A referendum on the challenger?

July 24, 2008

I was reading an interview with a Republican insider the other day — I can’t remember where — and he was asked whether he had any optimism at all about the presidential election this year. He said if the race was about John McCain, the GOP had no chance. If the race was about Barack Obama, Republicans have a shot.

In this sense, the GOP wants one thing: to make the entire election a referendum on the Democrat. And in a sense, that’s precisely what’s happening — both sides’ TV ads are about Obama. Both sides’ speeches are about Obama. When Obama sits down for an interview, he talks about his vision. When McCain sits down for an interview, he talks about Obama’s vision.

Democratic hopes that the year would turn into a referendum on Bush haven’t materialized at all. Indeed, the actual incumbent president seems to have become little more than an afterthought. This race, at its core, is Obama vs. the anti-Obama. The new NBC/WSJ poll helps drive the point home:

Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them — Sen. Barack Obama.

With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn’t over any single issue being debated between the Democrats’ Sen. Obama or the Republicans’ Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama?

This dynamic is underscored in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey’s most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be.

“Obama is going to be the point person in this election,” pollster Peter Hart said. “Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?”

To be sure, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, the same NBC/WSJ poll shows Obama leading McCain by six, 47% to 41%.

But if this is the landscape, it sets up an interesting dynamic.

Americans desperately want to change the course of the nation, and agree with Obama on the issues, but still need to be convinced that’s he’s presidential material. McCain’s principal goal, then, for the next 103 days is to make Obama scary. And Obama’s principal goal is to prove himself up to the job.

Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey with Hart, said, “This is not Obama’s race to lose. It’s his to win. Voters have a sense they know what they’re going to get if they elect John McCain, but an uncertainty about Barack Obama that they are trying to sort through.”

Just today, Michael Schaffer urged political observers to stop trying to force awkward historical political parallels, but the WSJ notes the similarities between 2008 and 1980, and I have to admit, the comparison is fairly compelling.

Campaign 2008 bears some striking similarities to the 1980 campaign, when — as now — the resident of the White House was unpopular and his party was suffering. The question was whether the opposition party had nominated a candidate who would be seen as safe or too far out of the mainstream.

In 1980, President Carter was standing for re-election himself, while in 2008 President George W. Bush, is attempting to pass the baton to Sen. McCain. But the questions about the opposing party’s candidate, Mr. Reagan, were similar to those now posed about Sen. Obama. Mr. Reagan, a former California governor who had spent no time serving in Washington, was seen as light on experience and lacking in foreign-policy gravitas. Some in the political establishment considered his strong conservative philosophy and anti-Soviet rhetoric to be too extreme for mainstream America.

The doubts about Mr. Reagan lingered until he acquitted himself well in a single nationally televised debate against Mr. Carter, just one week before the election. Ultimately, Mr. Reagan won going away.

Most of the other poll results are largely in line with expectations. The enthusiasm gap is large, and it benefits Obama. The age gap is huge, and it benefits McCain. Bush’s standing and the Republican “brand” are in the toilet, and it benefits Obama. There are still a painful number of racists in the country, and it benefits McCain. (“I just don’t think we’re ready for a black president,” says Donna Bender, 62, of Oshkosh, Wis., a retired credit clerk and registered Democrat. “I’m prejudiced.”)

That said, there’s one number in particular that warrants special attention: “With the news that Iraq’s prime minister wants the US to set a timetable for withdrawal, 60% of registered voters believe it’s a good idea for the US to set such a timetable, while 30% say it’s a bad idea.”

McCain has spent every waking moment trying to convince Americans that withdrawal would be a disaster. People don’t seem to believe him.

On the one hand, this is probably good news: it means that Obama is largely in control of his own destiny, the sale is his to close and he has shown the aptitude to do it.

On the other hand, I see this as a failure of left-of-center messaging that may let various Republican candidates off the hook: we clearly have not succeeded in tying Bush’s abysmal numbers to the Republican brand across the Board. McCain is escaping much of the tarnish, and that means that other individual candidates in individual races can as well.

McCain [or insert any other candidate] isn’t bad just because he is McCain, he is bad because he is a Republican. Republicanism is what gave us Bush, gave us the past 8 years, gave us this lousy economy, gave us taited toys from China and poisoned peppers from Mexico. Republicanism gave us endless wars abroad and culture wars at home. Republicanism has given us a rogue’s gallery of corrupt appointees and office-holders, hypocrits, crooks, and frauds. If anyone with an R after their name escapes the election-altering taint, we haven’t fully done our job.

