Posted by
Steve on Thursday, August 21, 2008 9:29:26 AM
It was not supposed to happen this way. The chosen one was supposed to have a huge lead going into the Democrat convention. At the convention, he would show everyone why he is the chosen one and the rest of the world would bow at his feet and the Presidency of the world would be his.
Oops! Don’t tell the Democrat kool-aid drinkers, but John McCain is either within the margin of error or ahead heading into the Democrat convention. On the Michael Medved show yesterday, some callers still believe that it will be a landslide victory for Obama over McCain. They could not tell Mr. Medved why it would be a landslide, but they were convinced that Obama had some secret plan that would be revealed too pull out the victory.
Right now, Obama has almost 100% of the main stream media behind him and cheering him on. He has more money than John McCain and is spending it in larger advertising buys in key states. Wherever he goes, he gets the “star” treatment, adoring crowds and lots of press. John McCain has had to endure stops where there is only one reporter and one photographer (New Hampshire). With all that advantage, there is no reason that McCain should be within 10 or even 15 percentage points of Barack Obama. What is going on?
What is going on is that Barack Obama is not selling his message to the American people. Why is he not selling his message to the people? He is making lots of unforced errors. He is making errors that only an inexperienced person that is not sure of his message could make. Obama is a skilled politician; he defeated the Clinton machine, probably the most powerful machine in Democrat politics since the days of Tammany Hall in New York. When Barack Obama has a teleprompter, there are few politicians in America today that can match his skill. Without a teleprompter, Barack Obama is lost. He tries to be everything to everybody. That is impossible in a political campaign. You have to take stands. Whenever you take a stand, you will please some people and anger some people. You just hope that you please more people than you anger over the course of the campaign.
Barack’s trouble is that he is afraid of alienating even one voter. That is why when he is asked about abortion, he stumbles around trying to find an answer that will not offend anyone. He should just state his position and go on. That would be honest. Honesty is not part of the Obama playbook. He just tries to have it all ways on all issues and that is impossible. Many issues are an either/or proposition. When you try to have both positions on an either/or issue, you sound weak and indecisive. That loses you votes even when the person might agree with you.
The reason that Obama is trying to have it all ways on all issues is because Obama is a radical leftist. His political background puts him on the far left fringe of Democrat politics. When even Democrats think that you are far left, you are really far left. If Obama came out and said what he really wants to do to the country, he would lose in a landslide not seen since Ronald Reagan and maybe even worse. He has to try and hide what he wants to do if he wants to be elected.
The Democrat convention starts on Monday. The list of speakers is a list of speakers from at least the last four Democrat conventions. The first two days are the Clinton days, Bill speaks on Monday and Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday. Then we get to the Obama convention. Obama has been hinting that he will select a running mate soon. I am beginning to think that the talk has been just that, talk. He has to get the Saddleback performance flop off of people’s minds. The best way is to tease people about who he will select for his running mate. In my opinion, Obama’s running mate means less to his campaign than McCain’s means to McCain’s campaign.
It is looking like the campaign is McCain’s to lose. At first, it was Obama that had all the cards. Obama played them poorly and now McCain holds the upper hand. If McCain plays his hand properly, McCain will be President. McCain needs to select a strong conservative running mate that is pro-life. Then, he needs to keep the campaign on foreign policy issues. The Russians are helping keep foreign policy issues front and center in the campaign. There will be others between now and the election in November. The thugs in the Islamo-Fascist fringe will try to intimidate us by doing something spectacular before the election. That will help to keep the focus on foreign policy issues. McCain will win in November with a comfortable victory. Not a landslide, just a comfortable victory, probably 290-250.