by dweb8231
Tue May 13, 2008 at 10:21:23 PM PDT
I know, I know.....I've hard it before....don't get cocky.
It's too early to get over confident. Remember Karl Rove's Math!
Watch out for the October surprise!
But I really have to say, when you start looking at all the dynamics right now, the Republican Party, when it gets behind a closed door to try and plot a route to victory this fall, has to be absolutely petrified. Am I blowing smoke? I don't think so....Join me below the bump for a look at what I believe are 26 good reasons why this November could see a Democratic victory of truly epic proportions:
- dweb8231's diary :: ::
1- Early Signs: McCain’s party has just lost three straight run-off elections in heavily Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana and now Mississippi. In the latter, the victory came in a second round run-off election and the winning majority of the Democratic candidate grew to over 7%….in friggin Mississippi. Better yet, look at the number of incumbents running in supposedly safe seats who are suddenly finding themselves in trouble..Smith in Oregon, Dole in North Carolina, even Cormyn in Texas.
2- Running in Place: McCain himself has been the party nominee for months and yet his standing in national polls has never gotten above about 45%, even with Democrats still battling over their nomination and a media which has yet to critically examine McCain’s real record.
3- Lack of Support from His Own Constituency: GOP primary elections continue and as much of 30 percent of those voting are not voting for McCain.
4- 3rd Party Threats: McCain now faces the very real possibility that Ron Paul and/or Bob Barr could run third-party campaigns costing him probably minor but absolutely critical percentage points.
5- Age (72): Voters cite age as one of their top areas of concern in making a choice. McCain physically looks more and more like he is heading for the early-bird special in a Florida retirement home. His mental slips will continually draw attention to his age
6- Media Scrutiny: Obama has been hit with most of the big stuff and survived so far. The media hasn’t even begun to touch McCain yet and things are starting to bubble up. Not least of them is his close ties with some of the world’s least principled lobbyists – many working on his campaign team even as they continue their lobbying work…folks who have no qualms about promoting some of the world’s nastier dictatorships for big bucks. Others include his stated lack of understanding of economics and the true dynamics of the conflict in the Middle East, his failure to release information about his income sources and his wife’s and about his health. And of course, matching his supposed strong points (maverick, reformer, etc) with the reality of his record.
7- Youth and Registration Numbers: Democrats are generating huge increases in voter registrations and particularly among the young. McCain is not going to play well with the young, particularly as a clear supporter of the war. Much of the modern electorate wasn’t alive when McCain was imprisoned during the Vietnam war so his record as a prisoner holds less resonance.
8- THE WAR….Not much more you need to say about it…”Another 100 years….” is going to haunt McCain until November and it should. So will every additional casualty, every roadside bombing, every additional tour of duty, every story about failure to care for troops when they come home.
9- The most unpopular President in history: “The Hug” photo of McCain and Bush is going to haunt him until November. He wants to differentiate himself from the present administration, but he keeps getting sucked back in to avoid fracturing his fragile and shrinking base of true conservative wingnuts.
10- Money: He hasn’t got enough and his opponent can raise it by the boatload in small donations. McCain’s party doesn’t have it and what it has, has been lost in a series of desperate and futile efforts to hold onto normally bright red seats in the mid-west and south. (See 1) Also lying in the corner but a potential timebomb….the fact that his campaign is flouting federal election laws on public funding. Also ahead….pressures on the party in all 50 states from lots of good, well-funded and very aggressive Democratic candidates. GOP resources will be spread very thin.
11- The Internet. McCain isn’t even sure what the Internet is or how it works. His “campaign team” has even less of a clue. Viral networks, YouTube, Facebook….all are working against him and FOR younger and far more innovative opponents allied with key parts of the electorate.
12- Organization: Obama’s is quiet, efficient, and deadly serious. It eschews catfights and personalities and works together. He’s got detailed plans on fund raising, organization and voter registration…..in all 50 states. McCain can’t even get members of his own party in office to kick in to his campaign. Obama has the most powerful and organized voter/donor database in the history of modern politics…quietly, efficiently and absolutely deadly against a traditional campaign.
13- Slogans are not Policies: The House Republicans have just come out with their “theme” and slogan for the fall campaign and here it is…”The Change You Deserve.” Trouble is, that verbiage is a trademarked slogan for an anti-depressant drug (true) Even worse, that slogan is all they have to run on…no policies, no programs, no successes they can point to as evidence that their ideas the past eight years were any good.
