The latest rash of national polls, available on realclearpolitics.com, gives the same result as those from the last few days: McCain-Palin is up 3-4 points over Obama-Biden. While one or two of these polls might well have been fixed by exaggerating the proportion of Republicans questioned, the overall picture is far too clear and consistent to be the result of such manipulation. The enduring advantage Obama enjoyed over McCain since people got to know him better is gone.
While some may hold out hope the Electoral College will nonetheless tilt toward Obama, experience shows that candidates down 3-4 percent nationally don’t win: at most, the Electoral College can eke out a victory for a candidate who is down very slightly, say 1 or maybe 1.5 percent. It is not the promotion of this or that issue that will make a difference in the coming weeks before the election: the issues have already been promoted and people know what they think. It is not the latest minor scandal concerning Sarah Palin that is going to make a difference; McCain carries far more heavy ethical baggage (Keating Five ...) and look where he is. People just figure Sarah Palin is a human being like them and has made some minor mistakes. They even like it that her teenage daughter got pregnant in contradiction to her principles because (a) it makes her look human, not a witchburner and (b) her daughter is not having an abortion, the key point for the right-to-life crowd. She’s naive but her record shows she learns fast, is determined, and doesn’t shrink from long odds. So we have a real problem and it’s not going to go away, barring the totally unexpected and unpredictable. We need hope, not clutching at straws.
The evidence is clear that McCain and his supporters totally outplayed the Obama camp (us) on this one.
Obama chose the safe-and-sane candidate, one intended to balance his glamour and controversialness with solidity and centrism. Like Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, Obama chose a losing candidate for the Democratic nomination who was a proven non-vote getter at the national level. This mistake has already cost the Democrats two presidential elections; will it cost them a third?
McCain, or perhaps his neoconservative handlers, chose an incandescent candidate, young, beautiful, appropriately dressed (which is better than well-dressed), a real conservative (unlike McCain), exciting to the Republicans’ long-neglected conservative base, but unlike a Pat Buchanan one who supports Israel for religious reasons and doesn’t need to be pressured by AIPAC, a true believer in the Miesian economics that light up Republicans’ minds in their rare moments of conscience, whose very inexperience allows the projection of all hopes, dreams, and fantasies onto the blank canvas – a ten-strike any way you look at it.
Barack Obama’s advantage has been thin but consistent. He needed it to last until the general election. The indifference of the electorate to Biden, the enthusiasm of a slice of it for Palin, has been sufficient to wipe out that advantage and places McCain-Biden with a clear shot to winning the presidential election.
Will the debates make a difference? While a presidential debate has here and there tipped the scales (one thinks of Reagan’s "There you go again" and Lloyd Bentsen’s "You’re no Jack Kennedy"), the evidence is that they are not to be counted on to do so. The chances are these debates will not produce a huge advantage in favor of either ticket. The outcome of the debates is basically a bet, and betting is a poor substitute for strategy, especially in an election that really matters.
There is one thing that Barack Obama could do to neutralize the Republican advantage and take back his margin of victory, and indeed to increase it to a crushing scale. He could do what the Republicans have done and do it better. Joe Biden could resign and, in the need to find another candidate, Obama could choose Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t need to be vetted. Everybody knows where she’s been and what she’s done. Just take her.
Biden will gain more respect for falling on his sword for party and country than by being a losing vice-presidential candidate. Both will be grateful to him for the rest of his life.
This is an election that really matters. The future of the country is at stake. The world is watching.
In some ways, I don’t like Hillary Clinton all that much. But a vast section of the country doesn’t agree with me. In their eyes she is strong, determined, decisive, knowledgeable, beautiful, and wise. They believe she speaks their language and shares their goals. They will vote for her. They will vote for her ten times as much as for Sarah Palin.
The issues don’t matter. The debates don’t matter. Hope doesn’t matter if it is wishful thinking. Personalities matter. Votes matter. The voters are going to vote personalities and the issues to the extent they think those personalities incarnate the issues. The country matters and this election is going to help or harm it in a big way.
Biden needs to go. Hillary needs to replace him. This is her moment, in spite of everything that has happened over the past few months. The situation is critical, time is short, and only Hillary Clinton can save the day.
It is striking that both Biden and Palin were chosen to appeal to the Hillary voters. There could be no greater proof of Hillary’s continued importance in this election in spite of her difficult defeat in the Democratic primary. This is her moment, as well as Obama’s – not to the same degree as him, but really and truly. When the bell of history has struck, it is well to listen. One of these choices has worked. The other has not. There is still time to rectify the mistake. Then, instead of flocking to vote for a Hillary imitation, people can vote for the real thing.
Obama is the candidate in this election with the most glamour. Biden has none. McCain has a little glamour, but not much. Palin has a lot of glamour. Obama assumed his glamour was enough to carry the election and that if anything it needed to be tempered a little with something solid and down-to-earth. This turns out not to be true. McCain’s minor glamour plus Palin’s major glamour turns out to overcome Obama’s major glamour. Obama’s major glamour plus Hillary’s major glamour will overcome any glamour the Republicans can throw at them.
Voters will not think less of a candidate who changes course because he recognizes reality after eight years of suffering under a president who is unable to learn from experience.
We have entrusted Obama with our votes, our money, and our hopes. We want him to carry them across the finish line.
Hillary would be a relatively difficult vice president. She has trouble playing second fiddle and would need to direct some major initiative to soak up her formidable energies and to give her something to speak about when she runs again for president in eight years. On the other hand, this should not be difficult to arrange. A vice president has no real power and can only do what the president authorizes.
Whatever inconveniences may attend Hillary’s selection as vice president pale to insignificance in comparison to the inconveniences of having Republicans in power for another four years.
If Obama chooses Hillary, he will win. If he stays with Biden, he will probably lose.
That's reality.