Thursday, July 24, 2008

Who will decide which candidate will be our next President?

The treatment of Obama is unprecedented. Even the fawning over Bill Clinton doesn’t compare to this. Every thing he does, every step of his day is recorded and gloried in by the media. Saturday Night Live, Jay Leno, etc. have all poked fun at the treatment of Obama by the media, and yet they still do it. The coverage of Obama is unfailingly positive, everything he does is spun in the best light. The “mainstream” media is clearly heavily invested in seeing Obama win, based on a combination between their desire to see the first black President, an open disdain bordering on hatred for President Bush and general warm fuzzies on their part towards Obama. Hopefully the American people will as a whole catch on to this uneven handling of the campaign and refuse to let the media power brokers in New York, Chicago and L.A. determine who will be President. The recent refusal by the New York Times to run a McCain op-ed piece while giving plenty of ink to Obama’s op-ed piece is a prime example, as is the wall to wall coverage of his “tour” of the Middle East.

Despite the one sided positive coverage of Obama, he still has only a slight lead over McCain. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning a poll that shows voters far more comfortable with McCain’s experience and background. That is before ads have really started to fly exposing the gross inexperience of Senator Obama. Average Americans get that he is not qualified or sufficiently experienced for the job, but he still holds a lead because of the non-stop media coverage, all of it favorable, of Senator Obama. From the Wall Street Journal...

WASHINGTON -- Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Sen. Barack Obama.

With the nominations of both parties effectively settled for more than a month, the key question in the contest isn't over any single issue being debated between the Democrats' Sen. Obama or the Republicans' Sen. John McCain. The focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with the background and experience level of Sen. Obama?

This dynamic is underscored in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey's most striking finding: Fully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be.

The challenge that presents for Sen. Obama is illustrated by a second question. When voters were asked whether they could identify with the background and values of the two candidates, 58% said they could identify with Sen. McCain on that account, while 47% said the same of Sen. Obama. More than four in 10 said the Democratic contender doesn't have values and a background they can identify with.

Those findings suggest voters' views of Sen. Obama are more fluid than his relatively steady lead indicates. In the latest poll, 47% say they prefer Sen. Obama to win, while 41% say Sen. McCain, the same lead Sen. Obama enjoyed a month ago. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The campaign's unusual dynamic appears to be the result of an anxious nation now sizing up an unconventional candidate who presents himself as the agent for change, which voters say they want. The contest thus parallels in some ways the 1980 race, when voters seemed ready for a change away from Jimmy Carter and the Democrats, but weren't persuaded until late in the race that they could be comfortable with a former actor and unabashed conservative, Ronald Reagan, as commander in chief.

"Obama is going to be the point person in this election," says pollster Peter Hart, a Democrat who conducts the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll along with Republican Neil Newhouse. "Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?"

If the answer is yes, then Sen. Obama stands to benefit further from a favorable environment for Democrats. If no, Sen. McCain is seen by a wide swath of Americans as a safe, well-qualified potential commander in chief. The poll was taken Friday through Monday, before much of the extensive press coverage of Sen. Obama's trip this week to the Middle East and Europe, meant to build his credibility.

So we have an election where on the one hand we have a young, hip, inexperienced made-for-TV candidate with supports who are incredibly passionate about him: “Sen. Obama is in the odd position of having unusually passionate backing from his supporters -- his voters are three times as likely to say they are excited about their choice as are Sen. McCain's…”, even though I would guarantee that the overwhelming majority of his supporters don’t know the first thing about his background or where he stands on issues beyond vague platitudes about “hope” and “change”. On the other hand we have an old, kind of curmudgeonly military vet with many more years of experience in Washington, a man with a firm grasp on issues even if you disagree with him.

The clear winning strategy for McCain seems pretty obvious, give a clear and simple set of issues, highlight what McCain would do and hammer it over and over…

• Energy independence. Use high energy prices and unease to promote an aggressive plan for new, safe drilling, exploration and nuclear power.
• Obama’s inexperience. This is dangerous because you don’t want to come across like Kerry, who seemed to view his military service even when in ‘Nam as a political tool. But you cannot ignore McCain’s experience as a military officer and a POW, as well as his decades of service and foreign policy expertise

This comment from a voter kind of sums it up:

“Patti Carr, 59 years old, of Collierville, Tenn., outside Memphis, says she voted for Democrats Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. But she isn't yet sold on Barack Obama. His experience is giving her pause.

"I see Obama as a very nice person but I don't believe he has the experience at this time to be president," she says. "He's new, he's young and he still has a lot to learn, I believe." She leans for now toward Sen. McCain, but is open to persuasion.”

He is a nice guy (which he may or may not be, I wonder how much of that is a carefully constructed persona). His race to me is irrelevant other than as a landmark of how far race relations have come in spite of the efforts of race-baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to keep the hate alive. He is a great prepared speaker. But he is inexperienced, far left politically and willing to change positions seemingly at will. If McCain makes a shrewd choice for his VP, this could be another four years of the GOP controlling the White House and may even mitigate losses in Congress. But if he makes a poor choice trying to be a maverick he will propel an unqualified empty suit into the most powerful office in the world. Evangelicals want to get behind a candidate but are sitting on the sidelines right now. It is time for McCain to get them in the game.

It's an election, not a coronation, no matter how much the media wished it were otherwise.

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