If the most active Republicans are now energized by the selection of Palin, it is only in comparison to how they had been demoralized by their campaign so far.
Palin’s raison d’etre on the ticket is as a closer to seal the deal with the evangelical base. The most motivated activists on the right care about one issue: abortion. They come out regardless of weather. They lay down across highways. They even kill doctors. It is a boolean logic for them, with absolutely no gray area.
What is significant is that McCain could not count on them, the way Bush could. Palin is a direct appeal to this group.
Here’s the big difference between the McCain and Bush’s campaigns that demonstrate why McCain is in big trouble:
Bush started his campaign from his base of evangelicals, and moved to the middle during the primary campaigns in regions like the West Coast and the Northeast, and made a direct appeal to the middle during the Republican convention in NYC. Certainly, the campaign was fundamentally based on exploiting fear, but the speeches, by surrogates like Schwarzeneggar and Giuliani were aimed to appeal to the middle. The strategy worked. The base was motivated, and Bush got enough unaffiliated voters to win in key states.
McCain started from the middle, still differs on many issues (like immigration for instance) with the GOParty Platform, and is trying to appeal to the far-right and the base of the GOP voters, with only two months to go. Every day that the media is focused on Sarah Palin is another day McCain loses the opportunity to win over actual swing voters. For a Party, it is very late in the game to try to activate one’s own base.
McCain’s surrogates like Palin, Fred Thompson, Romney etc all made concerted appeals to the base, and attacked Obama personally while promoting old, standard Republican policies. The Republican base is out of touch on the war, the economy, and abortion. Meanwhile, they could not find a unifying or compelling message coming out of the convention:
“Country First.” That would be fine if McCain weren’t the only Republican talking about bipartisanship. Going back to the culture war through Palin, throwing out wedge issues to exploit contradicts this message.
“Change You Can Believe In.” Really? That’s like saying “Vote for Republicans because we promise we’re going to change ourselves.” C’mon now.
“Drill, Baby, Drill,” is not what most Americans want to hear as a positive solution to their problems. How do you square that with the country’s growing concerns about the environment?
Out of touch.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side…
Pundits and commentators, especially Republicans, are pointing to the fact that Obama received 18,107,587 votes while Clinton got 18,045,829 votes in the primaries as a sign of division in the Democratic party. What’s far more interesting is that McCain received only about 9 million votes in the Republican primaries. Only by combining total primary votes cast for McCain, Huckabee, and Romney does the count come to about 18 million. That means if only 75% of Clinton voters support Obama right now, there are about 32 millions active voters that Obama can count on. Compare that to the 10 million that McCain is starting from.
Obama is already over half-way to the total needed. He does not need to get the majority of swing voters to win anymore. Yet, all indications point to swing voters leaning overwhelmingly toward Obama on huge issues like the economy and healthcare. (Obama 56% vs McCain 19%) Terrorism is the only issue on which McCain leads among swing voters.
The Democratic Party is energized. The crowds and venues at the respective nomination speeches symbolically capture the difference between the two parties. Obama can fill stadiums because the Democratic base is enthusiastic, and the campaign is organized. The organization on the ground will translate to GOTV efforts, something Kerry lacked in adequate forces in ’04.
The BIG challenge on the Democratic side, as polls toward election day will increasingly favor Obama, is for energized supporters to increase involvement, and to make sure new voters actually come out to vote.
This is a much bigger challenge than people know. Take NH, for instance. To register to vote, one cannot mail in a registration form, but have to physically go to city hall or register with a town election official in person. New voters do not know where to go, how long it is going to take, etc. Obama needs volunteers willing to take new voters by the hand, and teach them how to vote, how to participate, how to become a part of our democracy.
If Democrats can do this in states like Mississippi, Obama can win in a landslide.
I was wondering if I heard that correctly from Michael Steele. Does the GOP really have that much of a political tin ear? Certainly they know that a major rap on them is being in bed with the oil industry. That’s like John Kerry, certainly knowing the rap on him was being a flip-flopper, actually coming out and saying, “I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
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p>We not only need to break our dependence on foreign oil, but on ANY oil. I could be persuaded to support a bit more drilling in the short term IF it was packaged with a means to get to renewables long term. Drilling is at best a necessary evil and it really startled me low excited the Republicans were about it.
