I raise this question not because I'm convinced the answer is
yes, but because I think it is worth considering whether the
electorate has shifted in a way in which what worked for
Republicans in past election cycles will no longer work this year.
For several elections, Republicans have been able to beat
Democrats, in part, by portraying them as liberal, anti-American
elitists who hate the military and who are out of touch with
average Americans. This strategy was effective as late as 2004
against John Kerry. But the beginning of a possible shift was
noticeable in 2006, when many conservative pundits (including
myself) expected that Kerry's comments about those who join the
military being uneducated would hurt the Democrats on Election Day.
We will never know for sure, and obviously he wasn't on the ballot
himself, but there's certainly nothing to suggest that it had any
impact on the race.
During this election cycle, conservatives have consistently
underestimated Barack Obama. There have been numerous occasions in
which Obama said things that conservatives were convinced would be
damaging, even fatal, to his campaign, and so far they have been
proven wrong every time. When Obama said in the YouTube debate he
would meet with a rogues gallery of foreign leaders, many
conservatives thought he shot himself in the foot, but he turned
the uproar to his advantage; when the Jeremiah Wright controversy
broke out, many conservatives predicted it could finish him, but
there's not much evidence it did anything other than cause a
short-lived dip in the polls; and most recently, many
conservatives, including myself, believed that his elitist remarks
in San Francisco would damage him, but so far there isn't
conclusive evidence to suggest it has. While the ARG poll in Pennsylvania did show
Hillary Clinton opening up a 20-point lead in the wake of the
comments, a Quinnipiac poll released today shows virtually no
movement in the state from the prior poll, even if you look at
different demographic groups that one would think would be the most
turned off by such statements. For instance, Obama's numbers
actually slightly improved among Reagan Democrats.
Now, one could argue (and I actually have argued), that all of
these controversies that Obama has been able to skate past in the
primary will come back to haunt him in the general. But maybe not.
The Gallup daily tracking poll released
yesterday showed no impact to Obama's national numbers, not only
against Clinton, but against John McCain in the general.
Furthermore, if you go back to the 2004 race, remember that one of
the things that caused Howard Dean's dramatic collapse was when
he said that Saddam Hussein's
capture didn't make America any safer. Even though Democratic
primary voters were decidedly against the war, the comments made
him look like a radical fringe character who was unelectable, so
the party went with Kerry, the war hero. The point is that in the
electoral environment of four years ago, even in the Democratic
primary, many of Obama's controversies would likely have doomed his
candidacy.
I have no idea what this fall will bring, and perhaps the GOP's
plans to portray Obama as just another liberal in new packaging
will pay off like it has in the past. Or perhaps as the result of
the war, the economy, and overall frustration with President Bush,
it's a whole new ballgame that conservatives haven't yet adjusted
to.
topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Environment, Military
