Election 08: McCain Falters and Obama Surges. Why?

As of today, all the national media polls have Obama with double digit leads. One of the reasons I haven’t written too much about politics is because the entire process inspires way too much passion the last 8 years or so and getting worked up about it generally pisses me off.

I won’t make any bones about this, I was a raised in a staunchly Republican household and just as in my Catholic upbringing, the beliefs were indoctrinated from an early age. It’s for another time to argue why I’m no longer a conservative. At that point you can start pointing out why you think I’m a bleeding heart liberal or whatever the hell, but I will offer as objective a view as I can as to why I think the polls are swinging heavily Obama’s way, and they aren’t all reasons I’m seeing the pundits mention in the media. Personally, I think they’re missing some of the fairly obvious, but perhaps less politically correct observations so far.

I think the first major observation is that if Obama was any established white Democrat candidate the polls would have been close to double digits throughout the campaign. In spite of McCain’s desperate attempts to distance himself from President Bush, the facts are that Bush is perhaps the most unpopular sitting president in the history of the United States and it’s extremely difficult for any Republican candidate to distance themselves from that. Bush is still the leader of the Republican Party and John McCain cannot divorce himself from that. Carter couldn’t do it in 1980 when he ran against Reagan, McCain can’t do it now.

Beyond that, here are some of the other things that I think are the keys in no particular order:

1. The Debates: Obama’s Image - Historically, much more importance is put on presidential debates than they deserve. Generally we might see a 1 or 2 point move in the polls based on debate outcomes, and there’s no evidence that those effects last much beyond them. I think the nervousness and uncertainty of electing the first black president has been much calmed by American’s first chance to see Obama in a long open forums. They can see he is intelligent, well spoken, generally likeable, and knowledgeable, and not an extremist. In other words, he feels a lot closer to Will Smith black than Jesse Jackson black. I believe this has been huge in helping calm uncertain feelings about this huge step for the United States and civil rights in general.

2. The Debates: McCain’s Image – One of the more obvious concerns being addressed unfairly against McCain is his age. One of the most popular presidents in American history, Ronald Reagan, was an old bag when he got elected in 1980, and a very old bag when he left office on a wave of public love 8 years later giving George Bush the elder the presidency on his coattails. Generally, there’s no reason to fear McCain’s age. At least there wasn’t until Sarah Palin came on to the scene. More about her later, but having a 72-year old man with a history of melanoma raises serious questions about whether he can really complete a 4 or 8 year run in the oval office–concerns that weren’t that huge when Reagan ran.
In the debates, rather than quelling these concerns, McCain came across as an old man. In the second debate he doddered around the stage uncomfortably. We hear that same weakening in his voice that we are accustomed to hearing in our grandparents as we watch them grow older and more out of touch. That combined with a presidential candidate who openly admits that he’s never used e-mail makes him look and feel old and out of touch to younger and even middle-aged voters.

3. The Economic Collapse - Even the staunchest McCain supporters are going to spend a long time blaming the results of this election on the ill-timed financial crisis. That’s ALWAYS the way the cookie crumbles in politics. The party in power gets the blame and the Republicans, including McCain, are going to have to bear that burden regardless of what either candidate says in the campaign. Ultimately, it’s a perfect Democrat storm. Not just the crisis with Republicans in power but it underscores one of the main fundamental differences between the two parties and Obama is cashing those checks: Republicans favor excessive deregulation and that has played a rather large part in the current crisis.

4. Sarah Palin – When pre-convention polling started to break Obama’s way, the McCain campaign needed a wild card and they hurriedly pulled Sarah Palin out of the frozen tundra of Alaska in an attempt to bring disillusioned Hillary Clinton supporters over from the Democrats. Of course, pay no mind to the fact that Palin stands for just about every thing Hillary has fought against in her political career, I mean, she has tits right? Then why WOULDN’T women vote for her?

The second piece of the Palin puzzle was the desperate reach out to the religious right that President Bush and Karl Rove played so well for eight years, particularly in 2004. The religious right was just not on board with McCain until that point. Sure, they were going to vote for him themselves, but they weren’t mobilized as an arm of his campaign. By adding a hard line, Pentecostal, creationist like Palin to the ticket, it seemed like a match made in heaven. And so it was until the spunky hockey mom’s façade fell apart in the worst way. First, she’s completely oblivious to the workings of national government and foreign policy. The McCain camp has tried desperately to shield her from the media. She gave absolutely no press interviews under some umbrella that McCain’s camp came up with that she wouldn’t do any interviews until “she was shown the respect she deserves.” Huh?