While I am comfortable with the being a referendum on Obama, it shouldn’t be (or on Bush, for that matter). It should be a referendum on contemporary conservative philosophy.

  • As CB reminds the blogosphere every day, the question should be whether McCain is a safe choice for president.

    Let me say it out loud. At 72, McCain is old for his age. He’s obviously confused, with that deer-in-the-headlights look about him. He has a good grasp of policy…nowhere!

    But it’s true – this is shaping up as a referendum on Obama. It’s a referendum I think Obama can win, but directing the focus back to McCain and Bush is more solid ground.

    Obama is looking very, very “presidential” during this overseas trip. I expect the campaign dynamic to change next week.

  • I think Americans already are comfortable with the background and experience of Barack Obama. More than that, this election is a test of whether the Republican smear machine is still capable of destroying their target’s reputation. Will the American people really continue listening to a gang of adulterous crooks talk pretend to take the high moral ground? I despise their brand of politics so I hope the answer is no, but we’ll see for sure in November.

  • He took hits, but there was a good reason that Obama said that Reagan was a good politician. He’s following the (ideologically inverse) Reagan script. This election will appear to be close until a week or two before polls close. Absent any huge scandals, people will break to Obama in a landslide.

  • I think this is largely true, but McCain’s flopsweat performance these last two weeks may shake things up as people start wondering if he really is up to the job, or even the known quantity they’d assumed.

    Coming as it does while Obama is looking great on his trip abroad, McCain’s floundering this week — from his continued confusion on geography, history, and everything else to his mean-spirited charges that Obama’s rooting to lose in Iraq — should draw the attention of the media to his end of things.

    If McCain had just stayed quiet and above the fray, maybe it would remain a referendum on Obama. But his desperate need for attention and crappy performance has changed all that.

  • I would like to see Mr. Obama return to the line (I believe) he used earlier–Cheney, Rumsfield and their ilk had *lots* of experience, and look at how well that turned out for us.

  • Meanwhile everyone ignores that huge pile of elephant feces in the room: McCain’s age…

    Yes it is an issue.
    Yes a 70 year old has diminished vitality.
    Yes a 70 year old has diminished cognitive skills.

    Are there any 70 year old brain surgeons out there?
    Are there any 70 years even managing donut shops?
    Can you find me one 70 year old who claims they haven’t lost 50% or more of their prime time abilities?

    And you say this country is willing to accept 70+ year old President, without so much as batting its media eye’s at his age?

    Hilarious.

  • McCain’s “experience” hasn’t boded well for what he’d bring to the national stage. He has helped ruin our nation’s reputation in the world. And with GRammanomics, he’ll complete the GOP mission to reduce us to a “third world” economy.

    The good news: By campaign’s end, he’ll be an even worse laughing stock than Bush2. WE just have to make sure AMericans are paying attention. The man clearly can’t even report what happened in Iraq honestly or accurately. If we let the media get away with this construction: “It’s a referendum on Barack,” and if we let McCain get away with his disreputable lies, then we have only ourselves to blame. No,. it’s a referendum on a media which collectively have let the myth of McCain as Straight Talker go on far too long. But instead of ROTFL, I suggest joining a fact-checker group, a rapid response team, or a campaign HQ for Barack–quickly.

  • I was reading an interview with a Republican insider the other day — I can’t remember where — and he was asked whether he had any optimism at all about the presidential election this year. He said if the race was about John McCain, the GOP had no chance. If the race was about Barack Obama, Republicans have a shot.

    I saw Eleanor Clift making this point in Newsweek last week (see the second-last paragraph).

    ”I just don’t think we’re ready for a black president,” says Donna Bender, 62, of Oshkosh, Wis., a retired credit clerk and registered Democrat. “I’m prejudiced.”

    Did you see one of the PUMAs referring to Obama as “an inadequate black male” about 2:30 of the way into the video Kevin just posted at Rumproast?

  • I think the debate so far has been by the media morons.

    Once Obama lets loose on the Republicans with our small but mighty doations (which total into the hundreds of millions), the American people will remember which party dug the ditch and threw us in it. McCain’s ridiculous ad blaming Obama for high gas prices was a lame attempt to get out in front of that assault, which they know is coming for them, very soon.

    People, donate. We need our guy to get past the media, to speak directly with the people.

    Donate what you can if you think he makes a good spokesman for all of us shlubs who the TV people piss on every day.

