There have been reams of paper dedicated to reporting on the Obama campaign's voter mobilization efforts. This is what the Washington Post wrote on Sunday:

In 2004, Democrats watched as any chance of defeating President Bush slipped away in a wave of Republican turnout that exceeded even the goal-beating numbers that their own side had produced.

Four years later, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign intends to avoid a repeat by building an organization modeled in part on what Karl Rove used to engineer Bush's victory: a heavy reliance on local volunteers to pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas.

But in scale and ambition, the Obama organization goes beyond even what Rove built. The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers.

What effect will this massive effort have at the ballot box?

Don't ask Gallup. On Sunday the polling outfit began offering its likely voter (LV) model (in addition to its registered voter (RV) model). But this year, there's a twist. Gallup is offering two LV models.

Obama's current advantage is slightly less when estimating the preferences of likely voters, which Gallup will begin reporting on a regular basis between now and the election. Gallup is providing two likely voter estimates to take into account different turnout scenarios.

The first likely voter model is based on Gallup's traditional likely voter assumptions, which determine respondents' likelihood to vote based on how they answer questions about their current voting intention and past voting behavior. According to this model, Obama's advantage over McCain is 50% to 46% in Oct. 9-11 tracking data.

The second likely voter estimate is a variation on the traditional model, but is only based on respondents' current voting intention. This model would take into account increased voter registration this year and possibly higher turnout among groups that are traditionally less likely to vote, such as young adults and racial minorities (Gallup will continue to monitor and report on turnout indicators by subgroup between now and the election). According to this second likely voter model, Obama has a 51% to 45% lead over McCain.

So, I guess it's up to us to decide which one is best. This puts us in a tricky spot - because the relationship between extra get out the vote (GOTV) efforts and extra votes on Election Day might be complicated.

In a 2002 article in the Journal of Politics, Charles Bullock, Keith Gaddie and Anders Ferrington investigated "voter falloff" in runoff primaries for the House of Representatives. Their interest was in what factors influence turnout in the second round of voting (which happens in a multicandidate field where nobody wins a majority of the vote). Unsurprisingly, they found that campaign spending is related to voter mobilization: the more dollars a candidate spends between the primary and the runoff, the better turnout the candidate enjoys at the ballot box. However, there's a twist.

They wrote,

The impact is nonlinear. If we assume $100,000 spent between the primary and the runoff, the net impact on the change in voter turnout is just 1.6 points; at $250,000 spent, the impact is an increase of 23.8 points; at $500,000, the impact is a net increase of 30.0 points, all other influences being constant. In a voting system that requires voters to turn out more than once, more campaign spending provides continuous stimulation, and apparently encourages participation, up to a point. With runoff spending averaging less than $100,000, it does little to spur turnout in a number of contests. Spending substantially affects turnout in the 26 runoffs in which more than $150,000 was spent. Diminishing returns from spending begin at about $950,000, and further spending is linked to falling rates of participation. [Emphases Mine]

This means that the relationship between spending and turnout might be a bit more complicated than some pundits have made it out to be. Of course, Bullock et al. looked at congressional runoffs, which are very different from presidential elections. So, we can't draw any inferences about the presidential election from this analysis.

However, this should induce some caution this year. The relationship between Obama's GOTV expenditures and his additional voters might be nonlinear, similar to what Bullock et al. find. That would be a situation in which some law of diminishing marginal returns conditions the relationship.

This makes some sense. If voting is positively related to social connectedness, money would have a decreasing marginal effect. After all, your first "$100k" will bring in people with greater social connections. They're probably paying more attention to political messages and maybe feel a greater social responsibility to vote. You'll get a good response from your GOTV efforts. But after those people come in, your next "$100k" will have to work on pulling people with fewer connections into the system. These people might be paying less attention, which means it will be more expensive to communicate with them, and they might feel a diminished sense of responsibility, which means that it might take more persuasion to get them to actually vote. It would therefore not be surprising that your second "$100k" pulls in fewer voters than your first. How many fewer depends on the precise nature of the law of diminishing marginal returns that governs the process.

I'm not saying that this relationship holds. I'm saying it might. If it does, you can't just look at how much money you're spending, you also have to know a thing or two about this law of diminishing marginal returns. This makes it difficult to estimate the effect of Obama's enhanced GOTV efforts. After all, those efforts are enhanced relative to Kerry's unprecedented efforts. So, that law of diminishing marginal returns, if it exists in this case, might be tamping down on the effect these extra resources have.

The operative word is "might." Contrary to what anybody might tell you, political outsiders can't answer this question - at least not right now. For all the discussion of Obama's GOTV efforts, it's all been about his campaign's inputs - the dollars spent, the organization created, the number of contacts made, and so on. There's no talk of what this is producing in terms of output. How could there be at this point? These contacted voters have not voted yet, so how can we know how efficacious this unprecedented effort will be?

This is where I find myself frustrated by Gallup's approach.

It is polling some 6,000 people per week. If the Obama campaign's unprecedented efforts were producing so many new voters that Gallup's old LV model will be rendered inoperable, we should begin to see some evidence of that in its data. After all, this is October. This would be the point at which Team Obama is really beginning to push these prospective voters into becoming actual voters. If its efforts ultimately prove successful - we should see begin to see that now.

In other words, the correct questions and a proper analysis, combined with a 6,000-person data set, should give us some insight into what kind of output we should expect from all this mobilization input. For instance, what about all those voters who are being excluded by the first LV screen but included by the second? Are they being contacted by the Obama campaign? If so, how frequently? In what way? What effect has this had on them? How has this influenced their thinking relative to voters who are not being contacted? With 6,000 respondents and a good empirical model, it should be possible to provide preliminary answers to these questions. That would give us some sense of which LV model is better.

Instead, Gallup has decided not to arbitrate between its models, leaving the question up to us. But I don't think we can answer it. We don't have the data to make a precise determination, and the relationship between mobilization efforts and new votes is too complicated to spitball.

One week ago, the House of Representatives passed the financial bailout bill. At the end of that day, the RCP average stood at: Obama 49.2%, to McCain 43.4%. As of this writing today, the RCP average is essentially unchanged: Obama 49.2%, to McCain 42.9%.

Why has the Republican gotten no traction in the last week? After all, the congressional spectacle was supposed to be damaging his prospects because (as the story went) Obama looked so cool and McCain too hot. Now that it's over, shouldn't his numbers be on the rise?

