whether or not this can be done in a way that does not make Iranians feel like they are just submitting. They have a strong sense of pride and any agreement would need not to be received as some kind of defeat, or capitulation. I think that the proposition that Tom Pickering, and others, have put forward as far as the nuclear weapons program, to multilateralize it or to create some kind of structure with intrusive inspections and a limit capacity to enrich uranium, would go over. We polled on it and the majority of Iranians said they would accept it. And it has been alluded to by a few Iranian leaders. To actually bring it about would probably require a more complex bargain touching on a wide array of components, as for example the removal of some or all of the economic sanctions. From the first to the second poll we conducted in Iran, we found an increase in the readiness to support steps that would improve relations with the U.S., such as growing diplomatic contacts and more people-to-people exchanges. Probably, some combination of removal of economic sanctions, limited enrichment capacity with highly intrusive inspections, and greater cultural contacts, could be a package that, from all the indications I have, would be feasible. Clearly, giving up the idea of regime change is a key part of this grand bargain. I don’t have poll data to show this but, from everything I see, the Iranian people as well as the Islamic regime find the rhetoric of regime change annoying and threatening. Iranians don’t react thinking that the U.S. is simply going after their government but not after them. Rather, they see this as part of the American attempt to undermine their way of life. And they identify with the regime. I think this is the most important thing that U.S. government leaders can understand better. When we threaten the Iranian government, the Iranian people feel threatened too.

VP: According to your study, Iranians view most terrorist organizations in a negative light. However, this doesn’t apply to Hezbollah and Hamas, outlining a difficult relationship with Israel. What is your understanding of the general perception of Israel among regular Iranian people?

SK: There is a very negative view. The polling numbers are extremely negative and there is definitely a lot of hostility. It’s also striking that, while Iranians reject attacks on civilians quite strongly, when asked about Palestinians attacking Israeli civilians they are more divided. I think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very engaging to Iranians, and other Muslims, because it is a very distinct and vivid narrative of Muslims being victimized, in their mind, by a Western based force that ultimately works on behalf of the United States. It’s not so much that they care about the Palestinians per se, but they identify with the Palestinians and the conflict strikes a very strong emotional chord.

But in all honesty, I don’t think you would find the desire to annihilate the state of Israel to be the majority opinion in Iran. My impression is that Iranians would probably be fine with the two-state solution, and that the Arab initiative that is in play right now would be attractive to them. I don’t see any real indication that Iranians are dead-set on some kind of maximal outcome where Israel is eliminated. They don’t perceive themselves as pursuing maximal outcomes at all. They perceive themselves as in a defensive mode.

VP: Do you have a sense of how consistent, or inconsistent, the mood of the Iranian public is? Your latest survey was conducted approximately 12 months ago; do you have reasons to believe that, were you to do another one now, the results would be fairly similar, or quite the contrary, completely different?

SK: All publics are pretty stable and so, as a general baseline, as a pollster you don’t expect big change. The most interesting question is what changes might be happening given the new U.S. Administration of President Barack Obama. To the extent that we have data from the Muslim world, but not Iran, I can tell you that people are hopeful, but on a wait-and-see mode. Iranians have an elaborate belief system that says it is impossible for the U.S. to change, that the U.S. is structurally the way it is, driven by lobbies, and particularly the Israeli lobby. There is this narrative that says that Obama couldn’t change these things even if he wanted to. But I still think that, underneath, there is hope nonetheless, and that, if the U.S. does offer an overture, it would be difficult for Iran not to respond in some way.

VP: While surveying people in Iran you were free to touch upon almost every topic, with the exception of the clergy and the role of the Supreme Leader. Do you have a sense of how much the lack of such discussion clouds the overall validity of the survey?

