The Candidates
I just read about 150 comments on the SD/MT primary thread, most of which run to the effect that we are doomed because McCain is a awful candidate and Obama can move the heavens with his speeches.
I’ll start out by saying that I’m under no delusions about the difficulties we face this year. This is a year when Dennis Kucinich would get 45% of the vote against any Republican, and I don’t mean that as an exaggeration. Given even money odds, I’d bet on Obama (the 35-60 odds on InTrade however are another thing altogether).
But you need to keep some perspective here. If you are reading this site, much less posting on it, YOU ARE ONE OF OBAMA’S KEY DEMOGRAPHICS. Just by virtue of posting on the internet, you are identifying yourself as probably a college-educated white. And if you’re not, you spend a fair amount of time e-hanging-out with a bunch of college-educated whites.
You’re supposed to be moved by Obama’s speeches. You’re supposed to sit, jaws agape, with a tingle running down your leg as his mellifluous words lift your spirit. You are the people most likely to become Obamacans. Read that again, because it is important perspective: You pool from whence the Obamacans are drawn. You’re supposed to be tempted by him.
But you’re a minority of the electorate. Most of your similarly-situated brethren are Democrats, and THEY aren’t a majority of the Democratic party, much less the general electorate. The question isn’t how Obama’s speeches make you feel. It’s how they make a sixty-year-old white ethnic voter in Parma, Ohio feel. You know, the people that Democrats need to win the nomination? How do they feel about his high-flying promises of hope/change? We got a pretty good sense in the Democratic primary how they feel, and it isn’t particularly good. How do you think that’s going to go over as you start getting sections of that demographic who would vote Democratic?
And McCain? Whatever he is, he is better than Bush. I never “got” Bush, mainly because I’m in almost every way not his demographic. In 2004, had Bush already gotten his two SCOTUS appointees and the Dems had nominated someone like Lieberman, Bayh, or Warner, I may well have pulled the lever for the Democrat. But a LOT of Americans loved Bush, associated themselves with his speech patterns, and still pulled the trigger for him. McCain is like Bush, only with more centrist policy proposals.
Look, the Democrats just nominated a black half-term Senator named Barack Obama, whose policies are somewhere to the left of Ted Kennedy’s. I believe that this cycle the country would elect a black candidate, I believe they would elect a liberal, I believe they would elect someone named Barack Obama, and I believe they would elect someone with this little experience.
Taken together though, for a lot of people (not just Republicans) it is a bridge too far. Moreover, these are people who are already skeptical of politicians, and pretty words. Obama may try to transform himself into Obamoses, promising to keep a rising sea at bay, but while your “typical” college educated voters feels his heart aflutter at the prospect of a wise philosopher-king lifting America out of the much, the average working-class voters has a WTF? reaction.
Again, this isn’t a prediction of McCain victory. This is just some perspective for when you get frightened by a soaring Obama speech. I’m not sure a majority of your countrymen are going to have the same reaction.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Today in a Bloomberg news column, the Democrat consultant Chris Lehane, stated the following:
“People not only want to turn the page on the past. They want to throw the book out the window.”
I can relate to that because I kind of feel the same way, and I’m a hard-core Republican conservative. As things stand now, I believe that McCain can win but ONLY IF he makes the convincing case that he is not another GWB-type Republican relying on Rove-type tactics accompanied with the incessant moronic spin and political baby talk that characterized the last 10 years.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Sean’s right. There’s a reason that all of sudden Hillary became the unlikely champion of the Blue Collar TV demographic. After Wright, Obama just became a bridge too far. Hillary was a fiesty comeptitor - but that in itself wasn’t the only reason Obama had to wait until June 3 - the same day he lost his eighth out of the last 15 primaries - to become the presumptive nomineee.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:15 am
When the…Germans…bombed Pearl Harbor? The Germans?
June 4th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Northern voters never “got” Bush either. Most of the Republicans I knew in Michigan in 2000 were for McCain, even the very conservative ones, because McCain connected better culturally with northern and Rust Belt voters. He’s a smart, tough SOB. Bush seemed like more of a relaxed southern religious guy, which I suppose was what culturally made sense to the Clinton voters in MO and LA who went for Bush in 2000 and 2004, turning Clinton’s southern states red.
I don’t doubt that a 60-year-old white guy (or gal) without a college degree and from a blue collar or gray collar background residing in Appalachia or the Rust Belt is going to connect with a guy like McCain over a guy like Obama. And a lot of those 60-year-olds voted for Kerry in 2004.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Alex,
Rent Animal House . You’ll love it. I saw it when I was 13 and thought I was the coolest kid in the world.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Alex (#3), Sean is being cute–a parody on Brockin
June 4th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Alex,
I can’t tell if you’re joking, but if not, rent Animal House.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fO6LVE_P-A8&feature=related
June 4th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Hey how in the world can you say you would vote for a democrat over Bush. The democrats have been far left since the early 90’s. McCain is a democrat. Did you not hear that pathetic speech? No I don’t mean how he presented himself, but what he was actually saying? Bash Bush, Cheney, but god forbid, say anything negative about the Messiah. He sounded like him. Big bad profit corps, global warming, blah, blah, blah. Hey Sean did you know he’s for that massive 7 trillion dollar cap and trade crap that is being talked about in congress now??? Sorry no can do. Not voting for another liberal under a republican banner.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
“If you are reading this site, much less posting on it, YOU ARE ONE OF OBAMA’S KEY DEMOGRAPHICS. Just by virtue of posting on the internet, you are identifying yourself as probably a college-educated white. And if you’re not, you spend a fair amount of time e-hanging-out with a bunch of college-educated whites.”
There’s another way we are in Obama’s key demographic in that we are college-educated whites who are swept up in politics right now. Most people are barely paying attention att his point, which explains why Mac was not zipping back and forth across the country only to be ignored the last 3 months while the Dems had all the headlines.
Despite his limp across the finish line, the thing I’m most concerned about is Obama’s Convention speech on the 45th anniversary of “I Have a Dream” because people will be seeing Obama almost for the first time and he can shake off Wright while shaking the rafters in Denver making the media wet themselves. This could be so visceral that it may compel people to agree to the Obama Bargain in November.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Sean, it was Reagan’s soaring rhetoric that worked on, well, REAGAN Democrats in the first place.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
10. No, it was Reagan’s policies that worked. His rhetoric made him especially good at communicating those policies, but the fact that he was espousing hawkish, socially conservative policies that were skeptical of governemnt (remember, what distinguishes a populist from a progressive is skepticism of business AND of government) was what really sold him.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
#11, you are correct. Reagan only jumped in the polls at the debate, his fantastic speeches actually did nothing to help him in the polls.
Too bad we waited 20 years to nominate another older, experienced, hawkish patriot.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I am one of those that thinks Obama can give great speeches…but beyond that give me a break!