I was asked by desmoinesdem at swing-state-project.com to crosspost here. I normally post there and at dailykos.com. PBI or Party Brand Index is a concept I have developed as a replacement for PVI.  PVI (Partisan Voting Index), which is measured by averaging the percentage of the vote from the last two presidential elections in each house district, and comparing it to the nation as a whole, is a useful shorthand for understanding the liberal v. conservative dynamics of a district. But PVI in my opinion it falls short in a number of areas. First it doesn't explain states like Arkansas or West Virginia. These states have districts who's PVIs indicates a Democrat shouldn't win, yet Democrats (outside of the presidency) win quite handily. Secondly why is this the case in Arkansas but not Oklahoma with similar PVI rated districts?

Lastly PVI can miss trends as it takes 4 years to readjust. The purpose of Party Brand Index is to give a better idea of how a candidate does not relative to how the presidential candidate did, but compared to how their generic PARTY should be expected to perform. I've tackled IN, NC, CO, VA, MO, OK, AR, now I will look at the swing states of Nevada and Iowa.

A few weeks ago I read that Ron Paul was not endorsing any presidential candidate but was urging his supporters to vote for the third-party candidate of their choice–anyone but Barack Obama or John McCain.

However, this week Paul endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. The Wall Street Journal blog pointed me toward this letter from Paul to supporters, which contains a bit of a rebuke to Libertarian candidate Bob Barr:

The Libertarian Party Candidate admonished me for “remaining neutral” in the presidential race and not stating whom I will vote for in November.   It’s true; I have done exactly that due to my respect and friendship and support from both the Constitution and Libertarian Party members.  I remain a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and I’m a ten-term Republican Congressman.  It is not against the law to participate in more then one political party.  Chuck Baldwin has been a friend and was an active supporter in the presidential campaign.

I continue to wish the Libertarian and Constitution Parties well.  The more votes they get, the better.  I have attended Libertarian Party conventions frequently over the years.

In some states, one can be on the ballots of two parties, as they can in New York.  This is good and attacks the monopoly control of politics by Republicans and Democrats.  We need more states to permit this option.  This will be a good project for the Campaign for Liberty, along with the alliance we are building to change the process.

I’ve thought about the unsolicited advice from the Libertarian Party candidate, and he has convinced me to reject my neutral stance in the November election.  I’m supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate.

When you think about what an insiders’ club Congress is, it’s amazing that Paul (still a Republican Congressman from Texas) did not endorse his former colleague Barr, who represented Georgia for many years in the House. Barr has denounced the Republican Party for embracing big government and not insisting that the president abide by the law.

The big question for me is whether Paul’s endorsement of Baldwin will cut into Barr’s support in some of the key swing states. I’ve argued before that Barr could tip Nevada to Obama, but ProgressiveSouth writes that Barr could also be a factor in North Carolina.

Anyone out there know any Ron Paul voters or caucus-goers? Will they settle for McCain, sit out the election or vote for a third-party alternative?

For the record, nine presidential candidates will appear on the Iowa ballot, including Baldwin and Barr.

Maybe someone out there who knows the inner workings of EMILY’s List can explain to me why this group has not put money behind Becky Greenwald, the Democrat challenging loyal Republican foot-soldier Tom Latham in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district.

I have been going over the list of Democratic women running for Congress whom EMILY’s List is supporting, with a particular focus on the six challengers most recently added to this group in early August. I do not mean to knock any of those candidates, and I recognize that every race has its own dynamic.

However, after comparing Greenwald’s race to those of other candidates, I remain puzzled that EMILY’s list is not more involved in IA-04.  

Follow me after the jump for more.

The Nevada Republican Party didn’t want to take that chance. They canceled their state convention, set for next Saturday, because the number of RSVPs from delegates was well below the level needed for a quorum.

This was the second attempt to hold the Nevada GOP convention. State party officials abruptly ended the originally scheduled event in April when Ron Paul supporters outnumbered supporters of John McCain among the delegates.

Nevada is in my opinion the state most likely to go Democratic thanks to Libertarian presidential candidate and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr. Not only are there huge numbers of Ron Paul supporters who don’t back McCain, there is a relevant history. The Libertarian vote in the 1998 Senate race was large enough to hand a narrow victory to Democrat Harry Reid.

Speaking of Barr, he showed up at the liberal Netroots Nation gathering today. Daily Kos user dday landed an impromptu interview and put up this entertaining diary about it.

The conservative pundits who favored Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson for president are fully on board with John McCain, but he still has a big problem with other elements of the conservative base.

Exhibit A: the results from the GOP primary in Pennsylvania last week. More than two months after it became clear that McCain would be the GOP nominee, he gained just under 73 percent of the vote from Pennsylvania Republicans. Ron Paul got almost 16 percent (more than 128,000 votes), and Mike Huckabee got about 11 percent (more than 91,000 votes).

Think about that. More than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania went to the trouble of voting for someone other than McCain last Tuesday.

McCain did the worst in conservative counties where Republicans need to run up big margins to have any hope of winning statewide in Pennsylvania:

Mr. McCain’s worst showing was in Juniata County, near the center of the state. He received only about 59 percent of the vote, while Mr. Paul took nearly 28 percent. In 2004, President Bush won Juniata with 72 percent of the vote.

Mr. Bush had his biggest win that year in southern Fulton County, with 76 percent of the vote. Mr. McCain picked up 71 percent there, but Mr. Huckabee had 21 percent, his highest percentage in the state.

The conservative Washington Times has more bad news for McCain:

The McCain campaign has said it is on the same timeline for uniting the Republican Party as then-Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. In that year, Mr. Bush won 73 percent of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania’s primary, held April 4. His biggest challenger was McCain himself, who won 23 percent, despite having dropped out of the campaign weeks earlier.