No. That was never McCain's problem. McCain's problem a week ago is the same as his problem today, enhanced anxiety about the economy. The deal failed to sooth any nerves, so McCain is still in a weakened position.

We can see this with crystal clarity by looking at what average voters are looking at. Here are the above-the-fold portions of my hometown newspaper for the last five days.

Jennifer Rubin had a very thoughtful take on what McCain should do to get himself out of his current polling slump. I'd suggest, however, that so long as headlines like these persist, there is nothing he can do. This race will become close again only if these headlines disappear.

For such a big and diverse country, the essence of America can be summarized fairly simply: it's all about development. Bigger and better, that might as well be our motto. Most of us are probably not just worried about the economy, we're also a little pissed off about it. This contraction seems vaguely un-American, doesn't it? We don't contract, we grow!

That is what is harming McCain right now.

So long as the newspapers and the televisions are full of stories about contraction, which as you can see dominated every day this week here in Pittsburgh, John McCain's poll position will be weak. That's all there is to it. Conservatives can criticize McCain for not doing this, that or the other; liberals can praise Obama for doing this, that, or the other. But the fact remains that, as of today, the state of the race is pretty simple: this was an even-steven contest until the markets started to sputter and people started really worrying about the economy. Now Obama's up 6 points.

This is infuriating conservatives. If you peruse the conservative blogs or listen to talk radio - you can almost feel their anger. There's plenty of blame to go around, they argue. And of course they're right - both parties are to blame - but it doesn't matter.

The average voter doesn't understand the intricacies of economic policy. Heck, when you think about it, nobody really understands the economy. So, voters often rely on simple yet sensible metrics to make political decisions about the economy. One of them has been more or less operative since the election of 1840: if the economy tanks during a Republican administration, vote Democrat. If it tanks during a Democratic administration, vote Republican. Applying this rule to 2008, we get the following. McCain, because he is of the incumbent party, gets the political harm. Obama, because he is of the out party, gets the political benefit. That's all there is to it.

This rule might not be just, but remember justice is a matter of law. This is a matter of politics, a space where the law does not exist. This rule might not make for the best choice every time, but in the long run it does have some beneficial effects. Above all, it makes the party in charge work hard for growth, which is what the country really wants.

Does that mean this race is over? No. If the bad news dissipates and some good news manages to creep back into the papers and onto the television, McCain's position should improve at least a bit. But that means that his fortunes are out of his control (the same goes for Obama). A retooled message might help him at the margin, but to change things he's first going to need some better headlines.

In Is Anyone Responsible?, Stanford political scientist Shanto Iyengar tackles the implications of media "framing:"

At the most general level, the concept of framing refers to subtle alterations in the statement or presentation of judgment and choice problems, and the term "framing effects" refers to changes in decision outcomes resulting from these alterations.

Most television news is framed in an "episodic" manner:

The episodic news frame takes the form of a case study or event-oriented report and depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances...For example, television news coverage of mass-protest movements generally focuses more closely on specific acts of protest than on the issues that gave rise to the protests...The identical pattern is observed in television news coverage of labor-management disputes, where scenes of picketing workers received more airtime than discussions of the economic and political grievances at stake.

Episodic framing is how the mainstream media tends to frame presidential campaigns. Here is the opening paragraph of MSNBC's First Read:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Part three of the four-part debate series is now over, and the one big conclusion is that nothing changed. And nothing changing isn't a good result for McCain. In need of a trajectory-changer (we're trying not to use the word "game"), McCain didn't get it. This now puts pressure on him to make the most of the final debate next week. However, McCain might have lost before the debate ever started -- at 4:00 pm ET Tuesday, when the final curtain fell on another horrible day on Wall Street. And now the Fed has just cut a key interest rate by half a point to 1.5%.

This is an episodic frame. McCain did not get a debate moment yesterday, so now he has to wait until his next opportunity to get one.

I think that this is the wrong way to understand the American electoral process. Think about what this assumes of the average voter. Suppose there was such a "moment" last night - like Barack Obama peeked at his watch, causing the talking heads to chatter about how out-of-touch he is with the concerns of regular people.

At this point, there are tens of millions of people who are, to some degree, undecided. They are right now making up their minds. Do we really believe that they would be so shallow as to make a decision on something as trivial as that? I don't. I know an undecided voter or two. They aren't shallow. They understand they have a responsibility to make a good decision - not based on the "gotcha" moments or other trivialities that capture the imagination of media types.

If we leave the episodic frame behind, how should we look at last night's debate? As a contest that one candidate wins and the other loses? I don't think so. I look at these debates as an opportunity for both candidates to provide persuadable voters with information that they might not yet have heard. So, of course this debate bored the pundits and junkies to tears: they've heard all this stuff already. But people in the middle might not have. The good folks over at Politico might consider it the worst debate ever, but people in the middle might have thought things like, "McCain has an interesting idea on subprime mortgages," or "I didn't know Obama's mom died from cancer. Health care reform must be very important to him."

And it's not that those folks made up their minds in that instant. [In all likelihood, plenty of people had positive thoughts about both candidates through the course of the contest.] Rather, those thoughts are data points that, along with other data points collected over the course of the month, help them make a decision at some point prior to Election Day. So, the debate is not best understood as a moment, but part of a process.

This is why my analysis of the first debate focused on who controlled the agenda. For what it was worth, I thought McCain did, and I received emails from Obama supporters who - after quoting this, that, and the other poll - told me I was nuts. Clearly, they said, Obama "won" and McCain "lost." But I dispute the electoral relevance of those terms. I think people's vote choices hinge on more substantive concerns, and they are formed not in a single moment but over time. So, I don't think it much matters who wins and who loses. I do think it mattered that the first debate focused on subjects where McCain has the "better" argument, like spending.

Last night's debate was different. McCain did not control its agenda. That was good for Obama, who was able to talk more about subjects where he has the "better" argument, like health care. The first debate passed without a single discussion about health care, but many about spending. Last night, there was more balance. The Obama campaign should be pleased about that.

What does this mean for last night? It doesn't mean McCain lost an opportunity to "change the trajectory of the race" or whatever episodic frame you heard your local journalist pushing. Here's the reality: barring some unprecedented meltdown from Barack Obama, John McCain was never going to have such a moment. That's not how the American public makes up its mind. Last night was not an episode, like some boxing match to be scored. It was one part of a bigger process, one that happens in October every four years as the broad middle of this country makes up its mind.