  • The Democrats need to do everything they can to hang everything that’s gone foul in the last decade around the neck of the republicans like a used toilet seat around the neck of a cow. Now is the time to cement the notion that republican policy and ideology are fundamentally flawed and should never be attempted again. It might seem that a lot of people “get it” right now but Americans have notoriously short memories and our minds are malleable.

  • People, donate. We need our guy to get past the media, to speak directly with the people.

    Amen to that.

    That’s another lesson to be learned from Reagan, as diametrically opposed as he is to Obama politically. Reagan used loads of cash and his speech-making ability to bypass a critical press and win over voters. Obama can do the same.

    Donate early and often, people.

  • This isn’t news. Even the radical left-winger Bay Buchanan telescoped this one almost two months ago:

    In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps.

    This is probably why McCain can make an ass of himself day in and day out and no one seems particularly concerned. They recognize it’s not about him. And that Bumble McSurge plays along says leagues about his character. He must understand that if he wins, it’s only because he was effective in demonizing Obama. He is running the most cynical campaign in recent history – one steeped in contempt for the very people he hopes to govern.

  • Does the phrase “Be careful what you wish for?” come to mind here? I seem to remember McCain cashing in on Obama not having traveled abroad recently, and it seems to be backfiring as a result. If they want to make this about Obama, I say “bring it on”…

    McCain’s not going to able to win by just bashing Obama, which he appears to be trying to do.

  • Shalimar said:
    I think Americans already are comfortable with the background and experience of Barack Obama. More than that, this election is a test of whether the Republican smear machine is still capable of destroying their target’s reputation.

    Have you talked with people living outside of metropolitan areas? I keep hearing people say how they just aren’t comfortable with Obama. They’ll cite Obama’s “Muslim upbringing”, Rev. Wright’s comments (while seeing no disconnect between the two), Obama’s “elitist” views and his “connections with corrupt Chicago politics.”

    A lot of Americans want to vote for a father-figure as president. They’re looking for a reason to vote for the comfortable, affable white guy and the energetic black guy makes them nervous. So as long as the corporate controlled media is being “fair and balanced” instead of refuting the lies about Obama as soon as they’re brought up, people will have an excuse to vote for the white guy and still feel good about themselves.

    I agree with Zeitgeist, I want Obama to make Republican policies — Supply-side economics, privatization and deregulation — the central issue. Obama has the ability to do to the label “supply-sider” what conservatives did to “liberal” in the Eighties. Progressives won’t be able to move the country forward while Republicans are grabbing at their ankles trying to maintain the Republican status quo.

    Also, I’m worried that unless John McCain is completely discredited — I mean made a national laughing stock a la Adm. James Stockdale — the election will be close enough for Diebold to steal. (Call me paranoid if you want)
    http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Cybersecurity_expert_raises_allegations_of_2004_0717.html

  • My fervent desire is for the polls to stay relatively close, at least until McCain names a VP. If he starts lagging big-time, I suspect he’ll pick Huckabee – who is the one Republican who could tilt this thing in their favour. Sure, his ideas are batty – but as VP those won’t matter, all we’ll see is that charming personality, which scares the bejeebus outta me.

  • What this boils down to is that Obama could win the presidency fairly easily if he was willing to go negative. I think it’s pretty obvious that Obama is a very smart cookie, with some very smart aides, and this fact can’t have escaped him – he, like us, knows that McCain is a compromised dotard, whose only hope is to smear Obama all the way down the runway. And yet Obama stays on message, plays the defender role and plays it perfectly (well, almost).

    If he wins the election, this will be such a monumentally huge moment in American politics, not just because it will oust the old guard, not just because we will have our first-ever minority president, but because our candidate will have seen a choice between an idealistically pure but extremely difficult road to victory, and a compromised but easy one, and chosen correctly.

    That said, I think that the fact that McCain can’t campaign on his own credentials, that he’s going to go into the election with four and a half months of negative-campaign baggage will ultimately disgust enough of his would-be supporters to vote D. If Obama can stick to the high road, and continue to nail every issue, every event, every handshake… McCain won’t have a chance.

  • A Pyrrhic victory at best, then, and that’s not good going forward. Look what it’s going to cost. The meme has become that McCain is “safe” – how can it be that after eight years of rule by right wing ideologues, in the wake of all the damage they have done, that a tired old man, every bit as ignorant and incompetent as Bush, who plans to carry on these failed policies, is considered “safe” for chris sakes? McCain represents a compounded disaster.

