Sheldon Adelson, the 74-year-old casino billionaire who has become the third richest man in America and who has strong ties to the hard-line Likud Party in Israel, has emerged this year a major benefactor of the American right. Past evidence suggests that Adelson will capitalize on his ascent to the top of the Republican money elite to try to build opposition in America to any Middle East peace settlement calling for the division of Israel into two states, one Jewish, the other Palestinian.

In the current election cycle, Adelson has surpassed such past financial mainstays of conservative causes and of the GOP as oilman-corporate raider T. Boone Pickens ($4.6 million 2003-4), Houston real estate magnate Bob Perry ($18.5 million 2003-6) and former Univision CEO Jerry Perenchio ($9.1 million 2003-6).

According to some estimates, Adelson has put over $30 million in the 2007-8 cycle and has now even surpassed George Soros, the Democratic financier who in 2003-4 and 2005-6 broke all records by investing $27 million in liberal get-out-the-vote and media campaigns.

Although Adelson has been a donor to political campaigns for many years - the Center for Responsive Politics lists him as contributing a total of $719,532 to U.S. federal campaigns and candidates since 1990 -- only recently has Adelson joined the top ranks of political heavy hitters who use tax exempt non-profit independent advocacy organizations -- 527s and 501c4s (identified by the section under which they are regulated by the Internal Revenue Code) -- to donate millions, much of which do not have to be publicly disclosed, in addition to the far smaller contributions permitted in U.S. races for public office regulated by the Federal Election Commission.

In the past, Adelson has shown a substantial interest in Israeli politics as well as in American elections. He is a strong backer of Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel and current Likud Party chair. Adelson has financed the creation of an Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, so outspoken and aggressive in backing Netanyahu that it has become known as "Bibi-ton".

Adelson does not speak for the mainstream of American Jewry. Sixty-two percent of American Jews support Barack Obama according to a June Gallup Poll. A separate survey by Gallup found that 77 percent of American Jews -- more than almost any other American group -- believe the Iraq War was a mistake.

Although Adelson's adamant opposition to a two-state solution is also at odds with the opinion of a majority of American Jews, his influence is considered significant. His views have led him to turn against Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a shift described in a recent New Yorker piece.

Olmert and others argue that the Palestinian population is growing so much faster than the Jewish population in Israel that if the country remains unified, Jews will either see the end of the Jewish state of Israel as Palestinians gain majority status, or see the end of Israel as a democracy as Palestinians begin to outnumber Jews at the polls.

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American pro-Israel lobby, signaled support for peace negotiations leading to a two-state solution, Adelson threatened to withdraw his financial support from the lobby. "I don't continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they say they want to jump," he told the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Here in the US, Adelson is the single largest source of cash for two 501(c)4s: the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a sister organization, Freedom's Watch, an Iraq War advocacy group largely run by top officials of RJC. Freedom's Watch intends to spend substantially more than $30 million for "independent" ads and phone banks designed to undermine support for Democrats.

When Freedom's Watch announced its first run of pro-Iraq war ads on August 22, 2007, it was widely believed that the group would become the biggest spending independent advocacy organization working in behalf of the then-unknown Republican presidential nominee.

So far, however, Freedom's Watch has concentrated on House and Senate races. Adelson could not be reached for comment, but one factor in the failure of Freedom's Watch to engage in presidential politics may be the fact that John McCain, the prospective Republican nominee, is a supporter of a two-state solution in Israel, the policy that Adelson contends would be fatal.

Neither Freedom's Watch nor the RJC are required to disclose contributors, and both declined to say how much Adelson has given. Freedom's Watch spokesman Ed Patru said "We are not going to get into particulars," but Adelson "has been a significant supporter of this organization from its beginning."

Patru noted in an interview with the Huffington Post that the idea for the creation of Freedom's Watch was hatched at a 2007 Florida meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, although Patru contended "one organization has nothing to do with the other."

All four members on the board of Freedom's Watch have strong ties to the RJC: Mel Sembler and Ari Fleischer, both members of the RJC board of directors; Matt Brooks, the RJC's executive director; and one of Adelson's top employees, William P. Weidner, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.

One of the central ambitions of the RJC during the current election cycle is to weaken Barack Obama's support among Jewish voters. Under a headline "Obama's Record, Advisers Raise Concerns For Jewish Community," the RJC web site provides links to a series of anti-Obama critiques, the first one of which declares:

"Senator Obama continues his rhetoric of moral equivalence by implying that measures taken by Israel to protect its citizens are on par with the Palestinians' frustration at border checkpoints. Senator Obama's attempt at even-handed diplomacy fails to hold Palestinians accountable for using terrorist tactics against innocent Israeli citizens as a means to achieve their ends."

Adelson, who has amassed his immense wealth through his investments in gambling facilities in Las Vegas, Macao, and elsewhere, is also the primary bankroller -- at $2.9 million -- of American Solutions for Winning the Future, a 527 political advocacy group chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. American Solutions is required to disclose donors.

On top of that, Adelson, according to the National Journal, has begun channeling cash and fundraising support to Vets for Freedom, which is expected to use the influx of money to finance what it claims will be a multimillion dollar "Four Months For Victory" ad campaign. The group's most recent commercial is described on its website as highlighting "the success of the Surge, and expos[ing] detractors of the policy--namely Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Barack Obama (D-IL), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE)." A prominent headline on Vets for Freedom's website states: "Obama's Head in the Sand."

While Adelson's reported $30 million-plus has been generally welcome on the right, a number of Republican strategists complain bitterly that Adelson's micromanaging and interference with the organizations he is funding, especially Freedom's Watch, has resulted in staff resignations and abruptly canceled projects, with little, his antagonists argue, in the way of results.

Among the staffers who have resigned from Freedom's Watch or been nudged out are former Freedom's Watch president Bradley Blakeman, communications director Matt S. David and rapid response specialist Robert Terra.

"Now we're at a stage in the presidential campaign, if there was a group that could effectively advocate for the issues that are important to John McCain, it would be a good thing," Terry Nelson, then-McCain campaign manager, told the New York Times in April. "But there's nobody there that's ready to do it. I think people hoped Freedom's Watch would play that role."

http://www.euthanasia.com/mccain99.htmlThe religious right has always distrusted John McCain.

The Arizona Senator's votes and statements have departed from the straight and narrow on occasion, but the larger factor is a visceral instinct on the part of many Christian conservatives - based on considerable evidence - that McCain is indifferent or hostile to political, moral, and religious orthodoxies.

The adversarial relationship between McCain and the religious wing of the GOP raises doubts as to how effective Monday's decision by Focus on the Family honcho James Dobson will be to abandon his opposition to McCain.

At the same time, such hard-right religious leaders as Dobson, 72, and televangelist Pat Robertson, 78, (Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell died in 2007) are being supplanted by younger and more tolerant Christian leaders who are less likely to become adamant opponents of Democratic candidates. Both McCain and Barack Obama, for example, are scheduled to appear on August 16 at separate Q and A sessions with Rick Warren, 54, pastor of the massive evangelical Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.

Perhaps conceived as a countermove to the growing influence of such younger pastors, the transformation of Dobson's stand on McCain is remarkable. On February 5 this year, Dobson voiced what seemed to be his true feelings toward McCain.

"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language," Dobson declared during an appearance on Laura Ingraham's conservative talk radio show. "Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience."

As is so often the case with those who make profound declarations of conscience, Dobson shifted gears, placing partisanship ahead of morality, telling listeners to his radio show on Monday :

I never thought I would hear myself saying this...While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.

