Monday, March 10th, 2008
TEN WAYS BARACK OBAMA COULD LOSE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
I have said for more than two years that Hillary Clinton can not win the presidency of the United States in 2008. I believe that America will simply not elect her, because of who she is, period. Barack Obama, however, has a far better chance of winning the election. While the next two months of Hillary versus Obama will bloody both of them, thus emboldening the Republican nominee, Obama will still be perceived a strong nominee if he gets the nod.
While it is not as clear now (as it seemed just nary a week ago) that Illinois Senator Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States this fall against Arizona senator John McCain, the media, the polls and common wisdom have all but handed the election to Obama, if he wins the nomination and for good reason. Historically, it is tremendously hard for the same party to hold the White house for a third term. Additionally, the sitting incumbent party has a president with a record-low approval rating, an economy that is perceived to be in the dumps, and a plurality of Americans saying the country is heading in the wrong direction. All of those things and more would lead any intelligent observer to handicap the race strongly in favor of the democratic nominee, regardless of who it is.
I am old enough to remember the 1988 presidential race when, less than 90 days before election day, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis had a 19% lead over Vice President George H.W. Bush. Bush, of course, won in a rout in November by securing 40 states. Thus, there is a long way to go between now and Election Day and a lot can happen. For one thing, America will be forced to focus more on Obama as he compares to John McCain and their varying positions. Here, therefore, are the ten most likely reasons I believe Obama could lose the election in November, despite all of the things going for him:
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His wife: This woman is a problem for the Obama campaign. While no potential first lady has ever won a presidency in America, they can be an albatross. In the 2000 election, a razor thin victory for George W. Bush, some argue that little things like the likeability of his wife versus Tipper Gore played a role in the eventual outcome. There is no denying that Michelle Obama’s idiotic “I have never been proud of America” gaffe played a major role in costing her husband a chance at locking up the nomination on March 4. Exit polls confirm that her stupidity swayed thousands of votes. In a nation still teeming with racism, there are too many people looking for an excuse not to vote for the clearly more attractive candidate and she gave them one. Perhaps the biggest problem Michelle Obama brings with her is the apparent complete and total delusion of the Obama campaign to acknowledge how divisive his wife is. Michelle Obama tries to come across as some sort of kitschy combination of Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, but accomplishes neither. Instead, she materializes as a loud mouthed, arrogant, America-hating victim who is owed and deserves the first-lady-ship of this nation. Come to think of it, she’s exactly like Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, just not as likeable.
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The Elusive Youth vote remains elusive: While it is true that youths are voting in record numbers at Democratic primaries so far, it is always possible that they will lose interest by November. For decades we have heard the young people (ages 18-29) will finally come out and rally around the Democratic nominee and show up to vote. Historically, the younger you are, the more likely you are a Democrat, and the less likely you will actually vote. We heard they would vote for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Howard Dean and John Kerry and they never did. Even though Obama is clearly creating fervor unlike any other it is still possible that the youth of America will stay home and drink while Obama loses.
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Ralph Nader takes away just enough support: I know that Nader has become less and less relevant over the years, but if this election stays close, it is conceivable that Nader could again swing close states like Ohio and Florida to McCain. Remember, despite Obama being the most liberal Senator in history to run for the presidency, Nader and his backers view Obama as too conservative. The people who believe there is room to the left of Obama may actually vote for Nader…again.
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His speeches are vacuous: At some point between now and election day, enough Americans are going to start parsing Obama’s words. Promising change for the sake of something different, offering to lift people up and allow them fly, and demanding that we all exorcise the politics of the past for the sake of the future, are nothing more than empty, hollow statements of hope that lack substance, purpose and specifics on every level. Barack Obama is charismatic beyond description but that act wears thin eventually. As Americans begin to ask “how” in larger and larger numbers, Obama’s façade will become more transparent.
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Iraq: Conventional wisdom is that the war in Iraq works against Republicans and in favor of Democrats. Such proponents site poll after poll that says about 66% of Americans proclaim the war in Iraq a mistake. However, in the very same polls, less than 20% of the same Americans say they want troops pulled out immediately, as Obama states he plans on doing (even though there’s no chance he’ll actually do it, which is a discussion for another time and place). Democrats dramatically mis-judge the American publics’ loathing at the thought of “losing” another war. Debating the wisdom of the initial incursion into Iraq is for historians, not presidents, and Obama will lose the argument if he continues to tout his objection to the initial invasion as his credential for being commander-in-chief. As news from Iraq continues to improve, more and more Americans say, in poll after poll, that the “surge” is working (twice as many said so in a February poll as said it last fall, for example) and fewer and fewer proclaim their desire to leave Iraq. We are, after all, still in Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea, Japan and Germany. Americans don’t care about oversea deployments, they care about casualties. If Iraq continues to improve and if the October Iraqi elections (conveniently positioned one month before our presidential election) go swimmingly, McCain looks like a strong genius while Obama looks like a linguine spined loser.
