Politics
I am a political junkie. This is a new development for me; I have mostly ignored politics as a bad business filled with bad people.
Now I find myself checking poll sites multiple times a day, scouring the political commentary sites for new analysis and new events, and running projections of the electoral college and the outcome of Senate races.
However, for fear of looking like a chump, I haven't made any predictions. There will be a lot of people looking like chumps in a month, and I didn't want to be one of them. Last night's debate, though, was a clear signal that my long-standing prediction was nearly an inevitability:
Obama has won this race.
The numbers are very clear. The critical states for McCain to take, at this point, are all well past the point of 'close race' and into 'solid Democrat' territory. In Colorado, Obama is up by almost 7 points. In Iowa, over 12 points. New Mexico, almost 8 points. Virginia (Virginia!) has him over 7 points. And that doesn't even count states that should be solid McCain territory like North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana and Nevada, where Obama has a slight lead. (numbers from http://www.fivethirtyeight.com).
There simply isn't enough time left for McCain to turn that many states red again.
Right now, I see a lot of conservative commentators wobbling between denial and resignation. On one hand, they're arguing that a month is a long time, and anything could happen -- which is true, for what that's worth, though not particularly useful. Obama is not going to make any major mistakes in the next month, and without a major mistake, McCain simply can't steer the narrative in his favor. On the other hand, they're claiming (as the National Review recently did) that McCain was not conservative enough to make the case for conservatism; alternately, they're arguing (incomprehensibly) that Palin would have been a better choice for the head of the ticket (no, I'm not kidding; I've read that argument).
After the election, there will be a lot of hand-wringing and analysis of where the GOP went wrong. I fully expect that to focus -- as it already has in pre-Obama-victory warm-up commentary -- on the economic crash. I think that if Republicans buy this line, they're making a terrible strategic error.
I've been watching these numbers every single day, watching trend lines and political news and day-by-day polling. I've been looking for tipping points, where the momentum of the campaign clearly shifts to one side or the other.
And while it's true that the economy has not helped McCain, it's not because Americans trust Democrats to handle the economy. It's because McCain's entire campaign is built on John McCain, not on any compelling plan or narrative. Whether you think there's substance behind the Obama mantra of 'change' or not, it's a defining narrative: the Democratic campaign is defined by something other than Obama himself. McCain lacks that. As a result, when events forced the candidates to address a major new issue, Obama could fold that new issue into his existing narrative. McCain couldn't.
The economy didn't do McCain any favors, but let's be clear here: McCain was losing this race long before his brief spike in September, and long before the economy's tailspin became front-page news. Futures markets have been calling this race for Obama since mid-May, and the 'convention bounce' helped McCain for all of 2 weeks. So why did the convention bounce exist at all? And why did it fail? The answer is the same in both cases: Sarah Palin.
When McCain brought her on, it was a bizarre, interesting twist. She was clearly incompetent from the beginning, and clearly unready to campaign for VP (much less actually hold the office). But suddenly McCain's campaign was about something other than McCain. It was also about an attractive far-right woman with blue-collar appeal. McCain's campaign could now fairly claim to be about working class America. This is a narrative that, if pursued, could have sustained them past the initial convention bounce. (That they didn't pursue it strongly enough is another problem, but not the one I'm going to address.) This new narrative was the source of the September spike in McCain's numbers.
Unfortunately, Palin was a sword with two edges. She's clearly smart, but she's only a good politician in the prom-queen/class-president way; she coasts on her personality and appearance. Rich Lowry's now infamous paean to her smile on NRO's blog, The Corner, is a perfect example. During her debate she said nothing of substance and ignored multiple questions openly, making no effort to even tie her prepared remarks back to the original point. And yet Lowry -- and the NRO crowd generally, with a couple of notable and reassuring exceptions -- thought she not only performed well, but actually *won* that debate. Observe that the only people who believe that's true are hard-right conservative pundits; undecideds and independents thought, in a majority, that she lost.