Dobson tried to explain his shift to the Associated Press:

There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context. Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain.

In a revealing aside, Dobson said that McCain "seems to enjoy frustrating conservatives," noting that McCain voted for stem cell research which, to Dobson, is "the killing of babies, very tiny babies," and voted against the Marriage Protection Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage."

There are additional factors driving a wedge between McCain and the Religious Right.

Jim Guth, a political scientist at Furman University who studies the intersection of religion and politics, observed:

I've never thought that his [McCain's] basic problem was issues--George Bush differed from a lot of religious conservatives on a number of issues, but he had a real facility with religious language and could talk about a shared religious experience. McCain, on the other hand, is totally tone deaf religiously and seemingly devoid of any religious experience. Even with years of attendance at North Phoenix Baptist Church with his wife, he seems not to have learned any evangelical vocabulary or any nuance of religious expression. And from what I can tell, he has always seemed uninterested in learning.

John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron who studies the political dimensions of religiosity, made a related point: "Issues aside, I think temperament is part of the problem. Many conservative Christian leaders have developed a distrust of McCain's independent style. The fact that this style has brought about praise for McCain from parts of the news media that conservative Christian leaders distrust may be a factor as well."

In addition to McCain's famous critique of religious right leaders -- voiced at the end of his failed 2000 bid for the GOP nomination: "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right" - McCain has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to defy conservative ground rules.

He has, for example, called for amending the Republican Party's abortion platform to allow exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother.

In an unguarded moment in 1999, McCain told the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board that "in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade," only to retract that statement in response to an uproar from right-to-life forces. He provoked another controversy in New Hampshire in 2000, when he said that if his then-teenage daughter got pregnant, he would leave it up to her to decide whether to have an abortion.

In 2004, he voted against a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, declaring that the amendment "strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans....It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

McCain's divergence from the religious right reflects the diminishing clout of the movement that has been so important to the GOP since the 1970s when the Moral Majority was first formed, through the elections in 2000 and 2004 of George W. Bush.

Trends running counter to the moral objectives of religious conservatives can be seen in data compiled by the Pew Center showing support for traditional Democratic social programs and social spending is on the rise, while traditional Republican "family values" issues and religiosity are both diminishing.

Equally important, there has been a steady, if modest, growth in the number of secular voters - atheists, agnostics or those with no religious beliefs. The growth, however, has been concentrated entirely among Democrats and independents, in effect isolating religiously conservative Republicans:

The Pew survey found a striking decline in

support for traditional or conservative social values, in such areas as homosexuality and the role of women in society.... In 1987, about half of the survey's respondents (49%) gave conservative answers to at least four of the six questions. In 2007, just 30% did so. This trend has occurred in all major social, political, and demographic groups in the population. While Republicans remain significantly more conservative than Democrats or independents on social values, they too have become substantially less conservative over this period.

The study found that the

largest individual changes have occurred on questions relating to sexuality....The public is increasingly accepting of homosexuality. In the current study, only 28% of respondents agreed that school boards should have the right to fire teachers who are known to be homosexual; 66% disagreed. In 1987 when this question was first asked, a majority of 51% agreed with the statement. Similarly, there has been a sharp decline through the period in the number of people who agree with the statement that 'AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior.' Just 23% now agree with the statement; 72% disagree. When this question was first asked in 1987, public opinion was divided on the question, with 43% agreeing and 47% disagreeing.

McCain's reluctance to support a constitutional ban on gay marriage reflects one of the dilemmas of the Republican Party as the electorate becomes increasingly tolerant of homosexuality. President Bush and the Republican Party used the proposed constitutional amendment as a central weapon in the 2004 elections, with some analysts making the case that the tactic delivered crucial swing states - particularly Ohio. Long-range trends, however, suggest not only that sexual mores have become liberalized, but that other more pressing issues have intervened - the war in Iraq and the economy. The tactic of using gay rights as a mobilizing issue may have become superannuated.

The Gallup Poll in June 2008 found a growing willingness to accept homosexual relations,

Similarly, Gallup found:

These trends has resulted in a steady decline in the opposition by the public to civil unions and same-sex marriage:

The Pew survey found that support for civil unions -- legal agreements that would give same-sex couples many of the same legal rights as married couples - grew from 45 percent in 2003 to 51 percent this year.

The net result of these trends puts McCain in a strategically difficult position: he alienates the right by failing to toe the line, and he alienates moderates by failing to repudiate the right. McCain, predictably, is commanding less support among white evangelicals at this stage in the campaign than did Bush, who was far more deferent to religious leaders, at the same point in the 2004 campaign. The following chart illustrates the differences.

About a week ago, Republican media specialist Alex Castellanos asked pollster Scott Rasmussen to add a question to one of his surveys: If the November election were between Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who would you vote for? Obama crushed Bush 54-34.

Noting that tracking polls generally show just a 2 to 4 point edge for Obama over John McCain, Castellanos said the most obvious conclusion is that "McCain is not Bush." But more importantly, Castellanos argued, "It means McCain is not running against the Obama who won Iowa, but [against] the more polarizing Democrat [who] Hillary Clinton was beating like a drum in Texas, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc."

In the current political environment, according to Castellanos, "where the GOP is in disgrace, the President is unpopular, gasoline is 5 bucks a gallon, housing prices are sinking, and the economy is in the toilet," Obama's slim lead "means he is not an acceptable Democrat. . . . Obama is in big trouble."

Rasmussen himself is not prepared to draw such dramatic conclusions, but he does think the data send a clear warning to the Obama camp:

"The basic question of this race is whether Obama can pass a certain threshold and be deemed 'acceptable' by enough people to move into the White House. Alex [Castellanos] says Obama is not acceptable. I say we don't know yet....For the first time in a long time, what the candidates and campaigns do in the fall will determine the winner."

While Castellanos is a Republican and Rasmussen is a conservative, a number of Democrats are voicing concerns about the quality of the Obama campaign.

Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's 2000 campaign, said the Obama campaign has had a "lousy start to the general election. Although the political environment continues to favor Obama and the Democrats, the candidate is still not fully on four cylinders."

Brazile is also critical of the McCain campaign, voicing what is becoming an increasingly widely held view that the two candidates are both failing to take full advantage of the ineptitude of the other. "McCain cannot seem to find a good team to help highlight all of his personal advantages. He must figure out how to distance himself from Bush without alienating the conservative base he needs to win in November," Brazile said.

A key Democratic player in the 2004 contest, who requested anonymity, voiced a similar "pox on both your houses" assessment of the prospective nominees:

"The Obama campaign has become everything that caused the Clinton campaign to falter -- arrogance, 'no way we can get beat by that guy' mentality -- play it safe -- hold on to the lead mentality. With all that McCain is up against - the Bush years, a crumbling Republican Party -- and 15 months of 'Obama is amazing,' [McCain] should not be within single digits of Obama - particularly since he has run one of the worst campaigns in decades -- but he is still within striking distance."

Bob Beckel, who managed Walter F. Mondale's 1984 campaign, argues that Obama has lost his edge because he has started to follow the advice of political consultants - like Beckel himself:

"I finally got it. While I was holding Obama to a typical political standard, his supporters' standard, forged in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, was more elevated and exacting. To them, the 'Obama of Winter' had been a calling, while the [current] 'Obama of Summer' was causing an uncomfortable disconnect....My sense is that much of the reaction can be laid at the feet of the growing number of political advisers surrounding him. Political consultants, especially at the presidential level, are a cautious breed. Their instinct is to dumb down the candidates positions to the lowest common denominator to avoid offending the most number of voters."