SK: To make things clear, it wasn’t the government that forbade us to ask these questions, they didn’t have any direct involvement; rather the local polling organization we selected did its own self-censorship. And I think that, if we had brought the issue of the role of the clergy up directly in the focus groups, people would have been uncomfortable. I certainly would like to understand this issue better. From what I read, I don’t see a lot of signs that people are burning to actually discuss it though. It’s not that they are fully content. In a sense, this is comparable to asking Americans about the Supreme Court. “Should we get rid of the Supreme Court?” Americans don’t really think about it. They generally like the Supreme Court, they have some respect for it, but it’s mostly just part of the furniture. In Iran, the clergy is not one of those things that people are accustomed to challenging, no more so than the Americans are accustomed to challenging the Constitution. It should be understood that the Council of Guardians can be criticized, for example, for excluding candidates from elections. People do it all the time in Parliament, and there are demonstrations against such decisions. Specific choices can be questioned. But whether the Council of Guardians ought to have any role at all, that’s probably a question beyond what Iranians are willing to discuss. This is, in a way, very similar to asking Americans whether the Supreme Court should have any role. Here, where we have a Constitution and a Supreme Court that interprets it. In Iran the idea that the clergy plays some role in the interpretation of Sharia law and the Koran is not seen as something to question. However people might have criticisms about specific decisions, like people here might have criticisms about specific Supreme Court decisions. To an extent that we have trouble understanding, Iranians don’t perceive Islam, and even the Islamic state they have, as intrinsically opposed to democracy. Again, we have constraints on democracy here as well, it’s not like the majority can make any decision it wants; it is limited by the Constitution and how the Supreme Court interprets it. Iranians would say that this is the same for them, although they would probably acknowledge that their system is more restrictive. But they don’t see it as intrinsically problematic. Words like democracy and human rights are popular words.

VP: What do you think a U.S. Government official should come away from these surveys with? What is most important to understand about the views of the Iranian people?

SK: The combination of openness to the West as well as the rootedness in the idea of an Islamic government. That democracy and an Islamic government are not contradictory. And that Iranians are not in a pre-revolutionary state, but even open to influences from the West. I think it’s very important to get rid of the notion that they are against us; they are simply struggling with the process of modernization, and that is a difficult process. They are people with very proud roots, they achieved very high level of culture, but in the current period they are not doing so well, which is humiliating to them. They are also not ready to abandon their roots. Even as they open up to Western influences. In the end, you have some rejectionists, as you might say, and you have those that are totally ready to go over to the Western model, but the big majority both wants to keep its root and be in a relationship with the West. The problem is that we are not good at talking to that group, we tend to threaten the former and seduce the latter, or treat them as some kind of ally, but we haven’t found a good voice for the middle masses. This approach is rooted in our fantasy that, underneath, everybody is like us and people really want what we have. I think we really must let go of this, while also understand more clearly that Iranians are not in a revolutionary mindset. A lot would follow from this, I think.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Virginia Beach, VA – Teya Kelley is twenty-five, and a volunteer for Barack Obama in Virginia Beach. Ms. Kelley came here from Washington D.C., where she works as an organizer for local union Unite Here – whose red t-shirt she wears proudly. “This is the undecided district of the undecided state,” she declares with some conviction. Since September, Ms. Kelley has been deployed, along with another 15 members, to this southeastern tip of Virginia to walk low-income and prevalently African-American neighborhoods and register new voters for the November 4^th elections. On weekends, Ms. Kelley volunteers with the Obama camp.

Perfecting Saints Worship Center

Known as the Hampton Roads, and nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, this region of Virginia just above North Carolina is one of the most fiercely contested turfs in this year’s battle for the White House. It is here that the cities of Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk cluster together in one of the most populated metropolitan areas in the state, home to the largest naval base in the world. Virginia Beach, the heart of the local military complex, went for President George W. Bush in 2004 approximately sixty-to-forty percent. Neighboring Norfolk, where much of the workers servicing the Navy live, fared in precisely the opposite way, with over sixty-one percent of voters choosing Senator John Kerry. Suffolk was somewhere in between, with President Bush winning fifty-two to forty-seven percent.

“I came to Virginia because this is a swing state,” explains Lystra Campbell from Maryland. Also a Unite Here worker, Ms. Campbell has been registering voters in southern Virginia since September and, like Ms. Kelley, volunteers for Barack Obama on weekends.

Ms. Lystra Campbell

The reality is that Virginia has not been a swing state in decades — the last time it went for a democratic presidential candidate was 1968. Since then, the state has trended consistently republican, especially thanks to the conservative worldview of the military establishment along the coast and the small town values along the western edge. However, Ms. Campbell is correct, this year is a completely different story.

