Current trajectory: McCain isn't winning this race. Jay Cost explains:
So long as the newspapers and the televisions are full of stories about [economic] contraction, which as you can see dominated every day this week here in Pittsburgh, John McCain's poll position will be weak. That's all there is to it. Conservatives can criticize McCain for not doing this, that or the other; liberals can praise Obama for doing this, that, or the other. But the fact remains that, as of today, the state of the race is pretty simple: this was an even-steven contest until the markets started to sputter and people started really worrying about the economy. Now Obama's up 6 points.[snip]
The average voter doesn't understand the intricacies of economic policy. Heck, when you think about it, nobody really understands the economy. So, voters often rely on simple yet sensible metrics to make political decisions about the economy. One of them has been more or less operative since the election of 1840: if the economy tanks during a Republican administration, vote Democrat. If it tanks during a Democratic administration, vote Republican. Applying this rule to 2008, we get the following. McCain, because he is of the incumbent party, gets the political harm. Obama, because he is of the out party, gets the political benefit. That's all there is to it.
[snip]
Does that mean this race is over? No. If the bad news dissipates and some good news manages to creep back into the papers and onto the television, McCain's position should improve at least a bit. But that means that his fortunes are out of his control (the same goes for Obama). A retooled message might help him at the margin, but to change things he's first going to need some better headlines.
That's the political environment and people better understand it.
In that context, McCain is probably up a creek absent another major turn of events in the news. Dino Rossi still has an excellent chance given the positioning of his campaign in what increasingly amounts to a "throw the bums out" year...but it will be a brawl until the very end. Dave Reichert still retains a position as a slight favorite given his adherence to his district, whose increasingly Democratic demographics mean either way it's going to be close.
Further down the ballot? That depends on how artful legislative campaigns and the like can be in articulating an effective message in the midst of a lot of other campaign noise.
Meanwhile, if McCain were to lose, the left should be on warning not to triumphantly proclaim the end of conservatism (as some tried to do after 2006). Partisans on both sides who are eager to assume the "failure" of their opposing political ideology are very often living in a fantasy world. The working middle of voters in this country who are willing to cast a vote for either party have a fundamentally different view of politics.
If the New Deal and Watergate didn't destroy Republicans and conservatism then a President Obama won't either. Just as the Reagan Revolution and 1994 didn't wipe Democrats and liberalism off the map either.
The 2010 electoral results of the governance of President Obama coupled with Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Well, that could be fun.
Posted by Eric Earling at October 12, 2008 09:32 AM | Email ThisYes, I saw his electronic billboard advertisement from I-5 yesterday, where Dino (Prefers Not to Admit Republican Party Party Party) explicitly ties himself to OBAMA! Heckuva job, Bushie! You guys must be so proud of your candidate.
BTW, you guys tried to portray 2006 as an 'anti-incumbent' year, so Mike!#$%^%@! had a chance at defeating Sen. Cantwell. How'd that work for you?
"Meanwhile, if McCain were to lose, the left should be on warning not to triumphantly proclaim the end of conservatism (as some tried to do after 2006)."
Thanks for the concern trolling. How have conservative policies on the economy performed since 2006? Have they made the economy better? (How 'conservative' is a massive government buy of commercial assets, anyway?) Please do tell.
Conservatism will always exist. Neo-Conservatism is about to join Wm. F. Buckley, where it belongs.
Posted by: tensor on October 12, 2008 09:43 AMHowever he has been regretably disappointing in this bail out crisis.
If he wanted to be a maverick- he could have made waves in opposing a fast tracked bail out bill- (though he would have lost that battle, the American people would have turned to him 70/30. The AIG "getaway to a resort" would have been a follow up.
Something had to be done- but thanks for NOTHING Maverick in doing nothing to stop the gigantic wedgie Pelosi and Bush just gave America.
Wa isn't exactly a swing state, so I'm writing in Mitt in protest.
Posted by: Andy on October 12, 2008 10:40 AMRight. Uh-huh. I'm looking forward to the brilliant fiscal policies of the left. So far, they want to put 150 billion into food stamps and unemployment benefits. Bring on the economic comeback!