I wanted to post a follow up to today's column. Ross Douthat over at the Atlantic was kind enough to mention it today. He writes:

Jay Cost makes the strongest possible case for campaigning on Ayers, Wright et. al. in the waning weeks of the election. He thinks that an issues-based campaign, pegged to McCain's bipartisan brand, made sense before the bottom dropped out of the economy; now, though, it's character or nothing. He notes that the sharpest, steepest drop in Obama's favorable numbers all year came during the initial wave of Wright-related coverage, and argues that this is the only avenue of attack that has a chance of shifting the race's dynamics...

I do think an "issues-based campaign, pegged to McCain's bipartisan brand" is probably not going to work for the McCain campaign anymore - but that does not mean I think "it's character or nothing." I think McCain needs to try to redefine Barack Obama. Does that mean running on "character"? Possibly, yes - though I don't know if that's the best word choice. Redefining Obama could mean many things, including issues. Taxes, spending, national security, and so on - that might all be part of it.

However, to try to engage Obama in a straightforward policy discussion on the financial crisis does not seem like a winning strategy anymore. Average voters are probably not going to be able to determine from the back-and-forth who is correct. I certainly don't have the capacity to do that. So, I'd expect voters to go against the party historically identified with banking.

I didn't make any suggestions about the particular redefinition McCain should offer. I mentioned the tactical advantage he has on the subject of William Ayers in light of the fact that his campaign has already begun to mention him. Similarly, I brought in the polling data on Wright because he is being mentioned again. I did not say that Wright is the "only" way to go. I suggested that McCain might go there if other lines of attack do not work.

If Niccolò Machiavelli were to envision an economic crisis that would cripple the Republicans prior to Election Day, he couldn't do much better than one precipitated by the banking industry.

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as one consequence of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. That measure divided the Whig Party into sectional factions and so destroyed it for good. The GOP was formed mostly from the remnants of the northern Whigs - and, unsurprisingly, the party picked up many Whig principles, which it has retained even after 150 years. The Whig Party stood for expanding American industry (hence its support of protective tariffs, burdensome to American business in 2008 but quite helpful in 1854), individual enterprise, the social utility of wage labor, the "man on the make," and infrastructure improvements.

Above all, the Whigs had a pro-banking reputation. The Whig Party formed partially in response to the actions of President Jackson against the Bank of the United States. Believe it or not, banking was a big issue in the 1830s - and the Whigs were for a strong, central bank. The Republican Party, having inherited much of the pro-business sentiment of the Whig Party, has been pro-banking in spirit for 150 years. Your average voter might not know the historical reasons for why the GOP is a pro-banking party, but s/he understands that it is.

That could be hurting the GOP as much as anything right now. If this were an economic crisis precipitated by a massive labor union strike - akin to what Harry Truman had to put up with after World War II - I'd wager the horse race numbers would be reversed right now. After all, the Democratic Party is identified with labor. But this is a crisis precipitated by the banks. Combine that with the fact that George W. Bush is at the helm, and it's unsurprising that the public has assigned the blame to the GOP.

This has put John McCain in a terrible spot. McCain's key electoral strength (at least relative to GOP also-rans like Mitt Romney) is that he is not an orthodox Republican. His relationship to the GOP is a bit like Diet Pepsi's relationship to Pepsi. That's why he had such stiff competition for the GOP nomination - lots and lots of people in this country are still big fans of the GOP (we call them Republicans), and they weren't tickled with the idea of a Diet Republican winning the nomination. But in the broad middle of the country, there is disaffection with George W. Bush and, by extension, the Republican Party. McCain's maverick label was his best hope for overcoming those sour feelings.

This banking crisis does not diminish McCain's maverick bona fides, but it makes them less relevant. Already uncomfortable with the GOP, the current economic predicament has probably made the public more so. Conservatives have thought for a while that McCain should hit back against the Democrats for their previous stands on Fannie and Freddie. However, McCain might be smart to drop that subject altogether. A Republican who runs against the banks might as well pee into the wind.

So where does McCain go from here? Mike Murphy has this advice:

Palin should drop the braying attacks on Obama's aging hippie bomber pals and start connecting to her cherished hockey moms on the one issue they = (sic) are actually worried about; a quickly slowing economy. Chuck the hacky and ineffective negative ads and switch to man on the street spots with real people voicing their real doubts about Obama; too weak to stand up to Washington's mighty special interest cartel or the newly empowered Democratic bosses of the Congress and Senate, too liberal to know how to fix the economy, too inexperienced to handle a dangerous world. On Tuesday, McCain should look into the camera and connect to the 80 million scared and worried Americans who will be watching him.

McCain is losing. To regain a chance to win, McCain must run as who he truly is; pragmatic, tough, bi-partisan and ready to break some special interest china to get the right things done in Washington. Fix the message, and you will fix the states.

Prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, I would have agreed with this wholeheartedly. Today, I think this is nothing more than a way for McCain to lose. Lose with grace and dignity, lose in a way that inspires the good folks over at Swampland, but lose nonetheless.

Average voters do not have anything approaching perfect information. They are probably not keenly aware of how McCain is different from the average Republican. I think they have a sense that he is - and in a vaguely anti-GOP year, that might be enough. However, this banking crisis means we are no longer in a vaguely anti-GOP year. We're in a year when one of the groups the Republicans are thought to stick up for gets the blame for screwing up the economy. That changes things. To return to the soda metaphor - it isn't enough to be Diet Pepsi when the country really wants a Coke.

So, don't expect Mike Murphy to be singing the praises of the McCain-Palin team anytime soon. It is probably not going to follow his advice. Or perhaps better put, it's not going to follow his emphases. "Pagmatic, tough, bi-partisan and ready to break some special interest china to get the right things done in Washington..." That will still be a theme on the Republican side, but don't expect it to be the dominant theme. McCain will keep singing this tune, but most of his surrogates are going to go on the attack.

Relative to past presidential nominees - Barack Obama has little relevant experience. His résumé is comparable to past "phenom" candidates Thomas Dewey and William Jennings Bryan. As a political matter, this means two things for Obama. First, as everybody knows, it is a direct weapon to use against him, which the McCain campaign has been doing for some time with its "Ready to Lead?" attacks.

Second, it means the definition of "Barack Obama" is more open to interpretation than other past nominees. The Obama campaign has used this vagueness to great effect. Simply put, because Obama has a slender record, he can be many things to many people. He can be the prophet of a new age to the chi tea crowd in Hyde Park, and a hardy Jacksonian fighter to the black coffee crowd in Youngstown. Politicians have been doing this dance routine for centuries. The fact that Obama's story is hardly conditioned by a paper trail enables him to do this with more facility than most contemporary politicians.

