Feeling Good
What happened to McCain? Of course the election will probably be closer than the current “no toss-up” electoral map from RealClearPolitics suggests. But this, along with numerous state and national polls, makes it increasingly clear that McCain is doing extremely poorly in this campaign. Where did he go wrong and why is he losing so badly? Here are the some top possible reasons:
- John McCain cannot escape the third term label because he had to move closer to Bush during the primaries.
- McCain is extremely weak on the economy, which has been the most important issue for a long time, and is growing in its importance every day.
- McCain has trouble exciting his base because they have gotten used to hating him for being a maverick.
- McCain is a terrible fundraiser, and is being pathetically out fundraised and outspent by Obama all over the country.
- McCain is feeding the developing story that he is erratic and unpredictable in his decision-making by proposing gas tax holidays, picking Sarah Palin, and suspending his campaign to go mediate a huge political compromise on an issue he knows nothing about.
- McCain’s increasingly negative tone is turning away independent voters.
Perhaps all of these are true to some extent, but whatever the reason, McCain is losing very badly in the polls right now. Obama supporters are feeling good with every day and every new poll that comes out showing Obama widening his lead.
To have any chance of recovering from this hole, McCain needs some sort of drastic change in strategy. But he is in a double-bind because a drastic change would exaggerate the fifth point above quite a bit and would draw further attention to his disadvantaged position. Unless something earth shattering happens in the next two debates, Obama looks to be in very good shape for the election in November.
I think the latest uptick in support for Obama is due almost entirely to the economic situation and the Obama campaign’s ability to spend money on structural resources and advertising in states that Democrats have traditionally not been financially able to compete in. GOP base excitement is not an issue post-Palin, but the listless flailing the McCain campaign has been doing since their convention ended crippled them and the economic collapse finished them off. I was convinced that McCain was going to win until they picked Palin and went batshit crazy. Barring a massive game changing event, this thing is done.
As to the RCP map, I’m not sure about Missouri going blue. North Carolina would surprise me, but now it seems possible. Democrats now have serious chances in once unthinkable Senate races in North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, and Mississippi. I doubt they’ll get more than one of those, but 60 seats doesn’t seem as pie in the sky as it once did.
guys, lets not jinx this. i’m getting way too nervous that we might actually win.
I think the latest uptick in support for Obama is due almost entirely to the fact that he is awesome, and Palin is incompetent.
That’s just me, though.
I was wondering yesterday if McCain is where he’s at because of his campaign. Has it hurt him or helped him?
Is he not ahead due to his campaign?
-or-
Is he even this close due to his campaign?
I couldn’t answer that question.
Two things:
1) “I was convinced that McCain was going to win until they picked Palin and went batshit crazy.”–that made me laugh out loud, literally, first thing in the morning. Thanks Kolby
2) This is exactly the kind of map that I want to see the night of November 4th. And, I beg to differ with Kolby on Missouri. I have lived there my entire life and my family spans the entire state, and from what I have heard, Obama is doing amazingly well (and not just with all of the college-age kids, but also with people who will truly get out and vote.)
YAY!
mudpuppy,
i know kolby is the authority on this stuff, but i’d say that mccain’s campaign, together w/ a significant bit of luck, is most definitely the reason why mccain is still in this race. however, i think his most recent barrage of attacks can only hurt mccain. based on my experience and observations, candidates shouldn’t be unleashing a new string of personal attacks in the final month of the campaign.
first, the vast majority of people who cast their vote based on petty attack ads (both sides are guilty of this) made up their minds a long time ago, when they first heard about these things. i think that if someone’s still an “undecided” voter, they are most likely weighing the real issues by this point.
second, attacks make the candidate look unpresidential, esp. when they saturate his entire stump speech, which is almost always given to people who are already voting for him. just take a look at obama’s and mccain’s speeches yesterday. obama talked about what he plans on doing and how he plans on doing it, while mccain whined about obama’s shortcomings. while, it’s fair game, it doesn’t make mccain look like a president (well, perhaps our current one).
third, it makes him look desperate. while the economy is reeling, mccain is just making personal attacks on obama because he knows obama is crushing him on the economy. although mccain may try to veil his personal attacks in an economic setting, he isn’t saying anything substantive about the economy. he looks exasperated and admittedly defeated.
so, in answer to your question, mudpuppy, i’ll say, “Yes.”
p.s. kolby, please asses my work here. am i at all on target?
* assess, not asses, that’s a bad word
j_ball is right to say that the McCain campaign is (partly) responsible for their candidate being at all competitive in a race that should be fundamentally difficult for a Republican. I think they did an excellent job of keeping Obama off balance and off message for a few months during the late summer, and I (at the time) believed that a continuation of that strategy stood a decent chance of picking off enough independent voters to win. By the time the Democratic convention was over, the McCain campaign obviously disagreed. They have better and more expensive data than I do, and they decided that they weren’t going to be able to win independents in any meaningful way. Thus, Palin and the reopening of the culture war as the centerpiece of their campaign served as notice that they were going to try to win with base turnout in key swing states. Given the fact that the Republican base has shrunk and the Democratic base has expanded since 2004, that significantly diminishes their chances of winning. They are now trying to tick both boxes with Palin acting the sexy puritan on the campaign trail and all mavericky in other big public television appearances, but I don’t think they’re pulling it off. Base mobilization is a bad bet for the GOP this year, but in a way it was their only chance (and it sets up the post-defeat narrative of “all that is Right and good was deviously defeated by the liberal media elite not telling the truth about Obama”). Expect the non-substantive attacks on Obama to get weirder and nastier in the next few weeks. I know what was in the Clinton oppo research file on him and there are a lot of ridiculous charges that can be hurled at him.