She's frankly an embarrassment to conservatism, the GOP, and John McCain. Anyone who claims otherwise is deluding themselves. Naturally, it doesn't help that McCain aggressively alienated the media prior to Palin's appearance on his stage, which limits the degree to which she's able to receive a friendly reception from any major news outlet. McCain poisoned the media against his campaign, and as a result the coverage of Palin has been relentlessly negative.
But even without that alienation, she's still in way over her head with a lead weight tied to one ankle. If you re-watch the Couric interviews, and watch only Couric -- skip Palin's answers -- you'll see someone being about as gentle as an interviewer can be without descending into Hannitty-esque pandering. Couric was considerate, respectful, careful, and went out of her way to give Palin opportunities to speak her mind and plan her answers. Palin still flubbed.
I can't even blame Palin for flubbing, for her vigorous incompetence, for her inability to function under pressure of this kind. She couldn't have known what she was in for, and nothing she's done up to this point could have prepared her for the realities of a presidential campaign. I blame only one person for Palin's mis-steps: John McCain, for choosing her in the first place. When he chose her, he did a great disservice to his campaign, to his base, and most of all to Sarah Palin herself.
When the history of this campaign is written, it will be tempting for conservatives to attribute their loss to the economy. They should resist this temptation, because it's not going to help them win any future elections. There is a lesson to be learned here, and it's an important lesson. There is a proper place to assign the blame, and it is not the economy. It is John McCain, and only John McCain, who is at fault here; it is John McCain who is to blame for the almost-unshakable Democratic lead that's persisted since May.
And the final nail was not the bailout and the laughable campaign 'suspension'; it was the nomination of Sarah Palin.
(ObDisclaimer: anything could happen, Obama could give birth to a two-headed cow, a meteor could strike Cleveland, your mileage may vary, etc., etc.. All predictions carry with them the risk of being gruesomely wrong. But with Obama at 75% at http://www.intrade.com and 90% at fivethirtyeight, I'm fairly comfortable with this particular prediction.)
Now I find myself checking poll sites multiple times a day, scouring the political commentary sites for new analysis and new events, and running projections of the electoral college and the outcome of Senate races.
However, for fear of looking like a chump, I haven't made any predictions. There will be a lot of people looking like chumps in a month, and I didn't want to be one of them. Last night's debate, though, was a clear signal that my long-standing prediction was nearly an inevitability:
Obama has won this race.
The numbers are very clear. The critical states for McCain to take, at this point, are all well past the point of 'close race' and into 'solid Democrat' territory. In Colorado, Obama is up by almost 7 points. In Iowa, over 12 points. New Mexico, almost 8 points. Virginia (Virginia!) has him over 7 points. And that doesn't even count states that should be solid McCain territory like North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana and Nevada, where Obama has a slight lead. (numbers from http://www.fivethirtyeight.com).
There simply isn't enough time left for McCain to turn that many states red again.
Right now, I see a lot of conservative commentators wobbling between denial and resignation. On one hand, they're arguing that a month is a long time, and anything could happen -- which is true, for what that's worth, though not particularly useful. Obama is not going to make any major mistakes in the next month, and without a major mistake, McCain simply can't steer the narrative in his favor. On the other hand, they're claiming (as the National Review recently did) that McCain was not conservative enough to make the case for conservatism; alternately, they're arguing (incomprehensibly) that Palin would have been a better choice for the head of the ticket (no, I'm not kidding; I've read that argument).
After the election, there will be a lot of hand-wringing and analysis of where the GOP went wrong. I fully expect that to focus -- as it already has in pre-Obama-victory warm-up commentary -- on the economic crash. I think that if Republicans buy this line, they're making a terrible strategic error.
I've been watching these numbers every single day, watching trend lines and political news and day-by-day polling. I've been looking for tipping points, where the momentum of the campaign clearly shifts to one side or the other.
