A McCain blowout would not only be a refutation and defeat for the far left and their media allies, it would be a refutation and slap in the face for right wing nutbags who are leading a thinly veiled campaign to hurt and discredit McCain, because his candidacy flies in the face of the “appease the base” common wisdom that is in their interest, because its the only way they can get their far right agenda, very unpopular among common voters, forced upon the national stage.
Increasingly, even among hard-core Republicans like the writers of this blog, the far right is becoming more and more detestable and disgusting and just as bad, if not worse, than the far left. And the far right’s attempts to sandbag McCain reveal that they are interested in power and control more than actually supporting the policies and issues that these so-called “conservatives” claim to espouse. They are willing to risk losing Iraq and the Middle East, losing the Supreme Court and being out of power for 8 years because of personal pique and a temper tantrum because their racist hero, Mitt Romney, who would have been crushed in the general, was not nominated.
This article examines a proposition that I’ve been pushing since it became apparent (since early March, anyway) that the election was going to be McCain vs. Obama, the scenario of a McCain blowout in November:
Though they expect he would finish far closer to Obama in the popular vote, the thinking is that McCain could win by as many 50 electoral votes.
It sounds crazy at first. Amid dire reports about the toxic political environment for Republican candidates and the challenges facing John McCain, many top GOP strategists believe he can defeat Barack Obama — and by a margin exceeding President Bush’s Electoral College victory in 2004.
At first blush, McCain’s recent rough patch and the considerable financial disadvantage confronting him make such predictions seem absurd. Indeed, as Republicans experience their worst days since Watergate, those same GOP strategists are reticent to publicly tout the prospect of a sizable McCain victory for fear of looking foolish
I’ve been saying this for months: in a year the Dems should win in a walk, the Republicans nominated the absolute best candidate they had running and the Dems the absolute worst. The fact that the press is totally in the bag for Obama obscures the fact that he is perhaps the most unpopular candidate in recent history for many, many voters, and for a public figure who was virtually unknown less than a year ago, that’s phenomenal.
And the fact that McCain is running even or better, with such a tide running against the GOP is just as miraculous. And indicative.
The usual rightwingnut bloggers are fulminating over statements like this:
“No disrespect to the other candidates,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger, “but if anyone else had been nominated we’d be toast.”
But its absolutely true. I am so disgusted and sick of the bitching about McCain. Michelle Malkin and her ilk should be shunned by any real conservative or Republican because they are damaging to the party and damaging to the very cause they claim to support. Making statements comparing McCain to Democrats and finding “no difference” are just unadulterated bullshit, not to mention idiotic reasoning.
The Supreme Court is what really matters, and to act like there is no difference in the judges McCain would offer up and those the Democrat congress would rubber-stamp after Obama picked the most radical leftist moonbat available is fucking retarded.
I’m always uncomfortable with common wisdom absolutes. If the wind is supposedly blowing Republican or Democrat, you’d better watch out. Right now, there are dire predictions about the death of the Republican party. There is such pushback against any “given” that when the common wisdom starts pushing one narrative, the opposite starts gaining traction. The current narrative is that the Republicans are finished for a generation and doomed to a permanent minority. We heard the same things about Democrats in ’02 and ’04.
I’m willing to bet real money that not only will McCain beat Obama handily electorally, he’ll win by more, a lot more, than Bush did in ’04. Not only that, the Dem majority in both houses is much more precarious and temporary than is apparent at this snapshot moment in time. The Republicans will most likely regain both chambers within the next presidential administration (if Obama does somehow win, its a lock) and then lose it again within a cycle or two.
There is just too much parity within the professional ranks of both parties among those who decide how to run elections. If a party drifts too far from the what it takes to get elected, they adjust just enough so that there is a permanent 49%-51% break. The Democrat party has backed off gun-control, gay rights, absolute abortion and religion bashing (Clinton and Obama are hard-core Bible-thumpers, much to the disgust of a lot of leftwingnut religion despisers). Republicans have reduced the perceived influence of evangelicals and the “Moral Majority” which put off independents.
In the past, Republicans were seen as being intrusive and forcing their “morals” on the public via legislation: when the Dems get in power, they come under intense pressure to push politically correct “morals” on the public and government control over speech and behavior, impinging on civil rights by pushing “hate crime laws” and crap like that. The notion that when fascism comes to democracy it will be in the name of religion and patriotism is bullshit. It is already coming and in fact here, in the name of political correctness, diversity, affirmative action, etc.
The result of all this is a see-saw balance of power as the respective bases of the parties force their elected officials to push agendas unpopular with the general electorate, forcing them out of office so that the other party can get in power, fuck up the same way, and get voted out themselves.
This is the essential character of this election: Obama is absolutely a product of the worst influences and instincts of the far left, obscured by the fact that he is black. If he were white, there is no way he’d be in contention. This has been said, much to the medias’ dismay and derision, but its absolutely true. And it will kill him in the fall. McCain, while roundly disliked and hated by the far-right maniacs like Malkin and Capt. Ed, is perfect for the American electorate. He’s not threatening and impossible for the Dems to paint as an ideologue, their only hope for winning narrowly in November.
Far from being a long shot, McCain is a virtual lock to win. Obama’s boosters are pushing a “Far West” strategy, writing off Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and the Mid-West and hoping to pick up New Mexico, Colorado and other Western States to win by 5-10 electoral votes. This is not just wishful thinking, its a pretty unprofessional way to run an election. They should be fighting hard for the Rust Belt, but the distaste for Obama is so strong in those states, the Democrat strategizers are basically fucked.
