My moniker may give the impression that I am an abject pessimist and have an inconsolably bleak outlook on life and the current sociopolitical landscape. That is all substantially true, but I have noticed a few unmistakable signs in the last few months that things are about to change.
Here it is: The tide is turning toward Obama and he is going to win big.
Let me explain my methodology for assessing the "state of things in general" before I get caught up in euphoria and delineate the source of my newly found optimism. I have become a believer that one's own anecdotal experiences, when taken as a whole over a sufficient period of time, are a fairly good barometer of what happens to "most people". The corollary of this is that what I hear people say is what "most people think".
We can all read the latest polls, both nationwide and in specific locales, and see that Obama would beat McCain if the election were held today. The question remains as to how that balance will change between now and election day. When pundits opine on this topic, they scrutinize old and new information in the aggregate. In this maelstrom of statistics, the sense of how the sentiments of individual people are changing becomes diffused and obscure in the clutter of how everyone voted last time for different candidates. I postulate that past votes are almost meaningless in predicting how any one person's vote may change between when they report their preference in a poll and when that same person votes in the subsequent election. What we need is a measure of change, of how "people in general" are changing their thinking.
There are some polls that compare how those who voted for Bush or Kerry are splitting the votes between Obama and McCain. This is all well and good, but it doesn't add any new information to what is found out by asking, "For whom will you vote, John McCain or Barack Obama?" Who cares who they voted for four years ago when different people were running?
Here is where my anecdotal information, taken as a whole comes into play. Like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, I see the national political scene as being replicated in microcosm by my tiny village. The attitudes and beliefs of every person I deal with on a day-to-day basis tell me something about how the stereotypical category to which that person belongs is reacting to current events. Everyone becomes an archetype. Be they highly-educated, liberal-leaning, quiche-eating, white-wine-sipping intellectuals or ignorant, violence-prone, reactionary, neo-fascist dupes, that is, working class Reagan-worshiping jackasses, what they say tells me how the wind is blowing.
The payoff in giving as much time to listening to a delivery driver as to a retired college professor is that subsequent conversations with the same person show significant shifts in attitude that can be extrapolated to identifiable demographic groups. So, how does this relate to how Obama is faring against McCain? It's fairly obvious when one starts to consciously assess what people tell you. I take notes after talking to someone, never during the conversation. Then, I tally up how their opinion has changed since I last talked to them. I've found that those who have changed their preference are all moving toward Obama. That's right; he's gaining ground in every demographic group. I have not found one person who has changed from liking Obama or any other Democrat to liking McCain.
This isn't too surprising as McCain has run before and Obama has not. The change that blows my mind is that the know-nothing, knee-jerk, dyed-in-the-wool Republicans I talk to have really quieted down recently. Since 1994 when they seized Congress, they have been blustering and posturing like arrogant gamecocks, characterizing the most heinous of Republican crimes and misdeeds as "politics" and vilifying any Democrat who dared oppose them as traitors.
Now, one no longer hears a peep about W's purported steadfast principles or religious piety. They know that he's a liar, a buffoon and a shameless hypocrite. Many of their sons and a few daughters have come home in an aluminum box or alive but maimed or emotionally impaired. They glumly accept that McCain would bring more of the same and are clearly not terribly enthusiastic about supporting him. There is even some wavering in the party line as some say that they are going to "wait and see" before they make their choice. If they defect, then McCain will lose worse than current polls reflect. If they throw their votes away on the Libertarians or some fundamentalist Christian "family values" poseur, McCain still loses a vote. If they have the abrupt epiphany that since they make less than $250,000 per year, they would be better off with Obama, then McCain has a net loss of two votes.
Here's another type of disintegration of McCain support. Women hate this guy. He has always voted wrong on women's issues. He dumped his first wife shortly after he returned home from Viet Nam and found that she had been crippled and disfigured in an auto accident while he was a prisoner of war. That's pretty bad, as bad as Newt Gingrich serving his cancer-stricken wife with divorce papers in her hospital bed. The killer, though, is the revelation that in 1992 John McCain called his subsequent, rich, trophy wife a "cunt" to her face in front of reporters. I've never known a woman who didn't despise any man who used that vulgar epithet. It's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Try it some time. You will instantly become a pariah to her and every woman she knows.
The most serious effect of alienating women as a group is that wives of diehard Republican dead-enders are no longer meekly following their husbands in lockstep and voting the same way. They are secretly, and occasionally openly, dismissing the spouse's paranoid ravings and defying him by backing Obama. Of course, some women like Obama and can't explain why, having been swayed by their attraction to him as a man. We know that this helped Bill Clinton and was the razor-thin margin that allowed Kennedy to eclipse Nixon in 1960. Still, I think that the reason that many women who would normally be expected to vote Republican are jumping to the Democrats is their distaste for McCain.
In summary, my "unscientific" polling reveals that Obama's support is growing. The movement is all one way, in his favor. In technical terms, the first derivative of his support function is positive. The senator from Illinois is on his way to the White House. Only the most inept self-destruction will divert him. It's not going to happen. We know that the heaviest smear campaigns are still on their way, but ordinary working people are not buying the swift boat claptrap again. They are switching to Obama in increasing numbers. It's going to be 1932 all over again.