152 Short Days

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: McCain, Obama, Presidential
• Date: Jun 5,2008

Well, here we are. And here is where we stand.

Since the 11 state primary winning streak came to an end, the cracks in Obama have shown. I have long been skeptical that he will be able to piece together enough voters from different typical Democrat coalitions to win. I still am, and many soft Democrats have the same concerns. Since said streak ended, this Democratic primary process was an up or down vote on Obama as he was the front runner. Last night was a perfect example - Obama got smashed in SD (a primary, not a caucus), a state he was leading in up until like a week ago, despite the fact that it was clear he was going to be the nominee. I will admit that when this whole process started I doubted that Hillary Clinton would not be the nominee. In the end, many Democrats were as eager to get rid of the Clintons as much as Republicans have been for years. As a Republican, it is hard to ever count the Clintons out. Hillary would have smashed McCain in the general. Oh well.

There is no speech that Barack Obama will give in which I would agree with the content. To dispute, however, that he is not a good speaker in front of a large audience would be false, and that concerns me. The text of McCain's speeches always looks great but the delivery typically falls flat. This is a problem for him. He is going to have to give a lot of substance on big issues in comparison to Obama to compensate for this shortcoming.

Americans didn't just get to know McCain yesterday, and that is to his advantage. And they're just getting to know Senator Obama. Final impressions and gut feelings of the swings will determine this election. Obama is a serviceable enough candidate and in this political environment, it may well be all that is needed. He is a cult-like figure which can end up being a major positive or a major negative in a high risk / high reward type way. On the plus side for us, Obama is a seriously flawed candidate and a left-wing ideologue who is far outside the American mainstream. Maybe the most to the left of any nominee in recent history. There is a major opening for McCain. He has to take it. Republicans were able to raise enough doubt about Kerry in 2004, and no question the same strategy will be used against Obama. Against him it is much easier to do, but as stated the environment has shifted. The GOP looked to be on top of the world in 2004. How quickly things changed.

Democrats will work throughout the general election campaign to define McCain as a true representative of the GOP and try the whole "third term" stuff. I do not think this will work, as I have been asserting. John McCain has been able to distance himself from the damaged GOP brand. It is a hard argument to make against McCain. Both Obama and McCain will attempt to push the other one out of the political center. I didn't back McCain from the outset, as you know, but none of our other candidates would have won this fall.

This summed up my feelings on where we stand: Two friends have framed the race similarly to me. One says that McCain's great advantage is that he's basically acceptable to the public as president. The question is whether or not Obama is. If he is, he's the next president because it's such a Democratic year. Another friend makes the same point a little differently. He says that people want McCain to be president—except they don't want a Republican to be president. They do want a Democrat to be president—except maybe not this particular one. The campaign will be run on the horns of that dilemma.

After a long wait, the general election is upon us. The RNC didn't waste any time.

Some polling information after the jump.

Time for the polling to get into full swing. First up this year is left wing / fake story reporting CBS News (pdf). It was Obama 48, McCain 42. A nice start to the polling season with a registered voters poll that used a sample of……are you ready…….40%D-33%I-27%R. Obama wins Democrats 80-12 while John McCain leads Obama among "Independents" by a 46-38 clip. They didnt ask Republicans the same question (probably because their sample size was too small) but doing the math it comes out to 80-11 voting McCain over O'Carter. The last CBS News poll showed Obama +11 over McCain.

(For reference: In 2004, Kerry won Independents 50-48 over Bush. Republicans broke 93-6 for Bush, and Democrats went 89-11 for Kerry).

I said it all through 2004, that the polls to look at are Rasmussen and the Tarrance / Battleground polls. Some people are saying Survey USA is having a good season, but their track record has been dismal, so I don't take them serious. I will live by the two I mentioned and Mason-Dixon state polls when they come out. I also tend to pay far more attention to the likely voter polls as opposed to the registered voters polls. If you can't take time to do a likely voter screen, then I am not going to take the time to think your poll carries much weight.

I told Kyle this past weekend I will be happy down less than 5-6 headed into our convention. If we start seeing a gap higher than that on a consistent basis then I will be worried.

A good place to check out the latest averages is Real Clear Politics and their polling page. But you probably already knew that. And also of course, I don't pay attention to what Democrat John Zogby says in his polls.