But this does not mean that Obama "is" only who he says he is. His thin record is potentially a double-edged sword because anybody can try to define him. With the mentioning of William Ayers, the GOP has just now begun the process of offering its alternative definition of the junior senator from Illinois. It waited until October because, as I noted last week, anywhere between 20% and 30% of the electorate is now making up its mind. This is the time to begin this process.

What McCain and the Republicans will try to do is the opposite of what Obama and the Democrats are trying. The Democrats want to fold McCain into the generic Republican because they know that a generic Republican would be hard-pressed to do better than 45% this year. The Republicans, knowing that the country is in a mood to elect a generic Democrat, will speak specifically about Obama, trying to make him seem quite worse.

Can they succeed at this? Perhaps. Again, Obama is less "credentialed" than most major party nominees in a hundred years. Public opinion of him is based largely upon political claims about him, as opposed to an immutable record of accomplishment or even a long history on the national scene. That means that the perception of who Obama is might be alterable.

Obama certainly did himself no favors by associating with people like William Ayers. This gives the Republicans a tactical advantage. They don't need to link Obama to Ayers; rather, they need to give specifity to the vague term "associate."

And if focusing on William Ayers doesn't work, expect to see a return of Jeremiah Wright, the most provocative of all Obama's past "associations." It was not noted at the time, but Wright might have done real if temporary damage to Obama's reputation back in March. The following is a track of Obama's weekly net favorable rating, according to Rasmussen.

Note the dip that his numbers took after March 13th, the day ABC News reported on Wright's "God Damn America" sermon. It lingered at or below zero until March 28th, a full 10 days after Obama gave his "More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia. His numbers rebounded a bit in April, only to fall back down in May. Ultimately, it was not Obama's speech on Wright that resurrected his numbers, but his victory over Hillary Clinton on June 3rd. This indicates that, as a political matter, the Wright controversy might not be finished. Even if media types were satisfied with Obama's speech in Philadelphia - there is evidence that the mass public was not.

Ultimately, the GOP might end up using it even if McCain "prefers" it isn't used. The state and national party committees can go forward without his blessing. This is one side effect of the campaign finance "reform" that politicians from both parties have supported (and McCain has championed). Lines of accountability are quite blurry in the current regime. In many respects, the national and state committees are independent of candidate committees. Even though McCain gave a boatload of cash to these outlets immediately prior to his convention, and even though he is allowed to coordinate with them to some degree, he does not have control over the way many of these resources are used.

This means that a candidate can have the best of both worlds: he can enjoy the effectiveness of a negative attack while condemning it at the same time. The end result is therefore similar to what we saw in the early age of American electoral politics when the presidential nominees didn't take an active part in politicking, but their affiliates nevertheless went for the jugular.

I'd bet every dollar I have that this is going to offend the sensibilities of Democrats nationwide. But I'd also bet every dollar that, if the shoe were on the other foot, the Democrats would not hesitate to do likewise. One party's vicious smear is the other's vital truth. That's just the way it is.

I'm again reminded of Old Hickory. During the 1828 campaign, his surrogates accused John Quincy Adams of acting as a pimp for the Czar of Russia. Adams's supporters accused Jackson of murdering his own soldiers during the Creek War. Politicos don't level attacks like that anymore, but that's because such attacks wouldn't work anymore. However, we should always expect them to do what they think will work - the denunciations of their political opponents notwithstanding.

I noted with interest stories today discussing McCain and Obama opening up campaign offices in some far-flung places: McCain in Bangor, Maine and Obama in Omaha, Nebraska. Maine and Nebraska do not have reputations as swing states, so what the heck are these guys up to?

Part of it is to head off the possibility of something like this occuring:

What you see here is a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. So also is this:

What happens when there is such a tie? We go to Amendment 12, which states:

The person having the greatest Number of [Electoral College] votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.

That's right, the House of Representatives - which acquitted itself so beautifully over the last week! - gets to make the choice, but with a twist. Each state gets one vote. That makes things a little dicey, for both campaigns.

For McCain, the problem is obvious: the Democrats control the Congress. Not only that, but they currently control 27 of the 50 state caucuses. The GOP controls 21 and 2 are split.

But Obama has a problem here, too. In this scenario, McCain will have won more states, which means that to win, Obama will have to convince some Democrats to vote against their states. A few unfortunate souls would probably have to vote against their own districts. In 2004 George W. Bush won 255 congressional districts to Kerry's 180. A 269-269 tie like this implies that McCain will probably have won more districts than Obama, which would complicate matters for the Democrat.

Why is it that Maine and Nebraska are relevant to this scenario? Most states allocate electors on a winner-take-all basis. Maine and Nebraska do, too - but they also dole out electors depending upon who won which congressional districts. If McCain were to win Maine's second district, he'd get an elector. If Obama were to win Nebraska's third (Correction: second), he'd get an elector. That could make the difference.

That would be especially helpful because here's how the Vice-President is selected.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.

Again, the same tension would exist. Biden would have more Democrats. Palin would have more states.

Note that the House picks the President, the Senate picks the Veep. That means it's possible to see a split in the executive branch - one party wins the top job, another wins the second job!

So, a spare elector from Maine or Nebraska could be quite useful.

The results of Monday's vote on the bailout bill, HR 3997, contain some illuminating patterns. A few people have noted that members of Congress facing competitive elections tended to vote against the bill. This is true, and significant. The roll call yielded some other important tendencies.

The following picture examines how Republican members of Congress voted by state: red indicates a nay vote, green a yay vote, and yellow a split result.

Let's break GOP support down by region.

For what it's worth, the remaining New England Republican, Chris Shays, voted in support of the bill. Support in the mid-Atlantic region was mixed. Pennsylvania and New Jersey Republicans voted against the bill. Opposition in the Keystone State among Republicans was particularly strong. However, New York Republicans were more supportive, with every member except Randy Kuhl voting in favor.

Republicans in the South Central region showed mixed support. GOP caucuses in Arkansas (aka John Boozman), Mississippi (aka Chip Pickering), and Alabama supported it. However, that was balanced by strong opposition in Tennessee, Louisiana, and especially Texas. Only four Republicans from the President's home state supported the bill.

