McCain Landslide (Update 10/3/08)

The MSM calls it.

Lots of gloom and doom on the Right right now: depressing poll numbers, an objectionable bailout bill (necessary or not), McCain pulling out of Michigan, ever-mounting evidence of just how far the MSM will go to see that Obama gets elected, and that old standby voter fraud.

Well, cheer up!  This too shall pass.

Not to mention that pessimism can be contagious and self-fulfilling.

Here’s a little sunshine for you:  65-35 McCain wins; 50-50 that it is a landslide.

I have been planning to write this post for a while; since the polls were all running in McCain’s favor, in fact.  The focus then was that McCain would not just win, but would win by a large margin.  I planned to structure the post as a post mortem of the Obama campaign, to explain how and why he lost.  Things are a bit more complicated now, with the financial crisis shaking everything up, but I’ve decided that I stand by my prediction.

I also decided that I had to stop putting off writing this and get it up before tonight’s debate, since I see that as beginning the upward trend for McCain.  I already messed around too long, and Zogby beat me to my prediction (sort of).  The good news is that by waiting until now, I think I am safe from accusations that I am simply jumping on a bandwagon.

My reason for standing by my prediction is that, as I mentioned earlier, this too shall pass.  I think that in two weeks, at the most, we will be able to look back at the panic caused by Secretary Paulson, and the ongoing drama of the bailout deal, as an anomaly in the campaign.  In my opinion, McCain has been focused far more on the crisis and has basically ceded the last couple weeks to Obama.

As an aside, it is hard to believe that it has only been a couple weeks; it seems like a month to me.

In any case, I think Obama’s present rosy position in the polls is almost exclusively attributable to the financial situation.  Aided by his continued campaigning and the MSM’s constant criticism of McCain vis a vis the bailout.

Once the bailout passes — hopefully on Friday, mostly for the sake of the McCain campaign — the criticism of Obama and the Democrats can begin in earnest.  At the moment, McCain is trying to avoid pulling a Nancy Pelosi.  All bets are off after Friday, though.

McCain will be free to emerge from his holding pattern and return to the campaigning that kept Obama on the defensive all summer.  Within two weeks, we will see polls rising for McCain, increased Republican optimism (or reduced pessimism anyway), coupled with panic rising for the Obama team, which does not deal well with pressure.  And although the timing could have been better, if this had happened in mid to late October the results might have been disastrous.

I think that tonight is the key, and will begin the upswing for McCain.  The MSM’s constant harping on the theme that Governor Palin is stupid and/or inexperienced has cost her big with independents, but it has made the expectations for her so low that all she has to do is show up and not make a fool of herself to in order to give voters renewed confidence in her.  Although I think the media strategy with regard to Palin was bungled badly, one positive effect is that for most voters they will be seeing her again for the first time since she wowed at the convention.

The media has made the debate into a fast ball right in the center of Palin’s strike zone — she just has to avoid whiffing it, and may knock it out of the park.

There are a lot of reasons for the odds to favor McCain.  Here is a quick outline of a few:

1. Hope and change are great ideas, but a little too vague when they are the only real reason to vote for you.  Not to mention that they became stale after the long primaries, and are contradicted by the constant negativity.
2. McCain has been criticized for a lack of focus, but Obama’s campaign has largely drifted since Super Tuesday, giving McCain the opening to grab the initiative.  Like he did over the summer.
3. Related to number 1, if you don’t buy into the hope and change, Obama does not really have anything for you other than tired liberal politics.  There is a reason that there has not been a liberal president since, maybe, Carter.
4. The choice of Palin as V.P. stole Obama’s claim to history.  Voters get to make history with either party now.
5. The MSM has overplayed its hand. It can still influence the discussion, of course, but the trust just isn’t there.
6. The loony Left/MSM panic over Palin further reinforced its image as biased and out of touch, and sparked a backlash that drove Palin’s poll numbers through the roof.  They have toned things down, while pushing the meme that Palin is stupid, but I don’t think that label will stick.
7. Palin’s pick energized the base, and aso put a politician on the national stage that the average, small town American can relate to.  There are ‘rednecks’ everywhere:  I grew up in California, have lived in the South, and have spent months on the East Coast, in the Northeast, Midwest, etc., and small town folk are not all that different anywhere you go.  If you were dropped into a Walmart anywhere in the country, until you heard someone speak you would have no idea where you were.  People are people.  Unless they are part of the urban elite intelligentsia.  Then they are  . . . something else
8. Negative ads work, but people don’t like the negativity.  Obama has actually been more negative than McCain, and has been rather inept at it.  Obama defines himself as the anti-Bush, and that is a major part of his electability, but defining yourself based on what you aren’t is dangerous and, I think, ultimately self-defeating.
9. If it is negative about Obama, it is racist.  It is bad enough for his surrogates to do it, but Obama actually does it himself.  People don’t want to be thought of as racist, but calling them racist will only make them angry with you.
10. The Bradley effect.  No one knows how much, if any, Obama’s poll numbers are inflated based on people not wanting to seem racist.  My guess is that more people are voting for Obama because of his race than are voting against him, but that is just a guess.  But number 9 inflates the Bradley effect, so don’t trust the polls.
11. Americans are pragmatic.  They may like the idea of an Obama presidency, for the hope and change and because it is historic, but when it actually comes down to pulling the lever in the voting booth I think they’ll have second thoughts.
12. McCain is a known quantity, and a safe choice.  People may or may not like him, but they know he has integrity and works to get things done.

I think Obama’s team is setting itself up for failure in many ways.  Most recently, though, they seem to think he has the election in the bag and will win in a landslide. This is based mainly on their get out the vote (GOTV) efforts.  Unless they are busing union members around to vote early and often (which is not beyond reason), I think they are placing way too much faith in GOTV.  I’m not the only one:

The scale of their ambition will trouble those Democratic sceptics who consider Mr Obama’s aides to be complacent and inexperienced in national campaigns.

Hide and watch over the next two weeks.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

UPDATE (October 3, 2008 at 22:00):

Nice to see others starting to come around.