Monday, October 13, 2008

Moment of truth for McCain

With Obama having a clear lead with barely three weeks until the election, this is a moment of truth for the McCain campaign. The Obama lead is not insurmountable, but McCain needs some real "juice" to surge ahead for the finish line. The real question is whether Obama has been accelerating based on his own strength or whether he has merely "borrowed" from McCain's missteps as well as the financial crisis of the past month. I would suggest that the jury is out on that question, but will be weighing in over the next three weeks. If the global bailout plan does kick in and gain traction and "save" the economy and McCain plays up his positives, he could really reclaim a lot of lost ground.

The arrogant Democrats need to be careful not to start chattering about how they will be disassembling Washington in ways that could very well frighten centrist and moderates and independents. A lot of Obama's current support from independents and the disenchanted comes from his promise for something new, and not simply a return to "old" liberal and non-centrist progressive "ideals" that never really worked that well when they were tried in the past.

In short, the election is still Barack's and the Democrats' to lose, but hubris and arrogance are not clearly being held in check and the potential for a McCain "surge" based on "back to basics" is a very real danger to Obama. As the McCain campaign points out, the Democrats are already starting to "measure the drapes", which is a potentially dangerous sign of complacency that voters frequently find distateful. After all, the voters (most of them) have not yet voted.

-- Jack Krupansky

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