When America finally did hear her speak she made a complete an utter fool of herself and the Republican Party with Katie Couric. If anyone in the political arena makes George W. Bush look better, it’s Sarah Palin. The only problem is, she makes McCain look foolish and the honest thoughts of most Americans is that a Palin presidency if something happens to McCain would be at best a rehash of Bush, at worst, a national disaster. It was a risky card for McCain to play, and they couldn’t shield her from the public long enough.
The truth is out, and she is a disaster for the campaign: uninformed, seemingly two-faced and a national joke on par with or even surpassing Dan Quayle. Folks, we have video footage of her taking part in a church ceremony where a witch doctor is trying to protect her from WITCHCRAFT! Love or hate Bill Mahar, he made an incredibly valid point on his program on HBO: If that video footage surfaced with Obama instead of Palin being blessed by a witch doctor, THIS ELECTION WOULD BE OVER.

In addition, Joe Biden destroyed her in the debate. She did not address ANY topic posed, came across as working a script she couldn’t/wouldn’t stray from and even her most glowing reviews were that she “exceeded expectations.” All the post debate polls showed that Biden came out looking better. Every positive needle that moved for Palin after the VP debate moved even more positive for Biden. Face the facts: Obama’s VP pick makes McCain’s Palin comparison (pun intended).

5. McCain Camp Disarray – The McCain campaign in is being completely mismanaged. His response to the economic crisis is all over the map. The War is terribly unpopular, yet the platform remains with the Bush Doctrine Mantra to “Stay the Course.” The Palin pick was co-mismanagement by the Campaign and McCain together playing the earlier “lack of experience” card with Obama, then picking someone even more obviously inexperienced and unqualified to be a heartbeat away from a McCain presidency. Risky stunts like the “suspending the campaign” and/or pulling out of the debate because of the economic crisis have served to make the Obama campaign’s accusations that McCain seems “erratic” seem extremely valid.

6. Hate Rallies – I think that this has a lot to do with Obama’s recent and astounding poll surges. I think the hate speech now coming to the forefront at recent McCain rallies is pissing off a lot of Americans. First, it makes it look like those left supporting McCain are racist, violent wack jobs. Second, it forced McCain to come out and publicly defend Obama to his own crowd, stating “Americans have nothing to fear from a Barack Obama presidency.” What? How do you think that impacted undecided voters that were leaning towards Obama, especially if they were still uncertain because of race or inexperience issues? Lastly, having members of McCain’s own party come out to denounce this and turn against the McCain camp has been devastating.

7. America is Hearing Obama’s Message – and liking it more than McCain’s. I tried to offer objective reasons up until this point, but I do believe that voters feel closer to Obama’s current message than McCain’s: The War is huge. McCain supports the war; most American’s see it as a huge mistake. Health Care has been a disaster issue for McCain. Divorce yourself from the rest of it and American’s are only hearing “tax my health-care payroll deductions.” They lost him at “Hello” on that one.
The Democrats have actually run a brilliant campaign this time for a change. Who would have thought that the Dems would be running on tax cuts? That’s the message people are hearing: tax cuts for the middle class and the constant engaging of the term “middle class” in the debates, speeches and ads. People hear that, and for the first time on the tax issue, the Republican’s are on the defensive with their trickle down economic theories. When it comes to “non-war” foreign policy issues and the rest, I think there are lot “draws” on where Americans stand.

In Summary Obama can still lose this thing, but I think it’s well out of McCain’s hands now. It’s going to take some big event or shift to move the needle enough to make it really close. Those things can and do happen, but beyond that, it’s pretty much too little too late. Ultimately, I think pundits on all sides of this thing right now would have to agree that McCain is now the victim of one of the most poorly run campaigns in many years. Only two weeks left for an October surprise, so they better pray hard. Palin and her witch doctor can lead the congregation!

Credits and References:For further information, let me plug a few of great sites, most incredibly brettmarty.com where I got the phenomenal “Muslim” sign pic in the article. For a dazzling photographic essay of the 2008 campaign trail, please take a look.
Also, two great electoral poll tracking sites:
Realclearpolitics.com and Fivethirtyeight.com. In the interests of fairness I should point out that Real Clear is run by a McCain supporter and FiveThirtyEight by an Obama supporter. In spite of this, I think both sites are incredibly fair and clear with their analysis. Fivethirtyeight is one to watch though as it takes a new and in depth approach to how they cull and balance their polling data. If they call this election with the accuracy they did in the primary races, expect it to emerge as one of the “giants” in campaign politics in coming years

Tags: Earthbound Observations