South Atlantic Republicans also exhibited mixed support. Mike Castle of Delaware supported it, the two Republicans in Maryland split, and South Carolina voted in the affirmative. However, the bill was strongly opposed in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.

Opposition was very stiff in the Midwest, where ten of ten Republican caucuses voted in the negative. There was unanimous opposition in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. Even in Ohio, home state of Republican leader John Boehner, seven Republicans voted against the bill.

Republican support in the West was split: there was opposition in Arizona, Colorado, and Montana, but more favorable results in California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah.

What about the Democrats?

The leadership was able to extract a reasonable amount of discipline from Democrats on the east coast - with only Vermont, New Hampshire, and Georgia defecting from the party line.

Meanwhile, the bill again ran into trouble in the Midwest. Midwestern Democrats were more amenable than their Republican counterparts - particularly in the upper midwest. But Indiana Democrats voted nay, and Democrats in Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Michigan all split their votes. Mountain West Democrats voted heavily against the bill. And in California, Nancy Pelosi's home state, 15 of 36 Democrats voted against the bill.

The maps don't show it, but of the 19 members of Congress who represent New York City, parts of Long Island, or Westchester, there was just a single defection, José Serrano of the Bronx. The bill also received very strong support from members whose districts are near Washington, D.C. However, support was mixed in Los Angeles and Chicago, where all three South Side members (Jesse Jackson, Jr., Dan Lipinski, and Bobby Rush) voted in the negative.

A final note on the bill. The vote among members of the House Financial Services Committee broke along party lines. 25 of 37 Democrats voted in favor, while just 8 of 33 Republicans supported the bill. If members on the floor rely upon fellow partisans in the relevant committees for voting cues - perhaps it is no surprise that House Democrats followed Financial Service Democrats, and Republicans followed Financial Service Republicans.

This data presents an interesting perspective on the politics of the current financial crisis. Certainly it demonstrates the accuracy of the hackneyed "Main Street versus Wall Street" cliché . While metro Washington and New York members were strongly in support, the bill was hard pressed to find supportive members in the Midwest.

And yet both presidential candidates are running through the heartland advocating its passage. That's somewhat surprising when you think about it. It indicates to me that the politics of this issue do not directly favor one candidate over the other. Certainly, neither candidate is on the "right" side of public opinion. Remember: while the polls show mixed support for the bill, they do not measure intensity - which can matter in situations like this. If 30% is lukewarm in its support, 30% is uncertain, and 30% is dead-set against, as a political matter, the public is opposed.

So why have McCain's numbers been sliding? The mainstream media will tell you it is because of his foolish political gamble. He headed back to Washington and looked bad doing so. I don't think that's it at all, though I agree he did not look good. This argument assumes that average voters poured over every word of press reports (written by mainstream media people!) and carefully meditated upon every keenly insightful utterance on the Sunday talk shows (dominated by the chatter of mainstream media people!) to tease out who made the politically smart move. I don't buy that (self-serving!) explanation for a minute. [N.B. Ever notice how MSM political analysis always seem to place the MSM in the center of the battle?]

I think McCain has suffered a deterioration in his poll position for a simple reason: he's the Republican. George W. Bush is the President of the United States. He is responsible for the state of the nation. He's not held in good esteem right now, and he's a Republican. From a public opinion perspective, it does not matter so much that the Democrats control Congress. The buck stops with Bush; Bush is a Republican; McCain is a Republican; McCain suffers.

A related factor could be that Bush is simply more noticeable than he was a few weeks ago. The President has done a good job hiding himself during the presidential campaign. Presumably, he knows that his presence hurts McCain, so he's taken himself out of the public's view. But now he's back on the television, on the front pages, giving prime time speeches, and so on. I think this has hurt McCain's numbers as much as anything.

Here's a thought experiment to mull. Take 100 undecided voters and expose them to an hour of clips of George W. Bush talking. How many of them will lean Obama at the end of the hour? More than half, I'm guessing, which is why McCain needs this issue, and George W. Bush, off the front pages as soon as possible. McCain's trajectory to victory has always relied upon Bush falling out of public view. Up until this crisis, Bush seemed happy to oblige the Republican nominee. But this has put Bush front-and-center, which inherently helps Barack Obama.

In this post, I'd like to chart the effect the financial crisis has had on each candidate's standing in the polls. The following graphs the RCP average from 9/7 to yesterday.

As of this writing, the average of the most recent polls shows McCain at 43.3%, which means he has suffered a 3.4-point slide in the last three weeks. Barack Obama stands at 47.9%, an increase of 2.7-points.

For reference, I've included the key events in the last week in the chart. You'll see that McCain lost ground in the wake of the events of 9/14 through 9/16: Bank of America's purchase of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy, and the rescue of AIG. McCain also suffered after the bailout deal was announced. Obama saw his biggest increase in the middle of the month; his numbers have not changed much since the bailout was announced.

Immediately prior to the start of the Democratic National Convention, Obama led in the RCP average 45.5% to 43.9%. In June, he had an average lead of 47.1% to 42.4%. So, from June to the beginning of the conventions, McCain whittled down Obama's lead from 4.5 points to 1.6 points. The Republican National Convention put him ahead of Obama, but recent events have wiped that lead away. Currently, the race stands roughly where it did in June, though McCain is in a slightly better position.

It stands to reason that the financial situation has been a campaign "moment" that has favored Barack Obama. So far, its effect is similar to him winning the nomination in June or heading to Europe in July.

A additional few points are worth noting.

First, the number of undecided voters has increased in the last three weeks, from a low of 6.3% of the electorate on 9/8 to 8.8% last night.

Second, the polls themselves have been very volatile this month. The Gallup tracking poll had a crazy week last week, and individual pollsters are disagreeing with each other quite a bit. Much of the disagreement has to do with McCain's share of the vote. The standard deviation of McCain's share in the current RCP average is 2.8%. Obama's is 2.0%. [The standard deviation is the average distance between an individual poll's result and the average of all polls.] By comparison, the final RCP average in 2004 had John Kerry's standard deviation at 1.7% and Bush's at 1.3%. This is a sign of volatility in the current race. Pollsters are finding fairly divergent results.

Third, there is a good subset of the electorate that claims to make up its mind in October or November. That might be hard for political junkies who have been following every twist and turn for 18 months to believe - but it's true! In 1996, 30% of respondents claimed to make up their minds a day to a month before the election. In 2000, that number was also 30%. In 2004, 21% of the public made that claim.