But McCain was a far more imposing figure in 2000 than Paul and Huckabee were in 2008, and McCain has also had more time before Pennsylvania to consolidate his lead than Bush had in 2000. To continue to post less-than-dominant showings will only prolong talk that McCain has more work to do within his own party.

And to truly match Bush’s 2000 performance may be out of the question for McCain. Out of 18.5 million votes cast in the primaries so far he has won 43.2 percent. By contrast, Bush finished 2000 with 62 percent of the Republican primary vote.

Then I learned from this diary by sarahlane that Ron Paul says he doesn’t plan to campaign for McCain, and Paul supporters outnumbered McCain supporters at the Nevada Republican Party’s state convention last weekend.

Finally, the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a complaint against McCain with the Federal Elections Commission. If you’re too young to remember Judicial Watch, this group repeatedly attacked Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s.

Click the link to read the MyDD post by Jonathan Singer. Judicial Watch’s FEC complaint relates to a possibly illegal in-kind contribution from a foreign national to McCain’s campaign.

As I’ve mentioned before, prominent bloggers have filed a separate FEC complaint relating to McCain’s failure to abide by the spending limits imposed on candidates who agree to take public matching funds during the presidential primaries.

I am surprised to hear that the Republican National Committee’s Rules Committee has approved a proposed 2012 nominating calendar that would keep the Iowa caucuses first, followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

I had assumed that the GOP establishment would have the knives out for Iowa, since Mike Huckabee’s triumph here hurt establishment favorite Mitt Romney, while this year’s nominee John McCain, another establishment favorite, finished a distant fourth place.

Keeping Iowa first is not a done deal:

The measure, which passed 28-12, must now be approved by the rules committee meeting in August, scheduled for the week before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Finally, the measure must be approved by delegates to the convention.

Still, it’s interesting that this calendar has support within the RNC rules committee for now.

Since Barack Obama seems very likely to become the Democratic nominee, I would assume that the Iowa caucuses are safe if he wins the general election. If he loses to McCain, however, I expect members of the Democratic National Committee to change the calendar. A lot of angry Democrats will blame Iowans for picking a loser again.

My wife and I attended a town hall meeting today with Senator Grassley. We counted 48 chairs setup for the town hall, and I would estimate we ended up with about 60-65 people there, when Grassley started the meeting he remarked that he was suprised at the number of people attending.

The Senator began by asking people who wanted to speak to raise their hands.  He would then have you tell him the topic you wished to speak on so that he could bunch similar topics together for debate.  There were about three people questioning Iraq, one on Iran, and a host of other issues.  I used the time to bring up using industrial hemp, because that is an issue I personally care about, and was quickly dismissed since Grassley felt it was ‘a law enforcement issue’.  Farmers in North Dakota are pushing for licenses because the state legislature voted to permit industrial hemp farming.  They are now waiting for the DEA to approve the licenses, which by the way required $2000 non-refundable application fees.

Grassley started out with smaller issues, taxes, farming pollution & superfund, my hemp question, estate tax, drug-free funding and others. 

He then moved on and asked for someone to speak about Iraq, and as the crowd started knocking down his excuses/reasoning, he suddenly switched to another topic (I can’t remember what exactly it was)…this was a total of 5-10 minutes debate on Iraq, and then a total switch. 

This led up to the final 15 minutes reserved for press (who had already asked their questions), and the Senator indicated he would stay in open discussion for the rest of the time.  Someone from the crowd brought up the military build up towards Iran, and Grassley said that Bush would only be able to order troops in for a limited time without congressional approval for a larger escalation.  The crowd was starting to get rowdy because the Senator was following the same old excuses for continuing the Iraq war. 

Part of the debate focused on the Baker commission report, and Grassley said he fully supports it.  Crowd brings up the fact that Bush does not accept one of the main diplomatic points, that we have to have public diplomatic dialog with Iran and Syria. 

The crowd began discussing nuclear issue with Iran 1) Would we stop processing all nuclear fuel if Iran did?  2)  Why would Iran want nukes? Because they see us and think we’re freaking crazy with how we are treating everyone in the world; self defense. 

Grassley begins lecture on how in 80s we were nominated (or self selected) as ‘world nuklear police chief’ and that we lowered our inventory sooo much and that we were leading for world peace to disarm everyone.  That ‘we would be the last to destroy our last nuclear weapon, but that we would be the one to push for disarmanent’  a lot of conversation in response to that lecture, including the fact that we are developing even more small scale nuclear weapons right now.

Grassley was getting under quite a bit of pressure, I’m sure he was glad to be done with that town hall meeting! 

— quick notes regarding Iraq/Iran —

Grassley very quickly fell back on three arguments regarding Iraq/Iran:  1.  He suppports the troops (which was quickly dismissed by the crowd, since even people who are anti-surge support the troops.  2.  That we have to fight terrorism ‘over there’ instead of here, which got quite a lot of commentary from the crowd about how Iraq is about three cultures that are in civil war, not *terrorists* out to get us.  3.  And to finish it off, he said (rough quote) ‘Bill Clinton pushed the Iraqi Freedom Act and it was approved 88-0 in the Senate, and Bush was not the one to come up with the idea Saddam needed to be removed’  I didn’t even get the last half of Grassley’s comment because ~10 people in the front row were laughing so hard and asking what else Clinton was responsible for !  LOLOL

Oh and don’t forget, former ambassador Joe Wilson is giving a speech tonight at the memorial union sun room in Ames @8:00 about “Dissent in Democracy”!