On Missouri, its certainly possible that Obama wins the state. I’ve done a little more research on it now and he is doing better than I thought. I’d still say it doesn’t much matter because if he wins MO he will almost certainly also have won VA, OH, NC, FL, etc. and we’ll have had a real ass kicking on our hands.
What are some of the crazy things? I am curious.
I am also curious to see if any further crazy attacks will help McCain. It seems that this round backfired on him because the media story has been about McCain’s increasing desperation and negativity instead of about the charges, which are pretty frivolous. If the terrorist charge is the best one that he had, then are the rest of them even worse, and will he even try?
If only I was at liberty to say…
Its mostly procedural votes that can be construed to support a ridiculous claim and tangential associations to people with scary terrorist sounding names. I’s sure the McCain people have the same stuff and I expect them to use it as they get more and more desperate.
From the Department of Amusing Voter Suppression Tactics….
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5963751
Maybe it would’ve been smarter for McCain to pick Gov. Tim Kaine from VA. He’s well liked in VA and could have swung (swungeth, is swung a word?) the VA and NC vote.
Methinks Tim Kaine would not have been too interested in an offer like that.
swing, swung, swinging, swingable, swingy, swinger.
I do wonder if McCain had to pick a random person like Palin because none of the *real* politicians (with a reputation/future) would be willing to sign on. Are there any rumors about that?
The only reasons I can come up with why McCain would choose Palin for his VP candidate is because she’s a woman, staunchly conservative, and has no national-level political experience, so she can’t be tied in with Bush and his administration (Bush doctrine…eh?). That widens his demographic a little bit, but it definitely isn’t worth it. “Hey, you’re Republican, and you’re female, right? Great. Wanna be my running mate? Awesome. Stand here, look American, and shut your face.”
Romney and Pawlenty people were quite pissed at the Palin selection, and from what I’ve heard it was because they wanted the spot. Huckabee people were upset because the Palin pick elevated a serious challenger to Huckabee for the role of tribune of the Christianist segment of the GOP heading into 2012.
“Unless something earth shattering happens in the next two debates, Obama looks to be in very good shape for the election in November.”
this could be the problem….did somebody say jinx?
of course mccain is a disaster..but listening to obama during this debate (so far, 9:22pm) it is still clear that there are a few bumper stickers that quite accurately describe a Barack Admin,
“you’re going to be very disappointed”
“barack 08 Save the Empire!”
barack can’t save the economy…esp when he keeps blaming the Bush Admin for our problems….what a waste of time.
i have seen obama signs in local yards ‘n driveways for quite a few months now, but just recently i have seen a huge ’surge’ of mccain signs…
my top (most well-known) republican senator susan collins has been running ads on tv. she is doing the same thing as mmcain. she isn’t a republican in her ad, so much as she represents an independent voice for Maine. she is a maverick that is a bipartisan leader and promotes energy independence with windmills in the background. yes, she is a solid red.
this is not new. but its not a subliminal message anymore. it is the campaign they are running this time around.
chalmers johnson had a little to say about all this too..
” Above all, two main issues will determine whether or not the November election will be a realigning one. Republican Party failures in managing the economy, in involving the country in catastrophic wars of choice, and in ignoring such paramount issues as global warming all dictate a Democratic victory. Militating against that outcome is racist hostility, conscious or otherwise, toward the Democratic Party’s candidate as well as deep-seated regional loyalties. While the crisis caused by the performance failures of the incumbent party seems to guarantee a realigning election favoring the Democrats, it is simply impossible to determine the degree to which race and regionalism may sway voters. The fate of the nation hangs in the balance.”
earlier in the article titled: Will Economic Meltdown, Race, or Regional Loyalty Be the Trump Card in Election 2008?, Johnson writes about this election as possibly a “realigning one” noting that:
“there have been only two during the past century – the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and of Richard Nixon in 1968. Until 1932, the Republicans had controlled the presidency for 56 of the previous 72 years, beginning with Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. After 1932, the Democrats occupied the White House for 28 of the next 36 years.”
…”Before 1968, the Democrats had also been the majority party nationally, winning seven of the previous nine presidential elections. The Republicans won seven of the next ten between 1968 and 2004.”
” The question is: Can the electorate be mobilized, as in 1932, and will this indeed lead to a realigning election? The answer to neither question is an unambiguous yes.”
Yes! DrBurth is truly an idiot. I seriously thought Kaine was a GOP, but he is not. I’m sadly out of touch with my home state’s politics.
Dr. Burt, I don’t think you’re an idiot, but perhaps that’s because I consider anyone who loves the Cartel to be quite intelligent.
a good rundown by buchanan here
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/10/10/mccains-last-chance/#more-1036