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Americans still aren’t ready for socialism: Hillary Clinton tried to run universal health care up the American flag pole 15 years ago. As soon as the details of what she was promoting made their way into the American narrative and consciousness, the country revolted and overwhelmingly said “no way.” This nation strongly believes in lending a helping hand, but decries, dismisses and rejects hand-outs such as universal health care. In the Summer of 2007, Americans showed that they still won’t sit back and tolerate policies they deem to be destructive to their country when they defeated the proposed immigration bill that so many hated. This proves that even in this current America, one overcome with complacency, ignorance and arrogance, the citizens will still stand up and fight against things they believe to be detrimental to their way of life. Universal health care won’t pass the smell test, and many Americans will choose to not even risk allowing Obama a chance to float the idea as president and will thus vote against him.
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Urban Legends: John Kerry was “swift-boated,” Michael Dukakis was brought down by the now infamous “Willie Horton,” ad and Barry Goldwater was destroyed by the “daisy,” campaign, all of which were commercials that highlighted the same basic premise; fear. In other words, be afraid of this man as your president because he A) deserted his fellow soldiers in Vietnam, and is therefore not qualified to be commander-in-chief at a time of war, B) is soft on criminals and crime and therefore will allow your daughter to be raped and murdered and C) will allow America to be nuked. In the case of Barack Obama, a man with little to no record to speak of, and in the age of the internet, the mud-slinging has been occurring for months in the form of an e-mail that claims that (among other things) Obama is a Muslim, refuses to swear on the bible and turns his back on the pledge of allegiance. None of these things are true, but they haven’t been true since summer 2007, and I still get calls and emails every week from people who believe what they read. In this age of technology combined with ignorance, if this truly is a razor thin election, it’s possible that such tall tales will sway enough people to avoid a President Obama.
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Experience trumps youthful enthusiasm: Everyone loves young, exciting exuberance. Think; Cuba Gooding Jr. at the Oscars. Yet, when you need a leading man you still call Denzel Washington, not Cuba. Obama may suffer the same fate. While he is exciting, charismatic and new, he is also naïve, young and unseasoned. Youth and inexperience are great traits in a rookie major league pitcher, not a presidential candidate. Standing next to John McCain, Obama looks like an intern studying to become a grown-up.
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A terrorist attack occurs before election day: This takes the previous proposition (experience versus youthful enthusiasm) to a new level. The further we get away from 9/11, the better off Barack Obama is. Every day that clicks by without a perceived threat to this nation further lulls our population into a false sense of security. However, all it would take would be one moment in time, horrific as it may be, to remind Americans that they are under constant threat and attack, and we would go running, simultaneously, away from Obama and towards John McCain. An unsafe world demands courage, experience and strength, three things that McCain, right or wrong, exudes. In the face of a renewed threat, America would demand that a war hero with sparkling foreign policy credentials be placed in charge.
The phenomenon is named after the late Tom Bradley, who in 1982 seemed certain to become the first black governor of California.
Pre-election polls showed Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, with a double-digit lead over his white opponent, George Deukmejian. But Bradley lost.
Subsequently, several high-profile races involving black candidates followed the same pattern in which apparent leads somehow evaporated on Election Day. The polls said David Dinkins would beat Rudy Giuliani by more than 10 points in the 1989 New York mayoral race; Dinkins ended up winning with 50 percent of the vote to Giuliani's 48 percent.
That same year, the polls gave Douglas Wilder an 11-point lead over Marshall Coleman in the Virginia governor's race; Wilder squeaked into office by less than half a percentage point. In 1990, the polls said Harvey Gantt would handily defeat incumbent North Carolina senator Jesse Helms; Gantt lost, and it wasn't even close.
Was it that voters told pollsters they intended to vote for African-American candidates and then, in the privacy of the voting booth, chose white candidates instead?
http://www.denverpost.com/viewpoints/ci_7936003
In essence, this is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about and no one truly knows the answer to; is race still a debilitating factor when it comes to electing a president of the United States? Will Americans lie about their desire to vote for Obama (because they’re afraid of what strangers and pollsters will think of them if they say otherwise) and then do the opposite when it comes time to vote? The South is loaded with African Americans, but are their enough of them who will vote for Obama to offset the possible existence of an underlying distrust with turning over the nation’s future to a person of color? These and other questions will remain unanswered until Election Day if Obama is the nominee.
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