LS, you are right that polls havent moved. But polls lag.
The leading question is:
- What is the election about? What is the decision here?
Obama wants a referendum on Bush and on Iraq. “No 3rd term for Bush”. If th election is a Bush referendum, Obama wins.
But it leaves a big and huge glaring gaping hole: What about ... OBAMA.
No a single “hope” and ‘change’ voter can honestly tout Obama’s experience - he has none. They reach when justifying his friends and associations, his history of leftwing activism, his bad judgement. And the capaign that makes him out to be centrist, that’s just a rerun of Carter ‘76, its vague BS, and the trick there is getting Obama nailed down enough to go “Aha! He’s just a liberal reselling the same-old same-old”.
And now we see his flipflips emerge and his broken promises. Obama is a real, flesh and blood politician. Get him off that pedestal and suddnely he is less appealing. Get him into specifics and he’s got a lousy agenda that is wrong where McCain is right - energy/drilling, taxes, judges, Iraq, GWOT, etc.
Obama is leftwing, McCain is centrist.
He is inexperienced, McCain has grappled with serious issues for years.
He has no leadership record, McCain has worked and accomplished things.
If the election is about Obama and he question “Who is best fit to lead the country?” .... Obama loses.
In many respects, this is an EASIER election for us, were it not for the toxic weak economy and high ‘off-track’ numbers.
The difference is leadership, which Obama overcomes much with rhetoric, but watch in debates if he can keep it up. He’s not great off teleprompter because he’s really a leftist and its hard to not slip into leftwing rhetoric (viz his “clinging to God” statement in SanFran).
This is still uphill battle for McCain and he must do things to win, but the raw material for a McCain win is there, he has to use it:
- positive reform message
- go after Obama hammer and tong
- make it a referendum on leadership and accomplishments and the future, not the past (ie Bush)
McCain needs to say: “Leadership is making change happen”
and talk about his record of reform vs Obama’s empty suit.
see also this on how he can change the game:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-republican-candidates-need-to-do.html
http://no-bama.blogspot.com/ - NObama, stop the Hype and Chains candidate
I agree it is still possible for McCain to win, but he’s fighting two battles simultaneously, one against Obama and the left, and the other against his own party because deep down he despises conservatives. The latter will kill him, not because their sheer numbers by staying home will tilt the election, but because they ARE the ‘ground game,’ and Obama will have one, and McCain won’t.