Presidential Election: Closer than it Ought to Be
With the financial crisis hitting seven weeks before the general election, it is amazing John McCain, the presidential nominee of the party in power, is still standing. He may not win tomorrow, but, as Gerard Baker notes, “the presidential election still looks like being a closer contest than it has any right to be.”
Just look at the factors which work against the Arizona Senator:
- He has struggled until the last weeks of the campaign to articulate a message on the chief issue of this campaign:Â the economy.
- Economic concerns always favor the party out of power.
- The media have been in the tank for his opponent.
- That opponent has outspent him by a considerable sum.
Baker again:
If this were a football [British for soccer] game, it would be one played on a field tilted at an angle of about 20 degrees, in which the teams did not change sides at half-time, and in which the one playing downhill had twice as many players on the field as its opponents, who, to make things a little bit more interesting, have bound their goalkeeper hand and foot to one of the goalposts. The final score? 3-2, after extra time.
Or put it another way: it has taken a mismanaged foreign policy that almost lost a war, a botched emergency response that almost lost a city, a Republican Party that almost lost its soul and an economic crisis that almost lost the country’s financial system to break the Republican stranglehold on the White House.
That a number of polls show this race tightening in the final days is either a tribute to John McCain’s strength of character or to concerns about his opponent’s associations and absence of experience. Or maybe people are finally recognizing that Obama’s attempts to style himself a moderate are just that. Attempts to cover up a partisan record. Nothing more than window-dressing.
That Obama continues to enjoy a lead in the polls suggests he has succeeded in redefining himself. Despite his liberal record, he has sounded quite moderate on the hustings.
That the GOP still shows strength suggestsour ideas still resonate with the American people. Had our leaders stayed truer to our principles, our fellow Americans might see the Democratic disarray and recognize how far their agenda is from our own. Would it that that happen in the next twenty-four hours.
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I believe that the pollsters are going to be surprised. McCain wants to change Washington while Obama wants to change the fundamentals of America. With an Obama White House, and a Pelosi-Reid Congress, there will be a drastic change the relationship between citizens and our government as we’ve known it for over 2 centuries.
You know you’re a hard Lefty when George McGovern calls you extreme.
Comment by Right Turn — November 3, 2008 @ 1:53 pm - November 3, 2008
I think John McCain is going to win. I’m a Clinton democrat, and I well remember this same strategy at play in the primaries – constant media noise before every primary that had Obama ahead by unrealistic amounts, constant calls for her to drop out, pundits constantly talking about how inevitable Obama was. And then the primary would come and Clinton would win by large numbers. Towards the end, she won by huge numbers in Kentucky and WV (over 40%).
As we say over at the Confluence, this is a haka against you. (A haka is a maori war dance used to intimidate enemies). You’re being played, made to think that all is lost so you stay home and don’t vote. Don’t believe it for a second! Look at those large undecideds in all the polls. Do you really believe that’s true just days before the election? If those people were Obama supporters, they would say so. They are McCain supporters. Plus, pollsters are getting an 80% hangup rate and they are modelling more democrats in their polls than exist in real life. And they are forgetting about us PUMA’s. They want you to believe we are only a handful. But if you were to go to Pennsylvania and Ohio, you would find thousands of us canvassing and calling for McCain every day. We are democrats and we are working our hearts out for McCain. There is no poll that is taking us into account.
I’ve already cast my vote for McCain here in Oregon. And I think that even blue Oregon is going to be a lot closer than anyone believes. Don’t believe the lying media! Just vote!
Comment by CognitiveDissonance — November 3, 2008 @ 2:29 pm - November 3, 2008
If McCain were to lose and Senator Ted Stevens were to be re-elected, Sarah Palin should appoint herself to the position, that would get her to Washington DC and allow her to lob bombs at Obama for four years, bringing up all the character issues the MSM has chosen to ignore.
She then gets the experience and the places herself in a good position for running in 2012.
Comment by LCRW — November 3, 2008 @ 7:04 pm - November 3, 2008