Let me begin with a big caveat: the McCain campaign still faces big structural obstacles. The Republican base is shrunken like a week old tomato on a sunlit window sill. Obama still has a bit of a lead in most recent polls, and despite the fact that his lead has always been narrow, and despite the fact that, on paper, his lead ought to be a lot larger, it is still better to hold a lead than to lose it. Nor did McCain's choice of a much younger running mate make him any younger, and his age remains his most serious burden. Finally, the recent rise in unemployment stats clearly hurts the Republican ticket. So if someone gave me a cool hundred and said: "bet it, using Vegas odds," I'd have to put the C note on Obama.
All that said, there is no doubt that the McCain organization has played much better ball over the last month than Obama Inc. McCain's choice of Governor Sarah Palin was a brilliant decision. Or maybe it was just dumb luck. There is a saying in baseball that a manager is as smart as his closing pitcher is good. Palin turned out to be good, and that makes McCain smart.
How smart? The timing took almost all the wind of out Obama's acceptance speech, severely limiting any bounce "the one" might otherwise have enjoyed. Moreover, the announcement drove the drove the left into a frenzy, ratcheting up Palin and McCain's visibility. All the early attacks on her failed to make a dent, leaving her stronger than she would have been if the Democrats had had the sense to ignore her.
Palin's speech was an astounding success. I did not think that, as piece of rhetoric, it was exceptional. It was just good. But it was clear after a few minutes into the thing that, suddenly, there was something in the 2008 presidential race at least as interesting as Obama. The early ratings put her audience at around 37.2 million, just short of Obama's 38.4. But it turns out that that didn't include PBS, which added about 4 million more views to each total. Now I would like someone to tell us how that compares to previous conventions. I am guessing that a VP nominee getting as large an audience as the first place candidate for the opposing party is unprecedented. Biden's audience was more than ten million short, at 24 million viewers.
And the good news for Republicans didn't end there. McCain drew 38.9 million voters, a cool 500 thousand more than Obama. Suddenly, it seemed, a lot of Americans wanted a good look at John McCain. We are just now learning whether they liked what they saw. The RCP average of polls has Obama's lead down to 2.6 points, statistically insignificant. CNN polls Obama to a one point advantage, and a CBS poll has the race tied.
Here is the problem for the Democratic ticket just now. Joe Biden is pretty good on the trail, but beyond that he has brought nothing to the campaign. He has shrunk to invisibility in the news. It is now Palin and Obama that get compared with one another. However you cut the experience thing, it's about fifty/fifty. And after a year of Obama, Palin has the advantage of freshness. Arianna Huffington is right: the Democrats should start ignoring Palin immediately. That leaves McCain pretty much on his own. And there is no doubt that he cuts a much more impressive figure than anyone else in the race. For better or worse, we are looking at a man writ large here. The Democrats have to focus on bringing McCain down, and they have to hope that palinomania fades real quickly. But that will mean resisting the urge to take swipes at her. Don't expect it.
Winston Churchill once said that you can't guarantee victory, you can only deserve it. Right now John McCain deserves it more than Barack Obama.
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