McCain's Challenge
Posted Oct 22, 2008 at 11:45 AM by Maurice Berger
With each day that Obama holds onto a statistically significant lead comes a growing sense of inevitability. As Charlie Cook, one of the country's most thoughtful electoral observers, notes--and as PollTrack has affirmed in recent days--the underlying fundamentals of Election 2008 now favor Obama. Cook writes: "First, no candidate behind this far in the national polls, this late in the campaign has come back to win. Sure, we have seen come-from-behind victories, but they didn't come back this far this late. Second, early voting has made comebacks harder and would tend to diminish the impact of the kind of late-breaking development that might save McCain's candidacy." In short, barring an extraordinary, game-changing news event, public opinion may be hardening (and ballot boxes may already be brimming with Democratic votes). As long as the story of the failing economy dominates the media, only a catastrophic event (or revelation) could overtake upcoming news cycles. Yes, the number of persuadable voters--now at around 12%--does suggest that many voters can still change their minds. But unless McCain is able to take command of independent and unaffiliated voters--who have been steadily moving over to Obama since the Wall Street crisis began--he will have a daunting road ahead of him. The return of Republican and conservative voters will not be enough to overcome several powerful fundamentals that now tilt the map blue: Obama's longstanding wave of advantage in most polls (broken only for a few weeks following the conventions), the intense enthusiasm of his supporters, the Democratic Party's extraordinary advantage in new voter registrations, and an economic calamity of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression. Can McCain still win? Yes, but with each day, his chances diminish, unless he--or events beyond his control--recapture the imagination, fears, prejudices, or aspirations of millions of voters who now say they continue to be open to his message.
