After two weeks of party conventions which included The Maverick's bold, audacious cave-in to the religious right, we find ourselves in exactly the same place: Barack Obama leads John McCain slightly in national polls and more significantly in electoral college projections.
This is not surprising: McCain has been stuck under 45% of the intended vote since Obama was nominated; at the same time, there is a hard, concrete floor to his numbers as many voters will simply not vote for a Democrat for president. McCain could have picked a broomstick, or even Mitt Romney, as his running-mate, and he would still get about 4 in 10 votes.
As spectacular and public as McCain's surrender to the right-wing crazies is, it did not tell voters anything new. Yes, choosing Sarah Palin, the unvetted mayor of a town of less than 10,000 until 18 months ago, shows he lacks judgment, but we already knew that: his hard-headed support of the war in Iraq and his ridiculously bellicose stance on Iran, for starters, are vibrant examples of his poor common sense.
Yes, after being hounded by religious extremists for years, he picks one of them as his running mate, and that shows complete lack of principle. But we also knew that: he has flip-flopped or severely prevaricated so many times, voters genuinely have no idea where he stands on most issues despite his 26 years in Congress.
Yes, he is a consummate liar, peppering his convention speech with data and anecdotes long proven to be untrue. But he has been doing this forever and, after all, he IS a Republican, and they more than anyone have perfected the totalitarian art of saying the exact opposite of what is true in the face of the most blatant evidence.
Yes, he is completely out of touch with any kind of economic reality: he and his fellow GOP convention speakers devoted virtually no time to Americans' most pressing concern, the economy, just as unemployment is hitting a 5-year high and the housing crisis is worsening yet again. But this we knew too: the man who can't count his houses (or probably his money) thinks the economy is "fundamentally strong" and his associates think Americans are whiny.
Yes, he is deeply prejudiced, as evidenced by his campaign's convention speeches brutally emphasizing Obama's "otherness" and presumed lack of patriotism. But then again, no surprise here: he is the head of a party whose congressional representation is 99% non-Hispanic white (and may well be down to just one after November), and he has so little understanding of America outside his own country club that he voted against the basic symbolism of awarding Martin Luther King his own holiday.
Yes, his choice of a woman running-mate who has spent her short political life denying women's rights is indicative of his misogyny. But, frankly, we already knew that he was a man who left his first wife destitute to marry the local heiress whom he then publicly upbraids and calls a c***: not exactly an ally of women.
So, in the short term, nothing appears to have changed. But there are signs that the conventions and the Palin pick specifically may be a turning point after all. Republicans' biggest mistake this week may have been to tie Palin to Hillary Clinton. Leaving aside the egregious sexism of the strategy (combined with the egregious sexism of calling anyone criticizing Palin a sexist), it seems to have brought Clinton on board the Obama train more firmly than before. Is there anything Clinton would find more infuriating than to be compared to a lightweight such as Palin, who is in hiding until she is ready for prime-time?
The GOP convention has also caused a flood of cash to come Obama's way as many lethargic donors focused on the potential horror of a McCain/Palin presidency.
And it has spurred the traditional media into doing some approximation of its job and to devote resources to understanding who Palin is, and by extension who McCain is (in the meanwhile, the National Enquirer, fresh from its John Edwards success, was once again leading the charge.) Bashing the press works really well at a GOP convention, but it has to be a short-term satisfaction considering the storm of bad news that is coming the way of the McCain/Palin ticket: such a public vetting is unprecedented (although the Clarence Thomas hearings come to mind) and it is hard to imagine what good Republicans think can come of it.
The best thing about the GOP convention, though, is that it will help wavering voters realize that far from the eccentric rebel he likes to portray, McCain is a sad pawn in the religious right's attempt to maintain power in the GOP and over the country. And that if Americans think Dick Cheney is a frightening puppeteer, what will they have to say about Palin and her God-squad holding McCain's feet to the fire (and the brimstone)?