    How can the American people ever learn that Reaganomics doesn’t work, that go-it-alone militarism can’t solve the world’s problems, that there is more to life than fighting a few thousand terrorists over the next century, that it’s time to serve the people instead of the millionaires and billionaires and greedy corporations?

    And Obama is risky? Okay, on a personal level I’ll buy that. Relatively young and inexperienced. But his ideas aren’t risky, his policies. They’re not even liberal by sensible standards, only by the yardstick that’s gotten pushed over to the right about thirty miles since Reagan ruled. There’s nothing revolutionary about what he’s proposing. Getting out of a quagmire we never should have gotten into? A health insurance plan that doesn’t upset the status-quo, or even mandate universal coverage? An alternative energy plan that proposes less spending over ten years than the Iraq debacle costs in a year? A foreign policy of diplomacy, engagement, cooperation in lieu of belligerence, aggression and militarism? A tax plan that restores a piddling 39% tax rate on billionaires? Hell, the economy had some of its finest years in the post World War II era with a 90% marginal rate on the fat cats.

    Come on, this is ridiculous. We’re probably going to win in November (although I’m not comfortably confident), but we’re not going to defeat the horror that the Republican Party represents because that’s not how the American people are going to view the election. They’re never going to learn how bad Bush and his policies were if we allow the media to define the contest as a referendum on Obama, and if the Democrats meekly submit, sacrificing principle just to get into the White House.

    No, this won’t do. Obama has to win because he has the right policies, and McCain has to lose because he represents a miserable, failed ideology.

  • I think the Reagan analogy is very good. Whether we like it or not, Obama is a different sort of candidate. He directly challenges a lot of conventional wisdom about who can and who cannot run for president—both by race/biography and by ideology. Candidates like that can only win in times like these (and 1980) when the electorate is very unsure and open to reexamining its old habits. Even then, the burden falls on the challenger to convince the electorate that he isn’t too different and scary to tolerate.

    There’s a good thing about all this though, and that’s that if Obama wins–and I think he will–he really will have changed the electorate. After Reagan won and managed not to nuke Russia for four years, the old argument that the right was too dangerous to have in charge never again worked the way it once had (remember the Daisy ad?). After Obama wins, if he wins, Republican fearmongering over race and whatever else they throw at Obama will be forever weakened. Because he isn’t going to turn over the White House to terrorists or take away white property to give it to blacks, and that will be obvious for everyone to see.

  • Democratic hopes that the year would turn into a referendum on Bush haven’t materialized at all.

    Haven’t materialized? let’s face it — this “failure to materialize” represents a failure, so far, in Democratic messenging (although we’re still, technically, not in the general, and there’s time to change by the conventions).

    Zeitgeist is right — Bush has ruined the Republican brand. The Obama campaign needs to walk and chew gum at the same time — prove Obama has what it takes, and tie McSame to Bush. The key obstacle, of course, is the so-called “liberal media” covering for McSame (no one’s been fired from CBS yet for their misleading editing job, have they?), but I’m convinced that the American people already realize these two points; they just need to internalize them.

  • Democratic hopes that the year would turn into a referendum on Bush haven’t materialized at all

    I think this misses the point. We are talking about change vs. not change, where “not change” is McCain. I think McCain has conceded that he is Bush III, and I think the country has already concluded that Bush III is not something anybody wants.

    Voters are probing Obama pretty closely because they are seriously considering him. There’s a decent chance that, like many primary voters, the more people see of BHO the better they like him, with the result that this turns into the rout it really ought to be.

    It’s not that this isn’t a ‘referendum on Bush.” It’s just that the referendum has already been held and the clear results are in.

  • Mark B. said: “Does the phrase “Be careful what you wish for?” come to mind here? I seem to remember McCain cashing in on Obama not having traveled abroad recently, and it seems to be backfiring as a result. If they want to make this about Obama, I say “bring it on”…”

    The funny thing is they are also complaining that the press is paying more attention to Obama than McCain. You’d think they’d make up their minds.

    Of course, that requires they actually have minds to make up.

  • “I suspect he’ll pick Huckabee – who is the one Republican who could tilt this thing in their favour. Sure, his ideas are batty – but as VP those won’t matter, all we’ll see is that charming personality, which scares the bejeebus outta me.”

    “Someone just pointed a gun at him.” Huckabee won’t be the VP. Anyway, he wants to have his own show on Fox News.

