It's the end of civilization as we know it...

Yes, for once, this is not about politics.

This needs no real comment. Just get out your magnifying glass and read the title of the articles. Sigh.

What I said earlier...

If you doubted my contention about the public polls not fully reflective of Obama's real standing in the presidential horse race, the public polls are being forced to be "more accurate. Rasmussen and Newsweek in particular are reflecting this today.

Obama's latest Hail Mary is an attempt to be JFK with a speech in Berlin.

Europeans cannot vote in our elections.

For those who like my other blog, Lincoln's Ghost, an unvarnished politically biased blog, I have some new cartoons up. I expect to put editorial cartoons reflecting my views on the issues up on a weekly basis.

Coach

You only change positions when you are in trouble

Obama is in trouble; he knows it, McCain knows it, why doesn't the media know it?

As Victor Davis Hanson points out in a recent article, Obama has created more flip-flops than a Hawaiian footwear manufacturer over the last few weeks. It has resulted in some bitter unhappiness in some of the liberal blogosphere that only a few weeks ago was ready to wash his feet with the hairs of their head. Critical photoshop pieces like above have sprung up on those websites.

Let's think this through. If he were truly ahead across the nation, like we are being told, would he change his position? If he were winning Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc. like polls reported in the news say, would he need to change his message? If McCain was running behind him, would McCain or Obama be more likely to completely change his position and run more to "the middle"? If Obama was likely to be the next president if the election were held today, would he be casting aside his positions on Iraq, oil drilling, NAFTA, military force, Iran, gun rights, taxes, immigration, faith-based programs, public campaign financing, the FISA wiretaps, North Korea, Cuba, Afghanistan, the Palestinians and Israel? Will he soon be wearing a ten-gallon hat and attending NASCAR races?

Why is he doing this?

Because he is LOSING the election. When you are losing, as I have said a nauseatingly large number of times on this blog, you change your position to reflect where the voters are, hoping that will change your numbers in states where you must win. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What it counts on is a) voters don't know it's a change and like your position and will support your candidacy now, or b) voters feel better about you now and will NOW support you based on your NEW stance. If your old stance was fine with the voters, and you felt where you stood would eventually result in your election, YOU CHANGE LITTLE TO NOTHING. And as master strategist Karl Rove notes in this excellent analysis, people WILL notice you have changed your views.

McCain has done his own changing, but nothing like Obama has. He has emphasized oil drilling and gone silent on his opposition to drilling in (the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve) He may end up supporting drilling in ANWR if it ever comes up for a vote again. But it is unlikely that he will ever volunteer to bring up his support for a ban on drilling there because the public is for it in increasing numbers as $4 a gallon gas bites hard on the public wallet. McCain is actually finding that the public is coming more in line with his views: on Iraq and the success of the surge, taxes, oil drilling, and other key election issues. That's why Obama has to keep hitting the only issue that will always put McCain on the defensive: his party's leader is George W. Bush. And this is why McCain will always take opportunities to highlight his differences with the unpopular president and indicate how those stances remain unchanged...unlike the stances of his opponent, Obama.

What about all that money Obama has raised? What about it? If money were the decider, Romney would be running against Howard Dean's attempt at a second term! Money, as I have said, can hurt if you lack it, or hurt if you overuse it and turn voters off with overkill. I have just spent a few days in Pennsylvania. Obama's ads are constant here...watching in the hotel lobby, I noticed the local custodial help watch 5 secs of it and walk away to keep changing the linen. They already know what he represents. Or are they wondering...?

Here's a little secret...VERY SELDOM DO VOTERS CHANGE THEIR MINDS ONCE THEY HAVE DECIDED THEY LIKE OR DISLIKE A CANDIDATE. This is bad news for Obama in those midwestern battleground states. These are the ones where Hillary, the candidate that the media told us should drop out because she couldn't win, defeated him time and time again; sometimes in massive margins. Other than his home state of Illinois, he couldn't win late midwestern battleground state primaries. Do you think that was because people loved Hillary and didn't believe the delegate totals that showed she had almost no chance of winning, or because they wanted to cast a vote AGAINST OBAMA. Many of those longtime Democrats in those states didn't like having a candidate as the leader of their party who listened to a preacher who shouted, in their view, hateful sermons about America. They dislike Bush, but the also were very uncomfortable with Obama as the party standard-bearer. Where do they go now?

Obama may have to let the dust settle in those states and hope that his NEW positions play better there. That's why Obama is taking his pot full of money and going to red states like Montana and North Dakota. What chance does he have there? None. But then things aren't moving his way in Ohio or Michigan either. You have the money, try showing up in Red State Land and see if the polls move. If they do, you can tout how you are doing well in a strong red state and perhaps that will move people in your direction in other states in a bandwagon fashion. It can't hurt, and it may help. But this is not the strategy of a person who is on a roll. If you are strong, you keep pounding your message in those big midwestern battleground states. You need them to win, and you don't want your opponent to make any progress there. And why waste money in small red states that don't have many electoral voters.

