Posted on 09/12/2008 7:47:36 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Barack Obama knows it. The election he had in the bag is slipping away.
The selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate has so thrown him off stride, as it has most other Democrats, that all the momentum he had has vanished. He’s getting panicky advice from everywhere. He intends to launch more and sharper attacks, abandoning any pretense of a new and different, more civil campaign.
Democrats know something, and desperation is setting in. They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message. With every advantage in the primaries, Obama couldn’t win the big states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania — against Hillary Clinton, even when he got to define the rules for running against him. She could never risk alienating the base she’ll need in 2012; John McCain and Sarah Palin have no such constraints — hence the panic.
For a “change” candidate, Obama appears to be a man locked in time, unable to move past criticism, unable to move from the grip of the Democratic left, unable to adapt to the changed reality that the campaign is not the referendum on the war in Iraq or on the administration of George W. Bush that he’d envisioned.
He’s begun to sound dated. Last week, for example, he devoted valuable campaign days — less than two months remain — into explaining a silly “lipstick on a pig” line. The McCain campaign had reacted, accusing him of making the reference to Palin. “I don’t care what they say about me,” Obama responded. “But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and ‘Swiftboat politics.’ Enough is enough,” he said. (The Swiftboat reference is from the 2004 campaign of John Kerry).
The Democratic left is still seething from the Kerry campaign’s loss and is determined to see Bush expelled from the White House in disgrace — the reason it is locked in to making this a referendum on the administration now ending.
It barely worked when the maverick McCain, no darling of the Bushites, got the nomination. With Palin, the Washington outsider, the “third term” argument is plainly absurd. But Obama can’t let go, just as the lefties can’t let go of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth defeat of Kerry. He can’t move on.
Obama has the habit, too, of reminding voters of their doubts about him, as he did in reminding a Detroit audience that he’s been accused of being less interested in protecting you from terrorists than reading them their rights. And, when he professes love of country as his basis for refusing to allow the McCain campaign to attack his words, he raises questions about why he finds the affirmation of love necessary.
Obama will lose because with less than two months remaining voters won’t be able to get comfortable with him. He can’t stay on message and he can’t avoid sending signals that interfere with the message when he does.
McCain, on the other hand, has been superb going back at least to Obama’s European tour. Mainstream America is comfortable with him and, with Palin’s selection, conservatives who had their doubts are onboard. The GOP is energized and suddenly an unwinnable election is reversed.
Obama got this far by winning small states and Southern states he has no chance of carrying in November. In Georgia, for example, the latest Insider Advantage poll has McCain pulling 56 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Obama, numbers that are not likely to change more than 4 percentage points in November. The undecideds and those who intend to vote for third-party campaigns are at 6 percent.
In this election, voters will decide early. Obama’s been in a yearlong campaign; McCain’s familiar. The two are sufficiently exposed and known for voters to make a decision now.
It’s not over. But it’s getting there — and Obama knows it.
Obama isn’t anything new. He’s just another two-bit, Chicago politician just like all the others.
Actually, they're still seething from '00 (when the election was "stolen" from Gore). They've been seething non-stop for a long time now.
If that fails, expect hundreds of lawyers contesting voting results state by state across the country.
And then there will be riots....The left is full of evil, violent, sick people.
maybe they are trying to start minimizing Obama’s chances in this election, so that it will soften the blow on election day? The MSM has been telling us for two years that 2008 was shaping up as a Democrat year, based on various indicators of the public mood, the economy, etc. Now a major part of the MSM is really minimizing Obama’s chances, even though there are 7 weeks left in the campaign.
Democrats seem to have walked right into a tar pit, and they can’t go in any direction without sinking further. I hope they never get out. No party has more deserving of extinction since the communists and the nazis.
That's what I have been concerned about. There will be riots if he wins, and riots if he loses.
I assume this was written before the attack add that foolishly derided McCain for not knowing how to send an email and the subsequent debunking. Most likely today’s gaffe by the Obama campaign will prove more of a distraction and more costly than the lipstick debacle.
This is getting to be fun!
Obama is stumbling around in pain like he just got sacked by former Oakland Raider linebacker Bill Romanowski and can't continue the game.
I got caught off guard by the LA Riots in 92. I’m starting to get that same sort of feeling now.
I’ve just invested in a new red-dot sight for my “assault” shotgun and I’m buying stick mags and a drum for it.
Never again.
Only if it's close. The tactics you mentioned only work in close elections, and I no longer see this election as being close.
It's starting to look like 1980 instead.
As far as the lawyers and recounts are concerned, I certainly hope that it’s a clear McCain victory for that very reason. They can’t realistically ask for re-counts in 20 different states at one time. If it’s a close election they will sue in certain places where they have a chance of moving that state to Obama from McCain, to get that state’s electoral votes. But if it’s not close, then the lawsuit/vote fraud/voter intimidation complaints would be a moot point anyway.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
At some point, black activists could blow their top and create ugly incidents. If it happens, it will be a spectacular self-destruction of one-time front runner.
They have a novice campaigner who wanders off message.
__
At EVERY opportunity, his obsession with Sarah has made him appear, petty, jealous, and feeble.
yeah, I’ve heard of the threats of riots.
Let ‘em riot. It just exposes them further, and all they’ll do is burn down a few hundred bucks worth of inner city property.
Yes, the left stands for everything that is anti-God, which, by definition, makes them evil.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy! He deserves to lose because of how arrogant he is. American’s don’t like arrogant.
Nice article by Wooten, who was just about the first MSM guy in 2004 to pick up on the gathering storm of veteran resentment against John Kerry.
The Obamao is a gutter politician with a good PR Staff in the media.
I won’t say one way or another on who will win or lose this election, the gestalt of Obama is out of whack, no matter that 90% of the media is running flack for him.
If the Obamao stopped suddenly, Matthews, Olberman, the Staff at Salon would all draw tickets for who could get to taste the hair gel..
Keep your powder dry!
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