Does the Palin pick mean McCain can't win in the middle?
Forget all the BS about Palin poaching Clinton supporters, this pick more and more appears to be a sop to the Republican base. If that's true, what does it mean?
Does that mean that the McCain camp came to the conclusion that they can't win enough voters in the center and build a coalition to win, so they're going to try and energize the right to make up the independent/enthusiasm/new voter/turnout gap?
Any way I read this pick, it seems to say the McCain campaign sees itself irretrievably losing in the current state.
(Sorry if I'm blogging too much on Palin, but I really can't get my head around the sense of this pick, and blogging is how I work that out.... It's also why your comments are so appreciated.)
Does that mean that the McCain camp came to the conclusion that they can't win enough voters in the center and build a coalition to win, so they're going to try and energize the right to make up the independent/enthusiasm/new voter/turnout gap?
Any way I read this pick, it seems to say the McCain campaign sees itself irretrievably losing in the current state.
(Sorry if I'm blogging too much on Palin, but I really can't get my head around the sense of this pick, and blogging is how I work that out.... It's also why your comments are so appreciated.)
posted by mikevotes at
1:32 PM
3 Comments:
I posted on this in my blog.
New polls show that among independents, 37% are more likely to vote for the ticket and 28% are less likely after this VP pick.
What those numbers don't show, however, is how many were already leaning toward McCain to begin with. "Independent" is different from "undecided". Independents still break evenly in the GE as of today's polls.
As word gets out about her extreme anti-abortion views, pushing creationism in schools, anti-gay views, and her enthusiastic support of Bush, I think that we will see things falling out more in line with the GOP base. She believes, for example, that married couples should not be allowed to use to any form of birth control. That alone could paint her as out of the mainstream.
I still see the GOP in general stuck in 2004. They still see that majority base, that belief in the Iraq war, that idea that Democrats are unpatriotic and treasonous, and they still think that most of the country approves of Bush at heart.
Thus, through their partisan eyes, they see going with a straight base appeal as a sure win.
Republicans are still saying that they lost in 2006 because their candidates weren't "conservative enough". They are living in an artificial Fox News world where nothing ever changes. It's made them arrogant and over-confident. They aren't even seeing the downside of this pick.
Any way I read this pick, it seems to say McCain sees himself losing in the current state.
Yes, the people at the top are clear-eyed, and paid to be. McCain has been behind for months in the polls, except for a few days when he was tied. He's clearly going to lose some red states, and have to fight very hard to barely win in several others. All of the electoral vote projections have shown him losing for three months at least. If he had kept doing the same thing as he has been, he was going to lose. Time is running out.
Now he's thrown away the "Obama is too inexperienced" argument (his strongest) in this gamble. It was his only bid to win independents. Everything else comes down to smears that only appeal to the base. He can hope that the RNC rallies massive support (10+%, more than Obama's Convention bounce), but I think that is dubious. The RNC is going to be notable for who fails to show up. They are going to put up third-string players to counter the first-rate performance of the DNC. They are going to put up a ton of religious nut-jobs along with people who fervently support Bush policies. The coverage will undoubtedly feature a large number of McCain's "idiot choir" in delegate interviews saying things that the campaign would rather keep out of scrutiny.
In short, they are going to appear very out of touch with the mainstream at the RNC. And we already know that McCain was a POW. We get it, thanks.
If it comes down to just the GOP base, the Faithful, the True Believers, then McCain loses.
Obama has seven different EV combinations that produce a win. McCain has only two, and they both involve five or six dispersed states while holding the line just enough in four others. That's just the unvarnished facts. McCain desperately needs insurance in the form of independents, and this pick will shortly deprive him of that option.
Sorry to go on so long, but there was so much to cover.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 2:46 PM
Mike, I feel the same way. I just cannot seem to get my head around the Palin pick.
Initially, I thought it was quite clever. But as the dust settles, it's completely transparent. Weak, light-weight pander. And on top of that I'm frigging offended. I'm offended that this is what he means by "Country First!?!" Not to mention how offensive this seems to be for women.
I suspect this desperate gamble is a major flop.
By
zen, at 2:59 PM
It is my pinion that there are very few true undecideds this year. Even if you lived in a cave you've at least heard glancingly about both Obama and McCain and probably have biases. So, I'm reading undecided this year to mean leaning but unsure/undeclared.
As for the tilt to the right, I would emphasize that although alot of Republicans do say that they weren't conservative enough in 2006, what that means has varied from group to group. The fundies think they abandoned moral issues, the Norquists blame fiscal spending, etc. That is a broad theme, but it's not a unified theme. Short version is, they didn't communicate with voters, not that they weren't "pure" enough. It's a backwards way of talking about a damaged brand, and each group thinks their section is the one to fix it to sell to voters. "Not conservative enough" is really kind of a reference to the rifts in the party.
I would love to know the polling and opinion that led to the Palin decision. Is it an insight into leaning independents? Pre election projected turnout data? What outside of the McCain-3 public polling has freaked them out so much?
And isn't it a wonderful irony that McCain now finds himself supplicant to the religious right, and they dependent on him?
Last, the theory that evangelical fervor/turnout could put them over the top seems pretty dubious to me, but that's about the only way I can make sense ogf the Palin pick. Because just on Dem turnout projections and the gap in the ground game, they have to find more than Bush had.
Of course, this pick has brought in money and will likely bring in desperately needed volunteers, so maybe that's part of it.
.....
Zen, I just can't seem to figure out a way it makes a winning path unless there's something I'm not seeing.
But I could be wrong.
And the offensive to women seems to be getting underplayed so far, but I'll bet it will come.
By
mikevotes, at 4:13 PM
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