14- Old campaign tactics aren’t working: In the past, the GOP relied on a tried and true system. Continually look for your opponent to make some statement or appear in a photo or situation which you could suddenly pounce upon, twist and distort and then feed it to compliant media outlets like Drudge and wait to see if it got traction. If if didn’t, rinse, lather and repeat until something did. Now though, it is not working. In the two most recent run-offs, Republicans tried to smear their opponents with the usual: “He supports a Muslim terrorist black presidential candidate, he wants to raise your taxes, he’s a flaming liberal, a friend of Nancy Peolosi, he has San Francisco Values……” and it didn’t work….in MS, it really didn’t work. The GOP candidate lost by an even bigger margin in the second run-off.
15- Big-Money 527s aren’t working: Freedoms Watch, the highly touted group featuring Ari Fleischer and big-bucks casino operator Shelly Adelson, had trouble even agreeing on who they were going to attack and what they were going to say. They finally got into action in all three of the runoffs listed in Item 1…..and got zip for results. Worse yet, they did so using the tactics in Item 14 and those didn’t work. They are now in a degree of disarray and not getting the financial support they had counted on. The famed Club for Growth had demonstrated a wonderful ability to eat its own by challenging established Republicans in primaries with even wackier wingnut opponents. They usually lose, but drive the incumbent further right and away from the average voter.
16- 20 Constituencies McCain Isn’t Going to Win:
o African Americans
o Hispanics
o Women
o Union Members
o Youth
When you start your campaign knowing you have already lost those voting blocs, prospects for victory start looking awfully grim.
21- A fractured Republican party: The number of GOP incumbents who had been holding what would seem to be safe seats but have announced plans to retire is reaching record numbers. The party is having a hellish problem trying to recruit competitive replacements. One of the first criteria demanded is not whether the candidate might support issues which capture the support of the public, but whether they have sufficient personal wealth to finance their own campaigns. That’s hardly the way to build a strong base of public support.
22- Just plain wrong on the issues: National polls are showing that in everything from how to deal with the war in Iraq to handling the economy, voters more and more indicate their belief that the Democrats have the better answers. Economy, environment, health care, competence ingovernment, military and foreign policy. Worst of all, with such close ties to the Bush administration, McCain must continually battle the public’s awareness that he is now the candidate of a party which cannot cite a single substantive issue or problem it has had contact with which it hasn’t screwed up.
23- Fatigue: Eight years in office is a long time and historically, voters – even those who believe a party has done a good job – begin to get tired and want change. This electorate doesn’t want change….it is desperate for it. The results of the runoffs, the massive hike in registrations and voter turnouts with a heavily Democratic shift, the real involvement of youth for the first time in our history and the huge turnouts at rallies…especially for Obama, are signs of what McCain faces over the coming six months.
24- Party Image: What do voters think about when they think about the GOP? Corruption, ultra conservative, tired policies, a war, corruption. This is not an image which breeds voter confidence in leadership or fresh ideas.
25- Threats of Landsldes Can Influence Votes: You’re in the voting booth – torn between candidates for either party. But everything you are hearing tells you that the Democrats are going to be BIG winners. You start thinking….how the hell will my Senator or Congressman get anything done if he is part of a distinct GOP minority. His vote means nothing, and he has no power. I think I’ll vote Democratic. Bigger landslide.
26- Obama Has the Message – and the Voters Buy It: Obama senses and understands the national hunger for change and for someone who calls Americans to a higher purpose, someone who wants to try and brng people together and not divide them. Despite the attacks against him, he has largely managed to take a higher road and to tell voters…..”They say I don’t know how to play the game in Washington, but that is the problem. We’re not going to play those games if I become President.”
Whether or not that is a “dream” or a realistic vision, the voters want new ideas, hope, a renewed sense of an America which has been lost, stolen and corrupted by the party now in office. It is that hunger and that hope and that willingness to pitch in and get involved in working together with their neighbors which I believe will drive a Democratic landslide this fall.
Make no mistake….this will not happen easily. We DO need to fight, we do need to contribute to the party in small amounts but with millions of our neighbors, and we will need to make sacrifices …often big ones even after victory. But the dynamics are there and I truly believe that November is going to produce a tidal wave of change that no tired slogans, vote manipulations, media collusion or outright fraud can overcome. Yes We Can!
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