What’s up with the polls?
Electoral projection website FiveThirtyEight is showing McCain at 289.1 electoral votes to Obama’s 248.9. They have him at 56% odds to win the presidency. This is a big change from a couple weeks ago. Before both conventions, Obama had about 60% odds of winning, and at the height of his post-convention bounce was at 75% (though no one expected that to last). Now that a bit of time has passed since both conventions and the transient effects are starting to decay, McCain is ahead. It may still be effects from the Republican convention, or it may be that he’s gaining a solid toehold.
What changed? Two major things. Sarah Palin has been announced as the GOP VP candidate, and the McCain campaign has been airing many negative ads. I can see how both of those things would change a few marginal minds, but I’m surprised that they would have this large of an effect. Then again, all the people who voted to reelect Bush in 2004 are still around and registered, so I shouldn’t write off voter stupidity as a possible factor.
And it is about stupidity. Sarah Palin has repeated so many lies about herself so many times and so blatantly, even after it’s been reported everywhere that they are false, that it’s hard to imagine she’s successfully winning over “values voters.” (It just underscores exactly which values matter, and exactly which ones don’t matter the slightest bit.) The smear ads also contain blatant lies and misrepresentations which, as Paul Krugman points out, “anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute.” The message that’s really sent by all this, as David Ignatius and Steve Chapman both argue, is that McCain will stop at nothing to win even if it means sacrificing the ideals he once stood for. Thomas Friedman believes that this trend of misrepresenting and oversimplifying the facts in order to turn everything partisan is ultimately making America stupid, and I’m inclined to agree.
As someone who prefers rational decisions to purely emotional ones, it’s hard for me to figure out how to argue with people swayed by these clearly false appeals. It seems to me that seeing the facts should make anyone’s decision clear. However, FiveThirtyEight has some great suggestions for the Obama campaign regarding Palin enthusiasts: acknowledge that she’s likable, and then point out that not every likable person would make a good vice president. Maybe a similar approach can be followed for the smear ads — explicitly agreeing that it would be bad for someone to do or believe the things Obama is accused of doing or believing, then explaining the truth. The concern, of course, is that this gives too much air time to the rumors, and denying something often just helps people to remember the something instead of the denial. However, doing nothing doesn’t appear to be working.
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Every word uttered against Palin hurts Obama. It is a minute spent focusing on the bottom of the Republican ticket instead of the top. It is a minute where someone somewhere will think she is being picked on. It’s a losing strategy.
If I was Obama’s campaign manager I would just pretend she doesn’t exist. I also wouldn’t even focus that much on McCain. I would be spending 24 hours a day talking about my plans.
The only problem with that is that his energy plan can’t be rolled out under high gas prices because it does nothing to decrease the price at the pump and he’s even mentioned he’s okay with higher prices in the long run.
His economic plan is also going to whither under scrutiny because he is going to do things like raise the payroll tax, which affects everyone and give tax refunds to people who don’t actually pay taxes.
He’s in a difficult spot right now. That’s why I think the negative ads by mcCain are unnecessary. They can be Obama without them.
Maybe the Obama campaign shouldn’t be attacking Palin. I don’t know about all the finer points of election strategy. But clearly someone should be pointing out all the ridiculous lies, and that someone might as well be us. I don’t really care if “someone somewhere” thinks I’m just picking on her. “Someone somewhere” could easily be wrong, and in this case, certainly is.
Talking about Palin is a certain type of talking about McCain, though I think you’re right insofar as the connection isn’t always made clearly enough. McCain picked Palin and didn’t vet her sufficiently. He talks up his anti-earmarks agenda and encourages her to lie about her role in Alaska’s earmarks so that he doesn’t look as foolish as he really is. And most importantly, the oldest person ever to run for a first term of the presidency has picked someone as his understudy that is unqualified to take his place should something happen to him in office. This definitely says something about his judgment and qualification for the job.