This John McCain wisecrack sums up Barack Obama's problems as
well as anything I've seen: "Taking in my opponent's performances
is a little like watching a big summer blockbuster and an hour in,
realizing that all the best scenes were in the trailer you saw last
fall." Obama was able to tap into a lot sentiment in the country in
favor of turning the page on the Bush administration, moving beyond
red state versus blue state, and transcending race. His early
opposition to the Iraq war was crucial in the Democratic primaries.
But once he drew people in, Obama didn't have a second act. There
wasn't any there there, and what substance there was undercut key
parts of his narrative (that he had moved beyond race and the old
left-right divide). Jeremiah Wright was devastating. "Bittergate"
was devastating. The trip to Europe, I suspect, was on balance not
very helpful. And pro-choice absolutism isn't going to be very
helpful either.
When you dig into some of this polling data, it seems that
Obama's liberalism is starting to moblize conservatives while
either his feints to the center or inability to effectively hit
back at McCain is starting to annoy the liberal Democratic base.
That's frankly not a very good place for the Democratic nominee to
be. One also wonders to what extent independent voters are aware
that Democrats control Congress and are consciously looking for
divided government. That said, there are still several potential
game-changers yet to happen in this race, neither candidate is at
50 percent, Obama had a lousy summer in 2007 as well, and there
will come a time that McCain is subject to all the spending
constraints of the public financing system while Obama is not.
To put things another way, as I've said before, if the Democrats
can't win this presidential election, they should really consider
disbanding as a political party.
topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Iraq