These three points indicate that caution is required in projecting the state of the race forward. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty out there. Practically speaking, average voters are probably more focused on the economy than on politics. As noted above, the number of undecideds has ticked back up, there has been a lot of volatility in the September polling, and we know a lot of people will make up their minds next month. The events of the last 20 days could be the break Obama and his supporters have been waiting for - something that induces the remaining undecideds to abandon the status quo and embrace "Change That Works For You." But it might also be the case that this is just another turn on a very windy road - something that, like the trip to Europe, loses much of its effect after it drops from the news.

What really matters is if, when, and how this financial situation resolves itself. It is fair to say that, on a purely political basis, McCain needs a resolution more than Obama. His numbers have taken a hit - and, despite his best efforts, he has not successfully gotten in front of this issue. That's not to say that he needs this particular bill to pass - the fact that members of Congress in the most competitive districts voted against the bill tells us something. Rather, McCain needs this issue to become less immediate, less salient. Nothing else is getting through right now. McCain needs this to drop off the front page as a first step to recover the ground he has lost in the last 20 days.

Friday's debate was an enjoyable, engaging contest. These candidates have such sharply different styles - there were reasons to expect a good show. I for one was not disappointed.

Barack Obama's initial answers to Jim Lehrer's lead questions were strong. He typically contextualized individual issues into a broader framework. Overall, I think this made him seem knowledgeable, which is how he needed to come across, given that the subject of the debate was foreign policy. However, it also made him seem a bit professorial. Watching the debate sometimes reminded me of a college class, as if I should lean over to my wife to ask, "What was number two in his four-point plan on Afghanistan? I missed it." It would be best for Obama to seem knowledgeable without seeming professorial - but above all he needs to seem knowledgeable.

McCain's initial answers to questions tended to be as strong, though not he did do very well in his response to the opening question about the financial situation. Where McCain had a persistent edge was in controlling the agenda of the debate.

Oftentimes, there's something to be said for not engaging the other side in a discussion. On many issues, one candidate is going to be a loser and one a winner. It's a matter of issue ownership. For instance, on Iraq, if the public decides that the crucial test is the surge, then Obama loses the issue. If it decides that the test is the initial decision to invade, McCain loses. So, rather than try to change voters' minds, each candidate should try to change the topic to more favorable ground. This is one reason partisan talking heads always seem to speak past one another.

Obama did not do this as well as he could have. He often tried to engage McCain on the latter's best subjects, which meant he ran into some trouble. Here's what I noticed:

(1) In the second question of the night, Jim Lehrer asked the candidates an open-ended question about "fundamental differences" between them. Both candidates focused largely upon spending and corruption, which are two of McCain's best subjects. They also spent a lot of time talking about taxes, which meant Obama had to deflect accusations that he'll raise taxes, something that voters might already be suspicious of.

(2) The very next question, about what new spending programs would have to be scaled back in light of the financial situation, also ended up about spending. All in all, while Obama did much better on the opening question, the next 25 minutes were spent on domestic issues that McCain has an advantage on.

(3) On Iraq, McCain opened with a discussion about the surge. Obama opened with a discussion about how it was not wise to go into Iraq in the first place. So, both candidates began saying things about Iraq that favor them. However, in the back-and-forth that followed, the discussion drifted to the surge, which is favorable ground for McCain.

(4) We'd expect Afghanistan to be Obama's best moment in a foreign policy debate. After all, the situation has deteriorated there, making McCain susceptible to the "Republicans took their eye off the central front" claim. However, it turned into a discussion about Pakistan, and whether Obama should have said what he said about inserting soldiers into the hinterlands to track down al Qaeda.

(5) On Iran, the subject turned to whether it is appropriate for the president to meet with "preconditions" or "preparations."

Five of the eight lead questions were fought largely over points that tend to favor McCain. The remaining three - the first question on the financial situation, the question on Russia, and the one on post-9/11 security - were fought on more neutral ground. Obama easily won the question on the fiscal situation, and he turned an impending loss on the Russia question into a tie. McCain tried to shift the conversation to Obama's initial response to the Georgian invasion, but Obama forced it to energy independence, a more neutral topic. Good defensive maneuver there - I would like to have seen more deflections like that. On the final question, both candidates gave similar answers on post-9/11 security, then quickly moved to prior points they had made on Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was not thrown off base, which was good, but McCain was helped because his prior points had been made more clearly in those preceding questions.

The net effect of this was that McCain's performance resembled an argument - Senator Obama lacks "the knowledge or experience" and has "made the wrong judgments" - backed up by specific examples. Obama's performance did not create such an impression, at least not as strongly.

Why did this happen?

The answer can be found by recalling the last Democratic primary debate. At the time, I suggested that Obama did poorly because he frequently refused to let Senator Clinton have the last word on a subject, even if dropping it was best for him.

Something similar happened on Friday night. For instance, McCain would bring up pork barrel spending. Rather than let McCain have the point and move on to a more favorable subject, Obama would respond to McCain on pork barrel. That meant that McCain controlled the conversation, which therefore wasn't about health care, college tuition, job retraining, falling wages, or another subject that favors Obama.

McCain was also able to hamper Obama's rhetorical delivery. It wasn't just that Obama was debating on McCain's ground, at times he was not debating terribly well. Frequently, he was so eager to "correct the record" that he'd become a little too animated by the end of a McCain monologue. A few times, McCain even induced Obama to waste precious time responding to trivialities, as he did here:

MCCAIN: Senator Obama said the surge could not work, said it would increase sectarian violence, said it was doomed to failure. Recently on a television program, he said it exceed our wildest expectations.

But yet, after conceding that, he still says that he would oppose the surge if he had to decide that again today. Incredibly, incredibly Senator Obama didn't go to Iraq for 900 days and never

LEHRER: Well, let's go at some of these things...

MCCAIN: Senator Obama is the chairperson of a committee that oversights NATO that's in Afghanistan. To this day, he has never had a hearing.

LEHRER: What about that point?

MCCAIN: I mean, it's remarkable.

LEHRER: All right. What about that point?

OBAMA: Which point? He raised a whole bunch of them.

LEHRER: I know, OK, let's go to the latter point and we'll back up. The point about your not having been...

OBAMA: Look, I'm very proud of my vice presidential selection, Joe Biden, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as he explains, and as John well knows, the issues of Afghanistan, the issues of Iraq, critical issues like that, don't go through my subcommittee because they're done as a committee as a whole.

But that's Senate inside baseball. But let's get back to the core issue here...

