Obama the Vagabond
August 5th, 2008 at 12:42am Geoff
David Brooks is out with an interesting op-ed asserting that Sen. Obama is not ahead of Sen. McCain at the moment to any discernible extent because, essentially, voters can’t put their finger on him:
There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.
Mr. Brooks makes some good points, but I think the reasons Sen. Obama is not polling at a level commensurate with the generic Democrat is that he’s young and inexperienced and Americans simply are not sure if he is an American president. They’ve heard his platitudes but want something concrete that can allow them to vote for him in November. The fact that he is hard to put a finger on has been exacerbated by the fact that he’s done so many about faces since he became presumptive nominee that undecided voters are befuddled as to where he stands and who he is — and liberals are even pointedly asking him to stick to liberal orthodoxy.
They aren’t getting much from Sen. Obama at the moment, and what they are getting is plain dissonance. That is why he is not blowing Sen. McCain out of the water in a year that frankly there is no reason he should not be.
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5 Comments
1. Joe | August 5th, 2008 at 11:03 am
First of all… polls. Especially “National Polls”. I know you know that popular vote doesn’t determine the President.
So let’s look at some states and the Electoral votes. 270 is needed for victory.
http://pollster.com/
Strong Dem and Leaning Dem = 284
Strong Rep and Leaning Rep = 157
Toss Up = 97
Last I checked 284 is larger than the 270 needed.
Now having said that, there is still a LONG time before November and lots can happen. This is by no means a done deal.
As a Dem, it is certainly encouraging that traditional Republican states are very much in play here.
The states included in that “Toss Up” category above:
Montana (McCain +3)
North Dakota (McCain +2)
Nevada (McCain +3)
Colorado (Obama +2)
Missouri (McCain +2)
Indiana (Even)
Virginia (Obama +3)
North Carolina (McCain +3)
Florida (Even)
Of those “toss ups”, ALL of them went Republican in 2004… some of them heavy Republican.
Of the “battleground states” of the 2004 election, Ohio (Obama +4), New Mexico (Obama +8) and Michigan (Obama +6) are all in the “Leaning Dem” category. Only Florida remains in the “Toss Up” category from the 2004 battleground states.
Now… as for people not being able to “put their finger on” Obama. I will give you that he doesn’t have that long of a history in the Senate. The McCain campaign and the talking heads are pounding into the public ears that Obama is inexperienced and blah blah blah.
It is DESPITE all the “inexperience” talk that Obama is STILL ahead in the polls. That alone should tell you that people are tired of the same old same old that McCain has to offer.
Another way you can look at the polls…….. if Obama is so inexperienced and nobody can pinpoint him, why isn’t McCain running away with this?
Is it all because of Bush? Or is it because people don’t like what McCain has to offer? Is it because the GOP has left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth after the disastrous years of 2002-2006 of which McCain was a part of?
If everything about Obama is so bad and so many people don’t trust him or know anything about him McCain should at least be ahead nationally and at a very minimum he should be safe in the standard Republican states, shouldn’t he?
Still waiting for a discussion of issues in this campaign. It just doesn’t look like it is going to happen any time soon.
2. Geoff | August 5th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
We’re all waiting for a discussion of the issues, Joe, a discussion Sen. Obama had the opportunity to engage in when he could have followed through on Sen. McCain’s offer of town hall meetings this summer — meetings which he had expressed openess to before deciding not to engage.
In terms of why Sen. McCain isn’t running away with the election, it is a very clearly Democratic year. The fact that Sen. Obama is running distinctly behind the generic Democrat right now incontrovertibly proves that he has not made the sale yet. People want to vote for a Democrat this year but Sen. Obama hasn’t exactly led them to feel comfortable with him yet.
Also, if you will look at previous elections over the past twenty years or so you will see that Democrats typically do very well in the summer only to have the race tighten considerably in the fall, when voters actually start to scrutinize their choices.
3. Joe | August 7th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Geoff,
There are going to be at least 3 debates. That is 1 a month until the election. You need more than that? An actual “DEBATE” and not 60 second stump speeches is what is really needed. Do that and I don’t care how many debates there are.
How about this? From Yahoo news:
That is it. That’s the whole article.
Either McCain did nothing but talk about Obama or McCain didn’t say anything worthwhile.
Does McCain EVER talk about what John McCain is going to do? Every time he opens his mouth it is about what Obama has done or said.
Same thing with these blogs. No posts about what McCain will do, it is all about how horrible Obama is and what he has done or said.
4. Judith Hofbauer | August 9th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
It is no Leema like in Peru but Lima as in bean. McCain should start to hit on his plans consistently while continuing to show the big differences between Obuma and himself and the Socialist and the Republican platforms.
5. Judith Hofbauer | August 9th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Correction: It is NOT Leema