And while it's true that the economy has not helped McCain, it's not because Americans trust Democrats to handle the economy. It's because McCain's entire campaign is built on John McCain, not on any compelling plan or narrative. Whether you think there's substance behind the Obama mantra of 'change' or not, it's a defining narrative: the Democratic campaign is defined by something other than Obama himself. McCain lacks that. As a result, when events forced the candidates to address a major new issue, Obama could fold that new issue into his existing narrative. McCain couldn't.
The economy didn't do McCain any favors, but let's be clear here: McCain was losing this race long before his brief spike in September, and long before the economy's tailspin became front-page news. Futures markets have been calling this race for Obama since mid-May, and the 'convention bounce' helped McCain for all of 2 weeks. So why did the convention bounce exist at all? And why did it fail? The answer is the same in both cases: Sarah Palin.
When McCain brought her on, it was a bizarre, interesting twist. She was clearly incompetent from the beginning, and clearly unready to campaign for VP (much less actually hold the office). But suddenly McCain's campaign was about something other than McCain. It was also about an attractive far-right woman with blue-collar appeal. McCain's campaign could now fairly claim to be about working class America. This is a narrative that, if pursued, could have sustained them past the initial convention bounce. (That they didn't pursue it strongly enough is another problem, but not the one I'm going to address.) This new narrative was the source of the September spike in McCain's numbers.
Unfortunately, Palin was a sword with two edges. She's clearly smart, but she's only a good politician in the prom-queen/class-president way; she coasts on her personality and appearance. Rich Lowry's now infamous paean to her smile on NRO's blog, The Corner, is a perfect example. During her debate she said nothing of substance and ignored multiple questions openly, making no effort to even tie her prepared remarks back to the original point. And yet Lowry -- and the NRO crowd generally, with a couple of notable and reassuring exceptions -- thought she not only performed well, but actually *won* that debate. Observe that the only people who believe that's true are hard-right conservative pundits; undecideds and independents thought, in a majority, that she lost.
She's frankly an embarrassment to conservatism, the GOP, and John McCain. Anyone who claims otherwise is deluding themselves. Naturally, it doesn't help that McCain aggressively alienated the media prior to Palin's appearance on his stage, which limits the degree to which she's able to receive a friendly reception from any major news outlet. McCain poisoned the media against his campaign, and as a result the coverage of Palin has been relentlessly negative.
But even without that alienation, she's still in way over her head with a lead weight tied to one ankle. If you re-watch the Couric interviews, and watch only Couric -- skip Palin's answers -- you'll see someone being about as gentle as an interviewer can be without descending into Hannitty-esque pandering. Couric was considerate, respectful, careful, and went out of her way to give Palin opportunities to speak her mind and plan her answers. Palin still flubbed.
I can't even blame Palin for flubbing, for her vigorous incompetence, for her inability to function under pressure of this kind. She couldn't have known what she was in for, and nothing she's done up to this point could have prepared her for the realities of a presidential campaign. I blame only one person for Palin's mis-steps: John McCain, for choosing her in the first place. When he chose her, he did a great disservice to his campaign, to his base, and most of all to Sarah Palin herself.
When the history of this campaign is written, it will be tempting for conservatives to attribute their loss to the economy. They should resist this temptation, because it's not going to help them win any future elections. There is a lesson to be learned here, and it's an important lesson. There is a proper place to assign the blame, and it is not the economy. It is John McCain, and only John McCain, who is at fault here; it is John McCain who is to blame for the almost-unshakable Democratic lead that's persisted since May.
And the final nail was not the bailout and the laughable campaign 'suspension'; it was the nomination of Sarah Palin.
(ObDisclaimer: anything could happen, Obama could give birth to a two-headed cow, a meteor could strike Cleveland, your mileage may vary, etc., etc.. All predictions carry with them the risk of being gruesomely wrong. But with Obama at 75% at http://www.intrade.com and 90% at fivethirtyeight, I'm fairly comfortable with this particular prediction.)