McCain is making a broad point that the proper test of judgment is where each candidate stood on the surge. That's a point that could matter for voters. At the end of his answer, he impishly inserts an aside about Obama's subcommittee. Nobody is going to vote on that. Obama is right to note that this is "Senate inside baseball," yet he nevertheless takes the bait. Why bother? Why not allow McCain his snarky comment, and move immediately to discuss the wisdom of the initial invasion?

By contrast, McCain was rarely taken off message by Obama. When he did respond to Obama's points, he would occasionally laugh them off, as he did in this exchange:

OBAMA: He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he -- you know, he wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.

MCCAIN: Of course.

OBAMA: If we can't meet with our friends, I don't know how we're going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.

MCCAIN: I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet.

In other instances, McCain would use Obama's point to pivot instantly to a talking point of his own, as he did here:

OBAMA: I just want to make this point, Jim. John, it's been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you're going to lead on controlling spending and, you know, balancing our tax cuts so that they help middle class families when over the last eight years that hasn't happened I think just is, you know, kind of hard to swallow.

LEHRER: Quick response to Senator Obama.

MCCAIN: It's well-known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate nor with the administration. I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoner, on - on Guantanamo Bay. On a -- on the way that the Iraq War was conducted. I have a long record and the American people know me very well and that is independent and a maverick of the Senate and I'm happy to say that I've got a partner that's a good maverick along with me now.

Finally, McCain would occasionally ignore Obama and make an entirely different point, as was the case here:

MCCAIN: I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues.

LEHRER: Would you go for that?

OBAMA: The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under funded. I went to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn't make sense.

Let me tell you another place to look for some savings. We are currently spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad, that we have to look at bringing that war to a close.

MCCAIN: Look, we are sending $700 billion a year overseas to countries that don't like us very much. Some of that money ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations. We have to have wind, tide, solar, natural gas, flex fuel cars and all that but we also have to have offshore drilling and we also have to have nuclear power.

Senator Obama opposes both storing and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. You can't get there from here and the fact is that we can create 700,000 jobs by building constructing 45 new nuclear power plants by the year 2030. Nuclear power is not only important as far as eliminating our dependence on foreign oil but it's also responsibility as far as climate change is concerned and the issue I have been involved in for many, many years and I'm proud of the work of the work that I've done there along with President Clinton.

This pattern did not hold all the time - as with Obama's effective maneuvering on the Russian question. However, generally speaking, this is how the debate went. Obama showed up to debate. McCain showed up to say what he wanted. This meant that Obama was left debating on McCain's best topics, but McCain hardly ever debated on Obama's best topics.

Does this mean that McCain won the debate? Not necessarily. If we define "won" as the immediate reaction of the public, the polling evidence is mixed, and not especially helpful. LA Times, Gallup, CBS, and CNN showed Obama winning. Rasmussen, with a tighter Republican-Democrat mix, showed a closer 33-30 Obama victory. SurveyUSA found a clear Obama victory in California, but a one-point McCain victory in Washington State. Interestingly, SurveyUSA found McCain even with Obama on the economy in Washington, and with leads on who "understands" Iran, Iraq and above all Russia. Many of these polls found a strong contingent of people who considered it a draw.

So, putting aside the polls, I think it was politically beneficial for McCain to control the agenda of the debate. I think that meant he advanced his message more effectively than Obama. If McCain can manage the agenda of the next two debates as well (a big if), the final effect could be quite helpful to him. It will keep the conversation on subjects he prefers - especially useful for when we shift to domestic issues, which broadly favor Democrats this year. Also, it might give the impression that McCain is in charge of the discussion. That would enhance his "doer-not-a-talker" image, which would be good for him.

Given that this is similar to the problem Obama had when squaring off against Senator Clinton back in April, I think that this is something he should work on before the next debate. He should learn how to strategically ignore McCain, so that the conversation does not drift into subjects that favor the Republican nominee. In other words, Barack Obama needs to talk less to John McCain, and more to the television audience.

There has been a lot of discussion about McCain's decision to suspend his campaign. I'll toss in my two cents.

I do not think it is a purely political move, a stunt or ploy designed only to advance McCain-Palin's message. The politics of it are too complicated for anybody to predict what will happen - which means that McCain is taking a risk. Few stunts are actually risky; they just appear to be.

I see two serious dangers for McCain. The first is with the images. The second is with the tricky assignment of credit.

First, one reason members of Congress do not typically get elected to the presidency is that, whereas the President seems big, Congress seems small. Congress is not a national body, per se. Rather, it is the meeting place of representatives from the various parts of our nation. Nobody in Congress is responsible to the nation at large. Instead, each is responsible to just a small slice of it. It's a fallacy of composition to believe that because each member of Congress tends a parcel of the nation, the whole Congress tends the whole nation.

This invariably shows through in the images we see of Congress in operation. Contrast your mental pictures of Congress with your pictures of the President, and you'll see what I'm driving at. Congress is not the place you want to put your presidential candidate 40 days before the election. The images might work for McCain if Congress had a prime minister position that McCain could effectively inhabit for the period of this "crisis." But there is no such role. So, by going back to Congress, McCain runs the risk of looking like he belongs there and not in the White House.

Second, an important element to the congressional dynamic is the assignment of credit and the avoidance of blame. Why is it that all of the legislators who have had a hand in this mess can preen about how awful it is? It has to do with the way Congress is organized. Blame is very diffuse - not just in terms of appearances, but also in actual governance. You can never blame just one member of Congress for bad policy. You have to blame dozens, sometimes hundreds, in both chambers and both parties. That means that individual members can avoid taking blame.

The same goes with credit. When Congress does something good, it is often because of a "team effort" across chambers and parties. There is rarely one person who demonstrably makes the difference. The causal chain is quite blurry. This is an important point to understand when teasing out the implications of McCain's situation. Because the assignment of credit is fuzzy and subjective, it is political. So, members of Congress can find themselves in a fight over who gets it. This is not the case all the time. Frequently, there is enough credit to go around. But sometimes there isn't enough - which means that you're likely to see a political fight, with opposing factions looking to take credit for themselves or assign the blame to others.

This is where McCain might run into trouble. By going to Washington, he has injected himself into this process, and thus opened himself up to the rhetorical attacks we are now hearing from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. They are setting the stage for denying McCain credit for any deal that is brokered. If they are successful, McCain could be seen as an impediment regardless of whatever real help he might have given. Of course, just as the Democratic leadership will be working to keep McCain from getting credit, the Republican leadership will be doing precisely the opposite.

