Today's projections on fivethirtyeight.com (538) are not for the faint of heart. EVs are essentially a dead heat, and McCain has a slight edge in both the projected popular vote and the likelihood of ultimate victory. The real gem on 538, however, is Nate Silver's analysis of the Palin Phenomenon and what to to about it.
Silver uses polling data to confirm a key point I had already suspected. Palin is an essential element in McCain's recent surge:
- Regardless of how you might vote, whichpresidential ticket do you think will bring the right change to Washington?
Dem Ticket Rep Ticket
Total 46 39
Democrats 84 5
Republicans 7 82
Independents 36 38
It's the number at the bottom that ought to be a concern. Obama presently has no edge on "change" among independents. In fact, the Republicans lead in that category by two points.
You think that's because of John McCain? You think that McCain would be polling evenly among independents on "needed change" if he had selected Mitt Romney as his running mate? No, it's because of Sarah Palin.
Prior to the Palin pick, McCain's candidacy had a somnolent status that did not look like it would change any time soon. Overnight, there was energy and enthusiasm that had never been seen before. There was also a coherent theme behind a campaign that had previously failed to coalesce.
In one of the more astounding and audacious moves in American political history, the McCain/Palin ticket have, thus far, portrayed themselves as agents of change. Forget about the fact that he's been a DC fixture for 26 years, and forget about the fact that she's a poor person's Jack Murtha when it comes to earmarks. Forget even more that they belong to the party that has, um, been in power the past 8 years. For the time being, a slight plurality of the essential independent voters are buying this bald-faced lie.
As Silver notes, however, this battle is far from lost at present:
And fortunately for Democrats, the ground is fertile. It is fertile because the Republicans significantly overplayed their hand on earmarks. Palin was before the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. John McCain was against $3 million to study bear DNA in Montana -- but how does he feel about $3.2 million to study the DNA of harbor seals in Alaska? It was in Alaska's earmark request (last row of the second page). Or the mere fact that Alaska is the nation's runaway leader in earmark requests...
Earmark reform is Palin's warrant for being a change agent. Palin is McCain's warrant for being a change agent. "Right change" is the argument that McCain has staked his election upon. You win this argument, you probably win the election. It's not that complicated.
The final paragraph quoted above sums up this entire election. There is still far more about Sarah Palin that the public does not know than there is that they do know. While there's still time for the Dems to start defining her in the public eye, that time is running short. Fortunately, they have ample public policy material to work w/ on that score.
Palin's actions as mayor, as a gubenatorial candidate, and as gov all belie the words that she and McCain are now uttering. If Palin is a reformer, then Cheney is a pacifist. She differs w/ McCain on sooo many issues (e.g. global warming, the religious right, and energy policy), but she differs w/ him on pork barrel spending most of all. Her current political persona is, at its core, based upon a bald-faced lie.
If the Dems prove that lie, this race is over. McCain doesn't have either the time or the wherewithal to retool and reorganize if his current theme is fatally undermined. It is, accordingly, time to start undermining it by relentlessly and remorselessly demonstrating that, while Gov. Palin is clearly not a pig w/ lipstick, she just as clearly is Ted Stevens and Don Young w/ lipstick.