First of all, the demographics of the state have been changing to the advantage of the democrats; in the last few years, while the more rural and conservative regions of Virginia experienced a trend toward depopulation, the more liberal suburbs of Washington DC grew exponentially. Also, thanks to the excitement created by Barack Obama, the 2008 election should witness a higher than average turn-out by African Americans, who have a history of low participation because of the belief that the state would necessarily go for the GOP. Simultaneously, republicans disappointed by the job of President Bush might be more reluctant to go to the polls. As a result, Virginia is in play. Not coincidentally John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden have all made separate stops to various parts of the state just in the last ten days.

News coming from the Commonwealth is very encouraging for the democrats. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests that Senator Obama is leading by eight percentage points over Senator McCain. According to almost all observers, this must be explained, at least partially, with the unprecedented ground operations assembled by the Obama campaign even in places, such as Virginia, where democratic candidates have not dared competing for a very long time. Over the course of the last several months, the Obama camp has opened over 50 field offices staffed with around 250 employees managing the work of thousands of volunteers. Virginia has the most field organizers to population than any state except for Florida. Staffer Christina Arrison, who is one of two field organizers for Virginia Beach, and volunteer Teya Kelley are examples of the dedication of the Obama foot soldiers: “I get about five hours of sleep per night,” says Ms. Arrison, “but I expect it to go down to zero from now on.”

Ms. Arrison Preps her Volunteers

Under overcast skies and in a cold misty wind, Mss. Arrison, Campbell and Kelley, together with Ethel James, a volunteer from New York City, are on their knees putting together yard signs. Ms. Arrison and her volunteers are waiting under the front porch of a small church pinned on the outskirts of a residential neighborhood. The Virginia Beach operations are normally ran out of a field office a few miles away. However, Ms. Arrison elected this non-denominational Christian worship center as the base for the weekend canvassing sessions. The church is one of a few scattered non-descript buildings along a major thoroughfare at the northern end of the city. Pastor Joe Flores, who is running for City Council, heads the congregation.

At around 11am, much later than expected, a church official appears, only to tell the campaign workers that a board meeting held the previous week established that running canvassing for Obama from the church ground violates its tax-free status. Politely, the woman asks the campaign to move their cars and flyers to the adjacent parking lot.

After a quick pep talk, Ms. Arrison dispatches Ms. Kelley to walk a neighborhood enclosed between Northampton Boulevard and

Volunteers for Obama Prepare to Canvass Decisive Virginia Beach

Baker Road. This is a solidly middle-class district, lined up with large dwellings and multiple cars per garage, and it is racially mixed. It is also one of the more contested in the county and yard signs for McCain/Palin compete with those for Obama/Biden at every street corner. Although until recently the campaign was talking to undecided voters – “If undecided voters speak with a volunteer in person, they will be ten times more likely to vote for your candidate,” Ms. Arrison explained outside of Pastor Flores’ church – this last week is mostly dedicated to getting out the vote, knocking on the doors of supporters to remind them to go to the polls.

As a result, the majority of the people who open their doors to Ms. Kelley are African-American democrats, many of who did not vote in 2004. Ms. Kelley’s job is precisely to make sure they turn out for Barack Obama this year. Despite an overwhelmingly positive response, Ms. Kelley worries that Obama supporters might be taking victory for granted: “People hear the polls saying that we are ahead and so I feel that we lack a sense of urgency, that we forget that the outcome of this election is still unclear.” Despite intermittent drizzle and chill air, Ms. Kelley walks for several hours and knocks on about sixty doors. She recruits a few new volunteers for the remaining days of the campaign, plants signs on the front lawns of supporters and encourages a woman with a broken leg and another who will be leaving for boot camp before election day to go cast their ballots at an early voting location. After her long day on the streets, Teya Kelley finishes her Saturday by joining Christina Arrison at her field office to make phone calls.

