A reader responds, I assume, to this post on McCain's perceived Electoral College advantage:
In regard to your recent coverage on Obama, I think he can win and has a very excellent chance. I think you are reading too much into all of the surface issues. Obama has very strong following among Independents and younger voters and polls are starting to show that he is indeed making inroads with baby boomers and voters over 65. He certainly has shown much willingness and determination in addressing the problems McCain does not or refuses to. I'm voting for Obama because he has shown that he wants to really change things for the better and I believe that he has the best judgement, temperment, and tenancity to make things happen.
Other than the fact that I have no plans to vote for Barack Obama, I can't say I disagree with this reader. I was in Minnesota this weekend for a family event. One of the hazards of my profession is everyone always comes to you for political commentary, so I got a few "who's gonna win" questions. Answer: I don't know. I appreciate the argument of the McCain Electoral College advantage link to above, but Obama has some obvious strengths.
First, he has a huge monetary advantage (free registration required) over Hillary Clinton and John McCain. That doesn't just mean that he has more money; it also shows an ability to appeal to a broad constituency. You don't raise over $200 million without being very popular.
Second, it does seem clear that Obama is the candidate of choice for the American media, an advantage worth millions of dollars itself.
Third, albeit related to #2, Obama does seem to have a bit of teflon coating. This is not meant to be an insult, but simply to say that bad news does not seem to stick to him. Consider this observation from Peter Wehner.
Consider this thought experiment: Assume that a conservative candidate for the GOP nomination spent two decades at a church whose senior pastor was a white supremacist who uttered ugly racial (as well as anti-American) epithets from the pulpit. Assume, too, that this minister wasn’t just the candidate’s pastor but also a close friend, the man who married the candidate and his wife, baptized his two daughters, and inspired the title of his best-selling book.
In addition, assume that this GOP candidate, in preparing for his entry into politics, attended an early organizing meeting at the home of a man who, years before, was involved in blowing up multiple abortion clinics and today was unrepentant, stating his wish that he had bombed even more clinics. And let’s say that the GOP candidate’s press spokesman described the relationship between the two men as “friendly.”
Wehner wishes to make a point about last week's Democratic debate and the fairness of questions about Obama's associations. But one can draw another point. Buttressed by Stanley Kurtz today, it seems clear that Barack Obama has attended and offered considerable support to a church which holds as a fundamental belief that American is founded in and perpetuated by injustice. America and the principles which inform it are essentially unjust. The solution to this injustice, Jeremiah Wright's theology seems to suggest, is a re-founding based in heightened racial identity and Marxism. The fact that Obama can have these kinds of radical associations (to say nothing of the Bill Ayres issue) and still be ahead in national polls tells you that Obama has the ability to appeal to voters despite his deep and prolonged association with those whose teachings can fairly be described as anti-American (which, by the way, does not automatically make those teachings wrong). This means he'll be tough to beat.
The combination of Obama's charisma and the putrid state of the Republican party gives Obama a chance to win the presidency despite the fact that his is the most radically left-wing candidate ever nominated by a major party. Will he actually win? Ask me the second week of November.
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