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
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