Posted by: Jana on October 12, 2008 10:41 AMYou know what? He just might.
But we've already seen what 2 years of leftist control of our economy has accomplished. Yet somehow, morons like you; who back this lying, anti-American racist bigot who can't seem to go a single fricking minute without wasting millions on earmarks is somehow going to change ANYTHING?
Good God, but to be a leftist is to be a blithering idiot.
Posted by: Hinton on October 12, 2008 11:56 AMYep Obama just may win. But you and I know this well be just like the Clinton's term.
Obama will do the tax hike. The country will hit the breaks and Congress will have another turn over.
Now if McCain and other REP's are smart. They will force Obama for tax cuts, just like they did to Clinton. But hopefuly they will speak up about who really brought the country back. Not like last time, when they let Clinton take the prize.
Back to Eric's point which is serious, and, I think spot on. Republican chances are tied to the market. All they can do is try to win elections at the margins. If the market continues to flounder, all we can do is try to stay above 40 in the Senate and 170 in the House.
Dino has a bit better chance because a lot of Indepndent voters get it that Democrats have held the Governor's office here for nearly a quarter-century. That's an abnormally long period of time.
As for general Republican fortunes, I think it very likely things will look better on election day than they do now. There's a lot of money sitting out there drawing 0 return and once investors are convinced we are at the bottom--they'll come in.
And with the government out there guaranteeing just about everything, they'll soon understand there is little downside. (The government doing that is another problem--but it's good for the market in the shortrun).
And if the market doesn't comeback enough and Obama and Gregoire win, we'll have total Democrat control in both Washingtons and soon our three amigos, Matthews, Tensor, and All Facts will have no one to blame.
I would expect Obama's popularity will hold up for awhile but Reid and Pelosi start already very unpopular and Gregoire's numbers marginal at best.
And Obama's policies will not help. They mirror Herbert Hoover's in many respects: tax increases and protectionism at least.
One of the reasons Bush's popularity compares so unfavorably to Clinton's is because Clinton governed in much better times. The Cold War was over, terrorism was not much on his mind or the publicks inspite of warning signs, and the economy was good largely because a Republican Congress controlled Democrat impulses to keep spending down and Clinton controlled Republican impulses to cut taxes too much.
It won't be so easy for Obama because he governs in a tougher time and he stands on policy issues is far to the left of Clinton.
He will pretty much get everything he wants in his first year. But by his second year, he's probably going start losing Democrat Senators facing voters in marginal or Republican-leaning states: Pryor, Lincoln, the two Nelsons, Bayh, Landrieu, Tester, Dorgan, Conrad, etc.
And Gregoire will start pushing an income tax after 8pm on election day.
I wonder what Tensor, Matthews, and All Facts will say them.
Posted by: b2 on October 12, 2008 12:24 PMwhy don't you go crawl back under that rock you have been living under the past two years....
Posted by: Chris on October 12, 2008 01:51 PMAt least now we know that Mathews is a communist.
Posted by: B2 on October 12, 2008 04:19 PMConsidering that Clinton inherited a country that had practically bankrupted itself after 12 years of Republican rule, I don't think that you can simply poo-poo Clinton's accomplishments in trying to get the government back on track.
Posted by: demo kid on October 12, 2008 04:21 PMFire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Drama queen much?
Funny, too, that if the votes go your way (even if it is just 50%+1), it's a solid endorsement of the conservative party line. If they don't, "we get who we deserve".
Posted by: demo kid on October 12, 2008 09:30 PMMcCain is a bit better when it comes to the financial crisis. At least he recognizes that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a part in it and Obama is in it up to his eyeballs. But he has not been able to capitalize on this damning fact because he shares the same premises as Obama: that "greed" and capitalism caused the mess and it is up to the government to fix it. This is a case of that old Republican disease, me-tooism. The Democrats present a far more consistent though erroneous case for instituting socialism in America than a Republican ever could.
This crisis has been present as a failure of capitalism when actually it is a gross failure of socialism or socialist meddling in the free market. Is the Community Reinvestment Act a capitalist or socialist bit of legislation? How about the quasi-governmental agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Were capitalist or socialists screaming about "redlining" and demanding that banks lower or suspend their standards for issuing home loans?
