Tuesday, October 07, 2008
HORSERACE, BARACK OBAMA, JOHN MCCAIN
October Surprise! Obi Wan Kenobi Is Back.
About once a day or so, just about every day this year, I've gotten an e-mail from readers asking...
"Where's Obi-Wan Kenobi?"
They're referring, of course, to my political mentor who appeared in the closing months of the 2004 election, an individual who had been involved in the highest levels of GOP politics for longer than I have been alive. (Some of the most influential minds in Republican political circles have had to dodge the query from Kerry Spot/TKS/Campaign Spot readers: "Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi?")
The wisdom of a "Jedi Master" in the world of American politics is something that you must use carefully, and not too frequently.
Our conversations in 2004 addressed the tracking polls, the late-breaking Osama bin Laden tape, the unreliability of those election-day exit polls, and whether Kerry actually won the final days…
In 2006, he reappeared in Early October, and we looked closely at the tracking polls, seeing the GOP base "come home."*
So what is Obi-Wan saying now?
"Any pessimism now is dumbness," he said as he appeared to me recently. "A few weeks ago every swing state was coming McCain's way and he had a national lead. And some polls showed him four points and six points behind in New Jersey and New York. And now all that has gone away? Politics doesn't work like that. The American people, even in the midst of an unprecented economic crisis, don't react like that for any sustained period. Those patterns can reassert themselves."
Obi Wan talks to other Republicans, and back in July when Obama was way ahead and Republicans gloomy he said that the whole picture was likely to change dramtically by early september and McCain "would have a lead that lasted longer than just convention bounce."
He says some underlying factors — some new and some old — are still at work and helpful to McCain.
"First, Obama did not have a good debate. He didn't do what he needed to do. Be reassuring. His gestalt was shaky." He thinks Obama needed (and still needs) to go out and emulate John Kennedy in the 1960 debate. The popular perception today is that Kennedy was smooth and charismatic, but that wasn't what "sold" him, in Obi-Wan's assessment. He suggests it was almost the opposite — it was Kennedy's seriousness, a demeanor that almost bordered on dour or grimness.
(Obi-Wan's comment spurred me to check out the 1960 debate transcripts. Kennedy's first statement included:
In the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world will exist half-slave or half-free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom, in the direction of the road that we are taking, or whether it will move in the direction of slavery… We discuss tonight domestic issues, but I would not want that to be any implication to be given that this does not involve directly our struggle with Mr. Khrushchev for survival. Mr. Khrushchev is in New York, and he maintains the Communist offensive throughout the world because of the productive power of the Soviet Union itself. The Chinese Communists have always had a large population. But they are important and dangerous now because they are mounting a major effort within their own country. The kind of country we have here, the kind of society we have, the kind of strength we build in the United States will be the defense of freedom. If we do well here, if we meet our obligations, if we're moving ahead, then I think freedom will be secure around the world. If we fail, then freedom fails."
That opening statement is as serious as cancer. No glibness or "celebrity" glamour there.)
"Obama lost the opening in his first debate that Kennedy seized in his. He wasn't terrible but he just missed. I'm not sure that opening comes again for him. Obama has a much higher hurdle than Kennedy, Al Gore, John Kerry, or almost any other recent Democrat. All of those candidates were known quantities. The fundamental question of this election is going to be, 'as we head into really challenging times, which man reassures you?'"
People generally think McCain is steady and reliable, Obi Wan posits. He's built that image on national security issues, but people don't think that same mentality goes away when the issue is the economy
"People are missing that over the long run the economic thing like any international trouble can actually help McCain — he appears to be the mature one and tough one."
Second, Obi says the Palin phenomenon is for real. "Not only because she is so effective or appealing but because it spotllights McCain's decision-making. He can throw a tenstrike at the critical moment. McCain's campaign has missed a few but basically it has shown resilence."
Third, Obi-Wan has an indefatigable faith in the American people. "The American people figure this out, as long as you put the facts in front of them." He agreed with my assessment that the Republican Party is not the side you expect to sign off on large taxpayer-backed loans to those with no income, no job, and no assets. The media has spent decades portraying the GOP as heartless tightwads; now we're supposed to believe they were the ones urging Fannie and Freddie to give a half-million mortgage to cousin Louie who you wouldn't loan $200 to. "American voters pile up a knowledge bank." And Obi wonders why some Reaganites "forget to trust the people. They are already starting to figure it out. They dislike the Democrats in Congress already and they eventually sort it all out. Again, the economy can play McCain's way."
But McCain and his campaign have to say this is about "liberal vs. conservative ideas" not just who's more experienced. When McCain called Obama "the most liberal senator" it was very important.
Fourth — for me this was the the kind of insight that makes him as a Jedi Master — "Media bias may be McCain's biggest asset in this race. First, [for the past eight years] they built McCain up into the Maverick hero [every time he disagreed with Bush] and that insulates him from the too-close-to-Bush charge. Then they can't leave Palin alone and she keeps hitting out of the park just as they build her audience up. And now they've decided the election is over and given Obama an eight point lead. So if he starts to fade at any point in the next month that seems like a crash and cause a panic."
"I guarantee you, right now there is some realist in the Obama camp who is petrified of any falloff in the polls. Because if Obama slips, he could fall fast. McCain's already gotten up off the mat once this cycle, when he was supposed to be dead in the primary. He faced a meltdown and it didn't happen; you almost never see candidates and campaigns who can pull out of a crash dive . . .
* I can hear it — "Hey, weren't you guys way off that cycle?" No, Obi was among the very few predictors who said that by the Thursday before the election the Dem lead would start to fall and do so rapidly into the weekend. He (and I) saw a late shift to the GOP in the generic polls. Republican internal polls were showing a loss of 50 seats in the House (that admittedly, I thought were too negative).
On Election Day, 19 Republican seats won by five percent or less. Democrats won 31 seats in 2006. 31 + 19 = 50; that surge to the Republicans in the final days, worth about five percent or so, saved 19 Republican seats.
10/07 02:16 PM
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