Robert Stacy McCain argues that the presidential race is over.
John McCain lost the election Sept. 24 and Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Nothing that is likely to happen between now and Nov. 4 can change this outcome.
Since Sept. 24, polls have increasingly pointed toward a Democratic landslide. Obama not only has an outside-the-margin advantage in nearly every national poll, but leads strongly in enough battleground states that if the election were held today, the Electoral College vote would be 353 for the Democrat, 185 for the Republican. Even Karl Rove's electoral map now shows Obama winning.
R.C. McCain blames the bailout bill. McCain took a leadership role in passing a bill that most Americans did not like. In doing so he sided with Bush and cemented the impression Obama has been trying to sell that a McCain presidency would be Bush's third term.
If this argument is true, then there is some poetic justice to McCain losing because of his economic ignorance. This is precisely why he should lose. What kind of Republican can't even muster an attack against the Democrats for causing the mortgage crisis with their social engineering of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The irony is that McCain will lose because he is too much of a liberal on economics. This is a lesson Republicans would do well to learn.
But there is also an exasperating side to all this. Why should Obama benefit? Do voters think Obama understands economics any more than McCain? Don't they know that he represents more of the big government policies that created the mess we're in?
It becomes theatre of the absurd when you consider what Obama did during the bailout. He did what always does: nothing. The guy is like the Peter Sellers character in Being There.
Apparently, being the emptiest suit is the path to victory in 2008. When you take a bold stand, you can get blamed for it when things go wrong. When you do nothing and remain a "blank screen" for voters to project their ideals upon, you can ride their fantasies all the way to the White House.
I am worried most right now about Obama's coattails. More important than the presidential vote this year is the Senate and House vote. We must elect Republicans in the legislative branch to oppose Obama. If Obama gets 60 Democrats in the Senate and more Democrats in the House, and the MSM inform us that the age of Reagan is over and that Obama has a mandate for socialism... watch out. I would say the sky's the limit for Obama, but he will be taking us down, not up. Hell's the limit.
UPDATE: I see that yesterday McCain did begin attacking Obama about the mortgage crisis. It's a good line of attack, if it does come a week late. By the way, with all the crazy twists and surprises we've seen this election year, it might be too soon to call this race over.
5 comments:
Precisely, the Republicans will just have to learn from this or continue to fail. You don't run a successful campaign by just echoing the Democrats and effectively being Democratic party #2+Jesus. Their traditional claim to being small government is such a superficial joke no one should fall for it anymore. Republicans now are too spineless and empty to even know how to take advantage of this financial mess. If they had any virtues worth voting for they could turn this crisis into an enormous opportunity, and instead they chastise lack of regulation and greed. They have betrayed everything they project to stand for, and they deserve to lose.
No lie.
I was arguing months ago that Obama was going to stomp McCain into a bloody mush, and I still think he will.
What we should be preparing to do is engage in the post-election recriminations that will be going down on the right, identifying the GOP's abandonment of freedom and limited government as the cause of their fall from power.
Yes, I will be voting GOP for House and Senate. It's a slim chance here in California, but maybe less so than usual due to anger over the bailout bill.
I will not be voting for president this year. California will go to Obama anyway, so there's no use agonizing over the lesser of two awful, awful candidates. I am hoping (weakly) for an Obama win, however.
I'm still waiting for the "October Surprise" myself, though if it's the Democrats who have it lined up, they probably won't deploy it until very close to the election in order to pad their lead.
Kyle Haight is completely right.
When the Republicans lose (as they should), then they need to be told repeatedly that they lost because they were *too religious*.
Yes, they'll also be told by others that they lost because they were *not religious enough*. And if those are the only voices the Republicans hear, then we'll see more Huckabee-type Republicans in the future, not fewer.
I don't want to see Republicans continuing to outcompete each other in who can be more religious. Instead, I'd rather see them attempting to outcompete each other in seeing who can be pushing for more limited government. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I'd rather see them moving in the right (rather than the wrong) direction.
Hence here in Colorado, there have been several us who have warned our local and state Republican Party officials *before* the election that they are alienating secular voters. We will also be telling them the same thing after the election.
Here are a few examples of what we've written:
http://www.seculargovernment.us/blog/2008/07/gop-platform.shtml
http://www.seculargovernment.us/blog/2008/07/correspondence-with-local-republicans.shtml
If we want the Republicans to learn the right lesson, then we have to be willing to tell them what that lesson should be.
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