In which science-fiction movie do aliens visit the people of earth and insist, "Take me to your leader"? If they landed today, America's news media would direct them to Barack Obama, the first American to run a global campaign for President. Like Coca-Cola and Nike, brand Obama has gone global. His web-site retails a Wall-Mart sized inventory of candidate-themed winter and summer gear, though the well-dressed Obama enthusiast is advised he may have to wait one to two weeks to slip on the candidate-for-all seasons.
Obama returned from Europe triumphant. An America that yearns to regain the world's respect saw one foreign leader after another throw open their arms to the American President-in-waiting who arrived on his own Air Force One. Obama was not only treated with respect, he was received enthusiastically, a public affront to an administration, lest we forget, still in power. One way for the Illinois Senator to overcome doubts about his experience is to let Americans see him doing the job. That he did, making the world his stage, fitting the role of President comfortably and demonstrating presidential stature. Yet Obama's international success is only one wave of the storm that has been pounding John McCain's campaign.
McCain took another blow when Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki stamped the Good Housekeeping seal of approval on Obama's Iraq exit strategy. A real "mission accomplished" in Iraq is a political minus for McCain: If the war is done, why do we need a warrior President? It would be one of the great ironies of the election for McCain to be defeated by his own success in Iraq, the triumph of the surge strategy that he singly and doggedly championed. Yet John McCain may soon find himself in the position of buying the voters the tie they just got for Christmas: In the latest NBC/WSJ survey, the war in Iraq is no longer the most important election issue, plunging 14%. It is a success that allows the economy, not security, to take center stage, recalling the theme with which Labour deposed Churchill in July of 1945, "Victory In War Must Be Followed By A Prosperous Peace". That is not necessarily a plus for the candidate who declared "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should." Perhaps Senator McCain is trying to lower our expectations.
Add the steepest drop in home prices in 20 years, the weakest auto sales in 15 years, gas prices that have tripled since the Bush Administration took office, the "lets-stay-in-bed" lack of enthusiasm among McCain's own voters who support him as "the lesser of two evils", and a president whose approval ratings have rocketed to one point above his all-time low, and this election should be slam dunk for the gangly, three-point jump shot artist once known as "Barry O'Bomber."
Could Barack Obama possibly get any luckier? It turns out, yes, he can. The caricature of everything wrong with the Republican party, the longest-serving, biggest-spending, pork-devouring Republican in Washington, Senator Ted Stevens, has been indicted on seven felony charges. A timely poster-boy for Republican corruption, he will be cooked publicly on his own clandestinely secured Viking grill.
Barack Obama should not have to hit a three-pointer to win this election. It should be a lay-up. Yet if Senator Obama is doing so well, why is he doing so poorly? And if John McCain is doing so poorly, why is he doing so well?
The Rasmussen Reports Daily Tracking has McCain down only 1%, 43% to Obama's 44%. Real Clear Politics National Average of surveys pegs McCain less than 3% behind, with Gallup showing it tied, and USA Today actually placing McCain ahead of Obama, 49% to 45%. CNN reports McCain is in a better position in Colorado, Michigan, and Wisconsin than he was a month ago and they have moved Minnesota toward McCain into the toss-up category. Give them credit, despite the occasional criticism from this McCain supporter and others, John McCain's maverick band of campaign warriors are keeping this race competitive and, yes, even winning a hand or two, in the face of the worst political environment Republicans could have envisioned and the best global media exposure any Democratic presidential candidate has managed. McCain's recent attacks have worked. McCain's attacks on Obama's tax increases, his elitism and celebrity, his canceled visit to wounded troops, as well as McCain's sharp response to Obama's imagined Republican racial attacks, all dumped cold-water on the Obama campaign, stunting momentum from his European swing and creating a Berlin backlash.
Despite the McCain campaign's effectiveness, however, the best campaign against Barack Obama is not being run by his opponent, but by Barack Obama. It is Obama's campaign that presents their candidate as an ever-changing work-in-progress. It is his own campaign that occludes our ability to know this man, depicting him as authentic as a pair of designer jeans.
To earn the Democratic nomination, as Fred Thompson points out, Obama ran as George McGovern without the experience, a left-of-center politician who would meet unconditionally with Iran, pull us precipitously out of Iraq, prohibit new drilling for oil, and grow big government in Washington by all but a trillion dollars. In his general election TV ad debut, however, Obama pirouetted like Baryshnikov. With a commercial Mike Huckabee could have run in a Republican primary, Obama now emphasizes his commitment to strong families and heartland values, "Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses." In this yet unwritten chapter of his next autobiography, Obama tells us he is the candidate of "welfare to work" who supports our troops and "cut taxes for working families." The shift in his political personae has been startling. Obama has moved right so far and so fast, he could end up McCain's Vice-Presidential pick.
