Robert Kaiser has an interesting piece in the Washington Post today that makes the case that Senator Obama's strong performance in the debates has been the key to his success this fall. I agree, but think there several other factors. Remember that McCain came out of his convention ahead and with momentum and a fresh life. It really looked liked it would be a close general election, or that McCain might have a shot to pull this off. So what happened?
Their Reactions to the Financial Crisis - At moments of crisis, leaders are tested. Obama passed this test, looking steady, strong, engaged. McCain stumbled, "suspended" his campaign, changed his message, and in general, looked a little desperate and out of it. He failed this critical test of leadership, which significantly undermined the entire McCain narrative of "proven, tested, ready."
The Debates - Based on post-election polls, Obama and Biden each overwhelmingly won their debates. And as Kaiser argues, the debates became critical for Obama, for they allowed him to fill in the gaps and to address the very real concerns many had about whether he was up to the job. Again, he looked in command, smart, steady, ready. McCain, on the other hand, while showing flashes of effectiveness, again came across as a slightly addled and occasionally an angry old man, struggling to keep up with his younger, smarter and more compelling opponent.
All About Sarah - It was her rise that lifted McCain, and with her collapse, came McCain's fall. I predicted in a pre-convention post that McCain would pick a vibrant, telegenic running mate to help make up for his not-so-appealing grumpy old man persona. Well he did, but man, when that teenage belly bump arrived on the scene, it became clear that the Palin vetting was, let us say, a little "mavericky." They clearly had no idea what they were getting into with her. Tina Fey then gave the nation permission to start saying what they were sensing with her, that seeing Russia from her front porch was not really adequate prep to be VP for a man unlikely to finish out his time in office. The comparison between her vacuousness and Biden's experience became a true black mark on the McCain campaign while doing a great deal to undermine his brand.
A Superior and More Modern Campaign - There can be no doubt now that the Obama campaign is the best run and most innovative Presidential campaign of the modern era, and clearly the model for a new 21st century era of post-broadcast, people-based advocacy and politics. Their commitment to this new Dean/Trippi inspired Internet model gave them the resources to overwhelm McCain these last few months on the airwaves and on the ground in the battlegrounds, and to produce a primetime video seen by an amazing 34 million viewers in the final week of the election. For more on this new political model and the emergence of what we've been calling a virtuous cycle of participation, see this recent post.
The Issues - Obama has stayed relentlessly focused on the most important issue facing Americans today - the struggle of every day people to make ends meet. McCain and his campaign have seemed weirdly preoccupied with peripheral issues, political issues - Paris Hilton, Bill Ayers, sex ed and baby killing and now Jeremiah Wright - rather than focusing on the stuff that really matters to people. These divisive, distracting ads - straight out of the Southern Strategy GOP playbook - reinforced the very things that the public has come to dislike about Republicans: their willingness to put politics above solving problems. These ads and attacks helped undermine McCain's brand, and suggested instead that McCain was just another one of "those" Republicans after all.
Finally, incredibly, McCain's economic plan has been so similar to the approach Bush took in his years in office that it has been stunning to watch. The GOP's economic strategy this decade has left the average American making less money while giving huge tax breaks to the most privileged among us. The inability of the Republicans to come to terms with this outcome of their years in control of government has been central to their dramatic fall from power. That John McCain did not understand this, and did not offer any real proposals to deal with the struggle of every day people, is what allowed Obama to successfully tie him to President Bush and his failed Presidency. I think McCain never really believed that the Democrats would pull off making him a Bush clone because of his own hatred for Bush. But the ideological blindness of the modern GOP to the struggle of every day people is what drove the GOP from office in 2006, and will likely be the central cause of their defeat once again in 2008.
In early September, John McCain led the race. In the weeks that followed, both candidates were given a series of tests. Clearly, the American people believe Senator Obama passed his tests. Senator McCain, on the other hand, did not. And it was this disappointment with McCain that gave Obama his opening, an opening that he and his focused, disciplined campaign successfully exploited.
7:30 am Update - DemFromCT's morning poll roundup shows no real change of the closing dynamic we've been describing these last few weeks - a slight uptick for McCain but Obama holding steady and retaining a commanding lead.
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has a new TV ad out today, entitled "His Choice." The ad manages to combine two of U.S. Sen. John McCain's greatest perceived weaknesses in opinion polling of voters, the economy and Gov. Sarah Palin. It's quite good, and even a little cheeky. Check it out:
CNN's Campbell Brown calls out the sexism of focusing so much on what Gov. Sarah Palin (and other female candidates in the past) is wearing and looks like versus the amount of energy spent discussing male candidates appearances. I love that Brown has addressed this blatant double standard while also pointing out the hypocracy of Palin's attempts at being portrayed as "one of the folks".
Remember Gov. Sarah Palin's funny, feisty joke at the GOP convention where she introduced herself to the nation? She asked the audience what the difference was between a hockey Mom and a pit bull. The answer: lipstick.
Apparently, she wears a lot of it.
According to a report from Associcated Press' Jim Kuhnhenn:
Palin stylist draws higher pay than policy adviser
By JIM KUHNHENN – 46 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — An acclaimed celebrity makeup artist for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin collected more money from John McCain's campaign than his foreign policy adviser.
Amy Strozzi, who works on the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" and has been Palin's traveling stylist, was paid $22,800, according to campaign finance reports for the first two weeks in October. In contrast, McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was paid $12,500, the report showed.
In recent days, McCain and his running mate have tried to douse a furor over how their side spent their money. The Republican National Committee came under scrutiny after the party committee reported earlier this week that it had spent about $150,000 in September on wardrobe and cosmetics after Palin joined the GOP ticket.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune and Fox News on Thursday, Palin said the clothes bought for the Republican National Convention were not worth $150,000 and said most have not left her campaign plane. She also said the family shops frugally.
