Ohio is supposedly a pivotal state in the election and right now we're being bombarded with ads that pound McCain for his announcement that he'll tax health care benefits. The ads provide a long list of reasons why McCain is the same as the current crew.
The spread is approaching 10 points according to some surveys.
Also I heard tonight that the movie "W" will be released 3 weeks prior to the election and it is not flattering for Bush et al. Great timing for the Obama campaign as it dovetails nicely with their bullet points about McCain being another Bush.
Will Obama run away with this in the last few weeks?
McCain has run a poor campaign. He failed to stay on message, and his organization has been mediocre at best. His biggest blunders in my opinion are the following.
1) Accepting public financing. Obama denounced public funding and went to a grass roots type system. The man has almost 4 million contributors. Obama went all in, and McCain folded instead of calling. Sure it was a gamble, but McCain bet it would not work. McCain was wrong.
2) Canceling his campaign when the market crashed. McCain tried to play it as "look how concerned I am for my country". The Obama camp played it "What? The guy cannot multi-task?" Obama won that round.
3) The debates. The political junkie that I am, I TIVO and watch them a few times. Here is my interpretation. There are two debates going on, the verbal and the body language. I think, McCain won on the verbal portion, but Obama trounces him in the body language department. Obama knows how to push McCain's buttons, and he does it. McCain gets irritated, and starts acting like the grandpa lecturing his grandson. It is akin to Gore rolling his eyes at Bush, or Reagan saying "There you go again" then demurely taking a sip of water. McCain comes off as angry and desperate, Obama comes off cool and collected. It's like watching Bugs Bunny vs. Yosemite Sam when I was a kid.
4) Going negative. McCain said he would not do it, then spent the last ten days doing just that. I truly believe McCain did NOT want to go negative, then decided to have a go at it. He did too late. He should have done this right after the Convention. It was a red meat convention, the base was fired up over Palin, and McCain had momentum. After the first debate, it was too late. Like I said, Obama comes off like a cool customer, "Chill the hell out. I got this!". The people got to see him and decided he was not a radical guy (even if he is? I don't know the man so I cannot say) Going negative now looks desperate, and maybe it is.
5) Palin. A bad choice in these times. Sure it fired up the base, but as I said when he first picked my governor, she is not ready for prime time. She looked like a dolt during the Katie Couric interview, then he kept her in hiding from the media. You don't piss off the main street media if you want to win. You pander to them.
6) Bush. Not really much McCain could do about that, but he had an uphill battle to begin with because of W. There are Republicans that are putting GOP on their ballots because they don't Republican after their names.
So yes, I think Obama wins. I am a paying member to old Scotty Rassmusen's site so I can see the crosstabs. They tell you a lot more than looking at the top numbers. I expect Obama to top 300 EV's and an early night on November 4th. As it stands today, McCain MUST win PA, OH, and FL to have a legitmate chance at winning. I think OH and FL are within his reach, but PA is a lost cause.
I'm always surprised at how PA votes. You'd think a state with a gazillion sportsmen would go Republican, but as someone else informed me, their cities are pretty liberal.
Like you said though, he's run a truly lousy campaign.
I'm also surprised at how much emphasis Americans place on how someone comes off on TV. If you're bad on screen you're done and Obama seems to have him there too.
I just posted that GW really will be the downfall of McCain possibly winning in 2008 - people are just too pissed off about the past 8 years right now, and the ending of possibly the worst Presidency EVER
Fahrenheit 9/11 came out before Election Day, I don't think the box-office jigg is anything new.
Call me crazy, but I don't think this thing is over, I guess the tone out there, is that, McCain is currently getting almost more press coverage than Obama, and even though the media isn't trying to promote them, it might work to McCain's advantage.
Who knows, yesterday, the McCain aide/spokesperson said "the turnaround begins today", and if that happens, they'll be more than in the game. Way more.
Now, I don't think anyone is expecting anything from the debates, because what else is there to talk about? THAT'S the wildcard, and McCain needs to hit it, if he can, and Obama just stays to doing what he's been doing the past two debates, then he'll lose, and when the headline reads, "Obama loses debate", people will be a bit bewildered.
Now, if there is no slapout debate............the October surprise is about the only thing that'll save McCain before Election Day. The campaign has a good chance of making progress, this is probably one of their last offensives, and it's a probable "Battle of the Bulge", except that Obama doesn't come across as the kind of guy who says "Nuts!".
falcon - when you've been in bed for 26 years with all those bastards eventually you're going to team up with a few nasties .... I mean, they can't smear Obama for what he's done and sponsored because he hasn't DONE ANYTHING.
McCain has been up there so long he's bound to have made a few mistakes you know ?
all Obama has to do it say " you voted with GW 95% of the time and look where we're at"
McCain is toast
all McCain has to do is point out how extremely inexperienced Obama is and how Socialist his ideas are from anti-gun to wealth distribution
Obama would lose much if McCain would just do that, but he's afraid to for some reason
That's assuming that
A. Nothing changes in the developments of media coverage
B. That the campaigns don't get dirtier than that.
Fact is, the McCain campaign isn't just doing what you listed, they were doing that before and after the convention, now, they're doing something different, and that is this: making people angry.
You establish some outcry, then the momentum will probably get on your side, that's very possible here. It's an open can of worms, this election is, there isn't any doubt that everyone's got a chance, Dewey-Truman proved that perfectly well, public sentiment was turning against the policies of FDR and Truman, but Truman pulled it off, when Chicago said, "Dewey defeats Truman," we're there, it could be a Dewey-Truman election, or a Nixon-Kennedy election. Maybe it'll be something else, but we'll see, bottom line, it's definately not a Carter-Reagan battle, or a Van Buren-Harrison.
McCain blunders?