The only hope for an Obama win is a severe downturn in the economy -which month by month becomes more unlikely, the media has prayed for a recession in the Spring, when it would have time to percolate through the electorate by November. That window has closed.
The other Hail Mary is a severe McCain gaffe, unlikely by an experience pol like McCain. The supposed gaffes he’s already offered up are weak sauce, in fact they are only considered gaffes by either hard left of hard right ideologues, McCain knows how to play the center better than any candidate, ever.
There has never been a candidate so attuned to the center as McCain. Every previous candidate in history has achieved the nomination by appealing to the base, then having to tack center just enough to still pump up the base and still grab enough independents to win. Clinton never really got there, he was the beneficiary of 3rd party upstarts.
The Republican base will come home in November, they have nowhere to go and the stakes are too high. I’ve come to the conclusion they are just as fucked as the far left. All the anti-immigration hate coming from the right has driven off a lot of rock-ribbed Republicans who are sick of that racist crap.
McCain knows this, so he hasn’t really bent over backward to kiss up to them. In fact, he’s moved the opposite direction. While righty bloggers and pundits have constantly claimed he would need to shore up his right wing support, he hasn’t bothered. In fact, he has continued to enrage the wackos. This is true leadership. With all Obama’s talk of being independent and changing politics, its McCain, not Obama, who is running an unconventional campaign and who is kissing off traditional tropes and who is eschewing kissing the traditional rings and hitting the notes he’s expected to hit. And its working.
He consistently leads or ties in national polls (which are, of course, meaningless unless there is a monster lead on one side or the other) and based on state by state is running very, very well. LameStreamMedia falsification of their own polls and the Bradley factor are inflating Obama’s support, to his detriment and to the dismay of Dems who always wonder what happened the day after election day. This probably contributes to their “we wuz robbed” mentality, since their media masters have been telling them how popular their candidate is and how hated the Republican is for the previous year or more.
All the scenarios for an Obama win are based on long-shots and wishful thinking. McCain’s winning scenarios are based on holding very doable states, and his landslide projection is based on very winnable states. There is an intuitive logic that precedes most elections, and the gut feeling of who will win is very rarely wrong. Dole and Bush ’92 were always going to lose, ditto Gore and Kerry. Its just as hard to imagine Obama pulling out a win when the entire working class votership detests him with a dislike reserved for hard right or hard left radicals like Newt Gingrich or Ted Kennedy.
McCain is trustworthy, likable, respected, and fair in the minds of the greater electorate. Only the far right and far left will be pissed off when McCain wins, and since I despise both of them (as most Americans, who are also not radical left or right, do also) this year’s election will be greatly satisfying.
I’ll still rest a lot easier after McCain picks his VP and gets past the possibility of Romney being on the ticket. That’s the only other thing that might lose the election for McCain. Hopefully, he’ll be too smart to fall for the canard he need mollify the far right. Fuck the far right. Fuck the so-called conservative base. Their agenda is based on racism, homophobia, religious extremism, hate and everything wrong and dispicable about the so-called “right” and the last vestiges of what makes the Republican party so anathema to minorities and mainstream American voters. To be a truly dominant party, we need to get past kowtowing to the haters and retarded racism of the far right ranters like Malkin and her ilk.
I think that’s why radical right conservatives are rooting for McCain’s defeat, even though it would be a huge blow to the cause for which they claim to be a part. They hate the idea that the country, and indeed the party, has moved not only toward the center, but away from the most odious “conservative” stands on the issues. I don’t think they ever were conservatives at all, but merely scoundrels who took refuge in a party on whom they thought they could foist their extremist views. They are finding themselves shouldered aside this election, and they are having a predictable tantrum about it. I think their loss will be more than offset by gains among Democrats and independents.
QOAE has more, plus a link to Karl Rove article which shares the opinion Obama is going to have a rocky road in November (if McCain can get his shit together with his campaign, btw.)
She also quotes an article by Paul Maslin that makes similar points as I made above:
To figure out how Obama can assemble the magic 270, then, let’s look at the 17 states where this fall’s outcome is not a mortal lock. I am a Democratic pollster — this presidential election cycle I worked for Bill Richardson, and last time I worked for Howard Dean. But my collection of swing states is not based on current match-up polling between Obama and McCain. I mostly ignored the polls — come on, it’s May. Instead, I looked at long-term voting trends and demographics. Swing states Obama absolutely, positively has to win: A reasonable projection of the Electoral College results for 2008 would award the Democrats 157 safe votes in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Of the 17 swing states where Obama has no guarantee but a good shot, six are really “must-wins” for him. Defeat in any — particularly the two biggest — either signals grave problems elsewhere or puts inordinate pressure on him to run the rest of the table.
He ends the article admitting its achievable, but difficult. And this guy is a Democrat pollster who’s worked for Richardson and Dean. He’s no Republican shill. This gives me great hope for November.
I never really doubted Bush would win, even when all the press was against him, calling him dead in the water, even after the “exit polls” called it for Kerry. I get a similar gut feeling about this election. After the Wright affair, I just don’t see this country electing Obama, not this year, not ever. A black man will eventually be president, but he won’t be a hard left radical.