One Killed Pygmies, The Other Giants.
Polls show Obama and McCain in more or less of a dead heat. McCain supporters draw encouragement from this. They shouldn't.
McCain is a known commodity, but he's still bumping up against a 45% ceiling. 45% for a guy everyone knows, and most of us like and admire, who clinched his nomination a political age ago? No one has been attacking McCain. He's been linked to loony preachers but with far less effect than Obama. Hillary has positively gushed over McCain.
McCain began his race as the presumptive favorite. He faced opposition from a series of never-very-convincing candidates -- Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani and Thompson (remember him?) McCain's campaign was bankrupted, almost wiped out, struggled on and finally won. Against Mike Huckabee. Yes, John McCain, war hero, Senator, maverick, household name, endearing wit, prevailed against a man who believes Adam named the first dinosaur.
Obama began his race as a guy whose time was nowhere near. He was only in it, we were assured by the pundits, to set himself up as Veep or to lay claim to the governorship of Illinois or the White House in 2012. Hillary was going to win. There was no question in anyone's mind, certainly not hers.
McCain fought pygmies and barely won. Obama fought the Balrog and won weeks ago. And yet Obama, the black guy with the weird name who's been shithammered incessantly by those two prodigies of shithammering, Bill and Hillary, is up by a couple of points over McCain. Even though Hillary's voters are bitter and threatening not to come home.
Obama has more money. Superior political skills. A giant-killer campaign machine. Multitudes of volunteers. A great personal narrative. The flattering spotlight of history. And he does not have George W. Bush hanging around his neck.
Given what we've all just endured (and endured, and endured) McCain should be up by 5 points. The fact that he's trapped at 45% and tends to run two points behind Obama is a very bad omen for the GOP.
This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on
Thursday, June 05, 2008.
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12:20 PM
I'm afraid you're right on, as usual. Yes, it's a long way to go, BUT McCain has shown me nothing to give me confidence he has a chance to avoid a landslide. He's totally blown a real opportunity to get a running start. And I think that's tragic.
2:36 PM
Gulliver was tied up by Lilliputians.
It's still really early. And Republicans are nothing if not dutiful in holding nose, pulling lever.
1:37 AM
2008 McCain isn't the firebrand that 2000 McCain was. If he can't get back to that he'll have a hard row to how against Oabam.
P.S. You have awardage on my blog.
3:09 PM
Dyre, you're certainly right that the 2000 Maverick is MIA. The flattened 2008 party-liner is much less interesting. That version is the guy who's pictured hugging GWB.
Michael, Mac's 45% ceiling represents the limits of the enthusiasm gap. The only way for McCain to bridge it is to go negative- no one will cast for McCain, but they may vote against Obama. at least that's the theory.
One more critical factor- television. GWB's committed the cardinal American sin- he's awful on tv. Mac's not much better. In contrast, the telegenic Obama's a superstar. Never underestimate the power of the tube. Obama's proven that he's a tough frontrunner- he's like Tiger with a final round lead, very tough to beat, few mistakes. Ah, the glory of sports analogies.
9:37 PM
This is certainly an interesting take and could very well be correct, however, I think with all of the advantages that Obama has he should have a 15 to 20 point lead right now and not the 2 to 5 point lead he seems to have. I don't think this bodes well for him, however, I still think it is likely that Obama will win a very close race for the presidency. Given every thing working against McCain he should win easily but he will not because he is a lousy candidate. At least this seems to be what the Aemrican public thinks. The American public hates Republicans with a passion and Obama can't get a bigger lead.