Two Weeks From Today

Momentum in the Presidential campaign has been running in two week waves, with one party gaining momentum for two weeks and then the other. As the election nears, gains and losses of support, with each wave, are becoming smaller for both parties. There are fewer people who are not firmly committed to one candidate or another. The waves of support, for both candidates are forming classic bull patterns, with levels of support continuing to both peak and trough at higher levels of support. Obama is peaking and troughing at higher support levels than McCain.

A two week period of relative Republican polling gains is now within a day or two of ending. Despite this, Obama is at fifty percent levels of support or greater in some of the nationwide polls and McCain manages to reach parity in some, on a level of plurality. This continues to give the Republicans hope. Obama now has a majority in all demographics except white men in their fifties and sixties and white protestants who regularly attend church, with a huge advantage accruing among older white protestants who regularly attend pentecostal or charismatic churches and identify abortion as a major political issue. McCain is also doing well with military officers, older white enlisted men and active members of traditional veteran's fraternal organizations. The Republicans are losing support among the investor and professional classes. The myth that racists will vote Republican this cycle is proving false. They are holding their noses and pulling the lever for Obama, as long as they don't fit into an otherwise strongly Republican demographic. This is the first election in over thirty years, where gun ownership, in and of itself, has not been a bellweather issue for Republicans.

No matter how you look at the situation, Sarah Palin's VP candidacy has been a mixed blessing for McCain. She has helped mobilize the non-elitist Republican base, who were disappointed with President Bush and will spur them to higher voting percentages. Believe it or not, there is still a non neocon, intellectual Republican elitist faction. They controlled the party, until Nixon hit on the, if you build it they will come, moral majority strategy that transformed the party, starting in 1968. They are horrified by the hive head queen and what's left of them are bailing out, if not from the party yet, from active participation.

McCain is going to take some of the battleground states. He has a good chance of holding on to Florida, Indiana, North Dakota, maybe even Missouri. Democrats, on the other hand look like they will take Virginia, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, possibly North Carolina. These are all States that the Republicans usually win. No recently Democratic States are up for grabs. Virginia along with Nevada and New Mexico would be enough to put Obama over the top or if not Nevada and New Mexico, then Iowa. It's unlikely to come down to that but there is no denying that if everything falls apart for Obama in the last two weeks of the campaign, it could still be close.

The story of the Republican party this cycle is increasingly the story of the Evangelical Christian movement in America, as the mouse that roared. Far fewer Americans attend church every Sunday than a generation or two ago. Those that do attend, have been moving, not so much to Pentecostal congregations but to more traditional mainstream churches that have picked up strands of the pentecostalist's charismatic DNA. This makes them see themselves in a more militant role, politically. They are more likely to vote, to donate and to become politically active. Their clergy tells them to and they believe that God mandates it. The charismatics were courted by the Republicans to bolster a weakening coalition into one that could continue to win elections. As the coalition continues to weaken among other groups, the charismatics demand and get increasing consideration for their continued support. A tipping point has now or soon will be reached, where further concessions to fundamentalist Christians will cost the Republican party support in other areas of the coalition. This is especially true among fiscal conservatives, who see fundamentalist Christians as lower class, largely uneducated, often lazy, consumers of Social Security, Medicare and other even more poverty level specific, social welfare entitlements.

Both of the major political parties in America are in constant flux. This year it is the Republicans more than the Democrats. In order to win elections, the Republicans are now having to offer the same levels of entitlement spending as the Democrats and in some cases increase them. They find themselves in the unenviable position of having to support hugely increased spending on the military and bank bailouts. Fiscal conservatives have no unified voice in government at this time. The next political cycle will see an exponential increase in deficit spending, no matter who comes out ahead. There are several possible outcomes, the best of them are grim.