General-election Obama now billboards his doubts about affirmative action. He has embraced the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption saying, "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon...everything." He tells his party "Democrats are not for a bigger government." Oil drilling is a consideration. His FISA vote and abandonment of public campaign finance introduce us to an Obama of recent invention. And as he abandons his old identity for the new, breeding disenchantment among his formerly passionate left-of-center supporters and, equally, doubts among the center he courts, he risks becoming nothing at all, a candidate who is everything and nothing in the same moment. In one of the most powerful marketing books of the past few years, Authenticity, an exploration of our demand for what's real in an increasingly contrived world, authors Gilmore and Pine quote philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell about Al Gore. "Every attempt to regain authenticity," Crispin says, "only casts a new, infinitely repeated image through the hall of mirrors that is his political life and our media experience of that life." Those reflections set the authenticity of John McCain in high-relief. McCain has revealed himself to his core.
In the defining moment of his life, McCain was willing to give everything for one thing, and that one thing was his country. Contrast that with Obama, who has told America that he is "a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world." Obama is the talented salesman who seduced one state after another saying "Iowa, this is our moment," "Virginia, this is our moment," "Texas, this is our moment," and then tells Europe, "people of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment." How many times can Barack Obama sell the same moment to everyone, before he becomes Mel Brooks in "The Producers"? Who is Barack Obama? His campaign, as it reupholsters him before our eyes, says we can never know -- perhaps because Barack Obama does not know himself.
Dreams from My Father is a staggeringly beautiful book, lyrical, powerful and poetic. It is also the story of a man who has been many men, all named Barack Obama. In his own eyes, he is one race, but also another. He is an American, but also a Kenyan. He is from Hawaii and also the Kansas heartland. He is Harvard elite, then the Chicago streets. At times he decries the very clay from which he was made, only to remake himself again.
At each place and stage, as Barack Obama chronicles the chapters of his life, he tells us how he has re-invented himself, becoming the role he inhabits, though not falsely or in-authentically, like Bill Clinton. He actually seems to transform himself, becoming what must be next. He has been called distant, aloof and somewhat unapproachable, perhaps because we cannot approach what he does not have, a solid core. His soul seems to be molten and made up of dreams, which is at once breathtakingly inspiring and forbiddingly indeterminate. When this young man with the flowing, passionate core, when this candidate without the solid-center changes positions and transforms himself as we watch, it leaves Americans much more in doubt about who he is and how he would lead us. It also reveals an Obama of unapproachable arrogance and inestimable self-regard: He appears confident voters will appreciate his superiority regardless of where he journeys or what he becomes to meet his political ambitions.
John McCain is a complete and well-formed man. Barack Obama is completing himself. As he moves to fit what he perceives to be a right-of-center country, he distances himself from the simple and authentic passion of a young candidate who once pledged "Change We Can Believe In."
This is the trap Barack Obama has made for himself, the one he cannot escape, the one Hillary Clinton foresaw, the one that may doom him. The Obama campaign knows it too. In fear the dream is being lost drop-by-drop, they are going negative on John McCain. Maybe the aliens should ask to meet McCain, as well.
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I research candidates and before I even heard him speak I found much to read on Obama going back 20 years (Before the pages were filled with the smears).
His jobs changed but “his core” held strong and impressive. From those who knew him as a community organizer or Harvard or in his Constitutional Law classes or as a Senator on either side you hear the same things about him. He struck people with his work ethic, focus, thoughtfulness, quick mind, desire to learn, to hear and understand others perspectives, treating them with respect, with his calm and composure.
You mock his "strong families and heartland values, "Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses.". Odd because he has lived it as well as he has talked it. Perhaps his more unusual childhood inspired him to want a more settled family life...is that bad?
Obama is not a strange mystery. He does not woo the press which may be a problem and he gives Americans credit for being smarter than we are. I heard no complaints when McCain went to war zones and Europe...and Canada and South America and made speeches. Is it a fault that Obama was greeted warmly and responded graciously?
Lack of a core here is in the eye of the beholder
Only his media image is well formed. I've watched his town halls and he gets away with things no one else would and that no one should..
One example is the many times he's claimed a "perfect score" on his veteran's issues votes from all of the veterans groups. I looked them up. Perfect?
1. IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America)
McCain "D"
Obama "B+"
2. Vietnam Veterans Of America
McCain voted against 17 out of last 26 scored votes
Obama voted for them all but 1 time.
3. DAV (Disabled American Veterans)
McCain 20% rating
Obama 80% rating
Does that fit their comparative images? Can you imagine the press if Obama kept saying he had that perfect voting record? .
In researching candidates McCain disturbed me. Look up his interactions with Arizona politicians of both parties, his angry interactions with members of POW/MIA family organizations, his meeting with foreign minister of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the concerns expressed by Pentagon officials who respect his service but don’t want him in charge. These are threatening purple face rage with foul language and disrespectful treatment. Easy to find from reliable sources. Look up his crude jokes like rape jokes or the one about Chelsea Clinton.
Is that your complete and well-formed man?
McCain is a "Ike Eisenhower " want to be.
Neither are worth my vote.
If you want real change consider a candidate like Bob Barr.
Obama was either being insincere 3 months ago or he's being insincere now.
Which Obama exactly should we be voting for?
I say he's NO DEMOCRAT.
Of course the cult members are too busy trying to explain that he still makes them feel so good and they have "faith" in him and his intellect.
Gag me.
"Nuff said....
Nothing has been lost, nor is there the likelihood that it will. To understand Obama and his campaign, is to see what this candidate has endured. Obama has taken shots from all over, Dems, Rethugs, friends, and other adversaries still surfacing. The media has been merciless on him to a point that destroys the concepts of good journalism.
That said, Obama is not the idealist, but the realist. He is adjusting because the presidency is within reach, something that a year ago was not conceivable. He couldn't be more true in saying "This is our moment" and it is still emphatic. Our futures depend on vision and competency, and the time is now. This moment will not come again. There would be other moments if Obama loses this election, but there will be little left of the opportunities that "this moment" contains.
What media are you seeing where this merciless work is being done? Certainly not ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, USA Today, the Associated Press or the New York Times. That's pretty much the whole list of media that people get their news from. The Murdoch-owned media can be rough on him, but hardly "merciless."
Presidential candidates should expect to get beat up in the media. If you want to hear nice things about the candidates, watch their commercials, read their websites. All journos should be skeptical as a basic professional practice. I've seen more of them obviously smitten than have I seen critics.
He was trailing badly especially in the state-by-state electoral count and was probably getting pressure from party leaders to recuperate his standings. So they've been outspending the Obama campaign by about 3 to 1 running mostly negative ads to artificially inflate his poll numbers.
The Obama campaign is looking good so they've been spending their money and time more on building up their ground campaign for a 50 state strategy. They are conserving money now with the exception of the big Olympics tv ad campaign.
Still, even with all the media efforts of McCain and the Republican National Committee (RNC), Obama still looks much better right now in the electoral vote polls.
Check out the RealClearPolitics site.
http://realclearpolitics/polls
When it comes time to close the show a few weeks before the election, I believe you will see the Obama campaign open up the purse strings because that's when many people really start paying attention and deciding on who to vote for.
1. No one seems to quite understand the cell phone problem. 18-35 year olds ( ie Obama's base) generally don't have landlines, they only use their cell phones. Cell Phone numbers aren't public so most polling organizations completely miss them. This means that Obama's numbers are deflated from what they actually are. As you drill down to a state-by-state view, those numbers may or may not be more accurate depending on the demographics of that state.
2. Obama's strategy is a grass roots campaign designed to build support from the ground up. He's largely uncontested in Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas, Indiana, etc. He has more field offices in key states of Ohio, Michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, Virginia than McCain does. What does this mean? That Obama can respond quickly with direct mailers and has a better sense of each state than McCain or the national media probably does.
3.) It's JULY/AUGUST. People don't have to decide now so they don't. They lean one way or the other but its fluid. McCain's attack may work in July and August, but that gives Obama plenty of time to recover. To win in November, all Obama needs is a good week where McCain gets down in the polls, that can be accomplished best in Sept and Oct.
Obama is still completing himself? Would that be because he changes as the situation warrants, admits to not being perfect and has an ability to come up with an idea and articulate it clearly to the people.
Confidance in not arrogance.
Obama is confidant and has every reason to as he is an individual who has set high goals for himself and acheived them.
George W Bush is arrogant which stems from his privelaged life not from anything he has achieved on his own.
Thats the difference. I wont get into McCains arrogance since those posts always get deleted.