McCain’s strategy seems to be to make Obama unacceptable to the general population and win by default. I can’t think of a time that such a strategy has worked except Bush 1988, and then he was riding Reagan’s ample coattails.

In addition, McCain seems to be throwing away a major advantage he had over Obama–he was the senior statesmen who could play the “above the fray” card and let Obama look like an amateur. Every time he puts out one of these ads, the Obama camp and the media gets another chance to refer to McCain as childish and juvenile.

It seems that McCain was actually dealt a hand with a reasonable shot at winning despite the high negatives Republicans currently enjoyed: He is a war hero with an enormous experience advantage known for his moderate stances on nearly every issue. He’s running against a first-term senator with a liberal record and whose name is Barack Hussein Obama.

How in the world is he behind, and why in the world does he think he can take the lead by throwing away his straight-talking persona and running Britney Spears commercials?

perhaps you do. Where did the meme that Democrats need to lead by 10 in August to win in November originate?

The only candidates to lead in July/August then lose the popular vote in November in the last few decades are Dukakis in 88 (who imploded) and and G. W. Bush in 2000 (and that still worked out all right for him). Kerry led for a bit in June, but otherwise Bush was consistently ahead. I’ve even heard folks claim that Mondale was leading Reagan in the summer, but it just didn’t happen.

See the charts at this 2004 WSJ article here.

(I honestly didn’t mean it nearly as rudely as it looks now that I reread it. My bad.)

I agree that Reagan won in large part because Carter’s policies failed, but a big part was also Reagan himself. If he had stumbled and sputtered and gotten defensive Carter’s browbeating him about Medicare in that single debate, there’s a good chance we would have never had a President named Reagan. In the same way, if Dukakis had never climbed in that tank or responded to a hypothetical about his wife’s rape and murder with a lecture about the death penalty and the merits and demerits thereof, we likely would have elected President Dukakis.

Ideology is important, but for better or worse most (or at least a large percentage) folks don’t vote based on issues. They vote based on gut reaction and intuition.

Finally, I’d have to disagree that McCain is advertising Obama’s leftist policies. McCain is spending his time attacking Obama for having too enthusiastic of a fan base and for lacking experience. If he were attacking Obama for leaning too far left and arguing that his more conservative solutions were better, then I’d disagree with him, but I wouldn’t be questioning the wisdom of his campaign tactics.* Debating issues and ideas makes a candidate look presidential, whining that the press likes the other guy too much (not that he’s wrong about that) and running ads comparing your opponent to Paris Hilton make a candidate look petty and juvenile.

*NB: I’m not arguing that his attacks are “unfair” or whatnot; I’m a staunch believer that all is fair in politics. I’m arguing that his methods are foolish in that I don’t see them working.

Most folks votes “issues” in the sense that they care about their jobs, security, etc. But most folks don’t have a specific ideology about how those things ought to get done. For example, people want lower gas prices, they don’t care if they get that via suspending the gas tax, drilling, regulating speculation, or getting a rebate from a windfall profits tax. (For the record, I think all of the above are stupid ideas.) They don’t care if the solution is “free market” or “big government,” they want to have decent paying jobs, live in decent neighborhoods, and live their lives without too much hassle.

The candidate that can best articulate a believable plan to insure these things and demonstrate the resolve to carry it out wins.

Today with high gas prices, shrinking home values, rising insurance premiums, and pockets of the country with high unemployment, people have (not altogether rightly) concluded that the government has failed. Since the government (i.e. the President, to most folks) is run by a Republican they assume (not altogether rightly) that conservative policies must have failed.

This puts McCain at a disadvantage, because, at least for this election cycle, folks are more skeptical about conservatism than they’ve been in years–not because they’re ideologically liberal but because conservatism (in their minds) hasn’t yielded results. I assume that’s why he’s going after Obama on a personal level more than on a policy level, but I don’t see it working. Like I’ve said above, it’s making him look petty.

The one shot I see for McCain to win this is to look like he’s in charge. Show America that he knows how to get things done and that he’ll pull out all the stops to do it. He should be doing his best to make Obama look like an amateur next to him. While Obama is a convincing speaker, that shouldn’t be the difficult task that McCain is making it out to be. I’m not sure if it is that McCain is just not that great of a campaigner or if he’s being given really bad advice. If it’s the former, he’s pretty much screwed. If it’s the latter, he needs to shake up his staff.

They’re all from early-mid July. It’s August now. I acknowledged that Kerry led in late June/early July, but that was the only time. By mid August, the numbers fluctuated a bit, but Bush held a consistent lead.

This is not to say that McCain can’t win; it is to say that the idea that it’s better to be behind in the polls than ahead in them is silly. I remember in 2004 lefties saying that it didn’t matter that Kerry was consistently behind a point or two, because late breakers always went for the challenger.

The new Gallup tracking poll that has them tied is interesting, and if McCain starts pulling ahead (in several polls, not just one), then Obama may have a problem. Currently, though, Obama is ahead, and, except for a week in March, McCain hasn’t led Obama since January.

McCain can change that, but there is no rule that Democrats just “naturally” lose ten points in September. The only clear time that this happened was with Dukakis and it happened in August. If Obama is going to pull a Dukakis, McCain needs to start pulling a consistent lead within ten days or so, because the candidate who leads after Labor Day almost always wins.

*Important disclaimer: I still have no idea how late conventions are going to play. They seem to have had less and less of an impact in recent cycles. It is important to remember though that historically most campaigns haven’t begun in earnest until the spring and conventions are over by now. My hunch is that the never-ending election shakes a lot of the fluctuation out early, since people have had months to make up their minds already. That’s just a hunch, though.