Published on TheHill.com on October 28, 2008
If current survey trends continue, Obama will finish with less than 50 percent in the polls. Even discounting the Nader vote (some people never learn), the undecided voters could tip the race either way. How will they break?
Since there is no incumbent, they cannot automatically be assigned to the challenger; and since turnout is likely to be huge, the current undecided voters will probably make their way to the polls and cast their ballots.
But for whom?
At the beginning of this contest, Obama effectively made the case that the election was a referendum on Bush’s performance in office. Painting a vote for McCain as a desire for “four more years of the same failed policies,” he made the most of Bush’s dismal approval rating. Had he been able to keep the focus on Bush, he would likely have inherited most of the undecided vote.
But as Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the financial crisis, he has assumed many of the characteristics of an incumbent. Every voter asks himself one question before he or she casts a ballot: Do I want to vote for Obama? His uniqueness, charisma and assertive program have so dominated the dialogue that the election is now a referendum on Obama.
As Obama has oscillated, moving somewhat above or somewhat below 50 percent in all the October polls, his election likely hangs in the balance. If he falls short of 50 percent in these circumstances, a majority of the voters can be said to have rejected him. Likely a disproportionate number of the undecideds will vote for McCain.
But don’t write Obama off. His candidacy strikes such enthusiasm among young and minority voters that there is still a chance that a massive turnout will deliver the race to the Democrats. None of the polling organizations has any experience with — or model for — so massive a turnout, especially among voters notorious for staying at home. But the primaries proved that these young and minority voters will not stay home this time, but will vote for Obama. The effect of this increased vote is hard to calculate, but it may be enough to offset the undecideds who will vote for McCain.
But the basic point, one week before Election Day, is that even if Obama clings to a four- or five-point lead over McCain in the polling, the election is not over. The question is not so much how large his lead is over the Republican, but whether or not he is topping 50 percent. As long as the polling leaves him below that mark, he is vulnerable and could well lose.
Clearly, in recent weeks, McCain has been able to cast Obama as a leftist. He has made the issue of income redistribution central to the campaign. With the aid of Joe the Plumber and the discovery of Obama’s Chicago PBS interview, in which he lamented the absence of redistribution of wealth, McCain has made the proposition seem central to Obama’s ideology. The unprecedented power the bailout has given government over the banking industry raises the real specter of socialism in America. The banks have, effectively, been nationalized. How will government use its power over them? This new reality, coupled with Obama’s professed pursuit of “social and political justice” through “redistribution of the wealth,” is enough to send a shiver down the spine of those who embrace the free market as the key to economic growth.
The audacity of Obama’s injection of a social democratic concept borrowed from Western Europe into American politics is stunning. And almost half the voters seem to be buying it.
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I suspect Dick is correct about how the undecideds break, however I also guess he’s right about strong turnout tipping the scales to Obama.
When the post-Mortems are written, I think they will find that McCain went too negative (obscured his own positive solutions), tried too hard to relate to “common folks” by elevating common people (Palin, J.T.P., etc.) and hence dumbed down his brand and his argumentation (wouldn’t Romney making thoughtful arguments about taxation have been better than the uneducated Palin blathering about Marxism?), and turning off indy voters with a cavalier use of language (Muslim, terrorist, Arab, Socialist, etc.) that smacked of ignorance and bigotry.
Elections come down to a feeling that indy voters have for the candidates. McCain branded himself as an angry, intolerant, negative person. Obama branded himself as hopeful, unifying, and positive. I don’t think 7 days or 7 weeks or 7 years would be enough to reverse that.
The result of an Obama win will be permanent damage to the culture of this country.
As federal and local government will be swamped with political appointees friends of Obama, the love of country will be replaced by distrust and resentment in the majority of the people.
The end of the American era will come not as an invasion by barbaric hordes from the outside but from barbaric hordes from the inside.
I am heartbroken for this great country that has been a beacon of fairness and justice for about 2 centuries in and otherwise corrupt world.
I pray to God to be wrong this time , but I know I am not.
Just hope that you, Obama voter, do not have to find out how wrong you were, by learning that one of the high paying jobs going to Obama’s friends turns out to be your very own.
People have forgotten and/or never learned their American History and how we as a people arrived where we are today.
It’s all about “Whatever You Want To Do” that makes you happy. Rather than what is ethical and purpose driven.
re, mj beck
Why doesn’t John Mc Cain use these figures if they are true?
Doing away with the Bush tax cuts, accomplishes this!
Taxes…Whether Democrat or a
Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.HTML
Taxes under CLINTON-1999 &nb sp; Taxes under BUSH-2008
Single earning: Single earning:
30K - taxed- $ 8,400 30K -4500 $taxed$4500 4,500
50K - taxed $ 14,000 50K - 12,500
75K - taxed $ 23,250 75K - $ 18,750
Married earning: & nbsp; Married earning:
60K - taxed $ 16,800 60K - $ 9,000
75K - taxed $ 21,000 75K - $ 18,750
125K - taxed $ 38,750 125K - $ 31,250
Barack Obama promises to return to the higher tax rates if elected. It is amazing how many people who fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever.
[…] too inevitable, almost as if he and the media are telling you he is the president. I note Dick Morris put it this way recently as well: "[A]s Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the […]
If you replay on tv the video showing them The six year old Elian Gonzalez crying when the soldiers removed him from his aunt in Miami in the middle of the night!!! will go streight to their hearts!!!
I am an hispanic although American citizen. It came to my knoledge how the hispanic people are persuaded to vote by the idea of obama’s immigration policies in their favor. But I think about to remind
the hispanic voters about Elian Gonzalez who was the Cuban boy who was returned to Cuba by Jannet Reeno after his mother died across the sea. If you replay on tv the video showing them The six year old Elian Gonzalez crying when the soldiers removed him from his aunt in Miami in the middle of the night!!! will go streight to their hearts.
Remember how the Floridians gave Bush all the votes?
And you will overturn all the hispanic voters towards Mc Cain!Rose Tornquist
610-347-0913 or 484-888-3445
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