Some Random Thoughts
Nothing has happened in recent weeks to alter the fundamental dynamic of the race between Barack Obama and John McCain. As a result, it is still, as of right now, Barack Obama’s race to lose. The underlying factors-right direction/wrong track, a faltering economy, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans in general, the Democrats’ party ID advantage, etc.-all favor the Democrat.
The latest news is that John McCain has shuffled some staff around (and there are rumors that Mike Murphy is going to come to the rescue and help run his campaign). While the impact of these types of things is often overstated, this certainly can’t hurt. After all, when your first big announcement during a week devoted to the economy is about balancing the budget…well, let’s just say we’re pretty sure that that’s not the issue that’s going to catapult Senator McCain into the Oval Office.
Our sense is that Barack Obama’s key vulnerability is also his strength; that is, his appeal as a “different” kind of politician. It’s been obvious since this election process began: the public is interested in someone who will bring about change, and the most likely agent of that type of change is someone new or different, an “outsider.” To this point, the public thinks that that’s Barack Obama. But Barack Obama is a politician. A gifted politician, sure, but he’s still a politician. And when your entire candidacy is based around the idea that you’re not a typical politician, you need to be awfully careful about doing anything, well, “typical.” So whenever Obama does anything even remotely “political”-and he’s been doing a lot of that lately, what with his fairly transparent plays to move to the center-the McCain camp needs to pounce (to be fair, the campaign has done a bit of this recently).
John McCain can win this election if he is seen as the “reformer” (and let’s not forget, this was McCain’s raison d’etre before Obama came along) and as the more likely change agent than Obama. This is going to be a very tough sell. But, again, being “independent” has been McCain’s thing for a long time.
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