John McCain has hardly brought any of this up in his campaign either from ignorance or because he shares many of the Democrat's values. If we assume the first case, here are some points McCain should be making if he hopes to win this election:
1. Reverse his support of the $700 billion dollar bailout. It is a socialistic takeover of a considerable part of the U.S. banking system. Most voter hate it too.
2. Support repeal of The Community Reinvestment Act.
3. Support the effort to dissolve or sell Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The government has no business dealing with home loans.
4. Support the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This has been a millstone around Wall Street from the day it was implemented. Removing it would be a big help in the recovery from this crisis.
5. Admit the McCain-Feingold bill was a mistake and support its repeal.
6. Abandon his Global Warming initiatives.
Hope you don't mind if I don't take you at your word... you don't have a track record for being right.
@25: If we assume the first case, here are some points McCain should be making if he hopes to win this election:
I hate to break it to you, but the whole reason why McCain was able to get this far is because he is not a party line Republican. In a down year where a ficus plant could win against a Republican, the only person that had a shot at winning was the least Republican Republican.
If you abandoned those positions as you recommended, he would end his campaign faster than if he lit himself on fire. Heck, most of what you recommend is pretty damn foolish anyway, but flip-flopping like that would be suicide.
Posted by: demo kid on October 13, 2008 12:01 AMLOL, that was the biggest disaster of the campaign. A candidate running on his experience picks an inexperienced Governor to be his sidekick. She looked great till she opened her mouth, then the truth came out that she could not answer basic questions fielded to her by reporters. Then she proceeded to lie about her opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere. Some serious vetting was needed that somehow got skipped over in order to save a dying campaign and appeal to the base.
However he has been regrettably disappointing in this bail out crisis.
Yup, he suspended his campaign...dared Obama to do the same. Obama being wise to McCain's madness said no way was he going to cancel the debate, McCain was forced to blink. Game over.
The problem with being the "Maverick" within your party is that you piss off your base. No matter how bad your party leader is doing you still need the guy (as Gore learned in 2000) and you still want him on the trail with you to fire up the base. Palin was good pick, appealed to the base, problem was she dug herself into a hole with her lies and lost all her credibility. SO now you have a Maverick and a Liar against a leftist candidate who's tacking center while McCain is still trying to shore up his core constituency.
It just get's worse and worse for McCain...Real Clear Politics is showing Obama with 304 without toss ups!! States like Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota that should be solid red are toss-ups or pink, Florida is leaning blue. Even without Florida in play McCain needs more electoral votes. At this rate McCain is going to look like Bob Dole II.
The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.
The immigration event, which other photos show was packed with red-shirted Acorn member, was co-sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese, the SEIU, and other groups.
McCain, still spiting much of his party on immigration at the time, was the headliner.
Bertha Lewis, Acorn's chief organizer, said in a statement that came with the photo, "It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans."
"We are sure that the extremists he is trying to get into a froth will be even more excited to learn that John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with ACORN, at an ACORN co-sponsored event, to promote immigration reform," she said.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Acorn_pushes_back_hugs_McCain.html?showall
Posted by: Rank Stranger on October 13, 2008 05:18 PMFor the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." ...
The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.
The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare.The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.
The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare.
Obama's "tax" plan would in effect undo the greatest accomplishment of the Republican Congress, welfare reform. It would reinstate the federal welfare system that we thought was gone for good with the repeal of AFDC. Not only a welfare system: a welfare system that would rapidly grow from more than a half trillion to over a trillion dollars a year.
That plumber is right to be nervous. I wonder, though, how many voters know that Barack Obama proposes to put the federal government back in the welfare business to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Posted by: KS on October 13, 2008 07:48 PMMcCain has not presented himself in anyway fundamentally different than Obama. Why he even said that there is nothing to fear in an Obama Presidency. He may differ on the implimentation of certain policies, but the end result is the same:a socialist state.
Posted by: Bill K. on October 13, 2008 10:03 PM