Dan Gerstein, who ran Senator Joe Lieberman's 2006 Connecticut re-election campaign, argued that both Obama and McCain face huge obstacles, but that Obama has done a better job climbing over them:

"Obama has to quickly convince the millions of swing voters who will decide this race that he is not a Black Panther or Muslim stalking horse and that he is qualified to be commander in chief, after three-plus years in the U.S. Senate and no military experience. . . .McCain has to carry the twin albatrosses of a hugely unpopular and divisive president and a hugely unpopular and divisive shooting war; he must manage the ever-present tensions between his maverick record/tendencies and the demands of his base, and as a result spend critical energy every day just in preventing a right-wing revolt; and on top of all that, he must confront doubts about his age from across the political spectrum, and particularly among older voters who should be one of his most target-rich demos for poaching would-be Obama supporters."

In that context, Gerstein argued, "it seems no contest that Obama has run a better and tighter campaign. . . .a clear, consistent compelling message" promoted by a "very disciplined and effective" team. Conversely, Gerstein contends, McCain has failed to develop a rationale for his campaign "above and beyond his biography -- so far you could best describe his message as 'I'm old and white'."

Castellanos sharply disputed this assessment of the Republican candidate. "If McCain is doing so poorly, why is he doing so well?," Castellanos asked. "Could McCain have done a better job using his money and time this spring? Perhaps. but if you had asked the McCain folks back in March if they would be happy with a campaign that had them essentially tied with Obama with only a little more than 100 days to go, they would have asked, 'where do we sign?'"

Maybe, just maybe, a bunch of delegates to the Democratic Convention in Denver will change their minds at the last minute. Maybe there is an outside chance that between now and the last week of August a critical mass will decide that Barack Obama is not their guy -- that, to the surprise of one and all, Hillary Rodham Clinton is to be the 2008 nominee after all.

That is the thinking behind a small but determined band of Hillary backers, some of whom have formed a 527 fundraising committee that has already run one $9,700 ad in the Chicago Tribune, and plans more in the weeks to come.

The Denver Group: Keeping the Democratic Party democratic, created by Georgetown Law professor Heidi Li Feldman and freelance advertising man Marc Rubin, ran an ad in Friday's Chicago Tribune declaring:

"Senator Clinton's name must be put in nomination. Her supporters must be allowed to make speeches on her behalf of her candidacy. There must be an honest roll call vote, not a symbolic one, so superdelegates can cast their votes honestly, for either candidate, as their judgment, conscience and democratic principles dictate."

Feldman told the Huffington Post that the goal of the Denver Group "is to insure substantive and legitimate selection of the nominee." DNC chairman and other party leaders "should be taking responsibility for making sure it's a legitimate procedure. They cannot demand that people simply unify around either one of them."

Feldman argued that it is entirely conceivable that an open vote could produce a Clinton victory. "Then, the decision comes down to the superdelegates. I have no Idea what they are going to do six weeks from now."

Feldman declined to say how much the group has raised, or who the donors are - "We can't disclose that information" - although he acknowledged that the 527 organization will soon have to report that data to the IRS. She said the largest donation so far is $5,000.

The Denver Group is not committed to any candidate, Feldman said, although the organization's web site, and the links provided at the site, suggest a decisive tilt toward Clinton and, in some cases, intense animosity to Obama.

Rubin, for example, writes not only on the Denver Group site, but also on Tom In Paine. There, the lead piece by Rubin is titled "The New Obama, The New Nixon and The Same Old New York Times." Rubin writes, "The analogy of Obama to Nixon is valid from many different points of view since a case can be made that Obama is the most underhanded and dishonest politician since Nixon."

Spokesfolk for the Obama campaign declined to comment on the Denver Group. It should not be confused with "Unconventional Denver," a separate anarchist organization pledged to disrupt activities at the Democratic convention. "We don't want history to remember the Democratic National Convention in Denver as something that went smoothly," Tim Simons of Unconventional Denver told the Denver Post, "We want people to know there was dissent and people spoke up."

The ad in the Chicago Tribune:

Undaunted by the defeat of his most prominent client, Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn and his wife, Nancy Jacobson, have moved quickly to cash in on their notoriety.

Jacobson has raised eyebrows in Democratic circles by starting a new profit-making venture capitalizing on all the rich folks who will be wandering around Denver for the four day convention with little or nothing to do while waiting for official activities at the Pepsi Center, and a swirl of parties across the city, to begin.

Penn's wife, a professional fundraiser, is trying to round up as many as 75 people willing to fork over $10,000 each for a Monday-through-Thursday "convention summit" at the Ritz Carlton in late August where they can meet and greet the powerful, the wealthy, and such Democratic "thought leaders" as Drew Westen, author of the The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

"This is not your typical sort of thing," Jacobson said in an interview. Instead, it will provide a kind of exclusive home-base for the affluent. "It's really a private thing I am doing."

In fact, just that - "a private thing" - is what has privately raised concerns among some fellow Democrats, including fundraisers for Barack Obama and the Denver host committee, when they first learned of the event in a somewhat elliptical item in the New York Times.

The article left ambiguous exactly where any profits from the "summit" would go, noting in passing, "The conference is not a Democratic fund-raiser."

A former Democratic officeholder who asked that his name not be used sent the following email to the Huffington Post: "Essentially she's charging $10,000 for donor gatherings where 'access' will be provided. Who pockets the money? Some Obama people are angry that they've inherited a convention in serious deficit from overspending, are being solicited by Hillary people to pay off her debt, and along come the Penns' business-as-usual."

In fact, any leftover cash will go directly into Nancy Jacobson's pocket with zilch going to Obama, the Democratic Party committees, or to Democratic candidates.

"It's an entrepreneurial thing," Jacobson said. The New York Times story accurately quoted a draft the paper obtained of plans for the summit. In it, Jacobson said among the draws for the lonely wealthy folks would be Kevin Spacey and Laura Dern, stars of HBO's television movie, Recount. Unfortunately, the draft was written before any commitments were obtained, and neither Spacey nor Dern will be in attendance.

Despite that, Jacobson said over half the 75 potential sales have been made. If she sells out, the total gross take will be $750,000, with an undetermined amount left over for Jacobson.

While Jacobson is developing new revenue sources, her husband, Mark Penn, is hiring a prominent Bush aide - indeed the ghost writer of the president's autobiography - who can be expected to generate revenues from different sources for Penn's firm.

Those who questioned the propriety of Clinton's decision to appoint as chief campaign strategist Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller -- the premier public relations and lobbying shop in Washington -- have received further confirmation of their jaundiced views: the announcement that Burson Marsteller has signed up former Bush communications honcho Karen Hughes as Global Vice Chair. In doing so, Penn is further extending the long and proud tradition in the nation's capitol of bipartisan profiteering.

"Karen is one of the leading communications strategists working today," Penn declared in the announcement. "She brings enormous strategic insights coupled with the ability to drive successful campaigns at the highest levels of the political, governmental and corporate arenas. I cannot think of anyone better suited to counsel our clients."

In the world of corporate Washington, there is nothing strange about Hughes, a top strategist for the party of Wall Street, going to work for a key operative for the "party of working men and women" in a company that describes itself as:

"A leading global public relations and communications firm whose knowledge, strategic insights and innovative programs help drive strong corporate and brand reputations for its clients. We provide our clients with strategic thinking and program execution across a complete range of public relations, public affairs, advertising and other communications services."

There is no way to measure the damage inflicted on the Clinton campaign both by Penn's strategic advice and by the degree to which his own background conflicted with an electorate clearly sick of the insider dealings of Washington, D.C.

Animosity toward Penn among Obama supporters has reportedly led to a reluctance to help Hillary Clinton pay off her $22.5 million debt, because nearly a quarter of what she owes, $4.6 million are backed up bills from Penn's polling company, Penn and Schoen.

Until Penn gets paid off, the cash Karen Hughes and Nancy Jacobson bring in may help relieve the pain.

The struggle to define Barack Obama over the next seventeen weeks will pit the two presidential campaigns against each other, along with independent 527 groups determined to put their own stamp on the contest. Just as importantly, the battle will take place in the context of the contemporary politics of race.

On the Democratic side, the drive will be to portray Obama as a success story, an exemplar of deeply-rooted American egalitarian traditions, significantly advancing the national commitment to freedom and justice.

On the Republican side, the effort will be, rather, to link Obama to the powerful negative stereotypes of black Americans that were once widely prevalent, triggering bias -- proponents of such ads hope -- and stirring up the kind of race prejudice which underpinned that other American tradition -- slavery and Jim Crow.

Republican operatives, including Floyd Brown who engineered the infamous Willie Horton ad of 1988 are already gearing up. David Mark and Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico write:

Opposition researchers . . . hope they have found a weapon to wound Obama in his own voice as recorded for the Grammy-Award winning audio version of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from my Father. . . . In a passage describing his high school experience in Hawaii, for example, Obama explains the allure of drugs. "I kept playing basketball, attended classes sparingly, drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically."

Floyd Brown told Mark and Vogel "My copy of [Dreams] is dog-eared and covered with yellow marker. . . . I expect to use his words a lot in the ads that I do. . . . and I would highly encourage other independent efforts - or the [McCain] campaign itself - to do the same thing."

Two of Obama's own first post-primary ads are designed to counter attempts to frame him with discredited negative stereotypes of black Americans.

In a commercial titled "Dignity" the announcer declares that Obama "passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by eighty percent....And never forget the dignity that comes from work."

Similarly, in "The Country I Love", Obama tells voters:

America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life's been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. ....That's why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected. I approved this message because I'll never forget those values, and if I have the honor of taking the oath of office as president, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.

The side that successfully defines Obama is the side likely to win on November 4.

The racially-tinged 'framing' battle over Obama began in earnest during his primary fight against Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton's pointed comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina primary was designed to link Obama to an earlier black candidate for the presidency who had a much more limited appeal to white voters. Hillary Clinton sought to raise similar concerns when she told USA Today, "Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and...whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Nothing, however, more gravely threatened Obama's image as a "post-racial" candidate than the disclosure of the content of sermons by Jeremiah Wright, Obama's religious mentor and pastor for 20 years, the man who married Obama and who baptized his children. In one sermon, Wright declared: "No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America." In another sermon, Wright told the congregation, "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

In an effort to gain some insight into the historical antecedents of this debate, the Huffington Post asked a number of political and academic experts who have studied racial politics for their assessments. Most were asked a version of the following question:

How would you explain how this country has gone from a segregated South at the start of the 1960s to the Democratic nomination of an African-American candidate for president, less than 50 years later?

The replies ran the gamut from optimistic to the pessimistic.

Robert D. Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard and author of Bowling Alone wrote:

My main thought is that LBJ was exactly right when he said, upon signing the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, that the Democrats were writing off the South (and thus national power) for a generation. It's been just about that long, and it may be a bit longer yet before the South fully rejoins the rest of the country, but we are now seeing the long-term effects of the Civil Rights revolution on younger generations, in the sense that for my kids and especially my grandchildren race is much less a big deal in public affairs. I don't mean that racism is dead, of course, especially in private life, but it has been delegitimated almost entirely in public now, especially for the youngest cohort of voters. I think that the Clintons paid a significant political price for even appearing to play the race card this spring, and I think the same would be true now for McCain, at least among people under 50. Social scientists have charted the generational trend toward greater racial tolerance for decades now, and the only question was whether young generations really meant it. Their votes this spring proved that they did. That generational sea-change is, of course, the primary reason for the sharp age gradient in support for Obama this spring. The thing about generational replacement is that it comes very slowly, over a matter of 50 years (as new voters enter the electorate and old voters leave), but once underway, it is inexorable.

To be sure, issues like Reverend Wright can set back the cause (ironically, because his black nationalism was so gratingly out-of-tune), and I'm not saying that Obama's election is a sure thing. But the direction of history seems to me pretty clear, and I think LBJ had it about right.

Notre Dame political scientist Darren Davis, who is African American, has a far bleaker view:

Sure, there has been some racial progress and the black middle class has expanded. But, American society is still largely segregated and blacks continue to be at the low end of every conceivable socioeconomic measure. And, one can infer only so much racial progress from the nomination of Barack Obama. Once Obama was racialized -- toward the end of the primaries -- racial issues seem to stick to him more than at the beginning when people were not viewing him through a racial lens. When Obama was effectively framed as black, whites' support declined and black support increased.

People want to assume that Willie Horton is a thing of the past, but the Willie Horton commercial would work today! Please don't misunderstand. There has been racial progress, but the success of the Obama campaign is not the best measure of racial progress. My basis for saying this is that I do not think a random black person would have the same success. Obama's success is due in part to his position on the issues, his eloquence, his ability to communicate, and let's not forget, the state of our country.

A better measure of racial progress is when the country can elect a black person who can speak directly on racial issues, embrace traditional civil rights leaders and associations, and who can maintain associations with people who may have different perceptions of country.

Pollster John Zogby, in turn, sees a different world from Davis:

The America of 2008 is far removed from that of 1988-- let alone the 1950s. In short form, we have had two structural recessions in 1982 and 1991 that moved us away from the manufacturing economy toward services and information. And many of the blue collars of the past have sent their children to community colleges, public and private universities. No one dreams of their kids joining the working class. What has thus happened is an explosion of what some call "the creative class" -- 30 million strong and growing, with a far more cosmopolitan worldview and not competing for a diminishing piece of a diminishing pie of jobs. Add to this what my research is finding about America's First Global generation -- 18-29 year olds with passports who are more likely to call themselves 'citizens of the planet Earth' before they see themselves as US citizens. They have grown up in a diverse world, are much more likely to appreciate multi-ethnicity, multilateralism, and do not even see Obama as an African American candidate.

UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck:

While it is tempting to consider Obama's likely nomination as a sign of progress in terms of the conditions in which African Americans are integrated into American society, I think it is also important to realize that this is one man's success -- and he happens to be multi-racial with a black identity. There are a lot of communities in America, a lot of segments of society, that are still struggling. It is critical to look to Obama as a role model for minority populations, not as a sign that these groups have been fully integrated....

So, yes, 40 years after the voting rights act we have our first black nominee of a major party.... Obama's nomination is not the culmination of decades or even centuries of tolerance and changing attitudes -- it is the beginning, a perfect-storm-provided opportunity to 'pass go' and skip forward on the path toward racial equality....Reality has provided us with this moment and this candidate -- and we should use it to continue the movement toward equality of opportunity, of rights, and of protection for all under-represented groups. Let one man's equality be a mirror reflecting the inequalities experienced by others.

Notre Dame Political Scientist David Leege writes

My guess is that behind the figures indicating a close contest for the presidency are about 17-19% of white Democrats and independent leaners who will find other reasons for their vote, but at heart it is anti-African American. My guess is that about 11-13% of white Republicans and independent leaners--racial moderates--who could embrace Obama would do so because they are embarrassed by their own party's campaign strategy and their beloved nation's paradoxical racial history. McCain may be too honorable to overtly support the racially-tinged politics of Reagan and the two Bushes. His challenge will be to rein in a staff of political pros who learned their not-so-secrets of political success over the last 30-40 years. McCain has to keep them on persona and patriotism, along with general words about economic renewal and environment. I anticipate a goodly share of apologies.

Finally, as a scholar of religion and politics, I am watching the formation of rival coalitions based on what I call the theology of fear and the theology of hope. The former has been with us for several decades in the forces of order, exclusion, and war. The latter has been loosely fragmented among progressive white Catholics, mainline Protestants, and younger, educated evangelicals. If the latter coalition crystallizes and joins African Americans, Jews, most Hispanics, and seculars in 2008 and thereafter, the electoral map will indeed change. Many of these are the same kinds of people--socially, psychologically, and spiritually--who were behind the bipartisan coalition that empowered the civil rights acts of the early '60s.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres argues:

Barack Obama's rise is but the latest example that American is the most amazing country on earth. It is virtually inconceivable that a European nation, an Asian nation, or a South American nation could move legally and culturally from enforced segregation to an African-American candidate for President in 50 years. It is particularly striking to realize that Obama's parents' bi-racial union was illegal not that long ago. It reinforces a fundamental tenet of America's civic religion, that this truly is a land of opportunity.

Al From, founder and chief executive officer of the Democratic Leadership Council contends:

This country is a great country that has made tremendous economic and social progress in the last half century. We still have a ways to go, but we are ever coming closer to reaching a dream that seemed so far when I worked for the War on Poverty in the Deep South four decades ago. The animating principle of America is equal opportunity and the idea that with hard work anyone here can get as far as his or her talents would allow. It would not happen in any other country.

Survey data over the past 50 years show a steady liberalization of American views, but opinion specialists argue that racial attitudes remain a difficult subject to accurately gauge though polls.

A June Washington Post/ABC poll - "Obama's Candidacy Underscores Crosscurrents of Race and Politics" - noted public ambivalence.

The survey citied the

deep crosscurrents in racial attitudes. On the positive side, a record number of whites and blacks alike say they have a friend of the other race - 92 percent of blacks and 79 percent of whites, both new highs in polls dating back a generation. The growth of interracial friendships has been dramatic; in 1981 just 54 percent of whites, and 69 percent of blacks, reported a friend of the other race. At the same time, three in 10 Americans admit to harboring at least some feelings of racial prejudice of their own - 30 percent of whites, and about as many blacks, 34 percent.

Ten years ago, the Pew Center found another serious weakness in surveys examining racial attitudes: "People who are reluctant to participate in telephone surveys seem to be somewhat less sympathetic to blacks and other minorities than those willing to respond to poll questions." There has been poll data suggesting the public is more liberal on matters of race than it actually is.

Conversely, a February, 2007, Pew Research study concluded "that racism may be less of a factor in public judgments about African American candidates than it was 10 or 20 years ago." The authors, Scott Keeter and Nilanthi Samaranayake, found that while

No one would deny that race still matters in U.S. politics. For the past half century, the political parties have been increasingly divided in their positions on racial issues, and that, in turn, has affected voters' decisions to call themselves Republicans or Democrats. But this review of exit polls and electoral outcomes in several recent elections suggests that fewer people are making judgments about candidates based solely, or even mostly, on race itself, and that relatively few people are now unwilling to tell pollsters how they honestly feel about particular candidates. In such an environment, the high standing of Barack Obama in presidential polling -- or, for that matter, of Colin Powell prior to the 1996 presidential election -- represents a significant change in American politics.

More recently, a June, 2008, Pew study found that:

A solid majority of Americans say it as at least somewhat important to the country that an African American has won the presidential nomination of a major political party. But there are wide political and racial divisions over the significance of Barack Obama's history-making achievement.

The bitter ideological debate over Barack Obama's decision to support to controversial national security wiretapping legislation and other "moves to the center" has masked the real dangers of shifting positions during an election.

Most of the debate has been between advocates of "centrist" and "left" strategies, pitting those who believe Bill Clinton's kind of "triangulation" or moderation is the only way to win a presidential contest against those calling for more full-throated advocacy of economically redistributive, socially/culturally/morally/racially liberal, and/or progressive-populist stands.

In fact, the question for Democrats is less ideological than strategic.

Clinton won the presidency in 1992 with a political gameplan developed over many years -- a so-called Southern governor's strategy -- that stressed "ending welfare as we know it," coupling "rights" with "responsibilities," and granting priority to those who "work hard and play by the rules." Clinton set out to define his candidacy as independent of interest group liberalism, and, while campaigning, de-emphasized the more extreme and contentious elements of the rights revolution. Clinton maintained that stance through election day.

The current political climate has forced -- and permitted -- Democrats to shift their emphasis to the highly unpopular war in Iraq. As Glenn Greenwald points out, Democrat Chris Murphy beat Republican Connecticut Rep. Nancy Johnson in 2006 running on a platform of "ending the Iraq War, opposing Bush policies on eavesdropping and torture, and rejecting what he called the 'false choice between war and civil liberties.'" Similarly, in the seemingly rock-ribbed Republican district of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Bill Foster in a special election earlier this year "made opposition to the Iraq War a centerpiece of his campaign -- and emphatically opposed both warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity -- and then won a special election."

While Clinton on one side and Murphy and Foster on the other represent different approaches to winning office, they share the crucial characteristic of consistency.

Clinton's 1992 primary bid for the Democratic nomination and his campaign against George H. W. Bush were remarkable in their consistency. During the '92 campaign itself, Clinton, starting out at the center, displayed little or no "backtracking to the right" that many party strategists suggest is essential in the transition from primary to general election contests. In a series of policy lectures at Georgetown University in 1991 and early 1992, Clinton staked out the center with a vengeance, and never let go until the presidency was his.

In a development directly relevant to a potential Obama administration, Clinton began to shift positions almost immediately upon winning election, however, moving left and drawing attention to redistributive tax policies without a promised middle class tax cut; to at-the-time controversial gender equity issues (Zoë Baird, Lani Guinier); his wife's co-presidency; abortion rights; gay rights; pork-barrel spending; postponement of welfare reform, and so forth. The public quickly turned on him, and Democrats lost both the House and Senate to the successful Gingrich-led Republican Revolution of 1994.

What this suggests is that changing positions is a highly risky political strategy.

Mississippi Democratic strategist Jere Nash noted that in Obama's case, "it matters more that he is consistent than what his original position was vs. what his final position becomes. Or, he admits he has changed his mind because circumstances have changed. My own view is that [now], four months out, is too late to 'tack.' The GOP has thousands of things they can say about Obama to turn him into a liberal, even without FISA and guns (and even if they didn't have it, they'd make it up)...

"Folks in the middle of the bell curve who have become attracted to Obama are attracted to him because he represents something different, not from a public policy perspective but from the perspective of all of those intangible qualities we characterize a leader by. If he begins to contradict himself or change his mind or appear groveling to special interest groups, then he will slowly undermine what has heretofore been one of his signal strengths."

Another Democratic strategist with deep roots in the South, James Duffy, voiced considerable concern about Obama's changing stands:

"I honestly don't know what to think. He wins the primary by being the new face, the anti-Washington voice. Now, he is beginning to act in a completely different way... What happened to the new voice, the new way, the desire for change? Given the mood in the country, it may not matter, but for my money he is seriously undercutting his basic appeal."

Managing the shift from the primary election, in which voters have stronger partisan commitments on issues running the gamut from Iraq to health care, to the general is one of the more difficult processes in politics.

"Tacking to the right is the great summer pastime of Democratic nominees, particularly those who aspire to win electoral votes in places like Virginia and Colorado," said Yale political scientists Donald Green. "The risk for Senator Obama is that he is seen as shooting from the hip on the issues that arise daily, as opposed to stating his moderate positions ahead of time and indicating how they fit within a broad set of principles... The fact is that Americans vote less on issues than on persona, and one cannot be seen as a flip-flopper or a neophyte."

Taking a similar position, University of Virginia political scientist Sidney Milkis argues: "As the first African-American to receive a party's nomination for president, and with a very consistent liberal record, Obama has some discretion to take moderate positions on certain issues." But, Milkis contends, "there must be a 'nub,' as Lincoln put it, which he will not compromise....On certain core issues, therefore, the Iraq War and health care, in particular, I do not think he has that much room to compromise. No responsible candidate can guarantee exactly when all troops will be withdrawn; nonetheless, I think Obama has to commit to a fundamentally different Iraq and foreign policy than the GOP and McCain are offering. Similarly, I think he has to stay the course on pursuing fundamental reform of the health care system."

Robert J. Blendon, Harvard Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis and director of the Harvard Opinion Research Program, made the case that there are three policy areas where Obama could face major upheavals among his own supporters if he substantially alters course: "These are 1) ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home, 2) re-negotiating U.S. trade agreements to make them fairer to American workers and 3) supporting a woman's right to choose on abortion."

Conversely, Blendon argued that the electorate is seeking moderation is two other areas, the economy and national security: "Key blocs of voters are looking for an activist moderate in the economy -- someone who will do targeted things to improve what is seen as a multi-faceted decline in American economic life. However, that candidate cannot be seen as advocating huge re-distributive tax-and-spend programs that would raise taxes on a range of middle-income Americans, or favoring large new regulatory interventions by government in the American economic system... On national security, key swing voters are looking for a president who can both protect us from perceived overseas threats and repair some of our apparently troubled relationships with other countries."

The issue that has provoked the most controversy for Obama is the reversal of his stand on a provision in national security legislation -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits based on their past cooperation with the Bush administration running wiretaps without warrants.

"I strongly oppose retroactive immunity in the FISA bill," Obama declared in a January 28 statement issued during his primary fight with Hillary Clinton. "No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people - not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program."

On June 20, however, Obama announced:

"Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders...

"[The legislation] is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people."

FISA legislation is an arcane subject, and very few members of the public are aware of the details of the debate, making the controversy less a liability than would be the case if Obama shifted gears on an issue of high public salience, such as health care or the war.

"Am I bummed, am I pissed that Obama and most of our Democratic leaders caved in on FISA? Absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. But am I going to 'hold Obama accountable' for this action? Well, no, frankly," wrote Mike Lux on OpenLeft. "[I]n the last five months of a Presidential general, I get totally focused on one thing: winning the damn election. The stakes are simply too high. Winning the election won't solve all our problems, or give us a suddenly progressive America, but it at least gives us a chance to make progress. If I have to swallow my anger on an issue I care about, well, to be blunt, I'm down for that, too."

"What does Bill Clinton want?"

Barack Obama quickly determined what Hillary Clinton wants in the aftermath of defeat: a major role in the general election campaign, a star turn at the convention, help with her debt, and Obama's support for elected officials who backed her. The big-time holdout turns out to be her husband.

Bill is more complex. He wants respect, absolution and love.

The former president and Obama have not talked, and, by all accounts, the man of the Clinton household remains hurt and resentful. Associates provide a variety of explanations for the Bill Clinton dilemma, none of them mutually exclusive.

Some say Bill Clinton not only wants Obama to reach out to him, but to also promise to lift the cloud of alleged racism -- an accusation that continues to eat at the man once dubbed the nation's "first black president." Clinton, these folks suggest, wants Obama to publicly exonerate him of the charge that he played the race card in the primaries.

Beyond that, some associates say, Bill Clinton wants Obama to reach out to him as a mentor, a guide who can lead Obama through the labyrinth of a tough presidential election. "Bill wants to be honored, to return to the role of Democratic elder statesman, and get rid of this image of him as a pol willing to do anything to win," said one associate.

"He is still bruised from the trail, really hurt about the racist charges leveled against him, and convinced the Obama campaign fomented it," said another source familiar with the former president's attitude. "What he would really like is for Obama to apologize, but on one level he knows that is never going to happen," a third source said.

Another source, in contrast, downgraded the idea that Bill Clinton wants to be personally attended to by Obama. Instead, the source said, "POTUS wants first and foremost that his wife is treated with the respect that she has earned. Secondly, while he does not expect Obama to run for a Clinton third term, he would hope that Obama does not continue to implicitly criticize his eight years in office as he did during the primaries."

Finally, a person close to both Clintons contended that the current impasse between Obama and Bill Clinton "is not a big problem. All Obama has to do is ask, it's his name on the ballot." Once that hurdle is crossed, this friend of the former president and first lady said, "Bill Clinton will end up seducing Obama. Clinton likes to deal with people who have not necessarily treated him well," noting that Clinton and Newt Gingrich had a productive relationship until Gingrich began pressing for impeachment.

The accusation that Bill Clinton pointedly sought to downgrade Obama's success and to aggressively define him as a "black" candidate gained momentum on January 26, 2008 when the former president seemed to dismiss Obama's victory in South Carolina: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Clinton has not been hesitant to make his feelings about these charges known far and wide.

"I think that they [the Obama campaign] played the race card on me," Clinton told Philadelphia radio station WHYY on April 22. "We now know, from memos from the campaign, that they planned to do it along."

On June 2, Clinton told Huffington Post Off The Bus Reporter Mayhill Fowler:

"They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he [Obama] didn't do anything about it. The first day he said 'Ah, ah, ah well.' Because that's what they do-- he gets other people to slime her."

During the campaign, Obama, in turn, complained a number of times about Bill Clinton's tactics and comments

"You know the former president, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," Obama said on January 21. "He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts....This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're gonna have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate."

Now that he is the nominee, however, Obama has become more generous towards Bill.

"If the question is, do I want Bill Clinton campaigning for us, for the ticket, leading into November, the answer is absolutely yes. I want him involved. He is a brilliant politician. He was an outstanding president. And so, I want his help, not only in campaigning, but also in governing. And I'm confident that I'll get that help," Obama declared on June 25.

While Obama awaits a response from Mr. Clinton, blogger Marc Ambinder has been conducting an on-line poll asking whether 1) Obama should bend over backwards to make sure Bill Clinton campaigns for him in the fall 2) Obama should ignore Bill Clinton entirely or 3) Obama should ask Bill Clinton politely, but if Clinton says no, Obama should ignore him.

With a total of 2,292 votes cast, answer number 3 - "ask politely, if 'no,' ignore Clinton" - was decisively ahead with 1,765 votes, or 77 percent of Ambinder's responses; answers 1 and 2 drew 10% (240 votes) and 13% (287 votes) respectively.

Barack Obama is riding the leading edge of a Democratic wave, benefiting from a potential -- although by no means certain -- cyclical shift in the partisanship of American voters which could last at least through 2016, if managed carefully.

Extensive studies of past elections by scholars show that there is an ebb and flow in patterns of partisan dominance, periods during which a majority of the public is inclined -- not guaranteed -- to vote for the more liberal Democratic Party, and then shift back to the more conservative Republican Party.

These cyclical shifts do not assure the election of a president of one party or the other, but they do reflect changing political climates favorable to one partisan coalition or the other.

By most accounts, the timing in 2008 is ripe for Democrats.

"All regimes overshoot what the electorate wants in their policy behavior to satisfy both their own internal ideologies and their party base, and thus sow the seeds of future opposition," said University of North Carolina political scientist James Stimson, citing as two examples the administrations of Lyndon Baines Johnson and George W. Bush.

"From this point of view, Bush's current low standing isn't only a response to what he has done, but is also the cumulative response to almost 8 years of policy excess in governance," said Stimson, who, together with Columbia's Robert Erikson and the University of North Carolina's Michael MacKuen, is the co-author of the innocuous sounding but ground-breaking book, The Macro Polity.

Stimson has graphed what he calls the ideological "mood" of the country, in terms of liberalism, from 1952 to the present and found the following:

Three other political scientists, Samuel Merrill, III, Bernard Grofman and Thomas L. Brunell, expanded on The Macro Polity and other research by Stimson in a February 2008 essay for American Political Science Review, titled, "Cycles in American National Electoral Politics, 1854-2006: Statistical Evidence and an Explanatory Model."

Merrill, Grofman and Brunell, in a long-term study of House, Senate and Presidential elections dating back to 1852, found regular patterns of shifting control of the House, Senate and Presidency.

They write, "when a party first attains a majority in Congress and/or the presidency, it is likely to stay in power -- first rising then falling in seat share -- for 12 to 15 years before ceding majority status to the other party, which then enjoys a similar predominance for 12 to 15 years." Their findings and accompanying charts can be found here.

The article carries significant political implications. "If you believe the model is fully predictive, it [2008] does look a Democratic year," Brunell, of the University of Texas in Dallas, said in an interview. "It's time."

Brunell stresses the point that the cycles represent shifts in the political climate favoring one party or the other, rather than the more substantive and relatively fixed partisan commitments found in such realigning elections as those of 1896 or 1932.

Similarly, in a paper prepared by Erikson, MacKuen and Stimson for delivery at the April 2008 Midwest Political Science Association, "The Macro Polity Updated," the authors concluded:

"As of 2008, the relevant time series show a rare convergence of Democratic macropartisanship and liberal mood. These can be traced to the president's persistent unpopularity and conservative policies. According to our modeling, the result should be a presidential victory for the Democrats and (as begun in 2006) Democratic control of the House and Senate."

The authors caution, however, that "election outcomes are stochastic processes [containing random, unpredictable variables], so this prediction is no 'lock.'"

On-the-ground evidence supporting the thesis that the country is at the beginning of a Democratic cycle includes poll data showing a significant movement away from the GOP and toward the Democratic Party in the allegiance of voters, as well as a widespread assessment that Democrats appear certain to pick up seats in both the House and Senate.

The growing salience of relatively shorter cycles may result from the fact that both parties and their strategists have much more access to information -- feedback -- about their liabilities and strengths through polling, focus groups and a host of other mechanisms to analyze public opinion.

This information, in turn, enables party leaders and strategists to adjust much more quickly to changing political environments.

Looking at the issue of partisan strength from this point of view, University of Maryland political scientist Geoff Layman argues that the Republican Party is on a downswing and needs to re-evaluate both policy and strategy in order to return to competitiveness:

"The GOP and the conservative movement in general have lost a bit of steam and need to find a way to reshape their issue agenda for a changing world and a changing set of attitudes and demographics within the U.S. Maybe the best way to say it is that conservatism needs to be revamped or modernized to become better a better fit with a changing American society."

Princeton's Nolan McCarthy contends that "it's too early to say that there will be a swing to something approximating Democratic dominance," although he, and most others interviewed, believe that odds favor an Obama win.

McCarthy argues that it will take more than a cyclical shift for the Democrats to become ascendant -- it will also require skill:

"If Obama governs from the center and doesn't screw up, the Democrats will be the majority party. If he governs from the left and/or makes a big mistake, they won't be. In a lot of ways it will be like 1993. Had Clinton governed differently, there would have been no 1994 and the Democrats would have regained all of their Reagan-era losses. But he did gays in the military and let Hillary do health care. You know the rest of the story."

While Barack Obama remains the solid favorite on November 4, it remains unclear whether he will, as many of his supporters suggest, transform American politics, fundamentally altering the balance of power between the Democratic and Republican Parties and the composition of their respective coalitions.

All preliminary signs suggest that Obama is likely to substantially increase Democratic voter turnout, especially among young and African-American voters. But, if a large boost in voter participation is viewed as transformative, then George W. Bush qualifies: He added a striking 11,584,600 votes to win in 2004 with 62,040,610, compared to 50,456,002 in 2000. (John Kerry, in turn, received 8,028,547 more votes than Al Gore).

Douglas Rivers, a Stanford political scientist and founder of the polling firm Polimetrix, argued that Obama's support, as reflected in match-ups against John McCain, represents a continuing trend of Democratic presidential nominees doing better among well-educated elites than among those roughly described as working class, with family incomes below $60,000 and no college.

"[F]or now at least, Obama's support isn't really any different than Kerry's," Rivers said, referring to the demographic make up of Obama voters.

Since the 2004 election, Rivers found that while the demographics remain the same, the percentage of voters describing themselves as Democrats has increased by 4 percentage points, while Republican identification has fallen by 5 points - effectively wiping out almost all the GOP's gains during the period of conservative ascendancy, 1972-2004.

University of California-San Diego political scientist Gary Jacobson argued that these trends are primarily attributable to George W. Bush.

"Changes in presidential approval have the most decisive effect on the party balance; there is a substantial net movement away from the president's party among respondents who switch from approval to disapproval, and a substantial net movement toward the president's party among respondents who switch from disapproval to approval."

The consequences were worse for George W. Bush than for any of his three predecessors, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, "with aggregate consequences clearly detrimental to the Republican Party," Jacobson contended, "because only a handful of respondents moved from disapproval to approval of Bush's performance between either pair of elections, far fewer than grew disillusioned from one election to the next."

Rivers had his own take on this process:

"It's highly speculative what's behind the post-2004 party ID shift and whether it will continue after Bush departs. A component is clearly dissatisfaction with Iraq, the economy, and Bush generally -- and eventually Republicans will recover from this.

"More interesting is whether the Rove strategy of playing to the base will have long-run negative consequences. Opposing gay rights had some short-run benefits for Republicans in 2004, but I don't think it's a long-run winning issue, and there just aren't a lot of votes left for Republicans to win from fundamentalists. It seems to me that Republicans have painted themselves into a corner on these issues. The population that supports them intensely is shrinking over time (in fact, much faster that anyone thought was possible a few years ago--the majority position on gay rights is now somewhere between civil unions and marriage), and that's not a good place for a party to be."

Darren Davis, a prize-winning Notre Dame political scientist with a specialization in "stereotype threat, the measurement of racial attitudes, perceptions of citizenship, political tolerance, and the social-psychology of African American political attitudes and behavior" voiced similar caution on the question of Obama's power to transform American politics.

"I think it is too soon to tell if Obama's "emerging" coalition has lasting power," Davis said, "Also, we are still early in the presidential campaign and we have not seen Obama's emerging coalition put to a test. So, I am somewhat reluctant to carve out a coalition for Obama. It is just too soon."

Vanderbilt political scientist John Geer warned that if Obama wins, "it will be heralded by many as a 'realignment'....Such claims will be way too hasty. Obama has to deliver once in office. If he does not, the GOP will be back in full force by 2010 and certainly by 2012."

