All Blog Posts from Horserace

At a press conference in Phoenix today, Sen. John McCain said he would run for a fifth Senate term in 2010.

The 2008 GOP presidential nominee laughed when asked if he would run for president again, saying he does "not envision a scenario that would entail that."

You can watch video from the press conference below.

McCain lauded President-elect Barack Obama's decision to tap Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for homeland security chief, saying she is highly qualified for the job.

The Arizona senator also discussed the presidential campaign, saying he looks back "with pride and honor" at the experience of running.

"I will submit myself to the judgment of history," McCain added. "I'm very proud overall of the campaign we ran and the people I was associated with and the dear friends that I have to this day."

He also discussed running mate Sarah Palin.

"I think that our base and most Americans viewed Governor Palin as a real breath of fresh air that swept across the country," McCain said, calling the Alaska governor an "energizing factor."

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A new analysis by Nielsen gives a final look at the ad disparity Republican John McCain faced during his campaign against Barack Obama – particularly on in local markets. In the period between June and Election Day, Obama’s campaign ran 419,667 ads locally compared to just 269,992 run by McCain.

That was a greater difference than ads run on national cable and networks. Between January and November, Obama’s campaign ran 3,004 national ads compared to 2,868 for McCain. Among the other findings of the analysis, Nielsen found that Obama’s ads were run twice as much as McCain’s in the last month of the election and that both candidates combined for 850,000 ads in all between January and November. Check out Nielsen’s media blog for more.

Actress/comedian Tina Fey gained a lot of much-deserved attention (and ratings) for her spot-on impersonation of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” but in retrospect, it may have been another of the show’s creations that captured the true zeitgeist of the 2008 election.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Keenan Thompson played a “financial expert” for the show’s “Weekend Update” segments named Oscar Rogers, a not-so-subtle nod to the hoards of real such experts who have flooded TV screens throughout the current financial crisis. Nattily attired as if he just stepped off the market floor, this sage dispenser of financial advice had just one thing to say – somebody better “fix it!”

“How do we go about fixing it specifically?” he asked. “Take it one step at a time. Identify the problem -- fix it! Identify another problem -- fix it! Proceed as necessary until it is all fixed!” (You can watch the performance here, it’s about 2:10 into the clip).

A big part of the reason why President-election Barack Obama’s message of “change” resonated so powerfully was the sense among the electorate that things were broken and needed to be fixed, especially on the economy which voters consistently said was the most important issue by far. Less obvious is whether they voted for any specific remedy or simply a wholesale change to --- something.

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Just two weeks after losing his campaign for the presidency, Arizona Senator John McCain is setting up a political action committee to begin raising money for his re-election in 2010, the AP reports, citing unnamed sources. During the campaign, McCain’s future was much discussed and many political observers wondered whether he would stay in the Senate or retire from the political scene.

There has been speculation that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (D) might be interested in running for the Senate in a state that is trending more Democratic. McCain ended up winning his home state comfortably but it was close enough heading into Election Day that Democratic nominee Barack Obama ran ads there. An early decision by McCain on his 2010 race might help fend off potential opponents.

President-elect Barack Obama has a thing for Abraham Lincoln. He launched his presidential campaign at the old Illinois State House, the site of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech and frequently alluded to the nation’s 16th president out on the stump. Just two weeks after his election, Mr. Obama told “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft last night that he’s been reading about Lincoln as he prepares to take office in January.

Several times, Mr. Obama has noted Lincoln’s decision to bring his political adversaries into his administration, something chronicled in great detail in the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, “Team of Rivals” – specifically three men who Lincoln surprisingly defeated for the Republican nomination in 1860. Among the “rivals” were New York Senator William Seward (who became Secretary of State), Ohio Governor Salmon Chase (Treasury Secretary), and former Missouri Congressman Edward Bates (Attorney General). Also included in Lincoln’s was Edwin Stanton, a prominent attorney who became Secretary of War and who, upon seeing Lincoln for the first time early in their careers called him a “long-armed ape.”

Sound familiar? Mr. Obama has already tapped into his own primary rivals by tapping Vice President-elect Joe Biden and is reportedly vetting New York Senator Hillary Clinton (and her husband) for a cabinet post, possible Secretary of State (a la Seward). And the president-elect will meet today with his general election opponent John McCain amid speculation that the new administration will include at least one Republican member. Newsweek has much more about the similarities between the two men from Illinois.

Barack Obama will sit down with John McCain Monday for the first meeting between the former rivals since Election Day.

Obama-Biden transition spokesperson Stephanie Cutter released a statement early Friday morning announcing the planned meeting, which will take place in Chicago at Obama transition headquarters.

"It's well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality," Cutter said in the statement.

She added that the pair will be joined in the meeting by Senator Lindsey Graham, a close friend of McCain who regularly appeared him on the campaign trail, and Congressman Rahm Emanual, who will be Obama's White House chief of staff.

