McLaughlin: McCain Leads Obama Among Women, 49 Percent to 38 Percent?

This resentment is reflected in a private nationwide poll conducted this month by McLaughlin and Associates, which usually works for Republicans but is not connected with the McCain campaign. Poll-taker John McLaughlin found that John McCain had a 49 percent to 38 percent edge over Obama among all women. That is an extraordinary result, running counter to a longtime Democratic advantage.

The conventional wisdom is that women, along with other Clinton backers, will remain in the Democratic camp once Clinton actually concedes. But seasoned operatives for both Obama and Clinton privately advise that the length and closeness of their race make reconciliation much more difficult because Clinton did not drop out once she no longer had any clear path to the nomination.

Indeed, some of those women will "come home" to the Democratic party. (Although maybe not after reading the first few paragraphs of this.) But if McCain wins the women's vote - heck, if he ties the women's vote — in November, there's no way Obama's taking the oath of office on January 20 next year.

There is nothing new under the sun.

People have always been more conservative than other people. GW Bush had positions very clearly in his repertoire in 2000 that were leftward of many FR preferences, but rightward of Gore and Kerry.

So FR supported him. He wasn’t Gore. Nor was he Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes or Steve Forbes. But FR still supported him. McCain wasn’t Romney, or Keyes. But he wasn’t Guilliani either. And he’s not Obama.

We always vote for the rightward most viable option. There is nothing different about this year from any other year in that regard.

And don’t think the right wing has a monopoly on this discomfort. We are about to see some PROFOUNDLY rightward motion on the part of Obama in his sprint for the center. He’s already saber rattling at Iran to polish up his CINC imagery. Rest assured we’ll hear him find a way to embrace a “long term security arrangement with Iraq” — perhaps with a “special team of diplomats” rather than military. Anything, ANYTHING, to move him towards the middle.

KOS and DU will be very angry. But they won’t splinter. They won’t abandon him. He is their leftward most viable option.

The middle is what wins. That’s why Bush added compassionate to conservatism and that’s why McCain’s odds are very good. He doesn’t have to sprint anywhere near as far for the center as Obama does.

If there is a desire in FR to move the center rightward, you do it with incrementalism. You don’t do it with extremism. It is not a party that has to move. It is a center.

The folks here that want the center to move rightward should spend their time on DU moderating them. Why doesn’t that happen? Because of instinct. There is instinctive understanding that a Democrat left of center moderate, similar to McCain being a right of center moderate, can win elections — so one most decidedly does not want to encourage that.

“Well, the answer to that question is clear. McCain advocated a surge long before Bush did.”

I truly hope that you are sitting down for this one, because I don’t want you to fall over from the shock but the war is NOT the only issue this election. In fact it’s not even the most important issue to the average voter.

And the better it goes over there, the more the electorate will be looking at McBoob and thinking “why do we need this doddering old fool, I want my gas prices to drop!”

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