I know I risk sounding like a broken record here, especially if the dynamic doesn't change in the next several months. And if Obama wins a huge landslide, as his cheering section in the media would have us believe, then I doubt if anyone except a handful of friends and family will ever log onto this blog again. (as if that wasn't most of the audience for this blog to begin with!)

But I don't think I'm wrong. To be honest, do any of us ever think we are? If we do, then we change. Could that be what is happening to Candidate Obama? ;)

Coach

I'm not dead yet...

Fans of Monty Python will recognize this quote from their scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A small village is trying to get through the latest run of the Black Death and as the cart goes through the lanes, a local asks the man running the body cart if he can put someone on who is "not dead yet, but will be soon." Even though the person in question avers that he is "feeling much better" and begins to sing, the cart man helps his friend out by clubbing the old man and putting him on the cart because, after all the cart won't be back for several days.

Our national media is trying to portray the Republican Party as "dead man walking" and Senator Obama simply passing the time until he becomes President Obama. These are the same know-it-alls who were selling tickets to Hillary Clinton's inauguration in December. Their track record is not so good.

Where does the race stand today?

I told you to keep your eyes on where the candidates go. I also have talked before about watching what they say, and if it represents a change from their past positions. To a great extent, candidates must appeal to their party's base in a primary and to the great middle in the general election.

McCain was a bit unorthodox. He did NOT go after his party base in the primary. He largely was trying to appeal to independents and disgruntled Democrats and got enough cross-over votes to win the nomination in a relatively unexpectedly easy finish to the campaign.

Obama had to go a much more traditional route and had a much tougher go of it. Let's face it, it's harder to defeat the Clintons than it is to defeat Mitt Romney. Especially when you have Mike Huckabee running interference for you down south!

Now Obama is in the position of having to "modify" some of his stances. His attempts to morph his Iraq stance is the most obvious one. Fortunately, his legions of admirers will permit him to make these verbal changes if it helps him win the White House. It is earning him criticism even from staunch supporters like the editorial board of the New York Times.

Will it hurt his chances to win?

Those last Democratic primaries continue to haunt the Obama campaign. Can he win back the blue-collar Democrat voters in the Midwest? Some data suggests many of those votes were not for Hillary but more against Obama. How many fit this category? We don't know. But that will be key in November.

Polling data continues to suggest that the Midwest will be the deciding region, once again, in November. Keep an eye on Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Where are the candidates traveling? Recently, Obama has been in Missouri, Ohio, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, and then back to DC. These are Red States. If he cannot make good progress in the polls there, after the convention, he will go back to the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.

He has to try to take some of these smaller Red states if he is going to offset potential losses in Ohio and Florida. The problem is, it takes a LOT of those tiny Red states to offset the electoral votes lost if you have to concede Florida and Ohio.

He'd better keep his eye on Pennsylvania...that would make it near impossible.

McCain has been reestablishing his "conservative" bona fides in Red and "purple" states like Nevada, Ohio, and Indiana, but then he does some strange things. He goes to California (not a chance) Pennsylvania (should worry Obama) and then this strange little episode in Mexico. That is a pure play for the Latino vote, and after the hard feelings from the campaign with Hillary (who dominated the Latino vote) Obama should worry about that. Obama's response was to have a fundraiser in Miami. Not quite the same demographic, Barack. Most of those former Cubans are hard-core Republicans who still hate Fidel.

Keep an eye on these guys. Remember, the media created polls are worthless. The campaign polls are very good, and probably tell each other the same things. It is also driving their visits. If the visits result in better polling in that state, they will go back there over and over. Until the results stop improving; then they will go somewhere else. At the end of the campaign, it may simply be the result of "well if we don't win this state, it's over." That why John Kerry spent almost all of the month of October in Ohio, and outspent Bush 3-1 there. It didn't work.

Which brings up the subject of money. Is it the difference maker? Can be. It can also backfire. Obama outspent Hillary in Pennsylvania 3-1. She beat him solidly when polls showed him with a slight lead. Many feel that if he had put more of that money towards "walking around money" in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh's heavily black inner city boroughs that he could have made it much closer. He chose not to. Big mistake.

He also heavily outspent her in West Virginia and lost by 40 points. In that state, there is reason to believe that the overkill from too many media buys made the loss worse. So money is not the cure for negative voter attitudes, but it can kill a campaign if you don't have enough. Consider campaign money to be like oxygen: you need it to stay alive but you don't want to hyperventilate!

I will be traveling next week, a little history vacation in preparation for my summer adult education courses on both Benjamin Franklin and the US Civil War. I am looking forward to revisiting Gettysburg, Philadelphia, and Mount Vernon. And I will be seeing Williamsburg and the Antietam battlefield for the first time. I will try to post at some point.

Have some great summer fun and a belated happy Fourth of July!

On that note, I strongly encourage you to read Victor Davis Hanson's latest post on what makes America so incredible. You who read this little blog know how much I treasure Professor Hanson's thoughts. This one is a real keeper.

Coach