Ms. Kelley and Ms. Arrison Ready for the Final Stretch

The last stretch of this prolonged election seasons will come down to just this: long days on the streets of America turning out one’s own supporters. Especially in a place like southern Virginia where the numbers of democrats and republicans are practically even and where the outcome of elections is normally determined by turnout, campaigns are giving it all to increase participation levels by their faithful. On election night, for example, Obama’s foot soldiers will give up sleep to walk the neighborhoods of Virginia and place door-hangers in high commuters areas between midnight and three and again between three and six in the morning, so that even early risers will find a reminder that the time has come to cast the ballot.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Washington DC – Recent demographic trends in America seem to point to a realignment of the country along more liberal lines and, hence, should carry Democrats to a victory in the November general elections. Those constituencies who generally vote democratic are growing across the country, and particularly in the most highly contested states, while the pool of traditional republican voters is shrinking.

These, at least, are the findings of a recently released study, “The Political Geography of America’s Purple States,” that William Frey and Ruy Teixeira, of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and James Barnes, political correspondent for the National Journal, discussed at an event hosted by the National Press Club in Washington DC.

While democrats struggle with the general white working class, they have been performing increasingly better with those white workers that have a college degree. In 1988, the margin the Democrats had over the Republicans with white college graduates was only 1 point. In 2004 it increased to 17 points. Moreover, and to the benefit of the Democrats, white college graduates are becoming an increasing share of the electorate.

Similarly, citizens who belong to ethnic minorities – and particularly Hispanics – are rapidly growing in number. Democrats have always banked on the support of these voters and, during the last electoral cycles, things have improved even further. According to Messrs. Teixeira and Frey, in 2004 the Democratic Party had a 19 points margin on the Republican Party with Hispanic voters. In the latest polls, this figure has almost doubled, to 38 points. Even more importantly, ethnic minorities comprise an increasing share of eligible voters in all of the states considered undecided in this year’s election, such as Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Virginia.

Thirdly, metropolitan areas are expanding, pushing the line between urban neighborhoods and rural ones further into the outer suburbs. Cities are by definition democratic strongholds.

Ohio is a perfect case study for the above trends. The Columbus metro area is the fastest growing in the state and has large populations of college graduates and minorities. As a result, in the last 20 years Columbus metro witnessed a 22-point shift in the direction of the Democrats.

Finally, while constituencies favorable to the Democrats are booming, those leaning Republicans are decreasing. Rural areas are among those where voters have shifted further to the right. However, they are also the ones where population is shrinking faster.

“If these trends fully materialize on November 4, if Democrats are able to elect young new Congressmen alongside the President, and if they’ll solidify these gains in the mid-term election of 2010, then this could be a historical election,” Ruy Teixeira commented; an election like that of 1980, which repositioned America to the right behind President Ronald Reagan.

In the meantime, to understand the factors that will decide the 2008 general election, National Journal’s James Barnes thinks it is important to keep an eye on Osceola County in Central Florida. Home of the I-4 Corridor between Tampa Bay and Orlando, Osceola has experienced a 48% population growth in the last eight years. Ethnic minorities have spurred the boom. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore carried the county, while it was George W. Bush to prevail in 2004. It seems like Osceola County might hold the secret to this year’s election.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Washington D.C. – The American polling industry is working around the clock during this year overextended primary season, trying to track the moods of the nation in the run-up to November general elections. National Journal Group Inc., a leading publisher of magazines, newsletters and books for politics and government professionals, presented Friday the results of one such survey, conducted in partnership with FD, a business communications and consulting firm headquartered in London and New York. The poll was carried out between April 30^th and May 3^rd, immediately before the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Nevertheless, the data presented at the Watergate by Ed Reilly of FD and Amy Walter of The National Journal depict an accurate and up-to-date image of the country’s political attitudes and can even help explain why Hillary Clinton might still have a chance to win the Democratic nomination.

Overall, the study shows a people deeply dissatisfied with the direction in which the country is headed, with 75% of voters interviewed saying that the U.S. is on the wrong track. “These are curves that you would see during a currency crisis in Argentina,” Ed Reilly commented. With a few variations, this feeling is common to all Americans, independent of party lines. Among the Democrats, up to 90% expresses frustration, while this figure is 74% among Independents and 56% among Republicans.

