Published on TheHill.com on September 24, 2008
The primaries are over. Obama’s European tour is over. The conventions are over. The VP selections have been made and, incredibly, this race is right back where it has been since the spring: a narrow Obama lead.
When the financial crisis overshadowed the Palin bounce, you could almost hear the race clicking back into its former position with Obama between one and three points ahead of McCain. (Don’t worry about the margin of error. With 50 polls showing the same thing, the cumulative chance of error is negligible). Except for an Obama bulge after Hillary’s withdrawal and on his return from Europe and a McCain bounce after his convention and the Palin selection, Obama has remained slightly ahead for five months. Because the race has been in this holding pattern for so long, it will be very hard for McCain to break into the lead. He must do so in the debates and probably has to take the lead after the first contest this coming Friday.
If McCain can resume the lead he had held during early September, he can set a new pattern for the race. But if he fails to break through, Obama’s lead will just harden all the more.
To appreciate how McCain could surge into the lead in the debates, we need to focus on what has changed about the race in the past few months. McCain has emerged from the exchange of convention oratory with a much more solid reputation for reliability and judgment than Obama has. Remember the Fox News poll that showed voters — by 50-34 — turning to McCain, not to Obama, for advice when facing “the toughest decision of your life.” And McCain, largely due to the selection of Palin, has recovered his maverick status and is no longer seen as a Bush clone.
But the financial crisis has given Obama a way to recover from the beating he took when McCain chose Palin and he opted for Biden. It reminds people of the mess into which they feel Bush has plunged this country and makes his message of change that much more attractive.
The debates offer McCain an opportunity to push past the recognition of the crisis and strike two themes:
(a) That, as a populist, he objects to the golden parachutes offered the Wall Street executives who mismanaged their firms and required a federal bailout, and
(b) To warn voters of impending doom if Obama’s proposed tax increases ever become law.
Obama is in a tough position. He entered the race with three issues: To end the war in Iraq, to change Washington, and to restore fairness to our tax system by eliminating the Bush tax cuts that favor the wealthy.
Now, the war in Iraq appears to have been won and Republicans get much higher marks than Democrats on which party would be most effective in dealing with the situation. And, with the designation of Palin, McCain has offered a credible vision of change that Obama will have a hard time disputin
But now Obama has a new problem. His campaign is based on tax proposals that may have made sense in normal times but which are distinctly dangerous now that the financial crisis is gripping America. Even a liberal would have to concede that as we watch Wall Street each day and hope and pray that more money will flow in to keep stock prices high enough to allow companies to stay alive and keep millions employed, it is no time to raise taxes on invested capital. Such taxes now seem like a tax on water in the desert.
But Obama can hardly back off one of the main tenets of his campaign. He can’t say that he didn’t realize that his tax proposal would be harmful in a financial crisis. He can, and has, scaled back the doubling of the capital gains tax that he proposed during the primaries and now wants only a 33 percent hike (from 15 percent to 20 percent). But, in his reflective moments, he must realize that this is the wrong tax at the wrong time.
But he is stuck with this lemon of a proposal and McCain can use the debates to make him pay for it — before we have to!
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Comments
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I watched Bill Clinton interview on Larry King. What we need is four more years of Bill. Shit… I am a conservative. Bill Clinton seems to be the only one with his head screwed on right on the real issues (economy, energy, health care, taxes). Either that or he is the greatest con man ever. Regardless of who wins they need to tap into Bill’s intellect and wisdom.
Instead of Bill, you should just turn to the Republican Congress at the time of his presidency…. They are the real reason stuff got done.
Hey Mr. Morris, I told you Obama would win…your man McCain is unraveling like 100 year old yarn, disassembling like the character in the Sci-Fi “The Fly.” Man was James Carville ever so correct when he said the campaign ended the moment McCain said, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Since then McCain has looks disoriented and unpresidental. Tonight David Letterman closed the casket on the McCain campaign.
As to your point Bolafson, who do you reasonably beleive will be most likely to tap Bill Clinton’s experience? Which candidate has the most in common with Bill Clinton’s governing policies?
Dick, You said “Now, the war in Iraq appears to have been won”
Could you please give me your definition of a victory in Iraq?
To me, what would mark the point when US troops could confidently head home is when Iraq’s own security forces step up. This is however a complete catch-22. Expecting Iraqi police forces to step up w/o a timetable is like expecting a highschool kid to do their homework without any due dates.
I don’t mean to detract from your post too much, but I feel this is a strong point that needs to be hammered home. Setting a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq is a GOOD idea for all. The Iraqi police force needs to have a timetable if they’re ever going to step up and take their security into their own hands.
But beyond this, I don’t want my initial question to slip through the cracks. If we’re to constantly state that “victory is in sight in Iraq” without defining victory, well… I’m sorry, I just see the rhetoric as a political smoke screen. What would define a victory in Iraq?
My point is that one does not have to be in ideological agreement with Bill Clinton to respect and tap into his intellect and experience. I would hope whoever becomes President does just that.
McCain is in serious trouble, and with the financial crisis pressing its face against the windows of the Americans voters, it is only going to get worse for McCain. Congress is going to nationalize the bad debts and assets of the failed institutions and the American taxpayer will be tasked with paying the bill; and at the same time Congress will privatized the profits back to the financial instutions and CEOs.
Mercedes and Bolafson: I wouldn’t be taken by what Bill Clinton said on the Larry King interview. If you noticed, it was all about Bill and Hillary……a song that never ends and keeps being sung every opportunity that presents itself. Clinton would like nothing more than to see Obama loose…because it would be the same song, but the lyrics would change….and as far as tapping his experience and intellect….Monica tapped him out……so much for intelligence…..and experience……she wasn’t the first nor will she be the last.