CBS News’ Election and Survey Unit’s survey analyst extraordinaire Jennifer De Pinto goes inside the exit polls from last week’s election and finds some interesting nuggets about those Hillary Clinton supporters who voted for John McCain:

As voters left the polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic candidate; 41 percent would have voted for McCain, wider than Obama’s 7-point margin over McCain.

Interestingly, 16 percent of McCain voters said they would have voted for Clinton, the Democrat, if she had been her party’s nominee.

So who were these potential cross-over voters?

They were older: 61% of them were age 45 and above.

53% were women; while 47% were men.

43% of these voters who supported McCain but would have backed Clinton if she were in the race described themselves as Independents. 31% were Republicans; while 26% were Democrats.

84% of them were white – higher than the electorate at large. 12% were Hispanic, compared to 9% of the total electorate.

21% of McCain voters who would have supported Clinton said race was factor in their vote. 19% of McCain voters overall said race was factor in their vote.

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Two years ago, as speculation grew around his potential presidential candidacy, Illinois Senator Barack Obama made a faux-announcement at the beginning of a Monday Night Football game featuring his hometown Chicago Bears. Tonight, both presidential candidates appear in taped interviews to be aired at halftime.

ESPN’s Chris Berman spoke with both Obama and John McCain via satellite on the eve of the presidential election and the AP has a preview of what they had to say when asked to name the one thing they would change in sports.

"I think it is about time that we had playoffs in college football,” Obama says. “I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams - the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a National Champion,"

McCain said he would like to see the end of performance-enhancing drugs, saying he would "take significant action to prevent the spread and use of performance-enhancing substances. I think it's a game we're going to be in for a long time. What I mean by that is there is somebody in a laboratory right now trying to develop some type of substance that can't be detected and we've got to stay ahead of it. It's not good for the athletes. It's not good for the sports. It's very bad for those who don't do it, and I think it can attack the very integrity of all sports going all the way down to high school."

In the final weekend before the election, Barack Obama ran 5,947 TV ads in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to new numbers out by the Nielsen Company. That was 77 percent more that the 3,358 ads run by John McCain in those states over the weekend.

But the study found McCain’s ads rose compared to the weekend before last as he increased his buys by 76 percent. Obama’s ad rate rose just three percent in the last weekend compared to the weekend before. The study also finds that both campaigns have advertised most heavily in the state of Florida. Between October 6th and November 2nd, Obama ran 24,834 ads in the Sunshine state compared to 8,599 for Obama – a 189 percent edge for the Democrat. In that same time frame, Obama ran 80,504 ads in all seven states, compared to 34,179 for McCain. Check out Nielsen’s blog for more.

In 2000, revelations that then-Governor George W. Bush has been arrested for driving while under the influence helped rock the final weekend of that presidential campaign. In 2004, it was a last-minute video tape from Osama bin Laden that helped inject late drama into the race. In 2008, about all we had to chew on over the last weekend was Barack Obama’s lead in the polls and John McCain’s appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”

To say this campaign is winding down to an anticlimactic finish, however, is to ignore the history of presidential elections over the past two decades. With a large turnout election brewing, millions of votes already cast, and still a full day before the polls open, this is just the calm before the storm – regardless of what the final outcome may be.

Frantic last-minute campaigning has led to a mind-boggling itinerary for the candidates in the race and there is some evidence that the race is tightening oh-so-slightly, if not on the national level, then in the battlegrounds. It looks for all intents and purposes to be a field tilted heavily towards the Democrats. But it ain’t over yet.

Encouraging signs for McCain and Republicans remain viable. Obama, for all his advantages, hovers right around or below 50 percent in many of the polls in key states, even those which he leads. The McCain campaign hopes that their opponent has reached his high-water mark in that regard and that they will pick up the vast majority of undecided voters, leaving their path to 270 Electoral Votes alive.

They have some reason for the optimism. No Democrat has won the White House with 50 percent or more of the vote nationally since Jimmy Carter narrowly did so in 1976. Bill Clinton failed to win a majority of the vote in either of his elections and while John Kerry received more votes than any Democratic candidate ever, he fell short of the White House in Ohio.

Anyone paying attention to the last two presidential elections understands all-too well that the path to the presidency is through the Electoral College, not the popular vote. The battlegrounds of this race remain almost exclusively in Republican territory but it is, indeed, Republican territory and it won’t be given up easily. Early voting and polls indicate Democrats are poised to make some tremendous gains but it they won’t come easy.

Campaigns are full of surprises and unexpected results. No campaign understands that better than Obama’s. Their loss in New Hampshire during the primaries, despite a ten-point lead in the polls, should be more than enough to serve as a reminder of what can happen on Election Day. Get ready, because one way or the other, tomorrow is going to be one heck of a ride.

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