Americans are not only disappointed with President George W. Bush – whose historically low approval ratings are well known (according to The National Journal 64% of Americans disapproved of the job of the current administration as of the beginning of May). Voters appear even more disillusioned about Congress, which has been in the hands of the Democratic Party since 2006. 75% of the people interviewed said they are unhappy with the politics of Capitol Hill. As the president of FD put it on Friday, “it appears that you really would not want be part of what has happened in Washington in the last few years if you were a candidate.”

As far as the issues, the economy “now really defines the electorate’s psyche,” said Mr. Reilly, after many years dominated by worries about the War in Iraq, terrorism and national security. Curiously, voters view the three candidates still running for the White House as equally prepared on economic issues, each one of them receiving the approval of about 28% of the people contacted for the survey.

Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain are viewed positively by similar percentages of the electorate, (respectively 52%, 46% and 48%), while Clinton is perceived in a negative light by a larger group of voters, 48% versus the 39% of both Obama and McCain. “She’s been incredibly weakened, she’s the candidate that needs to get out,” said Amy Walter of The National Journal.

When it comes to the general elections, asked in the survey about a purely theoretical choice between one democrat and one republican, voters pick the former 49 times out of 100 and the latter only 35 times. Moreover, 53% of people contacted believe that, independent of their own preference, it will be a Democrat to win in November. This means that there is a substantial group of republican voters that are convinced they will lose the elections but that have decided to remain faithful to the party.

According to the analysis of Mr. Reilly and Ms. Walter on Friday, this group will be interesting to watch over the next few months, together with another one comprising voters that, despite being dissatisfied with George Bush’s job, remain determined to vote for the republican candidate. These two constituencies may seal the deal for John McCain in November, if they decide to stay the course. At the same time, they may end the hopes of the Arizona Senator, if they change their minds or simply decide not to vote.

However hard predictions on the outcome of the general elections are to make, the study by The National Journal helps highlight the different scenarios that would characterize the two eventual match-ups Obama-McCain or Clinton-McCain. “Clinton has a well defined ceiling and a well defined floor of support,” Ms. Walter explained. “She will go for the same states that John Kerry won in 2004, hoping to add one or two (such as Ohio), just enough to win the White House.” As for Obama, the editor of the National Journal believes that “he has a limitless ceiling and a bottomless floor. He can aim for states where Clinton couldn’t even imagine being competitive.” And yet he could lose others that are traditionally democratic strongholds.

On the republican side, John McCain must deal with an unenthusiastic base. He has to find a way of rallying republican voters. As Amy Walter put it on Friday, “Republicans are not a group of happy people.” In this respect, the National Journal poll indicates that 42% of those who say they will vote for the Senator from Arizona in November will do so exclusively with the purpose of voting against the Democrats and only 34% (a figure that was 50% in February) shows enthusiasm for John McCain as a candidate.

One of the means available to McCain is the choice of the Vice-president. The Senator from Arizona, who is counting on his appeal with independents and moderates, needs to find a running mate who caters to the right of the party. As such, he needs a politician who is a strong conservative. In order to balance some of his other supposed weaknesses, John McCain might also want to find someone who is younger, less entangled in DC politics and more grounded on economic issues. The task is not easy. Amy Walter said at the Watergate: “I don’t know how he can put on the ticket someone who could excite his base unless he was able to exhume Ronald Reagan.”

As a conclusion, and wrapping up the data that emerged from the survey, Ed Reilly of FD sketched out the strategies that the poll seems to suggest to the two parties. “Any kind of a connection that can be drawn between McCain and Bush will be a top-priority for the Democrats,” Reilly said. The Republicans, instead, “will have to distance themselves from the current administration.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Washington DC – The campaign trail left the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire and brought its operations into the heart of America, moving past the two ethnically homogeneous states into a larger and more diverse region, ridded by above-average unemployment rates.

Tuesday in Michigan, the state of the ever-suffering auto-industry and unremitting lay-offs, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney became the third GOP candidate to win a primary this year. Son of George, popular Michigan Governor in the 1960s and President of the American Motors Corporation, Romney successfully made the economy the hot-button issue of the campaign. Exit-polls conducted by the Associated Press on Tuesday found that among the 50% of people pointing to the economy as the most pressing concern, 42% supported Mr. Romney.