"Those clothes are not my property. We had three days of using clothes that the RNC purchased," Palin told Fox News in an interview that aired Thursday night.
So first we have Neimans-Gate. Now we find out that Palin has been making up as she goes along. Palin says she's being held to an unfair standard because she's a woman. But so am I, and I've never spent $22,800 on makeup in two weeks. You could buy a car for much less than that. The latest news about Palin's appetite for being pampered is going to put another dent in her self-styled populist (albeit designer) armor.
In reviewing DemFromCT's am poll roundup there is no evidence that the fundamental dynamic in the election - a convincing win for Obama - is changing in any way. There is now as much evidence that Obama is opening up his lead as there are signs of gains for McCain.
It matters because in this one shopping trip, Sarah Palin spent more on her clothes than an average American family makes in an entire year. And of course Sarah "Living Large" Palin didn't stop there - she just kept on going and spent another $75,000 at two more stores. All the while, her campaign was attacking Obama for being un-American, a socialist, an enemy of Joe Six Pack. I mean, she couldn't have spent $10,000? $15,000? That wasn't enough? My God, what do you get for $75,000? I'm not sure I've spent $75,000 on my clothes in all my years put together.
Somehow to me, this whole episode sums up the terribly disappointing era of late stage conservatism - long on marketing and short on governance. Palin looks good, excites the crowds, puts on a good show - but underneath it all are wacky and uninformed ideas (she still is not convinced global warming is manmade!), a willingness to degrade public discourse and lie lie lie about opponents and when in power, repeatedly abuse the public trust. I've come to believe that whatever its origins, late stage U.S. conservatism has become simply unconcerned about the common good; unwilling and unable to advance the interests of every day people over those with power and privilege; and much more concerned about politics than governing, more concerned about the appearance of governing than governing itself.
In these last few years, this type of Republican has offered: an economic strategy that has left a typical family with less income while giving enormous tax breaks to the most privileged among us; millions more in bankruptcy, poverty and without health insurance; soldiers dying due to inadequate body armor in Iraq; as much new government debt as we had accrued in all 200 plus years of American history together; people dying in front of our eyes, on live television, in New Orleans while the government sat; a warming planet and nothing done; charging women who had been raped for rape kits; and the most systemic corruption of Congress in the last 100 years of American life.
How could this be? Could it be that we have leaders, and a political party so unconcerned with the common good? I have thought a great deal about this over the last few years and have become to believe, at a very basic level, that they just don't care about us. Career politicians all, guided by an anachronistic and bankrupt philosophy, they have come to care only about themselves, their power, their pals, their politics, their privilege, their Party.
Update 1:22 p.m. ET -- TheAtlantic's Marc Ambinder drills down further on Palin's interview with Dobson. Seems Palin may be contradicting McCain's stated views on stem cell research, choice and gay marriage:
Dr. James Dobson today asked Gov. Sarah Palin about her private conversations with Sen. McCain about the Republican platform's planks on life and marriage.
"In your private conversations with Senator McCain is it your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?"
Good question. A lot of social conservatives worry about this.
Governor Palin responded: "I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details too, about the different planks and what they represent."
The 2008 GOP platform is a bit more conservative than it was in 2004. If McCain is going to implement it - something of which Palin is convinced from the bottom of her heart - then that means that McCain will support a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion (including those cases where the mother was raped or was the victim of incest), a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and he will oppose government-sponsored embryonic stem cell research.
Either Palin trying to mislead Dobson, equivocate, or perhaps he doesn't know what her running mate believes. McCain opposes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.... He supports embryonic stem cell research...he opposes a constitutional amendment banning all abortion. Read the platform for yourself: On abortion... on gay marriage... on stem cells.. .
Maybe McCain changed his mind?
Alaska Gov. Palin seems to have tamped down some of her more extreme rhetoric as of late, but she still has to play to her base -- especially if she's looking ahead to 2012.
Campaigning in Colorado Springs earlier this week, Palin taped an interview with Dr. James Dobson, the immensley popular leader of "Focus on the Family," which is based there. His radio show has tens of millions of listeners. Read: conservative GOP base helpful in any Republican primary.
According to a report by CNN political producer Peter Hamby, Dobson asked Palin if she was concerned by polls that show U.S. Sen. Barack Obama pulling away from the GOP ticket:
“To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder,” she told the influential Christian leader, whose radio show reaches tens of millions of listeners daily. “And it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4.”
Dobson, who seemed supicious of U.S. Sen. John McCain's commitment to an anti-choice stance, also praised Palin's position on the issue. Palin said, indeed, she was "hardcore pro-life."
In closing, she thanked "prayer warriors" across the nation:
She also thanked her supporters — including Dobson, who said he and his wife were asking “for God’s intervention” on election day — for their prayers of support.
“It is that intercession that is so needed,” she said. “And so greatly appreciated. And I can feel it too, Dr. Dobson. I can feel the power of prayer, and that strength that is provided through our prayer warriors across this nation. And I so appreciate it.”
As promised, Palin did give an interview to Jorge Ramos, of Univision, which will be aired on the network's Sunday morning political show, Al Punto, this weekend. Here's a sneak peek of the interview: she talks about Hugo Chavez, Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama, and Immigration. On immigration, Gov. Palin accepts that it's impossible to deport all the undocumented, and she emphasized Sen. McCain's view of "enforcement first" as the appropriate path to follow. When asked if she'd stop the immigration raids, Gov. Palin said she couldn't say that she would, but rather would need to take a case by case approach.
After his Meet the Press Interview this morning, General Powell did an informal presser, where he repeated some of what he said earlier, but also added some additional observations. I saw it live on CNN and found it very powerful. You can watch it here on Daily Kos.
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