Blogs For John McCain’s Victory

Remix ‘76?

June 13th, 2008 at 07:39pm Geoff

In what will surely be our perpetual effort to prognosticate the outcome of the present presidential campaign, the commentariat will and already has looked into our republic’s history to discern which one of those elections of yesteryear most resembles this one. In one blog post alone two separate elections were mentioned—1968 and 1980.¹ If you ask me—and even if you do not—2008 is or looks to be 1976 redux. Witness the parallels:

—The last time the Republican Party was as unpopular as it is now was in the course and aftermath of Watergate and President Ford’s (correct but unpopular) pardon of President Nixon. What year was the first presidential election following this period of darkness? 1976

—The Republican Candidate that year—President Ford—was a relative moderate who had made a career in the halls of Congress and had earned a reputation for his principle and personal integrity. The same could describe Sen. McCain.

—That year a little known governor from Georgia came from nowhere to capture the Democratic nomination on the strength of his personal charm and his evangelicalism for a new type of politics. Remind you of anyone?

—Examine the politics and worldview of President Carter and Sen. Obama and you will see that they are disconcertingly liberal and hopeless.

—By the time of the Republican convention that summer that southern governor—Jimmy Carter—had stretched his lead over President Ford in the polls to a whopping thirty points. It won’t be thirty points this time, but after finally securing the Democratic nomination in ‘08 Sen. Obama will, and already has, garnered a lead of five to ten points—at minimum—over Sen. McCain.

Then-Gov. Carter’s thirty point August lead was made of vapor however, for as the campaign progressed into the fall and Americans increasingly came to scrutinize their two choices his lead in the polls gradually dissipated, leaving him with a scant two point victory on election day.

There is reason to believe the same might be the case with Sen. Obama, if for no other reason than the fact that we have seen this same phenomenon with him already. There were two or three points in the late primary campaign where Sen. Obama was on the cusp of knocking Sen. Clinton out only to be thwarted by increased scrutiny which penetrated beneath the veneer (and the foundation for his success) of his pleasing rhetoric. By the end he was essentially panting as he crossed the finished line.

What’s more, as Peter Wehner writes, “Barack Obama will be the focal point of this election. If Americans find him to be an acceptable choice for president, he will probably win, given all the factors that are working in his favor. But if the doubts that have persisted about him begin to grow and metastasize – if large numbers of Americans come to believe that the Obama appeal is, at its core, a mirage – then McCain has a real chance to prevail. And if he does, the Democratic party and liberalism will have a nervous breakdown unlike any we have seen.”

Sen. Obama has to preserve his facade to win. If American voters look beneath the word and focus on man and deed his decided liberalism, inexperience, dearth of previous accomplishment, and basically repulsive associations will only hinder his candidacy. As one intelligent e-mailer put it to Rich Lowry, “In approach-avoidance choice conflicts, ultimately the negative elements carry increasingly disproportionate weight as the time of decision draws nearer causing a tendency to favor the safer alternative. Given the negatives Obama has accumulated thus far, with more likely to come, I would predict a strong move to McCain in late October.”

Of course if 2008 truly is 1976 reincarnate it will ultimately be to Sen. Obama’s favor. President Carter only won by two points that year, but he ultimately won by two points. The disadvantages of his opponent and his inverse advantages were a wave just large enough to carry him to shore. It is at least even odds that the same will hold true for Sen. Obama thirty-two years later. If this is indeed to be then let us hope and pray the historical parallel ends with the election, for no one wants to go through another Carter administration.