Mitt Romney’s victory in Michigan opens up the GOP race once again and keeps him going after disappointing performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Mike Huckabee and John McCain emerged as the front-runners. The Republicans now head to South Carolina and Nevada, where the debate over the dwindling economy is expected to play an important role, but where candidates will also need to address the concerns of a larger constituency of Christian-conservatives and value-based voters.

The Democrats in the meantime are traveling south and bound to hit the deserts and casinos of Nevada on Saturday morning. The outcome of the vote in Nevada will have an unpredictable impact on the continuation of the race. Political journalist Kirk Caraway of the Nevada Appeal, a daily newspaper serving the state capital Carson City, told Washington Prism in an interview: “There is not one poll that will be able to predict this race any better than a flat out guess.”

Two factors make this state difficult to read. For the first time in its history Nevada will hold caucuses instead of regular elections, leaving everyone wondering how people will react and in which numbers voters will participate. Secondly, the primaries were moved to an earlier time of the year than usual. Traditionally Nevada Democrats cast their preferences when the nominee has already been chosen by other states. This time Nevadans will have a chance to make a real difference in the nomination process.

Moreover, Clinton, Edwards and Obama will have to confront Nevada’s peculiar demographic make-up: “Nevada has been the fastest growing state for nine of the last 10 years. That means there are large numbers of voters who have little history in this state. It’s very transient,” Kirk Caraway explained. “It also has a growing Hispanic population, so that should be a factor we haven’t seen in the earlier contests.”

While African-Americans are expected to determine the outcome of the vote in South Carolina next week, Hispanic voters will possibly be the key players in Nevada. Obama and Clinton are battling each other over their support. They are investing in Spanish-language ads and bilingual staff. Clinton is the candidate with the longest record on issues important to Hispanic voters but Obama is advertising his own experience. “If Latino voters examine my track record, I think they’ll feel enormous confidence that I will be strong advocate on behalf of equal opportunity and fairness,” Obama told Las Vegas Sun reporter J. Patrick Coolican in an interview on Monday.

The hotel industry will be another key determinant in Nevada. The state economy heavily relies on the gambling establishments, especially in and around Las Vegas and Reno, with their attached hotels, restaurants, bars and theaters. As such Nevada is the home of low-skilled service workers and of the most powerful unions in the country. These people must grapple daily with the consequences of a struggling economy.

Clinton, Edwards and Obama recently rushed to unveil their plans for a national aide package that would cater to those hard-hit by the recent mortgage meltdown. The economy was the most discussed issue in the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. “Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and John Edwards,” Joseph Shuman of the Wall Street Journal notes, “got into the intricacies of sovereign-wealth funds’ lack of transparency, the down-home and Wall Street ramifications of bundled and securitized subprime mortgage loans and proposed streamlining of the student-loan system.” Healthcare also remains high on the agenda, “a huge issue in a state with a lot of unskilled workers,” Caraway of the Nevada Appeal told Washington Prism.

Because of the disproportionate presence of low-skilled labor employed in the service industry, Nevada is a state where unions still exercise a crucial political clout. After New Hampshire, and despite Hillary Clinton’s victory in the Granite state, two of the bigger workers’ organizations in Nevada officially endorsed Obama, Unite Here’s Nevada local, Culinary Local 226, represents more than 60,000 workers, while Service Employees International Union counts 17,500 members throughout the state.

The struggle over the support of unionized workers, however, is not over yet and while Obama is entering the caucuses with the backing of the Unions’ management, Clinton and Edwards are working hard targeting individual members and non-union workers. Clinton has been followed by the media as she walked a northeast Las Vegas neighborhood with a heavy population of Culinary workers. Her message, J. Patrick Coolan of the Las Vegas Sun wrote on Friday, is that “the endorsement means nothing and Culinary members should follow their conscience and not the order of union Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor.”

John Edwards, although lagging behind, has still not given up on his Presidential ambitions. In a conference call from Nevada on Monday, David Bonior, Edwars’ national campaign manager, told reporters; “This campaign is a three way race and this is a huge sign of strength for John Edwards as we march into Nevada and South Carolina.”

The Reno Gazette-Journal polled Nevada democrats by phone between the 11^th and the 13^th of January and the results show a tight race; Obama leads with 32% of pledged support, Clinton is second with 30% and Edwards follows with 27%.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism