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4/18: Controversy or Political Reality?

By Dr. Lee M. Miringoff

A little perspective seems in order over the recent dustup in Albany involving Governor Cuomo’s staff keeping tabs on reporters’ comments about him.  No, this is not a throwback to Richard Nixon’s Enemy’s List.  It barely resembles the legendary Mario Cuomo’s late-night tussle with reporters over nuanced points of theology.  Hopefully, aside from this tongue-in-cheek comment, we never hear this referred to as “Press-Gate.”  (My pet peeve is that “Gate” is typically used way too often and thereby loses its muscle… See Seamus-Gate).

caricature of Lee MiringoffInstead, I think we have just gotten an up close look at how politics has long been played.  Closely monitoring references made about a politician both big and small is made necessary given the quick-speed technology of today’s political world.  What were once cast aside as seemingly insignificant gaffes now go viral…Etch a Sketch, working women etc… in recent days.  And, nowadays, things hang around for eternity.  So, anything you said or said about you at any prior point can resurface in the future… like 2016, for example… and have a major impact in the court of public opinion.

If you believe that politicians and the press have largely an adversarial relationship, than chalk this one up to your side of the argument.  In the meantime, here’s to the press for not getting intimidated when a pol is watching your every blog, and here’s to the right of our political leaders to watch out for their own good.

4/16: Money Matters

What difference does $50,000 make in the lives of Americans?  According to this Marist Poll conducted for Home Instead Senior Care, it has a big impact on their quality of life.

To read more, click here.

Survey Findings for “Money Matters”

4/4: My Quest for 30

By Stephanie Calvano

Everyone has their bucket list.  And mine has typical things like skydiving and visiting where my dad was born in Italy.  However, numero uno on my list is to attend a game at every Major League Baseball stadium.  Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love baseball.  I, like 16% of national adults, am a Yankee fan.  I have been since I was a kid.  But, it wasn’t until a once-in-a-lifetime undergraduate internship at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003 that I became a true fan of the game.  Sure, I liked baseball, but it was truly a pinstripe-centric affair.  I liked going to games (Yankee games), and I liked watching games on TV (Yankee games).

baseball field under sky

Photo Courtesy of Stephanie L. Calvano

However, in a short 3 months surrounded by interns from across the country and a great Hall staff, I learned to appreciate what the game of baseball has to offer, not just the Yankees.  Through my own research for projects, information that was taught by Hall of Fame staff, and an opportunity to interact with baseball greats, I started to realize that baseball was about so much more than cheering for one team.  Baseball is one of the greatest history books one can “read.”  So much of history is mirrored on the diamond and is a testimony to American life.  From Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers which broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier to the emergence of social media and its impact, baseball reflects the times in which we live.

After my internship at the Hall, I was not only a Yankee fan but a true baseball fan!  In fact, that summer I attended my first Major League game in which the Yankees were not one of the competing teams! And, so my quest for 30 began!

I have been to the following ball parks:

  • Yankee Stadium (both old and new) (Yankees)
  • Shea Stadium/Citi Field (Mets)
  • Veterans Stadium (old Phillies stadium)
  • Jacob’s Field (Indians and now called Progressive Field)
  • Ballpark at Arlington (Rangers; At one called AmeriQuest Park and now called Rangers Ballpark in Arlington)
  • Tropicana Field (Rays)
  • Pro-Player (old Marlins stadium; Still home of the Miami Dolphins)
  • Camden Yards (Orioles)
  • Wrigley (Cubs)
  • Nationals Park (Nationals)
  • Roger’s Centre (Blue Jays)
  • Safeco Field (Mariners)

I try to plan vacations to places that have baseball stadiums I have yet to see.  And when a business trip comes up, if there’s a baseball team nearby, my first stop is to their website in hopes they will be home when I am visiting.  Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, but I always try!

So, now here I am in 2012.   I’m still plugging away trying to take in a game at all the parks, but this is my dilemma……

I plead to all MLB teams….please, stop building new ballparks!!!  Two of the stadiums on my list are no longer the home of a baseball team.  In 2004, the Phillies opened Citizen’s Bank Ballpark and this season the Marlins will call Marlins Park home.  I’m sure the Trop won’t make it much longer either.  So, with each stadium I cross off, I fear that before I get to all 30 parks, I will have no choice but to start again!

Sure, one could argue, “just go by the team and not the stadium.”  But, that’s not gonna cut it!  If I had unlimited time and resources, I would take in all 30 in one season.   But, until I hit the lotto, my quest will continue.  And as new baseball stadiums are built, I will just have to find a way to visit again!  As they say in A Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come.”

4/4: Opening Day

By John Sparks

Although there were two official games played in Japan last week, this week marks the day all die-hard baseball fans wait for during the long cold winter — Opening Day.

The opening day of the baseball season used to be celebrated in Cincinnati where the Reds were the oldest of the original professional baseball clubs.  In the nation’s capital the President of the United States would always throw out the first pitch.

But, did those two games played by the Mariners and A’s in Tokyo take a little away from this week.  Is Opening Day not quite so special anymore?

Some say yes.  Why?  Because, baseball is now a year-round sport for both participants and spectators.

For one thing, we now have the MLB Cable Channel 24/7.  Instead of having to watch basketball, hockey, golf, and those other secondary sports, those of us who are addicted to the national pastime have a fix.  Not only do we get to watch quite a few spring training games, we also get to watch one-hour television specials on each of the 30 professional clubs.  Add to that replays of classic games, televised baseball trivia games plus hours and hours of commentary and prognoses by a host of former players, general managers, and sports writers.  Does that make Opening Day and that first pitch just like any other day?  For those who say the answer is yes, I say get over it.  I love the MLB Channel.  The MLB Channel has filled a void from October to February for sure.  If nothing else, since my wife also loves baseball, the television gets a reprieve from HGTV.    But, the MLB Channel isn’t the only thing that has altered the importance of Opening Day.  Some say it’s Spring training.

There was a time when players gathered in Florida and later in Arizona to hone their skills and prepare for the upcoming season.  Many had spent the winter working their second jobs to support themselves and their families.  Others had put on a few pounds on the banquet circuit.  So by the second week in February, reporting to training camp not only served the purpose of getting back in shape and shedding some pounds, it also was a transitional time where you could still get in a round of golf or even bring your family to enjoy the sunshine and warmth.  It didn’t come with the grueling travel by train, bus, and later airplanes.  The 154 game (and later 162 game) schedule was still ahead.  So while there was the business of getting back in shape to be taken care of, there was still time to do this in an atmosphere of relaxation.  Fans also discovered it was a great time for them as well.  Not only was there the opportunity to watch some of their heroes, but they discovered players had time to mix and mingle.  For quite awhile spring training was one of the best kept secrets among die-hard fans.

That was then.  This is now.  It’s no longer a secret.  Spring training has morphed into big business.  Arizona and Florida have become travel hot spots in February and March for the die-hards with the time and resources to take off and see first-hand what the prospects of their teams hold for the upcoming season.  The once simple practice fields have been replaced by big moneymakers — small stadiums which can seat as many as 13,000.  The players are no longer as accessible.   The practice games are now televised multi-camera productions.  The irony is that the small number of fans who once befriended the players of another era might brag they knew the players better, but today’s fans know more ABOUT the players…all of them… including the young ones who will not make the roster but show promise for the future.  All because of television.  Three and one-half million fans attended springs training games last year.  Thousands more are now watching those games on television.

The naysayers may tell you that you’re not as hungry for it when you’re well fed.  But, it’s still baseball.  And there’s no such thing as bad baseball.

I still count the days from the last out of the World Series until the day pitchers and catchers are allowed to report.  And count me in when the wins and losses really matter.  I’ll be there with my hot dog and scorecard for that first pitch… and rejoice for another year of life, and another baseball season.

I’m excited the time has finally arrived.  It’s Opening Day.  Let’s play ball.

3/20: Is the Future As We Remember It?

By Dr. Lee M. Miringoff

Who can argue against this GOP contest as being the most topsy-turvy in recent memory?  True.  But, in our desire to grasp a little certainty, to this at times spinning out of control roller coaster ride, just what is the historical precedent we can grab onto?

caricature of Lee MiringoffA few cases come to mind.  The Romney campaign is happy to trumpet any comparisons between this primary season and the Obama/Clinton contest in 2008…a long, drawn out contest with Obama riding his delegate advantage to the nomination (and, of course, eventual election).  Team Romney is eager to overlook the part that Hillary was also cast in the role of the inevitable victor.

If you don’t buy this most recent comparison to model the GOP 2012 campaign, there’s plenty of other examples from which to pick.  Try the 1976 GOP variety on for size.  Here, the state by state slog of primaries and caucuses resulted in a narrow win for Gerald Ford, the front-runner, over the insurgent Republican conservative Ronald Reagan.  No argument from the Romney camp here.

How about the Democratic ideological and personal split in 1980 between Carter and Kennedy?  No party unity that year was found as Carter unsuccessfully chased a reluctant Kennedy around the convention podium for a friendly group photo.  This is not the picture Romney would like to see in Tampa this summer.

But wait, there’s more.  Chuck Todd aired on the Daily Rundown (3/18) some great footage from the 1964 GOP battle between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller.  Although I’m reluctant to admit it, I do recall this campaign.  Indeed, there were many reasons to account for the GOP disaster that election cycle.  But, as Todd points out, ideological fights inside the nominating process can doom party chances for the general election.  Stay tuned on this one.

If the war over delegates drags on, then a brokered convention will top the list of pundit terms this summer.  That will cause all of us to dust off our history books to reconnect with the 1948 GOP convention battle in Philadelphia which was resolved following two contested ballots.  At least from the convention that year, the headline, “Dewey Wins!” was correct.  And no, that election was before my time.

3/20: The Toll of Gas on Campaign 2012

By Barbara Carvalho

In matters both athletic and political, the best defense is always the best offense.  With the rapidly escalating gas wars threatening to engulf campaign 2012, it seems the Obama team is trying to do just that.  Faced with some serious incoming about soaring fuel costs from GOPers Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich, President Obama is promoting his energy policies this week with a trip to three swing states – Ohio, New Mexico, and Nevada – as well as Oklahoma, the starting point for the southern half of the Keystone pipeline.  In so doing, Politico’s Darren Goode writes that Obama hopes to exorcise the Keystone and Solyndra demons.

The president has already satirized the $2.50 a gallon price tag that has been advanced by one presidential wannabe and has put the $4 billion oil company subsidy on the table.   Clearly, both of these positions are taken from the campaign consultants’ counterattack playbook.  Let’s not forget Obama poking fun at the opponents of renewable fuel as being akin to membership in the “world is flat” society.

Good enough.  But, Americans are reminded of the energy crisis and their pain at the pump every time their gas gauges approach empty.  Who’s to blame?  Will rising gas prices emerge as the 2012 campaign equivalent of the financial crisis of 2008?  We will be looking at these and other questions in our upcoming national survey.  The stakes are getting higher, as well.

3/14: A Look Ahead to Opening Day

By John Sparks

With Major League Baseball’s opening day less than a month away, the countdown to the regular season has begun.  What can baseball fans make of the change in the playoff system?  And, who has the best chances of winning this year?  Sports journalist and Marist Poll Contributor Len Berman offered his insight when he spoke with the Marist Poll’s John Sparks.

Len Berman

Len Berman

John Sparks
Len, what do you think about Major League Baseball expanding the playoffs for this season?

Len Berman
I think it’s a good move. I think adding a wild card and diminishing the chances for the wild card to advance, I think that’s all positive. I mean it’s going to create some more excitement down the stretch in September, keep some more teams alive, and those two one game play-ins should be very exciting, so I don’t really have a problem. I mean it makes it look more difficult for them to advance. It certainly puts a better premium on winning the division, something the Yankees didn’t really try to do a couple years ago despite what Joe Girardi claims, so I think generally it’s positive.

John Sparks
So then, it puts more value on getting hot at the end rather than persevering over the long haul?

Len Berman
Well, you know, I think that’s always the case in post season, and that’s always the case in playoffs no matter what the team. Look at football, too. I mean, look at what the Giants have done. No, I don’t think that’s a prob…  I mean, yeah, the hot team, my goodness, I mean the St. Louis Cardinals were certainly not picked by anybody last year and certainly didn’t have a wonderful regular season. They got hot at the end, and they carried it through and won the championship, so I don’t think this change in the playoff system alters that philosophy at all.

John Sparks
Let’s take a look at the upcoming season, what do you think about the Yankees for this year?

Len Berman
Well, they’re always a team to be reckoned with because of their resources. I mean, I think the team they put on the field is strong. Things can fall apart. They’ve never had that problem over the years, but, for example, they lost a good relief pitcher in Dave Robertson because he fell down some stairs. Now he might not be ready opening day. I mean, if that’s the beginning of a series of issues that even great teams can fall in the abyss.  But, with their resources, if something isn’t working, and they do have the injuries, they have the deep pockets to go out and buy replacements midseason, so you never count out the Yankees ever.

John Sparks
I’m curious, A-Rod bounces back this year and what about Derek Jeter at the tail end of the ride?

Len Berman
Well, those are issues. I mean, these guys are older. I mean Mariano Rivera. I mean, I have a feeling this is his last season. What if he doesn’t have it? Hey, there’s always question marks, which is great. I mean I think people are just penciling in the Yankees for one of those playoff spots. What if they don’t make it?  Look at how that opens things up for a lot of other teams. So, yeah, those are valid questions. A-Rod’s age, Jeter’s age, sure, that’s not a real young team. What you find with the teams like the Cardinals, a team that has some young players, all of sudden exceed expectations, and you hope that works out. You like to see that, so maybe there’s a team out there that no one’s considering.

John Sparks
Let’s go over to Queens and talk about the Mets, what do you see for the Mets this year?

Len Berman
Well, it’s just sad that their mantra is: We’re not as bad as people think we are. I mean, that’s a hell of a sales slogan.  They’ve got problems, and they’ve got financial problems. And until those financial problems get resolved, things are going to continue the way they are. Having said that, these are Major League players. I mean, Ike Davis is a Major League first baseman. David Wright’s a Major League third baseman.  You’ve got some players there. What’s to say that they aren’t this year’s St. Louis Cardinals? It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

John Sparks
Let’s go around the League and the divisions real quickly. I’m just wondering, American League West.  Will Pujols bring Los Angeles a division, and what about the Rangers and Yu Darvish?

Len Berman
Yeah, well I think those are both great questions and I think that’s — it used to be the American League East that was spocked[sic]. Then all of a sudden, you’ve got Texas, which has been in two straight WorldSeries, and they had heartbreaking loss in last year’s Fall Classic, and you’ve got the Angels with Pujols. You know, you always lean on the side of pitching, so maybe Texas by getting Darvish is the bigger get. Certainly possible.

John Sparks
Thinking about pitching, let’s move over to American League Central. Justin Verlander and the Tigers, can anybody beat them?

Len Berman
You know, they look awfully solid. They’re certainly the strong favorites going in, and they’ve certainly become a franchise with deep pockets there, so for anyone to pick against the Tigers, that would be a long shot.

John Sparks
Okay. We talked about the Yankees, but let’s talk about the American League East. Can Bobby Valentine bring the Red Sox back, and what about Tampa Bay or maybe even a long shot for Toronto?

Len Berman
Yeah, I mean I love the East. I’m a huge Bobby Valentine fan.  I wish all it took was a manager. I think he’s a great step in the right direction, and he’s going to shake up that clubhouse, and he’s certainly going to make all the games with the Yankees a lot more interesting. He’s just one of the great baseball characters. Do the Red Sox have enough? It doesn’t look like it. Tampa Bay is a solid club. I hope a Toronto or even a Baltimore come out of nowhere. I mean, it’ll be nice, but I think you’re looking at the traditional powers for another year.

John Sparks
Okay, National League East, Phillies again, they picked up Jonathan Pabelbon. Are they best team in baseball really?

Len Berman
Well, if they are, their fans are going to get a little upset that they don’t win it all. After being to the World Series a couple years, they haven’t for a couple years, so I think they’re a hell of a team so…  are they the best team in baseball? You could make a case, sure.

John Sparks
National League Central, St. Louis without Pujols.  What does that mean for the division?

Len Berman
You know what, I still like St. Louis. I really do. I mean I don’t know where the… Obviously Cincinnati, you always have to look out. Milwaukee, Ryan Braun’s going to have a chip on his shoulder, so that could be a fun — that could be a real fun division. Look for those three teams to mix it up. I don’t… Certainly when you lose Pujols’ bat, it’s going to affect you, but historically teams that have lost a major free agent, it’s for some reason the other players who’ve stepped up, so I’m not going to count them out just yet. But I don’t look for them to repeat, that’s for sure.

John Sparks
You mentioned Braun, what do you think about the steroid thing with him?  Did he or didn’t he?

Len Berman
Well, obviously it’s only he and his urine sample know for sure. I mean the odds are that it’s awfully far-fetched to think that a tester tampered with sample A and sample B, so… In 99.999% of the cases, if it’s in their system, it’s in their system. It’s not some kind of fluke. So, if you put a gun to my head, he dodged that bullet for sure.

John Sparks
Moving out West for the National League, the Giants are pretty tough, but what about Don Mattingly and the Dodgers?  What do you think is going to happen there?

Len Berman
I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to see — I hope that he doesn’t become a… They still have an ownership situation that’s up in the air. I hope he doesn’t become the odd man out because of that. I love… I’m a big personal fan of Don Mattingly. I don’t know if his team has enough, but the Giants still have some of that pitching. I always look at the pitching as being the strength.

John Sparks
Anything else as we look at the 2012 baseball season?

Len Berman
You know, I think the one story you didn’t bring up is the Miami Marlins. New Name, new stadium, they’ve spent a load, and you want to see if the fans come out. I mean, that’s been a market that still you don’t know about that. They’ve won two World Championships, yet that can’t draw fans. If they can’t do it with this new stadium and Ozzie Guillen and Jose Reyes and the rest of the people down there, then they never will. So I think that’s a big story that you got to a — that I think is going to be one of the big baseball stories of 2012, the Miami Marlins.

John Sparks
Appreciate your time, Len. What’s going on in your life these days?

Len Berman
Well, I’ve got a lot of different things going on. I’m still doing The Today Show once a month with Spanning the World. I’ve started this relationship with Channel 5 in New York where once a week I do my Top Five on Channel 5 which is a spinoff of my daily email which people get at thatssports.com, and I’m very excited about my newest book coming out in the fall for kids. It’s going to be Greatest Moments in Sports, Upsets and Underdogs, and it’s more than a sports book. It’s really going to be empowering for young people to see how anyone can succeed no matter where you come from or what your background is, you have a chance to become a champion, and I think it’s going to open a few eyes. As I very modestly say, “Every young people… Every young person needs to read that book.”

John Sparks
Well, I’m looking forward to reading it also. It’s always a pleasure, Len.

3/6: Taking the Pulse of the Economy

Mike Santoli

Mike Santoli

By John Sparks

Is the U.S. economy really in a recovery?  What about gas prices, and what role could the economy play in this election year?  Associate Editor of Barron’s, Michael Santoli, spoke with The Marist Poll’s John Sparks about this and more.  Listen to the interview below.

John Sparks
Michael, some folks are saying our economy is in a recovery.  Are we indeed in a recovery?

Michael Santoli:
Yeah, I mean in most of the measurable ways, we certainly are in a recovery. I mean the basic way is to say that at the end of last year, the total size of the economy, the nominal gross domestic product was basically where it was at the peak in 2007. So in other words, all the economic activity that was lost during the financial crisis and the recession had been recovered in nominal dollar terms, and we’ve basically had positive economic growth statistically for a couple of years now and created close to four million jobs in the last two years. Now, the problem is the hole was so much deeper when this kind of unsatisfying recovery started because the recession was so bad that we haven’t recouped obviously all of the jobs that were lost. It really regained only less than half of the jobs lost. And, of course, the housing market, even though it might be showing a little bit of signs of life, is well, well, well below where it was then both in terms of activity and home prices. So, a lot of the things that people can kind of see and touch and feel don’t really appear as if this is a recovery. But, in the ways that an economist or a commentator would talk about it, yes, it’s a recovery. You’re kind of better off now than you were a couple years ago.

I also would finally point out that over the last 12 or so months, the monthly rate of employment growth is basically the same as it was at a similar point following the prior recessions in the early 2000’s and the early ’90’s in terms of the absolute number of jobs created per month. The problem, again, is that we had lost so many more in this recession that it just doesn’t seem like it’s quite enough. So, I don’t think the economic recovery is doing anything particularly unusual or perverse, it’s just that things had gotten so bad that what’s been achieved since then just based on what the business cycle can do has not really been evident to so many people.

John Sparks
One thing that is on my mind concerns oil, Iran, the Straits of Hormuz, rising gasoline prices.

Michael Santoli:
Well, it’s definitely one of the big swing factors from this point on that’s going to determine whether we can kind of maintain this momentum that the economy had coming into this year or not. That’s for sure.  So obviously the fact that gasoline prices are significantly higher now than they were one year ago is going to be a drag, and you see the retail sales numbers were not great this past month, so I do think it’s going to be a bit of a headwind. But, at these levels of both gasoline and crude oil prices, it’s not yet enough to really impede or derail what’s now a decent, if unsatisfying recovery, simply because we’ve been here before in terms of these prices. It doesn’t feel good, but we have. And, also the pace of increase in energy prices has not quite been as rapid as it was say in 2008 when we went from about $100 a barrel for crude oil to $150 in a very short period of time. So, we’re still kind of that in mode of: okay, fine, higher oil prices are more or less telling us that the global economy is demanding more energy and it’s growing to some degree, and then of course you have the Iran stuff that’s adding a premium on top of that. But to me, it’s mostly about the demand continues every single day to slightly outstrip supply, so the trend is higher. So, I do think there’s that risk that that’s the thing that potentially chokes off economic growth here, but we’re not yet at that level. We’re not yet at that real panic point to me when it happens. I would point out too that if you adjust for inflation, the price for a gallon of gasoline in this country throughout history has been between $2 and $4 a gallon, so clearly we’re on the upper end of that range, but we’re not in unchartered territory, and price per mile driven is actually down from significantly from the peak just because we’re a bit more efficient. We’re driving less these days.

John Sparks
You’re in an election year.  What can we expect between now and the November elections as far as our economy goes?

Michael Santoli
Well the economy came in — like I say, came into the year looking a good deal better than it did several months earlier just because you had the European crisis that was sort of a finger in the dike there, and the banking crisis didn’t really spill over just yet. And companies here are quite strong, and they’re actually spending a fair bit, and business investment has been pretty good. And the consumer, even though we’re nowhere near the heavy spending days of a few years ago or just speculating on homes and all that other stuff, it’s just in better condition. The cost for the average consumer to service his or her debt is down to levels that were common in the 1980’s. So, even though we have so much debt, people can kind of afford to spend because the cost of servicing that debt is relatively low. So, I do think between now and the election, we probably should have kind of persistent kind of slow growth in spurts and then pulling back to slower growth. So, to me, the trends look like they’re relatively positive going into the election, but I don’t know that it’s going to be so dramatic that it’s going to be quite obvious exactly how, say, the election goes simply because the economy’s gotten up a huge head of steam. I don’t really see that as being very likely. There’s still these constant threats that are out there that could really derail the growth story at any moment.

John Sparks
No president since the Second World War has ever been re-elected if the unemployment rate is higher than 7.2%. Now January, I think we were at 8.3.

Michael Santoli:
Yes.

John Sparks
Will Obama benefit… Will Obama benefit if the recovery goes at the pace it’s going right now?

Michael Santoli:
Wel,l first of all, it’s unlikely that, unless we really go off to the races, that the unemployment rate does go down below 7.2 in the next six or seven months. It could happen, but it’s unlikely. That being said, all those numbers are completely valid except that the sample size is so low. I mean there’s only been a couple of elections when you’ve had the unemployment rate above that level, and I would — I guess what I would say is it’s the trajectory of the unemployment rate that’s probably a little bit more important than the absolute number. So, at this point, the world knows those statistics, and yet the kind of polls and the betting, the political betting sites that you can find out there are still kind of giving a slight edge to Obama, mostly because the incumbent tends to have that advantage, like the home field advantage but… so at this point, I don’t think that the economy is going to be so great that it’s a no-brainer that there’s a second term, but I also don’t think we can cling too tightly to that rule of thumb on 7.2 or plus or minus just because there just haven’t been enough elections to — for me to really think that there’s a ton of statistical significance there.

John Sparks
Sure. Now the Dow was just below 8,000 when the president took office, lately it’s been vacillating around 13,000. What do you see for the Dow down the road for 2012?

Michael Santoli:
Well, I actually think it’s a similar story where we’ve come a long way. We definitely have kind of built in a lot of good news into stock prices at this point, but I think we’ll probably have a little bit of turbulence. If tradition holds, you have a little bit of turbulence and a little bit of kind of downward movement maybe into the summer, spring or summer. And then, most likely somewhere around the election, it tends to rebound, and I actually think that business conditions will probably support that. There is an upward bias at this point to the market just because a lot of folks have been kind of under invested in stocks. We… this bull market that’s been going on roughly since, by coincidence, roughly since Obama was in office (I say “by coincidence” because he had the good luck of coming in just after the stock market had been cut in half in a few years.) is — it basically has been tested a couple of times pretty well, so we’ve… It’s not been just sort of like kind of greedy straight up in the sky type of move, it’s been pretty difficult along the way to get from 8,000 to 13,000. But usually there’s a good harbinger that there’s actually underlying business strength that’s driving things, so I think there could be a little bit more upside. I don’t think it’s going to be like the ’90’s where we just kind of coin money just by putting a few bucks in the stock market, but I do think that we’ll probably have a little bit of indigestion period, maybe we back off a little bit in the next several months, and then maybe finish out the year pretty strong. In fact, the pattern historically is that if an incumbent, no matter who the incumbent is, is re-elected, the stock market does better than if the incumbent is voted out, which kind of makes sense because the pre-conditions for an incumbent being voted in again is obviously the world doesn’t look so terrible.

John Sparks
Consumer spending, what do you see the rest of this year?

Michael Santoli:
I think just slow and steady. I really don’t see it taking off. I mean it’ll kind of probably advance in line with job and income growth. There’s definitely been in addition to just obviously being the tremendous challenges of unemployment and great jobs not being abundant, you have a psychological change. I don’t think that people are very willing to take on a bunch of debt just to feed their consumption habits as they were several years ago, so I feel like we’ll kind of just trudge along and grow slowly on the consumer side, but definitely in a positive direction just because people can generally afford to do it in a sober way. And hopefully if job growth kind of continues the current trend, they’ll have the capacity to do that.

John Sparks
Do you see anything looming on the horizon that could derail this slow recovery that we seem to be in?

Michael Santoli:
Yeah, the one obvious…  Well, the couple of obvious things, and we already talked about the — an energy shock, which could certainly happen. I mean whether it’s because of hostilities breaking out somewhere, or just because we get this trading move in oil like we did in 2008, people just like pile into it and it creates a shock to the system. A couple of other things that really could go wrong is a major economic accident in China would be a big deal. I mean they’ve basically been kind of managing their economic growth pretty well with certain hiccups along the way, but there seems to be a bit of a real estate bubble there. If something really kind of goes off the rails in China, they’re such an important piece of incremental bit of global economic growth that that’s a problem. And then finally, Europe’s not a done deal. I mean even though we’ve kind of had these measures that have taken the risk of an absolute all out panic and crash off the table for the moment, there’s so many delicate negotiations and so many wild cards over there that it could kind of just feed into the banking system both here and over there very quickly, and I feel like people wouldn’t really wait around very long before getting worried and pulling in loans and tightening up credit and all that kind of stuff again. So, those are the major things that I think that are out there as the obvious risks.  Of course, you always have to acknowledge that sometimes it’s that thing that you don’t predict that’s out of the blue that really hits us.

2/23: The Latest on the GOP Race

By John Sparks

Where does the race for the Republican nomination stand?  What are the chances of a brokered convention?  And, who has the best odds against President Barack Obama?   The Marist Poll’s John Sparks visits with Marist Poll Analyst and syndicated political columnist Carl Leubsdorf who writes a weekly column for The Dallas Morning News about  this and more.

Carl Leubsdorf

Carl Leubsdorf

John Sparks
Carl, where do you think things stand on a Republican nominee at this point?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I think the Republican race is much more uncertain than we thought it would be at this stage. The general assumption was that Mitt Romney was a reasonably strong frontrunner and would show that, but he’s proved to be a weaker front-runner than many people anticipated. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with his campaign, and his campaign is well run. He’s got lots of money. In fact, his money has saved him so far. He has two big problems.

One is that the dominant conservative wing of the party has never quite accepted him as one of theirs. Romney keeps insisting he’s a conservative, but the problem is that he wasn’t always a conservative. He was pretty moderate when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Massachusetts’ Senate race in ’94. He was pro choice. He was in favor of doing positive things for the gay and lesbian community. He at one point was a registered independent. He voted for Democrat Paul Tsongas in the ’92 Democratic Presidential Primary and was critical of President Reagan. So, his conservatism is rather recent and to some critics in the party is something that he’s acquired for purposes of running for president.

His other problem is he’s just not an effective candidate. He has trouble when he gets off his script. He doesn’t mesh with real people too well, and he has a tendency to say some odd things.  He was last week, for example, in Michigan and talking about his affinity for Michigan, the state in which he grew upin.  He said he loved Michigan. He said he loved its trees. They’re the right height. Now, what in the devil does that mean? He talks not like a real person sometimes, so he’s had a lot of trouble there.

The real fight in the party has been: Who is the conservative opponent for Romney? That’s sort of been going on from the beginning and, as we know dating back to last summer, we’ve had a whole string of pretenders [sic], various Republican contenders — Michele Bachmann; Governor Perry of Texas, Herman Cain soar to the top of the Republican race then in December, Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House. About the only one who didn’t was Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania Senator and who was plotting along working in Iowa, visiting every country there. But in the end, the conservatives in Iowa sort of solidified around Santorum. On the night of the caucuses, it appeared he had lost narrowly there, but when they finally counted all the votes, he in fact beat Mitt Romney there. It’s been a peculiar race though. Then Mitt Romney won in New Hampshire where he has a summer home, and it’s adjacent to Massachusetts where he was a governor. He looked like he was on the right track, but then in South Carolina, a state that every Republican nominee has won since they started their primary in 1980, Newt Gingrich beat Romney rather decisively. The following week in Florida, Romney turned the tables on Gingrich. Meanwhile, Santorum was sort of finishing well back in the pack in some of those states. Well he was working in some of the caucus states rather than the primary states, which it’s a lot cheaper to run there, and they’re the kinds of situations dominated by the more conservative wing of the party. And on Tuesday two weeks ago, he scored three victories which have catapulted him into the lead in the national — in most national Republican polls. It was an odd set of races. One was Missouri, a non-binding primary where he won quite easily. The other were two caucus states which Romney had won four years ago, and that I think explains why these had such a big impact. One was Minnesota where Governor Romney had the support of the state’s former governor and one of its leading Republicans, Tim Pawlenty, and Santorum won there. And the other is Colorado, not considered as conservative a state, a state with quite a few Mormons in it as Romney is, and Santorum won that too. So, it really turned the race upside down.  It established Santorum as the main rival to Romney. And in Michigan, that is next week we have two primaries, in Michigan and in Arizona, and the major test is Michigan, the state in which Governor Romney grew up in and where his father was a popular Republican governor in the ’60s, and every poll so far shows, Santorum leading there.  So, if Santorum would actually beat Romney in Michigan that would really turn this race upside down. Romney could no longer be considered the front-runner, and it would really set Santorum with a real chance of becoming the nominee, but that hasn’t happened yet.

So, that’s a long version of where things stand.

John Sparks
If something like that does happen, looking down the road, where do you think the tides might turn for a candidate? In Texas, the primary has been delayed until probably late May. Could Texas be a decider?

Carl Leubsdorf
Texas, I mean… And actually, I think Santorum would probably like to have Texas sooner rather than later because there’s a new poll put out by the Texas Tribune and the University of Texas that shows Santorum with a rather substantial lead. Remember this: The Texas Republican Party is very conservative. In the primary for governor last year where Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison challenged Governor Perry, Hutchison got 30% of the vote, Perry got 50% of the vote, and a Tea Party candidate got 20% of the vote. That means that 70% of the votes cast were cast for very conservative candidates.  So, this is not a good — Texas is not a good state for Romney. He’s probably just as well for the primary has been delayed indefinitely.

What happens after next Tuesday, and I mentioned that Arizona is also voting next Tuesday, its rivals have pretty much conceded that to Governor Romney. So whatever happens, he’ll have a victory, but if he only wins Michigan – – wins Arizona and doesn’t win Michigan, it will be something of a hollow victory because the real fight is in Michigan.  The week after that we have so called “Super Tuesday” with a whole bunch of primaries. Some are in states like Massachusetts where Governor Romney almost certainly is going to be the winner, but in states like Tennessee and Oklahoma and Georgia, Newt Gingrich’s home state, so it’s going to be a very interesting day and not a great day probably for Romney. His next big stand would probably come on the 20th of March in Illinois, the kind of state that Romney as a more moderate Northern candidate ought to be — have a good chance in. But, as I say, if Romney loses in Michigan next week, all bets are off.

John Sparks
Carl, could it be that we could head into the National Convention and see a brokered convention if things keep flip-flopping?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well let me approach that in a couple of ways because every time we have one of these fights and it looks a little bit inconclusive, the first words that come out are “brokered convention.” First of all, it’s not clear who would broker a convention because the idea that candidates who have run for months and months and years in some cases would suddenly say, “Okay, we’re deadlocked, let’s like let a bunch of party leaders who’ve been on the sidelines decide it.” It ain’t[sic] going to happen that way.  That’s not how it works.  To have a brokered convention, you probably need three, at least three candidates with substantial number of delegates. Now the problem in the Republican Party now is that there are four candidates still staying in the race, and one of the issues will be whether in addition to Santorum and Romney, the other two candidates, Gingrich and Ron Paul, continue to acquire delegates. That’s not at all certain. Someone did a study, and they said that if Romney won the rest of the primaries with 49%, he wouldn’t win enough delegates to be nominated till June. If one of these candidates starts winning more decisively, they will not be getting 49% of the votes, they’ll be getting 59% and 69%, and they will be getting well over half of the delegates in most of these races. Gingrich, for example, has got to make a showing on Super Tuesday with races in Georgia and Tennessee. I haven’t seen any Georgia polls, but, in Tennessee, the last poll I saw had Santorum up by a pretty substantial margin. Gingrich’s only hope is that his principal financial supporter, Mr. Adelson out in Las Vegas, is planning to spend a lot of money in his behalf. That might help keep him in, but he is — he looks like the guy on the outside now as Santorum and Romney are fighting, and Ron Paul is sort of working along the fringes in smaller states. He will continue to get delegates, but it’s not clear how many delegates. So, that’s the first thing. There has to be three candidates getting delegates because otherwise the leading candidate, assuming there becomes a leading candidate, will begin to pile up delegates at a big pace.

If one of the candidates has a substantial lead, but it doesn’t quite get to the figure over 1,100 that they need to be nominated, the first thing that would probably happen is that that candidate would try to make an accommodation with one of the other candidates to get some of his delegates.  As I say, the idea that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul and maybe Newt Gingrich after running all year would suddenly step in the sidelines and let former Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi or Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana try to decide the nominee, it just doesn’t happen.

Now the other possibility is that another candidate comes into the race. There are a number of primaries where the deadlines have not yet been reached and where a candidate could come in. Now that’s very hard to do. There’ve been a number of examples. It’s very interesting. The pattern of this race is beginning to resemble two past races of recent years in which there was an insurgency against a rather weak establishment candidate. One was 1964 when Barry Goldwater was running against Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. One was 1972 where George McGovern was challenging Senator Ed Muskie for the Democratic nomination on the Vietnam War issue. In both cases another candidate did come in. As Muskie began to collapse in ’72, the party leadership encouraged Hubert Humphrey, the former vice president, to get into the race, and he carried the race all the way to the convention but did not win. In 1964 when the Rockefeller candidacy faltered and it appeared that Goldwater was going to get nominated, a number of the party leaders got behind Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania and got him into the race in the last month, and that went nowhere. Goldwater had enough delegates and was nominated. So, you could get another candidate in. You could get party leaders to trying to do something, but there’s no guarantee that they would derail some arrangement among the top candidates. The danger here is that if the more ideological candidate gets nominated, and that would be Santorum in this case, the danger is that that candidate often has a more difficult time winning the general election. Goldwater carried six states against Lyndon Johnson, and McGovern carried one state in the District of Columbia against Richard Nixon. Now, this election won’t be that one-sided in any case. The Republicans will certainly win a certain number of states in the South and in the mountain area, and the Democrats will certainly will win a bunch of states in the Northeast, but what looks on paper to be a close race might not be so close if the Republicans nominate a candidate who drives away independent voters.

John Sparks
As Republicans continue to battle in public, isn’t the real winner sitting in the White House sitting on his $76 million in campaign funds waiting for the general election?

Carl Leubsdorf
Sure.  As I said, the battle — the real key to this election are the independents. The Democrats are 90% for Obama, and the Republicans are 90% for whichever one of these candidates gets nominated, but the different tallies show different numbers among the independents.  Most of the discussion of that until very recently had to do with Romney versus Gingrich and that Romney was a better candidate against the independents, for the independents, being more moderate than Gingrich. It’s more complicated with Santorum because on one hand, he seems to have definite appeal to blue collar voters, what we call the “Reagan Democrats,” the people who were union people and of ethnic origin who had been traditional Democrats but were fairly conservative on social issues and began to vote Republican often starting with President Reagan, but there’s another group of independents, and those are the suburban independents. I always like to call them the  “Clinton Republicans.” They probably voted for Reagan in the ’80s, but they then voted for Bill Clinton in the ’90s, and they voted for Al Gore, and they certainly voted for Obama, and they’re not as conservative on the social issues. And if the Republicans have a candidate who stresses social issues, like Santorum, he’s going to have a lot trouble with the suburban voters in major states.

The White House likes this. The White House has been planning all along for a race against Romney.  You know, Romney is still the more likely candidate, but he has shown his weakness steadily through this race, but they’re also beginning to consider what would happen if Santorum were the candidate. They haven’t done much about that yet. There’s a lot of material on Santorum, especially from his unsuccessful re-election race in Pennsylvania in 2006 against Bob Casey, a conservative Democrat. Lots of material from there that has not been used so far, which the Democrats have. So, a lot of that will depend on what happens here. The White House is quite happy for the Republicans to be fighting among themselves, using up their financial resources, and the fact that the campaign has taken on such a negative tone among these candidates, especially in the television commercials.  So, the White House is quite pleased through this. In the meantime, the economy has gotten somewhat better, and so, it looks like President Obama’s situation politically is somewhat better than it was last year. That doesn’t mean he’s yet a strong favorite to win, it still looks like a close race, but more and more people who follow this are thinking that Obama’s chances are beginning to edge above the 50% mark.

John Sparks
Interesting that you mention independents. Twenty years ago, Ross Perot launched his presidential bid as a third party candidate. Last week, Tom Friedman was talking about that and suggesting maybe the time was now ripe for an independent candidate, a third party candidate.  Any chance of something like that happening?

Carl Leubsdorf
There has been a group called “Americans Elect” that is talking about getting a ballot space in every state with the idea of having an Internet primary and putting a candidate on the ballot. The problem with this is they don’t at this point have a candidate, and most American third party movements have been driven not by parties but by candidates. For example, when Ross Perot decided to run for president 20 years ago, he created the mechanism to get on the ballot. It wasn’t like there was a party out there that nominated Ross Perot, and the same thing happened in 1968 when former Governor George Wallace of Alabama ran as an independent candidate for president. So this Americans Elect group so far does not have a candidate. I’ve noticed over the weekend there is one person who has emerged who might try to win that nomination. His name is David Walker. He’s not known at all. He’s a deficit hawk who was the comptroller general of the United States, which is a bookkeeping job pretty much in the government, and he’s been a big advocate of cutting the deficit and taking stern measures and not — to deal with the deficit issue.  So he might be a candidate for that, but I think it’s going to be very difficult for a third party candidate to be in this race.

John Sparks
Carl, in 1992 when Perot ran, the clear loser was an incumbent president, George H. W. Bush. If a third party candidate were to emerge, who would be most likely to be vulnerable?

Carl Leubsdorf
I think probably if someone ran on a deficit cutting ticket that it would probably hurt President Obama more than the Republican candidate. It’s interesting, Alan Lichtman, the Professor of history at American University who developed a system for judging president races, has what he calls “13 Keys to the Presidency.”  And if a certain number turn against the president, the incumbent president he’ll lose.  And he became very famous about 20 years ago because one he was one of the early people who fingered George H.W. Bush as a loser in 1992 as he turned out to be, and one of his keys is a third party candidacy, a third party candidacy in his system hurts the incumbent. Again, it really depends how many votes the… you could say that the Ralph Nader candidacy, which is, of course, Nader has run several times, in 2000 defeated Al Gore because Nader got enough votes in New Hampshire, presumably mostly from liberals, that it was more than the difference by which Gore lost the state to George W. Bush.  And without Nader in the race, Gore probably would’ve carried New Hampshire, and that would’ve been enough to win that very close election. So in that, he was running as the candidate of the incumbent party. So I think a centrist independent is bad for Obama. On the other hand, if say — and there’s no sign of this at point, suppose Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination, and a group of conservatives get together and say, “He’s too moderate for us, we want a conservative candidate,” and they run a conservative candidate as a third party candidate and get on ballot, that would obviously hurt the Republicans.

John Sparks
If you just have a Republican versus the President in November, who’s the best candidate?  Who prevails if it’s Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, or even Ron Paul? Who do you think has the best chance?

Carl Leubsdorf
Well, I think the assumption all along has been that Romney would have the best chance basically because he’s more moderate than the others.  He would have a better chance of getting independent votes, and most of the polling until now has shown that. Now interestingly, some of the more recent polling has shown Santorum’s chances are almost as good, and the places where Santorum would challenge Obama more may be somewhat different from the states where Romney would. Romney, a lot of people, more moderate voters, probably don’t believe Romney’s conversion to conservatism like the more conservative Republicans who don’t believe it either and might vote for him on that basis. Now he says he’ll have a very conservative presidency and has listed some of the positions he’ll take, and then that’s always a danger that the zeal of the newly converted is greater than that of the traditional holder of the views. George W. Bush ran as something of a moderate personality in 2000, but he said he would name Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and he named two very conservative Supreme Court justices. So, you got to be careful of what you wish for, it may not be what the candidate will advocate.

But at the moment, Romney looks stronger, but he’s got a lot of flaws as a candidate. For example, you would think that he would be able to take advantage of the bad economy in a place like Michigan, his home state because of him being a businessman, but he opposed the bailout of the auto companies which has been spectacularly successful and has saved General Motors and Chrysler, and he’s still arguing that it was a bad idea. That’s hurting him in Michigan. Heck, it’s hurting him against Santorum in the primary even though they both had the same position, partly because Romney was in favor of the bank bailout but against the auto bailout whereas Santorum was much more consistent. He was against both of them.  So, I still think Romney is (a) the more likely nominee and (b) the stronger general election candidate, but he’s been hurt a lot by the race so far.

John Sparks
Carl, it’s always a pleasure. I’ll be watching with interest, as I know you will, and look forward to visiting with you again real soon.

Carl Leubsdorf
Happy to do it, and it’s just been a fascinating race and much more than we could’ve bargained for.

1/27: A Look at Cuomo’s Current Success

By Dr. Lee M. Miringoff

As if his job performance numbers aren’t high enough, the latest Marist Poll shows that Governor Andrew Cuomo is in the process of reshaping how Empire State voters view the future of New York.  For the first time in nearly a decade, New York voters are telling us they think the state is headed in the right direction.

caricature of Lee MiringoffThis is no small feat given the frustration voters have been feeling both about the process of government and the lingering sluggish economy.  What’s behind the redirection in public opinion?

More than three out of four voters think Cuomo is a good leader for the state, more than two-thirds think he is changing Albany for the better,  and a similar proportion believes he is keeping his campaign promises.  Perhaps, most significantly, when it comes to a reversal of fortune 65% approve of how Governor Cuomo is handling the state budget.

So far, Governor Cuomo has been able to navigate a difficult current.  He has been able to gain the cooperation of the legislature to accomplish much of his campaign ’10 agenda, while enhancing his support with voters.  It’s been a highly successful insider-outsider strategy.

Yet, much needs to be done to turn the state around.  Although improved, 72% still think New York is in an economic recession.  Eventually, Governor Cuomo will be judged on the state of the economy and whether he can continue to chip away at the number of New Yorkers who still believe financial matters need further improvement.  But, right now, New Yorkers think he’s on track.