  • I jut heard it again. On MSNBC: “It’s a referendum of Obama.” This is BS because it is a referendum on GOP rule, which has run us into the ditch on every variable. But if they want to go there, then fine. We can easily argue that more people love or like Barack over McCain. But all but the most die-hard, hard core of the Bushies from rad-con (radical conservative) hell must admit that Barack is with most Americans on the issues; he has the judgment, the ability and the positions on the issues to lead us where we need to go; and, we already know how wrong John McCain has been (on everything), so anything is better than McCain. He’ll lead us out of privateer hell and back to fiscal responsibility and honesty. Finally, the more-than-five-dozen major reversals (more than flip-flops) of John McCain must be put in adds. Use the Carpetbagger’s list. Then, bring on the McCainiacs. They are so done. PS We also need ads with the McCain meltdown (serious errors) amidst befuddlement, to show Americans the real John McCain.

  • The good news about this is that after Senator Obama wins, he’s going to have a true majority behind him of people who want him to lead. He’ll hafve the trust of people.

    There are two other presidents besides Reagan who had to convince the voters they were the right ones to lead the country at thetime, in the way Obama is doing so now: Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

    I for one – as a result of what I hear every day talking to people across the country – think Obama is going to pass this test with flying colors just as Lincoln and Roosevelt did, and (unlike Reagan who was all image and no content) he’s going to stand up well to comparisons with these predecessors when people look back on the Obama administration as the beginning of Americans taking back their country. (I could be wrong, it could be a friend is right and it’s too late already and he is Claudius, who weas preceded by Caligula and followed by Nero, in which case I am glad I’m as old as I am)

  • SaintZak

    Yeah, I agree that Huck’s statement should take him out of the running. But, if they get desperate enough (i.e. they start trailing in the double digits) I could see them throwing the Evangelical Hail Mary.

    I’m probably being silly, but still, it’s something to consider.

    Hark –

    I’m guessing that the “risk” aspect of Obama is that he’s not an old white dude.

  • “I love him, I think he’s going to win. I like that he’s opening up conversations all over the world. I think he’s smart and charismatic. I think it’s important to have a president that people actually like. I know my kids want to be like him. I think he has a great message. It’ll be nice when people like America again.” — Pamela Andersen on Obama

  • Tom Cleaver said:
    The good news about this is that after Senator Obama wins, he’s going to have a true majority behind him of people who want him to lead. He’ll hafve the trust of people.

    Obama to Bush: This is what political capital looks like.

  • A LOT of great comments here, but the best one was Jesse’s (emphasis added):

    “If he wins the election, this will be such a monumentally huge moment in American politics, not just because it will oust the old guard, not just because we will have our first-ever minority president, but because our candidate will have seen a choice between an idealistically pure but extremely difficult road to victory, and a compromised but easy one, and chosen correctly.”

    This is the point. Obama could have knocked Hillary out of the primaries before Pennsylvania if he’d used the Lincoln bedroom, the Rich pardon, DADT and DOMA, and other legitimate baggage she carried. He, rightly, chose not to, and won anyway — because people voted FOR him, and not just AGAINST her. The result was that he can have her working with him in the primary, and with him in the Senate after his inauguration. (It was also a great tactic because it made her attacks on him look bad.)

    He’s now running a similar campaign against McCain, and it is working very well, thank you. (To repeat a line I haven’t used in a while “McCain has no up side.”) Remember, it is still only July — and, because the campaign isn’t turning out to be a ‘sliming contest’ — yes, Obama COULD win that too — people are still following politics, and Obama is already ahead in most states.

    “People are still following politics’ and the campaigns — in summer, when baseball, the Olympics, and the lure of hot days at the beach usually cause people to ignore them. Do you realize how unprecedented this is?

    We still have the conventions to go — and who will come off better there? We still have the debates — when people will see the two of them together, and compare a doddering old man to the most attractive and charismatic candidate since Kennedy. We still have the Congressional races to start heating up (in some cases the candidates haven’t even been chosen) — and that’s where the Republican ‘brand’ will be hammered repeatedly and Democrats will be able to attack the many Republican candidates who will be afraid to even put (R) after their names. (I used the term ‘top hats’ to mean the converse of ‘coattails’ where the top of the ticket gets a boost from the down ticket candidates. Is there any Republican candidate who will help McCain in this way? There are a lot of Democrats whose popularity — or the unpopularity of their incumbent opponents — will help Obama.

