It began for me when I heard a debate watcher say (something like), “It doesn’t matter whom we nominate. The Democrats will win.”
The two major candidates for the Democrats have forced each other further to the left, bad politics generally, and still have not dealt with changing public perceptions of Iraq. The Surge keeps working and Iraq keeps improving. Political goals in the nation of Iraq are difficult, but some are being met now and more will be met as the weeks pass.
What if the Surge works? Really works? The single political figure who pressed hardest for the surge, John McCain, will reap a huge benefit if independents agree with Republicans that Iraq is a winnable war. Like a mortgage holder clinging to an upside down house payment who sees real estate rebounding in the neighborhood, there looks to be real hope the investment will pay off.
What if the economy also avoids recession as seems perfectly possible?
Democrats have been running an “its evening in America” campaign, but most Americans may not feel that the 2008 election is the first time they have felt political pride in their nation. They may realize that whatever happens in November, George Bush will not be president in January. One need not buy a flame thrower in order to get the snow of the drive way in spring.
Democrats expect a triumphal march and a hard fought and sharp struggle may bring on the testiness and temper that short circuits any campaign. They are about to nominate one of the least tested candidates in American history.
Clinton is finished after the debate. She needed to change the race, but did not. She cannot win without cheating, but would win nothing worth cheating to get.
At this point, Clinton can only win the nomination by destroying the Democrat Party by stealing a win from Obama through dirty tricks. As a result, she cannot win a nomination worth winning. Clinton cannot win the popular vote and is unlikely to sweep the remaining big states. She cannot match Obama in money, enthusiasm, or wins. What does she have?
What did she ever have? Clinton was always a weak candidate with no obvious skills beyond her husband’s name. There is no chance she would have been the “favorite” if her spouse had the same political skills as she. She was always the Democrat most likely to lose the general and only this horrible Republican year made it possible to imagine her winning.
Her polling now makes McCain look like a landslide winner.
That leaves Obama, but tonights debate should worry Democrats.
Obama showed again that he is not great debater. McCain is a far worse communicator in general, but in my experience the dogged and persistent style of a McCain-type can wear well against a highly skilled “speech maker” in a debate. McCan can use a rapid delivery, a series of bursts of sentences, to break up the oratory. He should pepper Obama with questions, while giving his own questions.
Obama gives a great set speech, but he has not good at the killer debate line. Hillary Clinton lacked the discipline to make Obama pay for any debate errors. As a debater, John McCain has only one trick, the ironically irenic jab, but it is the perfect attack for Obama’s purple prose.
The Clinton machine turned out to be HD-DVD. It had good establishment support, but an inferior, and markedly less attractive, product to sell. As a result, Obama made it through the primaries unscathed, but also relatively untested.
Democrats are sure they will win, but the polls do not justify their optimism. They see Obama-mania sweeping the land, but he stays nicely under fifty percent in most polls. The latest polls has him at 47.7 percent and this is at the end of his honeymoon with the press. He is five points up on McCain, but McCain has hardly begun to fight.
Will Iowa like Obama’s gun control policy?
Will Ohio like his views on partial birth abortion?
Will Pennsylvania’s seniors like more government control of medicine?
Nobody knows, because Clinton has yet to sustain any attack on Obama. She needs his voters and so she cannot go “too far” and turn them off. If you are going to throw a political punch, half-hearted is worse than not trying. McCain will swing hard and the Obama of tonight’s debate should justify no overconfidence.
This winter should make the Democrats wonder if they have been stuck with the two candidates who can fire up, but not expand the base. I see no evidence in national polls that Obama is growing the party past John Kerry’s losing percentages. The only real question is whether John McCain can restore the normal Republican coalitions.
When you think you will surely win and end up in a tough race, parties can come unglued. They begin conspiracy theorizing and flailing. That is a sad thing to see, but recalls that over confident Democrats can lose.