Bottom Line: The rapidly forming consensus that these are the best of times for McCain is wrong. If he can show energy, he has just begun to fight.
Argument:
This is a Democrat year. Any person nominated by the Democrat Party is a favorite to win. The President is unpopular as is the war. The economy is struggling.
However, the Democrats are doing all they can to mess things up for themselves. While reconstruction in Iraq is unpopular, it seems to be working. Americans will be of two means of giving up if options are presented to them. Second, we are factually not in a recession, thought the economy is struggling. It is possible that we will avoid a full blown down turn. After all, we have not had one quarter of no growth, let alone the two that usually signals a recession.
Still, the Republican brand is in trouble.
Lately, most pundits have noticed that McCain is not in as much trouble. He is tied (in an average of polls) at Real Clear politics with Obama and narrowly behind Clinton.
What is happening?
The common explanation of the moment is the Democrats are fighting and that after there is a nominee that he or she will soar above McCain. McCain is in his “best time” right now.
I think this is wrong.
First, the damage being done now to both Clinton and Obama will stick. Voters are not suddenly going to forget what is happening. Obama in particular has been deeply damaged with independents. Clinton was alway a tough sell to the majority of the nation.
Second, left-of-center blogs like to tout that McCain’s ties to Bush are a big concern to forty-odd percent of voters. That is true. The President is unpopular, but surely there is reason to think that most of that 43% is the Democrat base. McCain is not going to win in a landslide, but he is not going to lose in one either.
He seems to have 43% of the public who will not vote for him and 43% who almost surely will. The fight is for the remaining 14%.
McCain has the highest favorables in the race. Over half the public likes the man. Why would this change? McCain is a known figure. He is not new. His record has been out there for some time. Given the narrow general election window if the Democrats fight for any part of the summer or at the convention, what are they going to say about him?
The anti-Bush vote is theirs already.
The hard core anti-war vote is theirs.
Will swing voters in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Missouri, vote for the likely nominee Senator Obama?
There is reason to think that he is the one whose polls numbers are stuck at the Democrat base. As I pointed out numerous times at the height of Obama-mania, his numbers in national polls almost never broke fifty percent. Can they?
I don’t know if McCain’s can either, but this much I know. No damage was done to McCain this month. Great damage was done to Obama.
Finally, I see no reason to think the “fight” when ended will produce a huge poll boost for the “winner.” Most party loyalists already are “coming home” when asked head-to-head questions. The issue is independents. Why, when it is just McCain and Obama, would Obama suddenly look more attractive to them?
Obama will get a bounce from winning and from the convention. Good news always give a bounce. However, McCain gets his convention last. He too will get a bounce . . . McCain is a survivor and a fighter. Do Democrats really believe that he will go down without swinging hard on the issues that matter to him?
I believe that if McCain can convince independents he is not too old (the real issue that holds his numbers back right now) that he just might win this race.