    But, most of all, because he isn’t calling all Republicans ‘thugs’ or ‘criminals’ he will be able to ‘reach across the aisle’ and get votes from some of them on issues that matter. (Again, remember that he was even able to work with Tom Coburn on government transparency.)

    Not important? The hell it ain’t, because — as his legislative career showed — the more votes he gets on an issue, the stronger the bill becomes and the less likely it will be that later Congresses will overturn it. Yes, he loses the advantage — that Republicans love — of ‘setting up’ a no vote as a future political advantage, but the fact is that his campaign – hallelujah — isn’t about politics, it’s about governing.

  • This really is remarkable, that the campaign is so much about Obama and so little about McCain. It’s a sign of how weak that not only McCain, but the entire Republican party, have become; they are an afterthought. In essence, the voters are done with the GOP, and at this point are looking hard at the future (embodied by Obama) and are coming to terms with jumping into it.

    In recent years Presidential politics in the U.S. has settled into something of a rut. The Kerry electoral map wasn’t so different from the Gore electoral map, which wasn’t so different from the Clinton electoral map. The issues discussed haven’t changed much either – we got the same Atwater/Rove crap from the right, and the same triangulated almost-liberalism from the Dems (with a dollop of neocon warmongering to show that they were “serious”).

    I think we’re about to see an historic change, in part because conditions demand it, in part because the country is ready for it. McCain is inevitably the candidate of stasis, and if there were ever an election where stasis is a loser, this is it. When election day rolls around, those voters who haven’t already will realize that the you can’t stop the future from arriving, and they’ll take the plunge with Obama.

    Here on the blogs there’s a huge emphasis on McCain and whatever nonsense his campaign is generating today. It’s useful to keep an eye on the enemy, but in this case I think paying too much attention to McCain misses the forest for the trees. For most of the electorate, McCain barely exists. That’s not a winning position. No amount of carping about Obama will make it one.

  • This election will be about the Democratic nominee. That’s how it’s been in the age of Rove. 2004 was about Kerry’s fitness for office. 2000: Was Gore honest? The Republican is always the default choice. “If you’re uncomfortable with the Democrat, you can vote Republican.”

    Obama can still win with the focus all on him, but he shouldn’t have to. Democrats need to figure out how to get the media attention off their candidate and onto the GOP. That was probably the best thing the Clinton campaign did in 1992. While there was still plenty on Clinton’s character, GHWB’s flaws mattered too,

  • Democrats need to force an examination of McCain’s “vision,” plans for the country, solutions to the enormous problems that await.

    All he’s doing is attacking Obama and looking feeble, but the MSM are ignoring the feebleness and being pretty negative in their examination of Barack Obama and downright mean about Michelle.

    Where’s the beef, John Sidney McCain?

  • I think people are looking hard at Obama because it is almost inevitable that he will be President and they are curious. The poll that was cited on Hardball (I think) last night said that 60% said that Obama was mainstream while for McCain it was in the 20s. They did say by a large margin that Obama was “riskier”. I take that to mean that they just don’t know what will happen if he gets elected.

    Most people aren’t policy wonks and it makes it that much harder to judge Obama in that he is that different from any candidate we’ve had in recent history (and a lot of people don’t really remember Reagan much less earlier). He’s black, but also white. He was born to a Muslim father, but is Christian. He is young, but also speaks wisely. He’s a Democrat but doesn’t fit the “liberal” propaganda caricature. He looks and acts strong, but isn’t demeaning. And he really doesn’t have much history on women’s issues. He speaks like he understands the blue collar squeeze, but he’s Harvard educated. He just defies pigeon-holing.

    Republicans are like the devil we know. Look how many women stay with abusers because of the fear of the unknown. We are a fearful nation these days. We’ve been heavily indoctrinated to be afraid all the time. I hope we can break out of this syndrome…

  • This will be over when the debates start. Once voters see McCain and Obama standing side by side and taking turns speaking, McCain will fall off the ship. McCain will, as usual, mumble words and facts and look like he just accidentally wandered out of the retirement home. Forget about words or substance, undecided voters will feel the need to get him back to his room so he can finish his tapioca pudding.

  • Always hopeful said: “Republicans are like the devil we know. Look how many women stay with abusers because of the fear of the unknown.”

    Brrr! That sent a shiver down my spine.

  • Had Hillary Clinton been nominated, the focus would be mostly on McCain and Bush (IMHO). We picked our meat and our poison. Let’s get over it and deal with it!

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