If the election were held today, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. But with nearly a month to go, there’s time for the media to move beyond the the economic crisis, as dire and serious as it is. When that happens, the soft support Obama’s picked up over the last couple of weeks will ebb.
Just two and a half weeks ago, the Electoral-vote.com count was Obama 252, McCain 265. The economy was starting to tank and polls were starting to move, but a great deal of the ground Obama has gained since then has been a visceral response to the crisis and John McCain’s inept response to it, not a sudden wave of confidence in Barack Obama.
What’s going on in key states illustrates the point. John Kerry won Pennsylvania by two points in 2004. Does anyone reasonably believe that Obama will win it by the 14 points one typical poll currently shows his lead to be? Three weeks ago, the same poll showed a statistical tie. And Pennsylvania isn’t really much of a swing state: it hasn’t voted Republican since 1988.
The actual swing states have, like Pennsylvania, recently showed huge Obama leads. In 2004, Bush won Ohio by 118,599 votes. Ohio hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1996. For a significant part of the last decade, all statewide elected offices were held by Republicans. As of today, Pollster.com has Obama leading in Ohio 49-44. That’s a big margin — and totally inconsistent with his numbers leading up to the crisis. Several polls showed a statistical tie there as recently as two weeks ago. Before that, McCain held a comfortable lead:
The numbers in Florida, Nevada, and Colorado are similar.
Yes, the economy is is in meltdown. But attention spans are short and the public’s appetite for something new and exciting is insatiable. McCain isn’t hammering on Bill Ayers for no reason — he wouldn’t be doing it if his internal research didn’t indicate that the very indecisive voters whose shifting views are reflected in volatile polls weren’t open to being persuaded by it. After all, they’ve been divided between McCain and Obama all along and only moved to Obama when the crisis hit. Theirs is not the kind of solid, reliable support on which either candidate can count.
That’s not to say that Obama won’t win or that I’d rather be them than us. I wouldn’t for any number of reasons — electoral math among them. But elections almost always tighten as decision day nears and this one is likely no exception. It’s going to get closer and my fellow Obamiacs would do well put off filling out their White House job applications and get back to work.
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