Columbia political scientist Robert Erikson suggested "we should be wary of declaring a new alignment of the electorate since previous declarations have been made and been proven illusionary," noting that at the outset of George McGovern's 1972 bid "there supposedly was a new politics energized by a youth vote....The gains among the young were slim, short-lived, and of course not nearly sufficient for McGovern to win the presidency."

Erikson pointed out, however, "that said, polls suggest a shifting landscape in 2008. The major elements of Obama's coalition are the college educated (especially those with post-graduate education), the young, and African-Americans. All were elements of the Democratic coalition already, but these groups have tilted further Democratic in terms of numbers and energy." In addition, Erikson observed, "Obama has surprising strength (for a Democrat) in western states,

Including, of all places, Alaska. Potentially he could mobilize African-Americans in the South sufficiently to capture some states normally lost to the Democrats in presidential races. At the same time, he is weaker than the usual Democratic candidate in culturally conservative but Democratic states like West Virginia and Kentucky."

Perhaps most optimistic among political scientists interviewed about Obama's potential to forge a realignment is University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. There are four elements needed for a major political shift, Sabato argues:

"(1) A crisis of confidence that causes Americans to reconsider their voting patterns; (2) new voters brought into the electorate that change the composition of the voting public; (3) a successful Presidency that confirms the gamble voters take in the first election breaking with past practice; and (4) successor Presidencies from the new coalition that continue and build upon the successes of the breakthrough President."

At the moment, Sabato said, "we clearly have the crisis in confidence, generated by an unpopular war, a tanking economy, and a deeply unpopular incumbent President. Obama is also helping to change the composition of the electorate, drawing young people to the polls in record numbers, pumping up the African-American vote, and proving to have appeal to independents and even some Republicans who have made a decision to break with their own voting histories. The early signs are positive for Obama."

For Obama to succeed in establishing a durably victorious Democratic coalition, not only does he have to win the presidency by a solid margin, according to Sabato, but he must "then go on to tackle the challenges facing the country successfully." While Democrats appear very likely to improve their congressional majorities, "the sticking point, as usual, may be the Senate. Will Democrats grab enough seats so that, along with a few moderate Republicans, [Obama] can get to 60 votes for his programs? That one could go either way."

All of the analysts interviewed suggest that Obama enthusiasts such as John Kerry are making a leap of faith when they say things like:

Every now and then, history gives us big moments in politics--moments that offer a transformation, not just a transition. And when these moments come along, the old order always resists....Today we face another transformative moment. Americans are hungry for a directness and freshness that speaks to the public fatigue with politics as usual....[Obama] is truly transformative.

At a Friday night fundraiser, Barack Obama warned supporters that Republicans "are going to try to scare people. They're going to try to say that 'that Obama is a scary guy.'" Someone in the crowd shouted, "Don't give in." Obama shot back: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

The next day, John McCain's campaign capitalized on Obama's wisecrack to announce that the gloves are off, declaring in an emailed statement:

"Barack Obama's call for 'new politics' is officially over. In just 24 hours, Barack Obama attacked one of America's pioneering women CEOs [McCain supporter Carly Fiorina], rejected a series of joint bipartisan town halls, and said that if there's a political knife fight, he'd bring a gun."

As each new charge raised by one side is used by the other to justify escalation, the presidential election is moving steadily toward what some call negative campaigning, but what others call raising legitimate and relevant issues.

Both sides know the direction such a campaign would take:

* A concerted drive by Democrats to describe McCain as a womanizer who left his crippled first wife to marry money; allowed his second wife to become addicted to painkillers; and is now running for president under the direction of every prominent Republican lobbyist in the nation's capitol.

* An onslaught of Republican ads showing Obama as a the son of an African Muslim; as a supporter of racial preferences; an associate of black and white critics of the United States; a politician biased against Israel; without the guts to deal with terrorists; and saddled with a wife lacking loyalty to or affection for America.

Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, told The Huffington Post, "it's very clear that Sen. McCain intends to run a respectful campaign focused on the issues. As you know he's even taken flak from Republicans during this campaign for insisting on this." Rogers noted that McCain asked North Carolina Republicans to pull an ad attacking Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Both candidates have disassociated themselves from such attacks, but each side is watching the other closely. The consensus among professional observers is that the Republicans will fire first:

Larry O'Brien, son and namesake of the former Democratic Party chair and now a prominent lobbyist, noted, "the Republicans are truly in a world of deep political hurt" and "all they have going for them right now is that McCain has sort of a shot. Doing a multi-faceted Swift Boat-type assault on Obama could be a way to enhance the prognosis for McCain, and, to the extent a systematically executed trash and smash program does start to work, it might also prove to pay side-effect dividends in some of the down ballot Senate and House races."

Los Angeles-based Democratic consultant Bill Carrick similarly argued, "there is no way McCain wins a positive campaign with all the anti-Bush anti-Republican feeling in the country, so we will see a very negative and personal campaign against Senator Obama because there are no other strategic choices for McCain."

There are many Republicans outside the McCain campaign who argue strenuously that issues which might be viewed as "negative campaigning" are, in fact, entirely legitimate and important for voters who are making crucial choices.

"Obama has four main weaknesses, all of which are legitimate areas of inquiry: inexperience, ideology, culture, and associations," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. "If John McCain liked to hang around Nazis and Klansmen, if his church gave a lifetime achievement award to David Duke, we would all think those were legitimate areas of inquiry. The same is true of Obama. His associations give us a window into his values and beliefs, since most of us hang around people who are pretty similar to ourselves."

Ayres added that he has "no idea what the McCain campaign will do on this score -- I suspect they will avoid it -- but I think exploring his associations is completely legitimate."

Black conservative Deroy Murdock, who writes for National Review and Townhall, contended that "John McCain's best bet is to compare his vision for limited-government solutions, low taxes, and greater individual freedom and choice versus Barack Obama's expensive agenda of high-tax, big-government, bureaucratic programs."

Murdock added, however, that "Obama's frightening collection of far-left friends" are not out of bounds:

"Americans will find them increasingly worrisome and ask the inevitable question: Does Barack Obama associate with his radical, even seditious pals because they are such great company, or does he share their extremist, often anti-American views? If voters begin to believe the latter, Obama will be in big trouble. This is a fair issue."

Murdock argued that it would be entirely legitimate for McCain to "discuss this, but he likely will not have to, as conservative commentators, Republican activists, and GOP members of Congress surely will educate the American public about this side of Senator Obama's story."

There is widespread agreement that the GOP is far more likely than the Democratic Party to pull the trigger first in raising negative critiques of Obama, his wife, and his associates.

"My guess would be Republicans [will go first], since it's essentially the Democrats' election to lose. As the poll numbers get worse and worse for them, I would predict that they will pull out all of the stops to try to damage Obama," said Columbia political scientist Gregory Wawro.

Lynn Vavreck of the UCLA Department of Political Science pointed out, "Candidates only get to tell their story once... the general public already knows John McCain's story... he's been in the Senate a long time, he supported the surge, and he was a leader on campaign finance. But the general public does not know Obama's story yet. The primary voters do, but not those marginal voters who only vote in the general election. If the Republicans can help "tell" the Obama story, they will try... history isn't a great guide here as we've never had an African American on the ticket -- and I do think race is going to play a big role -- despite the progress we've made, survey data shows that there are still a lot of people out there with high levels of racial resentment. Some of these people are moderates, (not many), and some are independents (a few more), but ... this could weaken the economic and other structural advantages."

Drew Westen of Emory University was the most declarative: "There's no other path to victory for [Republicans] this year than to make Barack Obama foreign and dangerous."