NOTE: Carl is a registered independent.
If you simply heard people on the street, or you are a listener and watcher of the rhetoric on some of pundit shows and were an unbiased observer, you would come away wondering just two months ago how John McCain could even be competitive in a general election race again Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, the election is not played out on television, radio talk shows or internet blogs.
The “thought police” known as these pundits (also known as the political media) try to steer their specific agenda onto the public. If you are naïve, you will listen and choose a side. If you are rational, you will take their views for what they are.
Meaningless.
This brings to the presidential race between senators McCain and Obama, where Election Day is less than 90 days away. Obama, widely viewed by many as having essentially locked up the presidency when he defeated Hilary Clinton (with a little help from John Edwards) in June, does not have the pronounced lead that most people widely believe.
In most polls, it shows that Obama holds a lead of anywhere between two and five percentage points (within a polls margin of error). An absolute stunner when you consider this election season was supposed to be a death march for any Republican who dared to run for the vacant presidency left behind by George Bush.
You would think that everything would be against McCain in this election, and it is. From the sluggish economy, to the meteoric rise of oil prices. The housing crisis to unemployment. From the rising cost of living to the war in Iraq.
Facing those type of hurdles and also the Democratic machine that has had four years (in reality, eight) to build up their forces in addition to Obama’s unbelievable fund raising machine (to reach $500 million shortly), you would figure that McCain would not be able to compete and would lose in a landslide.
Somehow, through everything so far, he has stayed afloat. Early projections in each state show the election will be very close, which is all McCain could ask for going into the election.
In 2004, John Kerry was not running on his own merit, but rather tried to make it a referendum on incumbent President Bush then about anything relating to him.
Here in 2008, McCain is implementing a similar strategy. Though I personally am a McCain supporter, this election is not about him whether he likes it or not. It is about Obama and his meteoric rise to rock star persona and celebrity in contrast to “the old fart”.
The media has played into this as well. Watch the news or read the papers and one would think that only one person is running in the race unopposed. Is their media bias to favor Obama? Of course. To suggest otherwise is to not be paying attention, blind, or just ignorant. We all know he is the new face on the political scene. It was only four years ago when no one knew him and he made that dazzling speech in Boston at the Democratic National Convention.
This is why the media fawns over him. There is no shame in admitting that. He is a young, energetic man who is a terrific orator and has been able to put his talent to good work. Does the fact that he is biracial (yes, his mother is Caucasian for those who conveniently ignore that - including sometimes Obama himself) help him immensely? Absolutely. There is a lot of “getting to know you” with Obama that is still going on.
For the most part, many people know about McCain. He has been in the Senate for over 20 years and is a Vietnam veteran who was a POW for several years. He ran for President back in 2000 and lost to Bush. In reality, he is “old news”.
He has been universally accepted by both parties during his time in the Senate. Suddenly, when he ran for the country’s highest office, something changed. A vocal minority in the GOP did not think he was “Republican enough” for some fringe bases of the party, and thus voiced and put their support in protest towards Mike Huckabee, a loony dressed up in a suit and tie. And also Mitt Romney, who’s best attribute was being able to seamlessly flip flop positions on a dime, talk his way out of it and actually get people to believe him.
As it became clearer that McCain would be the presumptive nominee, the Democrats and media that referred to him as a “maverick” took a different tune. No longer was he that guy. Now, he was being lumped in with President Bush as if to suggest he has been his right hand man all these years. The “playbook” for beating him has been to suggest that by electing him would be to in essence give a third term to Bush. While the last four years of Bush have ranged from bad to downright awful, to compare the two would be like comparing Lindsay Lohan and Rosie O'Donnell and finding their only similarity is that they are women.
Think about this for a second…
If the approval ratings for the President are so low right now (less than 30%), and McCain is supposed to be dubbed as “another Bush”, ask yourself the following question:
Why he is only trailing Obama in most polls by such a small margin?
This is not just in national polls, but also in individual “battleground” states. It appears that a large percentage of people are either strictly voting the party line, do not believe in Obama, or many people really believe in what McCain is saying.
It was funny four years ago when President Bush defeated John Kerry and received the most amounts of votes ever in a presidential election (Kerry received the second most). As I would hear people talk about it, they would each say to each other and in group sessions the following:
“I don’t know anyone that voted for Bush”.
Well, 62 million people did.
Perhaps you may want to get out more and expand that circle of friends.
A similar scenario is likely to play out again in November. If McCain were to win, echoes of “who voted for him?” are set to rain down. Cries of racism and fear mongering are in reserve in the event that he actually pulls this off.
Back in the spring, I suggested if McCain were win the election this year in the worst year ever for a Republican to be running for president, it would be the greatest presidential election upset since Harry Truman beat Thomas Dewey in 1948 (known for the infamous “Dewey Defeats Truman” front page Chicago Tribune headline).
Listen to Obama very carefully and you will see a replica of Dewey. See McCain and you will see similarities to Truman. That election was 60 years ago. Here we are in 2008 and the same type of situation may be playing out.
Nothing else has come close since.
To use a football analogy, Obama is at the one-yard line with four chances to get into the end zone. All he has to do is push ahead thirty-six inches to score a touchdown and win the game (in the case, win the election) without turning the ball over.
McCain is looking to make an improbable goal line stand to pull off the upset.
Everything has been lined up for Obama to win and McCain not to have a chance. As of right now, he is running nearly neck-in-neck with the media anointed candidate as we go into the conventions and upcoming debates.
He realistically never could have expected that scenario.
You think that does not scare his opponent?
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