John McCain lost the election Sept. 24 and Barack Obama will be
the next president of the United States. Nothing that is likely to
happen between now and Nov. 4 can change this outcome.
Since Sept. 24, polls have increasingly pointed toward a
Democratic landslide. Obama not only has an outside-the-margin
advantage in nearly every national poll, but leads strongly in enough
battleground states that if the election were
held today, the Electoral College vote would be 353 for the
Democrat, 185 for the Republican. Even Karl Rove's electoral
map now
shows Obama winning.
Two weeks ago, after polls first began showing a trend toward
Obama, I warned
against a Republican panic. The candidates had not yet met in their
first debate and it was possible that a strong performance by
McCain might shift the momentum back toward the GOP candidate.
On Sept. 24, however, the McCain campaign suddenly freaked out.
The Arizona senator
announced that he was suspending his campaign activity, seeking
a postponement of the Sept. 26 debate, and flying off to Washington
to push for the Wall Street bailout bill.
WHAT HAPPENED? McCain himself described the decision in terms
befitting his "Country First" campaign slogan: "Americans across
our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington
have prevented us from addressing our national challenges. Now is
our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again
capable of leading this country."
Reporters and pundits refused to take that high-minded
declaration at face value. On the front page of the next day's
Washington Post, Dan Balz suggested this latest "maverick" move
would be seen by voters as "a reckless act by an impetuous and
struggling politician," and quoted a GOP strategist bluntly calling
it "desperate and nuts."
The Obama campaign immediately rejected a postponement of the
first debate. McCain ally Sen. Lindsey Graham had suggested switching dates with the first
vice-presidential debate, and some saw this as a Republican attempt
to gain more time for GOP running mate Sarah Palin to prepare for
her meeting with Joe Biden.
Whatever the motive, McCain's bid to delay the debate was a
non-starter, thus destroying his message that the financial crisis
was such an emergency as to require the suspension of politics as
usual.
POLITICS AS USUAL was strongly against the Republican nominee. An
L.A. Times poll found 55 percent opposed a taxpayer-funded
financial bailout; an Associated Press poll found only 30 percent supporting the plan proposed
by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Why such widespread opposition? According to a CNN poll, 77 percent believed the bailout would
benefit those who had caused the financial problems in the first
place.
As with immigration reform in 2006 and 2007, McCain's
pro-bailout stance made him the most prominent advocate of an
unpopular proposal. His attempt to push for quick passage of the
measure was rebuffed. A Sept. 25 White House conference reportedly turned into a "contentious shouting
match," and the bailout bill was defeated Sept. 29 in the House,
with most Republicans voting against it.
The measure passed four days later with strong majorities in
both houses of Congress, but the delay effectively prevented McCain
from enhancing his profile as a bipartisan leader.
Instead, by siding with the president on an issue that voters
identified as favoritism toward Wall Street, the Republican
cemented in the public mind a message that Team Obama had been
promoting for months: A vote for McCain would mean a third term for
George W. Bush.
ANY CHANCE that the first presidential debate would reverse Obama's
momentum quickly evaporated. Before Sept. 24, both the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls had shown the race a
statistical tie; by Thursday, Obama had surged to a 7-point lead in
both polls. Nor did the vice-presidential debate between Biden and
Palin change that trend -- with three days of post-debate polling
completed Monday, both Gallup and Rasmussen showed the Democrat
ahead by 8 points.
Thursday, it was reported that the McCain campaign was pulling
out of Michigan -- a swing state that once seemed the Republican's
best shot at flipping a Democratic "blue" state. To those who have
closely followed this year's campaign, the abandonment of Michigan
was tantamount to surrendering any chance of a Republican victory
on Nov. 4.
The acknowledgement of reality is not a panic. And the attempt
of some Republicans to encourage miracle comeback fantasies serves only to distract conservatives
from the task ahead.
It was McCain's outspoken support for the unpopular bailout -- a
big-government intervention incompatible with conservative economic
philosophy -- that handed the election to Obama. The bailout failed
as politics and, as evidenced by Monday's selloff on Wall Street, it also failed as
policy.
Democrats are already rushing to promote Obama's coming victory as a mandate for
their "progressive" agenda. Conservatives need to begin telling the
true story of McCain's defeat, which must be admitted before it can
be explained.
topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, NATO, Immigration