How Obama voted for Bush’s energy bill and McCain didn’t. Facts those damn stubborn things. Exxon MObama!
…in 2005, the one that passed by a vote of 85-12? It had some good things in there for Illinois, and he is a senator from Illinois – why would you expect him to vote against it? As to Exxon MObama, you’ve already been destroyed in that diary, why would you bring it up again?
Think I proved my point. Barack Obama voted for giveaways to the oil companies, John McCain didn’t. Barack Obama gets more money from employees of Exxon Mobil than John McCain does. Hence Exxon MObama. Your guy is just as beholden to the oil companies as you suggest McCain is.
You proved nothing except the fact that you take your marching orders directly from the McCain campaign.
we’ve been over this. I did not lie. My point only was that Obama took more money than McCain from Exxon Mobil. that is a true statement. I don’t take marching orders from anybody. I read and post. You guys have made up some new fangled supposed lie mechanism, the lie of omission. Don’t know what that means exactly, but I’ve caught a lot of you doing what you say I do. Especially Bob’s latest front page post. He conveniently forgot about the rising test scores under Palin’s administration didn’t he. So is he guilty of lying?
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p>I’m waiting for your response.
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p>Thanks.
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p>Eabo
You lied when you said, in that post, that Obama was a “tool of the oil companies” because he had gotten $7,000 more from people who work for Exxon than McCain had, while the link you provided points out that McCain has gotten almost $1 million more than Obama from all oil companies. The frame was misleading, counting on some folks not being curious enough to click the link and learn the truth for themselves. As such, it’s a lie – and it was framed in exactly the same manner as a similar post the same day by McCain’s official blogger, Michael Goldfarb. That makes it clear where you get your marching orders.
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p>Anything you say on this board isn’t worth the electrons storing the data – you have absolutely zero credibility. If you have a problem with Bob’s post, take it up with him, I’m sure he’ll be happy to defend himself and point out where you’re lying this time.
I said he was A tool. Can there be two tools of the oil companies. You do realize I was parroting your words about McCain back at you right. Do you want to get into an argument about my candidate is less of a tool than your candidate?
Since I know my candidate is no one’s tool, I have no desire to have a pointless argument with you.
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p>Eabo, I’d love to be able to take you seriously, but you really need to start being more honest. When John McCain flips his position in favor of the oil companies and they reward him with over $1 million in campaign contributions in one week’s time – some of it of questionable origin – then it’s clear that he’s a tool of the oil companies.
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p>When you try to “parrot my words back at me” by pointing out that Obama got $21,000 more than McCain from Exxon, BP and Chevron, there’s a difference of scale here that’s laughable, as well as the fact that there’s no quid pro quo like there is with McCain – that’s blatantly dishonest, otherwise known as lying. The fact that Mike Goldfarb posted much the same thing on the same day just made it doubly funny, and you were rightly crucified for it in that thread, since it made you look like you had joined the McCain Points program. You’ve been getting ridiculed for that ever since on this board, so that’s why I was surprised that you brought it up.
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p>You seem like a capable, smart person, Eabo – I’d be happy to debate the issues with you, but I won’t have pointless arguments with a liar. Engage me honestly on the issues, ok?
… primary votes comparison is valid. How many people show up for a vote that is a foregone conclusion. How many show up when it’s very much in the air. If all the primaries were held on the same day you could argue that a difference in numbers reflects differences in relative strength. Comparing one set of numbers of people voting knowing that its close and every vote counts with another set of numbers that includes large swaths of contests where showing up would have made little difference in the outcome isn’t a valid comparison IMO.
The Democrats should certainly believe them and set their strategy based on them. They should try to use the same campaign plans that Dukakis used and then Kerry borrowed when both were way ahead of the Republican at the time. And look what happened!
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p>I never believe the polls and would agree to outlaw them. They do nothing but give the media their red meat as they try to beat the independent voters to submission as “it’s all over for the Republicans” is displayed on front page to cover to headlines. But somehow the Republicans “find” more votes and win elections.
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p>This one will be tight but good will win.