Dear John,
Over the past few days, your campaign has taken a turn. Let's go back over some recent history to see what's happening and what you can still do about it.
Three months ago riding the crest of the wave of his message of change, Barack Obama built up a commanding lead. Then you began running a negative campaign criticizing him for his celebrity. Obama ignored what you were doing, and your message worked. You intensified your attack in August, and you drew even with him by the end of that month.
At that point Obama named Joe Biden as his VP. Playing into your message of his celebrity, Obama addressed 84,000 at Invesco Field and got a palpable bounce following his convention. Then you followed suit and named Sarah Palin as your running mate. Re-branding yourself and Palin as mavericks with the willpower to change Washington worked with the Party faithful. Your attack on the Republican Party was a stroke of Rovian genius, and you got a bounce following your convention. Very few people noticed that your message of change and your attack on the Republican Party were plagiarized from Obama. You took a big risk, and you pulled it off. By any measure, your negative campaign and blatant resort to plagiarism took its toll on Obama. Today, you are about even in national polls and the Electoral College -- a genuine turnaround from the dire situation you faced in June.
But, John, the financial meltdown has frightened a lot of people. For the first time, large blocs of undecided voters are taking a closer look at you, your running mate and your message. Some of them are beginning to wake up to the fact that you have no discernible platform -- at least not a platform that appeals to anybody. Your foreign policy calls for more wars that will be costly both in terms of tax dollars and US prestige. Your economic policy is torn from the playbook of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Your domestic policy is plagiarized from the same source. John, people have begun to realize why you plagiarized Obama's campaign -- you don't have a plan that is genuinely your own. After more than twenty years in the Senate, very few are willing to accept you as a reformer. Simply saying that you and Palin are mavericks with a secret plan to change Washington is already beginning to wear thin.
The second troubling factor is that Obama and Biden have finally begun to lift their defenses and fight back. Face it, their 'Deception' ad is a zinger. Even Karl Rove says that your campaign is exaggerating your case against Obama, and the MSM has been littered with stories that you are lying. You have just taken three punishing blows to the head, John: one delivered by Obama, the second by Wall Street and the third by Rove and his cohorts in the MSM. By this time next week, the polls will be reacting to the latest developments. Now that you have been labeled a liar, the best you can hope for is stagnation -- but you may be bleeding points. The trend you had built up over the last three months is beginning to slow down, and Obama is now in position to turn the tide of this election.
Here are the hard cold facts. Even with an effective negative campaign and a post convention bounce, you are still well below the level that George Bush occupied four years ago. After his convention, Bush soared to a strong lead over Kerry in the polls that gave him a 7-10 point advantage by mid-September, 2004. Then Kerry got a wake up call and began to claw back. By November, Kerry was within one point of Bush. But that was then, and this is now, John -- and a lot has changed.
The internet has shortened the public's reaction time to new developments, and more people are now getting their primary news from the internet than from the MSM. Voter suppression, voter purges and voter caging are not what they used to be either, John. With a new Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio, tighter scrutiny on local boards of elections across many states and a really effective voter registration strategy -- plus the lawsuit filed in Michigan -- Obama and Biden are leveling the playing field that until recently was tilted in Karl Rove's favor.
You shouldn't expect a miracle from the debates, because they are not that important statistically. To be sure, the debates will shape the MSM coverage in October but not to a decisive extent. Even factoring Palin's celebrity into account, the best you can hope for is a wash.
Don't expect the cavalry to rescue you with some major development in foreign policy or homeland security. Any further shocks to the American body politic will backfire in your face. While the stock market meltdown has been averted for the time being, tremors will continue to rumble right up to election day. Financial fears trump homeland security fears every time, and you are not holding a strong hand on the economy as you have frankly confessed. When you said that the, "fundamentals of our economy are strong," on Black Monday -- you missed the mark entirely, and it will cost you points.
Your options are narrowing, and -- by going negative early and picking Palin you have played your trumps.
But, you have been here before, John. In the Vietnam Era, you were a dashing Navy pilot. On your final run, you bombed Hanoi then took a hit and lost control of your jet. When you crashed and bailed, you suffered terrible injuries breaking both arms, and then you fell into the cruel grasp of the torturers of North Vietnam. You are a genuine American military hero, and you know the awesome and uncontrollable power of primeval fear that wells up from below when anyone experiences those truly dreadful situations -- moments devoid of hope when you enter the centrifuge of fear.
Be afraid, John, very afraid.
Follow Michael Carmichael on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alchemistoxford
