October 10, 2008
McCain Is Not Finished
September turned into a bad month for John McCain’s presidential ambitions. It started off well with his pick of Governor Sarah Palin, the first woman to be selected as a Vice Presidential candidate by the Republican Party. Combined with his Convention bounce, McCain surged into a national lead in the tracking polls over Obama. But after that things went south.
Palin has turned into an embarrassment with her terrible responses to questions, and her generally uninformed outlook on policy. Despite tremendous coaching, she has a hard time speaking for more than two minutes without a prepared text in any sort of coherent manner. Initially polls showed her to be a strong help to McCain, but now she is clearly providing no boost whatsoever, and may be a drag on the ticket. She certainly calls into questions McCain’s judgment for putting her in a position to become the President. Given McCain’s age and history of melanoma, odds say that he has a 10-15% chance of dying in the next four years, and over 20% in the next eight.
McCain’s debate performance was reasonably good. He gave cogent answers that touched on many of the points he has made throughout the campaign, and he avoided any obvious missteps. He may have been a bit arrogant and mean in his demeanor, such as his refusal to ever look at Obama, and his repeated claims about Obama being “naïve” and “not understanding” the situation. However, this probably did not hurt him among those inclined to support him. The problem though is that Obama did equally as well explaining his viewpoints. He came across as knowledgeable and thoughtful, and this reassured many Americans who were uncertain whether Obama was really up to the job. As such, Obama was seen as the “winner” of the debate in terms of public opinion, and got a small bump in the polls.
The biggest problem for McCain has been the economy. This has never been his strong suit, and as the economic crisis brewed up, McCain clearly was flailing and haphazard in his response. One day he insisted that AIG should not be bailed out, the next day Bush is forced to bail out AIG. He states the economy is strong, and then the next week needs to suspend his campaign because of the urgency of the economic crisis. He calls for the debate to be canceled, then shows up despite no deal being concluded in Congress on the bailout. He claims he is critical to forging a deal, then goes missing when House Republicans refuse to vote for it. He insists that the Republican head of the SEC should be fired, then suggests a Democrat should replace him.
All these missteps helped Obama establish a small but significant national lead. At this point Obama is running 6-8 points ahead of McCain in the national tracking polls. The Democrats are jubilant, McCain’s camp seems confused, and conservatives are despondent. But there are still five weeks left in the race, and despite Obama’s lead in the national polls, he is still only slightly ahead in the Electoral College picture which determines who will be the next President. Despite his ills, McCain retains the strong support of most southern and western states, amounting to 200 electoral votes. He still wins the Presidency if he can hold onto the same states that Bush won in 2004. Right now it looks like Obama is comfortably ahead in New Mexico and Iowa, which Bush won in 2004, but McCain can afford to lose them. He cannot lose either Virginia or Colorado, both of which are polling a few points ahead for Obama right now. Meanwhile, McCain clings to very narrow leads in Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, and Florida. But it wouldn’t take a huge swing for McCain to hold all those states and win the election. He is still very much in this race.
Speaking of race, the other wild card is the “Bradley effect”. This refers to two races Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles, ran for governor of California in the 1980’s. In both races polls showed Bradley with a small but solid lead against his opponent up to the election day. But when the votes were cast, Bradley lost twice. Pollsters believed that some white voters were claiming to be Bradley supporters, but when the time came to vote for a Black man, they wouldn’t do it.
Will the “Bradley effect” happen to Obama? Will he narrowly lose an election that polls show him winning? A swing of one voter in 30 would be enough across the country to shift this election from an easy Obama win to a narrow McCain victory. This election is far from over. Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com.
