The first batch of post-RNC polls are out, and they contain good news for John McCain.. In the Gallup Tracking poll, McCain is up 3% against Obama. In the Rassmussen Tracking poll, McCain is tied 48% to 48%.
These polls show that McCain did get a bounce from the RNC, and that this race is very fluid. It would not be surprising if these numbers get better for McCain by mid-week as weekend polls sometimes undercount Republicans.
I am going to go off on a limb and predict that Obama will underperform his polling numbers—just as he did in New Hampshire in January. I believe that there is a strong “bandwagon” effect among Obama voters and that McCain will actually peel away some of the Hillary voters that have “come home” to the Democrats after the DNC.
Watch the swing state vote—states like Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan will decide this election. Obama needs some of the key Western states to win. McCain must take Ohio and Florida to win. Obama has to hold all of Kerry’s states and peel off enough electoral votes for the red states to win.
If Pennsylvania goes to McCain, Obama is toast. He is unlikely to pull enough additional electoral votes to make up for that loss. If I were McCain, I’d be having Sarah Palin circling the Great Lakes states while McCain pulls Colorado, Nevada, and possibly New Mexico from Obama.
This race is completely up in the air. McCain has taken some of the wind out of Obama’s sails. He has an opportunity to run as an “agent of change” and beat the prevailing political climate. Obama is now on the defensive, and could lose. The debates will be critical, and the next two months will be some of the most exciting in American politics yet.
UPDATE: The latest Gallup/USA Today tracking poll has even better news for McCain: a lead of 10% in a survey of likely voters. That poll is likely an outlier, but there’s little doubt that McCain has gotten a bounce from his convention, and that Obama’s lead has evaporated.
UPDATE: Today (Sept. 8), McCain has a 3.2% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. All the major polls show the race either tied, or with McCain in the lead. There’s no doubt that McCain got a bounce from the convention, and that it was a substantial one. The question will be whether he can make the best of that momentum into Election Day.
Gov. Palin’s speech had less than one million fewer viewers than Obama’s speech, but was carried on six networks to Obama’s ten. Obama had just over 37 million viewers to Palin’s over 36 million. Palin’s speech was the most-watched speech by a Vice Presidential contender in history.
What does this mean? Obviously the more viewers the better. Obama got fawning press and put on a great show. McCain’s speech was natural, and I have a feeling that it will play better with independent voters. If so, it is quite possible that McCain will get a stronger-than-expected convention bounce in the next set of polls. As with Obama, we have to wait until late next week to see if the bounce lasts, but McCain and Palin have undoubtedly exceeded expectations. If McCain outperforms Obama in the debates and reaches out to independent voters, this race could shift dramatically in the 60 days until Election Day.
John McCain will never be a great orator. He’s no Obama, neither is he a Sarah Palin. But last night’s speech wasn’t about lofty rhetoric: it was about John McCain being John McCain. There was no attempt to gild the lily: instead McCain had the wisdom to realize that the only way he can win is to change the nature of this race.
Between Sen. McCain’s speech and Gov. Palin’s tour de force, this election is no longer what it was before the convention began.
Before, the election was a referendum on Obama. McCain seemed to be fighting a battle to introduce enough doubts in voter’s minds about Obama to win. This was unlikely to work, and probably would have resulted in a narrow Obama win.
Today, this election is about something different: it is about a clash of visions. John McCain has taken up the mantle of a kind of political populism. He is running against Washington D.C. and the political establishment. That is a battle he can win.
He did the right thing. The approval rating of Congress is abysmal. People are disenchanted with the politics as usual. Obama was gaining traction because he was a political outsider with a great gift for oratory and a masterful command of rhetoric. He offered a nondescript vision of “change” and “hope” that was politically compelling, especially to the disenchanted left.
McCain had to offer something different. In the end, what he’s offering is more in line with the American spirit than what Obama is. Obama wants to give you vague hope and change; McCain wants to go to Washington and throw the bums out. This is a “throw the bums out” election.
This election can be 1992 or 1994, depending on what party can best bring a vision of where the country should go in the future.
Obama wants to argue that McCain is Bush 2.0. If that’s the best they can do, then they will lose. That argument won’t fly after this convention, where we saw two styles that were vastly different than that of Bush and Cheney. McCain’s story is so different that Bush’s that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, for the Obama team to try to paint them as mirror images. It is not a message that will resonate with voters, and it just sounds desperate. It’s the same strategy that the Republicans tried in 2006 when they tried to tag every Democrat with the “dangerous liberal” tag. It didn’t work, because the Republicans never presented a real agenda.
The Republican National Convention was a success. McCain leaves this great state with a political powerhouse as a running mate, an energized base, and a new message. That’s what he needed to do.
This convention lacked the flash and polish of the Democratic Convention in Denver, but it is memorable not for its showmanship, but for producing a new political star. People will remember this convention, and this could very well be the week that leads McCain to another come-from-behind victory in November.
In other Sarah Palin-related news, ABC reports that the Palin pick has greatly energized GOP voters and caused McCain to have his best fundraising month yet. The Palin pick gave McCain an estimated $10 million in new contributions.
The Democrats were counting on a big enthusiasm gap, but the Palin pick has the GOP base excited. For those of us who have had Gov. Palin on our political radar screens, this is not a surprise. Gov. Palin is not only a strong pick because of her gender—she’s a strong pick because of what she has accomplished is Alaska. There’s a good reason why she had an 80% approval rating in a state with a strong independent streak.
Gov. Palin was an inspired pick, and it not only ensured that Obama got virtually no bump from the convention, but has made the GOP grassroots give a lot more respect to the McCain team.
Earlier this year, I had her as a favorite, not really thinking that McCain would be so bold as to pick her. Looks like I underestimated Sen. McCain’s vision after all.
Alaska is as far away from Washington as it comes. Gov. Palin is tough, principled, well-spoken, and a great example of what a woman in America can be in the 21st Century. She is an inspired pick for McCain, and she will help him win in November.
The McCain campaign has one of the most effective campaign ads I’ve ever seen. On the day of Sen. Obama’s acceptance speech, the McCain campaign offers this reminder that despite the Senator’s historic rise, he is simply not prepared to lead this country in a time of great challenges:
Obama’s own words serve as a reminder that the Presidency is not a time for on-the-job training, especially not now. Obama’s instincts are wrong. He was wrong on the surge. His instincts were wrong on Georgia. He made key blunders in threatening Pakistan with a U.S. invasion. He can give a compelling speech, but compelling speeches won’t be enough to safeguard Ukraine from Russian interference. Compelling speeches will not stabilize the fragile situation in Pakistan. Compelling speeches will not win the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Actions speak louder than words, and had the U.S. followed Sen. Obama’s advice, Iraq would not be stabilizing, we would have shown Russia a sign of great weakness, and our foreign policy would return to the fecklessness of the Carter years.
Obama has neither the experience nor the instincts to lead. Sen. McCain has both. Sen. Obama deserves congratulations for breaking a historic record and achieving much. What he does not deserve is to be the Commander-in-Chief of this great nation.