Accordingly, we should appreciate the risk in McCain's move. It is a benefit to him if and only if he is seen to have been a positive force. So, McCain's fortunes rest in part on the results of the unpredictable partisan back-and-forth over who should have the credit. And even if McCain does accrue some credit, he still runs the risk of seeming like a "small" member of Congress again.

The uncertainty of this situation makes me suspect that this was not done exclusively for strategic campaign considerations. Some have called it a desperate hail Mary - a risky gambit taken because the "bottom is dropping out." But that requires a pretty tendentious look at the polls. Five of the ten polls in the RCP national average show McCain down by three points or less. Gallup has a tie today. That is not consistent with the "bottom dropping out."

Instead, I suspect that, as with the Palin pick, this is McCain being McCain. He didn't like the situation. So, he did something. We've seen him do stuff like this again and again over the years. Lieberman gave the best description of McCain at the Republican convention: he's a restless reformer. I think that McCain being McCain, he felt restless - so he went to Washington to do something.

Regardless of how we might feel about his decision - we can agree that McCain has once again affected the race by his actions. This is the second time he has done this in a month. It's become an ironic feature of this campaign. While most agree that the election will hinge upon public considerations of Barack Obama, so much of the campaign itself has hinged upon the actions of John McCain.

I'm not one who typically puts a lot of stock in campaign gaffes, but this one is different.

Is he trying to lose western Pennsylvania?

Somebody please forward this picture to Joe Biden.

There are 7,400 people in Pennsylvania who work in coal mining (not including all of the people in industries that depend upon coal). About a quarter of the miners work in Greene County, Pennsylvania. Greene County is in the very southwest corner of the state. Its loyalty to the Democratic Party stretches back to the 19th century. It has voted Republican just twice since 1932: first in 1972, then in 2004 when George W. Bush eked out a 50-49 win.

Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in Greene County by 49 points - 73% to 24%. If it is the Obama campaign's goal to get back in the game in Greene County by talking up economics - this is probably the last thing Biden should say.

Somebody get Ed Rendell some aspirin.

I have covered in some detail Barack Obama's "rural problem," which manifested itself in poor performances in primary battles east of the Mississippi. My sense - based on the poll data, press reports, and people with whom I speak in Western Pennsylvania - is that it is still present.

Does John McCain have a rural problem, too?

What tipped me off to the possibility is McCain's poll position in Indiana. In its most recent report, the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project showed that McCain is not spending money on television in the Hoosier State. But the polls have been tight - which has been contrary to my expectations. I figured that, with the conventions and the realization that this is a close race, the partisanship of Indiana would induce the state to swing McCain's way (an inverse of New Jersey's quadrennial flirtation with the GOP). According to recent polls, this has not happened. McCain retains a lead in the RCP average, but it is much less than what George W. Bush pulled in 2004. Why?

Pundits have often referenced Obama's proximity to the state. That's a positive reason to explain the tight race: Indiana likes Obama because he's the friendly neighbor. But what if part of the answer is negative: Indiana doesn't like McCain so much.

Why would Indiana not like John McCain? After all, he's a Republican who has stood up for party reform and good governance. For example, he has opposed government subsidies for ethanol, and the good Republican folk in Indiana should really respond to that, right?

Maybe not.

Indiana is a major producer of ethanol - number 5 in the nation, capable of producing 1.2 billion gallons of ethanol per year. Indiana also ranks number 5 in corn production, generating 760 million bushels per year. Corn producers love ethanol because it's another use for their crop, which means corn prices go up.

Could this be why McCain is doing poorly relative to George W. Bush's performance in 2004? It might be. Granted, only a small slice of Indiana's workforce is classified as agricultural. Like western Ohio, Indiana's workers are much more focused on manufacturing and tech than agriculture - despite the vast acres dedicated to farming. However, corn production is still a crucial aspect of the state's economy - especially in the productive farmland along Interstate 65 between Indianapolis and...Chicago!

I'd note that McCain is also doing poorly in Iowa, number one with a bullet in both corn and ethanol production. He's also had problems in Minnesota, number four in ethanol and corn.

This ethanol issue might explain this peculiar bit of news that crossed my sight line last week.

OMAHA, Neb. - Reliably Republican, Nebraska has been giving the GOP all its electoral votes in every presidential election since 1964. Democratic candidate Barack Obama is trying to take just one of its five votes this year by focusing on Omaha, the state's biggest, most diverse city.

Why would Obama be angling for Nebraska? It could be in part that it's number 3 in corn and number 2 in ethanol. Of course, Omaha is a large city - not a farm. However, it is tied to the economy of the state, and therefore to corn and ethanol. Maybe the Obama campaign's theory is that disinclination to McCain among ethanol-friendly voters, plus the 10% African American population, plus the 6% Hispanic population, plus the tight geographical boundaries of the district (favorable for organizing) will enable him to eke out a win.

Meanwhile, Illinois ranks second in corn production and third in ethanol. If there is something going on here, it is unsurprising that a candidate like Obama - an urban politician who must appeal to a large rural electorate - would note it. If you want to win statewide in Illinois, you have to know a thing or two about the downstate economy. That might have tipped his team off to the potential of Iowa, Indiana, and even Nebraska.

There are two other states that Obama has angled for that might be explained by McCain's anti-pork stands: North Dakota and Alaska. Again, it is strange to expect to vote against the Republican nominee. But is it strange to expect them to vote against John McCain?

Again, maybe not.

John McCain has a reputation as a pork buster. This year Alaska received the most pork per capita - $555.54 per person. North Dakota ranks third - $207.72 per person. This might even explain why the Obama campaign recently tossed a few bucks in advertising at West Virginia, which received $179.80 per person this year.

Unfortunately, we don't have the kind of polling data that could push this analysis to the next level. We'd need to link individual attitudes about McCain to proximity to ethanol and/or pork barrel spending. We can't do that. All we can do is suggest that McCain might have a problem.

If he does, it would be a lesson in why Congress still rolls the log: it helps members win reelection. People might not like the profligacy of the process, but many of them like getting goodies from the government. Some people in some places more than like it - they actually need the assistance. If you stand in their way, then give them an opportunity to vote you down, they might just do that.

What's this mean electorally? McCain only needs Indiana to go for him by a single vote. He can sacrifice some votes there. More than some, actually. Bush won the state by 20 points in 2004. It's one thing to talk about Obama shaving that lead down. It's another thing