georgeob1 wrote:If I have the wrong impression of your estimate of the situation and the likely outcome of the coming election, I'm glad to change it. However, just on this thread, there are several affirmations on your part that Obama will win by a large margin, and many more are to be found on others. Perhaps this is just cheerleader talk on you part. I don't object to it, but the fact is you don't often make clear distinctions between such things and your "real" forecasts. Just to help clarify it, what (say to the nearest 10%) do you see today as the probability that (say) Obama will win (assuming, as seems likely, that he is the Democrat candidate)?
I remain very uncertain about Obama himself and the likely outcome of the election. I can visualize it going either way, and by a healthy margin in either direction. I do agree that by the "normal" political standards, 2008 should be a very good year for the Democrats.
I don't think that the extended primary has really hurt the Democrats in any lasting way. Certainly some potentially significant issues were raised, but they would have come out anyway. Overall I think the pluses & minuses were about equal in this. I believe Obama will be the Dem. candidate, and that voter uncertainty about what & who he really is will be an important issue in the result -- how much, I don't know. Lots of time remaining and lots of opportunity for both candidates to make mistakes. with high consequences.
Okay, I'll bite.
Let us start by saying that this is not a productive conversation unless we
assume that neither Obama nor McCain is going to make a game-ending gaffe. If that happens all bets are off.
At this time, that being said, I would give Obama a 70% or better chance of winning this election. There are a wide variety of factors which are working in his favor; I will not go to them in depth, but a short list would include:
- Dissatisfaction with the direction of the country in general.
- Dissatisfaction with Republicans in general at this time.
- Large enthusiasm for Obama amongst his followers.
- Large money advantage for Dems (for once).
- Dissatisfaction with McCain within his own party.
- Higher Dem party identification then Rep. party identification, by a lot
and so on and so on. Let us remove the names of the candidates from consideration; any observer of politics would look at this situation and come to the conclusion that the Dems are more likely to win this cycle.
Of course, this is why we hold campaigns; and why the personal qualities of the candidates are important. In this case, there are ups and downs for both candidates, often when talking about the same qualities!
For example, Obama is young and full of energy (plus) but also rather inexperienced due to his youth (minus). McCain is very, very old to be running for Prez (minus) but has experience due to his many years of service (plus).
I don't believe that McCain will be able to effectively attack Obama using his associations. For one thing, he has personally disdained such attacks and has even gone to the lengths of criticizing those members of his own party who have attacked Obama this way. Another thing, he has some contacts of his own which are less then savory. Most importantly, though, I don't think things said or done by people other then the candidate themselves are as damaging as the opponents would want them to be.
I do believe that Obama has a greater command of some of the issues then McCain. There have been some times during the campaign when McCain seems geniunely confused to hear certain questions; earlier this year, when the topic of AIDS prevention came up, he literally didn't know what the person was talking about. That sort of thing is going to be used against him at every opportunity. He's famously said 'I don't know much about economics.' This is going to hurt him. I doubt we've seen the last of this.
I hate to say it, but he is also rather prone to being confused and mis-speaking. It's difficult to imagine putting a president in place who cannot tell the difference between Sunni and Shiites. I don't believe that McCain was merely mis-speaking, as he's made this mistake about 20 times in the last three months. This isn't going to go over well with much of the electorate.
Obama will have to make an effective case for his candidacy, and I agree with others that mere promise of 'change' isn't going to cut it. He needs to be forceful and aggressively project an image of his vision for America and give specifics about how he would like to make it happen. I don't beleive that it will be a cake-walk or a 40-state victory. But I have a hard time imagining a situation in which Obama would have a better path to the WH then currently exists. He's a well-spoken and intelligent candidate in an environment where the other team is currently suffering from a public relations problem. He should win.
Anything can and will happen, of course; but I have no problem being confident about this election. I think he has what it takes. I don't think McCain has what it takes.
Cycloptichorn
